Gazillion apologies, Eric Carle and Elieen Christelow. I understand that you both are not related by any means, but my daughter attempts to do so. In her own imaginative world.

These last few months, D has been insisting on starting the book with Who wrote this book and ending with Where Aunty/Uncle lives , Why he/she wrote this book?. After having followed the new rule set diligently for some time now, this curious little girl now remembers the authors of some of her favorite books. Eric Carle, Elieen Christelow and Nancy Carlson top her chart due to repeated readings of these books.
The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle
The Mixed Up Chameleon by Eric Carle
Five Little Monkeys series by Elieen Christelow
I Like Me series by Nancy Carlson

It has been a while we returned these books to the library. Nevertheless, once in a while we refresh our memories pretending the book is in front of us. I read the book title and she tells the author. Sometimes she decides to say the title and asks me who wrote it. Sometime after returning these books, we stopped doing that. Few days back, we started again.

She forgot the author of Five Little Monkeys, rather couldn’t remember the full name. She was mumbling a combination of Elieen Christelow and Nancy Carlson. And wouldn’t let me help her either. Very precise that I should not tell!! Poor thing, after few minutes she got irritated that she couldn’t remember. So I gave her a hint and she got it.

But, this one can’t let go of a situation without spinning it to her advantage. So there she goes - I am going to mix Elieen Christelow and Eric Carle in a bowl like dar dar. Of course with that wicked grin of hers. Only this time, I gave her company.

* * * * * *
On a whole different context, put my car up for sale today. Within an hour, this Chinese dude walks in, takes a look at the car, test drives it and hands over the cash advance. We were so not expecting the transaction to happen this quick and were not prepared with what-to-do-next, in terms of paper work, signing a contract for as-is sale and so on.
But, this episode has left me with an extreme overwhelming feel. I never realized I had any sort of attachment with my car, until today. I had not felt any emotion when we sold our house couple of years back. I signed the papers without a second thought. But car? Why? Strange!

The phone rings. The lady of the house who has now mastered the art of changing hats at the blink of an eye is not sure which role she’s gonna assume next. That of a friend, family member, architect, consultant or a pre-sales techno. While she takes a quick look at the caller ID, the 13 month old toddler who has been keeping herself busy by practicing climbing up and down the couch, squeals in excitement, on yet another successful climb. A quick decision is taken to let the call go to voicemail. Two minutes later, the voicemail is played. Production system broken! Need help now!

There is this stay-at-home, naughty and audible toddler in the house, so the lady only takes scheduled calls from clients. There is an unwritten rule in the house for the husband to stay home and take care of toddler, whenever the said situation arises. But, every now and then, there are rare events when an unexpected phone call turns adventurous. Must add that the contracts clearly state - no phone support. But..

This day.. the man was out and the lady knew he wouldn’t be back for another 4 hours. No way on earth the toddler who just woke would go back to sleep in the next few hours. The lady straps the toddler in the high chair, plays Barney with just enough sound to reach the toddler’s ears. She then moves swiftly to the other corner of the room, sits cramped in between the dining table and the futon, with the wi-fi enabled laptop in hand, ready to take on the issue.

Returns the customer’s call and without any further delay, they kick start the debugging. Close to where the lady is sitting, lies this talking car wash station toy(given by a friend). This one is very loud and has no volume adjustment control. The best part, it has a sensor-based trigger. Supposedly when the toy car passes through the car wash station, it says something like - Cars coming through, watch out. Followed by an Elmo’s giggle. And many other such things.

This time however, there was no car to be found anywhere in the vicinity, nor was there any hand movement below the sensor. Yet, it suddenly started talking. Just in time. Lady fumbles to the customer, reaches the toy, frantically searching for the on/off button. While there was a mute button right in the communication instrument, lady decides to mute her thinking capacity instead and fiddles with the toy, triggering the sensor left, right and center. Until the sensible person from the other side asks if everything’s okay. And that he will call back in few minutes.

My 12 year old niece sends me a message on skype asking me to sign up on Toondoo. When I ask her what this site is about, she says it’s a social networking site to create, share and discus comic strips. Create? Share? Discuss? At 12 years of age? I was tempted to lecture her on how dangerous the internet is.. and that she should not be signing up anywhere and everywhere.. Even before I could collect my thoughts, she points to few other sites. One that I remember is Doof, which apparently she and my nephew, who is of the same age, use to play chess from 2 different laptops and 2 different physical locations. They call it a social gaming site.

I took one look at Toondoo and must say I was mighty impressed. Though I am still not sure it is appropriate for a 12 year old, as they don’t seem to have any screening on the content published. The cartoon creator interface is very intuitive. I let D sit on the Create Your Own Cartoon interface for few minutes, was taken aback to see how the kids mind works. Within few minutes, she was dragging the images into the work area. Which created the background. She then dragged 2 humans and a monster-lookalike-something into the work area. She even had a story to tell. I resentfully refuse to go into further details..

Not too long ago, I had written a post on my daughters fascination with laptop. I must have become more tolerant and more accepting since then. I have come to accept that internet is going to be an intrinsic part of our life. Especially with families like ours, where we cannot draw a clear line on working hours. And work involves internet. More realistic approach is to let them use the internet for a certain fixed time and supervise every move of theirs. So, now she gets limited laptop time on weekends and some weekdays. I show her on the clock the time upto which she can work and I sit besides her. One day, while she was painting, Firefox crashed. She immediately clicks on the icon from the dock. The default yahoo.com opens up and the owl eyed spots an advertisement on beaches and giggles - Aunty is nangu! Another time when the browser crashed, she throws her hand up in the air and says - Laptop says times up!

D is way too young to use the internet by herself and not going to get access to any social networking site before she can spell and write Massachusetts. But, here are few tips that might be of help to parents of older kids.

- Social networking sites are much more dangerous. They let you connect with unknown others in one click, there is no accountability to what you write. Or so one might think, unless you get into trouble.

- Avoid using real names and any other details that are are give aways of residing location. Atleast until kids are of a certain age and are emotionally capable of handling trolling. Here is a good read on trolling and flaming, the link we sent to my 19 year old niece who is new and naive to the blogging world.

- Lead them to age appropriate sites and supervise every single site they visit. The biggest problem with these sites are advertisements and cross sells. That’s their ticket to monetization, no qualms on that front. But the advertisement are not always age appropriate.

- Question them on why a certain site interests them.

- Do a quick check on the site if it safe and falls under your standard of acceptable safety.

- Look at the About page. See if it is supported/backed by an established company. Established companies hire “community managers” whose sole role is to keep data clean and appropriate.

- Do a quick google search to see what everyone else says about the site. Make sure there is no negative reporting.

! E-Ticket in hand ! ! Household sale bohni this Saturday !

No matter from which angle I look at it, zoom in, zoom out, flip or rotate. It speaks out loud, it is very much a non-refundable, non-transferable ONE-WAY ticket! Don’t get me wrong, I am super excited and looking forward to the move, to the new beginning. But still, there is a hidden angst to let go. It’s that feeling of realness, the sense of no turning back. It’s happening! It’s really happening!!

It’s such an experience to watch my daughter go through this process and to see her interpretation of the move at various stages. I don’t think the scope of moving-to-India has registered to her yet. She was a year old when we made our last trip. She hardly remembers anything from then. Few east coast trips after that have led her to the understanding that we will be back home in few days.

We started the selling process this past weekend. We moved some furnitures downstairs, close to the entrance, just to save the lookers from coming deep inside the house. My daughter asks the question, just as anticipated. Why mumma? Mumma is a good story teller, she can churn answers even in sleep. But to give an answer that is convincing in the first go, and one that does not provoke further questions is a whole different ball game. This time she was prepared and had rehearsed the answer. D, we can only take some suitcases in the plane. Plane does not have space for big items and furnitures. Anything that won’t fit into the suitcases has to be given away. She seemed a bit alarmed and says - Only table, chair, bed, shelf? Right mumma? Not my toys and my bo-oo-oks? You are right beta, I tell her.

So, this American dude walks in to take a look at the dresser I advertised on craigslist. In spite of detailing every possible dimension with pictures in the advertisement, he walks in, takes a look and says its too narrow for his room. What can I say, in that one hour that the empty dresser had been lying downstairs, D had managed to sneak in some of her toys. Maybe the dude got ticked off. My little one who had been observing all along pops with yet another question Why Uncle did not take? He did not like it beta. Another uncle will be here in few minutes, he might take it. Okay, I tell her.
This monster screams at the top of her voice at this man, who is now few feet away - Why are you not taking it? We are going to India. This will not fit into our plane!! Then I cannot even go to India! It is amazing to see how these little minds work and how they connect the dots. Furniture not selling + No space in plane == Cannot go to India.

Shortly another person walked in, loved the dresser, paid the list price and took it. To which D exclaims with extreme happiness and relief This uncle was good uncle. That man was bad boy!

And thus happened the bohni on Saturday.

That very same afternoon, a family with 2 kids came by to pick up the guest twin captain’s bed. While the lady’s husband was busy dismantling the bed to be loaded into his van, the resident chatterbox[Yes, I have lost the title to my daughter] strikes a conversation with the lady. First she asks her name. Then she tells her - You are taking my bed because the boys don’t have any bed to sleep on?
My face was worth a photo shoot, I tell ya.

This past week or so, no soul on the street has been spared from the information that we are moving to India. We had a chat, me and the daughter.
Me: D, you should not tell everybody that we going to India.
D: Why mumma?
Me: Because, some things we can only tell to friends. Mummy and papa’s friends are those uncles and Aunties that come inside our house, talk to papa and mummy for a long time. Other people you see on the street, say hi and smile, are strangers. Should not tell anything to them beyond Hi. Especially when mummy and papa are not around.
D: Oh! You are right mumma! I can tell the Aunty who took my bed. She was inside the house and talking to mummy and paapa for a very long time, right mumma!!

Lesson learned! Things you don’t want the whole world to know, keep it low-key in the house. Contain the excitement to self and spare the little bees from serious calculation of what to say and what not to say!

The mother, in a very casual conversation, ends up telling the daughter there are mosquitoes in India. Daughter is excited about going to India, to meet her cousins and all. But not very excited to meet the bugs one on one. She is constantly trying to find a suitable solution..

Daughter: Mumma, but I don’t like mosquitoes.
Mother: hmph.. Neither do I. They are usually outside the house. They won’t come in if you keep the house closed. And the surroundings clean. B bhaiyya, K didi are there na beta. They are not bothered. You’ll have fun there.

Few hours later..
Daughter: Mumma, I have an idea. How about we take a super small, teeny weeny airplane. We will go inside the house in the closed airplane, and lock the house. When we want to come out, we can get inside the airplane, go where ever we want and then come inside the house in the same airplane. Yes, mumma? Then the mosquitoes cannot ever ever ever ever bite me.

**********

Papa goes hiking Sunday early mornings with a bunch of uncles. Daughter has been wanting to hike as well. Papa keeps telling her she is too young to go for that long. One such Sunday morning, she wakes up, finds papa has gone hiking and..
Daughter: Mumma, papa is walking on the mountain. Are you sure he is ok and will not fall down?
Mother: Yes betu. Am sure he won’t.
Daughter: Yesterday, papa was telling me, when I will be big girl, then he can come with me. Then I can help him climb and make sure he won’t fall!!
I told you, she’s a true Californian!!

**********

Papa and daughter are happily munching away the said almonds to glory. Mother has no clue they are out of almonds and the last handful has been split into two, after being subjected to negotiation. Both papa and daughter are eating and reading and lost in their thoughtland. The mother passes by and eats few from the daughters bowl. Daughter snaps out of her thoughtland and bawls It’s not even fair! Why you don’t eat from his bowl. Why you always eat from my’s[mine]! That’s why I am not healthy.
Mother: Who told you are not healthy? My daughter is such a good kid, eats well, sleeps well..
Daughter: Nooo.. That’s why Dr. J put shots for me. Second Aunty poked me. So much harder, you don’t even know.
( Referring to the typhoid shot she got a few days back.. )

**********

Mother is trying to finish up Sunday chores while sipping chai. Daughter is happily making shapes with play dough.
Mother: Hey, its almost 5. Shall I get you some milk?
Daughter: Sure, mumma! I would love to drink!!

**********

Daughter eats capsicums because her mother has told her they are rich in anti oxidants. They are good for health. Daughter’s only worry right now is the baby sister growing taller than her. So bring on everything that has anything to do with good-for-health.
In the same context..
Daughter gets hold of a packet full of banana chips. Both the girls are happily slurping on them. The mother caught a glimpse, but she let go, telling to herself - It’s okay once in a while. She couldn’t resist when the pack was half empty within matter of minutes..
Mother: D, you had enough. Tummy will hurt if you eat more.
Daughter: Look Mumma! These are banana’s. Fruit.. They are very healthy. My teacher said tummy don’t hurt when you eat fruits.
Mother: D, these are fried in oil, okay. It’s okay to eat a little bit once in a while. You have eaten enough. Put that pack back in the shelf.
Daughter: There is no oil, mumma! Look at it. These are bananas. You don’t understand!!! Come baby, lets eat.. banana fruit..

**********

It feels like one fine day she woke up with these one liner additions to her dictionary..
Sure! I would love to.
It’s not even fair.
I can help you.
I have an idea.
Let’s do that, what are you waiting for.
How about that.
You don’t understand.
This is what I mean.
My teacher said.

!! We are moving to Bangalore, India !!

The reason for all this drama in the previous posts? Let’s just say I am a drama queen. Or that I wanted to wait till the tickets were at the least blocked if not booked.

Why Why Why?
That’s the million dollar question. In my close to 10 year tenure here, I have come across many immigrants who wish to go back at some point or the other for one reason or the other. Sampling the thoughts, the common denomination factor invariably seems to be the extended family and aging parents.

I love this country with all my heart. This is my home. This is the life I know. I came here in my twenties with 2 suitcases, 500$ in hand, a visa stamped passport, a job and loads of determination. Though the initial intent was to work here for just a year, go back to unite with my then fiancé, who had no intentions of migrating out of Bombay. Life chose a different path for us. Circumstances forced him to make a business trip to California, Cupertino to be precise. A die hard fan of Steve Jobs gets lodged behind the Apple company, and rest is history.

This country is amazing. Living in the silicon valley, the technology hub, is like heaven for techno nerds and geeks[Read the LH]. The opportunities it gives, the thought process it provokes, the space it provides for creative thinking. Constantly surrounded by highly innovative, crazily creative and passionate people. Where else in the world would one find the headquarters of Google, Apple, Ebay, Yahoo, Oracle, IBM, top tier VC firms, all in the proximity of few miles. Oh, I can go on and on.

If not for being a resident of this place, the confidence it induces, we wouldn’t be running a business today. A business that has provided for 15 odd people in Bangalore for the past 3 years. With a salary I could not even have imagined when I worked in India in late 90’s.

Yet, there is an emptiness. Even at the end of a good productive day, when kids are asleep, the mind if free from racing thoughts, there is a longing to know what the aging parents are doing back home. Technology does bridge the distance, they are one phone/skype call away. Yet, there is a constant angst. What if there is an emergency? What if?

It’s important to put feelings in perspective. Living within India may not mean being physically present 24 x 7 or being available when the moment of need arises. Who has seen what future holds. In spite of this planning, who knows how things will pan out? But, self employment and the nature of our business is giving us this flexibility to take this decision without much impact, in terms of work.

The move is not permanent. We like to plan our life in 5 year chunks. We live in a global world, there is no denying there. A 5 year plan just seems more practical and realistic approach in this global economy. Our business in US will continue as usual. I am fully aware of my duties towards the country. To abide by the law, to be loyal, to pay taxes and to vote. At the same time, I cannot disown my birth country, neither can I disown my family that decided to stay back.

I will miss..
My brother, sister and family.

Friends, friends, friends. A small group of friends in the Bay area who are like extended family. The friends who took turns to provide food for 3 days when I was to be at bed rest. Those friends who took time off from work to stop by and lend a listening ear just because I was feeling low. Those friends whom I could call anytime of the day or night, don’t have to think twice before asking for any sort of help. Those friends whom I could chit chat while cooking and laugh over silly things. Thank you for being there, you will be missed.

I will most definitely miss the people, the general junta. Americans, Chinese, Mexicans.. There is some kind of positiveness in people here. Any passer by would almost always smile, say a hello, sometimes even take a minute to say how lovely the dress I am wearing is. Or that my daughter has a cute smile.

I will miss the non-interfering life style. I do what I wish, no one questions why.

I will miss Whole Foods/Trader Joe’s. Don’t ask me why, but yes, that comes this high in my will-miss list.

I will miss drinking milk directly from the carton, drinking water from the tap. I will miss the dry hot plates that comes out of the dishwasher.

Looking forward to..
I am so looking forward to this move.

To spend time with parents and parent-in-laws. It’s my turn to take care of them, love them and feel loved. To be with extended family, something my daughters have not experienced. This will bring its own set of issues, I am very well aware of that. Yet that experience I want to go through. I want my daughters to know what it is like to live with cousins, aunts and uncles. To spend a winter or summer vacation with them instead of home or a summer camp.

I am so looking forward to the energy India has. We did a dry run of 5 months in Bangalore about 2 years back. I will probably do a separate post on this, but the city in spite of its infrastructure issues has its charm. It’s vibrant, full of energy and enthusiasm.

I am so looking forward to having a cook and a cleaner. My house can once again be sparkling clean every minute of the day. I can be greeted with a glass of water the minute I enter the house. I can wake up to the gingery smell of chai served right to my bed. When the cook entertains D alongside preparing breakfast, I can get a little extra dose of sleep.

I am so looking forward to the sun dried crisp clothes. Oh, that smell! To exchange smiles with neighbors.

I am so looking forward to the change. The chaotic yet organized life style that amazingly works.

So, here we come Bangalore. Welcome us, will ya!

Disclaimer: This post is solely based on my personal experience and my personal opinion.

Where were we? Drooling over the menu, right.. Soon enough, I caught the smell of roasted suji I left lying on the kitchen counter and came to senses that lady is not gonna give us samplers. Upma now sounded too bland, let’s just say we satisfied our craving by ordering chinese food from a nearby restaurant. Pretty good food even without MSG, I must say.

I had decided to involve D in the party preparations this time. For one, her interest in artsy party stuff. And two, I was carrying over a teeny bit of guilt from not celebrating her third birthday. I had been going through some rough patches, call it PND or whatever you might. I am glad to be out of it, more than happy to leave it behind and move on to meaningful and productive thoughts.

The Theme
I was looking for colors, lots of bright sunny colors. Spent some time surfing http://oreintaltrading.com for theme ideas and craft ideas for the kids. They have a lot of interesting activities that fit into my budget, but outrageous shipping costs. The more you buy, the less the shipping should cost. Wouldn’t you think. Some incentive to buy more?? Guess not!
Some of the activity kits like their sun catcher’s and sand art, I fell in love at the very first instance and was tempted to try them myself. They come as a complete kit, avoiding the chaos of a group activity. I also loved the hand painting and face painting kits, but knew they would get messy.

So, I kind of knew what I wanted but was hell bent on not paying that shipping. Surfed and surfed the net for alternatives, until my eyes popped out, but found nothing that would come close enough to this site. Some were plain shady, with contact numbers that don’t work. Some had no contact information and the check out/credit card forms creeped onto my super suspicious brain. The LH kept saying that I complicate things for no reason by self imposing futile conditions. His point was to look at the shipping cost as a percentage of time spent hunting them and as a percentage of overall party cost. He had a point, but little does he know the woman is just plain adamant. Some confidence that she’ll find what she wants without increasing the stock value of Fedex.

The following day I picked up D from school as usual. She gulped her snack in matter of minutes as soon as she heard we were gonna hit the party shopping store. Our first stop was at Party City. While I was looking around cluelessly, it took D less than 2 minutes to spot and pick up the Dora party set. I frowned and said.. D.. Very nice.. But how about something colorful.. Lots of.. I was amazed when she said okay and let go her Dora plates. Little did I know she had scanned the shop when we entered and had spotted the aisle where they had organised the cutleries in colors. Pink!! She saw Pink!! No wonder!!! She runs to the aisle and picks up pink plates, pink cups, pink spoons, anything and everything pink. See mumma! I got color plates. Pretty cute.. colors.. I should have been more precise in my requirements. Lesson learned! She was just so excited, I did not want to hinder her enthusiasm. Honestly, I was blissfully submerged just watching her, but there was no way in the world I would settle for a pink party. A little talk.. a little convincing.. lots and lots of bribing.. did the trick. Some people around were having a hearty laugh at the debate this mother and daughter were having over why pink is not suited for a party and we should go for one with multiple colors. We then saw a bunch of cutleries and tableware with bright yellow and orange flower. That was it! A bright and colorful flower theme!!

The same shopping strip had a Michael’s store. We decided to check it out before leaving. I enter the store and guess what I see? On Sale!! Make your own Sun catchers and Sand art kits. Individually packed, just perfect for a party. With a grin that I couldn’t get rid of, I picked them up. Michael’s is very addictive, I must add. Instead of walking out, we thought we should make one round of the entire shop just to check them out. At check out we had the following in our cart.

• A tired, exhausted, yet hyper 3 year old holding on to the hand picked items dearly.
• Individual Sand Art kits
  Each kit had 5 different colors of sand pouches. 2 pieces of 3 inch plastic bottles with lid[Various shapes and sizes]. A funnel to pour the sand and pack. Instructions.
• Individual Sun catcher kits.
  Each kit had 2 pieces of the shape. A use and throw 7 color paint kit. A brush. Instructions.
• Moon sand kit.
  This kit had 6 packs of 12 oz moon sand each. And 9 moulds. Packaged so beautifully, it was hard to resist.
• Aprons.
  These were on sale for a dollar each!! Bright red, yellow and blue colors.
• Ready to paint back packs. [Read more like tote bags, just stringed to go over the shoulder]
  Back pack made out of raw fabric, ready to paint and decorate.
• Brushless fabric paint squeezers to paint the back packs.
• 3D Water resistant stickers to decorate the back packs.
• Flower themed self stick foamies to decorate the back packs.
• Some glow-in-the night bracelets
• One roll of doodle paper.
• Crayons and color pens.
• Colorful work bags.

Ta-Da! We were so ready to hit the party table! Oh, wait, we do need the cake, don’t we!

I wanted to make a Pinata at home. It sounded like a fun and easy project to do with D. But, it got pushed to the last minute. Me and SIL finally ended up picking a nice bright purple pinata with the same flower theme design on the center. We then filled them with pens, pencils, crayons, sharpners, flash card sets, some fruit tarts, small memo style notepads, mini shoe shaped bubble blowers and some such adhoc items.

We also picked up some chart sheets to create our own Pin-the-Petal game[inspired by the Pin the tail game] to stay with our theme. We got all the needed materials, and my brother had volunteered to do this along with D. But, for all the fun we had the last three days before the party, we were extremely exhausted and decided to get some sleep instead. We were all already sun burned[read as free natural tan], we did not want to add to the misery of the guests by looking like zombies.. We had enough to entertain the kids, this wasn’t high on our priority list anyways.

to be continued..

PS: Thanks to all you showed interest in the project via comments and emails. It truly means a lot to me and adds to the confidence quo. Will send ya’ll details when the concept in mind takes shape.
And yes, I promise to break the announcement in the next post.

Am about to embark on a project I feel I might have a calling for. A non-profit organization to expose kids to global happenings. A stepping stone to those kids who might not be able to afford a healthy meal or a good education, but have the drive to learn and break out of the norm. I don’t want to speak too early, neither do I want to link it with this personal blog. Anyone interested knows where to find me!

Why bother to announce when I don’t plan to link it here?
A public announcement does make one more accountable, doesn’t it? Once put in writing, I have given my word. To myself. This will help me take that extra mile and come back to haunt me when I am lazing around. I very well know it’s going to be a very slow process to get there. With my first priority being my 2 young kids, family and the business that brings food to the table. But there is never a perfect time to give back to society. We all do in some form or the other. Just raising our kids to be a good citizen in itself is giving back. I want to do a little more than that. Giving at least 2 hours a week, on a consistent basis for this sounds very doable at this point.

The advertisement chillar made here will apply towards this non-profit project. I know this won’t even suffice to buy me a decent meal in the bay area, let alone execute this project. Unless I see an unfathomable surge of 1000 fold more hits But this could very well be the first drop in the ocean. A start. It’s well worth that couple of hours it took me to tweak that old 2 column template to a 3-column one to make space for advertisements.

While I was at it, I also did a little tweaking on couple of other templates. Do tell me know if you’ll like the other templates better..

May I also add that I might have yet another announcement coming very soon! Go ahead, guess if you will.
For now, leaving you with a link to Chak de India’s title song, that best translates my overwhelming emotion and energy at this moment..

Dlittle’s burday party was a hit. The party was more for D, for my brother/SIL who flew from the east coast, and a few selected friends who matter. A low key casual party at a neighborhood park turned out to be fun and enjoyable.

The party enthusiasm started when Dlittle’s maama and maami announced their visit to celebrate her birthday. Maama hadn’t seen Dlittle yet, and D’s non-stop chattering on the phone only added to it. The party planning started with the saving of a new blank spreadsheet - DlittlesBirthdayPreps.xls.

The high level items on the sheet were
- Head count
- Venue
- Menu
- Theme
- Cake
- Entertainment
- The PARTY!!

Within couple of days, head count’s were close to final.

The Venue
Out of sheer laziness to think out of the box, I conveniently defaulted to my list of pre-packaged party options:
- Party at Children’s Museum.
- Party at Pump It Up
- Party at The Jungle [Similar to chuck-e-cheese]

I would have loved to celebrate at the Children’s Museum, but they were booked for that exact week. Maama and maami had booked their tickets already, so changing the date was not a possibility. Moreover, I had 8 kids in all and their package is for a minimum of 25 kids. The same issue with Pump it up. The jungle was a fall back option, they had various slots available, but they are way too strict with their timings. They would reserve the birthday room for exactly 45 minutes. This includes cake cutting, cake eating and food. Did not make much sense to me. It’s a kids party and kids are not predictable. Especially on days when you you want things to happen on time.

With the pre-packaged party idea busted, I had to get creative. I am one of those who would have everything muddled up inside my little brain, but won’t put them into tangible action until the last minute. Time was running out, it was high time I announced to the group the venue of the party.

I was catching up with a friend on a Sunday morning. On the phone, while the kids were enjoying the morning breeze in the park. She mentioned her son was participating in the Bollywood singing competition. Just then it struck, there are few kids in the invitee list who would love to sing. Other younger kids can blast away with Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. Idea was to have fun, right! Why not a Karaoke party, followed by a pool party. I surfed the net and found couple of rentals, some would even swing by and set it up. Much to my disappointment, I found that the HOA has a big procedure to rent the community hall and it usually gets booked couple of months in advance. But, this will be on my radar. The minute I get a reason to have a party, karaoke party it’s gonna be.

I finally decided to have it at a nearby park. With the promise that I would do something fun for the kids. If its at a park, purple park[As D calls it] it was without a doubt. A small park with two kids play areas and about 20 picnic tables. A large buffet area with barbeque grills. We all drove to the purple park, this time looking with a different lens.

The Menu
Was time to decide on the menu. The LH was very particular that I spare the guests, and my brother/SIL with my culinary skills. I consider myself a pretty good cook, by the way. It’s just that in these 9 years of marriage, he knows well enough that he would end up doing the cutting and the cleaning. And listen to my nagging that the veggies are not symmetrically cut, or that the beans were cut 1 mm less than the sample I had provided. And how that would spoil the aesthetics of the dish!

One of the birthday party we had attended few months back served lip licking food, was different from the typical Indian restaurant food. It was 100% home made by a punjabi lady who has been doing this for more than a decade now. The taste very much reflected that. Without a second thought I got her number and gave her a call.
Mein kuch fry kar rahe hoon. Busy hoon. 4 baje dena hai. Aap shaam ko 6:30 - 7:00 ke beech mein call kariega spoke a lady from the other side..
Sure. Theek hai I replied, though I had planned to finalize the menu with this one conversation.
Evening came by, I missed the 6:30-7:00 time line. Called her 7:30ish to hear her say Aap ko to 6:30 - 7:00 ke beech mein call karna tha. Followed by an forceful artificial laugh to ease the pain of the impact.
I was shocked and amazed at the same time.. hmm.. haan.. 2 bache hain.. time ka pata nahi rehta.. Aap busy ho to mein baad mein phone karoon? I replied.
Koi baat nahi. Main to mazaak kar rahe the. Bataye details. Mein note karte hoon she said and we went over the menu.

Her comment felt like a slap on my face. But then, realized I should be respecting her time as well. She’s a cook. So?? She should not expect an appointment OR a call at certain timings? She has a family, life and kid too. She runs this as a professional business. The LH did commentThis is Bay Area. What did you expect? Don’t be surprised if she drove by in a BMW, to drop off food to a Corolla owner..

Anyways, she continued with the options for starters.. bhel puri, samosa, chaat, batada vada, dhokla, dahi paadi.. x..y..z.. I had blanked out by then. Bhel puri aur Dhokla. I said.
okay.. Main dish mein aap ek choose karo. Paneer wrap, Veggie wrap, Chole Bhature, Naan with any gravy sabzi, Puri bhaaji... Chole bhature, I said.. drooling.. even before she could complete the list.
acha.. Rice variety mein app kya prefer karoge? Vegetable biriyani, Chicken mutton.. Peas Pulav.. Iske saath dahi vade dete hoon. hmm.. Raita nahi dete.. said the lady apologetically.
Veg Biriyani I said. Sure, why would I want raita instead of dahi vade. drool.. drool.. more drool..
Dessert mein ? She questioned. My mouth was unbelievably watering by now and I was this close to asking her if we could have samplers tonight??
Rasmalai, I said. And there, the menu was finalized.
Was about to hang up, when I heard Suniye, R. Mein apne North Indian style sarson ki tel se bani vegetable achar bhe detein hoon. okay. Sarson tel.. reminded me of my naani’s food..

To spare you, my readers, further yawns, I’ll continue the rest in Part Dos and Tres.
Until then, Ta! Have a nice yummy weekend!

It feels as though I gave birth to Dlittle just a few weeks back. I remember crystal clear lying in the hospital bed waiting for my turn to go under the knife. For once, I was a low risk patient and there were back to back emergency c-sections that took priority. I remember the overwhelming joyous feeling when I heard the baby cry, within few seconds after she was taken out of the womb’s warmth. I remember the nurse saying 20 inches, 7.2 pounds, apgar 9. Apgar 9, I screamed. Every bit mattered, after having craved to hear anything remotely close to it the previous time around. I remember D’s first reaction to seeing Dlittle@ 4 hours, all cozily wrapped up, eyes shut tight, sleeping blissfully inside the bassinet. I remember that Monday this little angel entered our home. While mom was taking aarty, I was misty eyed, missing D. Over the decision to send D to school, to make the transition from hospital to home smooth. I remember not being able to walk upstairs as I was low on blood count and could not stand or walk for more than few seconds. I remember D proudly introducing her sister to anyone who visited us to get a sneak peak at Dlittle.


This little angel is all of 53 weeks old. Going down the memory lane, some notes I jotted at her 2 month completion, another at 4, when she started on solids, at 7 months, her fascination with electronics, her 10 month update, an un-intentional mushy 11 month update..

She walks around the house, asserting her wants with her sister for the very same paper and crayon. The elder one obviously uses them to color and has no issues sharing with her younger sister, if only the younger sister would differentiate it from her finger food and stop munching on them..

She graduated to Dora without taking the purple dino aka Barney lessons, thanks to her sister..

The minute she senses change in tone, like, when her sister is being lectured on behavior, or when her sister gets a time out, she quietly goes to the other end of the room to indulge herself with a toy or a book..

She screams to enter the bathroom demanding a brush to clean all of her 6 teeth, while the older one is lost in thoughts with the brush in her mouth..

She is not talking yet, all she can say is daa daa.. dhis dhis.. paa.. paa.. paa.. paa.. But she can narrate a whole sentence, complete with action, with the ups and downs in tone and pitch, to suit the situation..

Any time she spots a passage in the play kitchen that is used to block the entry way to the stairs, she runs towards it with maximum speed, climbs on the first step and squeals with excitement. Waits to hear one of us running towards her, then climbs couple of more steps. She would then entertain us with her very own victory dance..

She takes any piece of cloth she can get her hands on, put it on top of her head and pull them down. Much to her amusement, it don’t cover her body, instead slips down on the floor. She is a fighter alright, she will continue to attempt few times until distracted with something else more interesting. Like an elevated object to climb up, her latest fascination. She has figured few toys and pillows that she uses as a stepping medium..

She runs all over the house, with that funny toddler style walk, wearing the diaper, and is being named the drunken sailor by her father..

She is natural with music and dance, as is her sister. Music is on, her legs automagically start tapping, body goes into wobbling, hands go into the accelerator movement..

She reacts, responds, squeals, plays differently with her sister as opposed to us parents. There seems to be an extra dose of love when it comes to her. I am not complaining..

She is starting to show character. The other day she was angry because I did not lift her in spite of her her attempt to throw both her hands up in the air. It was just going to be another minute before the chai came to a boil. When done, I went towards her to pick her up. This little one, just to prove her anger, walks away from me, making that ugly face, mouth open, holding the upper and lower teeth together. Takes few steps opposite to my direction and looks at me. I end up smiling at her, only to aggravate her anger. She hits her head on the carpet couple of times just to retaliate. This little angel of mine is sure growing up..

I can not end this post without thanking you all for the wonderful heartfelt wishes.

Or without the anti-jinx mantra.

And one day. My littlest daughter has graduated from an infant to a toddler! Happy birthday sweetie!

DD household is slowly transitioning from the non stop fun-only-second-life that started late Wednesday back into the balanced real life. Stay tuned for details and updates..

Sameer Mishra, a 13 year old Indian American from Indiana wins the Spelling Bee competition this year. His winning word was ‘Guerdon’, which means ’something that one has earned or gained’. The second place went to another 12 year old Indian American, Sidharth Chand from Michigan.


What intrigued me to write this post is not that an Indian won the competition, but how hard work eventually paid off. How much endurance this kid and his family must have, to stay put, to try over and over again. This was his 4th attempt, his sister Shruti has made 3 attempts earlier. Consistency and endurance is key to success, I think.


Incidentally, following the spelling bee, was aired the 20-20 series. The topic of discussion being how far a parent would go to help their kids realize their dreams. Or live their dream through their child perhaps! This one parent proudly states that his son is the first teen paparazzi! Beats me! This kid gets beaten up every now and then, he is squished in between 6 footers, sometimes even used as a bait to lurve the celebrities and get to the front. The interesting point to note is that the father drives him to the destination, and watches movies in his car’s built-in dvd player, while the kid is apparently enjoying getting beaten up, to get a glimpse of Britney Spears or Paris Hilton. Why? Because it’s the 15 year old kid’s dream to be a photographer, to be a famous, and the kid wants to get there at any cost. The father is just helping him get there. Am I being judgemental here?
Just when I was watching this and murmuring, My God, these parents! Where will they draw the line?, The LH walks in and says - So Sameer won huh? D adds her 2 cents, Papa, one Uncle gave that yellow dress bhaiyya an instrument aka trophy. The LH takes D in his arms, shakes her gently and says, I love this.. love this.. D, D, D please please, my daughter.. take a good look. Just once, I want you up there on that stage! Spelling Bee and a marathon is all I ask, and you’ll make me a proud father. Even yesterday evening the dinner time talk the father and daughter were having was about running a Boston marathon together. This 3 year old girl also goes with the flow, without have the faintest clue of what a marathon is.
Hello!!! Was I just talking about other parents pushing their kids beyond the fine line? She is a 3 year old, thinks that trophy is a musical instrument. Lets talk about being judgemental!


Now, the news within the home territory! D’s maama and maami are visiting us from the east coast. They’ll be here on Thursday. Lots planned from Thursday to Sunday. The parents in the DD household are contemplating giving the maama and maami exclusive privilege to spend one on one time with the 2 bees, while the parent’s can go out to watch a movie in big screen.

We often stop by the park on the way back from D’s school. The kids enjoy and it’s a lot easier to get the evening fruit down their throat. D is happily running around, Dlittle walks cluelessly here and there, looking out for anything interesting on the ground that can make way to the taste buds, if only the mother let it be.


Amongst few kids that were present in the park that day, there was this hindi speaking family. The mother, father, a boy and a girl. The boy was in the 7 - 10 age group and the girl was probably 4 - 5 years old. D has a liking for older kids, I think most kids of her age do. She is constantly watching these kids and simulating them. As soon as these siblings were done with the monkey bars, she ran towards them. I am sitting right behind her feeding Dlittle some yogurt. In just about a minute, the siblings come right back to the monkey bars, the boy on one side, the girl on the other and squeeze D from both ends. This is one of those small monkey bars for younger kids. About 2 feet long and 4 feet high. I am glancing, tempted to walk up there to lecture. The kids parents are watching too, but did not utter a single word. D wiggles this side and that side for few seconds and walks towards me with a frown. I am furious by now. More than those kids, at their parents and at D.
I sat her down, stopped feeding Dlittle and had a chat. I told her that next time someone barges into you like this, you tell them politely - I am not done yet. Please wait for your turn. I told it loud enough for the kids and their parents to hear me. It is so unlike me, only I know how much guts I had to gather. To speak out loud enough, to be audible to the parents and the sibling. But, I had to do it. I don’t believe in teaching my kids anything, that I am not willing to do/learn myself. D replies - Mumma, but that bhaiyya is too big and he was pushing me harder. He is a bad boy. She had a point. There isn’t much you can do when a 7 year old and a 4 year old are pushing you from both ends. After some thought I told her, You are right that he is a big boy. But, if you had told them it’s your turn, they might have walked out. You did not even talk. Tell politely once. If they don’t go away, look into their eyes and tell a little louder. If they still push you after that, you walk out. Deal?. Yes Mumma, she says in a pretty stern voice, making me all proud. I could feel from her voice and her gesture that she felt powerful. As though she knew what she had to do the next time. All this while, the siblings are still playing and parents are happily cheering them as though nothing had happened.


I am not complaining. This is real world. We can mold ourselves to the best we believe in, but we cannot expect everyone around us to do the same. To be nice. Nice and humble are very relative terms, it depends on one’s threshold, I would think. Anyways, won’t digress. My kids need to learn to deal with different kinds of people around. We cannot alway provide them with a protective sphere to live in. Letting them deal with situations like these by themselves with a little help boosts their self confidence. I will wait and watch what she does the next time around..

says my blog!!

I upgraded to the latest version of wordpress, as I have been eyeing on some plugins that work only with the latest version. The template I had does not work with the new version. Also, all the customizations[err.. experimentations] are throwing fatal errors left, right and center.

Not that you can’t do without my blog for few days, but I thought I should write and use this opportunity to add ONE more post to my belt. Ha!

PS: To all who inquired about D’s health, she is perfectly fine now. Passed on the bug to my blog and happily went to school. Poor joke, huh! But, I’ll take this any day..

Edited to add:
Spent few minutes, could not fix the old template. Bear with this template till I get a breather and a mood to dirty my hands and dive into the code to fix the old template.

And, that advertisement is NOT mine!! Came with the template.

I was shocked to learn that 30ml of Zofran [vomit medicine] costs 110$. Thankfully, I have medical insurance and it cost me $10 as copay, but it makes me wonder about those who cannot afford medical insurance, or the one’s with minimalistic insurance. Their 3 year old is different from mine? Those 3 year old’s should just vomit till the bug finds it’s way out naturally?


In this presidential campaign, there are a lot of talks around affordability, cutting taxes, filling consumers pockets with more money which they would then use to buy insurance. What about regulating the drug prices in the first place? Or allow drugs to be purchased from outside the country. Having worked for the e-commerce division of a pretty well known pharma company, I know the outrageous margins on these drugs. Agreed, these companies are running a business, not a charity. They have a right to monetize their years of research and operating costs. And make profit. They usually have a 2 - 3 year period before the generic is released and that is their window to monetize. But, what after that? A little googling shows that this drug was first introduced in 1984. Almost 25 years back. And to date it costs an exorbitant 110$? Beats me!

I should probably send in a query to Jack Cafferty from the CNN news room to ask the presidential candidates what they would do about this. But, with my limited not-up-to-date political knowledge, who knows they might have talked about it. One and only one reason I am pro Obama is because he does not carry the burden of knowing how Washington works. He is young and hopefully bring in the changes this country needs.


I am not all for medicine, I don’t give one unless absolutely needed. D vomited more than 5 times in less than 2 hours. She could not even keep water down and the last one had liver bile. A little more than a year back the exact same thing happened and after the bile vomit, she started puking blood stained biles. Knowing the time it takes to see a doctor even in the ER, I wasn’t going to wait this time around. Her doctor was available to see her and sure enough she prescribed the medicine. But, we never got a chance to use it, as she slept on our way back home for more than 3 hours and was just fine when she woke up.

This morning I was going to check the expiry date on the bottle before throwing it out. My eyes popped out when I saw the price. I am almost tempted to gulp the medicine instead of trashing it.

Reminds me of the shocker I felt when I got to read the paper work from D’s delivery. Sure, I had an emergency C. Baby was suspected meningitis at birth and was held in special care for 6 days. Thankfully, the results were negative. At that time, we paid some 400$ copay, 100$ per day of hospital stay. The paperwork they sent us later showed the bill to be 78,000$. SEVENTY EIGHT THOUSAND DOLLARS!!!! Now, is that some money or what??


We are self employed, which means we are even more messed up. For one, not many are willing to cover us. Two, if they do, they will cover at the most 70%. OR we get insured with a HMO and be stuck with limited options. We chose a HMO insurance and a hospital which is partially funded by the government. This was the only one to cover us close to 100%. HMO’s are also supposed to have lower premium. Sure, we are paying just 1100$ for the 4 of us. With a copay of 25$ for a doctor visit, 10$ for a lab test. Many illness are not even covered.

Which brings me to my cleaning lady. She called in sick a few weeks back. When she did make it, she did not look very well. A little pondering, she says her insurance won’t cover her surgery as this is a pre existing condition. So, she is proscrastinating her doc visit. I did a little math. I pay her[2 of them come] 60$ a visit, twice a month. Multiply by 50 houses at the most. Dividing amongst the 2 ladies, they take home 3000$ a month. This is the best case scenario. She jokingly said, I can own a car, but I cannot afford medical insurance. I don’t have that kind of money to pay for her surgery, but one thing is fir sure. I will not bargain with any of the blue collar workers going forward. I had bargained from 65 to a 60$ when I hired her. I am not going to be able to build a mansion with 10 extra dollars a month. But, she might be able to get pain killers to ease her pain a little bit.