Mieja lurves diamonds. Now, according to her, diamond is anything that is smooth, shiny and the size of a lemon. At this point of time I would like to clarify that I am not feeding her with unrealistic expectations. Many a pebbles were picked up from the park, washed, spat on and shined till hands ached and disappointment levels soared. But the child being the tireless kind, decided to change the process. As a result of which multiple diamond experiments were carried on at home.

I nodded approvingly and decided to keep a photographic record of the experiments, because (a)once her heart is set, no matter I reason, she will refuse to listen and (b)if at all by blind luck she did manage to make a diamond?! I mean, the child was talking about rocks the size of lemons. It surely wouldn’t hurt to have a few, wouldn’t it?!

So here it goes, the process, pictures and the product.

Experiment 1

Ingredients: Leaves from your garden, a bucket, water, scissors, plenty of sunlight.

Process: Watch out for the time sunlight falls on your kitchen faucet. Now open the faucet and check if the water sparkles in sunlight. Only sparkling water results in sparkling diamonds. Now fill half your bucket with sparkling water. Cut the leaves in to strips about an inch thick. Fashion these leaves in to little cups. Pour about half a teaspoon of sparkling water in to each leaf cup. Place the leaf cups in to the bucket. Leave the bucket in direct sunlight for a week. Check for readiness and leave them for an additional week if required.

 

Product:

Experiment 2

was formulated after said child’s mother complained to every one under the Sun about the stink emanating from the bucket and scientists needing to clean up their own mess(“Marie Curie’s mother did not run behind her with a mop and scrubber” my exact words). The goal of this experiment was to (a)keep the initial experiment to small scale and if successful scale up as required (b)compress the process to a couple of days, so that said diamonds are ready before the leaves start decaying (c)avoid contamination from air borne pollutants.

Ingredients: One tbsp of chopped onions, leaves from your garden, one tbsp sparkling water, fridge in working condition.

Process: Clean a big broad leaf. Mix chopped onions with sparkling water. Fashion the mixture in to a diamond shape. Place the mixture on the leaf and place the whole thing in the fridge. You can place it in the freezer, will cut down the process time in to 1/3, the trade off being the three footer’s dependency on her parents(read mother) to check the diamond formation every millisecond.

Product: This time the mother raised hell that the fridge stinks of onions and the child gave up after a week.

Experiment 3

Ingredients: Grape seeds, white acrylic paint.

Process: First eat the grapes, one needs the strength from the grapes to convince one’s mother about yet another diamond experiment, then collect the seeds. Wash the seeds in sparkling water. Pat dry. Paint every seed with white acrylic paint. Place in cup. Place the cup in fridge.

 

Product:

Amma had nothing to complain about. No decay, no stink. This experiment stayed for the longest in the fridge and was discarded after the unsuspecting spouse, looking for a late night snack, consumed about half of it.

Experiement 4

Ingredients: Glass, preferably in a sphere shape. One tbsp sparkling water. Hard surface. Pointy, sharp tools.

Process: Take the glass sphere and drill a small hole. Pour the tbsp water through this hole. Place right side up and place in the fridge to set. When set, tap the water filled sphere on a hard surface to chip the sides to make a shiny diamond.

Product: Promptly nipped in the bud by Amma. So no pictures or products to complain about.

She is taking a break right now and I am shuddering that she will come back invigorated after the break.

 

 

Technorati Tags: diamonds, experiments at home, mieja

 

On Diwali day, I did something I thought I would NEVER do! As a result of which child1 declared before she went to sleep, ‘Amma this is truly the worst diwali ever. I hope I make enough happy memories to forget this sad, sad day. It is the saddest and baddest day in my life. What is the use of celebrating if I can’t read amma?’

Yes! I told her she cannot touch or even look at a book for one more week. She needs to show and act like a six year old otherwise she will lose her reading privileges.

The reading, as much as I am proud of it, is reaching an extreme. Three volumes of Chronicles of Narnia in one day, forgetting the time entity and then whining that I didn’t take her to the park, I am not letting her meet her friends, not showing even 10% interest in making friends, always living in a dream world….. This is not just one or two days, has been going on for three months now and I have had enough of this.

Now that she has no fall back, she is making an effort to make friends. Otherwise the first sign of something that does not go her way, she would turn and walk to her book.

As for child2 she hopes she can irritate me as much, so that her reading privileges will also be revoked!

Two very different peas in a pod!

* KOTUDHU – is a Tamil word that translates to ‘IS POURING’

Yes, a new series….

“Why did you move back to India? Because you have two girls and you want them to get the Indian culture?” is a question I get asked many times.

So here is my observation of the Indian culture that the girls are getting, from the side lines.

Scribed by child1, dictated by child2.

 

Mieja: “Amma just get me a Barbie and a carrot. No, no, many, many carrots. Okay?”

Background information.

Amma, at some point of time: Carrots are good for you. They make you healthy and intelligent.

Amma, at all points of time: Barbies tell little girls that ONLY beauty is important.

A frustrated Amma, at some point of time: Playing with Barbies will make you stupid.

For more truly original thoughts visit here.

 

Technorati Tags: Barbie

When we first told Chula’s class teacher(also the school founder) that we are planning to move to India, R’s first question was, ‘Of course only after she finishes her graduation ceremony with us right? Because you know how much she is looking forward to graduating’. When R found out that it was not the case, she was more upset than us. She said, ‘Its only a month, so leave her with me, she can graduate and then join you guys in India’, we both laughed it off and pretended that it was not a serious offer. Two days later she asked me again if we are serious about moving before the graduation. We were, with school starting in India on June 13th, I wanted a month in between to settle down. ‘Well, in that case’ said R, ‘Chula will have a graduation. A special one, a proper one, with all bells and whistles. Even if she is the only child who is graduating in this ceremony, we will not cut any corners. The child deserves it.’

So the school sent a letter to all parents that Chula will have a special graduation. From time to time they discussed in circle time about what would be a fitting farewell for Chula and Mieja. Ideas were pooled, teachers made a special graduation hat and the children practiced their songs. Chula wore the school’s traditional graduation attire, sang songs, recited a poem, did a special Indian folk dance and made a ‘WHO AM I?’ poster. It was a touching ceremony. Almost all the adults present cried. Who wouldn’t when you hear a bunch of children singing this?

Iam a child by child1

PS1: This is 1/5 songs the children sang.

PS2: Mieja wasn’t left out. G Is For Gold(And Silver) follows soon.

Technorati Tags: ABC series, Chula Graduation, I Am A Child

Since this is a mommy blog, I have to write about the kids, even if it is once in four months.

Chula, all of a sudden looks so grown up. She is all of her 6.5 years and a little more, if you ask me. The danger in this is, I start thinking of her as an adult and start developing adult level expectations and she has to grow up, even more than she is currently, in order to catch up! Constantly reevaluating every scenario and breaking this cycle has been my prominent job for the past one year.

She has certainly departed from the ‘child’ category, but yet to arrive as a ‘girl’. In this journey, she is opening her mind and assimilating the world, thanks to the zillion-gazillion books she is devouring, eyes that are constantly observing and ears that are always listening.

Parents have been aware of the phenomenon of adolescence for ages now. Even terrible twos get noticed by parents, thanks to the child. But the flux children get caught while moving from what Dr.Montessori would call the ‘absorbent mind’ to ‘concrete thinking’ does not get the attention it deserves. From the parents point of view, first comes the monumental process of child birth. You don’t even get time to count all the toes and fingers and feel confident about the health of the offspring, you have to jump head first in to understanding a newborn’s needs and establishing a pattern that works. You take a breather and terrible twos is staring you in your face, which quite frankly is a misnomer, because we all know that terrible twos starts before two and drags on till four! Through out this phase we input values, family and personal, observe the outcome and keep tweaking the limits till we have a self propagating control system. By the time the child is six we start thinking about curriculum, extra-curricular activities, schedules, the poor second born, if any and such. So the transition  from child to girl/boy gets least notice, even if the parent notices it, since this transition is mostly inward, they pretend that it does not exist and do not want to deal with it.

I get some clues to what Chula is thinking. Of her most recent fascinations – namely poverty, pain, meanness, good and bad, kindness etc, the top priority goes to jail. Do children even go to jail? Why? Why would some one want to punish children? Are there even children capable of committing punishable offenses? Baby girl, I will tell you the truth and promise to answer your questions, but when you ask me, ‘But….amma…..if I don’t put my seat belt on, YOU are the one going to jail. Right???’, it scares me a little.

By now it is clear to me that she has a very broad sense of time. I think this is it. It is not going to change and I can either deal with it or try and make her perfect. While I understand that she gets it from me, it is annoying to have two such people living under the same roof. Half the battles between me and Chula is because of the clock. She is constantly taking her own sweet time to do things and I am constantly micromanaging her. It is chaos and friends will vouch to that!

Her clarity of thoughts amazes me at times. The other day she told me, ‘Not because I like you amma, because I love you amma.’ One of the drives back home, she requested for Enthiran songs and I replied, ‘The iPod is in shuffle mode and one of these songs will be an Enthiran song. I cannot drive and DJ.’ The reply she gave me for that, ‘Amma, there are 7 songs in Enthiran. There are 273 songs in your iPod. So 7 out of 273 will be from Enthiran’. I did not make a squeak after that.

After Chula was born, I learnt the art of giving choices. If I put my mind to it, I can give a child choices and still get the exact results I want. But now Chula is in a stage where she wants a role in coming up with the choices. She wants to be more involved in me parenting her. My choices are to either try figuring out how a child can parent herself or learn this new art without any manual what so ever. Sigh.

Her sense of humor is developing really well

Mieja…..

Her current thing is to yell, ‘Don’t talk about me’, on the occasions I narrate something adorable she did/said. So here I am, writing about her.

She is still asking cyclic questions. Now her cyclic questions are scientific. Need I say that I have completely lost my hair?

We watched The Oscars and the poor child sat patiently asking, ‘Is this Oscar?’ for every human being she set her eyes on.

She likes school and she hates school. When ever she whines to me that she does not like school, I insist that she has to go to school to learn things and she makes it in to another of her famous cyclic conversations. On a particular day she went on a walk with YaadaaYaadaa, picked a dandelion and made a wish, ‘I do not want to go to school. Ever, never, never, ever in my life again. I want to stay home all days. All 8 days of the week.’ See! Case in point for me.

We were going for R’s colleague’s son’s birthday party. YaadaaYaadaa asked her, if she knows the child from school/dance class/tamil class/swim class. The answer was, ‘YY aunty, you don’t come to my school. You are not my teacher. You don’t come to my tamil class or my swim class. But I know you right? That same way, I know this child.’ People, I have to say there are V.E.R.Y few occasions in which YY has been rendered speechless, any one who has know her will vouch for that. This was one such occasion.

Her favorite thing to do while riding in the car is to play games with me. So far name, place, animal thing; find the odd man out are super hits.

This 5 year old is forced to constantly catch up with her 6.5 year old sister. Sometimes I have to physically stop her from doing that.

The MPDs….how can I forget this? She has 3 different personalities. Bawawdi the cat – she licks you, holds your leg, meows and pretends she cannot talk English. Gaggiga the baby elephant – she hits you with her trunk and crawls on the floor. Diggie the dog – she barks and bites. Her big sister is her owner.

Finally a joke from Mieja, of course she got it from a book, but I was surprised she understood it.
WHAT IS A MUMMY’s FAVORITE MUSIC?
Wrap music.

Until later….

Technorati Tags: ABC series, Chula-isms, Mieja-isms, regression and growth of children, stages in the development of children

So we are M.A.D about fairies at home…..

Rainbow Magic series, thanks to the recommendation of the lovely ladies at SaffronTree, has served us well. One thing that Meija seems to have nailed down is that there can be fairies for everything and every occasion. She goes around the house, doing whatever she is doing, mumbling

Sopa the soap fairy
Slippera the slipper fairy
Marmala the marmalade fairy
Pencila the pencil fairy
Lunchella the lunch fairy
Sandella the sandbox fairy

….you get the idea.

Cut. Scene change.

I was on the phone requesting the husband to make a quick stop at Target, on his way back from work, to pick up some much needed feminine products. I gave him a bunch of keywords to narrow down what to choose and what new fairy we have at home?

Overa the overnight fairy.

Questions. Of course there are always questions…

Why do I need protection in the night?
Am I going to be attacked by some kind of monster?
How exactly her Appa is arranging for my protection?

Now some one please explain to me, how a child can totally glaze over/ignore/fail to notice/do her own thing for specific, in the face (this I mean quite literally), direct, instructions about cleaning up, finish her food, get ready for school in time etc, but can absorb a vague conversation on the phone and introduce it in her pretend play?

Technorati Tags: rainbow fairies

Theorem I: It is easy to fool your child.
Theorem II: In the circle of life, you are the real fool.

I am on the couch reading a book. Mieja is walking around the house with a cup of milk. I see her walk in to the bedroom. I hear a thump sound, a ‘gluck’ sound and there is an ominous silence. I am still on the couch, but I say, ‘Get the cleaning rag and clean up the spilled milk please.’ She comes running to me and says, ‘How did you know that I spilled the milk?’ I put on my most serious look and say, ‘I can see through walls. No matter where you are, what you are doing, I know exactly what is going on.’

Fast forward a few weeks.

I am in the kitchen cooking. I am calling Mieja. I am just trying to locate her and find out what she is doing. There is no reply. I do not want to drop what I am doing and run around the house. So I repeat her name enough number of times to compose an ashtotharam. Finally I give up, walk to the child and ask why she did not respond. She says, ‘But why Amma? You can see through walls, so I thought you can see where I am and what I am doing.’

Technorati Tags: parenting theorems

Gandhiji’s birthday is a big deal in our school. We start with International Peace Day on Sept 21, then we do Pennies For Peace, then we talk about Gandhiji – the peaceful warrior and end the peace/non-violence theme by celebrating United Nations Day. Our school is closed for Gandhiji’s birthday every year.

This has been our routine for the three years we have been with this school. But the girls are growing and this Oct 1st and Oct 2nd we had a lot of talk about Gandhiji at home.

Mieja’s questions:
Did a english man shooted Gandhiji?
An Indian man did? But, why Amma? Gandhiji is the father of India. Why would the ‘goat person’ kill his own dad?
Did Gandhiji die in the darkness or something? What time of the day was it?
When he was shooted, how did he fall?
Why is he dressed like that? He has no shirts? Was Gandhi poor? He had no money to buy shirts? Is that why he is naked?

Chula’s questions:
Why do you say Gandhi Jayanthi Amma?
Is it like Krishna Jayanthi? Does Jayanthi mean birthday? Chadurthi is Ganesha’s birthday too. So why are we not saying Gandhi Chadurthi?

Chula had her shower almost by herself and dressed up in a pattu pavadai. Then she came running to me and said that she was ready. When I asked her ready for what, she replied that she is ready to celebrate the jayanthi or chadurthi or whatever it is, demanded why I haven’t set up Gandhiji’s picture, decked it with flowers and wanted to know what special Gandhi food I had cooked.

I promised her we will do something special in an hour and quickly planned some art work, books, songs and special food.

The food part was the easiest – peanut sundal and milk. One more thing to love about Gandhi, it is so easy-peasy to prepare his favorite food. Chula wanted to sing Ragupathi Raghava, so we did that. We read Marching To Freedom By Pratham, (special thanks to Chox aunty for sending  special books to the girls) and Dandi March is making quite an effect in Mieja’s mind. I can sense questions brewing. We also have Picture Gandhi by Tulika, The Story Of Dandi March by Tulika and Gandhi: His Life In Pictures. We thumbed through all the books.

I have to admit that I was a little lost for the art part. Then I decided to talk about how simple lines can form a drawing, profile vs front view. I showed then the famous question mark profile drawing of Gandhi, how such simple lines can be representative of Gandhi. Mieja wanted to draw and Chula wanted to write an essay. So this is what we ended up doing.

I had been wanting to introduce the liquid water colors that I had purchased a few weeks back. So I did white on white crayon resist and told them that if they paint the canvas they will discover a surprise. They were kicked when they saw Gandhi on their canvas.

They wanted to experiment on crayon resist and this is what they came up with. They can draw themselves with long hair and long curly eye lashes even when they cannot see what they were drawing. LOL!

Technorati Tags: gandhi art, Gandhi birthday, Gandhi Jayanthi, Oct2, once upon a india by pratham, picture gandhi by tulika, the story of dandi march by tulika

“Involve the kids in everyday activities.”

Whoever said this did not have kids, that I can be sure of.

It works well in a school setting. I have scrubbed chairs, watered plants, gardened, done nature walks – all with kids. But a home is not as structured as a school. There are certain things that are a routine like loading/unloading the dishwasher, line drying the clothes, folding laundry and putting it away. We do these jobs together. At times when I am making dishes like soup, sandwich, cookie, cake etc, I involve kids. There have been days on which I have made them sit at the kitchen table with a slice of bread to butter or a tomato to be chopped or a cube of cheese to be grated, even if I am not using any of the above in my dish, just to get them out of my hair.

The thing about involving kids is that it needs some degree of planning. One must know the steps in order to delegate. Even better, the delegator must have done the chore at least once(with the delegatee in mind) in order to comprehend the exact skills essential to complete the chore.

Do you want to know what is even more difficult than delegating to kids? It is a mother delegating to siblings who are close in age. Imagine child1 and child2 sitting in their respective carseats all strapped up. After reaching the destination, child1 wants to take child2’s seatbelt off and the mother agrees. Child2 is deeply insulted. She wants to take child1’s seat belt off. So the mother comes up with the solution where child1 takes her seatbelt off, then takes child2’s seatbelt off and gets on to her carseat and straps herself. Child2 now proceeds to take child1’s seat belt off, every one is happy, calamity avoided. But hell no, the children being highly skilled torture specialists come up with the supreme question of who goes first. Now the mother has two choices, to bang her head on the steering wheel hard enough to do some damage to her brain or to calmly tell her children that this is an egg and chicken problem in which she does NOT want to be involved and walk away. Trust me, they do come up with some creative solutions, because they are clear that the enemy is not the sister but the parent and when the parent is not involved, they do tend to save their energy.

PS: This is not an isolated incident. All chores are now viewed by the children as ‘Why can’t I do that?’, ‘Why can’t I do it ALL BY MYSELF?’, ‘How else can I show off to my sibling?’, ‘Are there any other ways to establish MY territory?’.

PPS: The mother is secretly anguishing over the fact that  she was stupid enough to read to the children that the free tiger trial issue of  GloAdventurers where it describes in detail how tigers establish their territory by peeing. She is hoping that they do not connect two and two, end up with twenty two and pee all over the house.

PPPS: Double thumbs up to GloAdventurers. Do try them.

Technorati Tags: delegating to kids, division of labor, involving kids in every day chores, the chicken and egg problem