OurTube
Author: utbt11 Jul 2008
PART 1 OF 2
We have a giant monstrosity of a TV sitting in our living room. Our old 27 inch Sony is a trooper. Even after 12 years it is in perfect working condition. There was no need to upgrade. But the husband works in the field of Digital Video Technology and wanted a cool new TV. The guy hardly splurges on anything for himself, so I had no problems welcoming the TV with open arms.
Now, I am not a big TV watcher. When I was new to this country, most of the afternoons were spent in front of the TV. Then it came down to one sitcom a day and few movies over the week. Slowly over the three years other things started displacing TV time. Finally on the days, I do sit down to watch a movie, after the first 15 minutes, the TV is watching me. I am happily suspended in dreams lulled by the TV’s white noise.
The kids, used to watch PBS while we shoved food in to their mouth. At least that’s what Chula did. Now, Mieja being Mieja, NOTHING works with her. She would still watch TV without bating an eyelid and her hand would automatically swat the spoon that comes close to her. (I have a theory about her absorbing nutrients directly from air. Let me not digress.) Just around the time our ‘big giant TV’ entered our home, I was considering my options. For one thing I did not want to turn the TV on during every meal. The main reason is the amount of electricity it sucked. The second reason, I felt that the TV was simply too big. The children were getting mesmerized by the effect the big screen created and I could almost see squiggly, swirly lines in their eyes. I simply didn’t like what I saw. The third reason, if at all they watched something, I wanted them to watch something in their mother tongue. So I switched the kids to eating in the kitchen, while I read books. The children adapted well..err…Mieja was still swatting spoons, but hey it didn’t get any worse right?
But by the end of the day, I didn’t have the energy to work hard. So YouTube was introduced in to their world. I even remember how it all started. November 2007, Chula’s school had taken all the children to a special screening of The Jungle Book. I was very curious about Chula’s reaction to the experience. But the dame can be so tight mouthed. Even after endless pestering she only managed to say, ‘Yes’, ‘No’, ‘Uh-uh’. So I looked for jungle book clips in YouTube and showed it to the children, just to make Chula talk. Mieja was immediately hooked on. Then came a phase where we watched lots of Tamil rhymes on Youtube. Within a week the children memorized all the rhymes. They were greatly kicked when I was able to dig out some of their favorite books on video, so was I. Then came a phase where they started making specific requests on what they want to watch. The situation now got very interesting, because the computer had just replaced TV!
…Continued soon…
Flotsam
Author: utbt9 Jul 2008
Photo courtesy Amazon.
Author/Illustrator: DAVID WIESNER
Recommended Age group: 2 and up. You are limited only by your imagination!
Caldecott Award: 2007
This review is cross posted at Saffron Tree.
I have been reading children’s books for the past three years. The main things I consider while picking out a book are message and language development. For people like me, books like Flotsam are eye openers. This is a wordless picture book and I REALLY noticed the pictures, the effort the author has put in to the pictures in order to convey the message and was simply astounded. The medium Wiesner uses is watercolor. Every seashell is meticulously drawn. The use of lines and the play of light are so wonderful that one can almost feel its texture. The colors are pleasing to young children making the children focus on the story without overly stimulating them. The placement of pictures also plays a major role in story telling in this wordless storybook.
Wiesner’s message through his books – magical things are happening all around us, anything can happen anywhere, do not limit your imagination/dreams and never loose hope on your dreams becoming true(Digression: Check out Wiesner’s 1992 Caldecott Medal book TUESDAY. It talks about the dream of frogs coming true. Any one, even frogs can dream and you never know it might just come true! Keep dreaming, it keeps you alive!).
Flotsam is a story in which a boy finds an underwater camera in a beach, washed ashore by the waves. The boy is not able to find the owners of the camera and decides to develop the pictures from the film in the camera. When he looks at the developed pictures, a whole new world is thrown wide open to him. From now on it is a fantasy journey not only for the boy but also to the readers. The older readers who know about the functioning of a ‘real world’ stare open eyed at the mechanical fishes swimming along side the real ones, a family of octopus sitting on a couch reading a book, puffed up puffer fish acting like a hot air balloon, gigantic sea turtles with a whole city on their shell and star fishes of colossal size – that make grey whales look tiny, housing an entire island on them. That’s not where the surprise ends, one has to read the book to find out the final surprise!
It was so surprising how different the adult mind works when compared to a child’s mind. I am trying to make some sense of the pictures, and this is exactly how my brain went:
A key wound mechanical fish?!
What do I say if the children ask me to explain this?
May be I can say that this is a marine experiment and the biologists are observing patterns about this school of fish.
Whaaaat? A family of octopus sitting on a couch and reading books?
Aahhha! I see a moving container capsized behind the octopus and the couch must have fallen out of the container. The octopus just happened to sit on it.
What now? Puffer fish flying??? Okay I give up. There is no way in hell I can explain this….
And guess what questions I had to answer? ‘What is the boy’s name?’, ‘Ammaaaa, hermit crab eyes popping out of his head? That’s so silly[they put their index fingers on their fore heads and start doing a hermit crab routine. They even came with a voice for the hermit crab]’, ‘The boy has two shovels, one blue and one red. Can I have two shovels?’, ‘Can we put fish on our couch?’. They just surrendered to the story line and digested everything! Gosh, why did I even worry about flying fish and floating aliens? Their open mindedness, amazes me.
There was a lot of language involved. By the time we finished reading this book, the boy had a name, ‘Geeg’ (please don’t ask me why, I did not name him). When he looks through a ring, his eyes become bigger(Errr.. in the book the boy is looking at a crab through a magnifying glass and Wiesner has painted it from the perspective of some one observing the boy. So you can see normal right eye and part of left eye through the magnifying lens). He is playing on the beach and is not being responsible, always listen to your mommy and daddy Geeg (I thought I was looking at myself and listening to myself)…and so Flotsam from a 2 year old’s and a 3.5 year old’s perspective goes on…..
Ahaha, I am not revealing the final knot. Go get a copy of Flotsam and discover it yourself. Hey, you, you and you get off the couch and get the book. Next post surprise quiz on Flotsam.
Finding My/Our Balance
Author: utbt26 Jun 2008
Its been 4 weeks since the mother became a faculty in her daughter’s school. The mother and the daughter have settled in to a nice routine. They leave the house together and come back together. If the mother happens to walk in to the daughter’s classroom for some errand, the daughter comes running and gives a hug, kiss…yeah, the whole shebang. If the daughter happens to catch a glimpse of the mother through the window, she bangs the window to get the mother’s attention and waves all bright and cheery. She even calls her classmates and proudly points, ‘That is MY mommy’.
But it took quite a bit of learning from the mother’s part. Remember the mother’s bellyache about the lunch box issue? The first week, the mother did go overboard on the same issue. She checked the daughter’s lunch box during her break *gasp* pulled the daughter aside to feed her the food *gasp to power of gasp*. The poor daughter was seen walking around as if she crushed by an invisible boulder. At times she even hid under the table when the mother walked by.
But within two days, thanks to the over thinking and over analyzing mother’s brain that worked at the speed of light, a control system was established. Thus materialized an unspoken unwritten pact.
For the mother: When in school the child is cared for by HER teacher. Do not, do not, do not interfere.
For the child: When in school, you listen to what your teacher says. You were asked to sit out of circle time because you behaved inappropriately. Amma can’t do anything about it baby and NO you cannot come and start working in my class because you are unhappy with the situation you got yourself in to.
Guess even ‘mothering’ can become annoying, both to the child and to the mother, if the mother does not accept her boundaries.
Where Is My New Workplace?
Author: utbt23 Jun 2008
Me: Chula, today was amma’s last day in her school.
Chula: Huh?
Me: Yes, I will be working in a new place from June.
Chula: Huh?
Me: Let me see if you know MY new school is. The new school’s name is “{ Chula’s preschool}”…ta-da!!!
Chula: BUT…amma, that is MY school!
Me: Yes, what do you think, you and me in the same school?
Chula: No. NO. You can’t do that. You have to drop me in school and go…GO AWAY. You go to your college school, don’t come to my Montessori preschool.
So does it start this early?
Anyways, she will get used to it.
What say y’all?
PS: WELCOME TO MY NEW DEN.
Announcement
Author: utbtkids10 Jun 2008
Friends, thanks for keeping in touch. So many people regularly cheking for updates and enquiring why I went AWOL means a lot to me. I am grateful for all your support.
I am trying to move to a self hosted blog. The process is dragging on purely due to WordPress import issues supplemented by my inertia. Self imposed dead line to get the issues resloved - June 14th, 2008.
In the meanwhile, some updates from my side:
- I started working in the new place from May 26th, 2008. To say that the new job is stressful would be an understatement of the century. It is physically intense, I do about 100 lunges and an equal number of squats in one work day. ( Two words – Thundering Thighs. Hulk image would go great with my banyan tree green
) As a result of all this, I drop dead by the time the clock hits 8.30PM. - Six weeks of intense summer school starts June 16th. 9.00AM – 1.00PM work all five days, 5.00PM – 10.00PM evening classes four days a week…..its going be one crazy ride. The sole goal for the next six weeks will be to survive with miminum impact on the tots I will be servicing…oh, and of course not to doze off in the middle of the class. I already have nightmares that I forget to turn in an assignment and the teacher makes me stand up on the bench in front of the whole class.
- The kids are doing great. Mieja turned two end of last month. She is one naughty bunny. Her latest trend is waving her index finger and threatening people around her, ‘Odhai koduppen’ or ‘amma kathuva’. Means ‘Be careful, I will hit you’ and ‘My mom will yell at you’ respectively. Chula is turning her tricycle 90 degress, turning the pedal with her hands and is claiming that she is recycling. The mothers and daughters lock swords every now and then. But what is life without all this? Huh?
PS: MNAmma, thanks for the award. Thats super nice of you.
To New Beginnings….
Author: utbt1 May 2008
As Tharini writes about the pain of a mother and child to bid adieu to a teacher, I am composing the complement to that post.
Today was my last day at this school I was working for the past 14 months. For personal reasons, I decided to quit this job. Where I will be working next is will be revealed in a future post.
Last day didn’t sneak up on me. I knew for the past one and a half months that April 30 would be my last day. I never gave it a second thought. I went about doing my things, giving formal resignation letter, complete formalities, preparing forms to be given in the new place…etc. Every thing felt normal.
Today morning as I was half-running-half-walking towards the classroom and I saw little faces peeking through the door. I quite didn’t notice it in my hurry to get in to the classroom in time. As I entered the classroom, all my kids yelled surprise and gave me hand made cards. The little ones peeping were scouting to surprise me. It was not just that, the kids had planned an ice cream party for me, which I found out later. The money for the ice cream party was from the bake sale the kids made last week. Parents dropped in to say bye. But I digress, the moment the kids yelled ‘surprise’… THAT was precisely the moment it struck me that the next three hours were going to be different.
Some of the kids, I have been seeing them since they were babies. I helped them transition in to school, by holding them in my lap as they cried their hearts out for their parents. Some, I hugged and comforted them as their little lips quivered with embarrassment when their bodies didn’t quite co-operate with the potty training routines. One of the dear girls, I have held her hands during every writing session, assuring that she can do it and felt so proud when she wrote her name all by herself, no mistakes, all letters present, no B->D reversals. I have taught them to spell, to recycle, washed their boo-boos, wiped their noses. Most of them, I have nagged endlessly to finish their snack and worn their ears out with my ‘no wasting food’ sermons. There is this little boy, when I tell him for the n-th time, ‘Eat, stop talking, its almost time to clean up’, stands up, salutes me and says, ‘Yes m’am’. Now, I am going to miss that or what?! I have taught these kids conflict resolution. To this day, they come running to me to when they get in to a row and say, ‘Teacher, we want you to meditate.’ . These kids have teased me about my accent…more like rolled on the floor and laughed.
**Sigh**
This one day, I didn’t hurry to get out at my usual 12.15PM. I lingered just a little longer, precisely arranging their folders, sorting their homework, laying the mats for the kids who stay for the full day…..
Just then I remembered what a little dude told me as he left… ‘You take care baby’. I sure will bud, I sure will…..
To new beginnings….
Riddle-me-Ree, Who can she be?
Author: utbt24 Apr 2008
EDITED TO ADD: If you are wondering what this is all about, check this out.
Greetings wonderful MTBs!!!
and good work to all of you!
For having solved the riddle before
I give you all this clue.
The letter ” T “
Write it down, add it on…
And let’s move on to the next little song.
“Her namesake searches for a mitr friend
She stays content with Baby Naren
Need to diet, ask her how
Tis easy come guess this one now”
Solve it and you get your lead
Misguess, and you lose your speed
Solve it slow but solve it now
And before you go, take a little bow
Go to ‘Comments’ and leave me a clue
Tell me which blog you are off to.
Good luck! Good luck! Be on your way.
You have your work, cut out for the day!
Calling For Your Inputs…..
Author: utbt17 Apr 2008
Folks, for a long time I wanted my own domain.
www.utbtkids.com (Powered by wordpress OF COURSE. Nothing else for me. No thank you.)
For one reason, it would give me lots of flexibility in terms of space, style, kinds of files I upload and share.
So suggest me cool, FREE(yes, important criteria) WP themes. I have been looking at stuff till my eyes have begged me to stop and came up with absolutely nothing.
My specs are:
I plan to move by the end of April – beginning of May.
You all know what this means right?! I will be putting up advertisements to break even with the cost of domain name and hosting.
Potty Tales
Author: utbt15 Apr 2008
Objective: To potty train Mieja.
Plan: Start on a weekend. She is not even two, so might take approximately the whole of summer.
Note to self: Be PATIENT. She is just a baby.
Operation commenced on: April 5th, Saturday.
Statistics at the end of the first day: The patio had to be washed at the end of the day. We ran out of all the 8 Gerber cloth training underpants. The clothes dryer had to be switched on as the sun wasn’t drying the clothes fast enough.
Mommy mood-o-meter: She is never going to potty train.
Note to self: Be PATIENT. She is just a baby.
Observations on day two: Candidate expressed interest to sit on potty for the sole reason of flushing, using the toilet paper and washing hands. The time she sat on the potty became a joke. It kept decreasing and by the end of the day, the bum would touch the potty seat for just one millionth of a second. She kept repeating the tear-wipe-throw-flush sequence till the toilet paper roll was over. Same with the hand washing. No significant improvement.
Mommy mood-o-meter: With all that paper the toilet is going to get clogged. She is never going to potty train.
Note to self: Be PATIENT. She is just a baby.
Results of observation from day3-present: Here by I present to you all a fully potty trained Mieja….TA-DA.
Every time she has to go, she goes in the pot. But every time she says she has to go, she does not go. On a good day, she says ‘pee-pee’ approximately 45 times out of which she goes 8-10 times. Add the fact that she says baby as ‘peepy’, which I end up thinking is ‘pee-pee’.
KEY NOTE TO JINX MONSTER: KEEP AWAY.
I have no idea how it happened. May be she has been observing her sister do it and was ready all along. The first two days were just initial novelty and then she was on track!
Anyway, she surprised me couple of days back. Both the bathrooms were occupied and she wanted to use the potty. So I strapped a diaper on her and explained that this is an exception. She can do her business in the diaper. She simply refused. She understood what I said, but refused. She said, ‘Peeee Peee. Only in the puuuty’ and with that resolution held on for a few minutes. Then she started running from this bathroom to that, knocking on the door, first demanding the people to come out and then she was in the verge of tears, ‘Peee Peee, peas. Appa peas.’ Poor thing. Finally after what seemed like an eternity in toddler time, she was able to get access to the pot.
Now, I don’t know if I am prepared to handle two girls who are fairly recently potty trained/training. Before every time we step out, we do a potty round. As soon as we reach our destination we do another round. In between that there are numerous false alarms. In the 45 minutes we are in a restaurant, we have to visit the restroom at least four times. 
Nooru * Hundred * Cien * Cent * Cento * Hundret
Author: utbt9 Apr 2008
All the words mean hundred in Tamil, English, Spanish, Italian and German.
That is the number of posts in my blog.
Yes, a celebratory post. 100 posts and the other thing I am celebrating, 10 days early though, is my one year blog-anniversary. 2007, April 22 was the date I published my first post.
As I am typing this post, I only have 98 posts in my blog and if I publish this particular post, it will be the 99th post. But today was such a nice day and I couldn’t contain myself. What the heck? I decided to type my 100th post right now and my 99th post a while later.
What was so good about today? I don’t know, some days just have the right feel about them. The kids still took their own sweet time to finish their breakfast and did have their little squabbles, the husband and myself did snap at each other a couple of times. But over all I feel pretty uppity today!
The best part of the day, the kids did some gardening with their dad – all the summer vegetables are now planted. Hubby toiled, gave instructions and managed the little critters pretty efficiently. Chula did followed directions really well. Mieja walked behind hubby and engaged in pulling out the plants that were just planted. Some how we gave her a small, empty watering can and asked her to water the plants. So she walked around all the plants talking to them, ‘Hele, WAADEL. Paant, hele WAADEL’. I just hanged around shooting pictures and videos. So we all did our part
Now to some stats.
Number of posts = 100
Number of comments = 875
Total views = 34,805
Views today = 172
Best day ever = 393 views, Mar 27, 2008, Thurs
Top three posts
Indian Mythology – A Child’s Perspective – 698 views
(Also my very first post and my favorite post.)
Sexualization Of Young Children – 635 views
Surviving Chicken Pox – 561 views
BTW, people who come to my blog using these google search terms, you scare me.
I would elaborate on certain questions I have about these search terms, but thanks to Google(!@#$%^%), I would attract more of these people like a magnet.
Its been a great ride so far guys.
Oh, you know what this means right? Lurkers leave a comment and identify yourself.
Proud Member of Saffron Tree
Recent Comments