Can the boy talk or what?

Really..honestly…can the boy of mine talk or what? He talks so much that some days I cry, I beg, I threaten to throw him in the trash can all for what? just a few minutes of peace and quiet. (En nelamaiyil irundhu partha thaan theriyum ungalukku ellam – you would know what it is to endure this, day in day out, only if you endure it). He is the not the child who will ask questions…he is rather opinionated and will state the facts and tell you to follow what he thinks is right, in all his 3 (almost 4) years of wisdom! Some are interesting, some are thought-provoking and some are mind-boggling. I honestly don’t know what category this one falls under, but trust me when he said this, my jaws were hanging to the floor. So this is what happened.

2-3 weeks back one day, after jumping over his rather dangerous toys ( the kind that you want to throw away after you have crushed to pieces with your bare hands, should you by mistake step on it), I told him, “enough is enough. Please pick up your toys”. No response. I repeated my request. Still no answer. Finally I raised my voice and what does the boy say???? “Mommy, you are a bumble bee”.  “Why” I ask, with a confused look on my face. His reply was..”mommy, you are always saying something and it sounds like this…bzzzzz bzzzzz, just like a bee does. That’s why”. And if this wasn’t enough, he walked to the door that leads to the yard, yanks it open and just like you would shoo and bee out, he shooed me out of the door, shut it, dusted his hands and went right back to playing with his toys. Me??? I was just standing there, looking like an idiot with my mouth open. I wouldn’t have known, if a bee had flown inside it.

Well, that was the end to the clean up party, since my ego was hurt terribly and I didn’t want to be called by the name of any other animal. Nalla maattukku oru soodu (a tamil saying which roughly means, a person with a working brain needs to be told only once, to not to repeat a mistake). Kids these days…enatha solradhu…(what to say).

Well…hello after a very long time!

Many fellow bloggers have dropped subtle and not so subtle hints recently, about updating this page. Me? I always promised myself to drop in a line, but never did it, until now. Sorry to all those who have patiently come by and checked this page for updates. I don’t who those 21 people are who stop by and check this page almost everyday, but to them I am extremely thankful.

The reason blogging took a back seat was because, I am actively job hunting which so far has been not so fruitful due to my very limited work experience, before I decided to quit the job in 2006. And of course a gap in employment history doesn’t act in one’s favor too. So I am going to be plogging along looking for something to work out. So until then remember me in your prayers.

Homefront is still the same. Nothing remarkable has happened..yet. As for Naren…well let’s just say, the little said the better 🙂 Honestly, I don’t know where to begin with regards to his tremendous “growth”. The questions (ah those….parents, I am sure you know all about it) are endless, mind boggling many a time, downright silly and most of all funny! His take on things are amazing and makes you wonder about it. 

Kodi’s mom moved to Seattle, and we have now met about 4-5 times (KM if you are reading, correct me if I am wrong) and in her opinion, Naren is a sweet boy and not at all who I project him to be. Well, she hasn’t seen enough of him yet. Naren and Kodi have taken to each other quiet well, with Naren calling Kodi as Anna and Plane papa as Baby. Many days, when he returns home from school the drama begins in this way..

“Amma, I love Kodi anna and he is very good. I loooooooovvvvveeee him and want to play with him. Please can we go to their house? I will share all my things with Baby too…pleeeeeaasssee Amma.”

Throw in a lot of exaggerations in the mix and will tell you why I call this a drama…but I am glad they are cool with each other. Another blogger I met a few times now is Saranya. Let me tell you..she and her hubby are one of the most coolest, down to earth people (so is KM) and Saranya, I am still drooling over those potatoes you made…tried to recreate it and while it came close to yours, it just wasn’t the same. I am glad to have known you both through this blog world. Thank you ladies!

Preschool is fast coming to an end in another 2 weeks after which we are flying out to NJ to spend a couple of weeks with my brother and his family. This will be the first time, the cousins get to meet each other and they are all super excited about it. Planning is already under way to fight a lot, slap each other, hug and kiss and what not. I am looking forward to this meet. Life will be pretty exciting those couple of weeks.

Ok…this is the update in a nutshell. Will come back as soon as possible. In the meantime, stick around and keep well. I have been following many of my favorite blogs and it is good to be in the know. Ta ta for now! and have fun.

What’s been happening at our end?

I have been long away from this blog that sometimes feels like I have stopped it all together. But no…I have been meaning to update, but then nothing goes according to plan, when there is a little one in the house and then too, it is the end of the year which means there is a lot of wrapping up of things going on…nothing physically, just that a lot of things come to a close. And a new list needs to be planned for the up coming year…not a resolution list, more like a list of things/stuff that needs to be accomplished.

Where did I go? Nowhere! I didn’t go on a vacation or anything…been in and around the house. Let’s tackle this step by step.

Dec 17th: Last day of school for Naren which also happened to be the day of a Christmas celebrations for the parents by the kids. The school is doing this for the first time (they are a 3yr old school) and I must say, that it was a huge hit. Each class performed. The Toddler class, in which Naren is, performed 1 song about the arrival of Jesus, and they practiced it for 2 whole months…all actions and singing included. The boy with his mates walked on to the stage and refused to move away from the microphone and stood next to a pretty little girl. The original plan was for him to stand in the second row, next to a boy from his class. But NO! He has his own plans and so he stood where he wanted to. The lights dimmed and the song started. And he sang and followed directions from the conductor…he swayed, he bounced and he danced. He smiled and best of all…sang. Finally after the song was done, he took a bow that would have put any Prince to shame and waited with his best buddy A, until I picked him up. Since we were asked not to take pictures with flash (as it was inside a closed audi, there would be flash..hence couldn’t get any), as it could distract and scare the kids, no photos, until the school issues the CD.

2 weeks prior to that: The boy was sick…a viral infection that wouldn’t give up for 2 whole weeks. The first week was lots and lots of throwing up, that just took away all of his strength. The second week started with a bang. He woke up one Sunday night complaining that he couldn’t breathe…we rushed to the ER where he was administered the meds and stayed there for a long night and came back home, only to repeat the sequence that night too. And then we went to the Doctor’s office every single day, where he was continuously monitored since his throat was severely infected that was reducing the oxygen that went in. All of this was accompanied by a fever that hovered between 103-105F. At one point we were thinking it could have been the swine flu, but the oppurtunity for the same was less, as he is vaccinated against it. Thanks to a lot of prayers from friends and good wishes, we managed it without any sleep for 5 days. An hour’s worth of shut eye was the only possible break that I got.

That should pretty much explain where I have been since my last post. And now that the little guy is home, not much time to get any blog work done. We are not planning on any vacations even though a lot of friends are doing it or have done it, as I really really want to get some work done in the house. We have been meaning to change the room that is under the stairs, into a pantry/store room for all the stuff that is lying around. And change the current store room into a much more usable room…make it into a working place and fit in a treadmill or any other exercise machine. Lets see. So far, nothing has been done, as the husband is on a vacation at home and that means just a lot of time being wasted in front of the TV and lolling around. I am not sure, I am liking this one bit. I hope to get it done, because it means we have to wait until next year to plan this again. I will update as any work gets done.

Ciao!

The weekend

We watched 2 movies over this weekend…if you are thinking that we don’t do anything better….no, we were watching it in bits and pieces for a week almost and finally finished it this weekend. Saw “Seven Pounds” and “Kandasamy”.

Seven Pounds –  Starring Will Smith, it is the story of a man who commits suicide as redemption for an earlier act of his, which results in the death of 7 people. So he sets out to find 7 other deserving people to receive his body parts and in the process kind of falls in love with a woman to whom he gives away his heart – literally. She receives his heart, ‘coz her’s is failing. A slightly disturbing kind of movie, since I am not a big supporter of suicide, whatever the reason. At least the directors, opted to kill Smith using his pet jelly fish and not in a gruesome manner. That was the only saving grace in my opinion. Otherwise, an OK movie, though the timing of the release of the movie intrigues me. It was released mid Dec ’08 which happens to be the holiday season and has a high suicide rate around that time. To release such a movie then I think was irresponsible.

Kandasamy – what can I say? This much….we personally felt that Shreya should have been the one in the rooster/hen costume, since she had everything to her advantage – haircut, looks and such. But, I do love her complexion… the songs were a total hit even before the movie was released. We were watching the “Allegra” song, when Naren looked up for a few seconds and said, “Amma, unga dress bigga irrukku. Allegra auntykku konjam kudunga” (Amma your dress is big. Give a part of it to Allegra aunty). That should say it all I guess. Another irresponsible movie, which I personally think is very much in the league of Shankar’s movies like Gentleman, Sivaji, Mudalvan(?) and Anniyan.

Did some retail therapy. Bought some clothes for myself and absolutely nothing for the hubby and child. This was for me and only me. I mean I buy clothes once a year or so, after I clean out my old ones. It is a good feeling to buy new ones. Am still looking for a good pair of footwear. I have a few specifications and so far none matches it. I will continue to look.

Cleaned the house a good deal. Our bedroom, Naren’s room, all bathrooms and the kitchen are clean. I still have one more bedroom and the living room to deal with. These 2 are totally not under my jurisdiction as of now.  We laid out the bath mats to air out in the sun and since it was warm and sunny, we had left the back door open and I think sometime in the afternoon, the neighbors cat, walked into the house and found a cozy corner in the dark bedroom. We didn’t see or hear the thing. After we got done with dinner and cleaned out and were spacing out, out of the corner of my eyes, saw a black shape slithering and I for a minute thought it was a snake. My screams should have flushed out the entire neighborhood, if not for the closed windows. Man…the next 30mins were pure torture with the cat hiding out in the unlikeliest spaces possible and Bala trying to shoo it out, with me screaming (I don’t like cats…never liked them…never ever) and in all this confusion Naren wet his pants and wanted to be taken care of immediately. Not knowing where the darn cat was, I couldn’t move or shut up. Finally Bala found the thing curled up under the guest room cot and shooed it away with a broom stick. If only I can lay my hands on it.

Anyways, that was the weekend and am glad it was interesting and not bland. I hope all you people had a good weekend and got around to doing some fun stuff. We are having some last few weeks of sunshine and planning on absorbing as much Vit D as possible and then it will all be gone, until next year.

And of course, it was my birthday last week. I am now officially 29yrs of age. B bought home a surprise cake, which the boy bored holes into with his fingers and when I did get to cut it, it was like Swiss cheese on the inside. He also promptly took away the card and the money in it and claimed it was his and when I asked him later, what his gift was for me, he said “I gave you the money, no?” Tut, tut. What a child. We also went for a dinner, though I didn’t want to since it being a weekday and all…but B insisted and so we went….a not so quiet dinner, with the boy announcing loudly to everyone who cared to listen that is was my birthday and that they should sing for me. Luckily that was prevented and we rushed through it and made it home, with his dinner in a box. In hindsight, I guess, I should have been happy, but I now am thinking about the innocence of the little heart.

Please do pray for something for us. We are facing some unsure situation as of now and when it is alright, I will let you know it is about…but, I will say one thing. It is NOT about babies. Something else. Send a prayer when you have a second and for that I will eternally be thankful.