The last post of 2008

So how do I do the last post of the 2008?

I have been racking my brains on this – seems like a big thing – you know ‘end it right’, sorta thing. Thought of many things to do - a summary post (who has time), a time capsule (Dottie did a far better job already, see here), a resolutions list (come on you know I won’t keep it) or maybe a snapshot of the blog that is rocking and all that jazz (who am I kiddin', my readership has probably fallen to the deep abyss already)

And then it hit me. I do the last post (drum roll please) with CELEBRATIONS! Because, I made it to a 100 post per year this year. Isn’t that reason enough? :D

Here’s wishing you all a HAPPY HAPPY 2009! May all that be blessed come your way. And here are some great pictures of how everyone is celebrating.

Lastly a prayer

O Krishna, we praise and thank you for the gift of living this year,
This year has been a time filled with many blessings,
a few challenges and some opportunities, joys and sorrows
While we trust and believe in You,
Sometimes it’s been difficult to understand Your ways.
Guard us and show us the right way
May we continue to grow in age, wisdom, knowledge and grace
Throughout our lifetime.
Jai Shree Krishna.


Happy New Year!

The Christmas that was …

Full of gifts for the little fella, two parties and one enjoyable train ride. This year too, Kochunni did not grasp the full meaning of Christmas, Santa Claus or the gifts – he seemed to just take everything in stride with a curious sense of joy and wonder, which after all is the true spirit of any festival. He picked up the plane and his truck as the first gifts to be opened but in a little while he took to the drawing board easel scribbling away the sun, the moon and the stars, much to my joy. (We still have to open the little doctor set which I will probably hideaway for the next rainy day).

In the evening we went to our friends Christmas party and enjoyed ourselves to some nice food and innovative party games that the hosts came up with. Isn’t it great when the host of the party really plans a party well – fun for the kids and adults. The next day being holiday I was hoping to sleep in but as usual Kochunni woke up and like the last few weekends he tried to wake us up by singing rather loudly and completely out of tune. The new thing that has also started the past weekend is to jump out of the bed and walk out into the living area – and of course being the most ultra-sensitive cautious parents one of us goes up right behind him to see if he is up to any mischief. Anyway the only good that came of getting our asses out of the bed was that I was able to get to some after-Christmas sales and bought some ornaments for the front yard for the next year. Of course hubby was cross since it meant another box in the already filled up garage.

Saturday we left early for a train trip to Sacramento along with our friends. Maybe it was the low expectations from the trip that it became all the more fun and memorable. We boarded the early morning Amtrax train and as we caught the seats in the upper level we were amazed at the clean and overall spacious little corner. We got the middle seats with tables so the kids enjoyed banging on them and driving their toy cars. The three hours were over pretty soon as we watched some beautiful coastline scenes along the way.

At Sacramento, we walked a few minutes to the little old town - Railroad museum. All of us expected (though no one admitted) it be a dud with possibly pictures of old trains, but to our real surprise they had the real trains parked inside for our viewing pleasure. From the guided tour we learned about the history and as we walked around these majestic trains we were amazed at how our forefathers would have welcomed this mode of transport – connecting people along some pretty impressive mountains and terrains that before then seemed impregnable. Of course you also hear about the wrongs of our forefathers ( the Chinese laborers were pretty much ill-treated, even though they put in equal if not more effort into building a fully functional train system), did which saddens our hearts. There is also a couple of compartments that you can board to see up close - the sleeper chair and the dinning cart along with the impressive chinaware. The upstairs part of the museum is dedicated to some wonderfully built toy cars, which was an instant hit among the boys. Kochunni loved the play area with Thomas and his friends toys and was not ready to leave until quite a bit of warning to leave him there alone. We had lunch a family style Pizza place and by the time we boarded the train for our trip back we were all exhausted. Luckily Kochunni slept for most of the ride back and we only had to entertain one kid who finally slept when it was almost time to get off the train.

We came home exhausted, but still no one could stop talking about the benefits of traveling in the train, our memories of travels back in India and how wonderful it would be if more of America was connected via trains and if it was a little bit more cheap. As we promised ourselves to look into some other nearby places to go for our next weekend get-away, we hauled ourselves home. Sunday was spent relaxing, watching some movies and attending a birthday party. And so ended our Christmas break.

How about yours? Do anything fun?

And to all a good nite!

Snow has fallen, winter has set,
The houses have been lit as the year draws to a close
Santa has started his wonderous journey
As we will soon scramble to bed.
We will be back up in a while to wrap up Kochunni's gifts
Playing our parts as Santa's little elves.
Here's wishing you all a very Merry Christmas!


Image from Christmas MySpace Animations

Story Time

One of my fondest memory from my childhood is during the power-cut hour, sitting in front of our house in Bangalore, with my grandfather - him on his lazy chair, the rest of us on the ground, or the stairs, telling me wonderful stories. There was something mysteriously fun about sitting outside in pitch darkness with only the light shimmering from the million stars above, listening to the stories. My grandfather is one of the best story-tellers. He introduced me to Lord Krishna – through various stories – Kaliya-mardhana, Putana, Bakasura and many more. Today one little search, can land you with a million sites offering stories – folklore, mythology and everything in between. But reading is vastly different from listening to a story.

The magic is in the words, the description, the hint of mystery when some things are left to the listeners’ imagination. It cannot be long, drawn out measure because you might loose the listeners interest, nor do you want to say too much that they have nothing left to imagine. It’s definitely a talent.

When my dear Chachan (grandpa) used to tell me the story, it was his voice – rough, loud and clear that helped build the story. It was also his diction and the little details in the story that he would include. I still remember the first time he told me the story of “The Count of Monte Cristo” he remembered all the character names. Unfortunately I seem to have forgotten many of them today! (sob!) He had a craft in telling the story – like when he narrated the story of Krishna's Kaliyamardhana he would describe the dance Lord Krishna did on the snake with a little beat - "Tham Thakka ...", holding one hand like a hooded snake and the other to symbolize Krishna jumping around the various fingers.

Flash forward 25 years, now I am trying to tell stories to Kochunni – stories of wonder, stories of love and of devotion. I don’t think I have a good talent but I am trying my best. I hope that as he gets older he will enjoy story time, maybe we can sit outside, in the moonlight and build memories together.

On the other hand, he probably already has his great grandpa's talent. He is making up stories about the lion and the monkey jumping on the car and running around, drinking milk, sometimes falling over, sometimes giving you hugs. If you ask him why they fell over, he will turn around look at a spot and ask the lion why he fell, its funny, amusing and lovable. He draws in details that you don't expect from a 2 year old - of course the details might not be all that right with the lion in a green shirt or driving the fast car, but to me what matters is his thought process the fact that he is able to imagine, and to build as much detail as he is able to with his limited vocabulary to tell me a 'katha'.

Daycare updates

Its almost been a month at the new daycare of the little fella, of course with some vacations and his ill heath it hasn’t been as continuous, nevertheless. So some updates (just a fancy way of scrap booking the noticeable changes)

• For the last two weeks, when we drop him off he looks at us (reminding me of the cat from the movie Shrek) and reminds us “vegam varane” (come early). Of course, it’s the ‘drama gene’ that he has inherited but we fall for it every time.
• He loves to talk to his cars like his teacher and friends at school talk to him – so you can hear him admonishing the car “No! Go there”, “Come here”, "This is mine" etc. It’s almost as if he is practicing with his toy cars whatever new sentence he has learned in school. It’s a fun and easy way to let him play and watch the new things he is doing.
  
• This is the best part, if I jump in and explain or correct a sentence (usually correcting his grammatical errors or adding in the golden words) he looks at me in total wonder. Almost as if thinking “My amma knows this, so cool. I just thought she was a dumb girl that gave me food and rocked me to sleep” LOL!

He is talking a lot, knows his colors and recognize many alphabets. He is still weak in his number recognition and throws a fit for lot of things but (touch wood) the terrible twos are ‘almost’ under control. At least now he can somewhat explain what is bothering him. But still a long way to go, especially getting to the diaper-free zone or sleeping on his own - yes he hasn’t mastered that art yet and with his last episodes, he is back to sleeping with us so that we can monitor his breathing. Of course, its always easy to move him to our bed but the route back to his own is tougher. So with the last four-five days of sleeping with us, yesterday he was demanding that he sleep in the AC room. Needless to say, ‘miles to go before we sleep’!

Snow humor

So if you are busy with shopping and stressed out every time you see "Only 6, 5, 4 days to Christmas" - almost an end of the world sort of message, here is some holiday humor. Enjoy!

Santa is coming ...

The stores were decked out two months before and the discussions around ‘what to buy’ started even before. Now with the ‘big’ sales – Early Door busters to Midnight sales – everyone is scrambling to get something for someone.This time though I really would love a real Santa- just seems that it will save me some hard cash. :D

But then again, wasn’t the festive time more for celebration, for family gatherings and just good times. When did gifts, shopping, sales comes into it? Of course, everyone says the same exact sentiment every year and still goes ahead on a shopping spree buying items for every Tom, Dick and Harry. Will it change this year? Maybe!

The thing I love best about this time is the decked out houses, reminds me of Diwali in Mumbai – every flat would be lit up with diyas, the sweet smell of sweets, noisy kids running around, gatherings of families and of course the movies to watch over late nights. This year, since Kochunni is going to his new daycare he is more exposed to ‘Santa’ and his ways. The daycare is planning do a gift exchange next week, and we have been invited to a holiday party for this weekend. Of course, he doesn't know yet that he can start to "demand" for certain gifts (in pretense of writing letters to Santa) this year to I can try to get him meaningful gifts rather than the million plus cars and trucks he is eying for! Already got him a little doctor set, debating on a drawing board-easel combo and of course a little scoop truck just to see his eyes lit up!

That reminds me, what is everyone planning to buy this year? Any wish-lists for yourself, for your kids?

Happy B-Day DADDY!

To the dad ...

who would never forget little treats for his girl; however late he was

who would always act surprised when he finally found the girl hiding under the bed

who taught her how to ride the bike and play badminton

who always argued a case with her until another joined the fight, that they would mysteriously become best friends

who made her laugh

who wrote up a new lullaby for his grandson (still his favorite one at that)

who is and forever will be the BEST dad this girl could have ever!

Happy Birthday, Achan.

More than a common cold

Coming back from our trip from Legoland, Kochunni had cough that did not seem to go away. Later in the night his whole body was rocking as he was breathing but calling up the nurse line we were told it might just still be because of stuffy nose. The husband being extra cautious type decided to take him to the doctor, which as it turns was a good thing. It seems he had a wheezing cough that was very severe and we were already late in getting him to the doctors. Now armed with a nebulizer and a steroid drug we were sent home with strict instructions to conduct a nebulizer session every 4 hours for four days (& night) straight. Of course we were scared shitless. What was wrong with this little 3 feet guy who still seemed to be smiling and enjoying "Bob-bi-bi" (bob the builder) videos and throwing tantrums left and right.

Luckily being the Thanksgiving weekend we were home and he responded well to the medications. A follow up visit with the doctor and she was impressed. She warned us that this could be just a viral infection or could be sign of asthma. The rule of thumb to call it asthma was if it occurred again twice. We prayed to all known gods to ensure that this was just a viral infection and that the worst was over.

Days passed, and as the economy was crashing our thoughts were now racing around meeting the house payments and job security. We made a trip to Dallas and as a precaution even took the nebulizer with us. But everything was fine, that is until this weekend.

Kochunni caught the cold bug and started coughing up a storm and by Sunday morning his breathing seemed severely stressed out. We gave him the nebulizer and took him to the after-hour clinic. Our fears were coming true. The doctor diagnosed his wheezing attack and confirmed our suspicions.

We are dumbstruck, there is no family history of asthma, and at least to me the very name is wrought with horrible pictures of murderous villains hanging onto the asthma medicine playing catch as the heroes coughed up and begged for the medicine. Somehow to even think that a little 3 feet guy running around the house with infectious laughter could be so tied down is not plausible. But that is now the case, it seems.

Today was a follow up visit and Kochunni has vastly improved, but we are on the regime of 4 hours for the next 4 days. Better to be safe than sorry. The doctor does not think it is related to any allergies but could possibly be related to the cold. There are still a few months left for this winter to be over, and the question is can we beat the cold? If he does, there might not be a need for medications (steroids) otherwise …

Hoping for the best, and wishing for him to be safe.

A Wednesday

Reviews are a matter of opinions, you take it or leave it, but it also adds a little perceptive to our thoughts. We saw the movie ‘A Wednesday’ at our cousin’s house at my jiju’s insistence – really it was the battle was between Bejja Fry and Pirates of the Caribbean and somehow this little known movie won. Its just a story that happens on a Wednesday and therefore the name, It has elements of Fox’s 24 and Bruce Wills Die Hard but still is intrinsically Indian and no, not with song and dance (of which there is none) but just the visuals and the straightforward dialogues. With a great cast Shergill, Shah, Kher it promises a thriller ride for everyone (not kids of course). A couple of newcomers (I think) the TV reporter, the good cop, have done their work well too add to the whole experience.

The movie talks about terrorism in the background but mainly its about our society - the one we all live in and breathe or at least try to. Crisp (most of the time) and edgy it’s a decent movie from start to finish.



Ok, my first review reveals nothing about the movie, but that just it – for this one, go without reading too many reviews or plot lines, otherwise it will spoil the experience – I don’t want to give anything away, just know that it’s a good ride and if you don’t like it come back and we can have a discussion about it, ok? :D