Saturday, December 26, 2009

ICE ICE BABY!

We went to Charlie Brown Ice at nashville. This is the second time we are going and first time for AJ. Ice is nothing but ice sculptures maintained at 6F...FREEEEEZING Cold...and we never learn from our mistakes..Both B and Ashu forgot their gloves. I gave my gloves to ashu and the kids were just fine. AJ was cranky because he slept in the car and we woke him and he was hungry too. I forgot to take snacks with me. He did not cooperate for snaps, but enjoyed the slide inside. It was made out of ice too and they both didnt want to come from there. i was freezing to death and i was getting really mad. Finally we had to drag aj out of there and i was wondering if i had to thaw their butts in microwave after all the sliding :)

We bought some shortbread cookies on the gift shop and ran outside as fast as we can. BRRR!

Christmas
========

This is the first christmas for AJ as we were in india last two years. We started buying gifts for christmas after Ashwin's birth as we did not want him to miss the festivity here. We even bought a kutty tree when he was three. He likes hanging the mini ornaments in it :) This time AJ helped too. I packed the gifts after they went to sleep and they were quite excited in the morning. I bet ashu was only pretending because he knew about each and every gift we got for him :-) I did not have time to get some surprise gift for him..also, i did not want to as the house is overwhelmed with toys already. AJ was truly excited. Even though he was with us when bought the toys he did not pay attention to any of it as he was busy with some knickknack. Next year, Ashu wants a big tree. This year was so hectic that we did not put any lights outside and Ashu said our house did not look pretty. Whatever! :) Seriously, our house looked so pathetic in our neighbourhood. but, ours was not alone..so that gave some consolation :D

Tuesday, December 15, 2009

Where do they learn?

Today when i went to pick up AJ, Ms. Nikki was giggling and when i entered she told AJ just did something funny. She said Ms. Jody had walked into their room and AJ was sitting with his leg near the door and when she opened he said OW and moved his leg quickly. He didn't get hurt as he was really quick, but had said 'Careful Jody' and they were all laughing :D They said the tone in which he said was really funny. Anyways, i noticed that he doesn't use Ms. when he talks to them and i keep telling him he should address them as Ms.Jody or Ms.Nikki, but it is always back to square one! :-O

When Ashu heard this, he was ROFL. Every time i say something about AJ he enjoys listening to it so much. He also takes the daily report sheet out to see what he ate and how his day was. Such a good big bro :) This just reminded me of the time where both me and my brother studied in the same school and while walking back home he used to carry both our backpacks and give me his empty lunch bag to carry.
I guess the older child just gets it naturally :) And everytime AJ does something bratty B says that he can see how spoilt the younger ones can be, i strongly believe he is talking about me...

Sunday, December 13, 2009

Day 6 : Universal Studios

For some reason i didnt remember a whole lot from my previous trips. I only remembered Shrek and Barney. First stop was Shrek 4D. As expected, it waas hilarious and Ashu was literally ROFL. AJ enjoyed it too, but was watching half the show without the glasses. When he wore the glasses he was trying to reach out for the things in the screen and almost hit the man in front of us and i saw it on time and saved his bald head :-)

Next stop, Jimmy Neutron. Sucked. I did not like it one bit and was feeling queasy. Ashu loved it...AJ - had a poker face and i could not tell anything.
We then went in search of terminator, but ended up having lunch and forgot about terminator and went and stood in line to take pics with Madagascar. Poor AJ ws so tired that he slept off just few seconds before the madagascar characters came :-(
We then went to the Pets show which was hilarious and AJ slept through it. There was one part i did not like in it though. They asked a little boy to come and help them with training a doggy and they said if you ask the dog to pick any piece of garment from the laundry basket he will bring the right one. The boy asked the dog to fetch a hat and then the doggy got the hat. The boy asked from something and the doggy got some underwear. The lady embarassed the boy by asking didyou ask this...The boy ws so embarassed. I thought it was so tacky and they didnt have to do that. But for that, the show was good.

We went to ET after that and after standing in line and when it was almost our turn there was tech. difficulties so we decided to come out and not wait there. AJ was up by then, so we took him to Barney and he was too happy. Loved all the songs and took pic with Barney and then played there for a while and then we went to the woody woodpecker's rollercoaster. I was glad i went there because when we went to Dollywood in sep, we went to the kiddie play area that looked soooo familiar and i was so confused because that was the first time i went to dollywood. I was kinda freaked out thinking it is some kind of Enakul oruvan dejavu type thing :D I had seen it in universal studios and forgotten about it. Dollywood had everything the same way..We went to the roller coaster and it's a really mini one and fun, /When we were standing in the line ashu started chickening out and i said i am gonna sit next to him and he thought i was comforting him. When we were near the gate and it was our turn next, i asked him if he knew why i was gonna sit next to him and told him that i'm so scared and i want to hold his hands. That pissed him off so much that he started accusing me that i got him into this mess..etc. etc. He was quite dramatic and i had a good laugh and i told him i was just kidding (thought that's not true)..B and AJ sat together and me and ashu sat behind them. I started screaming in few seconds and after few more seconds Ashu was screaming too. We both were non stop. It was fun, but kinda scary too. Ashu claims that he screamed for fun. After the ride when we got down AJ said, 'Mommy and Ashu screamed AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA' and the little dude enjoyed it thoroughly. So unlike me! After the ride me and ashu were laughing so much and then ashu said he wanted to go again, but the line was long, so we went to E.T again. The line was too long there too, but we still decided to go and AJ started troubling us, so i had to keep feeding him MnMs once in awhile..I think ET's fav was MnM too, if i remember correctly. ??
We then finally found the Terminator but the show was over. We still had time and we went aorund the whole U.S and Ashu wanted to go on shrek one more time, so we did that and this time AJ enjoyed more and was giggling and jumping just like ashu...and that's the end of our orlando trip..As soon as we left Univ. Ashu asked B when our next trip to orlando is going to be :) Oh btw, Ashu got us both Best parents award that looked like oscar. I was very happy and touched. I asked him why and he said that he loves us very much and it was his way of saying sorry for allthe trantrums and that he will stop throwing tantrums. That promise only lasted till next morning..Atleast i still got the award :)

Thursday, December 10, 2009

Funny for the day :)

I have been posting ramayan about our Orlando trip that i missed lot of cute things they were doing. I forgot most of it..and ofcourse, this justifies why i need a blog in the first place..Hope i dont become like Ghajini and depend on this blog for everything :D

Coming back to the funny stuff. Whenever AJ troubled Ashu more than normal, Ashu used to call him bad boy. I told him that he should not say that and it will hurt Aj's feelings. So, the smart alec started calling him B boy and justified that AJ wont understand. But AJ does and we found that out long back and Ashu gave up on that!! I was singing a song yesterday and AJ said stop singing mommy. Hmmm..what an insult..just for fun, i said AJ B boy and retorted back saying AJ is G Boy :-O (Mean mommy needs that!! )

He had mild fever and with all the flu scare i wanted B to take him to the doctor as i had 3 meetings in the afternoon. B said that he was watching t.v in the waiting room and a little boy was playing guitar in it and he said G-Y-T-A-R guitar. On hearing that i clapped my hand and said yay AJ and Ashu said i was crazy to appreciate a wrong spelling :D

Wednesday, December 9, 2009

Day 5 : Hollywood Studios.

Big improvement on tantrums!! (Just being sarcastic here :-)) As soon as we left the room, AJ threw a tantrum because he wanted us to goto the 8th floor and not the lobby!! Another Prakasamana day :-) We reached Hollywood Studios and as soon as we entered we had a photo session with the disney photographers. Whether we had fun or not..idhellam vittu vaikkala ;-) It was quite funny because when the photographer said 1,2,3 AJ said GO and started running towards her!! The photos came really good though. The reason why i picked HW Studios for thursday was because i saw some info about a show Fantasmic that was scheduled on thursday. Wanted to see what it was. Anyways, we went to the starwars tour and got fast pass because it was CROWDED!! We went to a 3D movie that both of them enjoyed. Next i made the mistake of picking Honey i shrunk the kids. I thought it was a 4D movie and went inside. It was this huge playarea where all the things were blown out of proportion to make us look small. The kids got all over enthu and were running here and there. It was so hard to keep track of them. Finally i managed to spot them both and had to literally drag them out of there :-) Next we went to the stunt show. It was really interesting, but towards the end AJ started troubling a bit, so when they said that was the last 3 minute piece of the show we were out of there and that helped us avoid the mad rush. We then went to Pixar area, but the toystory ride was toooo crowded with a wait time of 120 minutes and fast passes were all out too. So, we went back to the Starwars ride and after standing in the line and just before entering the ride they said they wanted to measure AJ. The dude refused to stand straight and was doing all kinds of naatyam. The lady (strict military type) said she cant let him in if he would not let her measure..so i went to the exit asking B to take Ashu. I think i made a good decision because lot of people said it made them queasy. It wasn't too bad waiting outside either as it didnt take much time. We then went to playhouse disney and on the way grabbed some popcorn and juice and just before entering the show they said no food allowed inside and said i could fold the popcorn container and take it in though. As expected there was a tantrum there as he wanted to have the popcorn. He calmed down a bit whne the show started. Unfortunately for me, it was all little einsteins, pooh and handy manny, none of which aj watches regularly. He lost interest half way thro' and started troubling again. Oru vazhiya we came out after the show and i was so exhausted. We then took them to get pics with quincy and june and then mickey mouse. Oru eli-ku queue-la ninnu picture and autograph vaanginom!! If we saw the same eli in the house, we make sure it is dead!! Talk about double standard!! :-)

Fantasmic : One line - Out of the world. That was the first show where i didnt hear a peep out of AJ's mouth. He was stunned. He enjoyed it thoroughly. On the other hand, Ashu was talking non stop in his excitement. Guess i have to always listen to one or the other :) It was toooooooo good. I was glad that i read about it before we left. It was a laser show combined with some fireworks. Laser show was pure class. There was a part where they showed the disney characters inside bubbles and the bubbles looked soooo real. Classy show. I can go on and on..I can write a big post on this alone. When the show was over, i could see all the teeth in Ashu's mouth. He was soooo happy that he rated HS over MK. I would never do that though. MK is always no.1 for me

Tuesday, December 8, 2009

Day 4 - Kennedy Space Center

This was mainly for Ashu :-) First thing we did was, we went to the 3D show in IMAX about man landing in moon. After 5 mins,AJ asked me 'mommy can we go out' :D I told AJ that the doors are closed and we cant go out, so he kept quiet for sometime, but there was another 2 year old who started screaming and his mom opened the door and took him out and that was the end for me. He said, see we can open the door, let's go out. So, i took him out and was waiting outside. After showing him shamu and mickey minnie for 3 days it was no fun for him at KSC :-) So,most of the time i was sitting outside ..er..running behind him outside. Anyway, it was all literally rocket science for me too..so i was probably better off outside with AJ :D If ashu ever becomes an astronaut (that is his latest obsession) i will be like sulakshana of sindhu bairavi - asking kathrikkai enna velai :D I liked the non documentary parts though. I liked the observation center, but the shows put me to sleep :-O

Ashu was totally fascinated by KSC. He bought lot of books there and a remote controlled rocket. We bought some books for AJ too. He has been reading the backyardigans book everyday now. We also took a photo there where they did some jigina work and made it look like the kids were in space :-) Came out cute because AJ was looking elsewhere when they took the snap and when they did all the cut and paste it looked as if he was looking at Ashu.

Sunday, December 6, 2009

Magic Kingdom

Day 3:
Magic kingdom sure has a magic touch to it. That place is filled with fun.
I can skip any park in orlando, but not this. We arrived at MK and there was a great improvement..AJ threw a tantrum as soon as we entered!! Kan minnadi rest of the day Pragasama therinjudhu ;-) We took the ferry to goto MK and for some reason he was ticked off as soon as we got into the ferry. He was screaming and crying and refused to answer when we asked why he was upset. After we got down, he didnt want to pose for photos for a while. He was grumpy and didnt want to talk to us. There was some musical on the mainstreet where some folks came in and danced to some christmasy songs. None of them were young, but they were acting like teenagers. It was weird! :-) That got AJ out of his grumpiness though. He still was not very cheerful. Then we went to the castle and B got us popcorn and a mickey mouse shape popsicle for him and that cheered him up. The next parade started and it was very nice. AJ got in the mood and was in full swing. Towards the end of the parade, they asked everyone to join the dance and there was donald and goofy near us and Ashu and AJ went to dance with them. AJ was literally like a Then kudicha nari. He had a blast. He kept pulling Donald duck and had a ball. Couple of times the security girl came in between donald and AJ, guess she wanted to protect the duck form the wild child :) After that he was all happy and kept talking about donald and koofy (yeah, that's how he calls Goofy :))

After the parade, we went to Fantasyland. We went to Winnie the pooh ride, which was very cute and the kids enjoyed it. Next stop was Peter Pan. It was way too crowded, but they liked it, so i guess it was worth the wait. We went to the philhar magic - 3D show and it was nice too, but like i said before, AJ did not wear the glasses for the most part. Ashu kept throwing his hands in the front trying to grab few things. It was funny :) AJ did that too once. He wore the glass and there was a pie in front of him and he got excited and reached out for the pie :)

It's a small world and Snow white was way too crowded, so we decided to do that later. We took the kids in the caroussel. When we were standing in line to go on the caroussel, the operator kept saying 'Are we ready?' each time before she started it and everytime AJ said 'Yes, i am re...ady' and did not understand why she didn't let him in. He got so mad at me and was screaming 'it's my turn mommy'. When i told him, 'see all the people waiting outside, we can go only after them' and he said 'see all the people inside?' :-) Finally, it was our turn and he was happy, but did not want to leave the carousel when it was over. He was holding it tight with both hands and i had to tickle him to let go of it :-) After that, we had lunch at pinnochio's restaurent. Pizza was really good. After that we went to Tomorrow land. Tomorrowland was mainly for him. He has kinda outgrown most of the fantasyland stuff. We watched a movie in the revolving theater. It was just okay, especially for AJ and he kept saying, let's go :) We also went to the buzz light ride and by then AJ started sleeping. He slept through the ride, but Ashu enjoyed it the most. I dont know what i did, i got 17500 points. God only knows how. Ashu and B got 22500 each. . B wait with AJ outside and we went to Monster's inc show. It was quite funny and Ashu enjoyed a lot (probably more than anything else because AJ was not there to trouble him :)) After monster's inc, he was done with tomorrowland. He was not intersted in rest of the rides and said we can go back to
fantasyland.

On our way, we went to the toontown. AJ was up by then and we went to the houses of mickey and minnie and then there was a long queue to take pics with mickey. We skipped that and went to goofy's rollercoaster. We stood in the line for almost 15 minutes and just before it was our turn, ashu chickened out and said let's get out of here!! Then there was donald's boat with some water leaking here and there and it was tough to get AJ out of there. When we came out, we went to Fantasy land and the lines were much shorter and we went to It's a small world. It was fantastic. I am seeing it for the third time, but felt like first :-) they made minor changes to it to suit the holiday season. Both Ashu and AJ loved it. Not a peep from AJ's mouth. Then, we went to Snowwhite and it was a little scary for them. When we came out AJ kept repeating the names of the dwarfs after me and everytime i said sneezy..he went ah..chooo :-) We went to dumbo ride and caroussel again as there was no wait time for that. We watched the parade and it was beautiful. Ashu loved it and AJ did not care at all. He was troubling me so much as he got bored with it. I was holding him in such a way that he could not scratch me or hit me because he was bored and wanted to get out of there..so that little dude was using his head and bumping me on my face and head. I was pretty sure that i was gonna lose some teeth. What a torture! All of a sudden, he started screaming for grapes when he saw green lights :-O As usual, i pulled a lollipop from my handbag and shut his mouth :-) Hope the disney trip does not give him any cavities!! After the parade, we had dinner and still had time, so we went back to the winnie the pooh ride once again and left the park. On our way out, we bought some cookies, juice and brownies at the mainstreet bakery and the cookie was out of the world. I tasted after we got into our car and was regretting for waiting till then. If i had tasted it then and there i would have a big box of cookies :-(

On our way back to the hotel AJ kept talking about his dance with donald and koofy and Ashu about Monsters inc.