Updates...

Just 2 days before leaving to india aj started recognizing all the alphabets. After reaching india, within a week, he started recognizing some small letters too

18th Dec - got 13th tooth - Right singa pal.

19th Dec - Counted from 1 -20 (leaving 15 and 17) Funny :)

Can recognize cat, elephant, drum, house etc if i draw (keep in mind that i'm a bit artistically challenged!)

Ashu and Aj both got their mottai on 11th DEC! Ashu was cool with it. He said it was just ticklish. Aj was crying a bit. Nothing compared to how ashu cried during his first mottai. Balaji was able to manage aj all by himself, whereas 5 of us had to hold ashu down during his first mottai. He cried so much that janani started crying along :-)

I will do a separate post on our india trip..it'll be a long post.

Quick update!!

Aj sang january february completely on 15th nov :) and Aj can recognize 25/26 alphabets..YAY!!

Atlanta...

Haven't been able to post regularly. It's quite hectic and i won't blame it on india trip. I haven't even started shopping yet. So, i dont know where the time is going. As the kids are growing they are getting to be more demanding.

On our wedding anniversary, I sang january february and aj completed the rest of the months. Ofcourse he could not say some of the months properly. Like for October he says something that starts with Oc. :) But, good job aj.

Now an update on our Atlanta trip. We left of friday and the drive was not all that great because it was too foggy. Kids were okay, so we were enjoying some music (ellam kids music dhaan!!) and all of a sudden Ashu started crying. We were just 5 minutes away from the hotel. Asked him why he was crying and he said 'it feels like i have been sitting in the car for 16 hours!' . I didnt know whether to laugh or cry :)

He was happy the next day though. He always has a soft corner for Atlanta. So do i. My appa used to always ask us to move to Atlanta for good coz he loved Atlanta too. We got up late as we had reached Atlanta quite late the previous night and then we decided to leave for lunch. I picked Saravana bhavan. Naaka thonga pottundu pona, everything had garlic in it..Yuck :(
Looks like the management has changed. First of all, they made us wait for 1 hour and aj adhukkula ennai kuthuyirum kolaiuyiruma aakirundhaan, atleast food-aanum yummy-a irukkumnu paatha..nondhu noodle-a poitten :( The funny part was, we had ordered idli for aj and when the idly came (finally), aj gave one look at the plate and started crying. Crying-na literally kadhari kadhari azhugai. Apram somehow we managed to feed him. Oru vazhiya velila vandhapram, B said he will take us to Macys for shopping..Appodhan konjam gift-kaana ariguriye therinjudhu ;-) But, suddenly he detoured and took me to the indian jewellery store. I was really surprised because till then he was harassing me by talking as if 10th anniversary was no big deal. So, i had no hopes for any gift :-) He got me diamond earrings and pendant set.

From there we went to the Balaji temple, the temple that appa wanted to visit, but we couldn't go there at the time. It was nice. After coming back to cookeville, someone told me that there was a Lord Shiva temple adjacent to it and we didn't know about it. Next time.

We went to Daddy's school on Sunday. Ashu loved it. He was so excited and awestruck to see how BIG the school is!! Me too. I am also glad that nobody can say that 'naan mazhaikku kooda college pakkam odhungala u.s.lanu'. I have proof, u see :) Aj had this naughty grin in his face through out our stay in the school. Donno what he was thinking :-) Dude was upto something!!
They had vending machine full of juice, cold coffee etc..Little dude style-a poi oru juice bottle eduthundudhu. The school was really awesome. Enga Sarada Vidyalaya alavukku illanaalum nanna dhaan irukku..okay okay manasatchi kuthiduthu. School was beautiful. Anga poittu vandhadhe perumaya irukku. Again playing it safe..yaarum enna anga padikka sollida koodadhu illa?

Mazhaikku odhingunadhunaalayo ennavo, i was more attracted by the break room than anything else. Break room was awesome with two BIG screen t.vs! :) Super-o super. One thing that made my jaws drop to the floor was they had a bar in the break room and all the alcoholic drinks were free too. Konjam over-a illai. But, good thing is i heard nobody takes it as they can't afford to goto sleep with back to back assignments. So, some sadistic guy must've designed this break room. Ellarayum seendi vittu paakaran :)

Oh, last but not the least, on our way back we went to a new restaurent called Madras Chettinad. Awesome food. Even Ashu said it was good, which is very rare u see. Over all, the unplanned Atlanta trip was good :-)

Sugar Sweet Veshamam and Smarty Pants!

Last friday (7th Nov), i tried to bake cookies from the scratch. I got the recipe from Tarla dalal's book and followed it to a T. What a disaster it was!! :-O I had my doubts at the start because the cookie dough looked thin having the consistency of dosa batter.

I just thought the recipe is from the famous chef TD so it has to be right and made it. The cookies ran over and formed one big rectangle and i could not even take it out of the pan :-O Anyways, i got so frustrated and i just dumped the cookies and put the sugar and the other ingredients on the counter top and went to the living room without cleaning the mess up. Aj is very good at sensing mess even if it is not in his vicinity. He promptly went to the kitchen and dumped the whole box of sugar on the floor! :-O

I heard something and came to the kitchen and there he was playing with the sugar on the floor, drawing something on it. Before cleaning it, just for the heck of it i put some sugar in his mouth and he realized it was sweet and tried to gobble up as much as he can before i got the broom and pan. It was so funny. He was quite mad when i cleaned the whole mess and dumped it in the trash can.

Ashu got his Karate outfit last week and i still haven't taken a picture of him in it. Bad Mommy! Anyways, he is doing awesome in Karate class. He loves cub scouts also. He won a prize for answering a question in cub scouts. They asked what the state tree of Tennessee was and he was the only one who knew the answer. I think it is Tulip poplar, i need to verify with him. They gave him a book of Trees.

Now to an election joke. From the beginning, Ashu kept supporting Obama. If we ask why he would just say i dont know, but he is going to win! Josiyam paaka polaam ;-) Anyways, couple of days back when i was driving the kids back home and was waiting at lights, the car in front of us had two stickers. One said 'NObama' and the other said 'McCain Palin'. Ashu grunted unhappily looking at it and i asked him why. He said, they should remove those stickers and stick
new stickers that said 'GObama' and 'McCain Falin' as we all know Palin failed! I thought it was too funny and when i told B he could not stop laughing. Obama camp should have hired Ashu for some negative campaigning! :D

Aj now identifies few letters. When our maids came on wednesday, he went to the vaccuum cleaner that said Oreck XL21 and pointed to O and said O and then pointed to 21 and said 2, 1 :-) On Friday, Ms. Casey was wearing a pink shirt and he promptly pointed to it and said Back (black). Atleast he knows when people are wearing solids, those are colours :-) That's a good improvement!

Short and Sweet...

Aj can sing abcs fully yay! :)

Ashu got his karate uniform. he looks very cute :)

Romba hectic-a irukku..so telegram maari oru post ;-)


Releasing soon...
aj's sugar-sweet veshamam later and Ashu's cubscout achievement too...
Also a mega serial of my sondha kadhai soga kadhai on baking.. ;-(

Diaper Genies

That's how B refers to the kids since they started doing smart things when they were/are still in diapers ;-) Btw, if you are wondering where he got that name from, it was the brand name of the diaper pail that i have :-)
On thursday, Ashu sat down with daddy and prepared his own time table. I should say he was overly optimistic. He said he can get up at 7 and still manage to do everything, have his breakfast and milk and be ready at 7.30!! He had marked 1 minute for breakfast and 30 seconds for milk...hahaha..rofl...And on friday, when he got up it was back to square one.
He was just sitting and staring at the milk from 7 to 7.15 and B said what happened to his timetable and i started laughing. He came to me after B went to the bathroom and secretly asked me to tear off his timetable!! Dude learnt his lesson in one day! :-)

On Friday, when i dropped AJ in daycare, Ms. Allison was wearing a t.shirt that said Resurfaced. He touched 's' and said 's'. We both were awestruck and we thought it was probably a fluke, but he touched e then and said 'e' and 'r' and said 'r'. He did this 3 or 4 times and then he touched the 'u' next to 's' and said 't' ;-) Atleast he knows 't' comes after 's'.
Ms. Allison said he will probably start reading before moving out of the orange room :-)
Later she said she tried showing some letters from a chart and he recognized few more. Li'l due is on a roll...

Now both A and a (Uppercase (A) for Ashu and lowercase (a) for AJ ;-)) both are fond of kalyana samayal sadham song. I just sang it one day to make AJ stop crying and he loved it. I sang 4 or 5 times after that and both can sing that song. A sings more and 'a' sings like fill in the blanks. He completes each line of the entire song!! ;-)

Funnies

Before going to the party on sunday, i kept some of the besan burfi in the counter top for us. I had put it in a ziploc box and closed it tight. On monday, i gave some for Ashu and a small piece for Aj. I was scared to give him more because i vaguely remembered my mil telling me that kids dont digest besan well. I put the box back on the counter top and went to the living room. Aj went back to the kitchen and tried to get it. He couldn't reach and he opened the drawer that has plastic boxes, pulled one out out and climbed on it and got the box of burfis. He brought it to me and asked me to open and took a big piece! He loved it and i was so proud of my burfi.
He refused to eat dinner and that's a different story!!

Again on tuesday, he was trying to get something from the countertop and i had hidden all the stools away. He casually pulled a big plastic box and climbed on it and got what he wanted!! I got so mad at him and said 'Aj mandalaye onnu poduven' and he innocently started saying 'tuesday wednesday...etc' on hearing mandey :D We all started laughing and he looked puzzled. Ashu said, 'he seems to know too much for his age'..as if he knows everything about babies...4,5 pera kozhandhai edutha kezhavan maari oru comment. konjam too much :D

I asked Ashu what he did in LEAPS on tuesday (last week) and he said they asked them to play a game in computer lab and he didn't complete it because he didn't have time. I asked if none of them finished and he said all the others finished, but he didn't have time. I asked him if he wasted his time talking and he said yes. I told him that he shouldn't keep talking like this and he will end up with incomplete work everywhere. He casually replied, 'i know that mommy, but i dont know why i talk though!' Ha! Nice excuse, maybe i should try that too ;-) Sounds so much like Dennis the Menace...I should quit reading that!

We are getting K TV now. I noticed that on saturday and i thought it's probably a free preview for the weekend. We usually get free previews of one of the desi channels once in a while. It's 4 days and we still have it..Hmmm, i got worried and i asked B to check if aj ordered it by mistake.I dont know if B checked it or not! We have had these things happen with Ashu. Ashu had ordered Curious George, The wild, etc on Pay per view when we left him with my inlaws and went furniture shopping. They didn't know about it and he milagai arachified them :-)
We locked the 'order' button but K TV was one of the green channels that doesn't require interaction and the lock is not effective on those. Those channels can be added with just one hit!

Super Stars!!

Today was the Diwali party and that means...the Fashion show and the Dance event. I was soooo nervous that Ashu will forget his steps because last 3 days of practice, all he did was to goof around with his friends and not concentrate on the steps or the song to remember to change the steps. Guess what! He did awesome! All of them were awesome. He didn't forget the steps and infact, he reminded Hiren to join hands at the end. But, it can't be flawless isn't it? In the beginning of the song, he had to move out of the circle and join his partner Swarali and he went to Tanvi instead. It was funny, but he quickly realized and went to Swarali.

We didnt take the camera or camcorder as they confused us by saying they've arranged for video and photos. Almost everyone had their own cameras and camcorders! Sigh! But, i will nag my friends and get the copies :)

Last but not the least, Fashion show was terrific! Both looked great. Aj was so funny and cute. He went and stood in the middle of the stage and was standing like a statue, posing for the cameras. Ashu was looking very handsome and walked only half the stage and turned back hurriedly during the first round. Second round he had to hold hands with Shweta and walk as a couple. While returning back he left her hand and walked fast, leaving her behind!! Mrunal was making fun of me saying 'your son left my daughter' :-)

On Friday, we had the dress rehearsal at Swati's house and wow, what a chaos it was. Aj refused to wear the kurta. He was in dhoti type bottom and T.shirt. Looking like a Telugu movie hero!! Considering that i had no hopes today that he would wear his kurta and he did. Ashu's group did the dance okay on Friday. Not their best, but today they were awesome! I got them the rewards that i promised them. Girls got the Cinderalla light up pen with bubbles and stamp. Boys got the batman pen with whistle. They were very happy.

All said and done about the cultural show, i have to tell you my soga kadhai. I comitted to make Besan Burfi for the party. I had never prepared that before. Actually, i haven't even eaten it before..so no idea how it would look. I assumed that it should be something like Mysore pak, which it was, but the process was worse than the pain in the rear!! Last week being so crazy with me running around the town, taking ashu for his practice, Karate and Leaps, i ended up making it only at 11 pm last night for today's party. It took me an hour and i ended up with terrible pain in my arm. But, the pain was worth it. It was so good and there was not a single piece left. Even Ashu came and took 4 pieces of it, which is very rare!! :-)

Yesterday was Amit's birthday party and Aj was fully charged like the energizer bunny and was going on and on and on with his veshamams there. When nobody was looking, he digged in the cake and all red-faced! Almost everyone commented on how active and naughty he is (like we didn't know before!). People came and asked me and B what we feed him and i was tempted to say 'Beer!' ;-) They came to a conclusion that something's crazy in our house that we ended up with two naughty boys who are T3 and T4 (Terminator 3 and 4!). He continued his veshamam today and kept me on my toes the whole day..I can barely walk now!! :-(

Mottai paapavin attagasangal...

Aj's veshamam is getting...toooo much! On friday, i forgot to mention that when i was sitting in the living room sipping my tea, enjoying my short break(which was shorter lived), aj went silently into the kitchen, pulled the stool near the countertop, climbed on it and was pouring the oil from the oil pot to the plate which was next to it. There was a trail of oil from the pot to the plate and i spent next few minutes cleaning it. So much for the short break...Seriously though, i will go crazy without the short break :-) It is really a tea time kushi for me...



Yday, lucky dude (B) was sleeping in the afternoon and Ashu was in his room reading a book and i was cooking in the kitchen after i put the pebbles cd for little dude. He was awfully quiet. It was the calm before the storm kinda quiet. So, i took a peek into the living room and there he was taking each and every post it strip from the marker pen and sticking it on the t.v and then scribbled something with the marker on the t.v.!! Maybe he was writing reminders for the t.v shows and marking it with the post its!!

Can you see the drawing with the pink marker on the TV?

After yday, we both started saying 'Ashu nallavaru, vallavaru..' We used to think Ashu was the naughtiest kid in the universe and Aj makes him look real saadhu!!

TGIF....

TGIF stands for Thank God it's friday (although it is technically Saturday now..it's 12:19 now!) Anyways, i saw this wording in the church nearby and it put a smile on my face ...

TGIF - Thank God I'm Forgiven. Cute, eh?

We were all lazing around in the evening and AJ was the exception and was roaming around the house :-) After some time, he sat down in the corner of the living room where i keep the juice box pack so i won't forget to put it in Ashu's bag in the morning. He started taking one by one out and i was still cool with it because even Ashu and I find it difficult to poke a hole in it with a straw and sometimes goto B and get it opened. I thought as long as he's quiet and playing with it i am okay and started enjoying some t.v time. Wouldn't you know that i get punished immediately if i watch TV :-) I heard some slurping and i turned my head to find AJ sipping the juice from one of the boxes. He had opened the straw from the wrap, poked the hole and started drinking! I was really dumbstruck! Ashu and B too. After few sips he started shaking the rest of the juice on the carpet and threw the pack and decided to open the next pack! If only our carpet has a mouth, it will cry so much :(

Later, when i was talking to my mil, he brought two onions from the basket and was peeling the skin. It was 11:30 in the night and i decided to let him handle the breakfast tomorrow ;-) What do u say? :D

Aj can say sunday - saturday. Yay!

It sounds more like



sunday, monday, tooshday, weshday, thashday fiday, satututday :-)



Ashu missed his Karate class today. Poor dude is sick :( He started with fever yday and missed going to Beverly hills chihuahua. He did something funny yesterday. He slept off in the couch since he was sick and we didn't want to wake him immediately and send him to bed. We sat down and were watching the Presidential debate. Aj started troubling me and then i had to do the dishes also.So, i went to kitchen half way thro'. After i was done with the work, i came back and asked B who did better in the debate and Ashu answered 'Obama', without even opening his eyes :-D and continued saying 'Obama is going to win the election' and fell asleep right away. It was soooo funny :)

Partyyyyy after the circus saga...

After the circus saga, we had a quiet friday. When i say quiet, u should understand that it is just relative ;-) Saturday was okay as B was returning from Atlanta and that kept me going and as soon as he came, we went to a birthday party.It was Yash's 4th bday and his sis Anou's 1st bday. They were both born on Oct 11th, cool eh?

Ashu had a blast. It was at the new indian restaurent and it is not complete yet, so the kids (big ones) had lot of space to play.Aj was busy as usual. Getting thro' the nook and corner of every table that was close to the wall. Maybe he's reminding me that i need to shed few pounds ;-) He was playing with Kalyani and Shivani for most part...There were 3 other kids around his age and they were quiet and sitting like laddoos making me Jealous of their moms who were happily chatting ;-) Well...Aj was a laddooo too, but a rolling laddu :-) People were asking me what i feed him because he was full of energy. They also commented (or cursed) that he looked so energetic that he might not sleep before 1 in the night! He did stay up till 12, though!!

I taught him Farmer in the dell about 2, 3 weeks back and he loved it. He didnt repeat a single word though when i sang it to him. After few times he lost the fascination for the song and we moved on to the next and then to the next..and so on..Yday, i went back to this song
while changing his diaper to keep him still and i was so surprised that he remembered each and every thing in the correct order. Ashu got so excited.

The song goes like this and Aj sang the words highlighted in blue...at the right place, at the right time :-)

Farmer in the dell
Farmer in the dell
Hi-ho the dairy-ho the
Farmer in the dell

Farmer takes his wife
Farmer takes his wife
Hi...ho....

Wife takes the child
Wife takes the child
Hi-ho the...

Child takes the nurse
Child takes the nurse
Hi...ho...

Nurse takes the dog
Nurse takes the dog
Hi...ho...

Dog takes the cat
Dog takes the cat
Hi...ho...

Cat takes the rat (vat)
Cat takes the rat (vat)
hi. ho...

Rat takes the cheese
Rat takes the cheese...
hi..ho...

Cheese stays alone (vone)
Cheese stays alone...(vone)
hi...ho...the dairy ho the
cheese stays alone

Ashu is a total mama's boy - mostly. The rebel in him pops out quite often after he started school.I think it's the age. I tried telling him nicely that throwing tantrums will not get what he wants. Nope..didn't work.He was all over me and took advantage of the fact that i was being nice. Then, as a next step we had screaming matches.It was a lose-lose situation and didn't go well with me. I am not the kind who can yell and just walk away. I sit and brood over it for hours and
it ruins the whole day for me. Now, what is the next tactic? I record his favorite programs in DVR and if he throws a tantrum which is not reasonable, i delete a program. This works like magic, mostly. It is not nice, but i've learnt that nice doesn't work with boys! :)

Sunday monday...little dude

Little dude can say 'Sunday, Monday, Tooshday, Weshday' now. Awesome, isn't it? He calls everyone in the daycare as honey (including the teachers! )..We need to watch out ;-)



He says lot more words...and few sentences too.

Some of the sentences that came to my mind now are :



Caa sheys meom (Cat says meow)

Whash gonan wok teamwok (What's gonna work, team work)


Ashu tried cartwheels today and he's almost there :) Me proud of him :D

Circus Saga

As you all know, B is in Atlanta this week and we had Circus yesterday. It was only one day as it was a mobile circus. I had no plans of taking them at first. Somewhere down the road, this guilt feeling creeped inside me that i didn't take Aj to any fun place this summer. Actually, we did take him to NJ and to the central park there, but that didn't strike me until it was too late ;-) So to overcome the guilt, i decided to take them to the circus all by myself. I mentioned it to my friend S and asked her if she wanted to join me and she happily (Poor thing!) accepted and we were all happy and set. Btw, i was so determined to take them even if nobody was accompanying me. I dont know what i ate or drank...I was completely out of my mind :-O Anyways, yesterday afternoon when we were making plans on where to meet and at what time, S's roomie K stopped by and she overheard Circus and was all excited and said she wanted to come with us too. More the merrier. We all left at 6.45 and reached there by 7.15 after finding a good parking space. So far so good...As soon as we entered fairgrounds, we saw the cages where the tigers were locked up. The tigers were walking inside the cages majestically and Aj got so excited to see them and screamed 'Dokky Dokky (Doggy, doggy)'. Poor tigers! What a great insult to them! :-) We proceeded and found a place to sit and lo and behold! Aj got all hyper! Ashu was so good, thankfully. Aj didn't want to sit in one place. The circus was supposed to start at 7.30 and there was no sign of it. Finally there started few minutes shy of 8 and that didn't control Aj either. He was way too wiggly and trying to squirm out of my hands. He didn't bother to even turn his eyes towards the circus and what was the reason we came to the circus in the first place? Sigh!

Halfway thro' the circus, K got Ashu a light up sword and Aj kept snatching it from Ashu and that made the quieter one angry. I started feeling that the time wasn't moving. And to add fuel to the fire they gave a long break. I gave aj to S and took ashu to get popcorn. He cried and created a scene and made S come looking for me. By now, she must've regretted coming with us :( Poor girls! :-) Finally, the circus ended with an accident. Three bikes inside the cage fell one on top of the other :( The crowd started moving and we didn't know if anyone got hurt badly. We left the circus too. We took Chalupas as takeout from Taco bell and went to S's, had dinner and reached home at 11 in the night! After all this i feel that i should get 'Puraskar' award for being so brave! :-)

Dance baby dance

We are having a party on 26th Oct for Diwali and they enrolled Ashu for dance and Aj for kiddie fashion show. I didn't goto that meeting since i was sick and i am thanking my lucky stars that they didn't count me in for ladies dance :D Well, if i think about it, the audience should thank their lucky stars...Naan aadi yaar paakardhu..if i dance, hollywood, bollywood etc will come to a stunning halt!!

Anyways, i took Ashu to their first dance practice and i had my doubts that he might end up dancing like Bhagyaraj as he has never attempted to dance before. It's not in his genes either!!

Now comes the tough part! Aj's fashion show ramp walk. I am supposed to dress him up in some traditional outfit and make him walk. He has a kurta, so outfit is not a problem. Once he wears that...he might end up screaming in high pitch, drowning the VandeMataram song they are planning to have as the BGM! I am saying this because of my previous experience at the photo studio. He was really irritated with the kurta and refused to sit for the photo. It could also be because of the photographer. Whatever it is, wish me all the luck!

Polambal

I'm sooo irritated..For the passion i have for footwear, i can't even find a single pair of footwear that fits me good! Sigh! If the footwear looks good it doesn't fit and if it fits, it is sooooo ugly. Grrr! On friday, i wore a new pair of sandals to work. They were so pretty, but i ended up with bad shoe bite and i couldn't even walk. I went home during lunch time to change them. I went with B and on our way back he was trying to irritate me because he was bored. I got so mad at him and said i will just walk to work instead of going with him and he said " Why don't you walk wearing those pretty sandals! " I couldn't control my laughter on hearing that, but i still managed to put on a mad face! :D

I took Ashu for his Karate trial class and he loved it. He did good. I could observe only for few minutes as Aj started running around and i started chasing him! The Karate teacher told me later that he focused good and is very flexible which is good. One thing i noticed was that he didn't have enough strength to do certain things. Hopefully this will help him become strong! He's starting his first class this thursday. It's also fall break this week and next week and he will be going to Victory gymnastics and is pretty excited about it.

I took the kids to Urvi's birthday party at the children's museum. Kids had a blast. Ashu was playing with his friends and Aj was exploring the museum. He was attracted to the tic tac toe on the wall. They had Xs and Os with velcro strips and he was holding the X and kept saying Y :-) Ashu says 'It was close!' :-) They really enjoyed a lot and i am thinking of taking them there often. It's a small place, but pretty neat with decent amount of stuff to explore!

Today i taught 1,2,3,4,5 once i caught a fish alive song and Aj sings it so well...in chinese! :-)
He sings 1,2,3,4,5..chinese..chinese..fish chinese. It is very sweet to listen to. It's also amazing that he fills the words he can say at the right spots. Ashu and I get a kick out of it. You should listen to itsy bitsy spider. Except for the 1/2 line everything is chinese, but the action is perfect and is pretty funny. In Gannu mama's style, it is like watching super subarayan :) Ashu literally rolls on the floor laughing when aj sings itsy bitsy.

October is here...

It's just october and it is already cold! Brrr!


Yday, I went to work at 9 after dropping aj at the daycare and at 9.30 they called me saying aj is rubbing his eye and there was a case of pink eye in his class. I went back and took him to the doctor. Doctor said he has mild pink eye and gave some eyedrops. He troubled me soooo much when we were waiting there. First few minutes he was awesome. Happy and playful. After 5 minutes he wanted to get out of the room and walk around and open all the trash cans he found on the way! He was crying so much that one nurse took pity on me and called the doctor and asked him to check AJ first. Don't know if she took pity on me or wanted to get rid of us :D

Reason for crying : He had runny nose and wanted to wipe it on my shirt and not in the tissue paper! Go figure!

They are taking Ashu to Autumn Acres today (2-oct) for pumpkin patch. He's pretty excited about that. B gave him money to buy a book from the book fair too. So, doubly excited.
He did something funny yday though. Just before he got down from the car, he asked B to give him 3.99 to buy a book and B had change and he gave him $4. Ashu came back
with a long face in the evening and said..They said the book was 3.99 and i got $4 from appa and now they say i need to bring the tax money too. I was ROFL. B didn't realize the cost of the book was 3.99. He thought Ashu wanted 3.99 totally.

Back to square 1

Gubaanzi left yesterday and we are back to the good old boring routine :-( Grrr....
Time flies fast when we don't want it to. Bro left early in the morning and when he told bye, Ashu was sleeping and said bye in his sleep. When he woke up he was looking quite upset and then was okay after talking to mama again over the phone. The previous night he was telling my bro that the alarm won't ring and we will all sleep and gubaanzi will miss the flight and will have to stay with us :-) Both kids didn't trouble me at all over the weekend. I guess that's because they had their attention on gubaanzi ;-) When Bro was playing Nintendo, aj kept repeating after him saying yed, boo, back, yeyyo after him. In case you are wondering what the heck they are...red, blue, black and yellow. It's a game where you have read the colour of the word loud (not the word).

B is back and Gubaanzi is here :-)

B came in the morning and Ashu was ore konjals after coming from school. Aj was so surprised to see B. We went to pick up Bro at the airport today. Ashu was jumping around all excited - like a then kudicha nari from evening. I thought Aj won't goto Bro since he was showing stranger anxiety with Shivani, but surprisingly he was fine and started talking to him in chinese. Showed his colours in woodlands though! Didn't let us have our dinner peacefully. He was fussy and wanted to run around. On the way, he slept off. We will know his actual reaction to mama tomorrow.

Jan was asking me if aj was just her cousin or Gau's cousin too. I forgot to ask her if she had any argument with Gau and why she was suddenly asking that question :-)

Wishful thinking...DWTS and Vadivelu dialogues

The post is as bad as the title...Abdul kalam-kkum amavasai-kkum enna sammandham..type of post..All irrelevant stuff in one post :-)

B is returning from SFO tomorrow morning and my Bro is coming in the evening. Yay!
Ashu is pretty excited about it. Everyday he keeps telling aj, "Guess who's coming this friday..appa and gubaanzi (that's how they call their mama! like chinni jayant!!)".

I think i have mentioned earlier about Aj's craze for kungfu panda. Now when we say kungfu he says 'panta'.There is a 3pack rhymes cd that B got him from India and i put it on when i cook so he won't trouble me. There is one particular rhyme (can't remember the words) where a cat comes and aj says meom meom and starts sobbing. Poor little guy. Don't know what is bothering him when he is seeing that. First time he did that i thought he was sleepy and crying and saying meom because he saw a cat. He did that the second time when that rhyme came and i got a doubt and put it again and he did the same thing. he kitty doesn't even look ugly or scary. it looks cute only. If only we can understand what babies think...

That makes me wonder why babies are not born with user manuals, sleep button and mute button. Actually even i can go for a sleep button as i have hard time falling asleep.
Wishful thinking! (Haiyyaa..title vandhuduthu :-))

Aj can count upto 10 now. Yay! It's over a week since he started counting till 10 and i'm updating only now! Y'day, Shivani came in the evening and she said one and he started from one and counted till 10 and didn't wait for others to applaud. H said yay and clapped for himself. My babies are nowhere near modest :-) Ashu was the same way and used to clap for himself.
Funny thing about numbers is, when you ask aj how old he is, the answer is mon (one) and if you ask how are you - again the answer is mon. He's confused with both the questions. He used to sing Om namo eieio, now he's trying narayanaya. Shivani wanted to watch Dasavataram, but we both ended up chatting and didn't watch. After sometime when i turned around Ashu was sitting wide eyed and watching it. When i turned it off, he got so mad at me! :-) He's somewhat fascinated with this movie! God only knows what he understands!


DWTS is back and i couldn't even watch it for a second. GGRRRR...I kept getting phone calls and aj kept troubling me..I've recorded it so i can watch it later. I dont know who all are participating. Hope Julianne hough is still there..

Vadivelu is one of the guys who i cannot tolerate one bit. But, as much as i dont like him, i have started using his dialogues so much now...Infact, i start and end the day with his dialogues. With all the morning rush, by the time i drop both the kids it feels like end of the day already and i say "Uss habaa...ippove kanna kattudhe' at 8.30 in the morning!! And after all the work is done and i hit the bed at around 12, aj wakes up and i end the day crying like Vadivelu...awooo :-(

Late slip

Today i was so tired..that i decided to chill out and take it easy. We reached school only at 8.05 and got a late slip. Are you wondering why i'm saying this here proudly as if i got some award? Well...i'm wondering the same too :-) I think it's the influence of Ashu. The first time he got late slip he was holding it like a trophy, up in the air and walked to the class all proud and happy ;-)
I told him later that it was not something to be proud of..

When i dropped ashu today, AJ just refused to come out of his class. He kept running back to ashu's class screaming ABC ABC. If it is his own room, he screams and runs outside!! Guess this can be Newton's 4th law :-)

When i went to pick up AJ in the afternoon, he was finishing up with his party food. Oh yeah..they had a birthday party today for the daycare as it's the daycare's birthday. He was drinking his juice and when he saw me, he dropped it on the table and said 'Aaa done' (alldone) and got up. It was too cute.

Ashu wore his new shoes (Transformer shoes) to school today and was buttering me up for getting those. He came and said ' Mommy they must've pumped up some air in this cause i feel tall' :-) Y'day when i took him to shop for shoes, i told him that i want to buy something for jan, gau and srinithi. He said okay and on the way to the kids section i stopped in the ladeis section for a minute and he said sarcastically ' Mommy, i dont think this is kids size' GRRR! ....

Ashwinism again...

Today we went out and came back only at 8. Ashu was tired and cranky and so was Aj. Great eh? :-) Anyways, when i gave him dinner, he was in an irritated mood and to rub salt on it, AJ came and grabbed his water and drank it. Ashu lost it and started crying angrily. Later, i told him that he should not get so angry at such young age and should count from 1 to 25 and that will help him get rid of his anger. He was so upset with that suggestion and asked me to suggest something else. I told him how about 'A-Z'. He got so mad at me and said "Mommy, that's 26 letters. I wanted you to suggest something better and you are suggesting something worse!" ROFL! My brother called me at the same time and was laughing at this joke and then told Ashu to count form 25 - 1 and that ticked him off even more :-)



Aj says 'awchom' like kungfu panda..wonder what it is! It is Awesome! :) He has started repeating a lot after us. Cutest of all is...'caa se meom'..for cat says meow :)

Face painting

After AJ drew all over the hallway wall with a dark pencil, i managed to keep every pencil and crayon out of his reach. He managed to find a flourescent highlighter today and had painted all over his face. After few minutes, it faded on his face and looked like he put turmeric on his face. I tried to wash it out with water and no use! :-( boohoo. Thankfully after i gave him a bath it went away! Thank God it wasnt a permanent marker!!

Today i was trying to chat with Vinod thro' Skype and it wasn't working, so i kept saying Hello hello and AJ gave me a look and went and got me the phone and put it near my ear and said 'Havo'. I guess he thought i was just screaming hello hello without a phone! :D

Ashu was troubling me by clicking on emoticons. He's so mad about emoticons..i figured that i cannot fix skype or anything for that matter when these two are near me ;-)

No no no no...

Whenever Aj tries to do something that is off limits - like pulling the dvd player or turning on/off the t.v., i say 'aj nnnnooo'. Now, while doing those things and he keeps saying 'nnnooo' and continues to do it :-( Just like his big bro. Great!

Ashu had a great week at school.

Joys of parenthood!

The scholastics book order form was due today at AJ's daycare. I told ashu that i will order some books and he said "Don't worry mommy. I took care of it for you. I have filled in the form already". Huh?! After he left to school, i checked the order form and he had filled in books for probably $100 or $150.. Yeah right! :-)

I got a new form from AJ's teacher to fill in later..Thank God! he doesn't know to use credit card yet!! Well, atleast that's what i think :-)

Little dude got up early today - all by himself. So, i was thanking my lucky stars that i would reach office at a decent time. After feeding him, getting him ready i said 'AJ let's go down and put on your shoes'. He gave me a look, climbed up sofa, put his head on the armrest and said ' Thaachu'... :-)

Yesterday, B was fixing the pc and the kids were in the same room with him, so i went to the living room thinking i can watch some t.v. without any disturbance. After 2 minutes i heard some noise - sounded like somebody was grating something and i thought B must be doing something to fix the computer and B thought i was probably grating carrots in the kitchen. After few seconds he called out to check if i was grating something. I said no and walked into the hallway to find Aj fiercefully scribbling on the wall with a pencil. He was holding it like an "uli" and doing it. I asked Ashu if he gave him his pencil and Ashu said he stole it from him :-O

Goldilocks and the 3 bears!

Ashu went to his cubscout meeting on Thursday (9/11) and was all proud about it since he was wearing the cubscout uniform for the first time. When they returned from the meeting, ashu came to me and said..er...announced that i wont be seeing him and B for 3 days since they are leaving on Friday for the cubscouts camp will return only on Sunday. I was GRRR! Slowly he added that if i want i can bring aj and join them too as family is welcome. Ok...less Grrr now, but i started panicking 'cause it was a very short notice and i didn't know what all to pack and how AJ would do...how i will finish doing all the laundry before leaving...etc..etc. I was as usual lamenting about it and there was no reaction or sympathy from neither B nor Ashu. They both were infact very excited about the camp. Later in the night i asked B what all we need to pack and he said they will send a list next week. Next week?!! Huh? But we have to leave tomorrow...He was ROFL asking who said it's this weekend? I said Ashu. He continued to laugh after giving me the "look"! Looks like the camp is only in October.
The dude set me on panic mode for nothing! Phew! I asked B why he didn't say anything when i was lamenting about packing on friday, finishing laundry on friday,etc..etc.
He said he thought i am already panicking for that week in october!! :-P

Next is the torture from the little dude. Why would the little dude spare me when the bigger ones trouble me..He woke me at 11:30 in the night and made me hold the blanket high up in the air so he could talk to the kitty picture in the blanket for 10 mins. All he talked to the kitty was 'meom' and 'meom' continuously for 10 mins and whenever i lowered the blanket by even an inch, he started crying very dramatically!

I am Goldilocks stuck with 3 bullying bears :-) (Now i can jump up and down like SV Shekar saying 'Title vandhuduthu' :-))

One more funny thing aj did was to try and open the trash can as usual. I had locked it so he couldn't open. I thought he would throw a tantrum, but he went to the dining room, dragged the stepstool near the trashcan, sat on it comfortably and was trying very hard for 5 mins to open it. Then he gave up. It was really funny :-)

Hats off to who ever invented the Trash can with lock!!

Big Hug!

I said more later...didn't I? :-) Today when i went to pick up Aj, he came to me and gave a big hug and said 'Bick Huck' like teletubbies. It was soooo sweet :-) I just had to write it in this blog.

Here's more update on his language skills!


Aj has started singing lot more than before.
Here's his version of rhymes! :-)

this little piggy went to the
Aj : maakut
this little piggy stayed
Aj: home
this little piggy had some roast
Aj : tapata
this little piggy had
aj : none
this little piggy went all the way home crying
aj : wee wee

waa yu we yu baby for what do we do team work :-) this is from wonderpets

aw we yeyee
yune moyee for are we ready to clown around with loonette and molly (from big comfy couch)

some chinese in wheels on the bus goes and
says 'shh shh shh' aa thoo the town'

Ashu came and asked if i knew what Tusunaami is ..(for Tsunami) and he explained it so well in comparison with volcano :-)

Long time no see...

Our Dell PC conked and i am using our stone age IBM which is way too slow. I really dont have the patience to use it..so no update in over a week. Also, work was too hectic. Really! :-) Yaar kannu pattudho..boo hoo...

Anyways, coming back to the kids. They are doing good. Ashu started his cubscouts and is very excited about it. He's gonna get his uniform today. As usual he is getting 100s in most of the tests and 96 and 94 with careless mistakes in couple of them! Ms. West said he's smart, but is talkative. Guess it runs in the family!!

We took them to the Fall funfest on saturday and Ashu had a blast!!



He tried his hands on all the musical instruments at the instrument petting zoo. He tried tuba, violin and flute. He told that lady he has played violin at school and both me and B were totally surprised. He has never, i mean NEVER mentioned that to us. When i asked him later he said, actually the teacher let him try Cello one time and not violin. I had to leave in few minutes after that as i got paged. But he had a blast.







Here's AJ collecting his goodies. Poor dude, didn't have much to do except sit in the stroller and watch his brother.



AJ was so excited when he saw this cutout of Teletubbies.
He was screaming TT YAAYYAA PO :-)



Ashu was totally impressed and happy with the fall funfest and raving about it all weekend.
Now there will be more activities for him till october end, then the cruel winter will start!
More later..little dude is troubling me...

Yeh dil maange more...

Aj wants to talk so much and his mouth is not cooperating as much. it's too cute to watch him try though. I think he remembers all his favorite rhymes and songs and when it comes out, it ends up being chinese in the same tune.

Yday we took both kids to the doctor - Followup for ashu and 18mo checkup for Aj.
Aj wanted to get out as usual, so i carried him in the hip and was pretending like i was dancing with him - like i always do at home when he cries. I used to sing Wags the Dog song and end it with a tune tantan tada tantan tada tan tan. I was quiet since it was the clinic and aj sang something gibberish and ended it with tantan tada tan tan.
He loves playing 'Round and round the mulberry bush' with ashu..he laughs so much when ashu falls down for 'Pop goes the weasel'. In the evening, he wanted to play that and he held his hand out for ashu and said mubeesh bus...taan (for mulberry bush..pop) :-)
It just reminds me of how i feel on weekends..In my heart i want to do sooo much, but my body just doesn't cooperate! :-) Yeh dil maange more!!

His itsy bitsy spider goes like this 'ishhy bishhy bobar..chinese chinese...' but all actions are appropriate at the right time.

Ashu's follow up was good. He was very well behaved and kept aj busy when we were talking to the doctor.

Aj was as usual in full form. He, as usual charmed the nurses with his big Hi and non stop talking. When the nurse said good boy he said bye bye ;-) There is a commercial in TV where a guy says Hi to two people and aj always thinks he says Hi to him and goes near the t.v and says a friendly hi to him. Also if anybody says good morning he returns it politely - 'Maay maay'.

I got Ashu's test papers from last week. Math - all 100. English 2 100s and 1 - 96 and 1- 94. It was because he missed '.' at the end of each sentence! Wow! They are strict! ;-)

Today was picture day for Ashu. Hope he didn't make goofy face as usual ;-) He claims he smiled real good like how i would've wanted :-)

Today Ms. Casey said that Aj loves to eat the dinner rolls with butter - that's my dad's favorite :-)

Happy Birthday Ashu!

It was Ashu's 6th birthday yesterday. Didn't have a party, but invited just 2 of his friends to come and play with him. He told me like a big boy " Mommy, i love my family and i dont want a party this year because sridhar thatha is not here, but can i have Hiren and Atharva to come and play with me and can i have Kungfu panda cake for AJ? ". I got a cake and kungfu panda stuff separately and arranged it on the cake. The funny part was the cake had some ribbony decoration on it and as soon as i opened the cake to put the toys he removed the ribbons saying who will eat those wrapping things! Boys!!

Appa promised to come back this year for Ashu's birthday and i was thinking about it and at 12 in the night the small clock in the living room started playing Happy Birthday tune and completely startled me. I guess i must have set it long long ago and had completely forgotten about it. If i think of it now it's funny...

Ashu had a great time with his friends and slept around 9 itself. AJ kept running behind them and all 3 of them either ignored him or ran away from him screaming like they were scared. Poor tutu. He got so mad at them and started screaming out of frustration. After some time he figured out they were not going to include him and started troubling me as usual ;-) Not only does he sing a lot of songs now, he imitates everyone. Ashu was talking to amma and he kept his hand near his ear and said 'havo paati' in the same tone as ashu. And when i sang some song for him to sleep he was singing aa..aa horribly. I hope i didnt sound that horrible :-) He also fights a lot with Ashu. He screams on top of his voice if ashu doesn't give him what he wants. All 3 of us have keech voice. Poor B!! :-)

Tomorrow is Hiren's birthday and Ginni called and asked us to drop Ashu at their house. We got the call right after ashu slept. He will be pleasantly surprised tomorrow :-)

Two days back, AJ turned on the TV, changed the TV/Video button and turned on the DVD player and started singing 'aapu tee knowye shee d'. He had loaded the dvd upside down and hence nothing happened. He waited for few seconds and said 'Aapu tee come'. Too cute and funny. Just last week amma asked me if he started opening the rice box and today he did. I moved it to pink room closet...He makes sure that i dont put on any weight! :-O

Back to blogging...

My pc was down for 2 days - thanks to little dude! B fixed it yesterday and when he was trying to fix it, AJ went and tried to put his hand inside sneakily. He was way too curious. It was funny. B said no couple of times, so he thought he outsmart us and would look here and there and show off as if he was interested in something else and suddenly detour back and put his hands inside!

Today when i picked up ashu he said he got 'smarties' - a candy for being good and not getting any cards pulled and he said " i would've got two smarties if my team had won the word game but, we lost because one kid was not concentrating and we lost by two less points"..After a pause he clarified that he meant T-W-O and T-O-O and asked me not to think his team got too less points. When i told Ms. Allison (Aj's teacher) she laughed and said she knows kids that go to college and their english is not as good as his! :)

Yday, Aj jumped on Ashu and that made him cry. I told Ashu not to cry and aj is a baby and doesn't do these things on purpose. I asked him not to be mad at aj. After few minutes, aj jumped on my back and i shrieked with pain. Ashu came and said " Now you must know how it hurts!"... :-O

Yday was Aj's 18 month birthday. He wasnt in great mood for posing for photos though. I did get some though.

Today Ashu got his progress report and he got 100 and in all subjects and 99 in math. He made a careless mistake.

Oooooh my back! :-s

I made AJ sleep in my lap on saturday and bent down to put him in the bouncy seat and rrrippp...my back started hurting like he....ll. Had a rough weekend continuing today. Went to the doctor and he has given me painkiller. I wrote a meme in my food blog that i will go mad without internet. I guess i jinxed myself somehow and i couldn't even check my blog/mail since saturday night. But, i didn't go mad ..i think :-)

Anyways, with all the pain we managed to go to nashville yday as it was my little Krishna (Ashu)'s star birthday. They had dressed up Sri Krishna beautifully and there were murukkus hanging around him. Ashu was excited that Krishna ummachi shares his birthday and i was praying to Krishna ummachi that AJ should not see those murukkus hanging above him and pull it. My prayers were answered and he didn't notice those murukkus ;-) He was non stop though. When they did Archanai..he started singing Om Namooo like Kamalhaasan :-O
Later when we were done with our prayers somebody else started with Lord Satyanarayana Puja and for every line of the Shloka AJ started with Om and ended with eieio :-O
And to top it all, i went away from B to get something and he started singing meow meow in the tune of Mayya Mayya in the temple. B was quite embarassed and was mad at me for teaching him a song like Mayya mayya. He just didn't believe that i taught him Cat says meow meow in the tune of mayya mayya :-( Poor Me...

Today, i got all the tests that Ms.West conducted for the week on Friday and Ashu had scored 100/100 in all except one math test where he had scored 98. I checked the answers and poor dude had written the correct answer as 19, but due to bad handwriting the 9 looked like 8 and the teacher had reduced 2 marks. All the spellings and the rest of the math tests were 100/100. Atta boy!

Btw, Aj got his 12th tooth - left bottom molar. No wonder he was biting me hard and often over the weekend! Biting bites!

Hectic Week...

This week was kinda hectic so couldn't post anything in my blog. As always both kids are keeping me busy and doing lots of new stuff.

B took ashu to sign him up for cubscouts and ended up signing up as a parent volunteer too. Hehe..Good thing i didn't go with them :D Ashu is all excited about it because his buddy A has signed up too and H went last year.

Ashu has the making of a good lawyer and/or he could go into marketing. Sales will shoot high upto the sky with his marketing skills :-) Right now he is busy reading all the books that came from India. I'm happy 'coz he's learning all about indian mythology. I asked him few questions and he answered them all right. He knows almost all the characters from Ramayan and obviously like any other child he's fascinated by Hanuman of them all.

Aj is as usual naughty and saying more words and singing more songs..ofcourse the songs are more of fill in the blanks.


Me : Amma inge
aj : vaavaa

Me : Aasai mutham
aj : thatha

Me : Ilayil soru
aj : potthu

Me : eeyai thoora
aj : ottu

Me...continues with proper lyrics and he continues with chinese version from here on :)



He also sings 'Om namo...' with two hands together above his head...How cinema influences children!!!



I think i must've sung the vaadi vaadi kai padadha cd sometime or often without my knowledge. Today i called him for diaper change and i sang AJ vaadi vaadi kai padaadha..and he casually said cd :-O

Shhh!

A funny thing happened yesterday at daycare. When i went to pick up AJ another kid was just screaming on top of his voice because he thought it was funny. One of the teachers said...'Shhhh...we only use inside voice'. Aj was watching this and when we were about to leave, all the teachers said bye at the same time and they were little loud. Aj put his finger on his lips and said Shhh! I thought they didn't notice, but one of the teachers said 'Look at him..he's saying shhh to us' and started laughing :-O Have to be careful with this dude!

B is back from India. That's a grrreat relief for me :-) Now i can officially dance like Dora...
"We did it..we did it...Lo hicimo.." :-) Ashu was jumping with excitement when the limo arrived in our driveway and B got out of it. Aj was all excited and went to him as soon as he came in. After few seconds came back to me and kept looking at him. It was funny :-)

Took ashu and aj to Pushpa's house for Varalakshmi Puja and they both had a blast. On the way we dropped in at Atharva's house for sometime. Ashu had a great time with him. Me too :)

Today i made Vadai and Appam for Avani Avittam. Ashu loved them both and asked if appam was the indian doughnut and asked me to post that in my blog and say that my first kid loves vadai :-) When we were having lunch, i tried to give tomato pachidi to AJ and he refused to take from me and he wanted to eat by himselt. Looked like he loved it 'coz he was all over it and was licking the cup away..After he was done he came to me with 'thayir vadiyum mugam' with a happy grin.

We were looking at the medals tally for the olympics and Ashu asked us..'What! India got only one medal'? We both told him..but it's Gold and he still didn't quit..He again said 'But it's only ONE Gold medal'..GRRR!!!

Exactly a year...

Since i met appa... :(

I finally booked the tickets to india...but there is no excitement this time though :(
Have this knot in my tummy. It's hard to goto india and not see appa. If i close my eyes, i just see appa standing outside the airport waiting for us...and Ashu squealing with joy calling Sridhar...

"Tell your friend that in his death, a part of you dies and goes with him. Wherever he goes, you also go. He will not be alone." - J. Krishnamurthi, Indian phliosopher

I read this in a blog and it's so true...so touchy...After appa left i have this feeling of having a big hollow space in my heart, i guess that's the part that went with him.

Back to school after five day break!

When i dropped Ashu today at school, his teacher Ms. West said that she is planning to start him on AR (Accelerated Reading) Program very soon. She said he's a fantastic Reader :-) When she was talking to me all the kids got busy and started talking and was moving around. She clapped her hands to get their attention and to get them back in their seats. Aj was very impressed and he kept clapping his hands at the kids. She had a good laugh.

Both my kids are sooo opposite to me. They like to touch animals!!! I still can't bring myself upto touching them. I can see them from a distance and admire. That's about it!!

They have a bunny called Thumper in daycare. He's a cute bunny who started as a baby when Ashu started there and he's quite big now. I've not seen such a big bunny in india. Anyways, before dropping AJ off in his room i spent some time near the thumper cage and Aj was sooo happy and he kept trying to touch him and i had to stay at a distance to make sure that he doesn't touch him :) He was so happy and was smiling ear to ear when he saw thumper jumping around. He again wanted to see Thumper when i went to pick him up later in the afternoon. I'm sure this has become a part of my drop-off/pick-up routine now :)

Kuzhal Inidu Yaazh Inidu

enbaar...Mazhalai sol kelaadhar :-) Let's review aj's mazhalai vocabulary as of today :-)


1. Amma (He says it like Shivaji Ganesan...very emotional ;-))
2. Appa
3. Anna
4. Asee (for Ashu)
5. Vaa
6. Come
7. Ok
8. Okay aw white (okay alright)
9. Meow (he started saying meemaa..which was too funny)
10. Mama
11. Athai
12. Mami
14. Paati
15. Thaathik (Karthik)
16. Car
17. Doggy
18. Eeyo (yellow)
19, Back (black)
20 . Bye Seeyou
21 . Moo
22. Cac (Cat, quack and clap)
23. Ta (Tap)
24. upabove (used to say ak agove)
25. Pichi pi (pichi pichi)
26. Aachi
27. Po (like Sadhaa in Jeyam movie ;-))
28. Cookie
29. Baby
30. Enna
31. Daddy
32. Manmama (Good morning amma)
33. nigh (good night)
34. nnnnnooo
35. down
36. Hi
37. Havoo (Hello)
38. How u (How are you)
39. Aapu (Apple)
40. Nani (Janani)
41. Indhaa
42. Aadu
43. Eeyi (ilai)
44. Ball
45. Enna
46. Ajay :)(more like aaaa...jay)
47. Peas (please)
48. Thathunk (thank u)
49. Thays (thanks) - he says it whenever we give him something :)
50. yummy yummy (for gulab jamun)
51. I see (for i see you)
52. tt (teletubbies)
53. tittee (tinky winkie)
54. bitsy (dipsy)
55. yaayaa (lala)
56. Po
57. uh-oh
58. Moyee (Molly from big comfy couch)
59. Vaa
60. Theetha theetha (tootie ta tootie ta)
61. Peekoo (peekaboo)
He says more and tries to repeat almost everything. These are the words he says consistently :)
And moving on to the rhymes :
When we sing twinkle twinkle..and stop after how i wonder what u r, he says 'up above'
When we sing johny johny...after eating sugar he says nnnno
telling lies...he says nnnno
open your mouth..he says hahaha
He does action for undi undi kaasu, half of veragu araikkarthum.
He sings eieio for every line of old mc donald :)

The funniest is this rhyme :
Me : Two little hands to
Ajay : Cac Cac Cac (clap clap clap)
Me : Two little feet to
Ajay : Tat tat tat (Tap tap tap)
Me : Two little eyes to
Ajay : Rolls on the floor laughing (He finds 'open wide' soooo funny)
Me : One little head goes side to side (Ajay shakes his head side to side so fast and so many times!)

Now he sings in the tune of Om namo narayanaya..if we sing kallai mattum kandal...
But, u can understand only Om :-) then it's all oyn and boing :D

Everything is funny and cute...but he would'nt let me record though :(

Now..if i start reviewing Ashu's vocabulary..it might be longer than Ramayan ;-)

Good news...We went to the doctor and he said Ashu's all better and can go back to School tomorrow...Well..that's good news for me..Ashu is probably bummed..hehe :)

Tension tension tension

I feel like singing the song from Rangeela...yday was full of tension for me. Today is little better. Ashu was sick yesterday and i got very scared and nervous since B is not here. His wheezing was quite bad and we had to give nebulizer and make it better. I was out the whole day running around with both the kids, to the doctor twice and to walgreens twice.

Today he is troubling Aj and me..How wonderful it is to see him back in action :)

Lipstick

No i am not talking about the Zee t.v serial here :) Look at the pathetic state of my lipstick here ...








All i did was to take my eyes off of Aj for 5 minutes to help an offshore guy with some setup :( His hand was red and there are red spots on the carpet which was only cleaned by the maids yesterday :-O Ah..the joys of working from home!! Ashu came for my rescue and snatched it from him before major damage was done to the carpet. Thank you Ashu! Now will anybody even consider using this ? :-s

Ashu - the sweet and sentive boy...

Kids were both tired today and went to sleep before 9! I am tired but, i dont feel sleepy. Wierd! I took the kids for a walk in the evening and there were dogs everywhere..we got scared and came back. Aj dozed off in the stroller just before entering the house and when i took him off the stroller he woke up. He woke up before one can even say Catnap :) Boy was he cranky!! ...i ate my dinner in instalment. For some reason he got crankier if he saw a plate in my hand. He didnt want me to eat :-) Poor baby is teething and was crying so much before falling asleep.

I think both are coming down with cold. Ashu started sneezing and Aj has runny nose..Next 2,3 days will fun-filled i guess! School is closed for next two days and i dont have to deal with the morning rush...That's the only consolation.

Coming to the sweet and sensitive part...

Here's a flash back first: Months back he was very upset that he wont be able to see Sridhar thatha any more and i told him that when he grows up Sridhar thatha will be born as his baby. He asked me who he and AJ were then and at that moment i told him that he is either my kudimi thatha or B's thatha and Aj is my mani thatha (and i have strong reasons to believe that :))

Coming back to today.. when i picked up Ashu i was hungry and cranky..Hey, moms can get cranky too you know...Ashu was pushing my buttons by not listening to me. I told him that his kids will trouble him more. He immediately related it to the flash back conversation and said that Sridhar thatha will be born as his kid and he will infact trouble me and not him since i troubled Sridhar thatha when i was a kid. I couldn't say anything back at that point. After couple of minutes i saw tears in his eyes and i asked him why he was crying and he said all this reminded him about Sridhar thatha and he misses him a lot :-(( I felt so sad too :(( I hope reincarnation is true and i hope Sridhar thatha will be his kid.

Dolch List and Puzzle!

Ashu had squishy ball with him when i picked him up. He told me that it was his gift for finishing the Dolch list first in the class. His teacher asked him to pick up a gift from the class treasure basket. Pat in his back! :)

In case you are wondering what a Dolch list is, it is a list of sight words that are more frequent in the books that the students read. They gave 11 lists and he read all of them when the teacher tested.

Next about the little one, yesterday when i dropped him at JL, he took the ball peg and put it in the correct place in the puzzle. I was quite surprised. After that he started singing ABCDEIG and said Yay and clapped for himself. Made every one laugh :-) He speaks lot of words and imitates Ashu and says Ok aww white (for okay alright) in the same tone. He also speaks something that sounds like Chinese. The teachers from other class said they love to listen to that and keep talking to him! :) Today i wanted to confirm that he can indeed solve the puzzle, but he took apple and kept saying aapu aapu but didnt bother to put it in place. He was just holding it and singing :-) But was happy he recognized apple :-)

He loves playing muttu muttu...but he does it so hard these days. Reminds me of a comedy scene where Vivek's wife would muttify him real bad. Don't know which movie it is, but it is quite funny :) Aj muttifies the same way :( Not so funny for me! :)

Just a regular update

Weekends are bo...ring without B :( It feels like it takes hours for even minutes to pass!!Don't know if that makes sense! Anyways...i was very brave yesterday and took the kids to Kohls for shopping. Wanted to buy new shows for aj for school. This weekend is tax free weekend so thought i would buy something without tax :-) Ashu made me buy a bedding set for his new bed. I dont know how he talked me into it. He can go into marketing!!

Kids didnt trouble at all when i was buying their stuff. When i got to the ladies section aj started getting cranky so i had to get out :( Ashu was a gem though!
Today i took them to Swati's house and they both had a good time with her daughter S.
Aj was talking non stop and troubled the other two for a while. He was flat on the way back home :) He loved the Gulabjamuns he had there and kept asking for more saying 'yummy yummy' :)

Now he takes the phone and keeps it in his ear and says havoo paati (hello paati) all the time. He probably thinks amma is the only person that i talk to. Y'day while talking to B, Aj kept blabbering something and didn't repeat anything, but after i hung up he kept saying hi daddy..babu...etc.

He got his 11th tooth today! It's the right molar..so he's little cranky and keeps biting me. He bit me so hard today when i brushed his teeth :( By the time he gets his 20th tooth i will lose a finger i think!

Aj wants to goto 1st grade!

:-) Yeah right! Everytime we drop ashu in his class and come out he runs right back to his class :-) Y'day i was talking to Ashu's teacher to find out if they have any program for Gifted children and this dude saw the other kids with open crayon boxes and jumped from my hands and tried to get his hands on their boxes. The kids were pretty excited with the distraction and started playing with him. I guess they were happy about not doing the classwork :-)

Today both kids have gone to sleep earlier than usual..Must be my lucky day...Darn! i should've tried my luck with lottery today.hehe..

Had a long chat with B today and gave him kids update and cookeville updates. He suggested taking the kids out for dinner. Hope he was just kidding :-O

Bored...Bored...Bored!

It's only 3 days since B left to india and i'm soooo bored here...This is inspite of the kids being themselves in full form + work + regular chores...and i still feel bored..bored..bored..did i say i am bored? I know what i am missing...I'm missing the most exciting part of my daily routine===Troubling B!! ;-)

I think the kids are missing him too...so they are taking extra-special care to keep me busier...Yday aj sat near the safety gate and kept saying bye bye. He says that when daddy goes to work. Maybe he remembered that. After sometime, he said bye to me and got down the stairs. That sneaky li'l dude! He had a big fight with Ashu on saturday night and today for the blanket - poor little ashu's blanket. He snatched it successfully both days and rolled it and laid on top of it to prevent ashu from taking it back. Luckily for me ashu didnt care about it and laughed it off...

First Day of School

for both the kids. Ashu wasn't too keen about returning to the school so soon. :D
He was asking me why they had to open in july as summer was supposed to be till august end and it is really a summer break and they shouldn't open till summer was over. How can i argue with such a logical question? ;-) If you ask me they should give summer break for offices too...i guess that's why i am not asked for any suggestions :D

When i dropped Ashu, he said he felt little nervous in the morning about going to first grade and i assured him that he will do great and he was fine after that. After dropping ashu, AJ walked back all the way to the school gate and didnt ask me to carry him. What a big boy!

He went to new room today. Orange room for toddlers. Ms.Allison (Ashu's purple room teacher) is in Orange room now. Yay! She's great with kids and another Yay! because Ms. Cathy who is AJ's fav is there too :) But, he was little upset when i left him there as he didn't see his old teachers. They said he was fine within 2 minutes and had a great time today. He loved the sink that was at his level and wanted to wash his hands all day and didn't want to get out it seems!

When i picked him he was happily playing in the ride on car :-) On the way back from school after picking the kids i asked Ashu how he liked his 1st day at 1st grade and he said, 'Well they only made me do stuff that i already knew and that i already did in K'. I couldn't control my laughter and i told him that they were just brushing up and they will teach him new stuff soon.

I asked him if he made any new friends and he said he made a new friend Nicholas. He also said that he talked to another boy John and we can consider him a friend too..but not like nicholas yet! Another Ashwinism there! :D

After coming home, we called Daddy who had reached Chennai today and gave him an update on the kids. Ashu repeated what he told me when Dad asked him about first day at 1st grade :)

More later...

1st Grade Registration

Today was registration for 1st Grade. We didn't even goto the classroom. I filled in the registration form, met his new teacher Ms. Rhonda and she said that's it and asked us to come on Monday. Ashu and his friends A and Sam are all in different class though :(

After registration i met Pushpa and her family. She gave a lollypop to Aj and Aj casually opened it and started sucking on it. She didn't expect him to open i guess...her jaws dropped to the floor :) Then, we went to meet Mrs.Hall, Ashu's Kindergarten teacher. She was so happy and excited to see us. She said Ashu had grown ta...ll. I think so too. All of a sudden he looked little taller than his friends today :) She was busy with registration so i left within few minutes but she wanted me to come back and check out her son's wedding pictures.

Aj now moves the big step stool with so much effort to the sink and checks out if i have any dishes there...if so he tries to take the dirty dish and throw it away :( He keeps me on my toes..That little dude has big attitude! :) He keeps jumping up and down like a little spiderman all the time...er...spider baby :)


Amazing Aj :)

I taught him the color yellow 2 days back. Today he was holding that book and i said yellow and he searched and opened the correct page!
I guess it's not a coincidence :) He also said eyow and back..like the previous time. He was watching teletubbies and the kids were saying in and out..
several times and after few times whenever the kids said in..he said out :)

I started making him sleep around 10 from tuesday. His crib is attached to our bed, so i put him in his bed and pat him and he goes to sleep in 10 mins.
He has been consistently doing that for the last 3 nights...hope i didn't jinx it!! It's so much easier than (thondai kizhiya) singing for hours without any results!

B was singing ABCDEFG...Aj continued HIJK blabber blabber blabber..So, he now knows till K :) Yesterday B went to nashville so he came home late. Aj went to the safety gate around 6 (usual time that B comes home) and kept saying bye seewho... I guess he will miss him a lot when he goes to india.

Ashwinism - The funny quotes of Ashu ;-)

Ashu is a keen follower of my food blog. Everyday he checks my blog, especially the visitor location. He saw that there were many visitors from different countries and said, "Mommy when i get married, can you please teach my wife to cook and create a blog like this.." I asked him why and he said that he wants her to be famous like me too :D

Last year, when we were going to nashville one day, he showed Dollar tree to appa and said 'Sridhar, that's dollar tree..if you go inside you will find a tree with dollars and you can pluck some if you want'

Summer Break

This week is summer break for Aj's daycare. We didnt send Ashu to the summer camp either. I was working from home...and it was managing work and aj. Aj kept me on my toes. I could keep Ashu in control by giving him t.v., homework and pc time...Aj was non stop. It was fun though.

I was chatting with my cousin Karthik in the morning and i said Karthik to Ashu and Aj repeated Thathik. He said the following :
Thatha, Paati, pappu, nani(janani), sheeya baby (Sridhar), thathi (radhika), shee (srinithi) and appu. He refused to repeat gau and ananya..Probably potti?

But here's the best part..he kept saying mama for Vinod..I tried several times and it was constantly mama :) Now he sings 'ak agove' for 'up above' in twinkle twinkle little star. He waits with his hand ready to go up for me to stop before up above :) He was checking out his colors book that he got from the library and i pointed to yellow and black which were adjacent. He said eeyo back..i repeated several times and after couple of hours i said yellow and he said back..He remembered i guess :)

Yday we were watching Dasavatharam. Nepolean was talking in suddha tamil and Ashu came and asked me 'What kind of language is that?' Hehe...The story wasn't great, but it was entertaining. I guess that's the purpose of that movie. Logic illaa magic. I liked the way the 10 characters were linked and i liked the paati kamal very much. The dialogues were pretty funny. I didnt sleep one bit and watched the full movie..that was a surprise!:) Offlate, i have become like my paati and sleep right after the first scene :) That's why you shouldn't make fun of somebody!!!

Last week we watched Bhootnath and Ashu loved the movie..I enjoyed it too, but i was kinda sad too. I wish Ashu could interact with my dad like that! Thro' out the movie he kept asking me questions about appa.

That reminds me...I read an article about a book called 'Do dead people watch us' in MSN last week. It was written by a person who is a medium. Made me wonder what a medium is and came to know taht there are people in the world who can communicate with the 'other world'...or it's the other way..i dont know. The article was soooo unbelievable and unconvincing..but lot of the things she said made me wish those were all true.

More words from Aj and Learning website

I was talking to amma today morning and i had the speaker on. When amma was talking aj turned and said paati :-) Don't know if it's coincidence or if he said it because i bore him every time to say paati when i am on the phone. He used to say poppy, but today he said paati. He also used to say appa and today when B called us, he said daddy and bamboo (butchering his name ;-)). As soon as he heard his dad's voice he was singing ABC coz his dad is the one who sings ABCD to make him sleep.

Here's a photo of ashu's a, aa, e, ee in tamil : He wrote it long back..i just took the time to upload it..

These are the recent addition to Ashu's favorite websites :

http://www.primarygames.com/
http://www.starfall.com/
http://www.franklintheturtle.com/
http://web-japan.org/kidsweb
http://www.seussville.com/main.php?section=home&isbn=&catalogID=&eventID=

Graduating..

Tomorrow will be aju's last day at the redroom (infant room). He will be graduating to orange room (toddler room) the week after next after enjoying a short break. I took the kids to get thank you card and gift cards for the teachers. I could keep Ashu from troubling me by throwing couple of (false) promises...I thought i can control aju by keeping him in his stroller. Boy oh boy! That little boy troubled me inspite of being tied up in the stroller. He would hold on to anything near by and steer himself forward to grab something out of the store! Luckily nothing breakable was reachable.

See hoo...

what is that? Aj says See you as see hoo and Ashu thinks it is too funny :)
Yesterday, i was busy making parathas and ashu started having his dinner while i was still making for aju and me...They were too quiet to believe, so i went to the dining room to see what's going on and Aj had poured yogurt from the cup and was smearing it all over the dining room...The maids had just cleaned the house about an hour before he made this mess! The best part (or the worst!) was Ashu was watching it grinning from ear to ear....

There is an update on me for a change. I got an outstanding performance certificate and a t.shirt with the company name, for leading a project successfully. It will be hard for my cousin pappu to believe as he thinks all i do at work is chat with another cousin K :-) I tried on the t.shirt and it had no shape and it looked like a pillow case..boo :(

Birthday pary at bowling world

After B left to Atlanta yday, i took the kids to the bowling world for a birthday party. It's Ashu's friend D's party. She's a sweet girl and i like her so much. I was first hesitant to go alone with the double trouble, but i decided to give it a shot :-) Ashu was very well behaved and was busy with his friends. Aj was well behaved too..no crying or screaming, but he was his usual naughty self. Running around and climbing on everything that was there. He wanted to run in the alley and catch the 'heavy' ball too. So for the most part , i was holding him on my hip. When i finally let him go he went into the game room there and had a ball (no,not the bowling ball ;-))

When Devy cut the cake, aj heard everyone sing happy birthday and got pretty excited and started singing something real loud. Sounded more like chinese :)

Ashu calmed down after we came back and relaxed with a book that he got as return gift. Aj was still jumping around and in full form. He finally wound down at around 11:00. Gee! What a party animal he is!!

I will upload some pics that i took after the party, later.

Kids update - more on AJ since he's doing lot of new stuff

I found some great websites for Ashu and he's very happy. I'm also working on making him follow a time table now so that it will help me with bedtime battle and the morning rush! Can't comment on how it goes yet since it's only 2 days since i started it.

Aj has started saying lot more words now...2 days back he said fapabee when i asked him to repeat strawberry. It was so cute and i told Ms.Tammie about it. She tried very hard to make him say it and everytime she said that he gave a naughty smile and turned away, but repeated the other small words like cookie, baby and bye. After few tries he started laughing out loud everytime he heard strawberry. Now he has stopped saying that for me as well. He thinks it's funny and just laughs. Yday i taught him to sing johny johny and when i finish the last line he goes 'hahaha' in a cute way too. Ms.Tammie said that he has started repeating words after her also.

Today the maids came and everytime one of them went out to get something he would say bye and when they came back in he would say hi. Quite funny. He has some good manners now and keeps saying 'thays' (thanks) everytime we give him something. This morning Ashu left with his dad to the summer camp and Aj woke up after that. He looked around saying 'Ashi...Ashi..' It was very cute.

My first post in the new blog...

I wanted to create a blog to update about my kids because i just realized how outdated i was to maintain a notepad after i ran out of pages in the baby books :-) This is a neat way to maintain a journal of their activities and when we get older we can always look back and get a chuckle or two :) Why didn't i think of this before? :)

Ashu is almost 6 and Aj is almost 1.5 years old now and it's a lot of fun with two boys :-)

Ashu is enjoying his summer vacation in full form. We enrolled him in Sylvan's Leap and Learn summer camp and he has a blast there. They take him to a fun place every friday for field trips.
So far, he went to local parks twice, watched Kungfu Panda in imax @ chattanooga followed by lunch at Rainforest cafe. Brought back a souvenier cup for Aj. He also went to a restaurent called Chuckles at Crossville. He loved it there. Another reason for him to like the camp is because his best buddy H goes there too. Last week Sylvan was closed, so he went to Summer camp at Victory. They took him to the community center one day and to the Bowling World one day. This week he will be back at the Sylvan.

We invited Ashu's friends H and A over for play dates few times. He loved it. Aj loved it too but poor Aj was left out cause he was too much trouble :) He started snatching things from them. I had to entertain Aj the whole time since they didnt want to include him.

Aj is speaking a lot now. Mostly chinese...He can say around 20+ words now. He's getting naughtier and naughtier and following the footsteps of his big bro. He can now sing to the tune of 'This old man' and sings 'eieio'. He can also sing 'thee thee..' from the movie Shivaji. He has some good manners too :) He says Thathunk (for thank u) and peas for please.