Day 2 - SeaWorld

We reached Seaworld only around noon again because of some unexpected delays. First, we had breakfast at the restaurent in our hotel and they were sl....ooooo...w. :-( We also had to go buy a stroller for AJ as we forgot his stroller. His good stroller was broken long back thanks to AirFrance and he only has an umbrella stroller. So, we decided to buy a good one and assembling it took some more time..so we reached seaworld only around 11.30 and the park closing time was 6. As usual, it was crowded and we had to go early to get good seats for all the shows. We saw all that we wanted to. Shamu, Dolphin and Whale show and Sealion and Otter show. Both Ashu and AJ loved all of them. During and after the shamu show, AJ was chanting Shamu Shamu :)
We also sat in the soaking zone. We were in the second last row and when Shamu splashed the water on us, both Ashu and AJ got very excited. At that point, AJ fell in love with Shamu..He kept saying Shamu splash water, mommy. He sounded so happy whenver he said that. Ashu was excited too :-) He also bought this pendant that looks like shamu's tail :D

Ashu enjoyed the Sealion and otter show a lot. AJ liked it too and was laughing quite a bit. They both loved the dolphin show. Actually, i loved it the most. Just looking at a dolphin makes me happy..They are such happy creatures that spread happiness around. After the trip to seaworld, AJ started putting two straws in his mouth sporting the otter look :) He is so much in love with Shamu too that he bought a shamu stuffed toy and was dancing with it :D

We also went to Shamu's happy harbor and the kids went on some rides there. We took some good pictures at the Kodak's picture spot. We skipped Manta, Atlantis and the other scary ride Kraken. We missed Pets Ahoy because the show was full :-( Kids loved the stingray lagoon. It was tough to drag AJ out of that area. He kept running back to touch the stingrays. So unlike me..I went nowhere near it and was just happy to be the photographer ;-) We also went to the Polar Express Experience. We had to take the walking one as AJ was small for the Train motion. So, it was basically just sit and watch the movie clipping and then we walked into the north pole through a nicely decorated area (that reminded us of the Polar Express movie) and met santa. We also saw some dolphins inside and then a polar bear. It is always exciting to see a polar bear. We also saw whales. Kids were very excited to see the whales :) Every time a whale went away from the glass and AJ could not see it he said fishy went to eat mummu (food) :)

Trip to Orlando - Day 1 Animal Kingdom

Just got back from orlando last night after a week long trip. It was fun and hectic. Ashu enjoyed the most and AJ enjoyed a lot, but i think he would enjoy more when he's over 4. It was quite crowded compared to our previous trip in Sep 05. We went during the last week of September and we did not have to wait in line for any rides. We covered what we wanted and were done before the park closing time, but this time it was a different story. I wrongly assumed that there wont be any crowd as people would want to be with family during thanksgiving. We had to wait in line for almost every ride and some rides, the wait time was close to 1hr!! :-O

This trip was a totally unplanned trip, so we did not have time to book flight tickets and decided to drive down. It was close to 11 hrs drive from our place to orlando with couple of short breaks. We actually drove for 9 hrs and stayed in a hotel near Valdosta and then got up next morning and went to Orlando. Our initial plan was to just relax on sunday and then goto Magic Kingdom on Monday. We were planning to cover 4 parks (Magic kingdom, Hollywood studios, Universal and Sea World) and then goto Kennedy Space Center on Friday and return home on saturday. Since we had only 5 days excluding sunday which we didn't consider as we took a break on Saturday, i decided to skip Animal Kingdom as i thought AJ would enjoy all the others more and to compensate for AK, we could always go to some Zoo..But, deep inside i was feeling guilty as we had taken Ashu to AK during our previous trip. Guess B read my mind and said let's goto AK on Sunday even if we are late. So, we reached AK around noon after having brunch and the park was open till 8 anyways. We could not cover everything, but covered what would interest the kids. We went on the Safari which both enjoyed and then went on the train and then went to camp mickie minnie and watched the Lion King Show. AJ didnt enjoy it much. It was for bigger kids, i would say. We missed the finding nemo and it's tough to be bug as we had to wait in line for everything. Finding nemo musical is new, so i have no idea about it. AJ probably would not have enjoyed the bug show as it was one of those 4D shows and he removed his glasses and was watching it with no effects anyways, in the other 4D shows that we went to :) We took pics with Pooh, Tigger and Eeyore and the kids were very excited about it. We also went to the Dinoland and that's another place where they enjoyed a lot. There was a ride called Triceratops spin and i didn't see the ride name and said, AJ look at the rhino ride (they looked like rhino to me :-O) and AJ immediately corrected me saying those are the Triceratops (thanks to the Dinosaur train show). B and Ashu gave me a sarcastic look. Whatever!! I dont need to know about dinosaurs at this age..They are extinct anyways :P There were two more rides that we couldn't go as AJ was not tall enough. I asked B to take Ashu on one called the Primeval Whirl and that ticked AJ off and he started with a huge tantrum, but i had lollipops in my bag and gave one immediately and calmed him down :) He was okay after that. Ashu came and said the ride was scary and decided to skip the other ride (Dinosaur ride). After that, we just walked through Asia and i saw this tea shop called Anandpur and was so excited and they even had Masala chai. It was just the masala chai tea bags that they used and it sucked. Nothing else was Anandpur-ish..They just had the regular American cookies and stuff. We were out by 8pm and went to Woodlands and had a good dinner and ended the day happily :D

Ashu's Report Card and AJ's timeout

Yesterday, i put Clifford DVD for ajay to feed him his dinner. That DVD has several episodes, so i usually let him watch one episode even if he's done eating before that and then i turn it off. Yday, before i turned it off the second episode started and he got so angry and came towards me and hit me on my back. He was quite furious and i told him AJ we do not hit others. He said that back and i asked him to stand in the corner facing the wall for timeout and to my suprise, he did that. So finally, he started understanding the concept of timeout. Teehee. But, the downside was he was enjoying it. He was giggling and standing, facing the wall!! It just reminded me of my study hols during school days, where i used to sit gazing at the cieling with the text book in my hand and my dad used to ask me if i was watching chitrahaar or oliyum oliyum on the cieling! Maybe, AJ was thinking about the rest of the episode and picturizing it in the wall :D

Ashu got his second report card for this semester. He got all Es (including music and PE) except one. He got G in English (writing) and i bet it was because of the missing punctuations. The dude cannot put a period at the end of each sentence.
He also had to write a book report yday on Morgan le fay and they asked him to read about her in Wiki. Lib didn't have any books on her i guess. I was shocked when i read about her..I was thankful i read about her before letting him read. So, i just took some notes (at a kid level) and asked him to read that and write the report :) Wiki was talking some grown up stuff that i would not want a child to read :-O

Ashu was happy because they only wanted a short report this time (compared to the 4 pages he wrote last week!) The teacher told him, it's only 1/2 page she wants from everyone and 1 page from him because he writes big :D

Yesterday, i made cheppankizhangu (arvi) roast. Ashu loved it adn kept asking for more. So, i told him that he should always have open mind and try whatever i cook because the previous time i made it, he threw a huge fit that i didnt make roast potatos and refused to touch it. I dont make it often as we dont get arvi most of the times. I guess that's one of the reasons that it looked new to him. He said that he has never seen arvi and that i must be imagining things!! Sometimes i wonder who the parent is!!

Sweet Sensitive Ashu

AJ is crazy about stickers. Ashu was too,but ashu used to preserve them in a sticker book that i got him. AJ goes around the house sticking it everywhere and is not very particular about sharing. Couple of days back he did something good and i gave him a sticker for that. He asked for more, as usual. I said, no AJ from today you get only one sticker per good choice. He said, no mommy give me one more for Ashu. I almost fell off the chair, because he never shares his stickers with anyone. I gave him and he went inside and gave it to Ashu. Few minutes after that i was hearing a ruckus and Ashu came to the kitchen and asked me if there is anything in the living room that he can keep forever. I didnt understand what or why he was asking that. I said, i dont know, go finish your book..and he came back again and asked is there anything in the bedroom that he can keep forever. I got confused and mad at this point and said why are you asking this and why are you not finishing the book. He said, mommy ajay gave me this sticker and i want to stick it to something i will keep forever so i wont lose the sticker also. I had tears in my eyes. I asked him to stick it to the photo frame i got for B, for his first father's day.

Oh from that day, everytime i give a sticker to AJ, he asks for one more and gives it to ashu. but, the first sticker is safe in the photo frame :)

Wedding Anniversary and Travelling with kids

Our wedding anniversary. I was way too happy that it was a sunday. We did the usual routine of going to the temple, having lunch, shopping, having dinner and got back home. Surprisingly the kids were good. Didnt trouble much and ate good. When i did my shopping, AJ started running around, so B said he will take care of them and took them to the children's area and i did a peaceful shopping. But somehow i felt so nervous like i was taking an exam!! That didnt affect my shopping though ;-)

On our way back, i asked Ashu to sing a song and he sang the songs that his class sang for the Veteran's day and he was very good. I was happy because i had only tried teaching him some devotional and filmi songs and he was horrible and i came to conclusion that he can't sing :) I guess he was concentrating on the words and left the tune up in the air! In the end, he neither got the tune nor the words right! So, western it is, for Ashu.
Now AJ is on a singing strike, thanks to my mom and others who keep asking him to sing everytime i call. Nowadays, he says 'No, i dont want to sing' as soon as he sees the phone.

I dont like having DVD player in the car. I think if we have dvd player in our car, the kids will just watch movie and not talk to you and i dont like that.
I think that they need to look outside and observe the world..
Sometimes though, i seriously think about going for the DVD player because Ashu can talk non-stop. I mean NONSTOP. Even if you ask him to be quiet for sometime. He will go.. do you really want me to be quiet? for how many minutes? is it time already? Can i talk now? Can i just say one thing? or the most annoying 'Are we there yet?' and it goes on...

Anyways, when we go on long drives, i have to do different things to keep them quiet. They listen to story cd for sometime, music sometime, fight with each other for sometime..and then talk to us for sometime. Ashu talks AJ mimics. When AJ falls asleep, Ashu gets bored and starts troubling me. So, I play a game with Ashu. When i spy a word on the way, i spell it and he has to find the word and when he gets bored with that, i give a word and ask him to spell it. Since AJ was awake when we were playing that, i gave him turns and was spelling small words and he got them all right. Actually, he even found a big word. When i spelt T-E-N-N-E-S-S-E-E, he said Tennessee within a fraction of a second! :)

There is this story CD that Ashu had when he was 2. I took it back into the car and it has few stories and the first story is Hansel and Gretel. The stories in the CD are narrated by witches. The first story goes like this..I am Quindella boogafina mud wiggle, the wicked witch..and then she goes on narrating the story. AJ listened to it few times but i never thought he enjoyed it, as there was no reaction to it. When we went to Atlanta couple of months back, i put it on when the kids started getting restless and before the cd turned on, AJ said I am Quindella boogafina the wicked witch...stop living in the past. Ashu thought it was too funny and now doesnt complain that he has to listen to the baby cd :) This is the guy who watches wonderpets and wordworld with AJ and then says he watches it because AJ likes it ;-) If i let him, he would even watch Teletubbies :D

Weekend update

We had some guests for dinner on saturday. Had a great time. Ashu enjoyed the most with his friends :) Ashu and his friends pretty much ignored AJ though. So, AJ was little upset, but i kept him entertained with Wiggles. I was mad at Ashu for ignoring him though.
Ashu is a loving and caring brother in general and is really good about sharing. He is usually all over AJ when they are alone, but the moment he sees his friends, AJ becomes a pest in his eyes. AJ troubles quite a bit, but i still think that he should not be ignored like that. Need to work on that with Ashu.

I pretty much spent the whole day in kitchen on saturday, so no cooking day for me yesterday. I slept for the most part of the day and then watched 'What's your Raashee'. Movie was just okay..with a bad ending. It was happy ending, but not a convincing one. It felt like the movie was taking forever to finish inspite of us fast-forwarding all the songs. Btw, there were probably 10 songs i would say..and i kept falling asleep too :-) anyways, aj got bored in between and came and demanded taht he wants to play wii.It was quite funny that a 2 yo wanted to play wii :-) After the movie, i created a profile for aj and when i entered his birthdate it changed the mii into a baby, which was quite funny. then it said he's too young to do anything there..Poor dude didnt understand what was going on and was demanding penguin slide and i let him use my mii and dude was quite happy. He didnt trouble ashu when it was his turn. That was quite a surprise.

Ashu had some homework. He had to read a book and answer some questions. Not a book report like earlier. I read the book and it was quite neat. It's called The stories Julian tells. I have started loving the books Ashu brings from school and have asked him to write his views on the books in his blog :) Let's see how that goes since he's lazy to type and wants me to be his secretary...

Book Report

Like i said earlier in this post, Ms.O had given a book report for the book club. It was on American Hero. Ashu had picked Thomas Alva Edison. I put dinosaur train for Aj and started cooking and asked Ashu to work on his book report. When i said 'Work on it'..i actually meant 'Start reading the book and i'll come join you'..but the kid had already read the book once at school, so wrote a one page report in that time. I was quite impressed. He did a good job, but he only covered the earlier part of his life. Then, i sat with him and told him that he should note down important points in the book and then form sentences over it and write a complete report. I wrote down the highlights and he completed it. While doing this, i thoroughly enjoyed reading about Edison and his inventions too. I dont remember if i learnt all about him when i was in school..all i could remember was the light bulb :-O
Guess mommy's learning with the kids..Better late than never! :D


Yday i took a day off since i was not feeling well. Didn't send Aj to daycare either. He was pretty good. didn't trouble me but i ended up taking two long calls (work related) and had to reply to few mails..so effectively i got only 1/2 day off :( Anyways, in the evening when i woke him and said it's time to pick up Ashu he was so happy and said i'm so happy to see ashu..As soon as we came home he started fighting with Ashu for silly things. I guess he didnt complete the sentence earlier.. 'I'm so happy to see ashu so i can fight with him and have real fun unlike spending a boring uneventful day with mommy' :-)

I let him do step aerobics on wii since he wanted to do and he was obviously doing it all wrong and he still managed to get some perfects and oks :D

Happy Happy updates :)

B had to leave at 6.30 today (M-W this week), so it's gonna be a hectic week for me..but am a pro now. We actually reached school 10 mins early..Since i was early i took this opportunity to talk to Ms.O about Ashu's progress and she was all praises for him. When i said hi to her and casually asked how Ashu is doing, she said he's doing great and said let's go out and talk. I was thinking 'uh oh!! am i inviting trouble here' and once we went out she started saying that since he's advanced she has put him in a book club and is sending for advanced math with Ms.S. She said there are about 6 kids in his class that are doing great and she wants them to give more challenging work. I felt soooo happy. I had a tough time with his 1st grade teacher.She never understood that Ashu got in trouble by talking because he finished his work earlier and was bored. She was also not open to suggestions. Ms.O seems to be wonderful and very understanding. I asked her if she has any concerns with his writing since he makes lot of silly mistakes with spellings and punctuations and she said, "Oh! he's just in a hurry. I know that because when i ask him to point out the mistakes he does that and says what is wrong. I am not concerned..It could just be a boy thing, u know'. Ms.O sounds so much like Ms.H (His KG Teacher). Very motherly and affectionate. I walked out happy thinking my kid is in good hands :-)

Next round Aj's school. When i dropped him and came out i bumped into Ms.Allison from Orange room (toddler room) and she said that on friday the kids were playing at the fellowship hall and she pointed to a radio and asked Aj what it was and he said Radio, so she asked him to spell it and he said RDO. She taught him to spell radio just twice and left. On monday, when he saw her he said RADIO :) He remembered it over the weekend and told her. She was pretty impressed. She said he threw in the phonics too..like R says RRRR when he started spelling :-)

The little piggies went wii wii wii ;-)

B and ashu finally managed to talk me into buying Wii :-O They had to throw in the wii fit plus though ;-)
I was not too happy or excited when it arrived on friday, but ashu was in cloud nine:-) Even Aj who has no clue was excited :D B got it ready for ashu and ashu was playing and within 10 minutes i was hearing "no aj no aj..stop!!!" on top of his voice :D Did not like the direction it was going in..and was actually mad. Friday evenings are not the best to test my mood..Saturday we went to a nashville temple as it was B's star birthday and then we went to a halloween party at a friend's place. Had a blast. Kids were having lot of fun. Even we went in costumes..B was presley and i was from hawaii ;-) Kids were playing rockband in nintendo and ajay wanted to play too..they were nice and let him play in the drums for couple of times, but he refused to give it back..so had a tough time with him. After we came home, in the middle of the night, he started kicking me in his sleep and was screaming 'i want the guitar, i want the drums'. It was funny :D

Sunday started with normal routine..cooking cleaning..etc and kids were playing and fighting and having fun and then in the evening Ashu and B started playing Wii when aj took a nap and by then i was done with most of my work and they made the mistake of introducing the wii to me and i'm completely hooked on it now :D Love the step aerobics and after sometime ashu started begging me to give it back to him.If you bribe someone to get something..this is what happens, u know? :) When i gave it, aj woke up and ashu was MAD. I then took aj and introduced the mickey mouse toddler cd and he loved it and was quiet and did not disturb ashu for next 20 minutes.Whew!!

I have talked a lot about Ashwinism..I should start Ajism too..He has started saying lot of cute things now..

Some of them are :

Phew! That was close!
Stop singing Ashwin (Whenever ashu tries to sing something..Poor ashu! )
When i drop him in daycare he asks for n number of hugs and n varies from 3 to 30 so far..and after i give him that many hugs he says I love that :D
Y'day, i was in the restroom and he knew that as he was playing outside the restroom when i went in. When i came out he said 'Whew! You scared me there!!'

Now his favorite quote is 'Trick or Treat!' (he says chicka teet) When we came home after all the trick or treating..I hid all the candies and put only good stuff like fruit chews, quaker bars and pretzels in his basket. He woke up from his nap and went and inspected the basket and walked away without taking a thing..!!!