Compliment and Advice from the big boy!!

I made Karthigai vadai on Karthigai and the kids loved it. As soon as Ashu took one bite he said, "Mommy you are the best cook in the whole world and this is the best vadai i have ever had" and i was flying high for a while and he bangs me with "You know, you dont have to make these things only on festival days, we will eat if you make it on a regular day also!!" LOL!


I am finally glad that AJ has slowly started enjoying the indian food now. He loves all deep friend batchanam and love idli and dosa as of now. No fuss there. He still has no interest in rice, but if i make daal he doesnt fuss a lot. Ashu is typical southie..enjoys rasam and sambar a lot!! :D He loves all batchanam and he lovvvvvvvvves puliyodarai and lemon rasam so much!

On Sunday, i made pooris as it has been quite some time since i made them and both the boys like pooris.I decided to make something very light for dinner and when it was time for dinner ashu asked me for vadais. I told him it is not that quick and easy and we shouldn't have too much of deep fried stuff on the same day and he was very upset. He was almost in tears that i refused to make vadais for him. So,i said i will make some quick namkeen and i made kaara biscuit (dont know what it is called) out of left over chappati maavu and he was quite happy. It was really funny for me to see his reaction when i said no and also it easily made me feel guilty for saying no!! The kids know how to play the card already!! :D


AJ found one of ashu's worksheet book and told me that he wanted to do multiplication and "Dive"ision before going to bed. I told him that he has to master addition first, then subtraction and then need to move on the multiplication and division and he was very upset and even in that bad mood he said mommy it is "Dive"ision and not division. LOL! When i checked on him after a while he was sleeping with an angry face and was holding on the the worksheet. It was so sweet :) He is doing addition quite well..actually i should say he was.. Ashu taught him 2 times table and now he is all confused between addition and multiplication. Sigh..i have to start over! :D

Friday funny - Marriage life

On our wedding anniversary i worked from home and AJ didnt goto school either! So, in the evening i told AJ that we will be going to the temple after appa comes from work because it is our wedding anniversary and he asked me what is wedding anniversary and i said we got married on the same date 12 years back and he said..oh i want to marry you on the same date too. I said Sorry dude..you cant marry me coz i am your mom, so he goes, can i marry Janani? I said nope..she's older than you and then he said..okay okay i will marry Tanya!! :D Ofcourse, i was happy with his choice as Tanya is such a darling..and as much naughty as AJ!! :D But dude didnt stop there..he added one more of his classmates!!!.. I asked him what about Srinithi, he said she's older..what about harini and he said she's a small baby!! Konjam nyayam therinjavanaa dhaan irukkaan!! And he didnt mention Aparna and Ananya..as they are not morai pons..but made me wonder how he knew! :D


Then i said let's go pick up ashwin and he said..what?! You are taking me to his school? I thought you were taking me to the marriage life!! What he meant was "taking me to the temple for wedding anniversary" It was hilarious when he said marriage life :D

AJ the lawyer

I think i have mentioned this before that my paternal grandpa was a lawyer and my dad once mentioned that it is his wish to have one of the grandkids become a lawyer just like his dad. I dont know why he said no when i wanted to become one...Hmm!! Anyways, i used to think Ashu had the potential to become a lawyer with his non stop logical questions and his habit of correcting us technically..but after some time i started thinking he sounded more like a walking encyclopedia handing out facts than a lawyer. Or in short, a  professor and that was his nickname in the previous school too :-) Couple of days back AJ made me realize that he is my dad's dream! Read this to understand what i mean...AJ was troubling Ashu constantly, so i scolded him. No,w AJ is a menaa minukki who doesnt like to be scolded. He gets upset even if we say a loud MMMM and we end up with a Llama llama what a drama! ;-) So, when i scolded him he was so upset that he came to me and said, "I am not going to talk to you" and i was not in the greatest mood either and so i said "Fine. Me too". For that he said "Mommy, i said i am not going to talk to you and you said Me too, does that mean you are not going to talk to yourself?" I could not answer at that moment..That was the first time where i couldn't come up with a smart alec reply!! So, we have my thaatha's vaarisu now!! :D

Thanksgiving break

We stayed at home and relaxed for the most part. We did some shopping on friday and had our friends for dinner in the evening. Kids enjoyed the most. Ashu even told me he had too much fun on friday. Saturday was a lazy day. did nothing. had leftovers, so didnt cook either. Browsed and watched t.v. happily. Kids were happy to be at home too. I taught ashu to fold t.shirt the japanese way and that kept him amused and busy for a while. he was very proud and kept doing it again and again..and the little copy cat was trying to do that too :D If only he had followed my instructions he would've got it too..but he told me to stay away and said he will do it himself!! The little brat! :)



On sunday, it was quite nice n pleasant. (Now Sudha, if you are reading this..i am NOT rubbing it on you..hehehe) We didnt miss the opportunity and went to a (not so) nearby park and it was very nice. They had a big horse arena and the park looked pretty. Boys were running around and all of a sudden the temp dropped down and we had to walk quite a bit to get back to the car as we got carried away and walked quite afar. From there we went to Panera's for dinner. AJ just ordered a kids grilled cheese sandwich and 2 giant cookies. He got a kids yogurt with the sandwich.. Ashu ordered grilled cheese and kids mac n cheese and got two yogurts. One was red and one was blue. AJ asked ashu very nicely that he wanted to exchange his red with ashu's blue and ashu gave his blue. After couple of minutes, he said i want my red back and took it and didn't bother to give the blue back. When i asked him he casually said both blue and red are his and ashu got only one!! Ashu was quite nice and said he can have it..so no tantrum there!! Phew!



B and I watched "Boss engira Baskaran" on thursday and it was quite entertaining. We watched it quite late after the kids went to sleep..so we really couldn't make it to the Black friday shopping early in the morning..Aadi asanju when we went most of the doorbuster stuff were gone!!

Baby Genius

Some time back, when i went to pick up AJ, he had a new teacher for SAC and she was going gaga over how brilliant AJ is and said she was spelling out lot of words and AJ got them all right, right away. She said i even spelt big words like Montessori and he said That's my school, Montessori :) She should've stopped with that..she said she spelt Genius wrong and he not only said the word, he also corrected her. This, she said in front of him and he was grinning..I dont know when this will come and bite her (or me) back!!

SSSSSSHABBBAAA

I have this signature in my email that says " Office: A place where you can relax after your strenuous home life ;-)"

And ever since i added that my work life got soooo hectic..not that it made my home life any better. With the move, it only got worse. I survived only because my mom was here. Anyways, work is a little stable now. No more 12+ hours of work everyday!! But, if i have to rate something worse than work and the chores at home, it is the chores given to parents by the school. I dont know how they always manage to pick the hectic weeks. I am to be partly blamed here too..I bit more than i could chew. Everytime i goto PTO i see very few indian parents and ore pheelings!! So, i signed up for lot of things and now i am like SSS Habba!! :D Ashu's school is quite reasonable and they schedule meetings after work hours usually and it is the activities that we signed him up for that takes more work from us, so we are to be blamed. But in AJ's school you have to do some voluntary work and i told them i would like to pick the ones that i can do off hours..And they gave a list of garden supplies and asked me to get that for his school. I thought no big deal, just go ask someone and grab those things and come. They wanted two big white mums -none of the stores had white mums...Baaah! After couple of stores, i decided that's it and picked pink. They wanted 6 small containers of pansies..the small containers were super tiny and the next big containers were little large. ore confusion...so didnt pick it as i needed clarification. then they wanted evergreens..and there was no one around to help us..We went aisle by aisle looking for evergreen and neither me nor B had a clue what an evergreen was.

I said evergreen is probably something that wont change colour during fall and something that is perenial and i picked two pots of green perenials and Ashu said mommy i dont think that's evergreen, it should look like those christmas trees..i hushed him and gave the same explanation and put the pots in the cart and we also picked the bags of potting soil they wanted and started heading out and store guy came and asked if i found everything okay. So, i asked him if the "evergreens" i picked were actually evergreens and he suppressed his laughter and said no. He said he will bring it for me and got me the ones that were looking like christmas trees (small in size) and Ashu gave me a look. Finally, i dumped all of those at AJ's scool the next and thunda kaanum thuniya kaanum-nu odi vandhutten before they handed me another list!! ;-)



And the same week was our snack supply week too and theriyaama i asked the teacher what kind of snacks we can send and she started with a list of conditions ...sort of like manalkayiru s.v.shekar. :-O We managed to find some healthy snacks for all the vaandus and am glad we are done with snack supply for the year!! :D Btw, the snacks did meet all the conditions ;-)

Friday funny - Country names

I was playing the name a country that starts with the letter...game with Ashu and AJ decided to join. He doesnt need any invitation for anything :) So, i said name a country that starts with G and AJ said Germany, then i said name a country that starts with Z and AJ goes 'Zermany'!!




The next day when we were in the car, Ashu became the quizmaster and was asking AJ to name a country that starts with P and AJ says "No..no, you have to ask name a country that starts with C and i will say China". And he also thinks Chennai and India are two different countries and you try arguing with that!! :D

Friday funny - Ashu

My mom said Janani got first in Science and some other subject and wasn't sure if she was class first or school first. I thought i will just assume it was school first and told Ashu very proudly that Janani got school first and before i finished my sentence he said..i can never be school first becasue of two of my classmates. I was totally surprised because there is no concept of rank here. When i asked him to explain he said, " Those two boys are always the first to come to school and i can never beat them!!" I was ROFL on hearing this and when i explained what i meant by school first, even ashu couldn't stop laughing :D

Diwali

For the extreme bad planning that i did, Diwali turned out to be really good :-) Lesson learnt : Dont plan..like unplanned trips, unplanned events turn out to be good too ;-)



Two weeks before Diwali i thought i will prepare kaju katli (Ashu's demand), thattai (ashu's demand again), Rava laddoo and a murukku recipe that my friend gave me long back and i did the whole planning and i was supposed to start my batchanam making on monday. Monday came - no signs of making batchanam...We still have 3 days to make batchanam..what's the problem. Tuesday came, B was sick and i had tons of things to take care of..no signs of batchanam again..Wednesday..couldn't manage to do anything and my BP started raising..so at 11 PM i started making kaju katli, since AJ decided to sleep late that day. I was so nervous and i goofed up by taking it off the stove a tad earlier. I couldn't knead it when it cooled down as it was too sticky. I was soooo frustrated that i didnt bother to fix it anymore and put everyhting in a box and put it in the fridge. The next day when i came from office i thought i will give it one try and ta..da it came out well. Then, i started making thattai and it was super good too. Thursday night things started looking better..but, friday i was working from home and it got a little bit hectic, but i managed cooking a decent meal by getting up early :)

(If only i could do that everyday!! :D) Friday evening we all went to the temple and after sevichufying pillu, we went down and got our dinner to go and then got some crackers and the kids had soooo much fun. As it was too crowded, we came home and had the dinner. The next day, we went to Swati's house for a potluck party and there the children burst crackers again and had tons of fun. We had a great time with great food too :-) Came home only after 2 in the night! :-O

Ashu's street hockey experience

 

I forgot to mention that in October update. On october 26th, in Ashu's SAC, they had two players from Nashville Predators ( Lindback and O Reilly ) come and talk to them about ice hockey and they also played Street hockey with them. Ashu was picked as Goalie for one team and Lindback tied the pads for him and it was all recorded by someone with a big camera (looked like a t..v camera). But they didnt tell us if it was going to be telecast somewhere. Ashu was soooo happy and excited. After that they also got autographs from them in a poster. They told AJ he could get autograph from them and once they gave the poster to AJ, velila vandhu adhu pongi pongi azhudhudhu. I asked him why he was crying and he said they didnt give me autograph. I told him their signature in the poster is what is called autograph and he was so disappointed..Edho auto maari toy tharuvaanu nenachundu pochunu nenaikkaren.

October Update

I cant believe i did not update this blog for a month. I had several drafts so here you go...

Highlights of October :

Glasses :

Ashu now wears glasses. I knew it was coming because he will sit and read anywhere without being bothered about poor lighting. We usually have to watch him like hawk and it is not possible to do that 24/7. Anyways, we both were little upset that he has to wear glasses, but we have to do what we have to do. I am glad we caught it before it was bad and before he even realized the need for glasses. I have to say that he looks very studious and handsome in his glasses :-) Reminds me of my bro when he was in school :) Only he is olli and my bro was a chubby boy :) So, he comes home with glasses on day 1 (Monday 4-Oct) and AJ was after him to snatch his glasses. I told AJ that ashu cant see well without glasses and he shouldn't snatch it, thinking that it will make him not snatch it and he goes..Mommy i can't see anything now..i need glasses!! GRR. I thought i will trick him and showed four fingers and asked him to count. I didnt say i was testing him...i just made it look like a game and the dude goes..oh my God, i cant see anything. I dont see your fingers..you dont have fingers..Sivaji Ganesan can take few tips from him!! After couple of hours he realized he was not going to get the glasses and left it. The next day, when ashu came back from school he went and tried differently...Hey ashu, can i check if i fit well in your glasses? Yeah right!! Nice try!! :D


Cheekwood : We went to Cheekwood one sunday after Ashu raved about it after his field trip. It was indeed very good. The chihuly exhibitis were beautiful and i loved the documentary showing how they made it. We took some really good fall pics of the kids. On the way back Ashu asked me which one i liked the most and B and I both said we liked the Sunset and he asked AJ and he said i liked the Elevator :-)

Halloween : Ashu picked Ninja costume again..Two years back he was Green ninja, last year red and this year black. No more cute costumes for Ashu, that mommy can pick. I suggested Harry Potter and he said the cape looked horrible. AJ picked woody and i was happy that he is still sticking to cute costumes. :-) Trick or treating was funny. Some houses they said the kid can take how muchever they want and Ashu took only one and AJ went crazy...That explained why his basket was HEAVVVVVVVIER :D We had a fun experience at home too...When some of our friends came a dog came in when i opened the door. All the kids went crazy chasing the dog and the dog ran inside instead of outside and i was just praying that it doesn't do it's business on the rugs/carpet. Thank God we managed to send him out before anything happened! It was a funny experience for the kids :-) One more funny thing that happened was we met a kid who was buzz light and his dad saw AJ and asked me if he could take pics of both AJ and buzzlight together and i said yes. When the dad was trying to focus the camera and the buzzlight was busy posing for the camera, our woody bent down and started transfering candies from buzz's basket to his!! Ashu caught him on time and gave the candies back!! :D

Kids are enjoying their Sunday classes at the temple and have started making new friends.
We had a get2gether at the end of navaratri. Our first get2gether in our new house and it was good. The kids had a great time and there were no fights and the toyroom wasn't even messy after the kids left because the older kids were playing wii and the little ones were content with just watching. no fights, no screams..it was too good to be true :)

Kids started going to the local library and they laaaaav it. I haven't stepped in there yet..So far only B has been taking them.

We also celebrated B's birthday in a simple way. For his start birthday we went to the temple and i had cooked a simple dinner for him with his favorite stuff, so we came back home and AJ was totally shocked that we didnt go to celebrate Dad's birthday at chuck-e-cheese :D

Fall Fest : We went to fall fest on the last friday of october and it was fun for the kids. i bought a handbag for myself and so it was fun for me too ;-) I had volunteered for the nail salon at the school and all the little girls took me for a ride...They were so picky about the colours and patterns and it was so hard for me to paint those little nails :-) By the end i was so happy that i have only boys :D They are so easy breezy to deal with :D

Endhiran : We watched Endhiran in theater the tuesday after it was released as we didnt get the weekend tickets. When i picked up Ashu i told him that he needs to finish his homework fast as we were going to watch the movie and he said, why did you book tickets for me..I am not interested. I said, try saying this to mama, he will kick your rear for saying this for a rajini movie and he said but i like only Kamalnaathan. I said you cant even say his name right..he is kamalhaasan and that made him mad. He said, that doesnt matter, i like him better than rajinikant. Apparently he is still so fascinated with Dasavataram! Luckily he had finished his homework in school already so all i had to do was feed the kids and we ate dosas too and were good to go.


Ashu was kinda cribbing about having to goto a tamil movie, but once the movie started he was laughing so much and i pulled his legs asking him if we should go back home and he said NOOOO :D Overall he enjoyed the movie and aj enjoyed the first half and promptly fell asleep. He was upset that the doctor chopped chitti (the robot) and fell asleep. When he woke up this morning the first thing he asked was why did the doctor chop chitti. I said after you slept he fixed him back and he was okay after that. He went to B and said, Daddy i dont want to goto school, i want to go watch Endhiran the robot. Yeah right!! :D
I asked ashu if rajinikant is his favorite actor now and he said no..he said he still likes kamalhaasan better. B was sooo disappointed and so was my brother. They both think it has to do with me and i swear i didnt influence ashu..Heck, i dont even like kamalhaasan anymore..i am "mature" enough to like a movie for the story and real acting than go watch a movie just because i like someone!! (Aamir n Hrithik are exceptions though ;-))

So that's the update for october! Phew!

Dude with the attitude!!

Today was the kids first classes at the temple. Signed up Ashu for language class and AJ for shloka class as they said the child has to be minimum 5 to be in language class. The classes were in different buildings. To start with, we were late due to bad planning from my side. Anyways, adichu pidichu we went to the class and AJ and i went to Shloka class and they were teaching jai jagadish hare song.. He was just sitting like a kozhakkatai and looking around without repeating. On nudging he repeated couple of words and went back to kozhakkatai mode. After the class was over i took him over to the other building where B was waiting for Ashu's class to be over. As soon as Ashu came out i asked him and he said it was good and he said we were all laughing when someone said something wrong. On hearing that Mr. Kozhakkatai said, even my shloka class was good Ashu, i did great!! After the classes we went to the temple and he was talking loud and i said, shhh! we dont use scream in the temple, we have to be quiet. After doing Pradakshanam, we sat down for a while and people were singing songs. One guy started singing and there was absolutely no shruti and it wasn't very good. He was quite loud too. AJ was staring at him for few minutes and turned to me and said this is temple, can you ask him to be quiet (Thankfully softly!). So, we decided to leave. We saw Roma on our way out and he was very happy to see her again after the shloka class. It was funny to watch them both. They were just looking at each other and smiling non stop. No chit chat.
After the temple, we went to do some shopping and both kids were hyper and running around. So, i showed them the CARS Wii cd and said if you get 50 good choice points they will get it. AJ said Sorry mommy for my bad behavior so far and i said, "Good, you just earned one good choice point" And he goes "sorry sorry, now do i get 2 more"! Ha..nice try dude!!

Bummed!!

Mom returned to chennai yesterday and i am sooooo bummed. I ha..........te the distane between US and India..Wish it was more like Singapore and India. I was so upset and Ashu cried so much after we returned home from the airport and AJ kept blabbering now who will make vada for me and also went and asked ashu why paati went back to chennai. Poor kids. Made me feel worse :(

One good thing was my friend's dad was there to help and amma didnt have to travel alone.

St.Louis

We hardly had any time to plan for the labour day weekend. It was so hectic with AJ starting the school and B travelling again. B returned only on thursday night and we decided to get up on saturday and go somewhere. Saturday morning we decided to goto St.louis as it was only approximately 5 hrs drive and we could do one day for amma and one day for the kids. We went to the gateway arch on sunday and amma liked it a lot. The kids loved it too. .It was crowded so we had to wait for couple of hours to get in the tram, so we were just whiling our time in the museum there. Ashu is the only one who found it interesting :-) B and I were experimenting with the camera and amma and aj were just following ashu. Finally we got on the tram and the kids were quite thrilled about it. They were also super fascinated to be on the top of the arch and see the city. So was amma :) This is B and I's second trip..so we were just neutral :) The last time we came we went to a science center and found it quite intersting and we took the kids this time and they both loved it. the science center is quite big..We could not cover a whole lot, but we have the membership to the science center that we could use in some of the locations nation wide. We could go back sometime, if we want. Ashu loved it there as they let him try some flight simulation stuff and he thought it was pretty cool. AJ thought whatever Ashu thought was cool, was cool too :)
We also watched a movie about Hubble at the Dome theater. Both kids had been to IMax several times, but not the dome kind.So, they were quite excited to see the movie screen go all the way to the back of the theater like a dome, ofcourse. But, after 20 minutes AJ lost interest and was saying things like, OMG the sky is gonna spit stars on us now..etc. etc and was talking non stop. Atleast he was little quieter so no one really realized he was talking. I kept feeding him popcorn to keep him quiet!

When we returned and we were close to nashville AJ asked where we were and i said near our house and he said turn the car, we have to go back to the Gateway Arch. Yeah right!! :) In the genes, i guess coz Ashu used to do the same. As soon as he saw the exit to our house he would scream turn the car back to the new house with the pool. He used to think every hotel we stayed in was our new house :D

Llama Drama and school admission

Of all the books the kids have, i have a special liking for the Llama Llama books..and this reminds me of the llama drama :)

Drama 1 : Eating food :

AJ has been at home for over a month now and he was fine till Ashu started school. Now he is bored at home without ashu. He doesnt trouble amma a whole lot, but when it comes to eating..it's Mahabarath war. He just refuses to eat at times and then amma gets tensed and calls me and i have to tell him he is a big boy now and he has to eat and then he eats. This drama happens everyday. It is funny that when amma brings him lunch, he says no immediately and gives a kaikeyi pose :-) One day, amma couldn't reach me and she told him that if he doesnt eat he will goto Gau's house and he said fine...after sometime he ate the lunch..i guess he was really hungry by then. After eating the lunch, he got scared that amma would goto gau's house and told her...you are not gau's paati, you are my paati. you gotto stay here :) After that this drama happens frequently too.


Drama 2 : Going to school
===================

This is more dramatic than the previous one. This is about School. We made the mistake of taking AJ to Ashu's school for PTO. AJ fell in love with the school and was sooooooo upset when he saw only Ashu's name outside Ashu's class. He started crying saying that they did not write his name. I said it is 3rd grade and they will write his name in his new class in the new school. Pat came the reply, i dont want new class, new school. I want to be in 3rd grade in this school. I distracted him and got him home. I thought he was done with that, but everyday in the morning, he cries so much that he wants to goto 3rd grade in "That" school. Sivaji Ganesan range-la azhugai. And he also declared that they should move Ashu to 2nd grade and put him in 3rd grade. In the meanwhile, we were looking at preschools for him and shortlisted two and decided to go with montessori as it is nearby and also got good reviews from friends who send their kids there. We took him for his interview last week and we had to stay outside. God knows what they asked and what he answered as he refused to tell us anything. He came out and the teacher said he did fine and he got the admission. The director gave him the lunch box in which he needs to bring his lunch. He opened it and asked her where is the lunch?! Before he started with any more questions we rushed out ;-) Anyways, on the way, i tried asking him in different ways to get some scoop on his interview. Nope..the boy didn't want to spill anything out! :P Once we reached the house he said he was very upset with the school and i asked him why. He said they took me to primary school, but i want to goto 3rd grade!! Again i distracted him somehow and after a while he said, he was missing montessori already! The next morning both B and i had to leave early so we sent Ashu by school bus. His first ever ride on a school bus. Ashu was excited and just when he was about to leave, AJ woke up :-O He was totally ticked off with me and B and was crying so much... for not sending him to "that" school in the school bus for 3rd grade. After trying several tricks and realizing nothing was working, i said, but you are gonna start Montessori next week. He said yeah that's only montessori but i want to goto Elementary school!! 3rd grade in elementary school..by bus. Thiruppi thiruppi "That school" or "Elementary school" or "3rd grade". Reminds me of Simbu from Vinnai thandi varuvayaa..."Ulagathula evlo ponnu irukkarthe naan yen jessi-ya love pannen"...

Ashu kutty turns 8

Happy Birthday Dear Ashu and wish you many more to come! May God bless you!!

Today is Ashu's birthday but we started celebrating from last evening. We got a small cake and cut it yesterday. It was funny how aj's eyes were all set on the cake..only on the cake. When Ashu cut the cake, B asked me to wait before feeding him so he would get the camera ready and aj kept his mouth opened going aa aa and i didnt even notice and i gave the cake to ashu. B did the same thing. My mom was the only person who noticed aj going after the cake and asked us to give him. I asked B to take a pic and aj said Give it already! :D It was hilarious!

Paati gave him a starwars game and he was totally surprised and too happy :) (Ahem!! my idea ;-)) AJ gave a small gift..the helicopter kind of game. Ashu was surprised with a gift from AJ and i was surprised that AJ actually gave the gift to him without claiming it to be his! :) Last week when bobby was here she got two toys - one for each and after bobby left aj went and asked ashu which one is his and Ashu pointed to his toy and AJ snatched it and said..na uh..this is mine. you play with the other!! So, you can understand why i was surprised when aj actually gave the toy to ashu :)
B and I have ordered a Wii cd for him. It was his choice :) We have not planned anything for his birthday yet as we have not recovered from the move yet. This weekend being a long weekend, we would probably do something the weekend after this. Something that he will enjoy with his friends.
I first thought of combining his birthday with house warming..we are nowhere closer to that!! B is travelling this week and mom's leaving next weekend. There is no way i can pull the house warming party now!!

Ashu-ism: My bro n sil called him in the morning to wish him and when my bro asked him what he wants Ashu said "I want you to get up and come here" :-)

Lots of wishes from relatives and friends made his day a happy one :) Balaje had to travel to columbus and i took the folks to the temple all by myself for the first time. I took directions from google to avoid highway in the dark and the GPS promptly routed me thro' a highway. I had to take it since i missed the turn before the highway as per my directions..anyways, it was not too bad. But, GPS has duplicate addresses for the temple and i just guessed and went with one and luckily it was the correct one! AJ must've heard me rambling about it to my mom and on the way back he whispered to Ashu "I think we are lost!" Grr at him :-) Also, B asked AJ why he went to the temple and he promptly replied saying to eat laddus. Additional health tip provided by AJ to B was "Laddus are healthy as they have lot of protein" :-)

It was around 9 when we came back after a Great Dharshan! :)

I said Ashu-ism now here is one Aj-ism. I had left a small piece of cake from yesterday for Ashu. Ashu said he will eat it after he comes from school. The little dude promptly had it for breakfast and then apologized to ashu saying that he didnt know it was his!!! Second kids!! I am the only exception, i say!!

TIRED!!!

Is all i can say now..I was (and still am) totally sleep deprived, work is extremely hectic and i dont know i how i survived the move.
I had to work when the packers were there.. It was pretty bad as we got the crappiest packers ever. I had to tell them each and everything and it was quite hard to manage them, along with the calls i had to take. And inspite of me telling them what to take from the basement and garage 1000 times they left those things. I was dead tired when they left and didnt bother to go down and check when they left. I assumed they would've taken them all. It made the next day even more hectic for us. The internet was not on yet on the new house so i stayed back at the old house till 6.30 (had to work till 6.30!!) and left. Mom and kids stayed back with me and B went to the new house to unload and set as much as he could. He did pretty good. Kitchen had all the basic things and made it a bit easy the next day. Mom and I set the kitchen 90% in the next couple of days. Still cant find the rest 10% of things!! When we unpacked i was furious, they had done such bad packing...Quite messy!!

Kids actually enjoyed this process in a way, because we were not paying any attention to what they were doing and they were watching as many shows as possible. AJ was a little confused. The packers packed off the kids room first!!! He came and asked me for something to play with.. i said they packed off everything and he looked little upset,but when i said we will open them and play with them in the new house his face brightened a little. But, he was a little in the polambal mode the next day as he couldnt find lot of things!! Basically,he couldn't make a mess...and was pretty upset about it i guess!! =)

Ashu was extremely upset before the packers came and was in tears. He kept saying i was in this house for 5 years and have to leave now. I felt so bad. AJ didnt know how to express and i thought he was fine with the move, but once they started packing he was pretty upset.He started screaming..these guys are breaking my house. hehe. He just followed them to every room and kept screaming they are breaking breaking..they probably were ticked off. After a while they created a cardboard slide to take big boxes downstairs and let them both slide and AJ went to one of the packers and said.. now i like you, you are nice after all! :-O
Ashu cried again when we actually left, but once we got into the new house the kids were both excited. The new house is more spacious and they were running around and having fun. Slowly, i dont see them talking about the old house. Life moves on. AJ infact went and told B that he likes this house and not the 1775 house (our old house#) :P
Vinod was here for the weekend befor the move. It was fun..Kids had lot of fun with him and i was chatting with him till 3.45 one night and 1.45 the other..and i lost my voice for couple of days. It was pathetic when i had to speak over the phone during my meetings on the monday he left...Vinod got a bulb from AJ. AJ said Vinod is my big brother and not little brother. Ha!! Revenge..Sweet Revenge! :) But, too bad he stayed only for 2 days :( Also, we couldn't take him anywhere fun (except shopping) as B was down with fever and we were kinda busy with the shifting too :( Next time, Vinod!! :-)

After he left, AJ went out to look where he was and then came back and said Vinod anna is gone..He has gone to knoxville. Knoxville because the last time Balaji left, he left from knoxville and all of us went to drop him there.

Last at daycare!

Last friday was Aj's last day at the current daycare. I felt kinda sad when i left. I have been going there almost every day since ashu was 2.5. The teachers are so nice and i know them for years now. They are more like friends than my kids' teachers. AJ loves it there too and when we left some of the teachers almost cried when they said bye to AJ :(

Hope the new preschool is as good.

Now for the next 2,3 weeks he is going to be at home with my mom. When Ashu and AJ are together...My mom needs all the luck in the world now!!

Mathematic Tamil and the impossible game!

AJ can read tamil fluently now, but cannot write all the uyir mei. Ashu can write them all. I taught him like chinna kombu + ka = Ke and periya kombu + ka = Kay. I taught it this way as i thought he can replace ka with nga, cha...etc and it will be easy for him to pick up. AJ saw ashu's notebook and decided to do it that way and was writing " chinna kombu" + Tha = The. I asked AJ are you writing tamil and he said, no mommy i am writing mathematic tamil, dont you see a + sign?

Today, i told AJ let's play something..you close your eyes and pretend you are sleeping. I will tell Ashu you are sleeping. AJ kept his eyes wide open and said yes mommy i am pretending to be asleep. I said no AJ your eyes are wide open and he said with his eyes opened even wider, no mommy they are closed..so finally he decided to play along and closed his eyes and i said now i will tell ashu that you are sleeping and when he comes near you, you open your eyes and say April Fool and AJ said, "Mommy did you say a bad word? We should not say fool" Aargh! I give up!!

Friday Funny

On one of their swimming classes, AJ was just being lazy and was holding on to the noodle and looking around. The other two kids in his batch were kicking and moving around with the noodle. The teacher said AJ you have to keep kicking and AJ said, but i have a "headache" in one of my feet :D

Same day, after sometime i told AJ that he needs to kick his legs when he is floating in the water and also use his arms. He casually looked at me and said, "yes mommy. you are right" and continued to hang around holding on to the floaty. The lady who was sitting next to me burst into laughter and said he is soooo cool and laid back, i like that! :)

Ashu is now jumping from the bench in the 6ft side, without life jacket. That's a great improvement on his side. He was quite terrified of that when he started. I think another set of classes he will swim without any issues. AJ? I dont know about him..he is just lazy i think. I dont see any fear in him..he just likes to relax and probably party in the pool! ;-)

Certificates and a new English Word

Certificates/Awards :
=======================
Couple of weeks back (yeah i know i am late!) AJ got his first ever certificate :-) and it was unbelievable. He got 5 stars in all. The certificate for his gym bus.

Also, the only reason he goes to school these days is gymbus. He skips daycare the other days and stays at home with ashu and amma. Rendu perum ore kottam. Paavam amma i dont know how she manages :)


Moving on to the next certificate : Both Ashu and AJ finished their first set of swim lessons yday and got the beginner certificate.

Today, Ashu got his Orange belt in Karate. It is usually B who takes him for Karate class and i really had no idea about his progress. I was so proud when the Karate master said he was very proud to have a student like Ashu and he just follows instructions and does really great. I was dumbstruck when he did chinese splits. I didnt know ashu was that flexible. I always thought he was too stiff for that kind of activity. Ashu did really well.

Now to the new english word that AJ coined :

Yesterday, when i got AJ down from the car seat after reaching home, he walked outside the garage and came back saying, whew! it is so windy, it just "winds" my hair. I could not control my laughter. So he had realized by then that "winds" is probably not the right word, i guess. When i told B later that he said the wind just winds my hair, he came and corrected me saying, mommy the wind just blew on my hair! :D

Proud mommy and Toystory 3 - 3D

On 25 Jun, AJ said i look nice, pretty and beautiful. That is like Vashistar vaayaal Brahmarishi pattam. Ashu was (and is still) a total momma's boy. Anyday, he would say i'm the prettiest girl (Ok..lady!) in the world. Even if he thinks someone from his class is pretty he would say she is very pretty like you amma ;-) AJ on the other hand is blatant!! :P Once i asked him who is the prettiest girl in the world expecting him to say mommy and pat came the reply "Janani"..I tried asking him in diferent ways..nope the answer was standard "Janani". So, i finally asked who is the prettiest mommy in the world and he said "you" :-) So, i gave up after that and knew this kid was tough. Today, i wore a new top and he said you look nice. I asked only nice..he said pretty and i asked only pretty and he said nice, pretty, beautiful..ok? I almost wanted to ask if he thought i was the prettiest in the world..but why take a chance and spoil the moment :D

Toystory 3
==========

A very enjoyable movie. We went to watch this on 4th of july. That was the only thing we did on the long weekend as i had to work that weekend. GRR! Anyways, this was a good break for me. The movie was awesome. Very enjoyable. Loved the spanish buzz. Ashwin enjoyed it thoroughly, but AJ was okay. He still doesnt have the patience to watch a complete movie. He was concentrating more on the pop corn. He giggled few times and i really had doubts that he did gumbaloda govinda and laughed along with us. He was annoying me too by getting on and off the chair 1000 times. Only when the clapping monkey came he got super scared and climbed on me and hugged me and started looking at the walls and after that he didnt watch the movie. but atlesat he was quiet ;-) I loved the movie as much as cars and kungfu panda :)

Another AVK in the house :-)

Yep, now AJ realized how much fun Ashu is having at home and goes to daycare only part time. He stays at home three days a week. He is still very naughty and a little too much to handle for anyone other than me and B :-) So, i decided not to torture my mom by making him stay full time ;-)

My mom said that he doesnt trouble that much when he is at home, but it is still not a risk worth taking. Also, some days he wants to goto school. He dilly dallies a lot between school and home.

I did not sign up Ashu for any summer camp this time because B is travelling a lot and my project is at a crucial stage and i have to work at odd hours. That means i cant drop him some days and i didnt want the money go down the dumps as usual. He goes to Karate and i give him some work in the afternoons. He is learning tamil from me and mom as i mentioned earlier. He also goes for swim lessons with AJ, which deserves a separate post ;-)

I see a lot of improvement in Ashu's tamil. He speaks really good, but needs to cut that settu payyan accent. He recognizes almost all the letters..Makes me wonder why tamil has over 200 letters!! And i also realized that i forgot half of it and taught him wrong..i had no idea how to write nyu nyoo..etc. I have never seen those letters as part of any words, so i am not guilty of forgetting those ;-) I had to re-teach him after i found the UKG tamil book :D And seriously, the in india they teach ka nga cha na in UKG?!! Poor kids!

Both kids have started reading simple words. Ashu can read little more as he knows more letters.AJ recognizes 70% of what Ashu knows already. He learnt those like Ekalavya..he never sits and learns..just observes as he goes. He writes all of uyir ezhuthu and some mei ezhuthu and recognizes pretty much all the uyir mei too. Ashu knows almost all of them. Since i taught him wrong first he is still stuck with the wrong set of letters on some! My fault!! I got mixed up with tamil and hindi!! :P

Tamizh Pulavargal

I have started teaching them spoken tamizh now. All this time i was torturing Ashu by teaching him ka nga cha na..and he was not too interested. One day when my mom asked him if he wanted more urula kizhangu, ashu was like huh?! then i realized i should teach them spoken tamizh too. Ashu can speak tamil quite well, but he doesnt know a whole lot as we use the english words at home. So, i started with fruits and vegetables and then moved on to colors, animals, body parts and birds. He is doing pretty good. What surprised us is that AJ was observing and read all of it on his own from Ashu's note book and knows everything now. My mom is totally amazed. Also, he saw ashu practising writing too and asked me to teach him to write. I taught him a, aa, e, ee completely and he writes all the uyir ezhuthu on his own and recognizes all the mei ezhuthu too. he cant write mei ezhuthu though. Ashu can write them too. I think they are making good progress in tamil and i'm glad i started tamil for AJ earlier than ashu otherwise it will be a vepangaai for him too. The only reason ashu is learning tamil is so he can go back to chennai. That's a trick i played on him and is working well.

Karuthu Kandasamy!

Whenever i give some advice to AJ i get some advice back. Something that the teachers tell him in daycare. So, if i give some advice like do not hit ashu, you should always love your brother..etc etc..he immediately gives an advice in similar lines..like 'we share with our friends' or ' we take turns' etc. Last week i said something and he said "You can go close to a flower to smell it, but do not eat it". I could not stop my laughter. I dont know which kid got that advice and i hope it's not AJ! :D

Mama's Visit

My bro visited us during the long weekend. It was total fun. I tried very hard to keep it a surprise for ashu and i was quite successful, but just one week before the long weekend, my friend asked me what my plans were and i blurted out without realizing ashu was standing behind me. He was super excited.
I told AJ, but i guess he didnt take it seriously. When he saw my brother he could not believe his eyes. He went to him and touched him to see if it was real! It was too funny. He kept looking at him in awe for the next 30-40 minutes. It was really hilarious :D

The next 3 days went in a jiffy though. We went house hunting on saturday and did some shopping. The whole day was gone and on sunday, we watched 3 movies!! and even managed to goto the park in between :-) Kids had a blast with their mama.
On monday, we did some more shopping and just lazed around at home and my brother left in the evening. Both kids cried so much. Ashu was really angry with me for not sending him to chennai with my brother!! and AJ was totally upset for the rest of the evening. Made me feel very guilty!!

Luckily for me he came back the next weekend too. Kids were so happy (me too me too), but AJ is under the impression that my bro is gonna come every friday and spend the weekend with us :-) We watched Flight 172 this time. It is still funny :) We went to the park and did some boating. We took a 4 seater as amma said she wont come. She just bench thechified as usual. We went in the 4 seater and ashu and my bro wanted to do the pedalling. So, B, Me and AJ sat in the back. Poor Bro had to do all the pedalling as Ashu had no strength :-) AJ was screaming the whole time that he wants to go to the front. Then, we went second round and B and bro sat in the front with AJ in Bro's lap. Bro had a tough time controlling him. I guess my bro will stay away from boats for a while :-) We all went to the airport this time to see him off since he left on sunday itself. Poor dude had the worst luck that day and his flight was delayed by several hours and he reached NJ only the next day. Adhuku, he couldve spent the night with us. :(

Award Ceremony

Ashu had his Award Ceremony on 26-May. He received "All As or Es" award and "Music Award". Music Award was a surprise for others in the family as he doesnt even hum a song at home :-) But, me and B have heard him sing some songs that Ms.Nicole had taught him for Veteran's day and he was really good, so we were not surprised :-)

I think they limited the number of awards to 2 this time and Ashu did not get the AR award. He was so disappointed as he was expecting that. He got the STAR rating though and he is reading at 8.7 level. So, even i was surprised that they didnt give him the award. But, i didnt ask the teacher since i thought it might be tacky. Later he convinced himself saying that the teacher must have looked at the quantity of books read as part of AR and since he reads bigger books he could not read as many as some of them. I felt little sad that he was upset, but it is an opportunity to learn to deal with disappointments. After we came home, AJ promptly snatched the awards from ashu and was running around saying i won two golden awards. Ashu was really mad and then surprisingly AJ gave him back the E award and kept the music award with him. He didn't fail to update any one who talked to him that day that he won two golden awards. He was honest only with Janani. When she asked him if those awards were Ashu's he said yes and she asked him then why are you saying those are yours. He just giggled :-) If it was not Janani and somebody else who asked that question to him there would've been a tantrum tornado!!!

One more update about Ashu is in Karate, he has got 4 orange stripes in his white belt now. He said he just has to take a test and graduate to orange belt. The master is waiting for another student to get 4 stripes so he can test them together.Dont know how lone he needs to wait.

Gym Bus and AVK :

Started AJ on the gym bus last week. It is a "Gym on wheels" program where they have the complete setup done in a bus for tumbling classes. Wanted to start him in the beginning of May, but i forgot..Better late than never. I wish i had a camera or atleast my mobile in my hand when AJ entered the bus. He was beaming with pride and was soooo happy.

Ashu is pretty excited these days because
1) No homework
2) They keep having all these fun stuff towards the end of school year - like the Water play, Mega party where they have inflatables and schedule time for each class to play, Fun day, kickball tournament etc. I have to say something about the kickball tournament here. Ashu said he wants one of us to come and watch the match as he was sooo excited about it, so i managed to go on time (actually a little late and the match was halfway thro) and i didnt understand a thing. The match was over and i didnt even know which team won because both teams were excited. I went to ashu and he said they lost!! :-O Anyways, he was still excited about the fun he had and that's what is important!
3) Couple of more days and he gets to be the full time AVK! :D

Our trip to Singara Chennai :)

Every time i go to chennai, i get butterflies in the stomach now. Probably because i can never see my appa in the airport anymore :( I get this mixed feeling..it is exciting to visit chennai, but it is sad that appa is not part of the trip anymore for me :-( AJ talks so much now and he is reading and writing..and what not! Appa would've enjoyed him thouroughly and would've bragged about him to all his friends like how he used to about the other grandchildren.

Chennai rocks inspite of the heat. It was extremely cold in london..so the chennai heat was unbearable! It was a speed breaker for me. I had planned so much and i couldn't do 1/2 of it. I guess i was over ambitious too. Anyways, whatever i did, i enjoyed that and so did the kids and i think B too. B didnt go out much, thanks to IPL!! But, that was probably the best part of the trip for him. My bro, B and Ashu went to the stadium to watch one of the matches. Great experience for Ashu. He was raving about it. I saved the tickets for him as a souvenier, but i cant remember where i put it :( He got a flag and zhu zhu ( i dont know how to spell it) inflatable thingy too. He saved those as souveniers and thankfully radhika had packed them for him :)

The day we landed we had Janani's bday party. It was fun, inspite of the jetlag. Was glad Ashu and AJ mingled with Jan and Gau's friends and had fun. I thought they will be shy. What was i drinking?! The next day was Pondugal at appu mama's house. All my cousins from mom's side were there and ashu and aj were uncontrollable. They had lots of fun and did not even check whether i was there or not. Later that day i went to buy saree for Vinod's wedding with mom, UR mami and Manoj and due to traffic and all i came back only after 2.5 hours and as soon as i entered mama started scolding me saying that i took too much time and the kids were troubling..and i got so scared. He was only kidding and everyone started laughing. He said both of them didnt ask for me even once. What loving children!! :D Later in the night, around 12 AJ went to Vinod and asked him to take him to the park!! Konjam over-a illai?

Next day, after ashu and aj went with appu mama for few rounds in scooter, we went to inlaws place. I went by auto as i had to take a suitcase with me and mama came beside me in scooter with the kids. They loved it. The whole day AJ kept asking for appu mama and his scooter :) Reminded me of the times when appa would come every single day of my stay there just to take ashu for a round :-(

Next day Srinithi came and the kids were having fun. Sri was little shy at first but started talking to me after a while. :) The 'Tom and Jerry'-ness has reduced between AJ and Sri, i think :-) But, Gau and AJ are the new T&J i think!! Jan and AJ were ore konjals :) Ashu and Sri were as usual Guru sishyai type and Ashu and Jan were as usual book pals. After couple of days we went to the mandapam and had a great time with all the uncles, aunts, cousins etc. My dad's side uncles and aunts came too and couple of my cousins came too. It was so great to meet all of them. The only downside was the heat...but that didnt stop the fun. After the wedding, the trip got hectic as we had to meet several people, friends..family etc and then start and wrap up the shopping as soon as we could and pack!! Another cousin visited us with his family. I had a good time with them, especially the kids. They are all grown up now..Made me feel old (Did i say that?!) Ok, they made me feel older than before...

After the wedding, we managed to goto the beach twice. Once on Saturday, as soon as we left the mandapam we went to appu mama's house and then we went shopping and had dinner at a punjabi dhaba. After that we returned home (mom's place), but on the way we decided to go for a drive on the beach road, but once we hit the road me, my sil and the kids started nagging my brother and B to stop there and went to the beach, got wet and had tons of fun. We literally had to drag aj back home. He was screaming that he wants to go back!! We had icecream and left the beach. And we went again on the day before we left chennai. B didnt come this time as he was busy with packing and i was at mom's place. I went with brother's family and cousins. It was lot of fun. All uncles had come to send me off too, but they stayed athome and didnt join us. After we returned we had dinner and were all chatting till 2 in the night. Me and the kids left around 8.30 in the morning to inlaws place. wrapped up the packing and had lunch and we all left to the airport. amma joined us in the airport. This time we had booked tickets thro' delhi. non stop flight from delhi to chicago. Flight was quite convenient, but delhi airport sucked. Too much waiting and lots of inconveniences...Dont know if it was just our luck or if it is that way usually. Ashu started crying in the flight that he wants to stay in chennai for longer time :-( Me too Me too..didn't cry this time as mom came with me,but i miss chennai and everyone in chennai though :-( I asked AJ if he misses chennai and he said NO, but after couple of days he said, come let's go to mama's house and then to the beach. It is nice when you dont know the distance/time concept yet..

London

This is Ashu's (and our) second visit to London and Aj's first. We didnt visit all the hot places this time as we visited most of them last time. Also, we were dead tired with all the hectic schedule before the trip and B still had to attend calls from there couple of days.
Day1 : We visited the london eye, westminister, big ben etc. There was a surprise for the kdis when we came out of london eye. Mickey and Pooh were there right outside the london eye. AJ screamed disney land and went running to them. Got some pictures and then there was a carousel too. We went in that too. It was like going to a mini magic kingdom :) Day 1 was not that cold..but from day 2...BRRRRR! That kinda dampened our spirits.

Day 2: We tried to goto windsor castle but by the time we reached there it was closed, so we were content with some winter shopping. they had nice stuff at very reasonable price (atleast that's what we thought! :)) next day was my birthday, and the previous evening, appu (my niece) gave me the gift as she couldn't hold till tuesday :D She gave me a beautiful touching card and a perfume. Loved it :) Sil was disappointed that she gave it earlier, but i told her it was my birthday already in india and we had a good laugh :)

Day 3 : We finally managed to goto windsor castle and it was beautiful. It was huge. B and kids got me a crown (show piece) as a gift. i guess to signify i;m the queen mom (my mii name in wii :)) I lost my D&G sunglasses inside the castle. i was bummed because of the senti value (plus it was quite expensive..GRR) Next time you go there, you might find it next to the sword of Sultan of Tipu ;-) I enjoyed seeing all the royal stuff inside the castle. We had tea nearby and returned home for a surprise. Myy bil and sil had got me a cake and sil made the yummiest carrot halwa and hot crispy vadas which was like heaven as it was sooo damn cold outside! BRR! The cake was absolutely yummy too. Creamy - just like the ones we get in india. Had a wonderful birthday this year and to make it more wonderful, I did lot of shopping in london before, on and after my birthday and i'm pretty sure that B has decided to celebrate all my future birthdays only in u.s. :D

Day 4: We didnt go anywhere. We just did some shopping. Bil took ashu and appu to a kids place called Snake and Ladder. AJ was so bored to be stuck with us in the mall. Ananya too. They both started fighting for a while to keep them busy and entertained. As usual, me and sil took the naatamai role and did some panchayathu. After all the shopping, we went to starbucks and had some hotchocolate and stuff. Ajay got sparkling water and did abhishekam on me!! It was my mistake i didnt see 'sparkling' in the bottle and got it for him thinking it was plain water. We returned home in double decker bus and i was quite happy about that.
Day 5: We went to the Tassaud's. It was fun. I dont think the kids enjoyed though. Me and my sil enjoyed the most, posing with tom cruise and brad pitt and even our Sallu :P The goof up of the day was B forgot the camera in the car..so i had to use the camcorder to take pics and the pics suck because of the poor lighting inside and no flash in the camcorder. I think just for this, i will make B take me to the one in NY so i can get a good pic with Brad pitt;-) Actually, i like George clooney better, but realized that i didnt take any pic with him after coming home. So, that's due too.
Day 6 : We left london and AJ was quite bummed that bil's family didnt come with us. I got new sunglasses in the airport as another birthday gift :) This year birthday was a riot for me :D
Kids had so much fun in london. AJ was stuck to Appu and kept fighting with ananya. Ashu and Appu got into arguments once in a while but all 3 of them were playing non stop. Poor ananya figured out she was too small to be included in that gang and decided to stay with us :)

After coming here, everyone kept saying that i should've gone to Picadilly Circus and did shopping in Oxfort street. I dont know why people dont suggest anything before the trip!! Maybe B tipped them to be quiet?! Next trip, my first stop will be Oxford street and if we have any money left with us, then we will goto Picadilly circus and the rest of the places :)

Next post will be about Singara chennai :)

Embarassing moments!!

Am in chennai now. We are having a great time here inspite of the horrible heat. Kids are enjoying the most. We had a great stay in london too and i will write a detailed post about both london and chennai later. Wanted to do a quick update before i forget something...I was so embarassed today that i wanted to dig a hole right there and hide my face in it...heck, i wanted to dig a bigger hole and actually hide in there completely.

I went to globus today to exchange a salwar that their tailor had messed up. I went with Aj...just me and AJ. Need i say more? I think i should. I took a salwar and went to the trial room. Aj ran in front of me and a huge lady opened the door to show the white anarkali type salwar that she was wearing, to her husband and AJ screamed OMG I see a ghost here OMG I see a ghost here and the lady was totally pissed off and gave a cold stare at me. If looks could kill..!!

Where is China?

I just made up a song and was singing where is japan where is japan do you know and AJ said, I dont want to goto Japan..So, i continued with different places in the same tune. When i came to china and sang where is china where is china do you know and AJ goes 'Yep! It is in wendys' :D LOLOL. Ashu couldn't stop laughing at this. So, on our way back from school, Ashu asks AJ, do you know where u.s is and AJ points to a storage building on the road and said there it is! :D He can't say no, i guess :)

They had bookfair at Ashu's school last week and ashu got himself a bunch of starwars book. After i got him one from Memphis he's all into starwars now. He also got one teddy bear book called Old bear for AJ. It's a nice one about seasons. Simple book with nice illustrations. AJ loves it, but he wants the star wars too. When B said that all star wars books are Ashu's, he said but i only want the clone wars (The title of one of the star wars books :)). This week they have the bookfair at AJ's school.

Birthday Bash - 3

Update on the real party..Finally. We managed to find a slot at the bounce zone for March 7th. All other places were pretty booked up till next weekend and hence the delay in the party. But, Aj got to celebrate his bday all week, so he was quite excited.

We were very lousy this time with our planning. B travelled again and till thursday all we had done was booked the party hall. Food n Cake were not ordered. Return gifts were not bought. The catch with this party was outside food was not allowed and we could order only from them and the only choice they had was pizza, ofcourse. We called on friday to order pizza and they said, you can't order till the party date. They said they will come and check with us on the final count of the guests 1/2 hr after the party has started and bring it when it is time for food. This shot my BP, i say... I had no hopes..I thought we were doomed. But, they really managed to bring it on time. Phew! We ordered cake from outside though, as that was allowed. We ordered Return to Africa (Madagascar 2) and the cake looked beautiful. The party was from 1.30 to 3.30 and i only packed the return gifts at 11 in the morning. Some guts i had!! We still reached there on time and still managed to protect all the gifts from AJ :) On the way, Ashu suggested that we put the cake between him and AJ and i said then we can practically forget the cake :D I guess he forgot what happened last birthday.

While we were waiting for the Arena to be ready for our party, he went crazy over the cake and did not understand why we could not give him his own birthday cake. He must've thought "I am here..cake is here and it is my birthday party..so why is this Cruella De ville not letting me have it? " :D But, as soon as they opened the Arena, he vanished..He ran as fast as wind and was enjoying the most..He was all wii influenced and saying, now i am going to play obstacle course and things like that. As soon as we entered, ashu's friend Atharva came and Ashu vanished afte that :) One by one all the kids came and they had a blast. It was fun. After 1.30 hrs of play time we went to the party hall and had food and cake and we were all done. Kids were really hungry after all the jumping i guess. When i lighted the candles aj blew it right away before i called everyone to gather around the cake. so i lighted it again and then he blew it again. He has to do something funny every birthday i guess. He was still pretty excited the next day and said he wants to goto bounce zone again and not school. Yeah right! :)

Something funny :)

This was few weeks back..I had way too much work that i had to bring home some work. If i have to work from home i wait till the kids goto sleep as i dont want to compromise on the time i spend with them. They dont let me work peacefully either...so why bother :) As soon as i came home i wrote down a todo list so i wont forget later. Aj saw that and came and wrote To Do Droid. B's phone is Droid and he has an eye on that. I guess he wanted to mess with it and wrote it as his todo list :)

My sweet kutty and birthday bash 2

Sweet Kutty : B was not in town last week and i had a hectic week at work too. It was pretty exhausting and when i was doing the dishes one day, AJ came and said he had to go potty. So, i stopped doing the dishes and went with him and he was taking his own time..On seeing this, Ashu said i should teach him how to do the dishes. I thought he meant AJ and said he is too young and he said, no mom, you could teach me so if AJ troubles you and you can't get things done, i could always help you with the dishes. How Sweet! I was so touched and had tears in my eyes.

Birthday Bash 2
Not so much of a bash!! We had a simple celebration of Aj's bday at the daycare. I got cupcakes and took some gifts for the kids and that's about it. B is out of town as usual and the teacher was little strict about the timing, so decided to go with cupcakes. She wanted to do it during the snack time so i didnt take any extra snacks for them. Kids were happy to get cars cupcakes. the cupcakes had a ring on top of it with lightning mcqueen or mater and some kids picked mcqueen and some picked mater..our star wanted both!! i gave him mcqueen only. he used the ring as a scoop..how creative. i washed the ring and gave it back to him and all other kids wanted me to wash their rings and i did, but i didnt remember who had what. i managed and gave whatever they wanted. one little girl was really mad at me and said she was sure she had mcqueen and i gave her mater and she said i gave her mcqueen to L and L said he had mcqueen and she had mater..Anga poyum i had to take the naatamai role. i managed to confuse them and solved the problem! :)

Will update about the party later..

Birthday Bash-1 and more

As always we decided not to have party on birthday. This was a lesson learnt after Ashu's first birthday party. We all had a great time, but Ashu was soooo tired and did not enjoy at all. So, we decided not to torture the kids on their birthday and decided make it a family event and have the party on the following weekend. So, since the party is still not on i'm calling this Birthday Bash -1 :)

I made gulab jamuns for AJ's birthday. Both the kids love GJ so they were really excited. I think i have not made GJs in a long while because ashu said he didnt think it could be made at home!! But, i'm proud of my determination to not make sweets at the drop of a hat. I used to make sweets for everybody's birthday in both sides of the families and we both have large families..so you can imagine!! After it started showing up at wrong places i cut it down!!

Back to the main track. After lunch and watching some t.v, we finally moved our butts and went to the temple. Did archanai, had laddoos and then went to Chuck-e-cheese for dinner. Before leaving the temple we met Roma. AJ and Roma were just giggling at each other and Roma wished AJ for his birthday. We could not stay longer as it was already late and we headed out to chuck-e-cheese. First i thought i will goto Target as i wanted to buy some closet organizers and when i said Target AJ got super excited. For some reason he loves going to Target and i have nothing to do with that. But, we had to cross CEC to goto Target and the moment he saw chucke he changed his mind and declared he doesn't want to goto Target. It was his birthday after all..so he was the boss. Kids had a blast. They were non stop and enjoyed a lot. Had to literally drag them out right before the closing time. The next morning the first thing AJ said was 'Daddy can we go eat at CEC?'. Ashu enjoyed a lot too..They both did their own thing. AJ was hanging out with daddy and ashu with me..so i got to play more ;-)

Also the 3 year old boy can be officially declared Potty Trained. He was potty trained a while back, but he never asked to be taken to the potty chair at school. But since last week he has started telling them and they said i can start sending him in regular underwear!! So, i guess that's something to prove that he's growing up faster!! PT-ing him was tougher than Ashu, but not too tough. Ashu was easy breezy and i dont know how i did it. He was trained in a week!!
With AJ, there were lot of inconsistencies to begin with. I started training him late...then i was not consistent due to some health issues..and then finally christmas break was the right time to be consistent and with some bribing we got it done!!

We are planning to have his party on sunday at the bounce zone.

Happy Birthday AJ Kutty

I can't believe you are 3 already. You still look like a 1 year old in my eyes. But, you prove you are three with all the naughty things you do :-) Time and again you are proving that you are Ashu V2 :-)

Happy Birthday to AJ Kutty from all of us! May God Bless you dear!

Have a Terrrrrrrrrrrific Third Birthday and Wish you many more to come!!

Love you loads...

Vocabulary

Last week i wore a new top and AJ noticed and said "mommy, you look so handsome"..
I told him AJ, you should say mommy you look pretty and you are the one who is handsome.
AJ said..no mommy AJ is awesome and mommy is handsome. So, i asked him what is daddy
and he said daddy is cool and i asked what about Ashu and he said Ashu is...*thinking for a different word* and said Ashu is PERRRFECT! That was so sweet. Ofcouse this made Ashu fly high ;-) Anyways, i tried to change AJ to say mommy is pretty or beautiful..but nope..the boy was adamant..so i guess i am handsome! ;-)

Shivani was here and both kids were so excited to see her. They were keeping her busy the whole time. AJ got super excited and started climbing on her like a little monkey! :D When she left after dinner, the kids were both sad and AJ kept saying why is "he" going in the car. So, there is one more lady who is a he :D

Snowed in again....

At this rate i guess we have to homeschool our kids!! What's worse is working from home when the kids are bored. They can eat your brain, i tell ya!

These days i have back to back meetings and that's when they want to go outside and make snow man or snow angels..yeah right! Anyways, thank God for the mute button :-) Otherwise, people will hear 'Mommy, i am bored...' or 'Mommy can i have some candy' in the middle of the meeting or even worse..mommy i have to go potty :DDDD

Ashu is way too excited about our india trip and that excitement has gotten into AJ. AJ has no idea what india trip means to him..but he has started repeating after Ashu saying I cant wait to goto india.

Both kids had Vday party last week on friday. Valentine's day means homework for mommy. Ashu who never goes to bed on time slept early that day so i ended up writing his card and fixing the candies for his friends. And AJ who is a night owl was wide awake and said he will write for his friends. I said okay and he wrote one card to Santa (looked like Sazta and when asked he turned it sideways and said see it is N..couldn't argue with that!) He figured out it was not fun and asked me to write for his friends..So that was around 50 cards. I used to buy regular cards and attach it to the small gift bag i usually fill with candies, erasers, stickers..Not this time. I was pressed for time..so i bought the candy card kit thinking it will save me some time. That frigging kit was worse than packing the gift bags. Sigh!! That really broke my neck ...next time only cards. Candies are bad for the teeth anyways :) Ashu got a bunch of cards and candies from school. He doesn't goto SAC anymore..so no special handmade gift for me this time. AJ got all 3 of us sugar cookies decorated by him. He had used (with the help of teacher, ofcourse) butter cream frosting and put some m n m's on it. It was totally yum. Ashu got 1, B got 1/2 and i got 1.5 :D I did all the writing..so i think it is totally fair..infact i think both Ashu and B should've sacrificed their cookies for me.

3 Idiots

Finally watched 3 idiots today. Enjoyed it thoroughly. The story was going in predictable lines, but was not boring at all. I laughed out loud so much i am pretty sure B was glad we didnt watch it in theater :-) Ashu who does not like desi movies that are not kids movies, got curious and started watching it after seeing me ROFL. He liked it, but it was way past his bedtime, so he made me promise that i will let him watch the rest of it tomorrow and went to bed :) AJ was irritated that i was paying more attention to the TV than him today :D He kept pushing my face towards him and asked me to watch his face.
Now that i watched 3 idiots, i can sleep well. hehe..All izz well! :)

Remote Control!

I always thought the best way to take revenge on B was to hide the TV remote, but i fouund the truth today. We have lost our Remote and i am the one who was going crazy and B was annoyed with me running around crazy for the remote that he went and got the old remote and programmed it for me!! I was not going crazy because i could not change channels, i was going crazy because i could not find that damn remote!! I am sure it will still drive me nuts for some more days :) So, i guess i have to find another way of taking revenge because the disappearance of remote had no effect on B!!

Who is Brilliant?

Today Aj was playing with letters - the very few fridge magnets that are still there.
He made up a word with what was there - Ewiyak and said mommy it is Ee-wa-yak.
I said Wow he is brilliant he made his own word and read it right too to B who was in the living room. B asked him what it meant and he said, it mean Ee-Wa-Yak. After sometime, i changed it to Yekiwa and said AJ i formed a new word Yekiwa and he went to B and said Daddy 'He' made a new word Yekiwa but he is NOT Brilliant. :P

Snowed in...

Snowed in for 4 days without much snow. Ashu went to school for couple of days and school was closed for 4 days for snow. He enjoyed his mini vacation post vacation. Perfect for him...It was tough for me and B though. Work was way too hectic after the break and juggling work from home was tough.
Anyways, they are both back to school today and AJ went to Green room, which is a 3 yo room.
He actually went there couple of times last week (the only 2 days he went that is! :)) He liked it and i thought the transition was easy breezy. I dropped Ashu at school and AJ didn't cry at all. It was a big surprise because every time i drop ashu, aj throws a huge tantrum that he wants to goto Ashu's school and not his daycare. Today, he was just fine. So i thought he was actually waiting to goto green room. Then, we walk into the daycare and he asked me 'So is it blue room or green room?' ;-) then i took him to green room, nobody was there. They were in the big playground. So one more thing for AJ to be excited about that he gets to goto the big kids playground.
I took him there and he ran without saying bye to me. I signed him in and gave him a hug and when i was about to leave he said, okay come let's go. i was like huh? He said, i'm done let's go. he was done with green room friends in 1 minute!! Then i had to distract him and sneak out!!! So lesson learnt : Never believe what you see :)

When i dropped ashwin, it was just 1 min before the start time so i asked him to go first and then i went and parked the car and took AJ inside to check about LEAPS registration. When i walked in they were announcing Ashu's name in the speaker and asked him to goto the principal's office. I almost fainted thinking he was in trouble for something and he came out of his class all happy and proud. Asked him why he was called and he said it was for the Reading certificate. That was the first time i saw him so excited about getting a certificate and it really felt so touchy for me. All the other times he used to go as if he was getting the certificate for some body else. he is probably like B and my bro..they both never get excited or dont like to show their excitement..and me???I would have walked as if i got Oscars :D and i bet AJ is like that :D

Good bye 2009 and Welcome 2010

Can't believe it is 2010 already.
Highlights of 2009 -
Feb - Aj turned 2.
Mar - I turned 22 again ;-)
May - B completed his MBA. I was happier than him and ofcourse happy for him :)
Jul - Trip to Niagara
Aug - Ashu turned 7
Oct - B turned 27 again..I dont want to be partial
Nov - 11th anniversary. B must be a saint now ;-)
We also made a trip to Orlando. First one for AJ. Both kids were extremely excited!
Dec - Changed flooring to hardwood. House looks pretty now :) It is still messy, but pretty!!

2010 - Started with a visit to temple, followed by dinner and movie (Avatar!) Movie was so so..storywise, but was awesome to watch. Visual treat. Aj slept within few minutes. That was the plan ;-) Ashu watched it fully, although i was hoping that he would fall asleep too..but muttaikannan watched it fully :) There were couple of scenes that were not suitable for kids and i did a good job by distracting him :D B made a comment that i was like Bagyaraj. GRR

We got tickets only to the 10.20 show and i was okay with it becasue i wanted the kids to sleep. I was thinking we were probably the only ones to take the kids to a 10.20 show, but no..there were quite a number of kids. and get this..there was a show after that at 1.20 and a desi couple with a baby was there with a big flask. not sure if it had milk for baby or coffee for them :D

today - back to work. feeling ore sogam. to make it worse it was snowing and it was 18F outside. Booohooo..Years may come and go, but i will never change on this aspect :D