Friday, November 27, 2009

Confidante

V is back, putting an end to Ash's incessant queries about when he'd be back. The child's extreme dependence and fondness baffles us. Maybe it is his state of health that is making him so. When we ask him which of his parents he likes more, he says: "Both Appa and Amma." But I think the absence of the father for 3 days tilted the scales in my favour, as both kids vied to sleep next to me and refused the father's company. Especially Mira, despite a late-night punishment from me for dismantling an old clock that had gone into safekeeping in a shelf. Who said absence makes the heart fonder?
And today, as Ash was getting ready for school (his only appearance this week), he said he had something to tell in my ear. Whispering demands and entreaties in the ear even when there is no one within earshot is one of their latest fads. Well, not very recent actually.
"Will you please tuck your hair under the ear?" he asked impatiently, not wanting a strand of hair to make his demand any less heard. Another demand for Chocos/Bytes. Once in a while, we ease the restrictions on junk food to accommodate a bowl of noodles, Bytes or a Nestle Milkybar.
Tomorrow, we plan to drive down to Vellore early dawn to meet the peadiatric dermatologist at CMC - Vellore. Just for an opinion on the advice of some folks back home. Not that there is anything much allopathy has to offer that we havent tried. Save for wet wraps and further allergy tests. The crowd and the procedures sound daunting, but I hope we will have some positive news at the end of the day.

Tuesday, November 24, 2009

The weaker sibling

As I left the kids in the care of V for a Sunday shopping in T Nagar with the maid, Mira begged to be taken along. "Appa will beat me. Achacha will pinch me. I want to come with you," she cried. I stayed firm since carrying a little kid would have tired us and delayed us. As it is, we had just 4 hours granted - which was quite a difficult proposition in a place teeming with Ramzan as well as Sunday shoppers but offers the best shopping bargains and leaves one spoilt for choices. But we manage to buy more than we had anticipated, while the babysitter persuaded his wards to take an afternoon nap and later made tea for them.
And yesterday, as V left for an official trip, Ash followed suit. He said Amma would beat him and rub oil on his body, and entreated his father to stay back. His wails this time have been unprecedented. He sobbed himself to sleep and woke up again at 3 a.m. asking for his dad.
Mira is turning out to be the emotionally stronger sibling. Ash, too tired to be in sync with his surroundings, often breaks down in a crisis (between the duo). But when there is a real crisis, Mira stands up for him.
Like when he woke up crying on Sunday morning because he couldnt open his right eye, which got hurt when my nail brushed his cornea in the dark the previous day. She offered to give him her eye, unable to hear him crying. (He is recovering fine now.)
And when he began crying late that night after his dad admonished him for something, she made the maid stop her chore and carry Ash, who anyway is such a light weight that carrying him is like carrying a baby. I call him my featherweight champion, and he cries in exasperation: "I am Ashwin." He hates to be called anything other than that.

Friday, November 20, 2009

Fancy themes

m fancy dress

The tongue-tied fairy wasnt so tongue-tied after all. She spoke her line well, in fact she repeated it 3-4 times because the mic wasnt lowered to her height. The anchor goaded her to say more but I had taught her only one line as I wasnt sure if she could handle more in a language she is just getting familiar with. Anyway she wasnt there to compete but just to participate, on her class teacher's advice.
I hired a pair of wings and made a wand, with V doing the final touches. Ash's former class teacher loved the frock. There were other fairies and angels and princesses including Cindrella, Snow white and Princess Diana. Some patriotically donned the attire of freedom fighters, Thiruvalluvar, Mother India, Mother Teresas, an Indian rocket and so on. There were an array of vegetables and fruits, some Biblical characters, a Barbie doll getting out of her box to the tune of the Aqua number, a Noddy, a Zorro, a mobile phone etc. Some of the kids performed really well, some did reasonably well, and some didnt utter a word and a couple of them developed decided not to appear in the last minute.
One prize winner was a Chotta Bheem, a popular Indian cartoon character on Pogo TV. I didnt get to see which of Mira's peers one a prize since we were trying to get out of the hall with a sweaty and tired Mira in tow. She and all other participants were given a set of Chinese pencils with fancy erasers.
The competition for the senior KG was still on when we left. Nine of Ash's classmates were taking part, and his teacher had taken him to meet them earlier during the show. Ash, who had expressed a desire to take part while we did a dress rehearsal for Mira yesterday night, was asked to take part next year.

Thursday, November 19, 2009

Tweety notes

It's been a week since I wrote anything. Initially because there was nothing to write, only news worthy as tweets.
Some of the tweets that never went on Twitter include:
* Fire in the kitchen on Wednesday. Caused when some paper around the electric heater caught fire. Averts a major accident when maid douses the fire with water. Not bad, since she herself had stuffed paper around it to avoid the heater heating up the walls. Some burnt paint and burnt switchboard.
* Mira's friendship with Joanne the Joker has gone to the extent of exchanging school bags and napkins. With the result that she missed out on her snacks kept in the other kid's bag the next day. Ash tells me that if she continues doing this, we could think of not giving her any snack; instead, he says, Mira could join the watchman in washing cars and opening gates, something we threaten Ash with when he gets too lazy to study.
* A bad cold gave me two days of rest at home. Ash, however, had to go the paediatrician for a review yesterday. Infections caused by scatching and glandular swellings seem more frequent of late. After a long time, he slept well much of yesterday night.

Thursday, November 12, 2009

Wheezing pixie, tongue-tied fairy

Wheezing seems to be prevalent among most kids born and brought up in the city. Thanks to pollution and part heredity. My kids seem to suffer from wheezing when they have a cold though we dont have a family history of asthma or wheezing. Since wheezing is a part of the eczema package, Ash seems to have it more of late. Especially after the last bout of cold.
The maid is extremely sympathetic as she used to suffer from asthma years ago; she tells me the malady vanished after she took a traditional preparation of wild boar's fat though it transformed her into a very fat person :)
The rainy weather doesnt seem to be agreeing with Ash as he has a flare-up of the eczema and wheezing that makes sleep difficult in the night. The skin has got so bad in this week that he has almost no skin on the cheeks and forehead, only the red layer under. The scalp is oozing too, and hairloss seems imminent. The infection has led to swelling of glands under the chin, on the temples etc.
So we took him to Dr. KT after picking up Mira from school and collecting homework from Ash's teacher. The good dr prescribed an antibiotic and said we might have to give a mild oral steroid if things dont improve in a week's time. He admired Ash's stoicism, and gave him and his sister a lil gift - car and candies - each for Children's Day (Nov. 14, the birthday of our late first Prime Minister endearingly called Chacha Nehru by children).
** The fancy dress competition at the children's school to celebrate Children's Day has been postponed to next Friday owing to the rains. It was to have been held today, and I had reluctantly enrolled Mira to contest as a fairy. Reluctant because the kids are expected to say a couple of lines about the part they are playing, and I dont think Mira will open her mouth or can say a full long sentence in English right now. A friend's kid had imitated Cindrella's fairy godmother and won a prize in her school.
Can any of you give me a couple of easy lines I can make my lil fairy recite?

Wednesday, November 11, 2009

Crime & punishment

Some of you live in countries where corporal punishment is a major crime. But we still believe in the theory, "Even if you have only one child, you should beat him/her with an ulakka" (pestle, the long thick piece of wood used in our part of the country in olden times to grind grains). Though schools in Chennai avoid caning and other forms of torture, even mental ones, (though from what my kids say, I understand teachers do pull up extremely difficult or mischievous pupils by the ear or a light slap), domestic corporal punishments still help rear the kids in the right way. And at our home, we have inculcated in the kids a fear of the chooral-vadi, the bamboo cane that was a regular prescription in the schools I went to in Kerala.
Yesterday at lunchtime, maddened by a fight for the TV channels between the duo (one wanted to watch Mr Bean and the other something on Chutti TV), I wielded the chooral kashayam at Mira who has been getting too obstinate and bossy for our liking. Even otherwise, being the stronger of the two we punish her more than we do Ash. She refused to leave her perch on the diwan while the maid fed her lunch and spilled part of it on the sofa, much to the merriment of ants collecting food for a rainy day. And while I have been trying to make the kids learn to eat at the dining table, the maid somehow wants them to eat by hook or crook, and what better seats than the sofas in the drawing area where the television blares kids' programmes endlessly.
I won the seating contest. The maid was upset because her darling ward was in tears. Anyway Mira finished her lunch at the table, and Ash too.
And kids being kids, Mira forgot and forgave the punishment as I departed for work soon after. She planted a kiss on my cheek and asked me to return early.
And most nights as we look at our sleeping daughter, we rue punishing her for her rebelliousness and kiss her tenderly.

Thursday, November 05, 2009

Firsts

  • On Monday, Ash got his first raincoat - Mira too - courtesy his dad. Both call it the rainpot.
  • On Tuesday, they wore it to school in the pouring rain. And Mira kept donning it at home too after school hours.
  • On Wednesday, Ash had his first dental appointment. A rot in the upper canine that we and a couple of dentists we asked had ignored because it is a milk tooth. The latest, however, offered to fill the cavity in a subsequent appointment next week. She didnt want to do it at one go and terrify the boy. And Ash, who had been clamouring to go to the dentist to "paste up the hole in the teeth", did get frightened by all the dental paraphernalia.
  • And today, Thursday, both are at home driving the nanny crazy. The heavy rains since yesterday evening was enough reason to bunk school. The skies however cleared up later in the morning, making us regret our decision to keep them at home.
  • And tomorrow, Friday, I hope to send them both to school rain or no rain.

Tuesday, November 03, 2009

Meeting crocs

Little Bean could not make his tryst with St. Andrew's Kirk and the halleluiahs on Sunday since his father decided to take him, and the rest of us, for a jolly ride on the East Coast Road, where Chennai's really good roads are. It was partly meant to enjoy the new car, meant for good roads, and partly to give the kids some entertainment.
Hence we decided to check out the Crocodile Bank. Since it was nearing lunch time by the time we hit the ECR, we looked for the ideal veg restaurant that would have the right fare for Ash.


With the kids clamouring for lunch, we finally drove into the Ideal beach resort rather hesitantly. Two years back, a New Year buffet dinner at another resort's restaurant had left us sick and incapacitated.
But Ideal's restaurant turned out to be good - it did not give us with a bloated feeling and it was tasty to boot, despite V asking for a less oil, no ajinomoto fare. While Ash concentrated on his veg noodles and french fries, we adults had some chicken fried rice on the sly.
We then drove back to watch the crocodiles enjoying their afternoon siestas. They looks like little rocks but the "Keep your hands out" warnings outside some enclosures made us eerily aware that many of those rocky masses had an eye open to lug at unsuspecting human hands on the wired fence.After watching venom extraction by Irula men at the 'photography prohibited' snake enclosure - which had cobras and vipers and other poisonous snakes safely harboured in earthen pots - we rushed to watch the feeding of a full-size marsh crocodile. The caregiver taunted the giant reptile with chunks of flesh, goading it to move forward to collect its food while the milling crowds outside the enclosure watched in rapt attention. It was huge and probably old and hated the effort.
There were crocs from Africa, Thailand, Australia and Brazil. I found the thin-snouted gharials more interesting - apparently they dont attack except when they are guarding their eggs and chicks. We even watched a gharial swim in a underground aquarium along with turtles.
Ash, however, kept reminding his father that he had to go to church in the evening but the tired parent promised to take him the following week. Anyway the little boy had enough excitement for a day, and kept talking about all the reptiles he saw until he fell asleep.
Thank you Romulus Whitaker. I need to take my boy to the Snake park next.

On the penultimate day of reporting duty at the photography festival, the boss of the English writing dept, came and told me: When we both a...