Radha

We finally found courage to shake the dust off our feet. Despite my passionate appeals to pack off the maid and the kids' repeated pleas about not wanting to be left alone with her upon their granpa's departure on Tuesday, a very practical V dilly dallied and insisted that we be patient till we found a suitable replacement. While his quest through some Catholic contacts sounded hopeful but not immediate, my line of search yielded a faster result. Old faithful Kala came with an energetic domestic help called Radha who seemed keen on looking after kids. While her timings didnt exactly suit us, we decided to try her in the 12-7 pm slot, though it meant the morning chores would get tough for me and my breaking back.
She began her duties partly yesterday when I went to see off a glum "Podi" by the night train to Kerala. The kids absolutely loved the company of the new nanny. (As for me, it was tiring for she is very garrulous and I am not used to parching my throat with incessant talk.) But I think she would turn an ideal help - but if only she could come in a bit earlier... We will have to work out that soon.
V gave me a favorable report, after seeing her at work during his lunch break. But we have just been told that there is an excellent person waiting to come from Kerala. I am not sure if I should take the risk - a live-in help would once again mean double expenses and a lack of privacy but a more comfortable life otherwise (I mean no cooking to do and the freedom to leave the kids at home in case we need to go somewhere alone).
For instance, tomorrow we will be leaving Mira with the family of V's colleague while the three of us make another trip to Vellore - walking up and down the corridors and counters of CMC with two little kids is no mean task. Anyway, Mira is looking forward to the company of Ria, who is her age, and her older brother. Hopefully, she wont miss us till evening.

Two artists

The one in the centre was done by Ash, and the one on the left by Mira as their entries to join the Tapasiya School of Arts. While we suggested the colors for Mira, Ash did his own selection. He continues to humour us with his explanations about each sketch he does, which have been getting too numerous to be on the blog often - some are repetitive, some ingenious. But one thing about his sketches is that he never erases to make a drawing better - it is just one error-free effort, no looking back.

Meanwhile, our trip to Vellore on the weekend went fine. Reached a bit late, but we managed to see Ash's physicians and my orthopedician. While Ash got a change of medicines and a warning (for us; to him the doctor said that he can have fish if he allows wet wraps) that we start him on the immunosuppressant if his skin continues to be so bad and if he refuses to allow wet wraps on himself. Right now, his cracked skin is healing thanks to the antibiotic.

We need to go again this Saturday for the final verdict and solution, if possible, to the swelling on one side of my spine. Old age and arthritis catching up :)

On the return trip, we stopped at the well-maintained Rajiv Gandhi memorial in Sriperumbudur much to dad's delight. The kids had fun running around.

Dust trap

To keep or not to keep her (the new maid Podiyamma whom V calls Dust since podi in Malayalam can mean either dust or something very small) is our present dilemma. Her mood swings and attitude to the kids bothers us. She doesnt seem to take much interest in them, at least while we are there, and the kids were not too keen on having her around last week and insisted that either of us stayed back because she whacked and pinched them. But one cant beleive all that they say, for even a chiding is listed as a whack in their dictionary.
And to make life difficult for her, they indulged in mischief with all their vengeance - such as throwing her folded inner wear from the balcony down to the ground two floors below - they had to be retrieved in stages, with the watchman temporarily lodging the last lost piece on V's scooter :) :)
After threatening to leave in a week or so because she had never seen such mischeivous brats in her life (she has appparently been working as a maid since she was 10), she ate her words today and said kids will be kids. But as of now she seems to be a bit sick - fever, though she initially said it could be jaundice making us wonder if it was a ploy to leave soon.
And late evening today, when I called to check on them, Mira said: "Amma come home fast. Please switch on the TV for me. Didnt I tell you in the afternoon? And take me to the Joker shop (Mcdonald's). Let me speak to your sir, and ask him to send u home fast!"

Imagination...

and Ash's creations. I jotted down his explanations for a couple of sketches today. (Click inside the pic to get a magnified view.)

1. Fryums (star-shaped papads) that was part of the lunch buffet at Gokulam hotel, Thrissur, on our return journey to Chennai.

2. A spider and its web.

3. Crescent moon and the sun.

4. Electric ray, he watched on a CD yesterday. But he drew this the day before, so he probably just changed the story about the drawing.

5. Chackochi, the biscuit-seller of Changanassery.

6. Ashwin grown tall and cured of his itching, save for the wound on the belly button.

7. A snail he saw at Changanacheri this time.

8. A short Appa, who cant see (no eyes) because he has been watching too much news on TV. Appa's height is his latest concern.

9.Butterfly. 10. Jellyfish sticking to something, yesterday's CD again.

11. Ash - no space for hands. He then changed the story to the dr amputating his arms so that Amma will feed him (dark humor). Itching gone, but one eye is bandaged like Appa's some years back when the sharp edge of a stick came into contact with it.

12. "Bone" in murky water. He calls ghosts/skeletons bone now and has developed a fear for them.

13. Father and mother millipede. They dont have a baby. The baby was eaten by jellyfish.

14. Chackochi, bald and with specs. Don't miss the string on the specs, his latest fascination, ever since he started donning one.

15. Flying ant. 16. Crab and a biting insect.

1. Chackochi and his whiskers, again. 2. Broken TV's wire 3. Scorpion (?) who comes in the night and eats dinosaurs. 5. Small Appa. The black one is his house, while the bigger house is the Scorpion's.

Children!

On Sunday morning, I walked the maid to the Church of God prayer hall in my colony not sure if she would enjoy the Tamil service. But she returned happy and chirpy since the pastor and his wife are Malloos and they were many from Kerala who attend the service which is right now Tamil and Malayalam combined until the construction of their new church next door is over.
As a result I babysat the kids while V went to church. In the evening, however, we attended as a family the anniversary prayer meeting and dinner of our area in the church premises. The food, partly Kerala Syrian Christian fare, was great. Ash was very itchy in the first half of the meeting and his dad had to take him out and away from the curious glances, but returned to watch the latter half.
The kids provided moments of mirth and embarassment. On seeing a balding young man behind him, Ash told his dad: "Look Appa, there stands another mottathala (bald head) like you!" While one bald head smiled apologetically, the other looked embarassed.
AshAnd when families who had stood out in attendance and other matters went up to receive prizes, he told his dad: "Vinod M.., see, they just called your name. Go get your gift". Ash's latest fascination is for stuff that comes gift-wrapped, so we had to keep his (and Mira's) Christmas gifts under our lil Xmas tree a week after Christmas. He was disappointed however that he missed Santa bringing it.
Mira, who had by then recovered from the previous day's food allergy rash, loudly wondered when I was going to receive a gift like the other grannies.
Ash's other recent queries are why the new maid is so small and why I cant take him to school on a scooter like David's mother does. That is his latest desire, and he is egging his dad to teach me the ropes of two-wheeler driving. Mira's desire is a water bottle like her classmate Domini's and she wants me to visit her class to have a look at it tomorrow.
How different from the days we grew up - we drank from the taps in school and never carried a waterbottle or anything that resembled a bottle; we had just steel tiffin boxes and aluminium cases/woven plastic bags (and later cloth bags) that served us for years until they gave away, and shoes that were mended until they could no longer stand the strain.

The trial period

It is too early to say anything about the new maid, but as of today I am beginning to feel a bit exasperated. So is V. She is a bit slow ( in the head too) and lacks the dyamism that is required to be handling two restless kids.
I am one of those people who cant handle change very well - new school (well, once upon a time), new place, and now new maids.
The first day, I thought she was a paavam (poor thing). She must have thought the same about me too :) She said she knew my mom as her sister was a sweeper in mom's school.
The disaster on the first day was Ash finishing half a dozen cake pieces with egg and milk I had kept away. She just let him. She is too soft with the kids and lets them do what they want. She feeds Ash fine and is kind to the kids but when it comes to hydrating his skin, or acting wisely when a fishbone got stuck in his throat or he walked the few yards home from the school van in the rain are things beyond her capacity.
She is a Pentecost (we need to locate a Malloo Faith Home she can visit on Sundays), hypertensive, and is presently worried about some marital problem her younger sis is facing. As for her, she has experienced only a week of wedded bliss/torture ages ago and decided to call it quits after that.
Anyway, I will see for a month. If she is satisfactory, I hope she lasts at least until school closes in April.
Mira has today developed rashes on her body - some food allergy. Ash is going through a bad stage of eczema this week.

The waiting period

Aches and pains apart, this year seems to be treating us with enough luck that we can ask for. Just when it looked like there was no way out of our present predicament, our old partime maid readily agreed to babysit the kids on Monday and Tuesday since neither of us could afford to take any more leave after the recent vacation. A new maid arrives from Kerala tomorrow and I hope she lasts :)
I am just dying to hand over kitchen duties, which in this past one week has given me sore feet and a doubly aching back - just not used to standing long hours cooking or better to say, that my cooking takes longish hours since I am out of practice. It makes me realise what a boring life it is for women to be cooking one meal after the other - breakfast, lunch, tea-time snacks and dinner. Not the 2-minute noodles or cornflakes kind, but traditional Indian meals.
The kids, finicky about food, are learning better - that they have to eat whatever their mom churns out or recycles from the refridgerator.

A week in Kerala, especially at my mil's, was an absolute gastronomic delight. Christmas was spent at my place, in the company of my brother and family. The kids had fun bursting crackers, playing with cousin Tarana and visiting the Anakoodu (elephant hospital) at Konni. V spent Christmas day visiting relatives in and around Cochin with his parents.
Part of the holidaying mood was spoilt by the anxiety to find a new maid. An agency search yielded only a candidate with a liver disease (probably another rehabilitated alcoholic like our last maid L) who professed an inability to look after small children. Agencies are the last resort for desperate working parents like us, but the results they throw up are most often unsavoury. The loser is the hirer who ends up paying the agency hefty sum as fee and then putting up with sidey characters who masquerade as maids; either the maid leaves in a matter of months of her own volition or you ask for a replacement. Whatever the case, the agency puts you on a waiting list and you wait unsuccessfully most times for a replacement.
Sometimes, you end up lucky - like my aunt who had found a good person to take care of her invalid mil. But reportedly the substitute she got when her maid took a one-month leave was dreadful.
We also got to meet cousins Renjith and Reeba, and baby Jai who was being baptised the day we left for Madras.

Happy 2010

Each year we begin with the hope that the new year will bring us luck and happiness. We invest a lot of hope and love for the first day of the year. This year is no different. Our hope and prayer for this year is that Ash will be cured of his atopic dermatitis. He has become weak, whiny and too dependent on us, and we need to help him find himself.
I am just too tired for a proper/long post. The Kerala trip went fine. The journey to and fro was fun though tiring.Onward we took the Dindigul-Cumbum-Kumili route and reached in 12 hours time; we had a pretty good driver too. Return, we took the Palghat-Salem-Krishnagiri route and it delayed us quite a bit, especially since the route was 100 km longer and there were many like us on the road returning to their workplaces in other cities.
After reaching Kerala, the maid announced that she was not feeling well enough to return and we still havent found a replacement. As of now, me and V are taking turns in babysitting - me for 3 days from 28th and V today and tomorrow. More later.