My day

There can be many special occasions in our life and for some of us every day can be a celebration.

 But, to me Birthdays are always xtra special. Well, most of you will agree to this and as every year passes, we have many reminiscence  to cherish this day all through the year.

To me, every time i try to recollect my best birthday experience, i get reminded of the demise of the former TN CM,MGR. I was in 5th standard and my dad had promised me a trip to Mahabalipuram on that birthday. I have been eagerly waiting for it. I got a beautiful yellow chudidar which i even now vividly remember. I dont remember the reason why he had promised everything wonderful that year although he had made every year special to me. 

We were all set to the bus stop when someone said that no buses would run that day as MGR had passed away. So what? How does that make sense to a nine year old and how can she  tackle the disappointment of cancelling the trip she had planned so meticulously for months?My dad tried to convince me that he would take me after 2 days. But what about my birthday? I was all in tears. If it was just a promise then i could have taken it in a better way. But it was a birthday promise..and that to me was a big day. I remember my foolish, kiddish agruement saying "I want to go...So what if MGR died?  He is already dead..Why should i not celebrate my birthday??", cursing him if he never got a better date.The day passed with my dad's patience in handling me and then we went on the 27th. It was fun and we had a souvenir of the beach shell marking this day on it. I still have it with me.

There are so many other birthdays of mine that he had made very special  with surprises and happiness. May be because of this, i always felt birthdays very special. Although i grow old every year, i expect every birthday the same as he had made it to me. 

And also, i like to make my dear ones feel exactly the same on their day. Some may call it kiddish and surprises and parties are only when we are young but i bet everyone can feel the joy when someone makes you feel special on this day. 

Now i realise my dad did this to feel special about myself. He wanted me to feel the most important  and also taught me to love myself. Surprises and gifts are expressions of affection and care and not something flamboyant. And the best gift i would give my dad is to pass it on to my children. Yes, Navneeth is all excited making a birthday card for me and surprising me every little way he can. And now he is already all set for his birthday plans. There is no greater joy in making your loved ones feel that their presence in your life is the best gift, worth a great celebration.

Your sms list, phone calls, emails or gifts on your birthdays may reduce but that must never pull you down from celebrating your day. You are always special to yourself and this is what makes you young as you grow older.

This year was extra special with me making my own birthday cake with a note "Happy Birthday Amma"'. The explanation by Navneeth for this goes like this ''I cant buy a cake as i am still young and i dont know to make a cake, so on my behalf you make a vanilla cake until i grow big"'!!!!

Thank you dear...:) 

Snowwhite

  You are so white like the angel ,

  Who just stepped out of the heaven,

 Kindling the romance from within.
.

 You are so white that you coin

 The peace behind any disturbed mind.

 You are the icon for love at first sight…

 Like everything else,

When the freshness fade

You get hard and make everyone fall
Yet another paradigm of the heavenly creation!!! 

Harini Leelai

Something that has been boggling in my mind for a long time was the commencement of Harini's leelaigal and the joy of her growing childhood. But where is she giving the time?

The little ladybird keeps me on my toes all the time but i know she wont let that be a reason of me being partial to his bro and neither is that fair.

Pictures speak more than words and here is a sample of her leelais.

Rolling on the floor in the middle of the street, throwing any type of food straight on the face when you dont need it, hitting all the keys in the keyboard in one shot when your favorite rhyme gets over are some of your most humble mischiefs.

I dress you up with all the cap, socks, sweater and shoes and pack you so well in the pram and there you are in the bus biting your shoes. I remove it for you and you go ahead with the socks and cap. Every person i know and some i may not know tell me to protect you from the wind so that you dont catch cold. And i think your mission is accomplished!!!

This list will  be neverending, so let me update it whenever i get the slightest of time to cherish the naughty tantrums of my darling devil.

Lonely bird

I run around the three rooms with my darling devil
Doing all the chore
Trying to be  as busy and as crazy
So that there is no room for bore.

The only person  i know here
Calls me just to say
Not to call  for the next three hours.
And thats when i realised
I have no one else to call;
And I am all alone.
Yes, a lonely bird with a little lady bird.

The kick off

When I heard the news about the chances of relocating to the Netherlands, the immediate reaction that flashed in my mind was a big NO! Onsite has been synonymous to the US or UK to most of the software engineers, especially if it is a long term opportunity and if you are with school- going kids.  Anything other than that, you get skeptical and it was the same with me. But better not jump into conclusion without a little bit of pondering, was what my mind said.

Suddenly  what sparked my mind was a message I got to the orkut group two years back. It was from an ex- office colleague with whom I had lost touch, as with many of them ; after getting engrossed with my darling devils. Yes..she said she was in Amsterdam..and in next half an hour I shoot a mail. Her kindness and God’s will; she responded positively and convincingly that it is a nice place..much better than the US as you don’t have to depend on a car!! Nothing to be taken personal, it was just her opinion.

Ok, there goes the kick off. Next few days browse as much, analyse on the international board of education, do still deeper to find the extra curricular classes and then research on the hospitals, vaccines, weather and ofcourse temples!!!Try to get more contacts, bombard them with all this hoping not to get into their nerves and finally give the green signal on the move.

The only thing that could never console my mind or even accept any near compromise was Navneeth’s school.  As a parent, I liked everything about it. I still remember the days when I had to decide on his schooling. I was in a dilemma of whether to put him in a normal CBSE school or the upcoming Montessori method of education where the child learns at his pace. All I wanted was a holistic development for him so that at the end of it,  he is successful and happy. The outcome of putting the child in a prestigious and popular CBSE school is straight forward and we all know it. To know the other side of the new education tree, I met a Montessori trained teacher cum friend with whose explanation I was carried away but the end of it she asked me ,”If all you want is success and happiness of your child, will you be ok if he grows up and says ,””Mom, I want to be a Potter”! and another friend jokingly remarked only if there is a race, there is the motive to run. If you praise a lazy jog with a WOW, he is never going to run.That minute I was clear. I want him to run and pottery can be no more than a hobby for him. 

I am clear I am right for my son and days were happy from the day he stepped into PSBB. There was no pressure and there was time for all the fun  while his studies and extra curriculars went hand in hand, very good indeed. Be it writing, sloka, swimming or drawing there was healthy competition with real smart kids and in three years the classmates are real pals.

Well, everything must pass is the rule of life but I really dint want this to pass so soon. The last day to collect his TC was really tough at heart though Navneeth would not have realized it much or rather the man in him made him hide his emotions with the compromising statement that I will join them in third standard. Sometimes it is nice when we are just kids. But I can say I could compare my feelings with a successful engineering girl candidate having her campus offer at Infosys on one side of the balancing scale and a marriage proposal of a nice guy with a green card. You never know until the end which weighs more!!

All this flashback was just to say that we are all set  to board the western education system. “” no pressure all appreciation” way to bring out the inside talent could not stop me from being reminded of my friends remark on the running competition. . .

Crazy

You scream with all your might last night at him

And take a vow you would never turn back to him

Next day, it rains heavily when he is out

And with no second thought

You call him to check out If he has his rain coat

What do you call it?

My Holland Recipe

 
When I became a full time home maker, for the first time this is what i described myself

(One spoon of health + 2 tbs of laziness + 1 tbs of cooking + a pinch of personal time) – (2 tbs of confidence+2 tbs of mood swing+ a full spatula of devilish thoughts working on the devil’s mind)

Over the time, the recipe was lot more better with little spice of working from home option garnished with a touch on painting and spiritual incline.

And after the arrival of my second darling Harini,  the health factor and personal time has taken the reverse gear and there is no room for laziness. So you can see what remains. Well, the positive side could be that there is no room in the mind for any kind of thought except her feeding time, potty time, sleep time and the remaining time goes in  frequent reminding of every possible task to Navneeth. So, the devil factor is also out!

On the whole, being busy this way was also not all that bad compared to what I felt as soon as I left my job.

But now, in the Holland, the recipe is really really worse..

Morning = One spoon of cooking+2 spoons of cleaning + one spoon of laundry and dishes

Afternoon=one spoon of playing with Harini ending up with 2 spoons of cleaning

Evening = 2 spoons of pickup service + one spoon of cooking+ quarter spoon of study accompanied by one spoon of altercations with Navneeth

Night=one spoon of dishwashing +one spoon of cleaning and the bonus is half a spoon of FB and blogging.

Well, there are so many nice things about the place to learn and enjoy but for now I think the recipe remains unaltered. Let us see how it goes…

Miss you dear...

I can hear the next door bell ringing, footsteps in the neighborhood; I hear the voice of other people in the apartment. What is wrong? Looks strange for a mom with 2 kids..Is it not?

There is pin drop silence around me with my little girl sleeping next to me. Slowly I get up, feeling good and peaceful for the first ten minutes. I make my coffee sit in the couch relaxing with legs stretched. Is this not heavenly?

I get up clean the mess around the house and in half an hour I feel strange..lonely perhaps?

Yes dear, I am missing you…I miss screaming at you every ten minutes for annoying me..and you getting annoyed in turn..

What is cleaning ,without me screaming at you..””Navneeth, how many times I tell you….””and before I finish I get the reply “”ok MOM””…

What is having lunch without saying ””You are never going to change…If you eat so slow…””and I don’t have to complete…I get the reply  ÖK Mom’

I missed your little silly way to keep your lil sister engaged when I have my bath or busy in the kitchen..

I missed you when I had to open the lift in one hand while handling your little sisters’, gymnastics in the pram with the other hand.

I missed you when I had to open the apartment doors with the keys, again with your gymnastics sister..,

I missed screaming at you for watching the television serial in Dutch about which you had no clue of what is happening!!

Everything around me is incomplete and there is no flavor without you around..Its not just me ..its also you lil sister feeling the emptiness but unable to express..

It is 2:30 and I am all set to pick you up from the school darling ….

With enlightened spirit, I hug you and ask you how was your first day at the new school and you made my day with the answer “”Excellent..i loved it””

What more? Back again, let me pep up myself with all that I missed before you are off to school tomorrow!

Eeeeeeeeeeee........(fly)

Zoinnnnnn…...............goes the music buzzing in your ears...without any inhibition of the sound or tune on the listener’s ears. I shoo you away and you are back with a little modified buzz, no better than before.  I open the doors for you to spread your music to the world, but then you are too loyal to me. I checked every nook and corner of the house so as to find what made you stick to us; I wiped every possible place with all the brands of cleansers that claimed to be your foe. But no! You are strong and persistent!

You buzz around when my Navneeth, after all possible excuses, sits to write his notes and there it goes….Mom, this FLY is disturbing me, so I can’t write!!!

I put my little Harini to sleep with all the great effort, creating a perfect night effect, pin-drop silence in par with the libraries and there you go …zoin…………………on her ears and she is no lesser than you; there goes a musical contest, zoin…………..and Aennnnnnnnnnnnnnn…………..”seriyana potti”!!!

What are you upto? You don’t invite your friends nor do you want to go out. May be you are a loner? Or having a peaceful vacation practicing your melodious music and playing hide and seek with me to while away  your boredom?

Whatever it is, I think I have started getting used to you, or rather used to put up with you than clash with you as in most of the times J