Happy Holi

The weather was perfect, the girls were active, and this is how we celebrated holi(the festival of colors welcoming the spring).

Twig 1 - decorated with flowers made out of tissues dipped in food color.

Twig 2

Twig 3

The end result :)

The left over tissues used for the special holi greeting cards along with blossoms/leaves(chini's idea)

Peacock Rangoli at the doorstep

The message

And the busy hands ;)

Though, at the end of the day, momma was seen dragging her feet, holding her back with one hand and her neck with the other :)

A Hearty Valentine's Day!!

With two very pinkalicious daughters, love is certainly in the air in our house. Here's what we did the whole of the valentine's week and the last..


Heart Jell-o's for chini's class treat

Hearty Water melons for sugar's class treat

Heart Butterfly Valentines(with bubble sticks) for sugar's friends

Sugar showing her creativity

Chini displaying her creativity

The whole lot of butterflies

Valentine boxes for Chini's friends

with playdough inside

A special Valentine box by Chini - no hearts on this one - any guesses what is drawn?

Valentine's Cake any one? We didn't have the heart pan; we iced with pink heart frosting and lots of sprinkles on each piece and gobbled it up ;)

Exchanging the gifts!

So, the box of goldfish has been long consumed and momma is being pestered to make the gingerbread man cookies. Meanwhile, mom was also notified last week that presents were being wrapped for her at school. The naive momma failed to take the hints and worried too much over her diarrhea(mom ruined the whole weekend as her fatso-body reacted to the anti-biotic). So, this afternoon, post-school, she was duly informed that the christmas present is in the bag and will be hidden under her bed (mom's bed) and that she cannot open it until the actual day. A frail Attempt was made to count, the number of days left, on the fingers And it was declared that christmas is still too far. By the time, the journey to the home was made, momma was being questioned what did she 'make' as gifts for her oh-so-nice kids and whether she made the wrapping paper herself too. To avoid bring caught, momma replied that she was still working on the gift and it should be done before Mr.Claus arrived. Meanwhile, the furtive momma was trying to churn up her gray cells fast to come up with some hand-made worthwhile work of love (multiplied by two) which could be finished At such a short notice! And that's when the bomb dropped. The wrapped present was thrust in her hands with
"Alright momma. You can open the gift now. And after that, show me what you are making for both of us"
So much for lying!!
But chini, We will open all our gifts on the xmas day. That's okay
No momma! I want you to open the gift now. I made it specially for you. I can't wait until christmas. I know you will love it!
Guiltily, momma unwrapped the gift to find a beautiful wall hanging with a hand-prints wreath on it.
Those are my hands! Can I touch those red berries?
And momma thought all's forgotten about seeing her gift.

And it was, only for a while!
Can I see what you made for me n sugar now?
Seriously, what kind of memories do these kids have?
To mom's rescue came two bracelets that she had made in summers(for her friends, albeit) and to her delight, they were loved and momma was showered with many hugs, kisses and thank you-s.

Isn't this the cutest age, when even a grass twig can make them happy??



As an afternoon activity, we had slotted the day for hanging the ornaments on the tree in our front-yard. My apple tree as sugar calls it. So, the day was well spent in cutting the ribbon and stringing the ornaments. We were having fun hanging them on the tree and watchinjg a couple of them catapulting themselves to a higher branch! That was magic!chini exclaimed. As we went on with our business, a neighbor came by and remarked how pretty the tree looked. Taking it as a compliment, she informed us that it is actually against the society's rules!! A couple more came( imagine! In this chilling cold! Guess they were all watching us from their windows!!) and affirmed. The mom was advised to check with the head, though, whose house was shown too, just couple of blocks from ours. You can do something fun on the deck, the girls were told. By the time, we reached his house, he was already informed and they didn't have to guess why we were there. Guess, in our neighborhood, the news travel faster
Than aajtak! Cheesy?i know! So, the head told us that he had fairly an idea why this mom with her two little girls was there and said he would stop by to check what (unspeakable crime!) we had done. He did come, with a printed copy of the do's and don'ts of the society, wondering if our house-owner had already gave us one. (yeah they did, and we burnt it! Really, what's up with this home-owners assn. guys?). Well, I told him that we didn't have one. I was shown the one, in which the christmas section was highlighted for our ease. Apparently, nothing, including coloured or blinking lights can be used. only white candles is the windows or small white string lights can be used At the doors. Form our reference, we were advised to take a walk in the neighborhood. And oh! As for our ornaments, nothing and nothing can be put in the yard!! The girls were a little disappointed but still maintained that they had a fun afternoon! As a bonus, they got to play with the HOA head's puppy. That left momma wondering,

Time to get a christmas tree??

Welcoming Santa

It has been unusually warm winter so far. We did have a snowy day, around halloween, when we were so not ready for it and a few cold autumn days afterwards, but it has been very pleasant ever since. We wouldn't have realized it's the month of December if the sunset didn't happen at 4:00 p.m. each day! Any chnces of having a hite chistamas this year? Probably something to worry about, but that we will do later. For now, we are enjoying. Most days, when it's not raining, we even manage to sneak out for a super-short evening walk!

The neighbourhood is lively with the holiday lights and decorations. Everybody has a green wreath hanging on their front door. We can see well-decorated christmas trees through some windows.
"when are we going to decorate our christmas tree?" chini asks. " are we going to celebrate chrismas with our friends like we did when I was three and sugar was 1?" (last xmas, we had a get-together with our friends where one of the dads had dressed up as santa and given gifts to all the kids. Gifts were, of course, brought by parents.)
i want to go see baby jesus being born
and various such inquisitiveness. We are still not ready for a tree, so momma got the ornaments to decorate the tree outside. Now, we r waiting for the sun to shine back (it has been raining non-stop for past 3 days now) so tt we can go out and hang those pretty things. Meanwhile, the xmas bells are on the door, santa and snowman clingies on the windows, large wreath bows in the mantel and the stockings are hanging already on the fireplace.
Why does Santa come through chimney, papa?
wHy don't we have stockings for you and momma? I want santa to get you both dome gifts too. You have behaved good this year.
Meanwhile, all thoughts are being invested in wht gifts to be asked from Santa. Check out what's on the top of her list!

Dear Santa
I have not been very good this year. But i have kept my promises. I told momma I will not bite my nails at school and I stopped! I promise that I will be a good girl. Please get me a bottle of pink sparkly nail polish.
Love, chini

And already, a box of goldfish has been left at the fireplace for Santa. Sugar meanwhile has been practicing her carols, " up on the rooftop" "away in the manger" "jingle bells" "rudolf-the red nosed reindeer" are all sung at her full vocal chords. Sometime, she gets a little out of track and starts " do re mi fa so la ti" which goes like this-
Doe a deer, female dear
Ray a floss of golden sun
Me a name Call myself
Fa momma go to run!?!?

Thanksgiving is for giving thanks

The month of november had started with a long wait for the thanksgiving day. The teachers did a good job at school educating the kids about the holiday. Starting the month with a field trip to a native Indian village, trying out the dresses, craft work, story, play and the chapel lessons, every day chinipie had a new story to share. Oft repeated was the thankfulness prayer. With thankyou Jesus, thank you for the sun, to thankyou for the family, Chinipie is full of gratitude. When she would get really bugged by her little sister, the poor girl would innocently ask, " momma, I am thankful for sugar but why does she trouble me so much?". She did seem to accept the justification when i told her that sugar missed her and that's how she is trying to be close to her and show her love. Once the question involved the dad too.."I love papa and am thankful for him but why does he get angry with me?"All I could come up with was that he loves you and is really thankful for you and wants you to do everything in a better way..


The star question was,"why do we light fire when we do prayers - at home, mandir or even my chapel?" Following her cue, I told her that's how we thank God for providing us with everything and as lighting a candle or a lamp diya removes darkness around us, we wish to light such lamp within us while offering prayers. "is it dark inside us?" Mommy wasn't ready for all the questions that would follow if she tried to explain the euphemism to her curious 4-yr old, who no doubt, is very much capable of throwing them at her when she doesn't see them coming. Like when she showed me a very beautiful picture of a sunset she painted, after reading the book, The legend of Indian paintbrush, she asked "why there was no green in the sunset?" Now, all I could think of was of the physics explanation of the wavelength, which definitely would have bored my eager girl and I asked her instead what color ws the sun? She said "orange in the morning, a little later yellow Nd white in the afternoon.. In evening it even looks reD sometimes." "There you go! You know the answer now!" I said. " but the sun is never purple! So why does the sunset hs purple in it?" HHHEELLPP!!
Why is the dad never around when I need him the most??


So, while sugar hs been thanking me each time when I hand her a cup of water or milk, or dress her up or put her shoes on; chini declared that she would write a thank you note for all her friends. The mailman would be the first to receive the honours, it was decided. It was only fateful that as we were about to finish it off that the mail van arrived and hurriedly the name was signed and the door wS opened and momma was informed "I will be right back! and without even looking back once, an errand had to be made. While the momma anxiously stood at the curb, barefoot, lest the mailman think that her cutie bundle wAs a mail too.. The note was duly delivered to him and he, in turn, raised the note-holding hand to the mom and the little girl jogged back, beaming, " I had to make a run!"
Of course, you had to, sweet heart!


And it was decided that we would thank all our friends for 'being our friends' this thanksgiving and when we were all set for the journey, chini said, "I am so excited, but where are we going NEXT thanksgiving?"

Feasts and festivities..

So october is over... And what a dynamic month it was! With almost all the holidays an Indian can wish for.. Except for the fact that none of them were holidays as such, if you get the pun, that is. Okay, so for all my readers, the festibols(as chini calls them) are called holidays here in the States; whereas for us Indians, who grew up in India, holiday would mean any declared/official off-day from work/school etc. Excluding karwachauth none of our major days coincided with a weekend this month.

The best thing i love about all these festivities is the kids excitement about it. Chini loves to 'tilak' everybody and anybody(including her dollies), sugar loves to ring the bell, and both of them love to look into the 'arti' (prayer) books trying to identify as many idols they can. And of course, they absolutely absolutely love dressing up as indian princesses! Which as you might have guessed means the traditional attire. Chini is so much into it that, just to appease her, I had to put one on her the day I had done the Diwali story at her school. She was so cross with me that I, along with sugar, had come in our traditional dresses, whereas she was not!

The month of all holiness had started With the Nine days of navratras. For me, it was very special coz for the first time ever, I could keep my resolution of not yelling at my little 'Devi avatars'.. For whole of nine days.. And if i forget about one or two meltdowns, I succeeded doing so for entire auspicious month! Kudos to me! It was very important to me b'coz lately I had started getting irritated by a single act of disobedience from them; which at times resulted in such a bad temper that the poor girls used to wonder,"momma, why are you so mad?" That was unhealthy.. Very unhealthy .. For the entire family.. So this month I (tried to) excise control on my anger. (that the dad was at the recieving end instead of the girls, is an entirely different story altogether ;-)). The funniest episode was on the day of 'hoi ashtami'. In brief, hoi fast is observed for the children. And again, as supposedly I was fasting for them, to me, it made more sense that I do not shout at them. Now, my girls chose that very day to test me to the extremes! As soon as chini came back to school, she started picking up a fight on the most mundane matters. All my attempts to intervene, resolve, pacify, and much more yielded no results. Finally, I decided to extradite myself from the scenario. It so happened, that wherever I went, they followed me and after a couple of minutes one or the other would either start crying or cribbing. Everytime! With almost no energy left to try and talk sense to them, I kept hopping from one room to another, one activity to other. Like two little lambs, they followed me to the kitchen, to the laundry, to the computer room, to the balcony... Now wll these rooms are on two different floors. Finally, chini gave up, "why are you doing up down, up down, up down all the time?!" stiffling my amusement, i said, " coz you two are not giving me a moment of peace!" " we are not even doing anything" "yeah girl! And you are not letting me either!" sigh

Karwachauth and Hoi were very special, this year, as the dad fasted along with me. He had always wanted to but somehow or other he couldn't. The essence behind these fasts, for us, is the love and to cherish the bond of this small unit of 'family' that we have started together. Also, it is our way of thanking God for the wonderful partner and kids He gave us. Both days, the kids fell asleep before the actual puja, so they missed listening to the story. Hopefully, in the coming years, they will.

Dussehra was spent listening to the story and attempting to, at least, make them taste the 'dahi laddu'. Diwali saw the ladies of the house sick with cold and cough, still trying to light the diyas! And dressing up for the occassion. Laxmi pujan was fun(minus the grand dinner that we used to host every year) and for the goverdhan puja, we went to ISKCON temple(it took 2x time to reach owing to heavy traffic). The ambience in the prayer hall was just amazing! One, cannot escape albeit, get bathed in that devotion-filled air!!

And the month ended with the 'not so holy' Halloween. The gals had been witing for it for an entire year, so it had to get mentioned here. The school didn't allow the dress up, just a head-gear and we weren't going trick-or-treating owing to the snowfall a day before; so, we took the opportunity at the local library. The girls dressed up as fairy Rapunzels had fun at the story time, parading to the bank(the library and the bank share the building) and enjoying delicious treats. The highlight of the day was giving away candies to everybody they saw on the way and at the bank! Surprisingly, sugar( who has difficulty parting/sharing usually) gave away candies without a single moment of hesitation!! Chini did remember going trick- or-treating with her friends at the old house(her exact words) and said she missed them. We used to go trick-or-treating with our neighbors there. In fact, two haloweens back, we had made very good friends with one of our neighbours while trick-or-treating! This year, one of our new neighbours(an old lady and a grandma herself) came with two goody bags for the gals at our door! I think, we should have a special day to celebrate neighbours, too!

I leave you with a picture of chini and sugar performing puja.. This was clicked today. I guess the girls want to continue the rituals.. Oh! This reminds me, this morning sugar sneaked the sindur and 'tilak'ed the ganesha idol we have at our entrance. On seeing me, she proudly said,'mumma, i did binddi to bagvaanji!'

Karwachauth and Hoi Ashtami

Yesterday was karwachauth, a festival which has a traditional and its own historic significance. As much as I love our tradition and all the little ceremonies associated, I add my own special meaning to them. Karwachauth, basically, is a fast observed by married woman for the longevity of their husbands. But I see it as a festival to honor relationships - relationship between husband and wife and relationship between m-i-l and d-i-l. These days we celebrate anniversaries, aping the errrr... western culture, which is nothing else but commemorating this very bond between a man and his wife. Here, do not get me wrong. I do not say that celebrating marriage anniversaries is wrong. I look forward for mine every year and I love celebration of any sort, especially if it has got anything to do with any kind of relations. For instance, two weeks back, it was "Sweetie's day" here in Ohio. A few months back, it was daughter's day and before that it was the father's day and there are so many other "special" days like Valentine's, Mother's and many more. For me, these are just one of the myriad ways of glorifying the wonderful relationships we share. To these western ways, we have our own Karwachauth, Teej, Rakshabandhan, and this year I am looking forward to "Hoi Ashtami" too. Hoi Ashtami is a fast that is observed for your children and as I said, as I love the festivities associated with relationships, am very much looking forward to my very first "Hoi Ashtami" as I absolutely absolutely love my darling daughter and at no cost would miss this chance to celebrate my love for her in our traditional way. I am yet to know the rituals to be performed for "Hoi Ashtami", so I will post about it later. For now, I will talk about Karwachauth, what it means to me and why it was much more special this year.

As I said earlier, this fast celebrates the wonderful relation DH and I share and as anyone who watches Bollywood movies will know that this fast is all about the husband and the moon (or eating after the moon rises). Actually, it's much more than that. In our Hindu mythology, any puja concerning suhaag (I wouldn't know the appropriate word for it, married-dom?) is dedicated to Lord Parvati and any fast concerning Lord Parvati and her son Ganesha, is to be broken after the night falls and hence, the significance of moon. In the late afternoon, the katha is read wearing all suhaag symbols and traditional attire, preferrably wedding chunri. The wives take out bayna for the mother-in-law, which usually consists of a sari or dryfruits or anything that you want to give her with love. For me, bayna holds a very special meaning as how can you celebrate your husband unless you have thanked his mother for she had bore him for you and nurtured him inside her body for whole nine months. Not to mention the upbringing, the education she gave him that he is finally fit to be your husband. This is usually a nirjal, nirahaar fast. But, last year, as I was carrying Chinipie then, DH had strictly asked me not to be so strict and had packed juice cans for me to be taken in the office. This year, as I am feeding her, he again insisted me on taking juices. In the late afternoon, as I got ready for the katha - I didn't wear a saree, but draped a chunri and adorned my mangalsutra, bichiya, bindi, sindoor and nath. I had kept nath until the last as I knew it would definitely attract Chinipie and leave me crying with pain. Until then, she had a bashful time going for my bindi and trying to take it out. When I finally put the nath on, she was more than happy to play with it. She was in my arms before I finally sat for the rituals and I moved her away just before her naughty hands could snatch it off me. I laughed at her excited face and seeing me, she started laughing too and thus, my puja started for which I sat her in my lap to avoid any mishap and have a good control on her to do my puja peacefully. Once, it was done, I removed chunri, nath n bindi immediately and when I finally donned them again for the post-moon rise ark, she was with DH and her reaction was unforgettable. She kept looking at me with blinking eyes for a few seconds before finally bouncing in excitement. And, this is how she made this karwachauth so special for me.

Today, my Chinipie turns 6 months old. Her very existence makes each day special for me. I wish you a very happy and a long life ahead, Chinipie.

Happy Father's Day!!

This was first Father's Day for DH and I had wanted to make it very special for him. Mother's day had gone by unnoticed as we had just returned from the hospital with over-extended stay at the hospital and all of us drained-out with a newborn baby. I did not want the Father's Day to go unnoticed as well and all the while had contemplated various gifts for him.

These are a few from the list that I had thought of and discarded
- a tie with Chini's photos all over but discarded as the time was too short to order the tie.
- a beautiful greeting handmade by me on Chini's behalf - again discarded for two reasons - one i did not have sufficient accessories for the type of greeting i had wanted to make and second i thought that may be when Chini grows up she would want to make one herself and then her gift would not be unique.. hmmm.. seems like i am already expecting a lot from her ;o)
- a personalized pen from Chini, this i discarded as we s/w engineers hardly use pens and in fact with the net, we have even stopped writing letters or maintaining diaries; e-mails and blogs have taken their place! I did not want my chini's first gift to lie astray a few days later.

While i was trying to come up with ideas, discarding them, and trying again, the weekend came by and I thought, well I still have the whole weekend with me! On Saturday, we had to go to the bank to finish up some paper work and I had hoped to come up with some creative idea before the day ended. Bank took a longer time than expected - initially coz as soon as we were about to step into the bank, our little angel chose that particular time to shun her angel-ness and wear her howling face instead! and we could not enter the bank with a wailing baby, lest to scare people away. We tried to pacify her which took some time and then finally when we were able to coax her to sleep and entered the bank, we found (to our surprise) that there was only one banker, it being a half day, to tend to the customers with a long queue of people waiting. We decided to wait, anyhow, as our angel was acting like one and sleeping peacefully. We could not let this chance skip by! It was almost two o'clock by the time we came back home and found a note sticking on our mailbox that we have a package waiting to be picked up!! We were expecting one from my company and checked on the customer service desk for the same. Looking at me, the lady said, " Oh! yours is a realy big one. So, I kept it inside. Let me bring it". "Now", I thought, " A few papers shouldn't be a big package. Since when my company start with any concept called - BIG PACKAGE - ha!" Anyways, when she came out, she was holding a huge bucket of goodies!! and instantaneously, my mind began listing out all the possible people who could have send it. It couldn't have been from Cleveland as we have moved just a few days before Chini's birth to this place and hardly know anybody here. To be frank, I couldn't figure out who could have sent it. So, as soon as I had the goodies bucket in my hand, I searched frantically for the sender's note, hoping to find it there(or else, the whole weekend I would have done nothing but play the "guess who" game!). Lucky me, I found the note and was really surprised by the thoughtfulness of DH's colleagues! If, by any chance, any of you are reading this, I thank you. This little act of yours touched my heart!!

Happy Father's Day, indeed!!!


Edited to add: As for me, I sent a customized Father's Day Certificate from Babyzone hoping that he would print it and pin at his office desk.