With her brand new bike!

We said bye bye to terrible twos yesterday. Yes, the child turned three. For the first time, she and the mama with whom she shares her birthday with were in the same place and time and we made the most of it.

We clubbed the birthdays with a curtain raiser of the new apartments we (us and the mama) will be moving to – food was prepared in mum’s and gran’s houses and transported to our new apartment for lunch. We cut her cake there, relaxed, talked and just sat down, enjoying the lusty sea breeze that blew through the apartment in the afternoon. Then trooped in a group for coffee to my brother’s new place a few streets away.

There we had coffee and yet more cake – his birthday cake, which he cut with his greedy niece’s assistance. After which, the noisy kids were dispatched to the truly awesome park next door while us adults continued our chinwagging sessions. We rounded off the the day’s events by a trip to the beach, which is literally a stone’s throw away and finished off with the temple by the beach.

The Mint is one lucky birthday girl as she got some truly amazing birthday presents – my dad got her (and her brother) some great bicycles so they can get to mama’s house easily; not to be outdone, mum got granddaughter a very pretty pair of gold earrings. Mama and maami got her this truly rocking rocking horse – in pink, of course! She also got some puzzles, new outfits and lots of lovely cash, from the rest of the family.

The true comic moment of the day happened earlier that afternoon while we were preparing to leave the parent’s house to get to mine. As it was hot and my grandparents cannot walk far, we had hired an auto and were busy loading it up. My brother had rung earlier, asking me to stand outside with the keys to my apartment, as he had got something for the birthday girl that he wanted to place in the new house. As I was standing in the agreed spot, my dad and bro’s FIL got bored of sitting around and decided to just walk it and took my keys with them. The phone rang and I was talking to hubby, missing all the action in far away England, and The Mint ran out to grab the phone from me.

Who should whiz past us then by the maami in her Scooty, with the mama at the back, holding this massive PINK rocking horse? She was grinning, he was signing for keys, while I was trying to distract The Mint from catching sight of them while furiously signing that the apartment was open – oh it was hysterical!

The day made sense to my R2I, with the sib and the child enjoying their day together and my dear gran walking around the new apartment, saying “it is beautiful!”

She had last visited me when my son was born nine years back – I had never thought she’d get a passport and visit me in England but she did! I was also doubtful she would ever visit my house again – but I am so glad that she could, so easily too!

As my son rightly summed up, what a difference from the previous birthday party!

Now, the story. Minty and I are reading this book about numbers, counting etc. For number 3, there is a picture of 3 birdies, birdies of a particular kind.

Me: Do you know how many birdies are here, Minty?
M: 3!!!!
Me: YES! DO you know what these birdies are called? Robins!
M: wowwww! Wahbinn!
Me: Yes! Next, do you know what number this is?
M: 4!!
Me: Well done! Do you know what these are?
M: Kuppis!!!
Me: !!!!!!!!!!

One of the rides

Apparently, NaBloPoMo works on weekdays only. There was no prompt for yesterday and likewise, today. As I was out making merry yesterday, I shall write about it today and call it a job well done. OK?

 
We took the children to Legoland, an amusement park near Windsor. I like Windsor much better than Legoland but as I am pretty sure my two would rather wander around the latter instead of traipsing around Windsor Castle, looking for Henry VIII’s august tomb, we headed where we did. It was a super tiring day and luckily, as it had rained buckets earlier, it wasn’t the “scorcheroo” (as Pratik’s friend’s mum foretold) I was worried about.
As decided earlier, I went with Pratik on his “must be accompanied by an adult” rides while the spouse looked after The Mint. Who, typically, protested vociferously on being left out of the fun.

The first ride was something Viking Whatzit. We sat with another family of 4 in this round floaty thing and were set afloat on a frothing course. Water was chucked on us from top, squirted from the sides and on two occasions, we had to float through water curtains. Needless to say, by the time the ride came to an end, I was giving drowned rats a run for their money. Spouse took one look at us and instead of springing for the drying tube, said we could walk it off!

Typically, by the time I dried out, it was time for another water ride and time to undo all the good work.

Anyways, this pattern continued, alternated with kiddie rides for the child, till a strident voice announced on the PA system “the park is now closed! the PARK is now CLOSED” and we hoofed it out of there.

The children were so pooped they fell asleep the minute we hit the motorway. So we scorched our plans of heading into Wembley and finding us a nice North Indian restaurant.

In cliched fashion, much fun was had by all.

We shall rest our weary bones today. Though I’m sure my daughter has ideas – I spy with my right eye her getting decked out in her “outside shoes”. sigh.

There's always time to adjust the hair

What is it with little girls and playing dress up? Is it somehow wired into the XX chromosome combo? Till date, my son relies on me to make the sartorial decisions for him. On one famous occasion, he sat around in a good shirt and underpants because I hadn’t given him his trousers yet!

But his sister is a whole other kettle of fish.

Already she has clear ideas on her outfits and looking nice. Even a simple neatening of hair warrants a trip to the mirror to give herself the once-over. She observes me closely as I get dressed (for which I normally get 3 minutes, if I am lucky) and is ready with a jutted-out lip when I get the lippy out. For this reason, I changed them all to simple Vaseline lip balms as I don’t want her to start wearing any part of proper make-up yet. She also wants to be creamed and perfumed along with me and then once done, I still have to pass the mirror test if I want to be left in peace to run a comb across my hair.

The latest craze, with the advent of balmy spring, is for her floaty dresses. These are aired out once a year and packed up once Autumn sets in so they carry some rarity value. She calls them “dancey” as once she puts them on, she jumps around the house, dancing away. Barely is one such outfit washed and dried before it is pressed into service yet another time. She capped this by wearing not one, but THREE such outfits yesterday, one over another! It was when she wanted to add a fourth to this ensemble in the evening that I finally put my foot down.

This love for dressing up stops with the floaty dresses, though. She doesn’t touch the other frocks and she has no liking for hair accessories and rips out any grips or bands seconds after they have been laboriously put on.

I remember my cousin Shraddha used to be extremely fond of getting dressed. Even at 2, she used to choose her own outfits. During a family holiday to Kodaikanal, she packed 14 outfits for 4 days and made sure she wore every single one of them!

What is it with girls and their love of dressing up, anyway?

My daughter

I suddenly realised that it has been ages since I wrote anything about the kids. There were so many posts I compiled, especially about Her Mintness but they just never saw the light of the laptop screen. But after a new reader read a post and stated they didn’t know if I had children, I thought it was high time I did an update on the kiddies before my loyal few forget about them!

First and foremost, The Mint is fully potty trained. I am real chuffed about this because in less than 6 months she has completely got rid of the diaper. I started after she turned 2, in September, just like I did with her brother. She used to go to nursery at the time and the staff taking her regularly helped a great deal. Recently, we stopped using the night-time diapers too after they were dry for the third night in a row. She now wears them only when we go out, but even then, she doesn’t wee in them and we end up taking her to a regular toilet nearby.

On our anniversary, for instance, we went into the city and spent the cold day wandering beside canals and she drank fruit juice after juice and still the chit didn’t wet her nappy at all. Then we went to this restaurant for dinner and she insisted on weeing then, refused to listen when I reminded her she was wearing a nappy and wee-ed like a horse when her dad took her to use the toilet! How she managed to hold it in the whole day I’d never know!

In other news, she is a pucca chatterbox! I was termed one when I was 5 years old by my teacher but my daughter has beaten me to it. Right from the minute she says “morning!” she is vocal. She decides if she’ll drink milk that day or not, what she’ll have for breakfast and so on. No is a word that is dropped frequently – not by us, but by Her Highness.

Conversations such as this abound in our house:

“Minty put away the guitar  and eat your breakfast!”

“No Minty no put away geetah, Minty and Kola (her koala stuffed toy) eat bekfast!”

She has firm views on EVERYTHING, from shoes to whatever she is told to do. At 2, there is already no “you do it cos I say so” with her. She will calmly parry with a  “no…..” and proceed to do what she wanted to do in the first place. She is, in one word, exhausting! But she is also free with the ‘magic words’ – if she knows you’re hurt, she’ll say sorry even if she didn’t cause it. When she’s in the mood, she’ll happily dispense hugs and kisses.

I don’t know if it is thanks to her brother but she loves music – and dance. She can hum the tune of whatever song he is playing on the violin and is always at him to practice! She will hound him to play her favourite tune by humming it fully and will proceed to accompany him as he plays it on the violin. She also loves to swing her hips – be it while watching something on the telly or brushing her teeth!

Pratik, on his birthday

Of course, her favourite person is her brother. She’ll fight with him tooth and nail, labelling everything of his as ‘pappa’s’ and her indignant screams rent the air every few minutes but when he isn’t around, she is the one counting minutes till he comes back. The one night he went away for a sleepover, she nagged us to death to bring back ‘Anna’ (elder brother, in Tamil)!

Speaking of, my little boy turned 9 last week. I don’t think I can get away with calling him a little boy anymore. He is such a lovely child, as different from his tempestuous sister as the proverbial chalk is from cheese. He is very happy with his own company; in fact, after being an only child for more than 6 years, he is extremely adept at making up his own games and I have never heard the dreaded ‘I’m bored!’ from him, ever! He is the quintessential all-rounder – he does so well at studies that all his teacher had to say about him was that she was extremely pleased with him. He also excels at football, swimming, running and is playing violin so well that his teacher reckons he will be ready to take his Grade 1 exams in June! Of course, as we will be in India by then, I’ll have to find a way for him to take the exams in Chennai!

Both his head teacher and class teacher had such lovely things to say about him that we were bursting with pride. The former went on to ask me if the school we have chosen in India for him will nourish him and foster his spirit! His class teacher  had tears in her eyes even as she said she will miss having him in her class. I sure do hope we are doing the right thing by taking him away from people that so obviously care for him!

He is a serious kinda chap but he has a wicked sense of humour. Typically of boys his age, the words ‘pee’, ‘poop’, ‘fart’ etc send him into paroxysms of giggles but he is also capable of spinning a good yarn. An extremely affectionate child, he is also the one  for impromptu hugs – but never a public kiss!  He floored me completely two days back by making me an origami heart for Mother’s Day!

So anyways, that’s my two. Totally maddening but utterly lovely, in my eyes.

Edited to add: I broke one of the golden rules of parenting yesterday and my daughter made sure I paid for my sins. I proclaimed to the world in no uncertain terms that a child of mine does something, in this case, not wet herself and is totally potty-trained. Well slap me and call me silly because last night she wet the bed not once, but two flipping times. I am off now to eat my words. Or is it crow?

..or you can call it “How The Scattered Families in Year 2010 Celebrate Big Days”. Or even something unflattering, which I would get from trolls if I have any.

Anyways, my sunbeam of a daughter turned two on Wednesday. Cue screams and gasps. Hard to believe that two years have sped by. She is such a chatty little soul that you’d rarely find her sitting quietly in one place. She is full of energy, forever running from one room to another, spreading havoc hither and thither. She has the uncanny ability to attract people’s attention where ever she goes. The library where I take her weekly, buses, the shops that are teeming with people, you name it, she gets a fan in under two minutes.

As her birthday fell on a weekday, we hadn’t planned of anything apart from a mini cake-cutting with just us four, followed by a trip to the desi zones of East London, to the temple and thence to Saravana Bhavan. This was, of course, before her highly enterprising maami got into the act.

My little girl shares her birthday with her maama, a fact that tickles us greatly, as he was the biggest monkey around while growing up. Last year, mid-way through his wedding celebrations, maama and niece cut this truly awesome cake together. This year, with us in England and maama in California, we did not even consider joint celebrations. But the aforementioned enterprising maami got on the phone to us and mom the previous evening and said that we can still cut the cake together – with a modern tweak, that’s all.

So, when it was midnight in California, 8.00 AM in England and 12.30 PM in India, we all gathered in front of a webcam-ed computer. The Mintlet cut her almond cake, maama in California cut the chocolate cake his wife lovingly made while dissonant voices from all over the world sang “Happy Birthday” lustily.

We scoffed the cakes, Pratik lusted after the chocolate cake, The Mint tripped and fell down, got up and stuffed her face with more cake while six people talked over one another via the Internet.

Now, that’s the modern way to celebrate. Innit?

But things chez moi cannot be more different. As one or the other of us chooses to fall prey to stray viruses, we are staying firmly put inside the warm walls of our house. The times I feel my wallet flutter against the door, bursting for a foray into the High Street, the spouse sits down with massive tomes, muttering arcane words like “Coursework!”, “Deadline!!” and thwarting my desperate bids for freedom.

To top it, the Boy has one of his bum chums over for a sleepover. Since last evening, they have been raising merry hell, making the Child’s head spin with their mad antics and generally behaving like a pair of paroled hooligans. This morning, they are hard at work, trying to outdo each other on the Wii. The spouse, typically, decamped early, having wisely set up a study date.

So am trying to hold the fort, trying to keep the Boys and the Child away from one another. Which is easier said than done, cos ever since she figured how to switch off the telly, she has been pressing the button off at the most (in)opportune moment, followed swiftly by cries of “MINTYYYYYYY! NOOOOOOOO!!”

As you can imagine, my cup is overflowing with joy. Does anyone care to pop over and babysit for a while? Pretty please?

I chanced upon a few photos taken in the beginning of this year, when she must have been seven months or so. And it jolted me to the core, how small and babyish she is looking. Compared to the hellion she has become at Month 14.5!

She is rarely ground level these days. Ever since she started walking (she took her first steps on Krishna Jayanthi) she rarely pauses to stop and smell the roses. From the minute she wakes up to the minute she is dragged to bed kicking and screaming, she is forever running. Running to the under-sink cupboard where I keep the cleaning fluids, so she can dump them on the living room carpet. Or running to the bedroom, opening my wardrobe and getting amidst my clothes. Or in her brother’s room, tossing aside clothes and toys and making his already messy room messier. Or climbing on chais, and then on to the dining / computer table. Hanging off the backs of the chair. If she isn’t doing one thing, she is doing ten.

She can get rid of her nappy easily and when no one else is looking. Many a times we have chanced upon us walking bare-bottomed. Usually, at such times, her bodysuit tails would be soiled as the monkey would have gotten rid of her poopy nappy and stashed it somewhere ‘safe’! We just have to follow the pong to find out the special spot she has found for it!

She also loves dancing. She understands and says the word ‘dance’ very well. Minute you say dance, she’ll start bending at the waist and nodding her head side to side (if she is seated) or shake her booty. It is really hilarious to see her do that. Switch on any music – be it Suprabhatham or jazz or Wake Up Sid, she will start mumbling and start dancing. She won’t just do the same movements either – she will keep changing her arm movements, the way she bounces, some tiny changes always in tune with the music. Recently she has started humming along with the music too.

She babbles a LOT now. Her first word was typically “Pratik”! She also calls him “eesh” and can point him in  any photo. She also says “yesh” clearly and sometimes, says “hi”. Tell her “NO” and she will counter with a “yesh” and get back to whatever naughty act she was doing. She also says “ta ta” very clearly, coupled with a waving hand gesture. But she won’t just bestow that on anybody!

Typical of a second-born, she also competes with her brother a lot. If he is reading a book, she has to pluck it off his hands and either tear a paper or two off it or fling it in the farthest corner of the room. If he is at the computer, she HAS to climb next to him or even on him and tap on the keyboard. If he is taking bath, she has to go to the bathroom and push the shower curtain aside and babble at him. If he is eating, she has to climb on his chair / hang off it and generally make him yell “Mummmyyyy, Minty’s bothering meee!” That plaintive cry is generally heard many, many times during the day. It is hilarious when this happens ‘cos, on one side would be Pratik, his face red and puffing like a steam engine; on the other side it will be this chit, who upon seeing me would scrunch up her eyes and start fake bawling. It takes all my energy not to break into a smile!

Let me wind this up with a funny story. We had recently gone on a weekend visit to one of hubby’s cousins. They have a nine-month old boy and though she didn’t really notice him much, The Mint just used to bash him on the head with the remote etc if he ventured too close. Sunday morning, we were all sitting in the lounge, the baby was getting his nappy changed. The Mint saw his, er, private parts and sat up straight! She pointed to her nappy, pointed to the baby and went “eesh!” Translation: he’s got stuff just like Pratik!

Ain’t she a card?

I’ll leave you with a recent photo of her, all dressed up and ready for the play group.

I want to see how it is tomorrow and decide if I should take her to the doctor or not.

We had just been to the doctor’s today, for her MMR and some other jab. When I mentioned to the nurse that the baby has a bad case of nappy rash, Nurse just told me to apply some nappy cream, all the time exclaiming what a lovely baby The Mintlet was, for not bringing the house down after getting a jab each in her thighs.

I want to get into an outdoor routine for her. Playgroups on Wednesdays and a Mum-and-child swimming session on Fridays. But things aren’t working so well in that area. I really need to pull up my socks and get to it!

Why is it even the simplest of things can cause a parent to

One of the first pix of The Mintlet

Dear Mintu,

I cannot believe my ickle baby, who I held in my hands moments after birth, is now a year old. A baby no longer. When did you go and grow up on me? More importantly, why so quickly? I looked around the wrecked house and am amazed that you have grown up big enough to trash the whole house – in mere minutes, too!

There are loads of thinks I can say about you – the funny way you walk, how you tip your head to a side and say “yesh” pretending everything is a phone, how you are always carrying on with your daily havoc with a sing songy tune, how your face brightens up on seeing your brother… but as I am still in shock that a year has sped past me, I won’t. Instead, let me seek proof in the form of a slideshow of  my favourite photos of you from the past year.

Make a Smilebox slideshow

Happy Birthday Minty Moo! Here’s to a zillion more!

Lots of love,

Mummy