New Year Resolutions

I know I know, we are way away from New Years (Well closer that we think), but I digress. I realize now that with school going kids, resolutions should be made at the start of the school year, since that is technically a "New Start" a new school year and time to refresh and reset and learn from mistakes of last school year!

So to lead the pack and begin a revolution of "School New Year Resolution", here are mine with the kindergartner and 5th grader in tow.

Resolution 1: Pack for school the night before

Be it the gym bag which we forget, the homework in the bag, the reading/ library bag, the snack bag etc. Let's pack the school bag the night before and keep it handy. This way as an unpaid errand runner, I am not running back and forth with the "forgotten items", kids are not "stressing (me)" with, oh I forgot and so on and above all mornings are less “drama”

Resolution 2: Ready the school attire the night before

Mind you, I have a kid in uniform and one kid with no uniform. So far this has not been a big deal. But, keep it going so they dress up and come ready with morning routine. With winter coming, this will be helpful having leggings/ sweaters lined up as well. So yes, continue last year’s good behavior

Yep, I am giving the pat on the back where it is deserved!

Resolution 3: Parents: Wake up 30 minute earlier than the kids

(URGH!!! I know) but, it makes sense. I can peel the almonds, get ready for my day in peace and above all may be have a few sips of the coffee while it’s still hot. Considering I have to pack hot lunch for one child, this can get smoother if I actually NOT snooze my alarm! Ideally, I should be up even earlier and squeeze in a work out- haha. I know!! Let’s start simple with just 30 minutes earlier than the little monsters angels.

Resolution 4: Yell less and less of "Hurry Up"

This one will be the TOUGHEST. We are all refreshed after a blissful summer, so mornings (of one whole week of back to school) have been timely and peaceful. I know that's not reality of school year’s gone by! But I am hoping to leverage "Alexa's" alarms and set times to hopefully get us in car bundled and on time without cursing the traffic amongst other things! Tough goal!! So open to suggestions on this one!

Resolution 5: Evening planning

Once the kids home after school, based on schedules- prioritize: Homework, instrument practice, classes, park, down time and dinner! We cant get all done on one day, so prioritize. Kids get over enthusiastic for their classes and as always we get stretched thinner making us squished for time. Aka making me crankier! Hence my older child and I decided to ease into this routine. Touch wood, she is sincere and has said, first homework then rest of things.

This one will continue to be a work in progress. I have put my foot down and agreed on NO SOCIAL commitments on weekdays before 8  pm.

(And No, Netflix is NOT a social commitment)

I get that all of the above are common sense items. But year after year, as time progresses, I tend to forget. Resulting in me getting crankier and then the domino effect on the family.

So yes, five fingers: five resolutions: The gist being: plan, early to bed and early to rise and above all prioritize!!! AND BREATHE! So the girls can do more of this... 

These are our "School New Year Resolutions". 

More importantly do you think I can follow mine? Well don’t answer that! You are supposed to say Yes of course!

Scheduled life

The one application/ tool that I usethe most is calendar. Yes, its antiquated, old, been around forever. But this is the one thing that I cant live without. Simple reason. All the technology we have also does not help in making mind and memory sharper.

So if its not noted on the calendar, its usually forgotten or over looked. Not Cool.

I maintain the family calendar which means, I track school stuff, important dates, play dates, birthday dates, school commitments, parties, school volunteering etc. Then I track extra curriculars, like classes, missed times, returns for books, gym classes, opeing dates for parks etc. Add in our social commitments for parties, picnics, gatherings, date nights, girls nights, movie nights. The top layer becomes travel shcedule for spouse, just so that I can plan my week around that, include my work commitments outside of regular hours.
The end product is a super busy calendar which is color coded so I know what type of commitment this is. It also has reminders set based on type. If its a birthday party, i will get a reminder a few days before to ensure i have the gift for it. If its a school volunteer, then I will get a reminder the night before to plan for Little Lady. You get the gist.
Yes, its crazy, but its organised. I know what we are doing when the time comes, so we are not double commited. At the same time, I plan so that we have some down time of lazy park walks, chiling at home and just being silly with the girls.
To the reader, it might seem like we are this super wanna be couple who are busy all the time. Well, I dont know about that. We have a good set of friends whom we like to meet regularly, do new activities with them and just relax. At the same time, we have an active toddler who enjoys her friends and company. There are so many Friday mornings that she asks us, who is coming tonight? Or where are we going? At the same time, Sumit and I love each others company so I have to equate for that.

When Sumit says, my weekends are out sourced to the wife. He is correct. He generally has no clue of what we are doing over weekends until I tell him> He however does know when we are doing nothing, he will nudge me to make a 'Plan'.

We like being busy. Its busy doing nothing. But we love this nothingness and hope we are blessed with it all our lives.

Sports..me.. and laziness!

Over a nail biting game of Saints Vs. Vikings, my brother made a simple statement: "Kids should be introduced to active sports from Day 1, the decision making, the active mind and the logic automatically form at an early stage!" Very true... he and SD went on to talk about some guy in CNBC who hosts a financial show and was a former NFL player. Impressive. It led me to think about a very senior colleague in a Fortune 50 who was a former championship boxer! Wow. I loved to be in meetings with him, he was concise, straight to the point and aggressive at the right level. I think I was more puppy eyed in his meetings than anything else! ;-)
I grew up in India. Till ninth grade, I was very involved with extra curricular activities. At any given point, I would be either practicing for a play for teachers day, or for a dance sequence for Helpers day. Or writing my elocution speech. Volunteering with my friends for Interact/ Rotract. Though I was never really great at sports (Read Lazy!!!), but I always participated for the qualifiers for all races, and javelin throws, and high jumps and so on. But sadly, I was just content being well in the bottom five ;-) I was really bad. But when it came to table tennis, swimming I rocked. Of course, march past! I was active on sports day's but more from the cheering side. My parents appreciated all these activities and were very proudly storing all my participating, some winning and other certificates and limited medals. But my father was also very clear, all my extra participation was fine, provided my grades stand good. There was zero margin of error. And I loved the other stuff so much, that I always did burn the midnight oil to do well in studies! The weird and geeky part is I enjoyed studying as much as I enjoyed the other stuff.
But then the lovely board exams. I opted out voluntarily of most of extra curricular. Our school didn’t encourage it as well. Then came college, well first year was definitely a party and then twelfth was board again! Then came engineering. Well. By now, college, early adulthood charms, movies, eating out, chilling with friends, bunking classes, "enjoying" took precedence over anything else. I was somewhat back to my "extra" stuff. But unlike school, it was infrequent. I got more and more involved in event planning and execution and not as much participation. I guess debating was the only thing I willingly participated in! Sports, what sports? Does dodge ball count ;-)? I mean my team and I were unbeaten champions for four years of engineering ;-) Hehe. But yes, the sports week implied: TP!! We went to college on keys games: read Finals when there was attendance! The remainder was well: being out of college! It could range from planned family vacations to total "lukha giri" on Bandra. Again, every thing was excusable and acceptable, provided the grades stood rock solid. And once again, the geeky me, overtook the chilled out me! :-D
I kept going farther and farther away from "sports". Swimming which was passion all my growing up years, took a back seat. Everything else in life took precedence over my activity level. And sadly, the similar was the case for most people around me.
Now, we have conversations with friends and family and say- oh, sports in India, if you are not in Cricket, nothing else will matter. It's not as popular in India since we are not brought up that way. Indians is the second most populated country, but every Olympics it’s a handful of people in it. Look at China! There are just enough state of the art facilities. and so on...
When i look back at all my school- college years. I think; I grew lazy, and distant from sports. There was no outside pressure, there was no one telling what to do and not do. I made my choice. I didn’t play TT, though I had two tables and semester championships in college. I had a table in my building for crying out loud. The pool and the club house were ten minutes away. But I considered watching friends and then talking about "How could Ross do that" over the phone more engrossing than a swim! I myself digressed, and didn’t even try to cultivate my own talents. I might not have been a champion... but at least I would have the pride of following through.
No wonder the sports teachers, the gym instructors back home, are underpaid and super frustrated. Since they see; whatever efforts they put in is going to waste. Since the kid will move to things which give them instant pleasure and not a long term benefit! What's the point of the state of the art facilities when only a few people use it!
I only see that now. Not back then. .. Then it was just the "uncool" thing to do!

Yes.. this is my story.. And definitely other people might not agree.....but sadly I don’t know many. Do you?

Things in India are changing now, i am told. And i am happy about that! I really do hope the future generations, start seeing the benefits of sports at an earlier age.. and more importantly continue it through their lives! And yes... The grades unaffected! ;-)

Reminiscing

For some strange reason, today, I am thinking about when I first landed in this country for studies. Landing with excitement, anxiety, fright and yes tonnes of books and two big bags to LAX. Yes, I had visited LA before, but as a tourist, and had only seen the 90210 side of the city. As my uncle drove me in his mini-van (where I had to sit on the right side and not drive!), through the shady neighborhoods, and low buildings to my apt. in campus... man.. was I shocked!
The next few weeks and months, were a blur while I adjusted, met old friends, made new friends.. And studied and gave exams with professor recommended "cheat sheets" and open books! Wow, it was so different.

Here are a few funny incidents that happened around me when my friends and I moved to this melting pot..
A very dear friend wanted to cross the road, and like a responsible person waited. (We were told in orientation not to 'Jay walk' ever!). So the crossing light sadly never turned green (for over 3-4 minutes) for her, she kept waiting. Then in her words: "A firang came, pressed this button on the lamp post, and the signal turned green, he crossed the road! I stood there once again missing to cross the road.. cuz I was laughing so hard at my own stupidity!"
Now, this friend has learned to cross the road but I still have preserved the email from her confessing her ignorance! (Hehe!)
Another friend of mine, would always wonder what was this (writing in exact pronunciation!) "pedzing" on the roads. She wondered, one late at night she came to the library where we were burning the midnight oil and asked: "Guys, What’s with this 'PedZing on the road! I don’t get it". We wondered what she was talking about, went out, checked the roads.. there it was written "Ped Xing" in bold letters on the road. It meant"Ped Xing = Ped Crossing = Pedestrians Crossing".. and yes once again, all of us laughed till we fell on the floor. I am sure, more than half the people who laughed that night, didn’t know the meaning of it until then!
And here is another one... (Not that funny though!) A friend of mine; staunch vegetarian, and a very bad cook. Would every evening go to McDonalds and ordered a Cheese Burger. He ate is, liked it and thought it was a nice patty. He did this for a couple of weeks very ignorantly, never once questioning what the patty was… come on, he had enough McD’s in India to know. One night (again one of those midnighters) we all went to the campus food court. We got the Sub's and he his "Cheese Burger" Needless to say, our jaws dropped and we were all bewildered. He honestly didn’t know, that the patty which tasted yumm... was actually uh.. not veggie or soy based. He felt bad.. very very bad. We could tell...But then after some soul searching he said "Ab kya, ab to kha liya naah, chuck it" [Translation "What now, have already eaten it."] As per him, he still is a staunch vegetarian but loves the McD cheese burgers (Yes my eyes roll every time!)

I can go on and on; with stories of grad school, initial work culture, my adjustments in this country.... some funny, some very funny and some extremely hilarious(!). I am sure you have some too.. so please do share!

It’s always fun to sit and reminisce about these stories. These past years, have been an experience...I have learned a about the culture and traditions of this land and that of my home land. And created some traditions of my own

And if you are wondering, why I haven’t shared my own stories about the adjusting times.. hehe... as the author(!) today I choose to not make a fool of my self... but am sure the "charrrriiiismatique.." story is sure fresh in every ones mind.... and as SD says: "Let everyone figure out your personality themselves.. why publicize it!" ;-)