Half Yearly Report

School’s have ended, summer has almost started and kids have hit their ½ year mark, the grand parents pampering has begun… so as always… here you go.

Miss V, the decade old lady with the wisdom of a century old person and the sassisness of a 16 year old!!!

This past school year she switched schools. So though she is adjusting well academically, musically and sportingly.. it has taken time to adjust socially. She has a lot of friends around her new school, she laughs, she cannot get through the corridor without the hellos and good byes, but she misses the deep friendships. And that's where her wisdom kicks in, she knows it takes time. So the wise lady says... lets be patient!

She calls herself a "Ten-Ager" now and that's actually true. Times she is a baby and will snuggle and cozy up and deep meaningful conversations and then there are times she gets all sassy and unreasonable and says "shut up" and gets mean. The dichotomy!

At times she will sit with her little sister and help her with math and challenge her to speak backwards and contrastingly, they will fight over "which lollipop is more pink!"

Miss V a list maker, a planner and her toughest critique. Being your own critique makes very driven- she will keep at it until it’s done! She will also get equally frustrated at times in the process. She is now realizing that the world is not black and white and hates that!

With the world cup now on, there is only ONE discussion for my budding Soccer Superstar!

The Conquerer

Little Lady:

I wonder how I put this nick name for her, she is true for it- Little Lady. She is a charmer, a pleaser, head strong and amazingly caring personality. Her empathy often leaves me dumbfounded and awe stricken.

Her latest obsession is with hair- my hair specifically. She will patiently braid my hair, play with them, and comb them. On a school day, she demands different hair styles for school and has gotten "better" at eating vegetables since I told her- it’s good for the hair. But to be clear, she still is a VERY slow eater.

Can I brag a little? She has started reading Harry Potter- I am not sure she comprehends it all, but has started reading it with ease now! She was Dorothy in her school production of "Wizard of Oz". From the shy kid to her commanding the stage is so amazing.

Oh man, remember head strong, oh well, she is a cute head strong. She knows exactly what she wants and will bat her eyelids, throw in an extra hug and get her way and you won't know what hit you! Ohh- and she can bike now WITHOUT Training wheels

Little Lady

Summer is here now in Chicago and we have sort of compressed them- We have hit the beach, plucked strawberries, drenched in crown fountain, biked Lake Shore, shared picnic in the park and even BBQ'd!

Half year mark has been wonderful and I am excited for the next 6 months of these little wonders until I start the Birthday Planning Cycles.

I heard at a comedy show recently: "The only person who you can love unconditionally is your children" and that is so true.... no matter how annoying, messy, clumsy these girls get. To me, they are MY perfect little ladies!

Chicago Summer

China... an experience

4 families.... 8 adults, 6 kids ranging from 20 months to almost 10 years of age making a 12 day trip to China. What did you expect?

We expected, fun, frolic and lots of memories and man.... it was all that and more!

Let me first get the following out of the way: This was a first one of the 'organised tours' we did and boy was that an experience. It was definitely very well organised, very hectic also very touristy at the same time. We covered a lot in the places in China but at the same time did waste some time at those 'sell ups of Jade market and Pearl Factories'. But not planning the minutiae details ourselves, travelling with such a large group and above all getting brilliant time together was perfect!!!

Now back to trip itself.
Our itinerary
Day 1- Day 3.5: Beijing
Day 3.5 - Day 5: Wuxi
Day 6: Suzhou
Day 7: Hangzhou
Day 8-10: Shanghai
Day 11-12: Shanghai- Disney

As you can see, lots of places visited and lots and lots of pictures and above all, memories to last a while, a long while!

I am not sure writing about every minutia detail of the trip would do justice, so i will stick to highlights!

For me, my biggest highlight was meeting my brother, SIL and my nephew. They flew in to do the trip together and though we were always touring and going from one place to the next, just having them sitting in the bus behind me and taking silly pictures of my SIL sleeping was just the best.
Dearest friends from Chicago decided to do this trip together and the giggle at the silliest of stories is perfect. I think travelling with friends and family is special, you can be yourself even if that means huddling the group to be on time!
Sumit and I rang in our dozen years together! Yep, we celebrated our anniversary on this trip. And it was amazing, since we fought a little, we enjoyed a little and as always fell in love a little bit more!

We scaled the Great Wall, wandered in the halls of the Forbidden City, lazed around at tea plantations, got massages, experienced jaw dropping Olympic Ceremony, rode the fastest train on the planet, cruised through canals and Shanghai skyline views and of course said Hello to Mickey in the Shanghai Disney!

All with a group of "my peeps"

More details to follow, but for now I have to leave you with this... the kids we traveled with are champions and troopers. We were all jet lagged, but they were super excited, barely any tantrums and above all they were more excited at learning and experiencing China and being respectful of knowing the world is larger than them!

They did this....

I come home from work... and see this!!!!

The Little Lady wanted her face painted, the Chatterbox wanted to be creative and hence they were a perfect match!
I climb our stairs and am greeted with this beautifully painted face and lots of chuckles and lots of giggles.

These two together are a riot, a menace and the most adorable pair of sisters who can spend hours playing, fighting, troubling and uniting against me!

Touch wood, Siblings truly are friends for life

The half year mark...

We are roughly in the middle of the year and with both my girls being winter babies, its only apt that I write a simple homage of the half year it has been with these little angels or devils... or creatures who keep our lives filled with laughter, fun and definitely some angry tears!

Little Lady:

She is working hard to overtake her sister's title of 'Chatter box' and we love it.... she definitely has the most singy songy voice and the batting of her eyelids with that voice... she does get away with a lot more... a lot more!

She is chatty, definitely has made strides of progress in being 'less shy'. From the girl who played on her own for hours is now her gathering up her friends in the park and chasing butterflies. It's wonderful to see her blossom. 

She is being assertive and negotiating way more for every single thing. But the batting of eyelids has my heart in a mush consistently. 

She is gotten progressively annoying when it comes to food. She will still eat everything we give her, however sloth can eat faster than her. She is chatting more and eating less at meal time. 

The coolest part of her newest passion is reading, she will sit with her early reader books and make attempts. She will sit with her writing books and has moved on from scribbles to coherent writing. 

She is my musical kid, will skip instead of walking and can sing and sing and sing some more... simply to annoy her room mate, her love of her life, Didi aka Miss V aka Miss Chatterbox

Miss Chatterbox: 

This year was quiet a formative year for her, there was a lot of tween drama in her class, some crushes, some teasing, some girl gossips and definitely a lot of 'Mom, I am not a baby anymore' 

One word that best describes Miss Chatterbox, she is Strong. She is in very good control of her emotions and mature way beyond her years. She does not like to being vulnerable or cry and will really put on a brave face. 

And I really have to look in her eyes truly understand how she feels, she is sensitive and the strong face does not fool me. 

I love my long conversations with her about anything and everything. I love her complimenting/ dissecting my wardrobe. I thoroughly enjoy watching her with the soccer ball. 

Admist all this, She is definitely working on my patience by being more defiant and  more 'annoying' in the tween kind of way: Rolling of the eyes, some back answering and definitely being a little disrespectful. 

How am I dealing with this? You ask, I am not. It currently reverberates between yelling at her, to giving her silent treatment to more often than not 'What is going on man'

I guess deep down I do know the answer, nothing. So I need to figure out a way to learn with her and be the mature one in the relationship. 

But both these girls have one thing in common, their total dedication to each other. Where Little Lady will save an extra candy for her sister, the older one Miss V will hug her and calm her when Little Lady is sad. They fight, they annoy each other but they are each other's  biggest confidante right now. 

I will say this for the record: Currently, the older one is the tattle tale right now and the little one defensive of the other. I honestly thought at ages 9 and 4, it would be the other way around. 

Oh well, there is no 'guidebook to bringing up siblings 5 years apart' So, I will learn on the job!

My babies...or not such little babies anymore!

Keep it Simple Silly!

This past weekend weather wise was gloomy, rainy and a little cold. Well its Chicago in Spring time :-)
All right, no weather comments, our winter was really good this year.

But in this weekend in midst of meeting friends, celebrating our friend's kids milestone birthday's by Sunday evening we were all 'spent', not tired but just really needed a relaxed evening in.

Sisters, Friends for life!

So what did we do? Really nothing but still a lot!

Both the girls received long oil massages a la moi, followed by their long baths. And then the sisters unwind-ed with a board game while I sat with them and hand fed them- by choice.

The girls are now 9 and 4 and really self sufficient (the 4 year old does get fed her last few bites at mealtime), but it felt really good- Just to feed them with no time crunch.

From a while ago, remembering their baby zone

The little angels are growing up and there is only I realize as they get older, the time for cuddling and 'I Love you's' will reduce.... and so this Sunday evening, they played, while I hand fed them their favorite meals and time stood still for me to get amazed and just enjoy them be in their normal zone!

From even more 'long time ago'

Keeping is simple, really simple!

Ooooh the Jalebi story!

We were in Ahmedabad at Vishala: A theme restaurant with delicious Gujarati food. At dinner, our Little Lady (3 year old) is dancing around and eventually offers Sumit a Jalebi.

Now, if you have been following my Little Lady Chronicles, this one stands out: She loves her mithai and chocolates.

So her sharing 'Jalebi' her favorite Indian dish is a surprise. Sumit, the doting dad that he is, very happily eats it immediately followed by a long 'eeeeeeeeeeew' by my Older chatterbox Miss V.

She says: 'You know what Little Lady did, she licked it, sucked all the sweet stuff out and then offered the half eaten jalebi to you'

Both Sumit and I went 'eeeeeeeeeeew' as the Little Lady chuckled and continued dancing

This my friends is 'the Jalebi story'

Little Lady is 3!! Already!

 Yes she is, I believe 3 is a magical age, they are suddenly more in control of their emotion (aka tantrums), they are chatty (all the time) and they look at the world

with exploring eyes. Above all, they have opinions, strong opinions about how things should be. Call them feisty if you will, but at 3, they are adorable.

Little Lady is true to everything above. To continue my traditions of yearly letters to the girls: Here is one dedicated to my 'chamchu'

Beautiful Chamchu,

You are my baby, the cute with puppy eyes and a whole lot of adorable attitude. No matter how old you get, you always will be my baby, my little baby. Your sister continues to be the Big Baby.

You are stubborn and headstrong but you are so so caring. You will be the first one to come and ask 'Are you okay?' kiss the boo-boo away. There are times when you drive me up the wall with the headstrong nature, but I do know you will be passionate about what you feel and why you feel. Right now it's chocolates and Mithai!

I worry sometimes when you continue to play by yourself no matter how much I coax you to play with your friends when they visit. You are happy doing what you do, and you tell me, I am playing! You are just being yourself and I do forget that from time to time. It's okay, I will back off.

Stay Affectionate

You have your preferences with people, I know that. There are some whom you jump to and could stay in their arms forever, you would cry the biggest tears at separating from them and then there are others whom you just smile and get conscious around. But I admire your courage of figuring it out on your own. Your sister adores you and would lay her life for you and I know you'd do the same for her. You help me forget any worries around sibling rivalry. Stay together, you have a best friend for life, no questions asked.

My budding foodie, Okay that may be pushing it a bit. But stay curious about food, I know you are more about how the 'food looks' than how 'it tastes'. But for me, its important you try everything Vegetarian possible under the sun. Life is a lot of fun being a vegetarian foodie, I kid you not. Bur for starters, play less with your food and eat more!

I love you and don’t ever question that. You are a wonderful bundle of joy for us. Your sister and you complete our world and I know any worries that I may have, vanish when I hear your melodious voice.

My little 3 year old monster/ prankster/ adorable munchkin. I love you, your dad loves you, your sister loves you to no bounds!!

Stay Happy, healthy and smiling takes away all the worries possible.

Love,

Mummy

PS: I know I am a little late in posting this, some how this post stayed in drafts

Comparing kids with each other is blasphemy

Comparing kids with each other is blasphemy, or so they tell me.

But I do compare my own kids with each other. It's so natural, they are right in front of me! (All the time!) I turn up comparing my two daughters. I know, bad mom, etc etc, but hey I console myself by saying, at least I dont share results of my comparison with them...... but on the blog. I agree to pay for the trips to the shrink due to the result of them reading this stuff eventually!!

Here are my comparative notes.

Food

My older one is a natural foodie, she will attempt all foods, increase spice levels. Of course she is closer to 8, so maybe I am forgetting what she used to do at tiny toddler age. If memory serves me right, she was a good eater but a very slow eater. Very Very slow. And on that front nothing much has changed, even today she could spend an hour on dinner table and day dream her way through it if given a chance.

The little one, aha, is allergic to color 'green'. I kid you not! She will pull out the greens from anything unless of course it's a green M&M. How she ate the ‘Brussel Sprouts’ I have no clue! To her credit, its getting better and she eats regular spice levels of an Inidian House hold. ANything more, and her face turns red, and she screams 'Spicy' and will drink 5 glasses of water.

Clothes

The little one wears her dresses with pride. She will wear them, twirl, carry her purse and say 'Pretty Pretty' all day. It's a battle to get pants/ t-shirt (For Chicago winters, the only choice) on her.

The chatterbox, Miss 8 going on 18. Her favorite clothes: Jeans- T Shirt,  Shorts-T Shirt. I take great lengths to convince her to wear dresses for parties. She won't fuss about it, but if she had it her way, it would be jeans T all the way!

Hugs

Now here there is some commonality: Both are huggers and kissers. They both love to hug us, ask for a kiss on their fore head and are generally affectionate.

My little one has the most melodious voice I feel, she will wake up, go room to room and wish everyone Good Morning and greet us with the sweetest of her smiles. The older one would be the more quiet one in the mornings and will sneak in our bed and hug us till we wake up.

Similarities is also a form of comparison, right?

Both the girls can sit for extended period of time (age appropriate) and keep themselves busy. They both have a natural instinct in soccer and dancing. They both are daddies daughters, for all the 'show off things' they go to Sumit. For all the hugs, ideas and thoughts, they come to me.

It's wonderful to have these two beautiful creatures in my house. They remind me that life is joyous with the right glasses on!