Wildnispark

Last weekend we went to the Wildnispark Langenberg (http://www.wildnispark.ch/). Its a nature trail in the woods, where you can walk past animals in thewild . They are behind a fence, so that can't attack you (and vice versa) but the setting is more natural than a zoo. Even the animalsare quite different from the ones we had seen till datein the zoo. The woods are beautiful and nice for a long walk, even without the animals.

We first saw some moose, didn't realise till now that they are really quite big (and quite daft looking).

Then we walked past the deers and S and A had a great time picking up leaves and feeding them. The deer were quite friendly, and one even gave A a friendly lick! Then we saw some reindeer and S was excited to see the animals which carry Santa to the houses.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep

The trail went on for a while, past wolves (we didn't sight any) and wild pigs till we came to the picnic area. Many families had brought elaborate picnic baskets and had lit fires from the logs lying around the place and it looked like a blast. We were not so well prepared and had to make do with lunch from the cafe there. That wasn't so bad, it overlooked a small pond where bears came to drink water and A had fun looking out for Baloo.

After lunch we went to the children's playarea which had a lot of unique stuff. One was a set of hanging seesaws, where there were two criss crossing logs and ropes hanging down from the ends of the logs, and if you sat on one end, the person on the other end would go up, and when they came down you would go up! There were many climbing frames and ropes, and a swing going from one tree to another. S has great fun (think it overshadowed the animals!) and it was a welcome break from the long walk.

We saw a family with twins (about 21/2 years old) and triplets (about 6 months old), and I was amazed. How do people manage here, with so

little help? I can barely manage my two! And they still find the enthu to bring the kids out to nature trails and parks, I would just be dying of exhaustion at home!

After the park, we saw some Ibex . One of them seemed to be nodding off, and we took a cue from it and decided to head back home in time for an afternoon siesta.

Zurich has become quite cold now, and we were all so tired after walking around that we slept straight for 2 hours in the afternoon.

A's antics

So what is A upto?

She's started speaking a lot suddenly and some of the things she says are

'Appy' for happy

'More' when she wants more of something (mostly snacks)

'Over' when something is finished, usually followed by 'More' if it is snacks

'Mummy, Papa, Akka (for S)' - sometimes when we go to pick up S from school, A will run to the door and knock on it and say Akka loudly

'Two, three' - never one

'No' never yes. Vigorous nods of the head for indicating yes but no yes

'Banana', today she pointed at a banana and said Banana and when i asked her if she wanted it she nodded yes and ate half of it by herself. I know it sounds strange that i'm getting excited over a toddler eating a banana but we rarely eat fruits in this house! (snacks yes)

'Schuss'- that is German for bye and she says it to her friends at the creche

'Bye' also

'My'- that's for me. If i'm giving some water to S, she'll point at herself and say My which means she wants water as well. Nearly everything given to S is mine now.

'Tuck'- meaning stuck, if her hand is stuck in something, or her foot is stuck in the pram

'Naanoo" means herself. Her favourite game is saying 'Papa' and i have to point out where Dad is, 'Mama' and I have to point to myself, 'Akka' and I have to point to S and 'Naanoo' and I have to point to A. Today i tried to mix it up by pretending i didn't know where 'Mama' was!

'Auter (for water)' and 'Poon (for spoon)' - she has to have a bowl of water and spoon in front of her while I'm feeding her for her to play with. As soon as i get her food in front of her she'll say 'Auter, Poon' and won't start still she gets them. Her favourite toy i think is 'Poon' because she comes into the kitchen whenever I'm cooking and opens the top drawer and takes out all the plastic spoons. I recently bought a whole set of colourful plastic spoons much to her delight.

She has just started enjoying books. Daily in the morning when i'm giving her her breakfast I have to read 3-4 books to her. Her favourite now is Goldilocks and Barney. Sometimes in the night when i read books to S she'll also get one of her books and come sit on my lap

She still loves to put things into her ears. Clay is her favourite for that

She's a number one copycat. Whatever Akka does she has to do. So if S wants to do some drawing i have to give a sheet of paper to A as well and give her some crayons as well. Its so cute when S comes and gives me her drawing and tells me what she's made, A will also come and hand over her drawing to me and look at me and wait for me to say Good/nice or something like that. When it's activiity time for S (some evenings since its getting dark at 4:45 itself these days and we are unable to go to the park I do some writing or number activity for S from a book) then I have to do activity with A also at the same time or she gets really upset. Usually i have to give her a pen like S has, a book to doodle on and now the latest craze is stickers.

She has all the bad TV habits of her sister (encouraged by lazy me). She loves Dora and Diego, knows camera, map, backpack, Boots etc etc and am sure she's picking some some Spanish from the programme as well. She loves Monsters Inc and knows the opening scene by heart (when the monster comes into the room and the kid screams). I know I know Monsters for a < 2 year old? But she doesn't usually pay much attention after the first 15 mins.

She loves to tease her Akka. Akka has her favourite pink bag in which she keeps her favourite toys (usually small pink items!!! like pigs, balls etc) and S is very possesive about the pink bag and pink toys. Whenever A wants to tease her which is pretty often she'll grab the bag/toys and run away from S as fast as possible with a very determined look on her face! The other day she went looking for the bag when S was in school and happily played with it much to her sister's ignorance.

A and her Akka continue to have their fights. Its now spread to hair pulling and hitting, only stopped when both start howling. But pretty soon they are playing together again and S keeps instructing A to do something, which A half the time doesn't bother with! They both love to wear school bags and walk around the house saying bye to me. Today I saw A taking a bag to S and asking her to put it for her so that they could walk around the house. If only S could feed her and put her to bed also!

Dear A, you're suddenly growing up so fast. I feel like I was waiting for this for ages, but now that it's happening I suddenly want to slow down time and keep you a cuddly cute babbu longer.

Amazing Atzmannig

Last Sunday we went to Atzmanig ( www.atzmaennig.ch/ ). Its a kind of adventure park for kids in the middle of the mountains, but also has an amazing rope adventure section for adults and kids, and converts into a ski resort in the winter. Its about a 45 mins drive from our place, and we were lucky with theweather as it was nice and warm (in early November!). Perfect day to spend outside.

The park itself is beautiful and you could just spend time idling in the restaurant looking out at the mountains.

View from the restaurant

But we had come there for a kids day out, so that had to wait, and we first hit the kids attractions. S loved the tobaggon ride. You have to take a chair lift to reach the top of the tobaggon ride. We rode over grazing cows and S was

delighted to hear them tinkling away as they graze (all the cows herewear bells around their neck so you can hear them a mile away). The tobaggon ride was 700 m and S and I went doubles while the husband waited with A below. And then we reversed when S insisted on going on. She was all set to go a third time when we had to finally distract her with the attractions at the kids playground.

The kids playground set in the middle of the hills.

Apart from the usual slide, swing and rope walk it had trampolines (on which S and I both bounced), a carousel (no I didn't go on that with her), a trampoline jump section (with the harness) and a kids car section where they could drive cars/bikes around a track. S managed to drive a car pretty well ( better than the way I drove on the highway to the park) and the cheapies that we were we put A in a stationery car (without putting in money to make it move) and she seemed happy enough on it.

After that we headed out for the rope adventure park section. This has a series of rope walks connecting tree tops, with varying levels of difficulty. Its mostly for older kids (6+) and adults, but there are two kindercourses for 4+. S is still a few months shy of her fourth birthday but it was safe enough (they put a harness on the child which attaches to a rope on top of the walk so that even if the child loses their balance they won't fall to the ground) so we thought she could have a go. S initially found it a bit tough and was nervous in bits. Part of the walk was simple for her- she can easily jump from one thing to another, but finds it scary to completely let go and swing from the top of the tree to the bottom. A couple of times the harness got stuck on the top- you have to pull ithard at junctions and she found it tough to do that, and either we had to climb up and help her along, or some of the kids behind her would push the harness for her. It was overall a great experience for her.

After all the activities (most of which A slept through), the kids were starving, so we finally went to restaurant and fortified ourselves with fries and chilled beer, while basking in the warm sun.

It was a testing day for S and me though- her on the rope walk, and me driving on the motorway- it's the first time i was driving on a motorway here and the speed limit is 100 km (and they get upset if you go below the speed limit as well) and I found it really tough to go beyond 90 km. The highway was curving and I was scared what would happen if I lost control on a bend. The husband said that the curve was engineered that you could maintain 100 km or they would prescribe a lower speed limit, but I was not convinced. Felt very similar to us telling S not to be scared as there was a harness and she would not fall. And also similar to her having kids much faster behind her, who were giggling at how slow she was (kids can be mean!!) I looked in my rearview mirror and found the driver behind talking on the mobile in one hand while maintaining a speed of 100km. All in good time I say.

Happy Diwali

This was the first Diwali we celebrated outside India, and one of the very few I celebrated away from my parents :( We really missed the festivities, the lighting of the diyas, the crackers, meeting relatives and the sounds and smells of Diwali. We're thinking next year we should probably be home for Diwali and stick around here for Christmas.

We did our bit to celebrate Diwali. We woke up early morning, had oil baths, gave the kids oil bath and did a small prayer. We went to the temple in the evening, there's as ISKON temple right next to the house (only one of two temples here!) and it was so peaceful being inside on Diwali night. People were chanting hymns, and lighting small lamps for God.

At home we had a pot luck dinner for other friends who were missing home like us. The food was great, as everyone had brought their specialty and I like a cheapie used only paper plates and cutlery so we didn't have to spend much time clearing up. Only it finished at midnight and the kids refused to sleep while guests were around (there were two other kids as well) so S was quite exhausted for school the next day. Poor A was also exhausted as I have to wake her up and take her along to drop S at her school so she ends up getting up and having her breakfast early even on non daycare days!

Myself and another mom in S class wentto their school and spoke to the children about Diwali. We split the class in half, and showed one half a small video about the origin of Diwali -attaching the YouTube link..

Diwali story for children : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eCrvOKOp0oA

There is one gory scene in this in which Lord Rama beheads Ravana, so we had to pause before that part and forward over it so as to not expose young children to such violence (I grew up watching large effigicies of Ravana and his brother being burnt, but that was another time and age..). We had divided each class in two so that they could see the video more easily, and we decided to talk about Diwali in both the classes of that year , and each set watched the video twice, so in all there were 8 pausing and fast forwardings and ensuring that there was no accidental showing of violence! We showed it on mute and spoke over the animation.

While one half of the class was watching the video, the other half was doing the Diwali activity with the other mom. This was basically sticking paper picture of diyas on cards, colouring them in, sticking stars and other glittery stuff on it and basically making a Happy Diwali card they could take home. Each kid also got a Diwali sweet and a Diya (except poor S, we didn't have enough diyas !!). It was nice speaking about Diwali to the kids, and after school, S kept saying Happy Diwali.

I've got my mom to buy diyas and crackers for us to celebrate Diwali when we come there in December. Till then...wish you all a very Happy Diwali..

Children talk

"S stop seeing the I Phone and talk to mummy". Somehow I thought I would not be having to say this for another few years at least!

Usually on the way back from school, S and I chat about what she did in school that day. Today, I was busy chatting with another mom before getting into the car and absentmindedly agreed to S's request that she play on the I phone. And when I started talking to her in the car I got no response other than "I'm playing on the I phone".

Sigh, i wonder what the teen years will bring...

London trip, children activities

Just back (ok when i started this post a couple of weeks back) from a weeks holiday in London. We had a great time, meeting old friends, eating all sorts of yum food, playing in the parks with the girls, going for musicals and general lazing around. Am splitting the London post in 2 parts, with the first focused on what activities we did with the kids, and the next one on all the restaurants we ate in and some of the non kiddy stuff we managed to squeeze in!

London is amazing , among other things for the range of activities it has for kids. I had shortlisted 4 musems to take S to (A would tag along but did not really expect her to appreciate much there!) but we managed to go to only two.

The first one was the Musuem of Natural History which had a special exhibition on dinosaurs. As soon as you enter the musuem there is a big skeleton of a dinosaur, and inside there was an entire section dedicated to them. S was not much interested in the history, but was quite amazed at the range of dinosaur skeletons on display. I was taken with a skeleton which it had taken them 19 years to research and assemble, what patience! At the end of the exhibit they had set up a dinosaur replica which was quite big and moved around and growled (is that the correct term?). S was a bit scared when it came near her, but A was most non perturbed and cheerily waved bye to it! After the dinosaur section we went to the animals section of the museum, which had a wide range of animals (stuffed, not the cuddly types). There was a section on mammals, and tons of stuff for me to learn as well. Both the kids like animals (we've been to the zoo some 5 times in the last 5 months) and spent quite some time in this section. These two sections itself took more than 2 hours and the kids patience was running out, so we decided to call it a day at the musuem and left to grab a late lunch outside.

The growling dinosaur

After a couple of days we went to the Science Museum. This was located right next to the Musuem of Natural History and very close to where we were staying. The Museum's basement has a Garden section for young children (2-5 years) and S and A were happy playing with boats in the water, learning about shadows, music tones etc. Then we tried to involve S in a bit more advanced scientific stuff and took her to the automotive section which had a range from steam engines to rockets. But she was not that mpressed and wanted to go back to the Garden area

and play! Finally we compromised on a Imax 3D movie about animal rescue and the hubby took her for a 45 mins show while I walked around the musuem with A. A was asleep in the pram so I decided to check out the Maths section and felt most ashamed that I remembered nothing of the integral and differential calculus and was amazed at some of the stuff on display- such as the complex polygons etc. It would have been nice to explore some of the other sections of the Science musuem, but after the movie S had had enough of the Science museum and was raring to get out and play!

In the Garden section of the Science Museum

Then there were the parks....

Lady Diana Memorial Playground: This is in a corner of the Hyde Park, and with its collection of varied playitems quickly became the favourite for S, and we ended upgoing there 2-3 times. The main attraction is the ship and you could climb right upto the top. They also enjoyed the series of musical instruments- drums you could hit with a stick, xylophone with a hammer, a piano you could jump on, a rotating inward drum, two spinning circles etc. The teepees were also interesting and many kids were inside having their own picnic. There was a section which had wooden sheep and tunnels and S had a ball climbing on top of the sheep, crawling through the tunnel etc. There were the usual swings, slides, sandpits etc, but the main attraction were these offbeat items.

Battersea Park : This is such a beautiful park and my favourite. We only had a couple of hours to explore it as we were meeting friends for a late lunch elsewhere so we immediately headed to the adventure playground. It's for 5 years plus, but many of the activities could be done by younger kids so S managed to go on most of them, and we avoided the slightly elder (and more adventurous activities) like the bouncy castle (there were older kids bouncing so vigorously on this I was sure S would fall off the minute she went on it). Her favourite was the tyre on which you sit and are swung from one side to the other, and the really high slide ( i was scared to go down it as the speed at which you went down was directly proportional to your weight). She enjoyed the ropes (you had to climb up an incline holding only the rope) and a sliding platform (a kind of box which is about 10 ft X 10 ft ) which keeps inclining from side to side as you run from one side to the other. After some time we went to the younger playground just outside so that A could have a go as well, and some of our friends joined us there. They have a daughter who is S age and both of them ran around the park having a blast. We then went to the children's zoo in Battersea Park and that was really nice as well. It's got smaller animals like ponies, goats, otters and children can reach out and pet some of them. There were also many playareas within the zoo and S was more interested in playing on them with her friend than seeing the animals. They were busy going down tunnels, bouncing on the trampolines, sticking their heads in animal cutouts and climbing up fire engines, and I had a tough time getting S to leave the zoo (we were getting terribly late for the lunch) and she agreed only with a promise that her friend will come and visit us in Zurich soon.

The sliding platform in the adventure playground

Kew Gardens : This was a bit poorly planned by us and we ended up reaching there with only 11/2 hours to see the entire gardens and have our lunch (before leaving to catch the matinee of the Lion King musical, detailed below). We went straight to the kids section which comprises an indoor "Creepy Crawlies" with an interactive exploration area for children and an outside Treehouse section which is a playground with high structures for children to climb up and run around in. There are many different kind of playstructures in this like thin inclined blocks for kids to walk on, a large swing to swing from one tree to another, bug shaped bouncy things (i f

orget the correct termn!) The cafe had a nice children's menu and for once S ha something new (baked potato with cheese). I was most unhappy in the cafe as there were two agressive pigeons jumping onto tables looking for food and I am moritified of birds, especially pigeons. We had a quick lunch and ran from there. We missed out on the greenhouse which a friend mentioned had a lovely collection of lilies and the main attraction the Xstrata Treetop Walkway, a 18 metre high 200 metre walkway around treetops. Note to self - next time keep at least 4-5 hours for Kew Gardens.

Wandsworth Common: We were meeting my school friends and their families in an open air cafe in this park and the kids got a chance to enjoy this beautiful big park as well. This was a bit far from where we were staying - we had to change two buses and walk about 1 km from the bus stop to reach the middle of this park, but it was worth it. The cafe had a great kids menu and was next to the playground and once we were through with our lunch, the guys kept the kids busy in the playground outside while we girls caught up for a gossip (I was meeting these girls together after 18 years! and there was so much to catch up on). But the playground must have been nice as the kids played for ages, finally only coming back inside after it got too cold to play outside. The park had the usual lake, bowling green etc in addition to large football fields and lawns.

Hyde Park: We went to Hyde Park a couple of times as well. The first time it was late in the evening and we just walked by the lakeside, went near the ducks and spent some time running around in the grass. The second time it was afternoon and we played frisbee on the large lawns, and S and A were thrilled seeing squirrels running around looking for acorns. The squirrels are quite brave and come right next to you and don't move away even if you go closer to take a pic! But overall I found Hyde Park a bit too big. We missed finding the kiddie playgrounds both times, and the weather was a bit too cold to just sit down and laze around in the grass.

The other kiddie things we did were:

Lion King the Musical : I took S to see this musical. She's seen the movie about a 100 times,

and I've read the book to her another 50 times. She knows all the characters and is quite excited about seeing animals. The website said that children above 3 were allowed, but it was recommended for children above 5. The site also said that if the children make noise then we maybe asked to leave without a refund. So S was warned many times that she had to be very quiet in the theatre and not talk loudly. We went for the Wednesday matinee show from 2:30-5 pm, and it was still housefull. It was awesome to say the least. Amazing. The characters, the singing, the dancing, the way they've done the dresses for animals (the cats especially) and the main characters- Pumba, Timon, Zhazhu, each one of them was exceptional. The young Simba and Nala were acted by children and I was really impressed how well they could sing and dance and were so natural on the stage. I would highly recommend this for adults and for children. S was fine most of the time and thrilled when Pumba and Timon came on and Hakuna Matata was performed . She got a bit tired by the end of it, being asked to keep quiet for 21/2 hours was a bit much for her and we'd had a hectic morning at Kew Gardens, so she dozed off and missed the last climatic scene in which Simba fights with Scar. But she had fun, and so did I.

Hamleys : We rounded up the holiday with a trip to Hamleys, one of the oldest and largest toy stores in London. The girls were enchanted at the entrance itself...there were people dressed up and blowing bubbles while you enter and a man inside blowing balloons and giving them to the children (he was demonstrating a tube of balloon paint which you could mix and blow into a balloon with various colours). The store had employed a pretty smart marketing tool, they had employes demonstrating the wondrous toys at many points on every floor, starting from magic sets, to remote control cars, to boomerangs which come back to you after doing a full circle, a hoop you can control without touching, and I was tempted to buy quite a few, for myself, in the name of the girls. A's favourite part was the cuddly toys section and S insisted on candy from the sweet shop. We ended up buying quite a few toys and books for S (English books in Zurich are very expensive) including her current favourite from school "Stick Man".

It was overall a great time for the kids, and we were lucky to have taken a service appartment so close to the parks and the musuems. Must go again soon, next time I'll try to take S to a puppet show and a circus! They have them here as well, but they are in German!!

Note to Myself : 1

Don't schedule anything during your toddler's naptime which you can't get out of within 1 minute

Yesterday I decided I'd had enough of looking like a hairy bear and decided to wax myself in the afternoon during the children's nap. S usually sleeps like a log so nothing to worry about, but A has a habit of waking up after an hour and having to be tapped back to sleep. So I had one hour to get my stuff done.

But suddenly A decided to wake up in half in hour and started howling loudly. I was in the middle of waxing my arm, so had to rush out with the wax strip stuck to my arm, wearing a towel and rock A back to sleep. 10 minutes later I rushed back to the bathroom and decided to hell with it, I'll leave the right arm half done and just quickly have a bath before she wakes up again. But no, just as I was pulling that strip off, again A woke up and this time she took 15 mins to get back to sleep. In the meanwhile some of my hair had slipped from the ponytail and got stuck in the wax on my arm, and I had to pull it off (ouch!!).

I managed to get in a quick shower and then watched as A slept peacefully for the next 11/2 hours.

Never again..