Celebrations galore

Writing from Bengalooru. Getting completely pampered and can get so used to this. On a three week trip back home, we spent the first week with the inlaws in Hyderabad and will spend the rest at my place in Bengalooru. Will post separately on the Hyderabad week, but highlights were - my sis in law was visting at the same time and the girls had an absolute blast with her, so much so that A was walking around at night looking for 'Bua'; a lovely visit to the Hyderabad Zoo (we saw so many animals!), catching up with an old friend, Mission Impossible 4, and some fun time for the kids at GVK Mall Fun Zone.

We reached Bengalooru day before night. My parents had planned a surprise party for us last night. The surprise element was kind of ruined as one of my cousins mentioned to me that I'll be seeing you on Sunday when i spoke to her earlier, and I had planned to catch up with a friend on Sunday night in B'lore and when i told my mom about this she asked me for her number to speak to her and that immediately made me suspicious. But it still remained quite a surprise as i expected only one of my cousins to land up and some uncles and aunts but so many landed up! My mom had called most of my cousins in B'lore and friends of my cousins whom we knew!

Thank you dear Mummy and Daddy for the lovely surprise. I had an amazing time catching up with everyone and the kids enjoyed playing with their cousins!

My parents had bought Diwali crackers and diyas and stored them for us, so we lit the diyas on the balcony in the evening. Then as the party started we burst crackers. S enjoyed the hand sparklers and kept asking for more. She also liked lighting the flower pots and chakras and wanted to keep on bursting crackers!

Many of the younger kids were quite adventurous walking around with sparklers in their hand , so most of the time we had to make sure no one was setting themselves or anyone else on fire!

After the crackers, i relaxed for some time with my cousins, gossipping over wine and making them promise that they would visit us in Zurich soon! Then the kids started getting a bit restless so we took them inside the house (the party was in the garden outside) and they played with bubbles, all the toys from upstairs and generally went beserk. The younger kids (including A) took turns in screaming for their mama/papa but the older ones were pretty busy among themselves.

S bonded with her cousin M who is a year older and the two were like glue during the party, except for a brief meltdown from S when M refused to return the Hello Kitty bag S insists on wearing around all the time! If you look carefully in the crackers picture above you'll find her wearing it even while bursting crackers!

The hubby and I were quite embaressed to cut a cake celebratting our 10 year anniversary but the kids made us feel more at ease by more or less attacking and demolishing the cake before we got to cut it :)

The food was a mix of catering and home made food, and I hogged on Goldcoin and spring rolls. Am sure i'm going to be putting on at least a couple of kilos on this vacation.

We had a great time and as usual at the end of it i wished i was back in India with family and not so many miles away. But I guess living in Bombay and working and fretting about the work deadlines and whether the maids are looking after the kids properly is very different from holidaying at home ! Thank you again dear Mummy and Daddy for taking such a lot of effort, and putting together such a grand party, we really enjoyed it and so did S and A!

New Years resolutions

It's been a long time since i made New years resolutions, but this year I feel there are so many things which are in my control and which need changing that it merited some resolutions on my side

1. To spend more time doing activities/playing with the kids. Too much time is going in housework now. My target is to spend at last one hour in quality time with the kids daily, which does not include dropping them/picking them from school. Earlier when it used to be bright till 9 pm I would take them daily to the park in the evening. But now it gets dark by 4:30 pm so that activity is gone, and in the evenings i just end up doing some housework while the children play by themselves.

2. Exercise at least 4 times a week. I've more or less managed to do this in the last few months, and have to stick with it.

3. Read at least 1 book a month. I very ambitiously joined a book club, but so far I've not read even one of the books or attended any of the meetings. As a start i want to read at least the book club book for the month plus any others i can manage.

4. Try to sleep by 11:30 every night, and get the kids to bed by a reasonable time. The both are linked to each other. The kids take a long siesta in the afternoon and are unable to sleep before 10:30/11 in the night. After that i need a couple of hours of me time to watch TV/surf the net etc and i end up sleeping only around 1 am. And we all have to get up at 7 am for school so all are exhausted. Need to shift this back by at least 11/2 hours and have the kids asleep by 9 pm and me in bed by 11:30-12 max.

5. Cook one new dish a week. I'm only sticking to the staples and what's the point of having to cook if at the end of it the onyl thing you can show for your efforts is making rasam and sambhar. So one new dish a week is my target. Doesn't matter if no one eats it!. Baking is also included in this.

So that's my list. What's your list of 5?

A very homemade birthday celebration

Last week was the hubby's birthday (he now officially enters middle age!) and we celebrated it quite differently from how we usually celebrate birthdays. The girls made cards for their Daddy. S made it all by herself- she loves drawing and playing with the glitter glue and stickers, - and wouldn't let me help (even to put the stickers the right way up). I mostly made A's card - she doodled all over it and stuck the stickers, but the glitter glue and design was all mine (wicked glint in eye). It was fun making the cards, think I'm going to get the girls to make cards for all occasions now.

I baked a lemon cake. Ok, it was a ready mix from the shop, but the mixing of the eggs, butter and water into it was all my work, so let me take credit for it. The cake didn't turn out looking that great (the tip said to cut a small line in the middle about 15 mins into the baking so that it fluffs up well, the cake ended up looking quite funny with a large split in the middle after baking as it puffed up quite a bit). Still it tasted yum!

The cake and the cards...

During the day, I took the hubby for his first ice skating lesson. I don't really know how to teach ice skating so we just held hands and skated along. Not so romantic though- more like he clung on to my hand, and i pulled him along! But it was good fun. The kids were at school and it felt like we were sneaking out for a date! And not a cheap birthday present i might add. The teachers here are so expensive, that if I charged for the class I'm sure I would've earned quite a bit!

So all in all quite a homemade birthday celebration.

At night we went to this restaurant called Crazy Cow for dinner. It was recommended by a friend who said it was a kid friendly place. But we got lot of strange looks as we walked in with the kids at 9:30 pm (kids are usually asleep by 8 pm here), but we just ignored them and went about our dinner. The kids were busy with balloons and colouring, and apart from an incident where A threw her balloon at the hubby which led to his beer spillling all over him, it was fine (and quite funny i might add).

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..