Pixel Poems #12

Finally got the chance to visit Sri Swaminarayan Temple in Chino Hills. Beautiful creation. The inside of the temple was just fine craftsmanship on marble but no photography allowed. Also met some old college days  friends there by chance which made the occasion even better. The picture with the California palms in front of ancient Indian style wood work carvings on the front wall of the visitor center  provided an interesting juxtaposition of the cultures.

Whose Line Is It Anyway ? - #22

Innocence is a precious thing. From the time we are born, there is only one thing we can afford to do with innocence - Loose It. But the days of childhood innocence is very precious and memorable - particularly when the child is your kid. My elder one is a believer ! Though 7 years old, he still hampers hope for Santa. Even though his mystic tooth fairy turned out to be his dad, and even though, most of his friends have told him no uncertain terms that Santa is nothing but your parents, he is still not fully buying it. While this belief borne out of innocence is adorable, his reasoning for believing is personally troublesome to me. Last year, he asked for a "Ladder" from Santa. So the Santa in me got one from HD and placed near the fire place. He was so moved by this gesture and to this day firmly believes, it has to be SANTA as he does not think his DAD can afford a $40 ladder from HomeDepot !! So this year's letter to Santa is here. Well written. This year Santa has options to choose from. My son also claims he will be contend if he gets just one of them. 

Anecdotes!

Some times, little converstations with our kids can change the entire mood setting of a family. I am sure every parent has this experience.  I am trying to recollect such instances:

• This happened one busy morning. Maanasi loves to sit on the counter top and watch me cooking and I like to talk to her when I cook.  So I had something to do in the kitchen and I helped her sit on the counter top. Meanwhile I felt like cuddling her and I said "nee thaan yenoda kozhakataiya?" She gave a very adorable smile and immediately said" illa, vadaa". All of us broke into laughter immediately.

Keep trying, Keep on trying!

The latest in my husbands never ending list of interests is learning to play a musical instrument. So couple of days back, he got himself a guitar.  Both my kids look at it as if its a new toy.

Maanasi gets really excited when her dad tries to practice on it.  So dad taught her to fold three fingers and to hold the pick with the thumb and the pointer. From then on whenever she sees the guitar she starts working with her fingers.  

Today something really funny happened. Maanasi saw the guitar lying on the couch and immediately with utmost sincerity started positioning her fingers.  Then she tried tuo use the pick as directed by dad. But the pick unexpectedly fell into the string hole.  Now all her attention went in getting the pick out,that she lost control of the carefully positioned fingers.  She was not able to get the pick, so she started playing with some toys. A minute after, her attention went back to the guitar . She now looked at her hand and to her dismay realized that her fingers were all out of position! She gave a look of shock,said 'uh oh' and vehemently started working on her hands all over again:-)

 

So, like the title says," Keep trying, keep on trying" is the lesson I learnt from her!

The Food Industry

The very mention of this blog post's title makes me cringe but couldn't find a better one for this post.

Today I contributed to the campaign fund for ballot measure I-522 in Washington state - a measure to make labeling of genetically engineered food and produce mandatory. I missed following such a ballot measure taken up and defeated in California last fall. This time, though I could not vote, I contributed to the fund fighting for the measure.

The NO campaign is backed by the usual suspects lead by - drums roll - Monsanto. These are the people "running" the food "industry". I feel the very sanctity of the word 'food' is lost by adding the term "industry" to it.

I do not buy any of the arguments from the industry against labeling GMOs. One particular thing caught my attention.  Quoting here verbatim from the No-on-I522 site - "For decades, agricultural biotechnology has helped improve food crops so they resist disease, require fewer pesticides or are more nutritious. Today, 70-80% of grocery products include genetically engineered (GE) ingredients, and they’re deemed safe by the USDA, the FDA and major scientific and medical organizations."

I have to hand it to them for using the euphemistic term "agricultural biotech" in place of  its more honest but gross equivalent "genertically engineered". The "70-80%" fact literally makes me puke my dinner out. But  wait, their best shot is yet to come. Here they are -
"deemed safe by the USDA, FDA blah blah" - the very same toothless powerless regulatory body where the people running the show are "ex-industry insiders" and fueled by the lobbying power of the very same industry that it is trying to regulate. The sad state of affairs is that the cream of the technologists who can potentially expose the ill-effects of such reckless "biotech" sadly end up working for the same industry.
- "requires fewer pesticides" - after a generation of singing the praise of pesticides we have realized their long term effects and we are deliberately trying to pedal back. The very same USDA, FDA etc that are now backing GE/GMO foods as "safe", were the ones advocating pesticides usage a few decades ago. How on earth can we be sure that a generation from today this sad bunch wont come back and say "Oh Sorry ! we just found out GMO/GE can screw us up too"

Want to add some "goodness" to this post. Hence adding a picture of the carrot cake - home made from scratch - by my wife for my birthday. Given the "food industry's" might, I would never know for certain if the carrot or the flour is "artificial" or "genetically engineered" or has GMO, but I know for sure that in the affection of my wife who made that cake, there is not an iota of anything that is artificial or engineered. Thats enough to make the cake tastier, in spite of GMO/GE contents it might have.

Pesum Porchithiramae ! - #2

This happened today morning when we were all getting ready to an Indian restaurant.   I had dressed up Maanasi in a pretty frock and she was about to get into the car.  She suddenly stopped and went to her dad to say something.  She pointed to herself and said "Maani dess, coodude".  My husband had no idea what she was saying.  She kept repeating it .  That is what she does when she feels we don't get it.  So my husband said " oh, okay baby, okay".  And that is what he does when he doesn't get it:-)
I usually try to interpret what she is saying because most often it turns out to be something very funny and interesting. 
So I intervened and asked her what she was saying.  She repeated the same to me as well.  But now she said it a little slowly and then it suddenly dawned on us.  She was saying " Maanasi dress, cool dude".  She had picked this from her brother, when he was complementing her after she put on her sunglasses. After we had a good laugh, I explained to her that she is a baby girl and that only boys are referred to as cool dudes, baby girls may be called cutie babies. She listened to me very carefully and then said " O, Maani baby big, coodude?" meaning, will she be a cool dude once she becomes big!
Maanasi always looks up to her big brother as a hero figure.  She wants to do everything that he does.  She is forever trying to catch up with her brother.  I didn't want to disappoint her and so I didn't  correct her.

Whose Line Is It Anyway? - #21

Very first voice mail left by my son in my cellphone. The conversation is in Tamil. His initial inhibitions in talking to a machine pretending as if talking to me is priceless. His mom bolsters his confidence in the background to continue talking. 

The pictures are mine though.  (butterfly show at wild animal park)

Pesum Porchithiramae ! - #1

This is my first blog post. Before even I start, I should thank my husband for coming up with this whole idea of blogging precious moments and conversations with our little ones.  This will help us keep these moments ever green in our hearts..My husband has been asking me to do this for long, but I never found the bandwidth for blogging.  But now our second 'bundle of joy' is also growing up fast and I felt I should start contributing my two cents!

My husband and me have a special liking to Bharathiyar songs.  Now that our little one has started exploring her new world of vocabulary , we thought this would be an apt title for her share of this blog.
Maanasi is now a little over 2 years.  Just like her brother she loves talking and provides endless amusement to her listeners.  When she can't communicate in words, she does so with her very cute expressions.

The Besan flour scare!

So, this happened in one of our routine grocery trip to the Indian store.  Our little one was in very good mood that evening, as we had just got back from a fun filled day at Legoland.  Maanasi was all smiling and singing until she saw me place a packet of Besan flour into the cart. Suddenly the smile faded away and she started saying in a terrified tone ' no maa, no, no maa,no'
We had no clue as to what might have caused her the sudden distress.  I started asking some usual questions and then finally she pointed out to the Besan flour packet saying 'amma, no champoo', meaning she doesn't want a shampoo bath.  So now everything fell in place.  I occasionally give my kids oil bath with payatham maavu followed by shampoo. My little one dreads it. She thinks that is the worst thing that can happen to a baby or any person for that matter! Because both Besan flour and moong dal flour look similar to her, She had gotten mixed up and hence the panic!

Whose Line Is It Anyway ? - #20

Right on the Penny -

• Coming from India, when it comes to money, I have this habit of using the term Rupees in place of Dollar - particularly at home or with family members. Recently I had to borrow a few dollars from my son's collection (oh yes, he has some dollars and rupees) as I was short on cash to pay the plumber. Next day I wanted to return what I borrowed. Hence I put $20 in his collection myself while he was watching TV. On my way out, I asked him, "How much do I owe you ?". "Fourteen" came the answer, without taking his eyes off the screen. In my usual way of using Rupees to mean dollars, I said, "Ok. I have put back Twenty Rupees in your wallet". Without missing a beat, he swerved around and with utmost seriousness asked "You mean  Twenty dollars right ?".  In God he trusts, everybody else pay cash in the same units - even if its Dad.
• The families in my son's music class pitched in to present a gift card and a weddings greetings card to their music teacher. All the kids signed it duly and presented the envelope (with the gift card and greeting card inside) to the teacher during the class. The teacher felt happy and said thank you. My son suddenly felt the need to make sure the teacher knew that all they have given her is not just the greeting card. In his matter-of-fact tone, he said - "We also gave Money". Everyone blurted out laughing. For a while, I had to hide my face.

From the Oval Office ...

My son's interest in presidents and the like have been evident for a few months now. In line with that, he handed me a letter a few months ago meant to be mailed to none other than the US president himself. It was a neat handwritten note, addressing Mr. President, and mentioning his current status as a first grader and making no secret of his aspirations for the top job in the country. He also gave a list of his math skills and a sample of one of them.("I know how to do 5x5 + 5x3 + 5 = 25").Yup, the answer.. I know.. :-) The letter was duly addressed to 1600 "Pencilvenia" avenue. I put the letter as is in a fresh envelope and mailed it to the white house.

This Friday, a courier came to our door step. It was a neat yeallow envelope addressed to my son's name and the sender was listed as  "THE WHITE HOUSE, WASHINGTON,  D.C". I leave it to your imagination how the POTUS-wannabe felt on seeing the contents.

Here's is what he got -

Pixel Poems #11

"Historical" Obsession(s)

Between MLK Jr Day in Mid-January and President's Day in Mid-February, my son's first grade class had been taught about MLK, Civil rights movement, Presidents etc. Little did we realize how much our son was engrossed with these aspects of history until one day when I refused to let him drink a "full" glass of some frozen juice citing he was a just kid and that adults can have a full glass. With all seriousness in his face, he retorted back " This is unfair. You are "segregating" me...". My wife and I couldn't control our laughter. 

That obsession with history continued to Presidents and apparently they seemed to have an even greater impact than MLK. My wife grew so sick of hearing about Lincoln day-in and day-out,  that one day at dinner table, when our son checked my wife's history knowledge by asking who killed Lincoln, my wife replied - "I would have.....if he were alive today".  

That did not deter the young American citizen from cherishing his dreams further - yes, to become the President. He even expressed regret and felt sorry that me and my wife could not become presidents as we are not born in USA. His ambitious agenda had very clear goals - for his two terms of Presidency. Oh yeah, he won re-election folks. First term to focus on banning smoking and second term to focus on increasing recycling. To make me even more proud with his liberal agenda, he also added complete gun control - only police can carry arms. I wish I were alive when that day comes. By the way, since 35 is the minimum age for qualifying for Presidency, he has also decided that he will be the 61st President of USA. And, we as parents of the President, might visit the White House occasionally but cannot live there, as grown-up kids do not live with parents apparently even though the said kid happens to be the US President.

Hold on, it does not end there. Take a look at the future White House with his name on top. The other great presidents of past still get to keep the rooms in their names as it stands today. We have some snaps of American revolution and civil war too. Take a look.

On this day ...

Pixel Poems #10

Using my cell phone camera taken from inside my parked car. Found the slanting picture interesting. Not sure why it came out that way.