Oops, we did it again!

It is exam season here and I've been working extra hours in the kitchen to satisfy those "I'm hungry' cravings. Understandably, my mood's not that great. So yesterday was a holiday in between his exams and S was sleeping in. I was at my sudoku puzzle, sipping my tea and G, was busy doing what he does best , asking for the zillionth cup of tea. The point I'm trying hard to make here, is that Ive been working hard, very very hard, not hardly like certain people who I live with, would like you to think!

So there I was, listening to old Hindi numbers, and solving my Sudoku puzzle, when my mobile rang. Annoyed at the disturbance, I glanced at the number. Unknown! I generally avoid picking up calls from unknown numbers,because then I have to tell the caller who is generally peddling some scheme or other,  to go to hell, and I do not want to spoil his/her day and mine too.  But this call I did answer, probably because I was in the exam mood and hence jusified in wanting to give someone a piece of my mind. Besides, I've been working too hard for my own good.

Female Caller: "Mrs R?"

Me (in my gruffest tone, already annoyed at the audacity in presuming that I was a Mrs) : "Haan ji?"

Caller : "Mrs R, I wanted to know if S is coming to school today?"

Me(spluttering) : "erm..whaat?"

Caller, patiently " I'm T, his teacher"

Me,( in a total unrecognizable squeak)  :"Good Morning, Mrs. T. No, No, S doesn't have any exam" while my mind feverishly tries to recall his date sheet which he and I had glanced through two days back.

Mrs. T(really really patient) " erm..ma'am, he has his Art I, Paper today!"

Me: "Are you sure? oops, didnt know. Thank you for letting me know. Sending him right away".

Mrs. T (In a very relieved tone) : "Yes, Im sure, Thank you," 

She kept the phone down before I could utter a syllable more. Yes, she is a very impatient lady.  I thought so too.

Knowing S would be  shocked, I sprinted off to wake him up, resolving to break the news to him gently.

Threw his bed sheet cover off and shook him, (whaat? that's as gentle as I can be) screaming "Get up, get up, get up, you have your Art paper today"

S : "Amma, don't joke, let me sleep"

"Seriously", I think to myself, " this child has chosen the wrong day and time to be like me!" 

Shook him some more till he got up, still in disbelief that we had forgotten about an exam. Both he and I were convinced that surely his teacher was mistaken. We pored over the date sheet intently and then looked at each other.  Oops, we had looked at next week's schedule. In our defence, who puts Art in between heavy duty subjects like Chemistry and Geography. Who?! It's all the school's fault. Always!

I pushed S to the washroom and sprinted  to the other room and barked at G : "S has an exam today, get the car out"

His eyes popping out assured me that he had heard and I sprinted back to the kitchen to make a sandwich for the boy. And then sprinted back to S and then to G again.

10 minutes later, they were on their way to school, and I heaved a sigh, partly from relief and mostly from all that sprinting. Thought for the day, sprinting in the morning is injurious to breathing. Please don't try it. 

Then I remembered this, and this (click on the links) and I chuckled. Nothing had changed much since then, and the Apple hadn't fallen too far, from this tree either!

I then practiced  a suitably chastened and apologetic expression to face G, when he returned from the impromptu school run.  He should be happy though, both S and I are not likely to forget an exam ever. I have it all planned out. We just need to print the date sheet in bigger fonts. Maybe color codes will help too.

Yes, that should work!

Yes, poor G, indeed!

Head banging moments, anyone?

I've been having these little moments where all I seem to do is either pick up my remains of my jaw from the floor or bang my head at the wall steadily.

The 9yr-old seems to be in a hurry to reach 14. And it is not very easy on me. Not at all.

He likes Slipknot Psychosocial! "Slip knot what?" I spluttered.

He nonchalantly replies: 'Oh, its heavy metal!"

and then he gently goes a step further "and slipknot is the group's name. Psychosocial is the song's name!"

OHHH! *drops jaw, first checks to see that he is still 9 and then rushes off to google

He wants a pet, any size, any kind, any make, any shape. I offered myself, since i do dance to all their tunes and love them unconditionally. But he was not amused.

"If it makes you feel better we'll get a girl dog, okay?" he says

Sigh, i had no answer to that except  the urge to say "erm not girl dog, bitch" then thought better of that! Who wants to willingly fall into the fire from the frying pan? Who?

and then, he dreamily says " I'll name my dog Metallica!"

Aiyyo! *drops jaw, sees a dog named Metallica dancing with a kid who likes unpronounceable bands and bangs head on wall

Every time something like this happens, I let go a little bit. He is growing up, I just need to grow up a wee bit more too. But my heart breaks a bit each time.

Then something like today happens.

I had been out yesterday, and I received this sms. It was from him and it said "Amma, my thoot fell out and I didn't cry" *he's been having major dental issues and has had almost every tooth extracted. this was the second time he had pulled it out himself.


I reached home much later and oohed and aahed over the gap in the smile. Managed not to mention the wrong spelling of tooth (I'm nice like that) and the day ended.

Next morning, it was the usual morning drama. I had just donned on my 10 arms and feet, and was perfecting my art of magically appearing in all the rooms at once, waking up the entire block in the process of waking up two kids, and I hear an outraged cry.

"The tooth fairy didn't come. My tooth is still here!"

Three things made their way into the fog of early morning dimwittedness that lingered over my eyes.


1.  this particular tooth-fairy must have been a male. Someone's going to have a lot of explaining to do!

2. This hard metal loving 9yrold, believes in the tooth fairy? Really ? He actually looks devastated.

3. Gosh, I don't want to be the one to dismiss a childhood belief. I have like 5 minutes to do damage control!


So I hurried him inside to change into his school clothes, and morphed into my tooth fairy avatar.

Two minutes when he came out, I straightened the bed and said" Oh look, S,  i think the tooth fairy has after all left u something, it seems to have gone inside the pillow cover.  Must have been in a hurry"

An absolutely delighted 9 yrold put his hand inside the pillow cover and drew out a 10 rupee note.

What? only 10 rupees you, my readers, say? Shhh...that's what the tooth fairy could get in the last minute panic!

I turn around very very happy that a crisis has been averted, and do everything but a jig there. I'm so so pleased with myself.

Then a puzzled voice says "hmm... strange... she forgot to take the tooth"

Uh-oh!*THUD...THuD...major head banging moment

and then the 9 yr-old reasons out, " must be absent minded, nah?"*he must really really be believing in this tooth fairy!

All I could do was give him a big big hug, he's so forgiving isn't he?

Going international!

They say a picture is worth a thousand words, so here's around six thousand words worth....

Ah well! I fell a thousand short. :)

So last week my 7 yrold got to travel to 36 countries, as you can see from his passport :). Their school had an international day, where most countries are showcased. Since the schools here have a good mix of students from different nationalities, it is a common event in most schools here to host an international day. It is similiar to a mini global village, the difference is that the non-profit stalls are put up by the parents.

A lovely concept of introducing different countries and getting to know from which place their classmates came from! Even if most of the kids were more interested in getting their passports filled with all the flags! i could see my 7 yrold flitting from stall to stall, trying to get the flags at breakneck speed! He took great pride in telling me that his friend was from Macedonia, and that his teacher came from South Africa.

Unintended humor came as usual from my side. Twice my boy rushed to me asking for idly, and when i shoved a plate of mini idlies in front of him (we had lots of yummy food, contributed by teh parents), he exasperatedly yelled "ITALY, amma, Italy, I want to know where ITALY is"

Oh!

I'm sure you appreciate how diligently I must have been doing my job of representing my country and the food!

India was quite well represented by flowers, food, colours, henna and diyas and us. The children loved the bangles and bindis that we gave them. The henna was a hit, as were the flowers.

When the school had announced this event two months back, asking for representatives to lead their respective countries, there were just three of us for India. I wondered whether we would even pull it through but then after the initial hiccups, we got rolling. Most parents came forward towards the end, helping with contributions in the form of money, food, artefacts and decoratives. A few hubbies did their bit too, by going where no one could reach, notably the highest places on the fence.

It was nice to see so many in their traditional attire, the sarees were a hit and we, ahem! ahem!got photographed quite a bit! In the end, we must have got something right, because we did get the 2nd place and more importantly everyone had fun!

These were our 9 kids dancing to 'Jai ho', which was well received.

All in all a lovely day indeed! School is so much fun this way, don't you think?

Then i thought to myself "What a wonderful thing to implement in our Indian schools as a way of introducing the different states in India. It would break a lot of stereotype notions and bring out a lot of awareness as far as culture, cuisine and languages go"!

But then you know what, knowing the competitive spirt in which every thing is taken these days, it may not be such a great idea after all!

(psst...this post's for you, tara )

off to get an education

For some reason, the days here are just whizzing past.

• There was a long, long Eid + national UAE break, where we saw a bit of Dubai, more specifically the green parks...What a sight for sore eyes.
  
• Finally school started and with it some semblance of a routine, especially in the bedtime! I didn't do a jig but came pretty close to it.
• The kids are having a great time at school. The 12 yrold had a rock concert at school! The younger one had a wild time at the Jumeirah beach park, eating icecream by the beach. Sigh...I wish i was invited to go too.

• I had my own fun too, got caught in a sandstorm, and ended up like sandpaper - quite a 'grit'ty experience too. The next day saw me rewash the laundry (i had forgotten to bring them in) and vacuum my balcony and the chairs. And then my sister in Boston tells me that they had a snowstorm! That's competition for you.
• A friend delivered her baby and it was a beautiful feeling to watch her five day old baby. I had forgotten that they were so tiny and fragile, and so magical.

Between all this we get to do some homework. One evening saw us tackling our opposites.

All was fine till we came to educated.

and I mused aloud: "hmmm...opposite of educated is uneducated, illiterate,...and..'

Him: 'what's uneducated?'

Me: "when you go to school, you learn new stuff and are getting educated...and the uneducated will be ...'

and he interrupts " someone like you, 'cos you don't go to school?"

Hey bhagwan, one image makeover please!!!!

baby talk!

I walk my second boy to school. It is a 10 min walk and I initially welcomed it for the compulsory exercise. I now look forward to it everyday. It is quite unhurried and relaxing. We talk, we look at birds and lazy cats, we sing songs and we argue. We also discuss serious issues like whether God is being burned to a crisp sitting there above the clouds near the sun!

Everyday we say hello to quite a few babies and dogs, both being walked around by their maids.

Just as i finish smiling and cooing at a very responsive baby, my observant son asks me " you like babies?"



Without thinking, i answer:: 'oh yes!'



Then i realise what i have got myself into and brace myself for the next inevitable question. My quick mind has already started framing a suitable response as to why we cannot have a sibling for him,



and the boy says::


"Don't tell me that YOU want ME to turn BACK into a baby?"



Oh!

spreading sunshine

This is a story of a little boy with his sunny ways,

A little boy i know, six years young and full of life.

Has a smile on his lips and his feet on springs,

Sunshine is most certainly his other name

It was hot that day as it had been for so very long,

He was grumpy in the taxi, a tantrum brewing strong

His mood was black as the sun shone bright by his side.

He declared: "I hate the sun! why is it always on me?

It is too bright, it makes me hot and i cannot see!"

The mother 'who knows everything' said,

"You are our sunshine, I think the sun likes you,

though you can sit on my side if you wish to"

A minute later, a little hand waved out to the sun

'Ofcourse", he said, "that's why the sun always follows me,

Even when i cross the road, or just still

It likes me because i'm a friend, because i must be fun"

The 12 yrold giggled because he knew too much,

The mother nudged him into silence because she knew better

This was a moment for her to savour,

when faith and innocence, her two great friends

Joined hands to make a little heart believe

A little boy made friends with the sun that day

All because he had faith and innocence firm by his side

and let's not forget, a little help from mummy too!