Nuove Avventure di Due Fratellini

What could possibly prompt me to resurrect the blog after months of silence?

2011-09-19T02:31:00.000-04:00

Well, it shouldn't be hard to guess :)

Some of our relatives have already received the news and at first I thought that I would wait to be further along in my pregnancy before spreading the news. After all, I am only 4 weeks pregnant, which means that there is no guarantee at all that this mustard seed sized lump of cells will hang in there for the distance.

Obviously though I changed my mind about the early announcement. The reason is that I really would like everybody to know that we are very excited and very happy at the idea of having another baby. It was discussed at great length and it was planned. If this time it doesn't work out we will most likely try again.

All this to say, I know three kids sounds like an excess to many people, but please be happy for us and show it next time you see us :) Just like the other two times...

Sunday morning: bike and flip flops

2011-07-11T10:15:00.001-04:00

Yesterday morning Rajiv woke up and, as we have recently agreed to do, went to the next room to wear his daytime clothes before requesting me to get out of bed. This time however, he found an unexpected treasure. Mamma had carelessly left the new flip flops - intended for a later use - buried under a bunch of other stuff, still wrapped up in the package they came in. None of this could stop Appu, of course.

So I hear: "My flip flops! They were lost! But I found them!". Indeed. I slowly get out of bed and ask Rajiv to please be quiet so that Rohan can sleep a bit more. He is usually quite good at that, but not when there are such exciting news to share.

Rohan was initially on board with trying out the new footwear, until he realized there was no way to wear them without having something between his toes. He suffered it for a while out of respect for his older brother, but it's just not for him. Anyway, before a knew it - and before I could change into my daytime clothes myself - Rajiv was out of the front door.

So here is how it happened that we were out on the street before 8 AM on a warm but overcast Sunday morning.

Not much later, we met our Chinese neighbours who recently moved in. I wish I knew how to write the name of the little boy, so I wouldn't have to call him The Chinese Neighbour. He still only knows very few words in English, but my kids don't care one bit, as long as he shares his dinosaurs with them.

Matisse

2011-07-06T12:59:00.000-04:00

It's been a while since I last wrote and I have so many things I need to post about - like Rohan's birthday, that just went by! - that I don't know where to start.To get out of this negative loop, let me break the ice by sharing a couple of random pieces of information about my boys:

Rajiv can recognize "The Goldfish" painting if he sees it and knows it is by Matisse. He also knows it is called "The Goldfish". But he always tells me it is a picture of a hat. Can you see why?
I told Rajiv that I was born in Italy and so was he, whereas Rohan was born in Canada. Since then Rohan keeps saying "me too, meee tooo! I born Italy toooooo!"
We tried to grow beans in a cup. We got two cups, one for Rohan and one for Rajiv, then we filled them with soil and put some beans inside. Rajiv's beans sprouted and grew really fast, so we transplanted them into a pot outside and they are surviving so far. Rohan's beans never sprouted. For a while I gained time telling him that they were hiding, but secretely I dug them up and they look just like when they were put in there, no change at all. Sigh..
It's summer. Appu likes to wear big explorer's hats. Rohan tolerates the hat - sometimes - but what he really wants is sunglasses, because the sun hurts his eyes. Appu prefers to wear long sleeve shirts, even when it is so hot that most people would rather not wear anything at all. Rohan doesn't mind wearing shirts of whatever kind (but if they have a firetruck or a frog it is obviously much better), however he really doesn't like wearing pants or underwear or anything that might cover his lower bum. Mamma thought insists on the pants - at least outside.

No, grazie

2011-06-15T13:18:00.000-04:00

Mamma is cutting pizza into small pieces that will cool faster and places them on the plates in front of two little boys who are sitting at the table chewing like there's no tomorrow. Mamma keeps cutting, kids keep chewing.

BUZZZZZZZZZ! BuZZ! BUZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ!

Rajiv- There'a bee in the house!!!
Mamma- No, Appu, it's just a big fly.
Rajiv- Oh. It will not sting. It will just bother us.
Mamma- That's right it won't sting us, just bother us a little.
Rajiv- Yes! It will think we are food, but we will say "no", and the fly will say "o-k"..

Mamma opens the window and pushes the fly out, just in case.

For papa'...

2011-06-14T11:13:00.000-04:00

... who should be landing in Chennai in a few hours.
(In fact he is the one who took the photo, last week)

Bye bye Papa', see you soon...

2011-06-13T16:00:00.000-04:00

Today papa' is going back to India and that means you can probably expect more frequent posting for some time.

The kids are at daycare today and said their goodbye to papa' when he dropped them off in the morning.

Here they can see them getting ready for school.The first step is convincing the kids to surrender the balloons left over from the birthday party.

Next is convincing Rajiv to wear his new blue shoes that fit just right instead of the green ones that are still too loose and make him fall.

Then, out of the door. But wait... too much light... "I want my sunglasses!" (Too bad, I think we left them at school last week..)

And now they are almost ready to go. Note the birthday banners still on our fence. Nothing is cleaned up right away at our house, it's a matter of principle.

"Bye!"

And just like that, he was gone...

Sorry, we are busy

2011-06-04T22:29:00.000-04:00

I know I haven't posted in a long time, I am sorry about that, but we are really overwhelmed.
Things we are doing right now:

Organizing a yard sale for TOMORROW to get rid of stuff we won't take with us when we (sigh!) move
Arranging for someone to rent our house after we (sigh!!) move
Organizing (can you say 'disorganizing' in English?) Rajiv and Rohan's joint birthday party for NEXT WEEK - and our guests don't know that they will be our guests, yet
Arranging for packing and shipping of the stuff that we do want to take to India
While doing all this and deeply covered in too much stuff, still shopping for a few essential children's books that we don't own yet (ok, that's just me: dad is innocent)
Doing some of the work that we are actually paid to do?
Planning a week in Paris on our way to India at the end of August. Ehm, this doesn't sound so necessary, does it?

Meaningful - so to speak - posts will resume as soon as I don't need two Starbucks Double Shot Vanilla drinks a day to keep going :)

Our street is a zoo

2011-05-30T22:18:00.001-04:00

To continue along the line of my "Our House Is The Center Of The World" narrative - see the previous installment here - let me tell you about the few meters around our front door.

Now that is spring we spend more time outside, and so do many other fascinating life forms. There are some creepy ones too, but even leaving those alone, there is plenty to see. Like here:

Let's zoom in a little.

Aha! A large crowd of ants hanging out on the sidewalk. You'd think that's where they live, but it seems unlikely because if you come back in half an hour they will be gone. Then maybe tomorrow they will appear at the other end of the street.

Appu and I think it is a fascinating phenomenon, but Rohan at first seemed to disagree. Here you can see him trying to get us to go back inside the house.

Failing that, he joined us at the ants', taking his yellow bus with him.

A few minutes later he decided to put his hand and part of his body right on top of the ants and so our attempt to connect with nature ended with me shaking Rohan trying to get as many ants off him as possible. They were literally everywhere.

Rajiv remained outside a little longer, using tiny sticks to make a series of bridges for the ants. It was quite cute, but a little disappointing for him, because the ants just didn't want to walk on the new bridges.

I will spare you the details, but there are many other interesting things going on in front of our door. Sometimes there are ducks - or geese - and we get to say goodnight to them - many times in a row.

We see worms in the garden when we pull the weeds and I know there are often toads in there but I never came across one with the kids. The best we could do was going on a snail safari, a couple of days ago.

We read a book about snails, where we learned that they prefer to put their heads out when it's getting dark. We also learned that they are slimy, the have only one foot so they are very slow and they have a strong tongue to eat leaves. So one evening after it had rained and after we had gone for a walk with the wagon we decided to go looking for snail.

There were so many! Rajiv and Rohan remained "safely" in the wagon while we walked to the end of the street and back moving the snails to the side so people wouldn't accidentally step on them. We even saw two tiny baby snails with almost transparent shells. Any we saw many many leaves with wholes on them, a sure sign that our little friends like the local cuisine.

Piccolo Rajiv (The Book) - is here..

2011-05-29T15:19:00.000-04:00

When the movie? :)

Anyway, maybe you recall I had decided to get a hard copy of the now abandoned "Piccolo Rajiv" blog. I received the book from Blog2Print a couple of weeks ago and I am very happy, in spite of some obvious flaws.

Here are a few snaps.

Front cover - with the trademark baby feet...

... and back cover: I thought this image from the Canadian winter would be appropriate.

A couple of random images of the inside. There are two options while making the book: you can choose to maintain the exact formatting of the pages as they appear on your blog or you can ask the software to rearrange the photos to fill the space better and reduce the number of pages. I chose the latter to save some money and I don't regret it for a second (I am no designer anyway, so it's not like the perfection of my layouts needs to be preserved at all costs) but while sometime the optimized layout is perfectly fine,

sometimes it is not.

But who cares, right? My only real complaint is that there have been a couple of instances where the text has ended up hidden by the corner of a picture. I should have spotted that in the pdf preview, so it's my fault, but to be honest I just didn't want to spend the time. After all the whole point of using Blog2Print was that it required zero work on my side, and I tried to remain true to that principle to the very end :)

It is, in fact, a horse

2011-05-26T13:41:00.000-04:00

Tre video di "tanto tempo fa". Nel primo Rajiv va a cavallo su una borsa-cesta che era stata in teoria acquistata per contenere i libri presi in prestito dalla biblioteca per i bimbi (14-11-2010). Nel secondo Rajiv e la sua amica Kalena esprimono tutta la loro gioia dopo essersi fatti dipingere la faccia ad una fiera in occasione di Halloween (31-10-2010). Nel terzo Rajiv, piccolissimo!, gioca a nascondersi in una casetta giocattolo nel nostro primo appartamento in India (settembre 2009: Rohan era gia' nato ma aveva pochi mesi e si vede solo per un attimo sdraiato sul aterasso mentre Appu gli corre davanti). Quest'ultimo video e' uno dei preferiti di Rohan, che non si stanca mai di rivederlo.

Three old videos that I never ended up posting.

In the first, Rajiv rides his new horse (I had bought that bag/bin to finally contain the tide of the library books, but one should never underestimate the imagination of a child when he feels that the untidiness of his environment is being threatened). This was the middle of November in 2010, just about six months ago.

In the second video you can see Rajiv and his friend Kalena express all their joy after having had their face painted at a Halloween event. October 31 (obviously) 2010.

The last video is the oldest, dated September 2009 when Rohan was just a tiny baby - you only get a glimpse of him lying down on a mattress while his brother plays peek-a-boo with and practices his alien language. It's not a great video: bad lighting, bad camera, abrupt ending. It is however, one of Rohan's favorite videos and he never tires of watching "Appu in the house" :)

Hello papa'

2011-05-23T08:33:00.002-04:00

This was last Saturday. It seems so long ago, it's easy to get used to having papa' around :)

We were waiting next to the window to see if we could spot the car. We stayed there for a while and so I decided to take a little video to kill some time. And right away papa' was here!

Cuddle cuddle..

..check mail..

..open the box..

..and crash.
So we watch a bit of a movie

and then we go outside to try the new balance bike (that just means a smaller than usual bike with no pedals and no training wheels).

It was a bit rainy, as you can see, but one week later the weather has really come around and I am off to spend a little bit of early morning (well, ok, it's 8:30, but still morning) time outside with the kids. See you soon :)

Un anno fa

2011-05-20T10:18:00.000-04:00

Un video dell'anno scorso in India a Ooty, il giorno del terzo compleanno di Rajiv.

A video from last year, that I never ended up uploading. It was taken on the day of Rajiv's third birthday, so it seems appropriate to post it now. Rajiv and Jayadev are being cool in their new sunglasses and Rohan makes an appearance through the window.

Our window is better than a movie theater

2011-05-19T12:15:00.000-04:00

Depending on your preferences, of course.

If you like garbage trucks - we do, especially Rohan - then you can spend all Tuesday morning, and sometimes the afternoon too, waiting for the recycling truck to come, then the regular trash one and the one collecting the yard waste and the truck for the organic waste. In fact you might even consider inviting some friends over and have a party! (No, we haven't done that -yet)

If this had not been enough, one morning - not Tuesday! - we spotted a garbage truck parked for a full ten minutes in front of our neighbours' house. It turns out the driver needed a quiet place to stop and have breakfast. Did he suspect the eyes of all toddlers on the street where directed on him? I think he saw me pointing at him through the window, but I bet he is used to it.

Even better, one morning we woke up to the sound of various different kinds of "thump!" and "clang!" and it turned out that we had a small bulldozer and a few other marvelous machines just a few meters away from our house!

They were changing the pipes directed to the sewer. Well, this time we did have a party. Rajiv waited patiently for his brother to wake up too and found himself a cozy spot to observe the work from inside.

Meanwhile, I called our friends from down the street who might have missed it. By the time Meaghan arrived to stay with the children there were five children between one and five surrounding the hole in the ground. I went to work and left them all there to have fun. By the time I came back home, Rajiv knew all about black pipes.

Childcare update

2011-05-18T10:26:00.002-04:00

I think I haven't mentioned this yet. We are transitioning from having a nanny to having both children in the daycare center near home that we - Rajiv especially - love so much. Rohan is still too young to go there, as they generally only take children older than two and a half, but now that he is almost two they are willing to make an exception. It will be only for a few months though, until we leave Canada. It's too bad for the boys, because they really like it.

Rohan already knew Appu's school from having dropped him there in the morning several times and picked him up some times too, so he was well prepared for it. In fact it almost seems as if he has been waiting for this opportunity all along :)

Normally the first day it's easy to leave a child at daycare, because there are children and toys to play with, but then once the child realizes that he is going to be there the whole day without his parents he becomes more tense when he enters the daycare and it takes a little while to adjust. This anyway has been our experience so far after every change of care. But so far, Rohan seems to really like his new school - although admittedly this is only the third day. We were told that he gets a bit sad about an hour before we pick him up, but that's because it's hard to go the whole day without "latte".

I was a bit worried of how Rajiv might react to having to share his special school, teachers and friends with his brother, especially given all the fuss we are making about this. But Rajiv is not the kind of boy to point out this sort of thing. If it does bother him, he will "misbehave" in some way and it's up to us to understand. So who knows what he thinks now? It did help, I hope, that yesterday Rajiv got to be the center of attention because of his birthday and he got a card from all his friends, so he knows they all still like him :)

* 4! *

2011-05-17T10:37:00.001-04:00

Today is Appu's birthday. In case you missed the dragon reminder on the sidebar, I just thought I'd put it here too. He is four! He is a big big boy who can talk and argue, has his own ideas and can correct his mamma's English pronunciation. He likes numbers - yesterday I could lure him away from the tv by saying "Hey, I'm going to read a new math book, anybody interested?. He likes seeds and flowers and can recognize daffodils, tulips and dandelions.

He loves maps. He knows where to find North and South America on a map, where Canada and India are and he can find Australia too. He knows some places are very far away and you need to take two planes to go from India to Canada: the first is a "sleeping" plane and everybody is quiet - this was my stroke of genius, I admit - the next is a "waking" plane, where we have fun (you can imagine how much fun..). He also knows that when here it is night in India it is morning time. Now how many four year old kids can grasp that?!?

(Did I mention that bragging is not only allowed but required in birthday posts?)

He likes new clothes, as in clothes he hasn't seen before, they don't really have to be new. He likes to choose what pajamas he is going to wear and we now have a pretty large collection for him to mix and match. Some favorites are the very soft one, which is still too big but he can wear it if he doesn't run in it (or he'll trip), the Thomas one, the monster pajamas and his purple ones that say "Little Brothers Are Awesome" - not really for what it says, but because purple is his favorite color.
He used to love his super dog pajamas and the spiderman ones, but now they have become short and it's ok for Rohan to wear them because Appu is growing. He is four!

He is learning to read all by himself, by which I mean that I don't even try to teach him, but he is the one who asks how to read a word or stops while speaking to see if he can figure out what sounds are in a certain word. He likes to have books read to him too and is now ready for some longer stories, but sometimes what he thinks the book is about would leave you speechless.

He is not afraid of being in a dark room, but he doesn't like to enter the room if the light is not on. Smart, I say.

He can get dressed by himself, but he still has some trouble with zippers and buttons and sometimes socks can get tricky, but he always has the tag on the back. He also can help Rohan and he does a remarkably good job, if Rohan lets him.

He can pee standing up! And he loves to pee outside on the grass, by the way, laughing like a silly appu while I tell him "Careful! Not on the shooooooes!".

He can climb like a monkey and go fast on his tricycle.

He likes all sort of music and makes up his own songs too. If I show him a video of some musicians he wants to know their names. He told me that the CD we played last week in the car has the same song (one of Bach's cello suites) that we heard from a video in the computer. He likes to play music but is not a very disciplined student.. :) He has a nice bow hold and likes his cello but we don't practice much - my fault. However, maybe that's why he still likes it, because there is no pressure whatsoever - see? How to turn any parenting shortcomings into great insights.

You probably already know that he likes trains and the only reason why I didn't make this the first item in my list is that there is going to be a special train post soon. But I like how he plays with his little Thomas trains making up stories as he goes. I also must be the only mom (or not?) who has to sleep with several trains in my bed: the little puppies are allowed to bring two trains or cars each to bed and sometimes we still have yesterday's trains too.

He can fit inside his new carry-on luggage.

He can eat without making too big a mess, unless he wants too :) And he can carry a bowl without spilling the content. Sometimes he likes to blow on his own pasta, sometimes he doesn't and he needs mamma's help. He prefers English words and really would like to know how you say "rotini" in English, but apparently mamma is part of a big Italian conspiracy and just won't tell him.

He likes to do work, like mamma and papa', with paper and pencil. When he grows up - like, now? - he would like to work at mamma's "ufficio".

I'm sure I left out some really important stuff, but I am also sure that by now you couldn't care less and your eyes are already crossing, so let's just conclude with a picture. Not the best or my favorite, just the most recent mostly in focus photo in my hard drive.

Happy birthday Big Piccolo Rajiv!

Papa' is coming!

2011-05-14T13:55:00.000-04:00

Papa' ha appena telefonato dall'aeroporto e sara' qui tra un'ora.

Papa' has just called from the airport and will be here in an hour. Appu has decided that the best way to wait for him was to take downstairs his own suitcase and his brother's. Maybe in case papa' needs to leave right away? He had a small accident while pulling his suitcase and banged his foot on a piece of furniture. Normally that would require a kiss, but this time he said that maybe papa' can give it to him, when he arrives.

What is it?

2011-05-13T13:46:00.002-04:00

Well, if you are curious you are not the only one: apparently yesterday when the package arrived the two little monkeys tried to open it with (unsharpened) pencils.

I can't tell you what it is yet, but I can show you a pictures of the little brothers in their new Thomas pj's. Too bad they just couldn't sit still, this is the best I've got.

And by the way, papa' is coming tomorrow! We might open the box with him when he arrives, unless he prefers to crash directly on a bed.

Edited to add: ..we did both :)

Momma is 4 and has blue hair

2011-05-12T11:02:00.000-04:00

When I picked up Rajiv at his preschool on the day of the concert, they gave me a little paper bag with some Mother's Day things and a plastic cup with three small seedlings growing in a little bit of soil.

Now the seedlings are only two and something must be done urgently before they die off. I don't even know what they are supposed to grow into, but a couple of clues lead me to suspect them of being sunflowers. Yikes! What am I supposed to do? I guess moving them out of the plastic cup should be a priority... On the other hand, if these little plants survive life under my "care" they will be surely ready for the big world outside, just like my children :)

Anyway, let me move on to the real subject of this post. Because we were going to the concert when I received all these things - plus a little bit of drama with Appu who seemed to have had his hand smashed by a door but then at a closer inspection was in fact ok - I just put it all in the car and I was very proud of myself when I remembered to take the seedlings in the house, but I didn't think twice of the bag.

Then a couple days ago I opened it. It contained a candle in a glass cup, all decorated with glitter by Rajiv himself, and then the real treat:

Now, first of all I would like to point out that the teacher who wrote down Rajiv's answers should have written "mamma" with an "a", because that's how I spell my name. It's incredible. I always get my name spelled wrong abroad and now even my mommy name has to suffer the same insult.. :)

I don't need to comment on the rest, except for the last line. Within myself I am debating whether this means that I am spoiling my children with too much shopping activity - for them and not. But leaving that question aside, it is funny that Rajiv should rate our shopping outings so highly.

What do you think our shopping looks like:

Like this?

Or maybe like this?

I will let you guess.

No, ok, I'll tell you: It's a little bit of both.

PLOP!

2011-05-12T08:41:00.000-04:00

Friendly Mosquitos

2011-05-11T11:06:00.001-04:00

Today I was going to write a post about all the nice conversations that I am having with Rajiv these days.

We talk about how he is going to play a bigger cello when he grows up and he tells me, with a dreaming expression on his face, that his cello is going to grow too.

He asks me why I am putting the melon in the organic trash bin and I say that it has gone bad. So he says, "Yeah, he was pushing the vegetables, that's not nice!". That's right.

He asks why he can't watch a lot of videos. I tell him that watching too many videos hurts our eyes. Surprisingly, he seems to agree immediately. He says the videos bite our eyes, just like mosquitoes. But the mosquitoes don't bite our eyes, only our body. I remind him that if he stays under the blanket the mosquitoes won't be able to bite him.
He agrees and adds: "And Rohan is going to catch them!"
Me: "And papa'?"
Rajiv: "Papa' will zap them!"
Me: "That's right, we don't want mosquitoes!"
This must sound too harsh to him, because he says that maybe they can stay, if they are nice. No biting. And maybe they are hungry and they need something to eat. How about noodles? But really small ones, which we don't have - so they can't sit at the table next to Appu - but they have small noodles at their home and really small bowls too, so they can eat there, or maybe bring them over. They can't eat apples though, because there are no really small apples: that would be silly. There are no small trees, because birds live in them and they are not small..

I wish I could remember the rest, but right now I don't unfortunately. We had a rough night with Rohan being sick and I was not even sure I would feel like writing about something nice. But maybe there aren't many other things you can do when you have only slept a couple of hours.

Rohan was really cute and affectionate today morning, by the way. I hope he is feeling better. I'll check with Meaghan soon and maybe I'll just go back home and stay with him today. Or maybe I'll try to work a little when I still can, we'll see.

How old are you? - Part 2

2011-05-10T10:02:00.000-04:00

The next day:

- I like how you guys filled the new basket with your toy cars. It's really full.

- Yeah, I think it is very heavy..

- It is, let me try.. Aaaargh.. No, I just can't lift it, we might have to wait for papa' to come and help us..

- Yes! Papa' is veeery strong.. ..he is thirteen!

How old are you?

2011-05-09T11:03:00.002-04:00

- Mamma, are you five?

- No Appu, I'm thirty. (internal voice: gasp! how did that happen!)

- Oh, good! You are not five! (????)

- Yeah.. Thirty is a lot.. It means I'm not a kid, I'm a mamma! (says with moderate enthusiasm)

- And papa'...

- Papa' is thirty-two.

- Yeah! Papa' is thirty-two! (Pause...) I'm going to be five and then I'm going to be thirty-two, like papa'.

Note: In case you are getting confused, he is not even going to be five yet. He is going to be four - in a week :)

Mother Day weekend

2011-05-08T10:15:00.000-04:00

We are not doing anything special, in case anyone is wondering. We are just having a quiet weekend of playing, cleaning, jumping around, doing loads and loads of laundry, having tea parties with a ghost that lives out of our window - and is not scary - and doesn't know how to sit but, if asked, can lie down on the couch - if we move the toys first.

Now I'm sorry but I have to go, we are off to fish in the attic.

Spring Concert - Caution: Very Long

2011-05-06T10:57:00.003-04:00

As promised, more about the concert.

This is *very* long, but if you want you can jump to the end of the post for some videos.

The Spring Concert was held at a local church, where we normally go for the group classes (for the individual lessons instead we go to the teacher's home). I was a little worried about how I was going to handle the kids, but Genevieve had reassured me that I wouldn't be the only one with small children and that there would be a room for playing and be noisy without disturbing anyone.

I was still doubtful, so I really dreaded the event. The only reason why we went at all is that I thought it would be good for Appu and I wanted him to have this experience. I think it was, in the end, a good experience.

Rajiv was a great big brother on this occasion. He held Rohan's hand - and quite surprisingly Rohan held his, without complaining. We navigated the parking lot and made it into the church without a problem, with Appu and his little brother walking by themselves and Following. My. Instructions. Can I say that again??

Inside it was quite overwhelming. There were lots of kids trying to get ready and getting their instruments - mostly violins - tuned. Parents and teachers were arranging their dishes for the dinner and I couldn't even get hold of someone who could tell me where to put my pies (store bought, of course, I wouldn't want you to think I can make a pie.)

I looked at the program and I wasn't quite able to tell when Rajiv's turn was going to be, but I knew it was some time near the end. We had to listen to almost an hour of music before that.

We sat for about a minute and a half before I had to hastily remove us from the room. The first pieces were all played by just a few kids at a time and every noise in the room could be heard. But Rohan didn't seem to care, he was so happy to have so many people to chat with :)

Rajiv didn't want to sit, but he did want to listen. He walked around, sat on the steps near the musicians, sat on another chair, and kept changing position after each piece. I felt this was ok, because while they were playing he was very quiet, so I thought he wouldn't really bother anyone with his manoeuvres.

I stayed outside but near the door so that I could watch Rohan outside and still keep an eye on Rajiv. At some point the mother of the other kid who plays the cello with Rajiv caught hold of him and made him sit with them. He did for the remaining time, but I was not able to see him from outside and he could not see me, so I could only wondered whether he was ok by himself.

Rohan had fun outside, but to keep him quiet I had to allow him to steal a few crackers from the buffet ahead of time. I know some people disapproved, but I can't bring myself to feel bad about this kind of stuff.

We had an interesting moment when we spotted some ants on the floor trying to take a bit heavy crumb away. I told Rohan to watch and not touch, but then a big kid came to sit there too and after watching for a few seconds he dropped a big piece of lint from the carpet on top of the ants. I said "That's not nice!" and Rohan immediately said "not nice!" and removed the lint - a little too roughly maybe.. - to help the ants. I was sooo proud of him.. :)

Anyway, my main thought was: how am I going to be able to go near enough to take a video of Appu while he is playing and not have Rohan become the main performer?

Fortunately the second part of the concert involved more instruments playing together, so the noise made by a toddler happily playing with his toy car was completely covered by the loud music. Relieved, I went back inside, first on the back and then a bit farther in, just in time to see Rajiv play.

Rohan decided to hang from a chair in the back and play with his car. I left him there, keeping an eye on him, but I did notice some parents who were again disapproving of the fact that I left him "alone".

Anyway, here is the video I managed to take. I was a little surprised, because I expected Appu and his little friends to be playing only for one minute. Instead, when the older kids started after the little ones had finished their introduction, the teacher asked Rajiv and friends to keep playing. I think Rajiv was surprised too and felt lost.

My camera kept shutting off for reason, so the video is in three parts. I think in the first part Rajiv is doing well, but later he gets discouraged.

Here he even stops playing..

And even worse, here Genevieve is essentially playing for him.

As a result, he wasn't as proud of himself as he should have been. I asked him if it was difficult and he said yes. I asked him if he had to play something he didn't know and he said yes. Then he added sadly and cutely "It was Twinkle Twinkle on the D string.."

The fact that my son can say things like that is amazing enough to me, maybe because of my complete ignorance in matters of music.

After the dinner Appu quickly recovered his cheerfulness by joining a bunch of older kids in a game of tag. I wish I could have let him play. Instead I was exhausted and tired of being criticized - not in words, but some stares are enough - for how I was handling my kids.

Now I know what single mothers must feel like all the time. Hello? It is not my fault that I have two kids and my husband cannot be here to help. If I am ok staying with one kid while the other is in the next room, maybe I know what I am doing.

So I had to drag Rajiv away from the fun and go home, where I made it a point to tell him again and again how proud I was of him and how it was ok that he couldn't play the part that he didn't know.

I think it worked, because yesterday he said that maybe he would like to do another concert :D

Concerto di Primavera

2011-05-05T10:18:00.002-04:00

May 8th: Edited to add: read more and watch videos here.

Yesterday was the Big Day. It was a bittersweet experience, at least for me and maybe for Rajiv too, but I plan to tell you more in another post. Right now I am at the office and I really can't write for too long, so I'll just show you a few pictures.

The two brothers entering the building. Rajiv was a big help in keeping Rohan safe in the parking lot and inside while my hands were busy lugging around the cello, the bench, the food for the potluck and so on.

We were a bit late but we still made it in time for the tuning. Phew!

This is Genevieve, by the way, Rajiv's teacher.

This was during the concert. Genevieve sat in front of the smallest kids to help them out.

And after :) It was a long tiring loud day, which by the way had started at about 4:30 AM for both me and Rajiv - long story - and even though he did have a nap in the afternoon, at this point he was touchy and ready to collapse somewhere. I just had to make sure it was the bed :)

Chicha's wedding

2011-05-04T11:18:00.000-04:00

With the fact that I didn't tell you much about our trip - and just showed you our photo album instead - I almost forgot to share the little video I took at Vijay's wedding in Guruvayoor.

As you will see, I better hold on to my job, because it's unlikely I could make a career as a wedding reporter. I must say though, that I could have been placed in a more favorable spot (you know, somewhere where I could actually see the couple) had I not wasted valuable time looking everywhere for my husband to make sure that he didn't miss the ceremony.

I later discovered that he was there, just on the other side. Unfortunately, he is not in this video, but almost everyone else is. Even the - by then - married couple, in the last few seconds.

It is Spring

2011-05-03T20:25:00.001-04:00

Sabato, davanti a casa.

Even though it doesn't always look that way. This was last Saturday.

Preschool physics: experiments with magnets

2011-05-03T02:30:00.001-04:00

Appu osserva che due calamite dello stesso polo, che quindi si respingono, si attraggono quando viene interposto tra le due del metallo - in questo caso una moneta. Naturalmente la sua descrizione del fenomeno e' in termini leggermente differenti :)

Maybe you remember that Rajiv learned how magnets can attract or repel when we gave him his first toy train, during our trip to Paris last year. Toy trains being the brilliant toys that they are, here is another important physics lesson:

Rajiv observed this himself, I just made him re-enact the whole thing for his dad's benefit and for the camera. Just so you don't think that he has a lab report due every evening :)

To Vancouver or not to Vancouver?

2011-05-02T18:20:00.003-04:00

Sono molto indecisa. Verso fine maggio c'e' un venerdi' di vacanza, S sara' qui e potrebbero essere i giorni ideali per una gita sull'altra costa del Canada, che pare sia splendida. Andare o non andare? Si tratta di un lungo viaggio in aereo e non so se ne abbiamo voglia. D'altra parte pero', questi sono i nostri ultimi mesi in Canada: chissa' se si riproporra' l'occasione?

Very undecided. Should we plan a trip to BC for the Victoria day weekend - with papa'!! - or should we just stay home and rest?

Oooops..

2011-05-02T05:42:00.003-04:00

Apparently I had forgotten one more thing that happens in May: it's the day of the Federal Elections here in Canada! Well, I can't vote, so maybe I have that excuse.

I love Canada for so many reasons. One is that our elderly hippy neighbor who keeps his long white hair collected in a ponytail and drives a Harley, has a banner in his yard supporting the conservative candidate. And the couple across the street has a banner supporting the liberal candidate. And it's ok, everybody is still friends.

It might be because, like my quebequois friend from grad school put it once, the most aggressive event around here is the annual pillow-fighting event in Ottawa.. (I think it was a joke, I don't think they really do it - but I know that in Roma sometimes they throw chairs at each other in parliament, so even if they do the pillow fighting thing in Ottawa, they still win hands down)

May is a Big month

2011-05-02T05:23:00.001-04:00

Little Rajiv will be four in two weeks! Birthday party preparations are underway. He said he would like a party with trains and laughing cars - these would be the giggling troublesome cargo cars of Thomas, I think. I have thought about the possibilities of this party more than I like to admit, but in the end I feel that I will be incompetent as usual, and it won't matter one bit :)

And papa' is coming to Canada, just in time for the birthday! These days you can't say "May" in this house without a little voice squeaking "Papa comin'". I wonder what Rohan thinks May really means - a place maybe? I doubt he understands months yet.

And this Wednesday is the day of the Spring Concert! For which we haven't practiced and we even missed the dress rehearsal last week, because I'm that kind of mom.. I'm a little apprehensive, especially because I just found out that it's a potluck event and I need to sign up to bring something. It is tempting to tick "napkins and paper cups", but that seems lame, no? No? Uhm...

Sono un genio..

2011-04-30T16:59:00.000-04:00

Ho convinto i bimbi a mangiare i broccoli cuocendoli semplicemente al vapore e lasciandoglieli intingere nella salsa teriyaki. I bimbi adorano intingere - qualunque cosa in qualunque altra cosa - e adesso Appu mi chiede ogni giorno se ci saranno i broccoli per cena - ma non ho ancora ripetuto, per non rovinare l'effetto ottenuto con tanta fatica :)

Those in the photo are my two little boys, eating STEAMED BROCCOLI dipped in teriyaki sauce. Why didn't I think of this before?

Why they need to eat standing up, I don't fully understand, but it might have to do with being able to hunt for the best piece in the steaming basket - or maybe they just want to make it clear that they are free to leave at any time, who knows.

Piccolo Rajiv - The book

2011-04-29T06:22:00.000-04:00

My next extracurricular project is going to be turning the old blog into ink and paper format - just in case the apocalypse comes and Google crashes and all blogs disappear into digital dust.

Seriously, this is something that does generate some anxiety in me. Even before we moved here to Due Fratellini I had been pondering the question of what would be the most time-economical way to get the blog in book form. After all, one of the reason why I started this in first place was that one day my kids could read it if they want to.

Then yesterday, completely by chance, I came across Blog2Print. It seems to be a service designed especially for Blogger, which is the platform I use, and it is just very easy to use. You give the address of your blog and within less than a minute you get a tentative preview of your book. Then you can make changes - like choosing the photos for the cover, deleting posts or adding extra content.

It is never going to be as neat as a photo book made on iPhoto, but as I said it is so easy that one might overlook that. Just for information, printing the full blog in hardcover format would come to about $60 + shipping. It sounds like a lot, but for the number of pages is really not that bad.

Anyway, I think I would like to do this. I will let you know how it goes :)

Before the Zambonis

2011-04-28T12:16:00.000-04:00

Questo video si colloca subito prima dell'apertura delle uova. I miei bimbi decidono di giocare a nascondino.. :)

Sorry, earlier I got so caught up in writing about my ineptitude with the Zambonis that I forgot to show the prequel to the story. Here it is. And for the last time - this year - Happy Easter :)

The Best Laid Plans

2011-04-28T11:04:00.000-04:00

Cliccate sotto su "Read more" per video e foto.

In Case you are wondering - and I know you probably are not, really - I am intentionally borrowing the title from a book about Canadian politics that I haven't even read yet - but it looks good ;)

I thought about what to do for Easter for a while and in the end we did absolutely nothing special, as you well know. One thing I wanted to get right, though, was the eggs. I didn't want to get really good - and really expensive - chocolate, because:

The kids really don't know the difference
If we want to keep collecting the Thomas Wooden Railway we have to save money somewhere -- even if just symbolically
I wouldn't know where to find really good Easter eggs here - because I'm a European snob

So the choice was restricted to whatever the Valuemart in front of my office had to offer. The boys love Kinder chocolate, but recently I have been very disappointed with the little gadgets found inside them. Not like those of my youth.. The thought of an oversized version of them popping out of the big Easter Kinder eggs left me cold.

Then I saw he official CHL eggs, which promised a pull back Zamboni inside every one of them: Perfect!

If you are not Canadian you might not know what any of this means, so let me explain.

The CHL is the Central Hockey League and ice hockey is of course the most popular sport in Canada - did you think it was curling???

A Zamboni is a large machine, looking a little like a road sweeper, that resurfaces the ice on an ice rink: meaning, it peels off the top layer of ruined ice and leaves behind nice smooth ice. All Canadian kids love Zambonis, just like kids everywhere love all sort of large and mean machines. Why this thing is called a Zamboni was a mystery for me for a while, until I googled it and found out that this machine was invented by Frank Zamboni and his company is still leader in the market. I'm afraid You have to be Italian to understand why all this sounds hilarious..

Anyway, Rajiv has recently become a Zamboni enthusiast, thanks to an episode of Caillou he watched in which Caillou gets to ride on a Zamboni after his skating class. For a few days after that, the toy bulldozer that Appu rides around the house turned into a Zamboni.

So I thought: this is great! We get to do the ritual cracking of the eggs with some cheap chocolate, and who cares about that anyway, and then inside there will be two nice small pull back vehicles that the kids can play with for the rest of the day. While I take rest.

If you have reached here without falling asleep, below the fold you will get to watch a video of the actual egg cracking. Papa' was with us on Skype, which was nice.

NOOOOOO! The Zamboni came in a zillion pieces. It was fun, because I got to see how a pull back car works - or in this case doesn't. Less fun was the fact that Rajiv and Rohan were howling behind my chair because I wouldn't let them play right a away with the toy. Rohan probably thought I was playing with it myself and was really angry.

The thing that should make the vehicle move after you pull it back is the rubber band you see below. Simple. And cool! (By the way, note how the steering wheel is already broken)

Ta - daaaaaa!

Uhm, not really, no. The pull back never worked, the band was falling off and pretty soon the wheels were falling off too. Appu agrees to show the toy for the camera, but by now the excitement is fading.

At least we got one "Toronto Maple Leaves" Zamboni, which I guess is our team. The black scary one is from the "Calgary Flames". Brrr..

So that's it. I have already disposed of the two offending objects, although some of their parts must still be hiding somewhere in the living room.

I know the whole thing doesn't sound like a big deal, but the three of us took it quite personally :)

I got it!

2011-04-27T11:26:00.000-04:00

The photo album arrived yesterday. It looks quite neat, thank you Apple!

Rajiv and Rohan were very excited to see it. Rajiv took it to school today and I am very curious to hear how it went.

By the way, the only person who tried to answer my little quiz was achamma, so she "wins" a copy of the book, to be delivered, together with the grandchildren, next time we are in India. :)

Vigilia di Pasqua col sole

2011-04-26T10:47:00.001-04:00

You are going to hear a lot about Easter on this blog. Not because it is my favorite holiday or anything like that, but I had four full days to spend at home with the kids and I'm going to share the joy. Only the good parts, I promise: I will spare you the synchronized wailing contests and the I-want-to-go-out-in-the-rain-without-shoes moments.

Unfortunately I don't have any photos of the egg hunt with Kalena on Good Friday - but maybe I can get the video from Anna Marie? Anyway, let me tell you about our Saturday instead, in every boring detail.

I'm not sure you can tell from the photos, but the weather was really nice, the warmest we had so far. I sort of overdressed the kids, just in case, but I wasn't wearing a sweater and I never missed it.

We played for a while on the street in front of our house - it's a dead end, so it's very quiet. Appu insisted that we put together Rohan's new tricycle, but in the end Rohan preferred to walk.

Appu had a blast on his own big trike and kept riding back and forth on the sidewalk.

I asked him to take a photo of me and Rohan and I think he did a great job!

One of the highlights of the afternoon was finding two badminton rackets abandoned on the curb in front of some students' house. They were there to be picked up with the trash, but we rescued them and there was a soft ball too! What more could you want?

We also got a chance to play a little bit with our neighbor Kyle, after a long time.

Then we took mamma's bike with the buggy attached behind for the Rohan and Rajiv to sit in and we went for a short ride. We went through the park and to the office, to pick up some stuff I had left there, and then we went to the grocery store.

My idea of happiness, looks something like this:

If only there was another big bike in this photo...

But let me conclude with a little video, taken earlier while playing on our street.

It's all about timing

2011-04-24T23:23:00.001-04:00

Today I told S how to take a "photo" through Skype by using the Grab utility on his Mac.

It just so happens that a few rare events had also just taken place: I had managed to sneak away - almost unnoticed - to take a shower and wash my hair without causing an uprising; the kitchen table had been almost cleared and more or less cleaned to make space for the ritual opening of the chocolate eggs (more about that later); broken down by accumulated guilt I had cooked some proper food for lunch.

As a result of all this, when papa' took the following "snaps", we looked like a regular family having a normal Sunday lunch in a reasonably clean and pleasant environment. It's all about timing :)

You tell them stuff, but who knows what they are thinking..

2011-04-21T21:32:00.000-04:00

Just a few minutes ago, Appu shows me a drawing he made and tells me it's me - and by the way, he did that because Rohan yesterday had made a picture of me, and he wanted to measure up :)

Anyway, back to the story. Appu says:

- Mamma, it's you!

- It's me?

(maybe I sounded doubtful)

- Yes, when you were very small.

- When I was small?

- Yes, when you were inside *my* tummy..

The great potato rainfall of 2011

2011-04-21T12:42:00.000-04:00

Uhm, che cosa ci fanno tutte queste patate per terra??

Hey, what happened here?

What are all these potatoes doing on the floor??

Maybe this is a clue..

and here is another..

..AHA! Mystery solved :)

But wait, why is Rajiv wearing socks on his hands now?!?

It's so exciting!

2011-04-21T11:55:00.000-04:00

Appu is taking part in his first concert in two weeks. His group will get to play a simple rhythm on a single string to open the spring concert of the Suzuki school. It will be him with the cello and his two little friends from class - another cello and a violin.

To be honest, so far every attempt to get them to play this thing *together* has failed miserably, but it doesn't matter because they are going to be so cute that nobody will mind :)

I just went to buy a pair of black sweatpants and a white t-shirt for next week's dress rehearsal, so I thought I would share..

One day - soon - people will be asking for his autograph :)

2011-04-20T12:11:00.000-04:00

Rajiv improvvisa una canzone alla chitarra.

Rajiv improvises a song on the guitar.. The best part was before I started filming it but, alas, isn't that always the case?

Photo Album - Rohan and Rajiv in India

2011-04-19T11:36:00.003-04:00

Cliccando su "Read more" piu' in basso potrete vedere le pagine di un libro ricordo del nostro recente viaggio in India. Per ingrandire ogni pagina basta cliccarci sopra, pero' purtroppo per caricare le immagini sul blog ho dovuto ridurre la qualita', quindi le foto non sono nitidissime. Sono graditi commenti! E chissa' se riuscite a scovare nel muchio le foto scattate da Rajiv?

Maybe you have been wondering when I was going to start posting some photos from our recent stay in India. And probably you kind of expected me to start my usual 37 part series of "Pics you have missed" posts. I admit such a thing was on my mind, but then it occurred to me that I could save myself some work (this somehow ended up being a wrong estimate..) and you some pain by showing you the book I have made for Rajiv to share with his friends here in Canada.

Below the fold you will find all the pages of the book in individual jpg files. You can click on the picture to make it bigger. The book was made using iPhoto with one of the standard templates. Even so, it did take a long time to make; and converting each page to jpg format and uploading them on blogger was another epic enterprise. Just to say, I hope you appreciate my efforts :)

Some final notes and disclaimers (see how professional I'm getting?):

Please consider the target audience for the book are Rajiv's teachers, friends and some of my friends here in Canada. If you are a family member you will find some of the captions unnecessary and if you are Indian you might find that I have oversimplified some things or maybe made some plain mistakes - in that case please forgive me and then let me know..

I really like some of the photos. Some other ones are of poor quality, but the purpose was to collect some nice memories and to give a more or less full coverage of the whole trip, so quality was not a very important factor. I have also included a couple of photos taken by Rajiv: I wonder if you can spot them? Let me know in the comments and the winner will get a hard copy of the book or a signed hand print from Rajiv, you choose :)

It was a dark and stormy night

2011-04-18T12:31:00.001-04:00

Non so perche' giocare con questa lampada piaccia tanto ai bimbi..

I am not sure why they like playing with this lamp so much..

The Big Brother

2011-04-15T13:34:00.000-04:00

Rajiv has decided that it is his duty - and a lot of fun - to take care of his little brother.

He helps him put on his socks and he warns me when his brother is "making a mess again!". Like taking noodles out of his plate and dropping them one by one on the chair and on the floor, while mamma unsuspecting keeps filling the plate thinking he has a great appetite... :)

Yesterday night Rohan had "cacca", like we say in our family instead of "poo", which makes us sound very elegant to most people, except of course Italians who would probably just find us gross. Anyway, back to the story. Rohan had cacca and I took off his diaper and went upstairs to dispose of it in the bathroom. Then I hear Rajiv screaming "Mamma, quick, there is a little bit of cacca!!". I go down - I don't rush because it takes more than that to scare me at this point.

When I arrive I find Rohan lying down on the floor on his back with his legs up in diaper changing pose and Appu holding a diaper, pointing and saying "we need wipes!". So I helped Rajiv help Rohan with the whole process and both brothers were delighted. I think the plan is that soon they will be fully self sufficient and then they will take control of the house.

Later they decided to play with blocks and that of course involved throwing them on each other's heads, which really hurts, but then today morning Rohan was trying to make a tower and he hurt his finger with a block. He cried a little, until Appu told him "do you need a kiss?" and he kissed his finger and made it all better.

Through Rajiv's eyes

2011-04-11T13:35:00.000-04:00

Or lens.. :)

Una foto originale di Rajiv: mamma prepara la cena e Rohan guarda con ammirazione il suo fratellone.

Calligraphy practice

2011-04-09T12:37:00.002-04:00

Nelle prime foto siamo a Madras. I muri della camera dei bimbi sono stati dipinti con vernice da lavagna, cosi' si puo' scrivere sui muri - Rohan pero' non ha ancora capito che i pastelli invece non vanno bene.

Nelle altre foto siamo a Waterloo, nell'ufficio di mamma. Rohan cerca di incastrarsi tra il pavimento e la finestra (e' un concetto difficile da apprezzare se non avete visto l'architettura del mio ufficio..) e Appu continua i suoi esercizi di calligrafia. :) Scusatemi per la qualita' scadente delle foto, le ho fatte col cellulare.

Appu writes on the walls of his room in Chennai. The chalkboard paint was a good idea - the only problem is convincing Rohan that it is only for chalk - and by the way, papa', how is it going erasing all the crayon marks?

Uh-oh.. Suddenly some trouble with the A?

No problem, the A is easy, I'll show you. Then you write the rest. Well done!

The next photos were taken yesterday in my office. Rajiv and Rohan were delivered to me at 4:00 for the weekly "wine and cheese" family event. By the time we left I could have murdered the first person I met on the road, but we started out quite nicely as you can see, playing quietly in mamma's room.

I like how in this photo it looks like Rohan is lowering himself in the construction site in front of my window. Please don't worry, he really is not.

And here Appu is learning a valuable lesson: writing your name on the board is ok, but make sure you go around the math.

By the way, I took these photos with my phone and it just occurred to me that this is the first time I do that. How uncool is that? I mean, do you know of anyone else alive in this century who can say that? However, the quality is quite pathetic and plus, I think I am usually much more likely to have a camera with me than a phone. Add this to the uncool factor :)

We have been back for more than a week

2011-04-07T14:06:00.000-04:00

But it feels more like a month. Time flies when you are having fun - and when you are coping with two little people and monstrous jet-lag.

Anyway, I still owe you a lot of pictures and stories from our trip to India, but for now let me share some photos that were taken last week while we traveled back to Canada.

Un po' di foto del nostro ritorno in Canada. Le prime tre sono state scattate da Rajiv mentre ci imbarcavamo a Bruxelles. Le altre foto sono state scattate da me durante il percorso in macchina dall'aeroporto a casa. Come si puo' notare, un paio di giorni prima una poderosa tempesta di neve aveva colpito la zona. Adesso il paesaggio e' molto meno invernale, ma la neve cade ancora di tanto in tanto.

The first three photos were taken by Rajiv, with his own little red camera, at the time of boarding the second plane in Brussels.

All the remaining photos instead were taken by me, on our way home from the airport. Just in case you are wondering, no, this is not our car. We haven't fully embraced the suburban lifestyle cum SUV yet..

A couple of snaps of the outside as well, just so you can see the snow left from the recent massive snowstorm. This is the Waterloo exit on the highway. Can you read? As Appu pointed out, we were going "very very fast"... :)

Almost home. This is a view of the new part of the place were I work, to be inaugurated soon-ish. We are a couple of minutes away from our little house.

I take it back

2011-04-06T14:23:00.002-04:00

It's not the Canadian Spring, it's just plain depressing.

It's the Canadian spring

2011-04-04T11:29:00.001-04:00

We had a large snowfall yesterday night. Big flakes, really beautiful to watch. I got the big flakes all over my hair too, because we had gone for dinner at our friends' house just down the street wearing just sweaters and no hats - before the weather took a turn. No big deal, as the temperature was still "pleasant" enough that we could walk home leisurely under the snow without freezing to death. This morning the snow has turned into rain though, and the winter wonderland has turned into mush and mud.

Click!

2011-03-29T15:08:00.000-04:00

One of the best gifts I received as a kid was a Kodak/Fisher-Price camera. It used film, of course (which reminds me that I'm not that young anymore..) and a flip-flash: you inserted a stick with ten bulbs on top of the camera and they would burn one by one with each snap. I took my first photos at the Holidays On Ice show with my aunt and my grandmother and then I proceed to immortalize family, friends and teachers. A lot of my early work shows people without a head. Some pictures where good though and I still have them collected in an album.

Here it is, pure eighties nostalgia material:

I think I must have been around six or seven when I got my first camera, but obviously I couldn't wait that long to give my son his own, especially if you consider how much easier - and don't forget cheaper - it is to have fun with a digital camera. I am surprised I managed to hold on until now, but I waited for Appu to spontaneously show some interest, which of course he did soon enough. I wanted to get him the modern version of what I had, a digital kids camera, but after a little thought I realized that I didn't really like the options there. Plus, they tend to always include videogames in children cameras, as I recently discovered, and that seems quite beside the point. In conclusion, I started reading reviews of basic point-and-shoot cameras, looking for the cheapest one that would meet all my requirements.

I found it right away and I showed Rajiv a picture of his new camera from a website. I told him we would order it online and t would arrive in a box in a few days. The next day we came back from work to find that he had made this picture:

Meaghan helped him with the word, but he made the drawing himself. He didn't quite get the part about the camera arriving in a few days, because he immediately asked where was the box.
Let me skip the part where we learned that I had of course selected a model that was being discontinued and therefore impossible to get - so the box would not come at all. After a frantic search and much frustration, we settled on a different model and went to pick it up ourselves together with our little Appu.

And here is the happy photographer.

By the way, you will not be surprised to know that Rohan wasn't happy to be denied access to the new toy. We allowed him to hold papa's camera for a little bit and here he is, in a photo taken by his brother. Unfortunately papa's camera didn't live to tell the tale, but that's another story.

As you might have already noticed, a new link has appeared on the sidebar. It points to a slideshow of Rajiv's best work. I will try to keep it updated. I think his photos are a great way to document our family life and for a change mamma is in there too.

Bach

2011-03-28T17:03:00.000-04:00

Long plane trips can do strange things. We just came back and my older son decided to put some music on. He picked a CD (at random I'd say, but who knows) and seemed to struggled with the player, so I helped him. When the music started he said "Ah, a violin!" and very satisfied he brought a book to the couch to "read" while listening to the music. After fifteen minutes, he is still there.

Design change - again

2011-03-25T02:32:00.000-04:00

On a second thought, the earlier one was too dark. But I think we are almost there now :)

By the way...

2011-03-19T11:32:00.001-04:00

... I hope you like the new design. Featuring original artwork by mamma, no less :)

Trip to the Vandalur zoo

2011-03-18T01:02:00.000-04:00

Last Sunday we went to the zoo. It's not too far from home, actually, and it is a pleasant drive, for a change. The kids, of course, loved it.

We decided to take one of the zoo's vehicles to do a full tour. Here is little monkey #1, waiting patiently for our ride.

"Can I get any cuter?"

"And can I go inside with the geese?"

I wish we had walked instead, because with the tour we were allowed only a few minutes to see each animal, but at least we did get a glimpse of most of the place. It was a good advertisement and it convinced us that we should come back to see more.

"It's a leopard cub!" Uhm, not really...

We did walk around a little at the end. We spent some time looking at various kinds of monkeys and we waited for the giraffes to a little closer to the gate so I could take a decent shot (above). Little monkey #2 was very happy and wanted to join the giraffes.

Nothing can stop the determined explorer!

Some family photos:

Rohan reaches unnoticed inside mamma's bag

"Mango juice!"

Taking rest and playing with papa'.

And they are all looking at the camera AT THE SAME TIME!!

Coming out of the closet

2011-03-16T03:07:00.000-04:00

Archaeology for beginners

2011-03-03T02:06:00.005-05:00

Last week we went to Mahabalipuram for a little field trip. I wasn't sure how the kids would behave, but it turned out to be quite a nice outing for them. Rohan was a little suspicious and preferred to be carried most of the time, but Rajiv behaved like a little explorer, climbed here and there and was really sad when he realized that we were heading back home.

The Five Rathas:

Arjuna's Penance carvings and the balancing rock:

The lemonade is almost over - time to go home?

Big Butterflies

2011-02-19T01:47:00.003-05:00

We are in Chennai right now. Nonna was with us for a few weeks, but now she is about to fly back home. We traveled a lot and had some trouble being online (think laptop crashing on the floor and internet key breaking into small pieces - the joys of parenthood...) but I have truckloads of photos to show. As usual though, don't wait by the modem.

Just for cuteness, a small anecdote:

We took the kids to see some elephants. Rohan was very impressed and screamed "Butterflies!".

Papa' is The Greatest Dad

2011-01-27T06:53:00.004-05:00

Tomorrow we are flying to India to be reunited with papa'. To celebrate, let me bring up a couple of memories.

Italy, Rajiv, three years ago:

Rohan, India, eight months ago:

Papa'- never leave home without him :)

Photos you have missed - part 6 - the final chapter :)

2011-01-27T06:15:00.005-05:00

Foto della mattina di Natale e foto della nostra gita a Toronto nei due giorni successivi. Le prime foto sono dello zoo, dove Rohan e Appu hanno trovato le loro due anime gemelle in due cuccioli di orangotango. Le altre foto sono del Science Center, dove Appu si e' divertito a giocare con le dighe e molto altro. Anche Rohan, dopo un bel sonnellino in braccio a suo papa', e' sembrato sodisfatto del nuovo parco giochi.. :)

-----

Here come the Christmas photos, with only one month of delay.

The first photos are from Christmas morning. I really had to push them to open the presents at first, but then they understood that it was supposed to be fun and played along. Appu of course immediately took complete control of the situation, but we managed to save something for Rohan to unwrap too.

Of course some of the presents were new trains and here they are trying them on the track. Unfortunately, the Thomas train carrying a snowman that Santa had hunted down on ebay for weeks doesn't seem to fit under all the tunnels, so it wasn't as much of a hit as Santa had dreamed. Sigh..

The next photos are from our trip to Toronto, a last minute idea to get out of town around the holidays. We left on Christmas day and spent two nights at a hotel (known in Appu's language as "the biggest tower").

One day we went to the zoo. It was cold, but some of the animals didn't mind and other were kept warm inside. We saw a rhino indoors and as you might imagine his presence really fills the room. Hard to feel fully at ease... :) We saw a beautiful tiger (below) and wolves and polar bears in the arctic section.

But our favorite were hands down the orangutans. There were two little ones climbing around and playing like toddlers. The moms (you see one in the photo) were sitting quietly on the side and every now and then the kids would go to them, drink some milk and then go back to play. Just like Rohan and Rajiv :)
I am sorry for the quality of the photos, the (not so clean) glass between us and the orangutans made it difficult to take good shots in a hurry.

The next day we went to the Science Center. It is a lot of fun for kids and they also have a specific wing for children under six where they can play with stuff that in principle could also lead to an understanding of some science principles. We didn't even try to put it that way to Rajiv of course, but he sure had a lot of fun! His favorite part was playing with canals and dams in the water.

Rohan took a long nap in the carrier with papa', but after that he enjoyed himself too.

Then we concluded our trip with a stop at the Mississagua Ikea store on the way back, as a Christmas present for mamma :)

Appu impara a leggere! (In inglese...)

2011-01-26T17:17:00.000-05:00

Rajiv has known his letters and the sound they make for a while now, mostly thanks to an annoying electronic toy. However, he just wasn't interested in putting those sounds together to make words. I tried to introduce the idea a couple of times, but he just wasn't ready.

And now, suddenly, he really wants to learn! In the video he is reading from a book that I made for him more than six months ago. He loves that he can more or less read it all by himself. Of course the pictures help and by now he must have it all memorized, but you can see that he is really trying to figure it out by himself.

Anyway, mamma is so proud :)

Note: At Appu's request, I wanted to record the reading of the whole book, but Rohan had some computer trouble and then I finished my memory card, so the video at some point just ends.

Photos You Have Missed - Part 5

2011-01-24T11:33:00.006-05:00

Un po' di foto della settimana prima di Natale.

These are photos from just before Christmas.

The first is a typical sight this days: Appu in his "nest". Other times it might be a "house" or a "cage" (which for some reason he thinks would be very cozy) or a "bedroom" or just a "bed". Occasionally we make "boat".

Cello practice.

Christmas decorations. The poor tree will never forgive us for leaving him alone with the two little disasters.

"Oh no, the flash is hurting my eyes!"

"Uhm... Maybe if I come closer... AAAAAAAAAH!"

"Much better!"

And to finish, a little bit of Appu cuteness.

Coming soon, the actual Christmas Holidays. Stay tuned.

Photos you have missed - Part 4

2011-01-21T10:14:00.003-05:00

Story Time! (From early November)

And, for the record, they are reading "I have to go!" by Robert Munsch. This is one of Rohan's favorite books, about a boy who has to go pee. If you ask Rohan, very slowly, "Andrew, do you have to go pee?" he will answer, very happily, "nonononono!" :)

There is no sunshine (literally) when papa' is gone...

2011-01-20T16:41:00.005-05:00

.. but we do our best to cheer up!

Big snowfall last weekend. We got knee high snow overnight.

This is the house across from us. Somewhere in the middle should be the road.

And here we come to the heart of the matter: someone has to shovel it, this snow. So mamma did it, with Rohan in the backpack carrier.

And just for completeness, this is our backyard.

Cozy indoor for most of the time, we had a few photo sessions. The kids were enthusiastic, as you can see.

A future in modeling? :)

Butterflies

2011-01-18T13:45:00.008-05:00

La settimana scorsa Meaghan ha portato i bimbi ad una mostra di farfalle. La nebbia che si vede nel video e nelle foto e' dovuta alla condensa che si e' creata sulla lente per sbalzo di temperatura dall'esterno al clima tropicale creato per le farfalle - beate loro.. :) A quanto pare Rajiv a spinto Rohan nel passeggino per tutto il tempo!

Last week Meaghan took the kids to the butterflies conservatory. They have a tropical environment in there, which explains the mist in the video and some of the pictures (the lens needed some time to adjust, coming in from the totally non-tropical Ontario winter).

They were providing strollers for babies and apparently Rajiv pushed Rohan the whole time. Here is the video:

And some photos:

These are the pupae. Appu loves the word and somehow he knew it even before they went there. He must have learned it in school, I'm impressed!

There was also an owl exhibit, which they liked a lot.

Overall it was a successful expedition and the kids really like to look at the video again and again. I would have had no idea that this event was going on, if not for Meaghan. Same for when she took them to a pumpkin patch in the fall. Having a nanny who knows the area much better than us can be really useful!

In posa :)

2011-01-18T13:41:00.005-05:00

Both my kids are very aware of the camera. They like to pose and then admire the result. A selection of shots from a recent session...

Sunday morning with papa' - (and not)

2011-01-16T15:00:00.000-05:00

Queste sono foto - e un video - di domenica scorsa. I bimbi parlano con il loro papa' su skype e poi tornano a giocare. Abbiamo messo un po'di musica e come al solita Rajiv ha cominciato a ballare e cantare. Ho cercato di immortalare il tutto in un video, ma naturalmente a quel punto lui si e'subito messo seduto; se avete un po' di pazienza pero', e aspettate una trentina o quarantina di secondi, con una piccola spintina da parte di mamma, Rajiv ci mostra almeno qualche passo (e parecchi salti).

These are actually from last Sunday, just to be precise. You can see the kids talking to their dad on Skype and then a rare shot of both brothers looking at the camera without grimacing or closing their eyes. There is also a nice photo of Rajiv, in which I think he looks a little like his cousin Jayadev.

The video was taken while Rajiv was dancing and singing along with the "little monkeys jumping on the bed song". As soon as I started the video he stopped moving and talking right away, so the first part is quite boring, but if you are patient he will eventually start jumping around.

Updated photos

2011-01-14T08:13:00.000-05:00

Ho finalmente cambiato le foto sulla barra laterale - quelle di prima risalivano alla nascita di Rohan! Commenti?

I have changed the photos on the left side bar. This is long overdue: in the previous ones Rajiv was two (it was his birthday picture) and Rohan was half an hour old! Do you like the new ones?

Bed time is a tough time

2011-01-11T14:12:00.000-05:00

The most dreaded part of being alone with the two little angels is putting them to sleep. When S was here we shared the task equally: I put Rohan to bed and slept with him, S put Rajiv to bed and slept with him - in a nice big boy bed with a star canopy :).

Rajiv is not ready yet to be in a room all by himself, especially now that he seems to be so easily upset, probably as a consequence of his father's absence. So I decided that for this month the three of us would sleep together in the Big Bed.

At first I was doing my usual goodnight thing with Rohan, while Appu watched some cartoons so that he would stay quiet. Rohan loves our bedtime routine: we read lots of books and he gets to choose which ones, so often we read the same book several times in a row. It is our special time together.

Unfortunately, with this method Rajiv would stay up very late. Sometimes he didn't want to leave the couch at all and one day he had a huge tantrum that resulted in us going to sleep after 1 AM, because I couldn't risk waking up Rohan by taking his screaming brother to bed before he had fully calmed down. Then Rajiv was very tired in the morning and wanted me to stay in bed with him, so I was never out of the house before 10AM.

The new routine, that has been in place for a few days, consists in us going to sleep together. Rohan doesn't like it, because sometimes we read books chosen by Rajiv and he just can't accept it - so he screams or grab the book, but we are working on it. This way it seems to take forever to make them sleep, so I always end up falling asleep too. Which means I don't get time to tidy up the kitchen or do anything else unless I do it before bedtime, which I don't always want or can do.

Of course one also has to account for The Unexpected. This could take the form of both children deciding they are hungry just when I was about to put off the light. The result is that we end up having a picnic with cookies and yogurt on the bed, while singing (not me), jumping around (not me) and reading books (me). Not very good for oral hygiene, because at that point there is no way I can make them brush their teeth again, but fun overall.

The Unexpected though could also take the form of Appu deciding to get up a 3AM and go downstairs to sleep on the couch while mamma puts her body all around him so he is "like in a cage". This is not so much fun. These days Appu is always busy making nests and houses and - since yesterday night - cages to hide into. Fortunately so far I have managed to convince him that the best nest is in our bed, where he gets to arrange his two current favorite blankets and the pillows just in the right way. Otherwise, sleeping with his head on my knees and his feet on my face seems to work too.

Photos You Have Missed - Part 3

2011-01-09T13:53:00.000-05:00

This is Meaghan, also known as "The Nanny" :)
All the photos below were taken by her while spending time with the kids, on various days in November.

Questa e' Meaghan, la ragazza che si occupa di Rohan, e alcuni giorni anche di Rajiv, mentre io lavoro. Le foto che seguono risalgono a Novembre e sono state scattate da lei.

No worries: the train only comes twice a week, at predictable times, and it is a veeery slow charming old train.

Rajiv and Rohan have fun sweeping the leaves in front of our house.

Art time.

Playground.

Coffee break.

More playground... and Rohan finds a friend!

Right next to the playground it's also fun to look at the animals, but little fingers have to be out of the net at all times!

Photos you have missed - Part 2

2011-01-06T14:20:00.000-05:00

Vecchie foto di inizio settembre, mentre ci divertivamo a costruire i nuovi mobili dell'IKEA.

Some photos from early September. We were building some IKEA furniture and the kids decided that one of the cabinets was going to be their house.

Photos you have missed - Part 1

2011-01-05T11:22:00.000-05:00

Un po' di foto che non avevo ancora pubblicato. Queste risalgono ad agosto.

I haven't posted much in the last few months, so you have missed a lot of good pictures. These are from August and more are coming soon.

Long weekend

2011-01-02T23:54:00.000-05:00

Rohan is still very sick and of course it always happens on a holiday or on a Sunday - or both :) like this time.

Appu was very sad in the morning as well, because his sleep was again interrupted by Rohan throwing up (which he calls "spitting" and thinks that Rohan does it on purpose) and also because mamma neglected him in favor of his "silly" brother. Fortunately Kalena and her mom invited Appu to go for a walk and although Rohan and I missed him a lot while he was gone, he came back a new happy boy.

Rajiv didn't eat much today though and I am hoping he is not going to be sick like his brother. We spent the day watching cartoons, mostly, and eating microscopic portions of very plain food. Mamma too, because you never know.

In spite of all this though, we still managed to have some fun. The kids played with the Aqua Doodle (a mat on which you paint with water) and after fighting over the who is going to use the brush and who the pen they moved on to pouring full cups of water directly on the mat - just to see what happens, I guess. What happens is that the mat turn completely blue, then puddles form and finally the water starts rolling off onto the wooden floor of the living room.

The cutest moment was when I decided that Rohan needed a little reward for how bravely he was facing his troubles and so I opened a doll that I had purchased at some point by mistake and had kept in storage ever since. Look how cute he is with his "baby"...

To distract Rajiv from watching "George: a very monkey Christmas" for the third time, I decided to put away our small and beaten Christmas tree. The kids helped me to take the few surviving decorations off the tree and then we put them in a small box, that we proceeded to decorate with stickers. At first Rohan was having trouble and Rajiv was putting all the stickers, then Rohan got it and became an unstoppable sticking machine, while Appu moved on to posing for silly pictures with the tree.

Since the boys wanted to attack the Aqua Doodle again, which hadn't recovered yet from the earlier play, I redirected them towards a different water game instead. We put a plastic mat on the floor, filled some tupperware with water and played with a bunch of car- and truck-shaped sponges. They got all wet and that was a good excuse to move upstairs for pajama time.

Certain days, I think I deserve a mommy medal.

Papa' is building a house

2011-01-01T21:38:00.000-05:00

Yesterday S left for India and we will follow him in a month. Among other things, in this month he is going to make sure that our new flat is finished, so we have told Rajiv that papa' is building a house for us and we will go when it is finished. Of course he already asked "is it finished yet?" after a few hours, so it's going to be a long month.

We are feeling a bit sad, but our friends Andrew and Anna Marie invited me and the kids to a little children party for new year's eve, so yesterday night we weren't alone in an empty house. They are the parents of Kalena, who is Rajiv's best friend - he told me :) . Other two kids were invited and some relatives and we all had fun.

Unfortunately Rohan was sick during the night and Appu doesn't seem to be in great shape either, but we still managed to have some bright (figuratively) moments in our day. It was a rainy but surprisingly warm day and Appu wanted to go out to make his balloon fly in the wind. Finally he decided that the balloon should not get wet, but we still went out, with the boys wearing their rainsuits.

Appu had fun and kept saying "I don't get wet" but as you can't see from the next picture, Rohan wasn't so sure :)

We took a short video for papa'. Enjoy!

Family pictures

2010-12-31T14:20:00.001-05:00

The photos below were taken about a month ago. I have been very lazy with my blogging recently, but before the holidays are completely over I felt that I had to at least post these.

And by the way, please don't underestimate the challenge of taking a family photo with a one year old, a three year old, big wrapped presents as props, and a photographer who won't take the shot unless everybody is at their places in a traditional family pose. By the time our photo session was over, the wrapping paper had been ripped and fortunately there was only one more family after us (it was a charity event with lots of families having their picture taken), but they had to hold the presents at strategic angles so that the damage wouldn't show too much.

Happy new year!

That's how Yo-Yo Ma started too...

2010-12-02T23:54:00.000-05:00

This photo was sent to me by the organizer of the music group that Rajiv and Rohan attend together on Fridays. It was taken last Sunday at the holiday party, where we had a lot of fun singing and dancing with the other kids and parents. I just had to post this picture, just look at him!

In other music related news, Rajiv took his first cello lesson this week. He was so excited that he sat through the entire half hour of lesson without fussing and following the teacher's instructions to the letter. I was amazed, although of course I don't expect it to last, once the novelty wears off.

We decided to give this a try because Appu's fascination with musical instruments is second only to his passion for trains, he knows the names of most instruments in the orchestra and can recognize them when he hears them play. When I asked him what he would like to play himself, he always answered "cello", so I looked it up and I found a group of Suzuki teachers in the area. The Suzuki method for teaching music to young children seemed to me playful enough that it would be ok to try for Appu and we are happy so far.

You should see him sitting on his little bench (on the spot marked by a little ladybug sticker) and hugging his cello. We are supposed to practice for five to ten minutes every day, so it is really a minimal change in our daily life so far. Appu is supposed to name his cello before the next lesson, but so far we have only established that he thinks the cello is a girl (and the little guitar that we store next to the cello is clearly a boy, he says). Any suggestions for the name?

Non si puo' fare una frittata...

2010-11-11T15:49:00.000-05:00

Mamma and Rajiv are looking at a book. There is a picture with some eggs.

Mamma - Look, eggs! And one is broken..
Rajiv - Yes! It's hatching! There is an omelet inside!

More about Halloween

2010-11-05T22:59:00.000-04:00

I'm typing this while eating some leftover Halloween chocolate. At least this year we had the good sense of buying mostly dark chocolate and no nonsense peanut butter stuff.

A short report of our Day of The Pumpkins:

Here are the two little ones ready to go out to the city Halloween event in the public square. The weather had been nice until the day before, but it was now freezing.

There were many activities for kids and Kalena chose to go for face painting first. Appu followed, of course. The face paint artist asked Appu what he wanted. He said he wanted red. As I was trying to negotiate something sensible out of it, the painter inexplicably suggested a spiderman makeup. Appu jumped on board and my protests were useless. However, he didn't enjoy the process quite as much as he thought he would and he decided to end it half way though, before the black webs could be drawn. Here is the result:

As soon as it was done Rajiv said: "I have to wash my face". Right.

After the face painting we had enough of the cold wind and we moved indoor to the nearby food store. A quick snack and then we are on the way home.

So our Halloween celebrations were not a great success, but aren't our little pumpkins adorable?

At home the boys took a bath and Rajiv washed his face. He was supposed to go trick or trick with his friends on our street, but he was happy to just wear his Spiderman pj's (it seemed appropriate) and wait for his friends in the warmth of his home. He was excited when they rang the bell, but he doesn't quite get the spirit of the thing and he was a little disappointed when day didn't come in to play and moved on to the next house instead.

Rajiv and Rohan decided to relax playing the piano for a little while and then they went to sleep. Read: they deafened their parents until we could no longer take it and had to drag them to their beds. But again, aren't they cute?

The day before Halloween special

2010-10-31T11:02:00.000-04:00

Sometimes I underestimate my little Appu. It didn't occur to me that he might have an opinion about his Halloween costume until last week, when I asked him and he surprised me by saying that he was going to be a pumpkin. I asked him what Rohan wanted to be and he said Rohan should be a small pumpkin. The very uncrafty mom that I am, I searched the local second hand listings and found two nice costumes just the right size. Appu was very happy to drive to pick them up and bring them home, but he didn't try on his costume until yesterday.

Today we expect to have more Halloween fun, but for the moment you can enjoy some snaps from the rehearsal.

A few pictures

2010-10-14T00:02:00.000-04:00

Appu dressed up for the birthday party of his friend Kalena, a couple of weeks ago.

And Rohan trying to be cute.

I have lots of pictures of the party as well, but I'm not sure the other parents want their kids on the net, so this is the only one I will show.

Little brothers sleeping in the stroller.

For something completely different, Rajiv skating on two building blocks in the living room.

Baby in a box.

And last but not least, we can only hope, mamma with glasses!

Words roundup

2010-10-05T11:46:00.000-04:00

Rohan is beginning to talk. He says "bye", mostly unprovoked. He also says "mamma" and "papa'", somewhat interchangeably, and he says something like "ta-ta" when he is offered milk and he wants to express his enthusiasm (in Italian "milk" is "latte".)
He says "ba" for "ball" and "wawa" for water. The word he uses most skillfully though is "NO!!", exclamation marks included. :)

Rajiv, in the meantime, is getting more articulate and I wish I kept a notebook with all of his noteworthy expressions.

A few recent favorites:

Mamma offers him some pasta with broccoli. The big chunk of broccoli have been of course removed, but a few offending green fragments are still sticking to the pasta. Appu looks at is sadly and then tries: "I want to wash it..."

"I want a new computer!" (wasn't this supposed to happen at least ten years from now?)

Papa': "Are you a baby?"
Appu (with the confidence of who has just spotted a trick question): "No, I am a girl!"

Appu: "Rohan is so cute"
Mamma: "He is, and Appu is cute too!"
Appu (smiling at the silliness): "No, I am big!"

(whithin a few seconds)
"I am sad... I am mad!! .. I'm all better" :)

A tale of three continents

2010-09-14T13:42:00.000-04:00

Un sacco di foto che documentano il nostro percorso dall'India verso il Canada a fine giugno.

...

I have some cute photos from our last days in India and then our stay in Brussels and Torino on the way to Canada. All of this happened about three months ago, but "better late than never" should be the official title of this blog.

But first, a disclaimer:

It might appear that Rajiv is always wearing the same clothes in these photos. In fact, he is. He has strong opinions about what looks good on him and purple or stripes are his favorite. However, we do wash his clothes, occasionally, if he allows it.

Here we go:

June 19th 2010 - dinner at Kuttamama's house

June 20th 2010 - Rohan's birthday party at Vanilla Place (these were mostly taken by Anu)

June 23rd - Brussels, Emiliano's home after a long long trip

June 24th 2010 - at the playground near my place in torino

September 30th - very early morning in Torino getting ready to catch our flight

June 30th - in Brussels with Emiliano again - some people very tired, some people not so much

And then the day after we left Europe and finally reached home here in Waterloo.

The end.

Appu fa le capriole sul letto

2010-08-26T23:11:00.000-04:00

E molto altro! E' passato piu' di un mese da quando il blog e' andato in vacanza e naturalmente ne sono successe di cose... I bimbi crescono e fanno passi da gigante. Il nostro piccolo Rajiv parla molto meglio adesso e ha un letto tutto suo in cui dorme con il suo papa' per buona parte della notte - solo verso mattina si trasferisce da mamma e Rohan nel lettone. E' un fan di Michael Jackson e della musica di Bollywood.
Rohan invece e' come un grosso orsacchiotto di pelouche, tutti lo trovano irresistibile. Sa indicare la luna sul suo libro della buonanotte quando mamma glielo chiede e riconosce molte altre parole. La parola "biscotto", in particolare, porta sempre un sorriso sul suo volto. Uno dei suoi passatempi preferiti e' abbracciare bambini a caso in biblioteca e al parco. Sorride quasi sempre e preferisce stare con il suo papa', pero' assomiglia di piu' alla mamma :)

Sane abitudini

2010-07-22T09:24:00.000-04:00

Ma niente paura, e' solo il secondo giorno :)

Here we are, all geared up for our evening run. See how I make it sound like it's an old family tradition? You would never guess we have done this for a grand total of... two days!

Back in Canada

2010-07-02T12:44:00.000-04:00

We came back yesterday. The trip was smooth. Some sarcastic genius at the airport looked at our six suitcases and commented "Traveling light, eh?", but his life was spared. Our house is looking good and Appu seems very happy to be here.

We went to see his school today morning and he ran right in. He seems to remember the place from last August - could it be? It was a short visit though, we will see how it goes on Monday when he starts for real.

Pictures from Ooty - Round 3

2010-06-11T15:04:00.000-04:00

Last batch of photos!

Ultime foto di Ooty!

The first group of photos is from a little family walk, only the four of us. We saw the train coming out of the tunnel down in the valley and that cheered up Rajiv who had woken up from his nap very pessimistic about life.

Le prime foto sono di una breve passeggiata con solo noi quattro. Con la partecipazione straordinaria del treno che esce dal tunnel! Ovviamente Appu era al settimo cielo.

Papa' is walking Rohan to sleep.

Papa' mette Rohan a dormire.

Bubbles early in the morning.

Bolle di sapone la mattina presto.

And then we run (literally) to have breakfast.

E poi di corsa a fare colazione.

Later, we ride on the little toy train - you have seen the video already.

Il trenino - quello del video.

Just before leaving: Appu with his "ouch" taking gardening lessons.

Appu e' caduto poco prima di partire. Per consolarlo, gentilmente il giardiniere gli ha fatto vedere come si innaffiano i fiori.

And to conclude, a couple of experimental shots with Rohan.

E per concludere, un paio di foto "artistiche" con Rohan, sempre disponibile a fare da modello.

Le ultimissime dal cantiere

2010-06-08T13:43:00.000-04:00

Interrompiamo la serie di foto di Ooty per mostrare qualche foto dei progressi nel nostro nuovo sudatissimo appartamento.

Construction site update.

The tile work is almost over. When we went yesterday two teams of layers where working on the tiny tiles of the bathroom floors (to prevent slipping, in case you are wondering).

La posa delle piccole piastrelline sul pavimento del bagno.

The balcony is done, except grouting.

Piastrelle del balcone.

The kitchen is mostly done too. In case you are wondering about the two colours, the white tiles will be covered by the cabinets and only the other ones will be visible. It looks better in real life, I promise.

La cucina. (Le piastrelle bianche saranno coperte dai mobili e rimarranno invisibili)

The main hall and the bedrooms are done as well, but they where covered with plastic sheets so I couldn't take pictures. The only glimpse you can get is in this photo below. And you will also notice that, even though the work is proceeding decently, someone is not happy... :)

Questa e' la camera dei bambini, le altre stanze purtroppo avevano il pavimento coperto per proteggerlo e quindi niente foto. Tra l'altro, per la precisione, l'altra persona nella foto e' un collega, non un piastrellista. :)

Pictures from Ooty - Round 2

2010-06-07T14:13:00.000-04:00

Sunday trip to the park:

Then Monday is B-day. We start the day blowing bubbles in front of the hotel (What a view!). After cake and breakfast Rajiv and Jayadev open their presents: matching sunglasses! Then we are off to the botanical garden.

Pictures from Ooty - Round 1

2010-06-06T11:18:00.000-04:00

Prima parte delle foto della gita a Ooty di qualche settimana fa.

Ooty is a lovely place with very unusual sights for South India, so after so many months in Chennai it was a welcome break. I took more than three hundred pictures in four days, but no worries: you don't have to see them all. Still, even trying to choose my favorites, I have too many to feed you at one go, so here is the first batch. The rest will follow soon.

The first few photos were taken on the way there. We stopped so that I could take some pictures of the eucalyptus forest and the kids welcomed the opportunity to take a few steps out of the car.

We bought carrots on the way. Apparently these hills are, among other things, the carrot kingdom.

That same day in the afternoon S. and I and the kids went for a walk to meet some relatives who run a school there. Rajiv and Jayadev had a blast together and they walked a very long distance without complaining too much.

When we made it back achamma and Rohan where waiting for us at the gate of the hotel.

To be continued...

It's a new life

2010-06-02T13:55:00.000-04:00

Mysterious title, I know. What I mean is that finally my two little boys are beginning to play together and I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. This is what I had two children for, so that we could have a lot of fun all together. Mind, Rajiv still tries his wrestling moves on Rohan at every chance he gets, but he also asks Rohan to hide with him under the green blanket and sometimes takes his hand and pulls him behind him to join some game. Mixed results so far, but we had a few very nice early morning hours the three of us together and I am very optimistic at the moment. So much that the thought of baby #3 is creeping into a dark corner of my mind - where it will probably remain, no worries :)

Videos from Ooty

2010-05-28T02:09:00.000-04:00

I have uploaded a few more videos. If you missed the birthday video though, I recommend you watch that first.

Here we go. The first video was taken during the car ride to Ooty. We started out on the wrong foot, with Appu being sick and throwing up, but then he had lots of fun with Jayadev and papa' on the front seat. Every time they saw a sign with a trumpet they would scream "trumpet!!" and Viju chicha had to honk. Otherwise they would scream "Look ooooout!". And we saw lots of monkeys and humongous bamboo trees, none of which unfortunately made it into the video. (Lots of fun, but overall I still wish that all children had been in a car seat. Especially on that kind of road.)

Next, Rohan in the park. By the way, he could already walk quite decently at the time, but not for the camera. He could also clap, but again not for the camera - he keeps missing, as you will see, because "Batti batti le manine" is the most exciting nursery rhyme ever and he just can't contain his enthusiasm. :)

By the way, don't you love how he shakes his head? I know you do and more to the point he knows it too!

Next video: Rajiv and Jayadev loving each other to pieces.

Last but certainly not least, the toy train! There is this little train in Ooty that gives ten minute rides to children and willing adults. The approach to the train is not very inviting, but the ride itself is q lot of fun. Look out for the tunnel... UAAAAAAAAH!

A little update from the construction site

2010-05-21T02:13:00.000-04:00

The work is stressfully going on. Will it be finished before we leave? It seems highly unlikely, but no panic yet.

This is what the site looks like at the moment.

Our flat is on the 11th floor so we had to go up with a scary construction lift. (I would have happily walked up, by the way, but nobody else shared my feelings.)

I took a few photos from the windows of the flat, so you can get an idea of what the view is going to be like.

I like dry landscapes, so this is fine, provided they don't build anuthing horrendous right in front of us in the coming years. The flat across from ours has a much better view, but I kind of remember it not being available when we picked ours, so no recriminations.

The buildings are being painted and it makes a big difference. Look.

Last week:

Yesterday:

This was our flat last week, before the workers started laying the tiles. Now it is much more messy, with piles of sand taking over the space.

(Yes, there is somebody taking a nap on the floor in the first picture.)

These are the first tiles on the wall in the bathrooms. We went with brick stile in two of them and larger tiles in the third one, but the color is always the same. We are very boring. But classy :)

We are still trying to decide what to do with the wash area. Large corner mirror? Small mirror and lots of blue tiles? Not sure...

In the meantime the most urgent concern is about the kitchen. I don't even want to tsart telling you about the amount of anxiety that it has caused us, but we seem to see the end of the ordeal at this point. We had to accept some compromises, but the kitchen tiles will be laid next week and hopefully the kitchen will be in place just before we go back to Canada.

Lots of hard work... :)

Il taglio della torta

2010-05-20T09:27:00.000-04:00

(in albergo in montagna)

B-day!

2010-05-17T08:55:00.000-04:00

Little Rajiv is now a little three year old boy. At the moment we are in Ooty with very little access to the net, so details and pictures will have to wait. Many thanks to all those who have send happy birthday emails and see you all later!

Il piccolo Appu ha tre anni! Purtroppo non posso scrivere molto oggi perche' siamo in un posto in montagna con accesso alla rete molto limitato, ma ci saranno molte foto e video da mercoledi' in poi, promesso. Grazie mille a tutti quelli che hanno mandato gli auguri a Rajiv, mi ha fatto molto piacere (Rajiv non coglie tutti i dettagli ma e' contentone in generale :) ).

1,2,3... jump!

2010-05-12T03:04:00.000-04:00