It is, in fact, a horse

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" :)

Un anno fa

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.

Chicha's wedding

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.

I got it!

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. :)

Photo Album - Rohan and Rajiv in India

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 :)

Click!

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.

Trip to the Vandalur zoo

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

Archaeology for beginners

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

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 building a house

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!

A tale of three continents

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.