Dinner and a movie

On Sunday night we went on a date with Appu. We took him to our currently favorite restaurant here in Calicut for a speedy dinner - while his little sister napped under achamma's careful watch. Rohan opted to stay home to watch his favorite Thomas movie instead and for once we thought, why not, if everyone is happy.

So it was just the three of us and it really is nice to spend a little time one on one with our big boy - he is already five years old!! When the waiter poured water in his glass he said "Thank you" and I told him "That was very polite, Appu, good job!". His comment was "I've never been polite in a restaurant before". So now he can tick that off his list :)

This is us in front of the steaming hot tagliatelle with cheesy pesto. Too bad I don't have a snap of the french soup in a bread bowl, I really must go back to document that, as soon as possible.

No, grazie

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.

******* 4! *******

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!

Sono un genio..

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.

It's all about timing

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 :)

The great potato rainfall of 2011

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?!?

Bed time is a tough time

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.

Sunday morning tradition

Appu loves idlys, so we only eat idlys for breakfast, every day. On Sunday, when the lady who comes to cook in the morning takes her deserved day off, we go to have idlys at Murugan Idly Shop in Besant Nagar, near the daycare. We sometimes go during the week as well, for an early dinnerish snack after picking up the kids. It is one of our favorite places in Chennai and surely the cheapest of our favorite places, which helps, but most importantly it is Appu's most favorite restaurant on the planet.

Here is what happens every Sunday morning. We leave the house with a tired and cranky little boy who doesn't know he is very hungry.


Murugan is often full and we wait for a while to get a table. Sometimes Appu just runs around, sometimes he waits in papa's arms, like this time.




Then we sit, Appu gets his own banana leaf of which he is very proud, and we order our idlys. Appu just can't understand while the waiters keep giving idlys to other people and don't come straight to us, by the way; it is a difficult concept I sometimes struggle with myself.






Hooray! Now we need sambaar. And we need mamma to break the first idly into small pieces, because they are very very hot (YUM!).




That's it. Then Appu will eat, all by himself, two or three idlys. Last Sunday a record of almost four! He sits the whole time, carefully dips his idly in the sambaar, asks for more whenever the waiter is around because you never know if you are going to see him again, and every now and then goes to wash his hands, which is a lot of fun.