Sunday morning: bike and flip flops

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.

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" :)

Hello papa'

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

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.

PLOP!

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.

Preschool physics: experiments with magnets

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 :)

Before the Zambonis

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

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:

1. The kids really don't know the difference
   
2. If we want to keep collecting the Thomas Wooden Railway we have to save money somewhere -- even if just symbolically
   
3. 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.

Vigilia di Pasqua col sole

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.

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

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?

Papa' is The Greatest Dad

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 :)

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

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.

Butterflies

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!

Sunday morning with papa' - (and not)

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.

Long weekend

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

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!

The day before Halloween special

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.

Videos from Ooty

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!

Il taglio della torta

(in albergo in montagna)