We are all poets …. and we did not know it!

Little did I know that my creative juices would flow so much later in life. I thought I was creatively challenged! Well not any more … the fruits and seasons bring out the best in us 🙂

Summer – My favourite season for the little Kabir (Ukg)

Summer is messy

Summer is fun

Summer is spending all day in the sun

Summer is about vacations and sand castles at the beach,

Summer is the only time I’m allowed to screech!

Summer is eating mangoes all day long

Summer is ending the day with a lovely song

Summer is the best time with family and my friends

Here’s hoping my favourite season never ends

 

Apple – My favourite fruit for the little Ananya (Tod A) 

Two little apples, hanging in the tree

One fell down and came to me

Mamma called the doctor and the doctor said,

Eating apples is good for health!

 

Around the house

The house is buzzing with words now that Diyu is also talking nineteen to a dozen… I got up today and realized that I may just not remember the most precious things they’re saying and making our lives full. So here’s for my glossary in the future

1) Pannu to me ” Mamma you know love never ends…. its only begins.”

Heart melted, tear in the eye emerged and a tight hug followed. My gentle soul will steal hearts for sure

2) Diyu with her constant ” laggaaa…”

Knowing her is knowing that she is doing things beyond her age and with that along side having an elder brother, ensures that is no dearth of adventure along with the number of times she hurts herself yet relentlessly keeps going. Perseverance has another name – Diyu!

3) ” 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10…. There 10 mins over! “

This was to our advantage sometime back when we wanted to get things done, but many times its started to backfire and we had to disclose real time to Panu. Hmmm… some things just don’t last to our advantage ever!

4) “Asthakala pani ma” means love mamma

“Yes, my pushtakala pani ma” is the only suitable and most understood response. 

5) Among all of this, there is the not so occasional….. “Bad girl and  Bad Boy” also 

6) “Please…..?” If we ever forgot to add the golden words, constable Kabir is there to remind us and we realise that maybe it did a too good a job! 

🙂 

The tooth thingy

We had a significant event – the little man pulled out his first tooth. Yes, he had to do it with no other than the very first. Me at office, father at home and that was probably the only day when it was decided that he will not be sent to school ….simply! Little did we know that would lead to maybe some boredom and of course a significant step much in advance than its natural time to strike! 

Me entering a meeting, getting a message from the paranoid and sometimes alarming father that “Panu pulled out his tooth, half tooth is still inside and there is alot of bleeding!” Well that did it and I rushed to see my lil champ and his grandmother with visibility paranoid father waiting in the parking and no blood anywhere! Thankfully nothing was left behind, he did a good job in all things destructive so this is so exception.

All’s well that ends well…. right 🙂 Can’t imagine how Diyu is going to treat us knowing how she pushes her own envelope! Lord bless us.

Cut to second one – “Bridget yeh jo hum kha raha hai bahut hard hai. Chew nahi ho raha hai…. ” Our man was chewing on his own tooth 🙂

I guess we just need to get ready for a different story with each tooth ? Oh help us Lord 🙂

As time passes by…

It’s been a while, a long long while and much has happened. Our world has changed, bettered, expanded and so much more. Ananya is in our lives for what feels like a long time. She entered and made us parents again. Made us better parents! It’s hard to describe how things have become so much more deeper and with so much more meaning with these little feet entering lives. Kabir has changed, he is a big, sometimes responsible brother, but brother nonetheless. I have a full house now, with noise that’s so sweet that sometimes oh, sometimes silences would be great. Our being feels together, with more purpose and clarity that I now understand what it is to let go…. 

Letting go……….yet feeling secure is how I can summarize the last 1.5 years or so. Its an awakening of sorts, sometimes rocky but most times easy. When I look back and think of how our lives have evolved, it simply makes me take a beautiful, contended breadth and just smile with a feeling of comfortably “being”. 

And now, I have updates, many many updates that probably won’t be written down in this one session but they are all in head. They need this space to capture for my fading memory as I want to feel that sense of nostalgia with a smile again. 

Panu’s 4th birthday and a significant welcome gathering

Our little baby – all set for the party

For our “Betu” on his special day with glimpses below of what turned out to a disaster of a cake, a lovely gathering, and us – as always! 

 

And today….

with more to come 🙂 

Questions with self…

Our lives are busy, and I guess they always will be as the only thing constant is change – change will bring about new additions, aspects, perspectives, just life… I often ask myself – can I do more? am I enough – enough as a mother, as a wife, as a professional, as a woman, as a daughter, a friend, as so many more things… many a times the answer is no! I wonder is this me or my inadequacies, or simply my zeal to be the best at whatever I am doing? Many questions, no answers as I know deep down inside me I believe I do my best but is probably never enough… this never enough is sometimes a propeller for me to do more. What I need to do to not try and kill myself in the bargain (not literally!) is to find that balance between my expectations of myself vs. others expectations of my, as I know I expect more from myself than others off me. That balance or voice in me has to keep telling me to slow down, not assume, ask, clarify, reserve for self and then move ahead.

I am blessed with a life I love, with people who adore me, protect me, care unconditionally – many don’t have what I have. Hanu often tells me to just be. I am learning to just be…

Big school and many big changes…

I have been away a very long time… too long and have missed out writing on so many things that have happened. I really sometimes wonder why I just fall off the radar when this gives me so much joy and peace! Well, let bygones be bygones…

Many a things have happened, the new year started (! – yes been away for half already!), houses changed and yup, the BIGGEST of it all… our little man is not little any more, he is part of BIG school. He started two months back and boy were we anxious (!) but he has turned a new leaf, all thanks for Green Pocket. That experience has changed my little boy into a little brave boy ready to take on new experiences, explore, be comfortable in his own skin and last but not least given his hyped parents the calmness we so needed! Thank you Green Pocket, if only we can send him back and then back again.

Now coming back to big school – I still shake myself a bit or more like pinch myself when I find him getting up early (7 am) so that he can catch the school bus!  That’s his incentive… touch wood. He is loving it there (again, touch wood) and I feel it is like an extension of Green Pocket which means my little boy is ready to take on new experiences, have fun, come home and share it with his fan club and so on.

Life has changed but it is all worth it. We moved into a new home which is suiting us. Families have extended for the better and life seems like it always has been… “Happy Happy face” … can’t ask for more.

 

Developments….

An old post.. but publishing it 🙂 An updated posted coming up soon.

We’re taking a drive on the “long drive” road and for a change, I am driving. Panu is sitting in Hanu’s lap to the delight and joy of the latter. Stuck to each other, Hanu lovingly tells his son “Sleep next to betu today, please..”, our little man accepts to the joy of the papa! Cut an hour later and its actually time to deliver on the promise, he crawls right next to me not willing to leave my side. Hanu asks him “but you promised na you will sleep with betu”. To which, the small smartie replied “You said, not me!” Wow! Where did that come from… right?! And when we ask him “what did Panu say?”, he says… “Nothing!”. Hmmm… have we already reached the stage where our little man is defending himself! Time to wake up and realize that these days will never come back. Joyride continues…

Panu has become quite the dancer I must say. I sure hope he learns partner dances better than his dad, coz really that does score with the gurls! I will entrust this to his crazy nani who taught me the little dancing i.e. partner ones I know.  Anyways, so he nowadays shakes his bum quite well, does the rolley polley (someone has to insert a video here, can not describe, but I know I will know it forever!), does the twist at times, loves to twirl…. and so much more. He is talking like a book, to the extent of telling me, “mama, you go to office and come back soon… okay 5 mins, ok”,  to which my heart pains and sometimes skips a beat! Well… I am sure there will be many more moments when I will have this same feeling again.

Another big thing that has happened it BIG school is finalized. We both think it is a school that will take care of him as we do. Now that is saying alot… He will flourish there and get exposed to many thing. I can’t wait to be a part of this journey again, just hope my art and craft skills get better on the way… else I can smell many a disaster in the near and future…

Until words find me again…

I find my self struggling to write nowadays! It is not as if things are not happening, or there are new things we experience and I should keep… it is all of this, yet, I am struggling… So I leave myself pictures and notes on them which I don’t want my fading memory to forget. Until words find me again…. There is a new craze in this house… or may I say, there are two new crazes – golf (which I don’t have a picture off) and grilling.  I happened to gift Hanu a grill on our anniversary and trust me, nothing takes over our weekend than getting the fish/prawn/chicken ready and marinated, the fire burning with camphor, petrol, coal, paper, wood…(so we get the picture) and ready to grill. As I write this, my entire family has gone our on a rainy Sunday evening in search of coal. So you see, anything that is done is either done in totality or not at all… This one is in totality. But hey, who is complaining, I get the most awesome grills every weekend in the comfort of my own home.  Now coming to Golf. Its Hanu alone. The man has passion for everything he does. Something I admire and lack in myself. So we have two golf sets at home, shoes to match, caps to match and many balls along with rungs that have almost become tatters in the house. Why? Because our man likes to practice. I am sure to write more about it in the future. Just to add the awww factor: Panu to his betu “Betu, you no place the golf course!” Translated to normal language “Papa, stop practicing at home with your golf stick” Happy 6th Anniversary to us! There is a reason why I have put this particular picture. Its us and only us! But when we are there he can’t be far away…. right! He is there somewhere in the background. Represented by his dahi chawal, which we obviously have done a lousy job to finish and given up after trying the nth time. Its a moment we take for ourselves, without being his parents, but being what ever we are for each other. It is needless to say, that it has been an amazing 11 years together. As time passes by and I look through old snaps, and the newer ones, I notice that this hasn’t changed. the glee in our eyes, the togetherness, the love, the warmth… it is still US, as it always will be. (With the little ones around!) My Ma! The one constant always… There are no words for her, except, I love the way she radiates in everything she does.  The perfect harmony.  Have a hap, hap, happy diwali! May good luck and cheer be yours all the year!  The edited version customized by nanta for panu took a life of itself! It is a beautiful adaptation. 

I guess words did find me… after all with a little help!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Pictures say a thousand words…

I’ve been meaning to write  about this trip for a long time and haven’t really. It was an experience that I feel cannot really be translated but only felt… here it is!

One more reason that reinforces our choice that the best possible way to travel is always by road (even with what happened after this!)… when else will you look out of the window not knowing what to expect! And there it is…. sunflowers everywhere… looking for the sun to rise again. This was the first time we saw so many of them.. a good beginning for my small sweetheart!

Where else in the world would we find a motorcycle taxi stand! Now that’s why we want to retire in Goa! Need we give any more reasons…

It is blessings in these forms that are so missed!  My panu’s nanis… and our mommies.

The most lovely boy in the whole wide world. I wish my panu becomes my hanu. BTW, we loved the bhutta and the drive.

Yeh galiya…. want to go back. Magical Goa!

All that I need… my boys and the beach! Yes, I have converted to a beach person…

What fun! And of course he is the centre of every bit of it.

This is the first photograph that has my Panu look straight into the camera and gave a big big smile! Wah!

It is the same feeling… 🙂

The craziness skipped a generation 🙂 The mad nanta and her pakpak!

Pals for 30+ years!

Titos at Baga Beach. Baga beach was by far Panu’s favourite. It actually enticed us enough to extend an extra day.. Worth it!

(Missing my pose here with the perpetual spoon)

We want him to be always like this… carefree! While mamma and papa are somewhere in the background overseeing everything to make this feeling possible.

Until next time Goa…

 

Am I paranoid!

Of course I am and I will tell myself why! My little genius’ teacher some days back told me that he does’t really mingle too much. Now that is a contrast to the constant hugging, saying “hi”, giving hi 5 to any and everyone. So I came home, discussed this to death, thought what am I doing wrong…. etc. So yes, I am paranoid, when I should simply let it be and allow him to find his groove. My wonderful husband told me that he is actually exactly like his mommy! Yes, if I reflect, he is. I too tend to shut my mouth in public, keep opinions to myself (though I always have one), basically not strike when the iron is hot! Yet, when I am with people who are mine  I am so at ease, a chatterbug…. so it was so interesting that I didn’t see myself in my little one, even though we share the same sun sign. I think it will always take Hanu to bunch us together and decode us because he I knows me better than I know myself…. obviously!

So I retracted from my paranoia. And what have we…. our little fella came third in some contest (which I think they shouldn’t name as a contest in the first place) where he had to name birds. I know he knows all of them because he is either singing them the whole day or reciting something around animals… but I was most surprised that he actually stood in front of all and spoke what he does best! Now you would think I would be happy, that he has broken out of his shell and is at ease… Well now my paranoia shifts to me not taking this so seriously that I fall into a trap of being a competitive parent. So I am constantly telling myself that no, this is not good, I should let it be, its not a big deal. While another side of my head is telling me  woa my lil one’s first independent test and he did so well! Me a proud mamma.  

I am sure the saga in my brain will continue because it is in my DNA…. all the best my boys!