Quotable quotes

Nikitha never ceases to amaze us - Now that she is three, her vocabulary is growing exponentially, specially English. She manages to understand and converse in konkani, our native language-but English seems to be her forte.
Here are a list of sentences she has said that's amused and surprised us

• "It's a choice I make" when asked why she wants to wear a particular dress.
• "You learn by repetition" - our guess is that she picked this up at school from her teacher.
• "You got to put it in the right order" - a 3 year old tells us about the 'things in order'
• "I am going to bless you" she says- pauses and then sneezes herself-so much for hearing 'bless you' on sneezes.
• "Is she real princess?" when she saw my friend Marisa walk past the aisle on her wedding.
• "He is a man" when asked who the familiar friend in the picture was-she couldn't recollect his name.
  

Swathi

Circle of Life

Here's an amazing video of wildlife- one of the best I have ever seen. It shows true meaning of love, unity and revenge. It was taken by a safari group at Kruger park, South Africa. It is a long video, but worth a wait.

Enjoy
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LU8DDYz68kM


Swathi

Digital Scrapbooking
Yes- that's my latest addiction!! Most of my friends here know about my liking for scrap booking.
And now I am all into digital scrap booking in spite of what scrap booking pundits have to say about it. Being a working mom of a two-year old, i have been finding it really hard to find time to do the traditional scrapbooking. It takes up so much of space, not to mention the clutter that gets created by it. Enter digital world, none of this except for your creative juices.
It took me about 4 hours to create a 20 page storybook on our Hawaii trip. It is incredibly fast.
Also, there is no end to imagination when it comes to technology. I have read addiction to creating scrapbook quilts!!!
I am still a novice at digital scrapbooking, will write more about software/websites/great deals that offer digital scrapbooking as I discover them.
Till then, friends, don't rule it out- doesn't hurt to give it a try!!!

Milestones, Baby Einstein and more...
Social, Congnitive, Emotional, Gross and Fine motor skills development - sounds familiar??? then you are a parent of newborns/toddlers/kids or you have probably heard/read this often enough thanks to marketing guys of the toy world. According to Fisher Price, their simple stack of rings for a 6 month old is supposed "to stimulate baby's visual senses, strength the sense of touch, aid in learning the concept of sizes and colors and fosters baby's problem-solving skills"(and to think of it, it is for a six month old baby).The more elementary the toy, more grandoise is its "claimer". That makes me wonder how many parents get impressed by this mumbo-jumbo and apparently it is the whole new generation of parents. Parents seem to buy only "value-added toys". The most popular brand seems to be Baby Einstein whose every book and video come in different languages - parents of Baby Einstein clan assume their lil ones will be multi-lingual (in French, Spanish and Swahili) by age of three. It is fasicnating to read the forums for parents of newborns and toddlers. Some of them write about the accomplishments of their lil ones with so much pride that it is unbelieavable. Those super parents cant bear the thoughts of their obviously exceptional kid to waste breath on any activity that wont help them achieve anything spectacular.
We have been asked numerous times as to which pre-school does our 22 month old daugther go to (especially since we both are working). And when we reply negatively, we are advised about the importance of social interaction and development in a supervised school environment.
- School for a kid who is not even two ? come' on - isin't this an age where they are supposed to enjoy themselves? The gymnastics class that Nikitha goes to for simple plesures of jumping and running around has hi-fi goals of "building confidence and blah blah" and at end of each session, they are presented with certificate and medal in Olymics style (and just for clarification, it is same for all the kids, there is no competition). And you can see the parents gleam with pride while the lil ones think that medal is just another toy to play with.
Why do parents want their kids to be over-achievers? May be we are trying to justify ourselves of our actions. Maybe when they are playing with the toys, we want to know that we are doing something grander than just keeping them occupied with toys while we do our work. And since child-rearing is all about playing the same games, singing same songs and telling them the same things hundreds of times that parents like to think that trivial activities serve a higher calling. Maybe...

Swathi

All in a Name
Recently, one of our friends delivered a girl whom they named as 'Anvitha'. The interesting part about this rare name is that it has got two flavors : One is the Indian name ie 'Naga Anvitha' and the other being the American counterpart("Anvitha Naga") to follow the "First Name, Middle Name, Last Name" concept. That got me wondering as how we all Indians here in US attempt to look for names that gives global(read as 'American') prespective while still retaining the "Indianness". We strive for Indian names that are easily pronounced and spelled same across languages , those that are no more than 3 or 4 syllables, no tongue-twisters or have meanings that could be made fun of.
I never realized the significance of it (when we were looking for names for our lil one) until my cousin, who happens to be an ABCD/second generation immigrant in US, informed us about how some of the Asians in his High School were ridiculed for their names . He even cautioned us to 'google' the name and check out its nick names on websites. For instance, name 'Kshitij' - it has a beautiful meaning in Hindi (Horizon) and yet in English, it is shortened for 'shitti, shit' so on and so forth.
Gone are the days when when you could tell the origin of the person by the name in India. It was typical to have south indian names with the likes of 'Shrinivas, Venkat, Vijay, Bhanu' , Gujrathis would go by the 'esh' - 'Jignesh, Urvesh, Jayesh' while Punjabis loved the 'inders' - jaswinder, manninder, parminder, sukhwinder :-) And of course, there is also this concept of nick names or pet names (really???) like some people say. Funniest are those amongst Bengalis - Jomblu, Piklu, Gumblu, and the famous Gogul (from The Namesake!!).
Our Chinese counterparts are not as lucky as us to have names that could be easily pronounced in English. Other day, there was a chinese candidtate for an interview at my company whose name was 'Yayue Li' which is pronounced as "Yaa -Yuuu- Yiii Li". All of us who were scheduled to interview her spent considerable amount of time practicing her name before we met her!!!. One of our Chinese friends are expecting a baby and they tried explaining us about their dilemma of finding a Chinese name. Apparently, it is almost impossible to find one that could be spelled and pronounced correctly in English. And hence most of them adopt a methodology of having an American first name and a Chinese middle name.
Coming back to Indian names, there is no doubt that names of our lil ones will also be shortened and Americanized (Of course, if they decide to stay in Amrica) - Nikitha will become Niki, Anvitha may become Ann, Krishna to Krish etc.
So really what's in a name?

Swathi

Month Of July
Here are some assorted pictures from July. I have created a separate album for Nikitha and Anna Mae-Anna Mae had come and spent a week with Nikitha and Nanny when her baby sitter had gone on vacation. At the end, both became really good friends (so much for the saying by the researchers that toddlers really dont care about other kids, they dont make friends that early). It was good fun watching the two eat, sleep, play and fight together. Here are some pictures and a video.

Ode to Bombayites
The bomb blasts this week in Mumbai was such an awful and horrible thing that happened , Our heart goes out to all those families of victims injured or suffered casualities.
We feared and worried for all our wonderful friends who are living there - it was indeed relieving to know all are safe and good.
Going down the memory lane, I still remember when I had first met a Bombayite/Mumbaikar/Bambai-wali : Rashmi who not only ended up being my roomate for four years in hostel but one of the best friends I have. She was no where close to what I had imagined a Bombayite to be, but you know what they say about 'assumptions'.
Theree is something unique about bombayites - they are all so different and yet have this common "bombayness" (i know there is no such word) in them and here's a prespective from a Hyderabadi .
First and foremost none of them like to be called 'South Indians" - some of them even get offended when you say that. And of course, they are not northies and there is no such thing as western indians ... but guess they like to stand out as Bombayites. It is one unique place which has its own distinct language that is spoken no where else : a mix of Hindi, English, Marathi and Gujrathi which of course, they call Hindi (or Bambia Hindi).. a vernacular that you dont hear or speak elsewhere in country. Hearing "Apun, Faltu, Dimaag ka Dahi, Khandaa, Bheja, Bus kya, Bole tho, Atrangi, Tapri "...'so often from friends that we have ended up adapting in our language (konklish :-)). Some of these words are such an integral part of their language that you get those looks of "Dont you know Hindi?" types when you ask for the meaning. Talking about unique language, they also have a distinct weather- like someone rightly said, it has got only two seasons - Wet and Sweat. (I remember, during our last trip, they were complaining that it was too hot and were waiting for rains, and finally when it did rain a lot, they got tired of it and wanted the sun back :-))
It will be incomplete if I dont mention their food - specially the ones that food that's originated and modified in Bombay - Vadaa paav for instance. Also, variations like frankies (which is nothing but sabji rolled into a chapati), cheesy pav baaji (huh!!!) and so on....Apparently they now sell "non-veg vadaa paav" Hmmm...
What amazes us is that friends that we have known actually come from different parts of the country ( rather than being obviously Mahrastrian) - Rajasthanis (Bansal), Punjabis (Dhawans, Sharmas), Tambis (Krishan , Prashant, Srini) , Bawas(Bhagwagars) , Konks (family, of course!!!), Gujrathis (Shahs and Patels) - Well actually we do know a few Marathis, but just a handful few (Saie, Rupa, Manoj aka Sandeep).
To end it on a feel-good factor- they are indeed wonderful, fun-loving people.
Hope this blast was a ONE nightmare and is just last of its kind.
Then again we know that bombayites have a heart bigger than their city !