Daddy world

The second week of June is the most anticipated week for me. 

It involves three things..

1. Kids graduation from school.. or like we used to say when we were kids "last day of school"!

2. Father's day

3. Our wedding anniversary

We did the last day of school on Wednesday and it was special this year because Jr. finished Elementary school and moves to middle school next year.

This also marks a huge gap when the two girls will be in the same school. In the US we have 6th to 8th grade as Middle school and 9th to 12th grade as high school. In three years when the little one goes to middle school, Jr. will already be moving out of that school to high school. 

The last year of school for Jr. will be the next time they are both in same school and that is 6 years away. So we are back to two pickups, two drop offs and different school timings etc. Our hope is that Jr. becomes more responsible and starts walking or biking to middle school! 

Now.. Father's day is always nice. My kids give me the extra huggies and kissies and this year I already have my gifts. The school has a limit to creativity (and budget) for the father's day gifts. So guess what the little one gave me?

Same Frog! well, it does not seem to have any storage value given the small mouth but the little one tells me it is a paperclip holder.. Well, now my office will have two frog paperclip holders! Funny thing is I wont know who made what because they both have the same initials and they both were in Room 12 for 2nd Grade! 

(Note for posterity : one on left is Little One, right is Jr's)

They also make me nice cards which really make my day! This year they put a lot of effort into it and was really happy to read /see what they gave me..

I did not get the boat and the caption first..

till she told me that I had to flip the flags over to see which my "Jobs" were!

As you can clearly see, my jobs are all non critical functions which involve the fishes and plants. In other words, I am a "Uppukku chappani" or the twelveth man in a cricket team. Nevertheless, yours truly is happy to play any role as part of the crew! 

The letter was clear but "What in Perumal's name is a woodly?" I asked and the reply was :

Daddy, I really wanted to say "you are cuddly like my cuddle bear, but what can I do?! There is no C in AWESOME! so I changed the W to say Woodly instead of Cuddly!" .  While the concept is baffling to me, the way she said it in all seriousness with her hands waving wildly will stay in my mind forever. 

Next was Jr's turn and she gave me this nice heart and card to put in my office! 

She painstakingly created the logos for the Yoga studio, my work etc and put them there. The cartoon of me on a yoga mat with a small water bottle cracked me up! 

They have both promised to behave their best tomorrow to celebrate Father's day.. will hold them to it, given yesterday evening and most of today was a blur with yet another migraine. Feeling good now after all that sleep. Daddy day promises to be interesting!

As for the third thing that makes our week, we have our Aussie relatives visiting us and it has been a blast! So we celebrate with a larger family this year!

Here is a video of me dancing with the little one and her cousin at a local restaurant.. 

It is just great to see the kids happy! 

We have now crossed two 7 year itches and still "itching for each other".. so that must be a good thing! There are no secret presents planned for San this year.  When the whole NSA Prism scandal came out, I realized that San knows every little move I make.. she has all the passwords for the credit cards, amazon, ATT sites etc. and I have none. No wonder I can never surprise her with anything!  

Maybe I will handcraft her a card that says "You are my NSA and I still love you!"

Happy Father's day to all the dads out there!

Celebration weekend...

Thirteen years ago, this day saw a major turning point in our life. Got married to a girl I had just met!

While every astrologer worth his salt in south India had predicted that San and me will live a happy life for a long time to come and our parents were so sure of the future, we did not know what the future held for us. At least we had an open mind to things being unpredictable.

So far, it has been an interesting 13 years. We have grown to accept each other over time and yes, cannot imagine anyone else having the ability to put up with me the way she does. She was definitely given some special skills just to deal with me and we are destined to be together or at least that is what it feels like!

We usually do three things on our anniversary if we are here at home. A visit to the temple, lunch or dinner at Chat House in Sunnyvale and ice cream at Ghirardeli square in SFO and a visit to the golden gate vista point.

Today we started off with the temple visit but plans changed. It was a 107 degrees in Livermore and by the time we walked barefoot into the temple from the parking lot the oldies and the kids had a tough time recovering from the heat. So we took it easy, cancelled the ice cream trip and decided to eat closer to home as well.

With age comes some realizations and flexibility.

Tomorrow is fathers day. So to all the dads out there who are about to be suprised by their kids with trinkets, I wish you the ability to smile and rejoice at the gift. To the others, happy fathers day. This year my dad is with me and that is our gift. I am not big on the whole special days for different relatives thing. At the most it shows you how the world has moved to having one day at least in a year where you have to try something special for a certain relative when you should be doing that everyday anyways!

If my kids can promise to behave on fathers day, why not every day? One can always hope!

The little one was moping today because apparently she had made a special card for me and mom had thrown it in the garbage without realizing it was for me! Told her that the best fathers day gift for me is a kiss from my two girls. If not for them, I would not be a father, would I?

That logic seemed to work with her and she cheered up. My own gift this year for this weekend?

Varupayaru! "What the ?" is what is going through your mind. Will explain...

When we went to Seattle recently for the BIL/SIL's baby shower, as part of the ceremony they gave us all this snack which was mixed dry-roasted grains. It is a tradition and it is a good source of protein for the pregnant woman (and guessing if it is good for her it is good for everyone!).

It has nine grains in it. Tried to find out recipes for this and finally had to reach out to older relatives to get the recipe.

San was initially not for my cooking experiement with soaking grains, drying them and roasting them etc. because she thought this would be one huge waste of expensive raw material.. but she relented.

So here we are at step 2. The grains were all soaked in different vessels and now are nicely drying out on bounty towels. Tomorrow..... Roasting time!

Will let you know how it comes out. . .

Happy Fathers day to all who celebrate it. The rest of you who think every day should be fathers day.. well, dream on!

A year of Yoga...

It was this week, last year that the MIL and myself entered the Bikram Yoga studio in San Jose to sign up for a "10 days for $20" trial deal.

The logic?

We either survive the first 10 days in which case we continue or we spent 20 bucks to find out that this stuff is not for us!

5 days in and we were hooked for not one or two, but a whole host of reasons to the point where we were thinking "Why did we not try this before?"

A year has rolled by and

- I weigh close to 140 lbs now. A weight that was last recorded in early 2002 when I was still exercising, could do a Cha-Cha-Cha on a dance floor with effortless ease and had a stomach like a wolf! Cutting back from 157 lbs, this is a welcome change.

- Have had 4 sick days in the last year since starting Yoga. Mostly due to extraneous causes like inhaling strong chemicals, getting things stuck in my teeth etc.. The body's resistance to germs that the kids or sick co-workers bring has improved significantly. There were almost a dozen sickness events per year in the previous 6 years (specially since the little one was born)

- My ability to stay calm at work in situations where yours truly used to turn red in the ears and openly express instant displeasure at the state of affairs and earned a nickname "The General" has also improved significantly. Can control my head much better these days. Can be the voice of reason and calm now. Also listen more and talk less. Something that every manager has to work hard to do.. which happens to be a side effect of doing yoga. That is a "Win Win", no?!

Last but not least, wife has a "headache" and that means no hanky panky? No big deal. Go sit in the lotus pose, meditate and sleep like a baby! This used to bother me as well, but not anymore. There is a willingness in the head, across the day, to work with the cards you are dealt with and make the most of it.

The kids came to the "Kids Yoga Class" yesterday and Jr. did very well. The little one just lay on the mat and watched others for the last half hour but given her age and attention span, it will take some time for her to get used to this (don't want to force anything on an opinionated girl!). Today both of them were more than wiling to click a few pictures of me doing poses from the floor series.

So.. here they are..

San refuses to acknowledge the six pack in "Six Pack Sundar" but the kids definitely do.

Jr. even knew what a six pack was (apparently "The dairy of a Wimpy Kid" book has a chapter where kids draw six packs on their abdomens with their mother's mascara!) and said "Yes, I can see it!"..

Thanks to Bikram Choudhury, Michelle Vennard and BYSJ! You have given me quite a comeback!

The Yoga journey continues!

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Unattainable...

As of last week San and me have been together 11 years. A very short time compared to my parents (39) or my grandparents (73 years when grandpa passed away), but long enough for us to understand a postponing of the celebration because work.. work.. work.. came in the way.

Just like Indian festivals, birthdays, etc. etc. being pushed to the nearest weekend, the wedding anniversary plan was to go to Livermore Temple and say a prayer with the kids and San's parents.

We knew there was a Kumbhabishekham going on at the temple and we expected the crowd. It was a good walk to park and finally when we washed our feet and went to the entrance, the god's appointed bouncers asked us:

"are you kalasA sponsors?"

Me : No.

GAB : Sorry Sir. Today the temple entrance is for kalasA sponsors only. If you are a sponsor you can take the kalasA and go inside and come out.

Me : !!!!!?????!!!! We have come from south bay and my father in law is here only for three weeks. Can we go in and come out real quick?

GAB : very sorry sir. they are making arrangements for the puja tomorrow. regular devotees have to come back tomorrow.

So now we were "regular devotees". It did bother me a bit and got to thinking of how this blog got started and how the blogger mellowed out over time.

We drove all the way from Cupertino to Livermore and back without as much as going into the temple. This was a first with this temple.

They could have mentioned the prominently in the website or the folks who were regulating the traffic outside the temple could have asked us the same question and could have turned us around. Would have at least saved an hour, changed plans and driven my in-laws to some other place to celebrate. The Ghirardeli chocolate factory was actually our other(usual) choice.

God is in chocolate! God is in Vanilla! He is in every flavor is what we have always been saying.

Next year, the ritual changes. We celebrate at our usual favorite spots. The GG Bridge and some great ice cream.

Balaji Ummachi, why do you make me have this love hate relationship with you? Why?

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Ten years and counting

Finally San agreed to get this photo posted on the blog!

(Had to do some research to figure out how to get an animated gif image to show up on blogger. It did not work first. It does not work on facebook either. . hope this works)

Thanks to all for wishing us on our tenth anniversary. A big thanks from both San and me.

The little one had a surprise present for us last week. When San went to pick her up on her last day of school (Friday), all the teachers huddled around San and started congratulating her. Further investigation revealed that the little one had announced to her class and all teachers that she was expecting a baby brother, soon!

We should have drawn the line at imaginary friends. Now it has gotten to a point of having imaginary baby brother. San clarified to the whole school that there are no baby brothers in queue and all the teachers started running away, embarrased. Well, they have learnt their lesson "don't trust the little one, especially when she delivers blatant lies with straight face"

The LO put on a sad face, got all teary eyed when scolded for spreading lies and said "but I really wanted a baby brother and I don't wan to be the baby in the house anymore"

That set the tone for the laugh riot that followed the rest of the weekend.

Here is the little one all interested in meeting her idol, Dora the Explorer at Universal Studios

Here is the little one scared of Dora after the initial rush and hug!

Posing for daddy !

Posing for daddy again..

and because we are an equal opportunity blog when it comes to posting photos, here is one of Jr. posing fabulously in front of the Universal Studios entrance.

The fun continues....

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