Rock stars

The whole weekend was a wash for me. Multiple packets of Theraflu on Friday, 19 hours of sleeping in a 26 hour period, a brief uptick and rush to form on Saturday night and early Sunday morning only to get down again this afternoon. . .

The body is simply lost in trying to find a safe zone. So it now up to some quality "thachi mummum" and more sleep before the week begins again.

In all of this sleeping, I missed a great birthday party the kids attended. They did makeovers for all the kids and dressed them up like "Rock Stars"..

Haven't seen them this happy to be dressed up. My daughter tried to give me a crash course on who Justin Bieber was and was upset with my IQ. She said "never mind. he sings songs and you are too old to listen to his songs anyways"

It is true that I know he is a singer because his name keeps popping up in the entertainment news and I am yet to hear him sing!

Too old?! When was I too old to hear a song?! Will listen today and see what all this hoopla is about.

Last week had put an old Scorpions CD in the Van (had been playing RIF's from Big City Nights on the guitar the previous week) and the kids were amused by me singing along. They could not understand the lyrics..

LO to Jr.: They are not singing in English jr. ! they are singing in Scorpion. That is why we are not able to understand..

Jr.: No. I think they are singing in some old English or something..

LO : Scorpion is a language by itself, right daddy?

Me : NO! they are singing in English. these are German guys singing in English with a German accent so it is slightly difficult to follow..also the guy who is singing had throat surgery.. but he sings well..

Jr.: this music is too noisy. switch it off! it is very confusing!

I was thinking "there goes my intro to rock music to the kids"..

Did take some photos of the kids after they came home today before catching some more beauty sleep.

A different generation, a different type of rock stars, with eclectic glitters instead of electric guitars!!!!

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Before and after

A conversation with the little one just before bedtime a couple of days ago

LO: appa (daddy), look up at the barbie jewel box

Me: Yeah I see it above the bed on the shelf

LO: look again now

Me: Yeah! I see it.

LO: did you see how it became brighter?

Me: Yeah, what is it? (I actually thought it was because the hallway lights reflecting better as mom was moving around)..

LO : I smiled !

Me : (she smiled and it got brighter.. I must have said something)

LO : You remember how you said that everytime I smile, the whole room lights up? I was just checking..

Me : you always light up the room with your smile kuttyma!

She always always knows how to make my day!

and yes, she did light up that room with that innocent smile of hers!

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How Apple beat Lenovo and Samsung- at least in our house

The kids watch Berenstain Bears regularly. We let them watch it because it teaches them the importance of cleaning up, listening to their parents, behaving etc.

Now the fact that they don't listen to us when we say "stop watching" or "go cleanup and stop watching" or simply say things like "I am going to punch you in the head if you pause it" (that from a five year old girl to her daddy) suggest that the benefits of watching these episodes may be overrated. Nevertheless, there is silence in the house when we need it and so they are allowed to watch!

They used to record it on the DVR when we were with Direct TV and watch it on the big wall mounted TV..

Then we switched to Dish and that channel is no longer available to us on our NEW plan. So the kids started watching "youtube" indefinite reruns on the laptop.

Now they have switched over to the iPad having figured out that youtube is available on the iPad!

We just got an iPad and lost it to the kids. All other options in front of them in bigger and better sizes are moot. I never get to use the iPad now when they are awake.

In other news blogging has taken a serious nose dive because of work, work, and more work. It feels like all the planets, sun and moon have aligned themselves into one straight line which points directly to my rear end.

Add to that, our old TV channels are all gone. Vijay TV apparently had a fall out with Direct TV and decided to pull out and that meant, we had to scram for an alternate Satellite provider with Tamil channels and ended up going through a roller coaster cable switch from Direct to ATT to Dish in a span of two weeks!

On the bright side, we have Netflix online now, thanks to the iPad and watch free movies in bed. We seem to be watching the first 15-20 minutes of many free movies and switch to another movie. What they need is a like a 30 minute fast edited version of most movies with only the highlights. Something like a "Thirai Malar" featuring Jackie Chan, Tom Cruise Harrison Ford and Clint Eastwood. That, would truly make my day!

The kids are keeping us busy and though there isn't much time to go out anywhere and enjoy the sun, there is the odd photo session every time the kids take a shower or wear anything pretty..

The hope is that February will give us more personal time. This level of intensity with two people working 16-18 hour days and taking all weekend to just catch some sleep so we can go do this all over again for another five days is not going to work for the kids.

San wants to start buying lottery tickets soon and I am this close to seconding that thought. Have not been a lottery ticket kind of guy, but why not?

Next weekend no matter how good or bad the weather is, we have decided to go on a short drive to someplace, take some photos and just get back to having some fun.

If we don't the little one might just "punch me in the head"!

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Wishing you all a Happy Pongal

Work has been so crazy that by Friday evening we just want to come and crash and recharge our batteries. Yet to figure out how 2010 suddenly started off in this mode.

Friday evening came and it was time to make Pongal. This year there was no prayer, no dressing up.. just daddy making Sweet Pongal in his office clothes!

Yes. It was an odd sight to see daddy in formal clothes in front of the stove. To compensate for all the stress, just threw in an extra cup of ghee into the mix and the results were more than satisfactory!

Wanted to videoblog the making of Pongal but that has to wait for another day. Today we went to the Livermore temple, saw Aandal Kalyanam and were served a wedding feast at the temple. There was standing room only in that temple and the little one thought she had been transported to Mylapore for a few minutes. She was even heard whispering that she wanted to be back in the USA..

One would think that with this kind of stuff at home, the kids would be happy to eat Pongal for a late snack? .. the answer is ...

NO!

They wanted Mac and Cheese from the local Target store for dinner.

Well we just think the family has celebrated Makara sankaraanthi and Macand cheesearaanthi in the same day!

Happy Pongal again to all of you.

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Gathering cow dung and tending to cows..

When we were growing up, the thing that our parents, close relatives (lived with an extended family all the time) was "If you don't study, you will be fit only for tending to cows and becoming a cowherd!"

"ஒழுங்கா படிக்கலேன்னா நீ மாடு மேய்க்க தான்டா போகணும்!" would come the thundering voices..

On one side Krishna, the most lovable of gods was a cowherd! Yet, there was something that was supposed to turn us off as kids from tending to cows on an open field. It was the thing that people unfit to do anything else could do. Spend all day in a field with a stick on their shoulder watching cows, collecting cow dung and having to make dried biofuel from cow dung by mixing it with straw and making cow pattys (aka வரட்டி தட்டரது) and that was somehow a bad thing.

So instinctively, have been transferring my own growing experience to Jr. and the little one. When either one refuses to do her homework, the first thing to come out of our mouth is "if you do not study, we will buy two cows and let them live in our backyard and you can spend all your time collecting their poop! Do you want to keep "aLLiying" (collecting) cow poop for the rest of your life? or do you want to get a nice job, have a house and be able to pay for your kids iPhone Apps?"

Today I took this one notch higher by saying "if you don't study now, your kids will be collecting cow poop because you cannot afford to send them to a nice school and live in a nice house!" and then BAM.. it stuck me!

The whole idea that our parents were trying to put in our head was that if you don't study, you will end up poor like a cowherd! The fact that all you get to wear is a loincloth and get burnt in the hot sun and don't have enough to eat.. well, looks like our parents were not that good at sending the message!

We are worse!

Now, if we can afford to buy two cows and let them roam in our backyard, then why would the kids need to study? they are well off, no? That hit the message in my head after 30 years!

Well, as long as our kids look confused just like we were on what the big deal was with the cow dung, but look worried that "bad things will happen if they don't study" and if things work out the same for them somehow and they come home with grades, they should be fine!

We were sent this article multiple times on email forwards the last few days. Partly that article was what triggered this post.

It is funny that we are trying to be tough parents but we are not tough enough. Not even close. We push our kids but give in. We (especially me) have to do some more muddled messaging like "if you don't study then I will have to go pick up cow dung in my late old years. Is that what you want?"

Guilt works to a point. Then there are threats. Somehow our threats don't hold water right now because we threaten with cow dung!

"No TV!" .. now that might be a threat that will strike the point home.

Question is, do we have it in us to carry that through?

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