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Entries in things kids do (129)

Saturday
Mar302013

Resistance is futile..

Had sent an email to both kids a few days ago after someone forwarded me this article on healthy food vs. unhealthy food.

 

My mail to the kids with the subject "Why I don't want you to eat outside" :

===

Dear (Jr. and LO),

please read this report.

outside food is not nutricious. lunchables, school lunches, packaged foods etc. are all bad.

http://cspinet.org/new/201303281.html

===

Jr.'s reply :

===

Not true! You can eat out once in a while but never always!

===

Little One's reply :

===

appa it is kind of good to eat bad food then your body will get energy.

===

 

Obviously, they know everything and they also have an answer for everything.

We made the mistake of letting the kids pick what they want for snack time in school and that has slowly gone from granola bars and brownies to things called skinny cow, ding dongs (!?), Pirates booty !?

I am pretty much tired of fighting the system. My personal advertisement budget for health foods is not as good as these companies and I also don't have the equivalent time of a few hundred people marketing department.

No amount of effort in me packaging a banana or idly will appeal to these kids like the "ding dongs".

Jr. wanted popcorn. We have a popcorn maker at home. So I picked the bottle of popping corn the other day thinking "this is probably some genetically modfied stuff that will slowly turn into poison if left in her intestines.. but this is the best option in this aisle". She quickly insisted on putting that back and picking up the Orville Redenbacker Movie Theater butter flavored popcorn saying "Daddy, this one tastes good. I have had it in my friends place. We NEED this!"

That one had fat and sugar ratings (even if that was a conservative estimate to con consumers.. for who is to know if they are the real values given the type of money they spend to rig the system) were over the top.  I had to fight to get plain corn to pop!

The only good thing that was done? Told her that if she takes the box of things called "skinny cow" which was clever advertising but creates a fat kid in all probability, she has to buy some fruit. So she picked not fresh fruit, but Dole's pre packaged fruit bits in guess what ? Sugar syrup!

As a dad I feel frustrated trying to mandate these things in the house. Pretty soon we will have to start showing them what happens to folks who eat too much sugar with gory pictures and videos. 

We don't need North Korean nut jobs to threaten our country. We have our own guys who put these sugary processed foods on the shelves, threatening our very future. Our kids!

Friday
Mar292013

Art Lesson

A conversation at bedtime..

 

Jr. : Daddy I forgot the name of that famous Italian painter..

me : Michaelangelo?

Jr. : No. Not him. The other guy.

me : Da Vinci

Jr. : hmmm .. does he have a longer name?

me : Leonardo Da Vinci

Jr. : Yes. Him. (and goes on to tell me about some painting of his I havent heard of)

Me : do you know one of his most famous paintings?

Little one : Tell me.

Me : Mona Lisa.

Jr. : Is this the one which is a picture of the lady staring at you?

Me : Yes. it is the one where she kind of looks sad and happy at the same time...

LO : Daddy, I know. She is also holding a fruit in her hand.. that one.

Me : (Intrigued by this as the LO is the one that is going to be an artist if ever one came out of this house..) You sure? I have looked at the Mona Lisa so many times, but didnt know she had a fruit in her hand. Always looked at her face and eyes. Will go google it and see if she has a fruit in her hand..

LO : Why do you have to google it? That picture is there on your bedroom wall, isn't it!

Me : (literally rolling on the ground laughing.. seriously I fell off the bed)

That is Raja Ravi Varma's painting called "Lady with Fruit"!

Time to teach the kids some basic "Famous Paintings 101" or take them to the local Museum in SFO!

Monday
Mar112013

What a game...

The little one invited me to her school play and yet again, I had to say "Sorry darling. I have an offsite meeting and won't be able to make it. Will have mom and grandma come and video tape it and we will watch it at home!"

She made a sad face that I cannot forget and said "Fine. You have never come to a single one of my plays!" so you have to make it up to me somehow?"

The make it up was to play two games of "Ticket to Ride" back to back with her and Jr. and a game of Sequence just restricted to the two of us!

Usually when we play with two players we stop with 3 sequences. Today she said "I want this game to be special! so let us keep going till we finish the board... "

So off we went till the entire board was done and we had no more cards left to play and what  a game..

I won by the score of 8 sequences to 6 on my last play where I got two sequences which was pure luck and she was kind of upset for a second but her mood changed when she saw the board and realized that we had played one great game.

Life's little pleasures.. what can I say!

Sunday
Feb242013

As time flies by

It has been an interesting year so far. Lots of work to keep me focussed and busy! Lots of Yoga to help me deal with the work. 

San at her supporting best helping me keep it together with the Yoga and the work and the kids who are making me realize every day that there are lots of things I have to do before they come and say "I am starting college tomorrow!" or "I want to get married!"

Yes, it is a few years away, but the way time flies by, one does get that thought every now and then.. 

When the little one reaches for the tap without climbing on a chair or on top of the sink itself!

When Jr. declares that mommy's footwear are a perfect fit 

or when she wears a new dress before going to the temple that makes me all teary because she looks so grown up in that dress!

The Jan 2nd to Memorial day stretch of the year is usually the most productive but also the most difficult one as you keep going and going and going. 

We are not there at the halfway point and it already feels like time for a break. 

On the bright side the camera came out of its hiding place after almost a month thanks to Jr.  and on the brighter side the kids are growing up as fast as they are growing old.

Monday
Feb182013

Adventures in tweenlandia

Jr., all of ten years old went to science camp last week!

She left on tuesday morning and came back friday afternoon. For the first time in her life, she spent close to three full days away from her beloved.....

iPad, iPhone, iMac.. We were not really worried about her missing her parents or her sister. The WiTHDRAWAL symptoms was what worried us. She managed fine, thanks to her wonderful teacher who acted as surrogate iPad and her friends who made up for the iPhone and the few creatures she encountered in the trails she hiked in Santa Cruz like a newt, banana slug etc. rounded off the entertainment.

After she came home she summarized the entire events of 3 plus days in one hour during our bedtime story telling and that got me to a few startling revelations.

They all got up at 6:30 AM because there was "flag".. "flag hoisting". It takes me 15 mintues to get her rear end out of bed starting at 7:30 AM on a normal day and twice that long on a weekend. So, I am planning to put a flag pole in my backyard and make her go do "flag" every morning.

No Flag? No breakfast! That should work..

Second, my darling now has an identity! As the narration was going on..

Jr. : We had these cabins which had like 10 people in each cabin and you know most of us desis were in one cabin and on and on and on..

Me : (did I just hear her call herself a DESI?!) Who were all in your cabin?

Jr.: Me, kid1, kid2, kid3,... and rattled off a list which included kids who had at least one Indian parent..

This is the first time I have heard her call herself a Desi !! So much for science camp. My daughter goes away for three days and comes back accepting her Indian-ness?

Last but not least, she took some really good pictures. Unfortunately she was not in a single one of the pictures. Guess she takes after dad for that one. We are waiting for her friends to share pictures of her.

Needless to say.. the first thing she did after coming into the house?

 

Look for the iPad!

 

Another wonder that happened? The little one admitted she did indeed miss her sister.. a little bit.. during afternoon playtime!

 

ps. San tells me that she looked for the iPad only after she had recited the one hour story after coming into the house.. we need more science camps!