Didn't find it?
RSS feed from Feedburner

 Subscribe to this Blog ?

 

Sundar Narayanan's Travelog

↑ Grab this Headline Animator

 

Just another spider on the web
Squarespace
Powered by Squarespace
Archives
Blog Index
The journal that this archive was targeting has been deleted. Please update your configuration.
Navigation

Entries in things kids do (129)

Thursday
Jun072012

The many applications of Daddy

San to Little One : Let daddy go. He has to come help me in the kitchen!

Little One : No. I need him.

San : For what?

LO : he is my "itcher"!

Me : !!!!!

For the last 10 minutes she sat on my lap and was lovingly rubbing her elbows and hands on my face. I thought she was just showing her affection. Apparently, she was using the stubble on my face to scratch her itching hand!

This girl almost always seems to have some other motive and is smart enough to make me not realize what is going on..

 

.

Sunday
Jun032012

Backyard fun


This post starts with an apology to Pavan Uncle and Deepti mami!

They visited the kids a few months ago and gave a gift. As is customary in the house, gifts are always opened at a later day. This one went to the garage shelf, thanks to San who doesn't believe in reading what the gift actually is before hiding it from the kids.

We reserve the right to hand over the gifts on days when the kids have to be bribed for something. We run out of bribe gifts and hence this rule! As it so happens, this gift was Christmas trees to be made of cookies which had an expiry date for the frosting and the cookies.

We still let the kids make the cookies with frosting, sprinkles, etc. but instead of eating it, placed it in the backyard..


Now that we have enough critters that visit us every evening and make it practically resemble the Fairyland projected in the latest Snow White movie. The kids and grandparents enjoyed watching the birds and animals come close to us to taste cookies..

It was great to watch them come and devour the decorated cookies, one piece at a time..


We are truly blessed with this 20 foot hedge that defines our backyard that makes any summer evening a pleasant evening!

.

Monday
May282012

Cherry picking


We spent the afternoon at Brentwood, approximately 15 miles from Livermore picking cherries off the trees. The kids had a blast as we went with their classmates.

It was difficult to find a place that was open and it was more difficult to find parking and we got stuck in the return home traffic on 580 and 680 to San Jose... but, there is always a but..



It was great watching the kids go crazy with the picking, sampling, becoming instant experts on fruit ripeness metrology and watching them compare notes on cherry softness, color etc. It was hilarious!

The weekend has now come to a close and it is back to work and school tomorrow with two of six folks in the house still sniffling with a cold. In retrospect, it was a wise move not traveling far this weekend.

The parents who have extreme diet restrictions as well as movement restrictions have successfully made it from Cupertino to Great Mall and back and have topped the record with the Brentwood trip.

Next step, 2 hour trip somewhere.. fast.. so we can get ready for 4th of July!

.

Wednesday
May232012

A happy day!


While the torture of going through another round of antibiotics and all the side effects that come with it are going on, there was a happy day in the middle of all this.

My parents made it to the US in one piece after 10 years!

They did not get the hang of life in the US on their first trip. After much convincing they were this close to making it here three years ago before health concerns forced both of them to stay back.

Now they are finally here and will be staying for till Jr.'s 10th birthday!

The last time they were here, it was to celebrate her first birthday..

They were both weak and tired and were harassed by the Immigration / TSA dudes and that was shocking to them. They were the last ones out of their flight to make it out! I was sweating outside because it had been almost 3 hours since their plane landed and they did not show up. Didn't know how to reach them inside either.

Fortunately, one of the wheel chair dudes told me that they were sent to the "New Immigration counter" instead of the "line". The first thing my dad told me after getting in the van was "The guy who checked my passport was rude for no reason and the guy who checked my suitcase crumpled up ironed clothes for no reason. They have no respect for older people!"

How do you answer that one? Told him that TSA folks are usually guys who cannot be employed anywhere else. This is all about "Jobs" and the economy. I may have been rude to all TSA people with that comment but if one thing is going to unite Americans all over, it will probably be a healthy hatred for the TSA's harassment of non threatening folks. It has been 24 hours and they have gotten over it (I hope).

The kids are very happy with the grandparents being in the house. They are listening to young daddy stories. Stories which really need to be fact checked because daddy has a reasonably strong memory and grandma's versions seem to be way off base from the truth.. Nevertheless, as long as daddy's IQ in days of yore is getting a facelift, not complaining.

"Your father used to do an entire math book in one hour!". Eat your food. Your dad was the fastest at eating his lunch in the whole neighborhood!

The kids look at daddy with new found admiration.. Well this doesn't happen often! So soaking it up!

Have a resolution to
- get back in the hot room
- get to a gum specialist and figure out why there are recurring gum infections which lead to antibiotics which lead to killing all good bacteria in the stomach which lead to taking tablets with "bacteria" in them and losing 15 days of Yoga!

One thing is obvious. This is a spiral of good or bad and these days it goes uphill or downhill pretty fast!

If there is good health, there is regular exercise, good food, weight control, more exercise and so on
If there is bad health, there is no exercise, irregular food or sick food, no weight control and even less exercise

Time to change the trend tomorrow!

.

Thursday
May172012

A special visitor


Not a single sapling we plant survives the first two nights in the backyard. We usually attributed the cause to be some Raccoon..

This week the mystery was finally solved.

We have a small furry visitor who has a tunnel from the neighbors backyard into ours and he(or she) is the culprit!


The kids wanted to catch and pet but we said "No". It could be a wild rabbit and might have rabies is what we said. The little thing did a hop skip and disappeared real fast.

We have to seal all those tunnels under the fence this weekend!

.