Decided to go eat with friends at the famous "Yan Can Cook" restaurant. As fate would have it, there was some ingredient in the yummy stuff that I was allergic to, and ended up sick on friday night. That meant, spending some quiet time at home with the kids and keeping a low profile (not to mention the two birthday parties attended over the weekend)!
They were up to their usual antics..
In other news, the canon S30 has reached its limit. After making it through steam and sulfur at Yellowstone, even daylight images are getting grainy! (the fringes you see in the video however are not due to the S30, they are due to the insect screen on the sliding door!).
In other other news, San is getting me a new camera for our wedding day!
To all those (you know who you are) who have recently gifted digital cameras to your spouse for various occasions like anniversary's, birthdays, fathers day etc. thank you, thank you, thank you!!!
Needless to say, you will hear all about the new camera. I can't wait to open that box!!
Every morning, Jr. watches Barney while having breakfast. The little one has taken to the purple dinosaur in a big way. The minute the titles come she becomes all shy and then gets all excited. She runs around in circles, tries to jump (has not figured out how to get both feet off the ground yet! she is 18 months old) and starts clapping and dancing..
I have caught it on camera several times, but she is usually in her diaper then. Today she was wearing a nice frock and the dancing was kicked up a notch! This inspite of the fact that our big 52" TV got taken out for maintenance and we are back to our old 20" TV screen. Barney looks a lot smaller, but she did not seem to notice the difference!
I thought we were done with Barney, but I was so wrong. We better get ready to accept the purple dinosaur for another four or five years!
In a recent post on kids travelling under constraints, a couple of links were pointed out to me by s.b. These links were good, really good!
Here is how we manage the kids during our flights. We do not let them float in the aisle. We did have two other kids walking up and down on their own constantly, during our last flight. One of the kids actually stopped by for almost 20 minutes near our seat and I was holding his hand so that he wont fall down. Eventually his mom came and took him back to the seat! We do let the little one out of her seat, but she is confined to our row, and sometimes I carry her up and down the plane.
We do not let them open the door hatch! Jr. is entertained extremely well by San and her mom, by teaching all kinds of grandma games on the flight!
This one is Dosai amma Dosai! (Dosa is a south Indian Crepe and amma is mommy).
It goes
Dosai amma dosai arisi maavum ulutha maavum kalandhu potta dosai ammavukku 4 appavukku 3 baby-kku 2 Jr. ukku 1 suda suda suttu neiyla thottu vayaru romba saapidalam!
(translation)
Dosa mommy Dosa crepe made by mixing rice flour and lentil flour mommy gets 4 daddy gets 3 baby gets 2 I get 1 hot hot and fresh clarified butter dipped lets eat till our stomach is full!
This goes on for 15 minutes before they switch to ice-cream soda!! Or I play "find that word on this page" with the in-flight magazine.
Point is, our kids are equally cranky, but we deal with a lot less negativity.
I have been thinking of starting a kid friendly airlines!!
1. I will have wide aisles for kids to run around 2. the walls will be painted with Disney , Sesame street, Barney, Dora characters. 3. I will hire daycare teacher turned air-hostesses or air-hostesses turned daycare teachers only! 4. Will not have any carbonated or sugary drinks on the flight that would make the kids hyper. 5. There will be little tables in the middle of the plane and little kid chairs where they can draw, paint etc., once the seat belt sign is removed! 6. There will be music and videos for the kids to be distracted. 7. There will be little beds for them to sleep comfortably instead of trying to lie down horizontally between daddy and mommy with those annoying arm rests pulled up halfway! 8. All adults who board will be asked a few extra questions. a. do you like kids ? b. did you let your kids put things in your bag without your knowledge ? c. do you think kids should be allowed to travel on planes ? a "NO" answer for any question will promptly trigger a cavity search by airport security and they will not be allowed to board the plane. 9. Instead of the pathetic paper barf bags, there will be a button next to the seat marked "V" which automatically drops a bucket from the top compartment. That way you can save yourself an inflight shirt change! 10. there will be a diaper change area and some special diaper trash containers. Have you ever tried pushing a full diaper into the small rectangle which says "trash" on local flights?
I have a lot more ideas for this plan, but don't want to get carried away! Damn, I already thought way too much about this. Now all I need is some nice billionaire to loan me some money to start Babiaire / Littlewings or Kidsfly Airlines!
Hope this inspires some other parents to control their kids during flights!
Finally got to edit the gabazillion video clips from last weekends trip and compiled them into one!
It has almost become a ritual to haul the family to some remote wilderness at least once or twice a year during the long weekends (if we are not in India or Australia to meet family!).
The drive through the mountains of Montana was by far the best scenic driving experience I have had. The drive to rainbow point at Bryce canyon, the scenic Route 1 in California and the Great Australian drive are close contenders! Rolling hills, mile after mile for a few hours at an elevation of 6000+ feet with a view of the snow capped mountains in Glacier and Yellowstone national parks...words escape me!
You can also see the hotel we stayed in! Open the window and you see a raging river rush by, mountains all around. I was telling San that maybe we should retire here, and she promptly replied that I would get bored if I stayed here for more than a week. She is probably right.
And last but not least, the Trains from the Northern railroad that joined us during parts of our highway drives. They had upto four engines and this is the first time I actually got to see these huge engines in action, puffing away.
Jr. and baby being Thomas train fans, enjoyed the sight of these trains immensely. Without confessing, let me just say that the train was moving away from the camera at a relative velocity of around 130-140 miles per hour and we didn't even cross two thirds of the coaches in a 30 second clip!
I have convinced everyone here that our next long weekend summer trip will be to Glacier National Park to see the Great Northern railroad trains.
"Jr. is probably the most video'd kid in history!" on a previous post.
It has been a tough search for that old CD backup of Jr.'s first few weeks, but I finally found it and without further ado..lets make the little girl happy!!
All this was from day 1 to day 14. Making this video made me cry a few times with joy over the last 24 hours. My wife and mother-in-law have probably concluded that I have gone nuts, but hopefully they will understand my recent erratic behaviour when they see what I was doing in such secrecy!
and a big thanks to the little girl for making it all worthwhile!!
Tuesday, June 12, 2007 at 9:30PM