Touched!!!

I am going to make it short this time .. I got a break in between cleaning the home and packing, so I thought I would share this with my readers...

Tired from all the mopping and cleaning I was sitting down with my two precious men ..Ishaan and Rayaan. Ishaan said I am hungry mamma... I realised I was too !!! Hunger signals don't get transmitted to my brain lately unless I think about it ... Or maybe any kind of self indulgence is always in procrastination mode.

So I made myself some tea, grabbed a bag of tea rusks/croquantes and cut up some apple for Ishaan. Rayaan got his share of a small rusk stick and I sat sipping my tea and dipping my rusks in it. Ishaan had this sudden urge of feeding me, I bet he found the process of dipping , sipping and eating very exciting. So he decided to dip the rusk and feed me ... Meanwhile, little Rayaan was watching all this and at the same time managing to grind his two little teeth on the hard rusk piece. He watched this spectacle of Ishaan bhaiya feeding mamma with great interest.

Finally,

Rayaan thought he needed to do some of this love demonstration too and he indicated to me that he wanted me to partake of his treat too. So I bent over and he put it successfully into my mouth... the gross (maybe fine ) motor skills are getting better!!! But I was touched... I thanked and kissed him ... He gave me a big "twoothy" Grin !!!

Ahhh the simple joys!!!

A place to call home finally

The past 3 weeks have been hectic. I have been online almost all day long combing the Internet and scouring through countless craiglist pages to find a place to live in Seattle. Its been 2 months that we have been living in corporate housing and our time here is almost up. This past weekend had been our deadline to find a new place to stay so that we could give a forwarding address to the movers to move our furniture from Dallas. Eventually, we decided on a cozy little townhouse on the north side of Redmond.

We have lived in our own house for the last few years and hence the kids were never restrained from conjuring up modern art on the walls or spilling multi-colored liquids on our pristine carpets, even though I must admit that the first stain hurt real bad!! :)
This new house is going to be a huge change in lifestyle. Scaling down from a 3300 sqft home to a 1300 sqft townhouse is going to be challenging enough, but repressing those natural desires will be a gargantuan job. I donot particularly fancy all that lies ahead with respect to all the disciplining that is about to ensue.

Nevertheless, it's high time for this change in lifestyle. I have firmly believed it for sometime now that a tightening of our finances and way of living is in order. When we decided to go to a single income situation after Rayaan was born, I had prepared myself for this day. I feel that once we get used to living a more frugal life a lot of our long term goals will fall in place. It's strange but I have always had these romantic visions of living a poor life, albeit this is really very far from being poor.

Right as I write this post, our home in Dallas is being packed up and loaded in a van line. When we built our home a few years ago, I never envisioned leaving it behind and packing off to a far away place. We chose all our home accents and every piece of furniture in the house painstakingly. We decorated our home with great love and passion. Salman has always been passionate about having a beautiful home and that in turn help me discover my hidden flair for decorating. It breaks my heart to think that this nest we so lovingly built is being torn down into pieces I may never be able to collect again. I wanted to go and see the home one last time before the final move, but that didn't happen and all for a reason perhaps. I would have been bawling out in the front yard once again!

However, the important thing to remember is that we are all here and can make a cozy home wherever we live together. So looking beyond all the materialistic aspects and appreciating the spirit of love and affection we share as a family, I march on to make this new place a home sweet home

Making Hay While The Sun Shines

Living in Seattle has made me appreciate a lot of things that I normally take for granted. To start with the SUN... Considering that we lived mostly in Texas. The sun was not the most appreciated commodity. But being on this side of the country has reinforced the credit that the otherwise ubiquitous sun deserves. Reconciling to the cold weather, while the sun plays peek-a-boo with us has almost become inevitable.
This week, the sun decided to shine on us continually for a few days. Feeling the sun shine on my face made me feel almost euphoric. We decided to get out of the house and go for a drive atleast ( with sleeping babies, even that is treat, believe me!!), and Behold!!! the city was bustling with activity. I doubt there were very many people left in their homes. The streets and the parks were filled with people - jogging, biking, running, walking, pushing their strollers out and about. The soccer fields were filled with little kids in colorful gears. It was a gorgeous sight to see all these people that normally hide away in their little abodes. I guess people here really make the most of it while the sun shines.
People warned me about the manic rates of depression in this city and I guffawed thinking that all this is grossly exaggerated. But, I now believe there is some truth to the statement. The same boring routes that I have been seeing on rainy days metamorphosised into a sight that was nothing short of spectacular. The sun-kissed, snowcapped mountains gleaming at a distance and the pine trees outlining the scenery that is topped off with a lovely lazy lake inviting you to take a dip, makes you want to be an artist. I was always told how beautiful Seattle was , but honestly I was not overwhelmed by it's beauty till I saw it in different light - Shining Sunlight !! The whole experience rendered more meaning to my friend's (Kirti) words to me a few weeks ago. She moved to Seattle from Texas a few months ago as well. She told me that she has learnt to steal every minute of sunshine and makes it a point to be outdoors on sunny days. So, as a family we decided we will follow on her wise footsteps. Every time the sun shines we take the kids out to one of the abundant parks that Seattle cradles in her arms. In short, we are learning to make hay while the sun shines - almost literally.

Here are some pictures from one of our outings with our friends Kirti and Erfan to the Carkeek Park along the Puget Sound river.

The Joys of Sleeping in the Sound of Silence

When you are not the first child of the family you are disadvantaged in a lot of ways. You are never the only apple of your parent's eyes, you never know what it feels like to be the only one enjoying all the undivided attention, the luxury of having all your toys and spaces to yourself and most importantly the joys of sleeping blissfully in a peaceful home. As a consequence, the second child is advantaged in a lot of ways... the lack of undivided attention lets him indulge himself in a lot of pleasures the first child would never dream of doing, especially with eyes watching him all over the place. Having to share all the toys and spaces also means an opportunity to share the blame for the by products of mischief. Sneaking away from tasks and responsibilities also becomes easier for the younger ones while the older child's lame excuses for getting away from a family get together for example would never be acceptable.

There are numerous other pros and cons of not being the first child. I probably won't outline all of them. I remember a few of my friends and my sister having a discussion about their sad misfortunes of being the younger ones. My husband and I (both the eldest in the family) were badly outnumbered that day and could not offer much of resistance in the debate that ensued. However with respect to having a peaceful slumber as babies the younger ones are always disadvantaged.

With Ishaan going to school, Rayaan is for the very first time discovering the joys of sleeping in a peaceful house. The poor baby never knew what it was like to take the long nap that he was entitled to. He probably does not like the sound of silence and goes to sleep just to conquer his boredom from missing his main entertainer. Whatever the case, once his brother leaves home, he plays for a little while and then drifts into a blessed golden slumber.

Say Click !! Take A Pic!!!

After the last blog .. everybody wanted to see what Ishaan looks like with his backpack!! :)

I cannot tell you how obsessed he is about his backpack... I tried to click a few pics ... and all he did was posed with his back towards me ..!!! Mama see my backpack he squealed ..!! I must say I had to get really mean to make him pose with a cheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeesy smile..., But in my defense ... he was acting very hard to get ... covering his face with a cardboard box and turn his back right when I asked him to say cheese...

He is a big fan of Diego from Go Diego Go ..!! So the minute he sees his camera .. he starts singing the song .."Say click ..take a pic" ( you will know if you have a toddler boy what I am talking about !!! Or else look up Nick Jr.)


I also have a little video





http://picasaweb.google.com/vandanathomas/Schooltime#5319783822038130130

I must say Rayaan misses his brother so much ... He took a few rounds of our house today, in the quest for his missing bhaiya. Finally he declared with some strange sounds that he wanted me to play with him. He was so bored that he fell asleep. I guess I am not as good a playmate as his wonderful bhaiya!!

My baby went to school today

When I go back in time and think about my first day at school for every class year .... I still get this rush of adrenalin ... Even now, when I think of it I sense the smell of fresh new brown paper book covers and the smell of the plastic raincoats. School in India, starts in June, when it rains torrentially. And school shopping was all about new raincoats, gum boots, brown paper book covers, new notebooks, pens and pencils and crayons and sketch pens. Ahhh the excitement on the first day of school and all the anticipation it brings ... nothing short of wonderful!!

Today, I feel the same nervous energy all over me ... and today I have come a full circle , its my baby's first day at school today. It feels like I have an exam.The little flutters of the butterflies in my stomach just won't stop. He was equally excited.
We all woke up bright and early. The whole house was scurrying to get to school on time. He dressed up promptly and put on his new green dinosaur backpack and sang nursery rhymes all the way to school. My husband, Salman, his baby brother Rayaan and I walked him to his classroom. He looked at his classroom wide eyed not fathoming where to start and how to start. Like a little butterfly he went from one spot to the other, finally settling down on a dinosaur puzzle. He was too excited to listen to us saying goodbye to him or to listen to the endless instructions I was giving him. We just decided to let him be and went back to the car.

With bated breath and anxious anticipation, I wait for it to be time for him to be picked up from school. I had thought that once I put him in school, I will have some time to do somethings independently... but here I am just waiting for him to be back.

Food For Thought

Long time ago, when I was still not a mother, I had great ambitions, great expectations and great thoughts for a grand life. Those were the times when perfection was something I could almost not do without. I was idealistic to the point of being idiotic sometimes.

But then reality struck, I became a full time mommy and keeping up with simple everyday tasks became laborious and almost a herculean effort.

Leading a simple life enjoying the simple pleasures of life needed to be a well planned project with carefully thought of deadlines and timelines. It's really sad how life in this planet in the present day has reduced to chasing behind time and always falling short of achieving your lofty goals. It's almost too much peer pressure, social pressure and worldly pressure from everywhere to do things a certain way and conform to laws laid down for parenthood. But then when you become a parent you are not handed this Zen and the art of Parenting book from the creator of that simple life you brought into this world. Nor is there a Bible or Quran for parents that the God revealed.

I have been stuck in this vicious whirlpool of conformity for sometime now. So after some amount of pondering into my ethos, I have inferred that it's about time I lead my life the way it was meant to be. Appreciating the simple pleasures of life, Enjoying the simple love of my innocent children, Creating a simple life for me and my loved ones.

So this is a new beginning that I am trying to write in my freshly remodeled book. One of my simple pleasures is writing about simple stuff.
So ... Cheers to Simple Love, Simple Pleasures and Simply Life