Between You and I - the art of knowing each other

Its been pretty long we are not keeping our personal accounts J. So what are we waiting for, lets jot down some together time in this time.

Yesterday I was talking about who knows the other better, I was boasting that you  know nothing about me and I am so knowledgeable about you. You got up  and before leaving the room in your new casual way you replied, "Mamma, I lived inside you for nine months remember, so I know you inside out!

You have been pushing your limits, pretty much in recent months, you are an outspoken person now, (well you always were with me and your friends but now at school too). I am glad that with changing of city and school you used this opportunity to create a difference in your personality.
You are raising hands more often than not. Your teacher is very inclusive and the school believes in having fun while arranging events and not in having perfect events! Very important for growing up.

You have friends and you still miss your old friends - a state of mind I am afraid you will always have in your life. So enjoy making new friends and stay connected with the old ones. I know you want to have one best friend forever (BFF) like they show in the stories but you know what it is equally fun to have many friends each related to a specific slice of your life. Connecting with them occasionally reminds you of that part of life.
Yes but you are right it is really cute and lucky to have a BFF.
I would suggest you to follow the same pattern with finding mentors too!

When your new friends started coming home every evening to call you, or to chit-chat with you over the weekends, to speak the truth, I was little nervous. I believe in the principle of being friendly with my kid's friends and till now I managed to do that very well. I could always become the friendly and  funny anuty for your friends.
Here, in this place I was little unsure as your new friends are all grown ups and not the 6-7 year old primary school goers, so  I was wondering my "Come kids lets bake cake baking strategy" would work this time.

Phew - it worked! Your friends and you proved it again

"To grow old is mandatory but to grow up is optional"!

Summer holidays - some images

Imagination

'J': Imagine that you are in a forest and got surrounded with a tiger, lion, elephant, snakes and witches. How will you come out of them?"
Me (Just after coming back home in the evening: I don't know.
'J': Pass?
Me: okay pass.
'J': Stop your imagination (giggles).

Limit

J was nagging too much for watching TV. I let her do that and got busy with some chores. She kept watching for pretty long. On realizing, I told her, "There is a limit to watching TV." I switched off the TV and she went in her room with a meek face.

J went to play downstairs, and returned home late in the evening. I  showed her some anger ,"There is a time limit for playing outside."

One day to a naughty and lazy J, I said indulgently, "There is a limit of being so naughty and lazy kid."


The reply was then, "Mama, there is a limit of saying limit too!"

Drama Queen

J loves planning, making list and then doing them one by one. Only hurdle is she loves planning about play time, watching TV time, reading story book time, cooking/baking time and sometimes art and craft time. You may almost see a very matured girl in her while doing all these.

You ask her to include some solving maths problems or writing Hindi dictation in her daily plan in summer holidays and quickly she turns into a defensive, unruly, cry baby.
So much of drama, my god!

Happiness

It is so fun to see, how much excited and happy a child (even on reaching 8) can become by getting undisturbed time from her parents. J has divided her summer holidays into with mamma-papa zone and without mamma-papa zone. Without mamma-papa zone means weekdays, office hour, day care. She has friends there, she has fun too, but she so looks forward to weekends and for some days when we can manage to take a day or two off.
After going through immense guilt on not being able to give her enough time I have now made peace with it.
Actually in last summer holidays, I have gone through work at home status and have found that actually staying all day at home does not mean I was taking care of her all the time. I was still worried about my work.  After few hours of togetherness J used to start with her usual demand of watching TV and I had to agree on that. Also it used to get on my nerves sometimes to do art and craft, find games, cook interesting food, read and find interesting books and so many pedagogic duties every day.

Now we keep  most of our weekends and evenings for her and we all wait for the together time! Happiness is to seek, it can be found even with limited time.

Games

While traveling for many hours, while waiting for the eye doctor, while J or I get bored from our usual stuff, we have managed to find different word games and that keeps us busy for some time and we get fun time with each other!

Age 3-5

When J was learning different languages, we used to select a language and one of us would star a game by saying a word. The next person would say another word but someways related to the first one;
Example: car, wheels, road, lamp-post and so on

Age 5-8

Word Intakshari- One person will say a word and the other person will say another word starting with the last letter of the first word.
Example: car, road, drum, monkey and so on

Started at age 8 (actually invented this today while waiting for our turn in a doctor's place)

Sentence Intakshari: One person will say a sentence and other person will say a sentence using the last word of first sentence.
Example: I love food.
We should eat colorful food and so on.

Just so talking

Sometimes it happens that out of no reason J gets  aggressive or distressed. It happens mostly in the evening when we all come back home. There are mostly three reasons which I have figured out till now.

Hunger and thirst-some quick snacks like bread jam or even a milk chocolate bar and a glass of cold milk or cold water helps.

Physical discomfort-Headache or tummy ache or extreme tiredness from the activities of whole day.
Following the first step and then a bath and lying down wearing soft comfortable cloths helps.

Mental discomfort-Some not so good things happened in the day care or school and that could make J extremely vulnerable. It can mostly be some fights or differences in opinion with friends.
Sitting with J, initiating a talk by discussing about my day, telling her about my colleague and then softly asking  about how was  her day at school. She opens up like a bottle of 'bubbly'. I just let her talks and listen to her. Then we talk about several other things and somehow after around half an hour I could see her smiling and frown free face again.

Main challenge still now is to identify her problem and sometimes I also come back home with lots of baggage of discomfort! Those days, we both stress each other out!

 Such is life.

My home is in a memory land

I remember those childhood days of mine when I was transplanted from one city to another in every few years. I used to cry and revolt and get upset specially during adolescence and teenage year.

Leaving friends, neighbourhood and the comfort school zone every now and then is not that easy for a child. It used to take lots of pain and hard work to to earn good faith from teachers in each schools and whenever I started to get big roles in Drama or other co-curricular activities at school, I would be informed at home that we are transferred in another city.

Again a new place, new people, new school and new set of friends. 

When you talk about your schooling in one primary and one secondary school I remember class rooms of those seven schools where I did my schooling. When you talk about one or two best buddy of your childhood with whom you have close bonding till now, I can clearly see all those faces who where my best buddies, with each of them after getting separated, I tried to keep contact through letters but then slowly lost them while walking in the haze of present and future. You all have a home in a village, town or a city, I do officially have a home town where my parents are living now but I don't connect to that town at all as I have never lived there. 

Now we all are grown up many of us are  studying, working, living at different places to where we have grown.  

But whenever you get some days off you say that you are  planning to go home,  to those known streets of childhood, to those shops where you used to buy toffee, pencils, rubbers when you were a kid and to those shops where you used to buy greeting cards, story books and music cassettes when you pretended to be a grown up. You say that you yearn for that room of yours which still carries the flavour of your growing up years, some pencil scratches on the wall, some hand made projects and many photos.

When I get some time off, I also fly back to my home but that is in the memory land, which is situated on the parts of the streets and neighbourhood of all  those places (small towns of India) where I spent many hundreds of days.

I have very sharp images of all those places in my mind but I am sure if I get a chance to revisit I will not be able to recognise them anymore. 

Before coming home ("Bari Ashar Age")

The day we decide to leave our country, our home, we get divided into two entities, one always active in searching new life in the host country and other still dwelling lazily at home land. No matter how hard we try to find a niche for ourselves in the new found land, our dual state of mind remains forever and after many years we end up creating an imaginary world for us in the host country which consists of several threads we have brought from our own country. Time to time we also try to reconnect with the images of the hazy homeland we have left. This happens specially at the month of December. In this month many of us camouflage the festive mood of west and utilise the Christmas holidays to visit our own country. This luxury is very difficult to afford for most of us every year but we try our best. After being able to buy the air tickets and informing our immediate boss about our intended leave the days passes like a dream full of images which are very dear to us. I am also no exception. Every time I make a plan to visit my country, plethora of discrete images arises and vanishes in my mind. These images never make a complete story but are like snapshots of several moments or incidents jumbled up into a slideshow. Like the thin stream of river I saw last time from the train, the staircase of the house I lived before, or the tree in front of the pond of my small village where I don't know when I will be able to go next, my mother bidding good bye last time when I left, my father buying vegetables in the daily fresh market, my brother and sister laughing or watching T.V., street foods of India or special dishes made by my mother, my brother and sisters smiling and waiting faces, my father standing with and eager look in front of the gate of airport, my mother loosening the soil in her beloved garden and planting a new sapling. Mixed with these there are the rushes of childhood memories, my growing up years, images of different schools and friends, summer vacations in grandparents house, wrinkled faces of grandparents whom I loved very much but could not meet for last many years for my self made busy schedule and then suddenly I lost them forever from my life. With all these in my mind I keep phoning home, make plans about my visits, spend several weekends shopping for gifts, I keep thinking of buying some gifts for all the cousins and friends who were so close to me but then end up buying chocolates or deo-sprays due to my limited pocket size. I feel bewildered when I go for buying something for my younger sister and brother who were school kids last time I saw them but now they are confident college goers. I keep searching for blood pressure measuring machine or electrical teeth brush or sweater or water cooker for my parents and try to make up for my absence in their daily routine. Each time I buy something I put them in suitcases and weigh them carefully not to exceed the weight limit from airlines. This is also the time when I don't get stressed out from normal work pressures as I see them from little distance. Just before coming home I feel a continuous smile inside me. And then the day comes when I find my self sitting inside a plane with fastened seat belt and finally I call home to tell them that I am reaching there in few hours!