A milestone and your new home

Now, here’s a milestone I am so glad you’ve finally crossed. Eating at the dining table, all by yourself and finishing every tiny morsel of Machu-bhatu (fish curry and rice) with tomato ketchup. (I think you should be called KG and not me :D).

Your dad got all mush-mush and said- ‘amaar meye ta boro hoye geche’..(my daughter’s all grown up). we celebrated it by having a chocolate pudding, you insisted on a candle blowing ceremony too :D. We complied. You were ecstatic.

we moved to a new place baby. You seem to have taken very well to it. You are rather fond of the staircase and very very weary of the snails in the backyard and the neighbour’s black cat, who you think is sitting inside one of our kitchen cupboards to give you a scare. Hmmmmm…ma promises to do something about it. And your request for a slide and swing will be looked into, soon.

There’s something more- you are enormously excited about the India trip. Especially when I told you this morning that this Friday will be the last day you go to school and  after that no school in India for 3 long moonths, you could barely contain your glee :D! Also, when you speak to Aie (my mum) you say, aami pack up korechilam aar 5 minees e Iniyya aashchi ( I had packed up and am reaching India in five minutes). Yep, you still have no sense of present/ present continuous tense. Everything works in the simple past, past perfect and past continuous..:D. And we soo love you for that!! It sounds awfully cute.

Ma loves you, le.

Your stage debut

Mishmash, here’s something you’ll treasure when you grow up. Your first ever performance on stage. Oh yeah baby, your stage debut :). You dressed like a flower girl and ushered the fairies while dancing (read nodding your head vigorously :D) to the lovely Bengali song, ‘Dushtu hawa’. 

You were most excited by the fact that you were going to wear some colourful costumes, that  you insisted on calling- ‘princess dress’. Oh but you were completely disappointed when you saw the older girls who dressed like fairies. You felt rather cheated and kept telling me you wanted to change into those fairy costumes with ‘wings’. “I big ma, I want pink fairy dress with weeengs”  !!Oh poo poo you. Next time I’ll ensure you amongst the fairies, ok shona?

Here are some snapshots:

Sanjukta mashi did your face, and you just couldn’t contain your excitement :).

With Rio and Rai.

On stage!!

Some discussion about whose bangles are better. (The ones you are wearing are also Rai’s, by the way ! )

Mish, that was the correct step. You were supposed to do just that  :D

This performance got the hugest applause. Your team was the youngest of the lot- all 3 year olds and below! And I must tell you, your ma debuted around the same time as you (ie when I was 3). She was dressed – Q for queen :).

well done my big gurl! We are so proud of you!

Thank you, baby

Darling Mish

I was very sad and down today. I was basically missing a job, being independent and all that blah, bleuh, blehs….and just then, you came up with this brilliant idea- ‘ma, lets bake cupcakes! Let us surprise papa’! and the next was you telling papa – pa, we are baking cupcakes. Shhh its a surprise, ok? :-)

The spark in your eyes, my baby, can brighten a thousand hearts! That’s the kind of cheer you bring into my life :).  You are my very own, personal rainbow :D. Look, what we did in the kitchen today. Thank you, baby. You made my day. There is NOTHING I am missing out on in my life! You are all I need :). OK lets get papa too into our gang? Whatsay?

 

 

and here’s papa’s BIIIG surprrriseeeeeeee! :D

I laaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaab eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeuuu.

yours and only yours

Mum-mum

Pujo, and you

You are at an age when you finally understand what Pujo means and how much fun it entails. Of course, it would have been a lot different had we been in India with grandparents. But I think you did have a fairly happy Pujo. This was the first time you took part in a drawing competition. Sure, you sulked and glared at the sweet lil girl sitting next to you only because she was pushing you a wee bit. But then you took part in the competition and made a fabulous drawing.

Shona, I always want you to remember that Pujo for us has been as happy this year despite being away form home, ONLY because of you.

You give me such joy and also incite in me such annoyance, both in the same breath, that I am left with such overwhelming love for you. :-)

Continue rolling your big eyes in awe and continue to fill my life with such madness. Love you.

Perched comfortably in your fav place. Everything is nice n clearly visible. But i think u need to stop pulling dad’s hair any further..he’s going bald you see, baby.

A heart to heart conversation between papa and u. I was not invited to participate. *sulk*

Dancing to Dhaak, oblivious to everything around you. Lovely moment for us, baby.

The glare. Why, u glare just like mom. :)

My lil artist at work

Your interpretation of this drawing: ‘Ma, no ma, this is not a sun. This is angry man who is destoooying everything’. Hmmmmm.

Ma look, I got a badge!

 

Thanks Aunty Swapna , for this Badge. Its my very first one.

Ma says u need to know 7 honest things about me. So here goes:

1. I don’t really like school

2. I love Pink. But don’t understand why ma is bored of it.

3. I love watching TV. I like it more than chocolates, but not more than ice creams.

4. Ma says I have a temper. But so does ma. So i think i am like her.

5. I like wearing Princess dress. Papa though thinks I look better in jeans. And ma thinks I should just wear anything and not worry too much. But still. I like wearing pink princess dresses with matching shiny shoes.

6. I am scared of Michael Police. Papa says he goes around locking up naughty children and those who watch a lot of TV. When I grow up and become strong, I’ll lock him up instead.

7. I give ma and papa a hard time every morning. But i think its their job anyway to love me and teach me good manners. So I will continue giving them a hard time.

Now for the 7 honest blogs:

1. Scribbler Mashi’s : Scribbling Away to Glory

2. Debanjana Mashi’s: Lemondrops and Norwesters

3. Mama Mia me a mama mashi’s : Motherhood and all that jazz

4. Tracer Bullet mashi’s : Need a rewind erase button and volume control too

5. Mystic Margarita Mashi’s: Another Shot At Life

6. Mad Momma Mashi’s : The Mad Momma

7. Jayeeta Mashi’s: pages from my life’s lazy randomness.

 

Have a lovely day, Honest Mashis :D.

Lots of Love, Mishmash

My Papa Bessssstest

Dearest Daddy

On Father’s day (Australian), I’d like mummy to say a few things on my behalf. I think you make the bestest daddy, because:

1. You always buy me my rainbow ice cream (ma doesn’t)

2. You always make me sit on your shoulder and sometimes on your head also

3. You let me punch your face

4. You take me to the beach and get your pants wet with me (ma sits on the beach taking pictures always)

5. You don’t force feed me

6. You buy me only branded clothes (ma goes for the discount items)

7. you bought me my scooter and cycle

8. You watch Shaun the Sheep with me and we laugh

9. You forget about the milk ma keeps on the table for me. So i can sometimes skip the torture.

10. You drive me around in the car (ma still can’t. Why, daddy?)

11. You fall asleep with me while putting me to sleep.

12. You tell me more than 6 stories. (Ma can’t go beyond 1 story)

12. You love mummy very much

13. And also because I love you and you love me. I think we make a very happy family. Like the Koala bear family song they show on Nick.

14. You always play hide and seek with me and hide only in the places I want you to.

15. You always smile papa. I love you for that. Ma says she lovs you for that too.

I love these pics of ours papa. I think you are the world’s best daddy. Kiss.

 

Happpy Father’s day, Papa.

Ma, look, I made my own dinner!

Teeny weeny little phulkas for Barbie. Oh yeah baby, you made them alright. Your initial plan was to make that your dinner. Of course i suggested it was ‘too much’ for you, and that you must feed Barbie instead.

Poo Mashi says, it won’t be long before you actually dish out something for me in the kitchen. And you know what Mishmash, I’d rather you not.

Why are you growing THIS fast? :((

And not this roti- beloing has become a regular feature, much to my dismay!!

Oh my adoooolllllaaaaaable munchkin.

Mummy Laaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaabs eu.

In a DIY mode

So, you are in this Do It Yourself mode, and want to do it ALL yourself. From brushing to choosing your own clothes. Of course, eating will never be part of your activity, so can’t include that, unfortunately. To keep you in this mode, which roughly began after you made the pasta bracelet, I decided to devote a few hours every alternate day with you, when you are home, doing some fun stuff. And look what we made today.  I demonstrated one and you made the rest. Awesome, no? I think you rock, Mish.

 

The day after tomorrow, we’ll make a doll. Ok?

Handmade Love!

Look sweety, your first handmade gift for me- a pasta bracelet :). Well, after you made it you decided to give it to Tamanna instead     :-(.

:-) But I was the first choice and we did have fun making this!! I discovered you are indeed true to your name- Ishika- the Sanskrit meaning being ‘paintbrush’. Look how beautifully you paint!

 

Muaaaaaaaaaaaaaah! Looking forward to more colourful times my munchkin.

Little Miss Present Tense

You are slowly mastering the art of deception. I never knew you could feign a stomach ache so well, only to miss daycare. Increasingly your early morning wake up chat, is all about how much you love me..especially on alternate days, when you go to daycare. You hang on the hope that all your -I love You’s - will keep you at home, with your TBheee.

On daycare day mornings- you open your palm and start counting – ‘today no school, today school. today no school, today school, today no school’ …You refuse to understand the concept of ‘tomorrow’ or the future tense. Everything for you is here and now. So when you talk of tomorrow, you talk in the present tense. You say things like- “I will go to school today, come back, watch TBHee, eat Bhatooo, sleeeep, wake up and say mummy mummy aajge school bondo (today the school is closed)” – when all you wanted to convey was- today I have school and tomorrow I stay home.

My sweetpea. We like you talking this way. Everything in present, and with a lot of animation and description.

I should make a note here that you have successfully bunked the very first ‘exam’ of your school life- the show and tell – activity. You fell sick. But I wish you could have done it- you were to show a piece of strawberry cake (a plastic one, that you adore and eat every day at your imaginary tea party) and say- Hi, this is a strawberry cake. It is pink in colour. I love the colour pink, and I like cakes. You of course, took it to a different level- you added a happy  birthday song, said you liked pink princess dress, that your mom had a pink birthday cake, that you have many more pink toys in your room….blaah blah….

In short, at 3 years 6 months, you are a non stop chatter box, with a LOT to tell and ask us about.

We love you.

-Ma, Pa.

P:S: Oh, I must mention- you know all your ‘lhymes’, ‘colouls’, ‘shapes’. You can even identify a parallelogram and a trapezoid.  In the shower yesterday you said pointing the floor tiles- look ma, ‘square’…and then to the drainage hole and said, ‘shircle’, ma.

*Mummy Gloating*

Stars for potty!

You’ll probably kill me for posting this when you grow up, but then, what’s this space without the fun and crazy snippets from your  toddler life? So here goes.

Papa and I almost thought you’ll never be potty trained, the rate at which your love affair for diapers were going. A total of 3 potty seats and 2 fancy potties have been part of this house hold, one of which was very lovingly gifted by Dada when you were all of three months. That, you used as a musical throne and broke it in no time. We tried using many age old techniques, online advice, grand ma’s suggestions, to get you to sit on the pot to poop, but you had other plans. Why bother sitting on a boring pot, when you had the option of watching TV while pooping in your Winnie the Pooh diapers? Finally, we decided on getting you one last potty in Sydney, that promised to reward you with a star if you pooped in it. And miracle of miracles happened – you pooped in mama-papa’s adult potty, to get the star! So much for spending money on the potty- I should have just made some star stickers! Well, you might want to argue, that we should have thought of rewarding you earlier- oh, but we did- we promised you all the Barbies and Thomas’ and doll houses of the world, but to no avail. If only I had known stars could make such a big difference to your ego! I had heard from many friends, but never thought you’d be so kicked with it! But see what a cute lil potty! And guess what, starting this morning, you’ve even forgotten about the stars! So, you are now, fully, completely, totally, potty trained.

Proud parents, and a star child!

And now, you are my big bachcha. Mumma soooooo loves you!

Meeshu wishes her Momma a happy Mother’s Day!

Dearest Meeshu, thank you for this beautiful Mother’s day card. My first Mother’s day card ever!  (Papa gave me an Iphone a week earlier and now says that was for Mommy’s day- now now…we’ll talk about this in depth when you come of age, ok? )

Love you, my doll!

Mumma

 

 

Messy Meeshu

Meeshu my darling. Do you have any idea how you make your mumma slog? Here, have a look at the mess you create every single day, and I am left to clear it all up. And what you simply love doing is, sitting in the pink toy box of yours, with all the toys strewn around. Some of your toys have been retrieved from under the sofas, in the dishwasher, inside my handbag and from all sort of places that seem to interest you.

But wait, yesterday, you came to me and said- ‘ma, let me help you….here you go’..so you say these words and take one of your stuffed toys and dump it into your toy box. Then walk out saying- ok ma, there you go. I help you….I go watch Tbhee, now…pleaseeee?

Now with a face like that, can I say no?

Papa’s tennis star

One of papa’s dreams for you is to train you in tennis. I am not the one with such dreams. I only hope you turn into a beautiful human being and you get decent education to fund yourself great holidays and fund ours too :D. But you must grow up to thank dad for what he is doing for you. It is so unlike him to wake up early on a Saturday morning. But he does, and its all for you. He takes you to Sydney Olympic park to this Phizz Kids camp for a round of games and tennis  to help you develop your motor skills better. I cannot explain the look your dad had on his face when you held that tennis racket for the first time. He said- ‘damn! I held that racket for the first time when I was 24, and look at her, she is all of 3!’ There was only love, warmth and a lot of pride gleaming in his eyes.  And you had a helluva time too sweetheart!

 

Your first Nike.  got my first when I was 22.

 

Papa helping u with your warm up, which you refuse to do. You are the youngest in the team by the way.

 

And like all days u were ALL pink.

 

Australian Open dreams?

 

you wore my cap :)

Of times together, stories and love.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                My dearest Meeshu

This is perhaps the first of the series of e-letters I will be posting on your blog. I wanted to let you now that you are growing fast, rather, too fast for me to keep pace, with your changing demands and habits. But you make it all easy for me, with your undying affection for me. Oh, yes, there is a sudden surge of love for ma-ma. Daddy can’t seem to understand this :).  Know what? He is a wee bit jealous too. Haha!

 

I wanted to tell you something- your mumma, doesn’t have a job these days. As in, a job that pays. So she is home full-time. On alternate days when you are home and don’t  go to school, we spend hours together, watching  Dora and Diego on TV, have chips, Nimbu Paani, Misti, and paint rainbows. I treasure it very much.  Especially when you hug me every ten minutes, for no reason at all. Where did you learn to give love, in such abundance?  And most of all, I love the time we spend at bedtime. It used to irk me that you don’t sleep with papa , but these days I enjoy making up stories with you. These bedtime stories are rarely one sided-  we both like building a story together. Like building blocks, we put together funny bits – some u add and some I do, and at the end we have a really fabulous story we’ve told each other. And you go to sleep a happy child.

 

One of the stories we built together was the story of a Tiger. This is how it went:

Ma: There once lived a Tiger

Meeshu: Naughty tiger

Ma: Ok. The naughty tiger was hungry and so he decided to stroll out for some dinner.

Meeshu: he goes to nine-to-nine (to refresh your memory, nine-to-nine was a convenience store located in Bangalore, near our apartment. You loved going there)

Ma: Ya, so he enters 9 to 9 and asks for some chicken

Meeshu: chocolates ma

Ma: Sure. He asks for a box of chocolates

Meeshu: Pink colour chocolates.

Ma:  ok, Pink coloured ones. But then he realises he doesn’t have money! So he decides to go home and ask his mother for some. But his house is very far…so what do you think he does? Where can he go now?

Meeshu: He goes to Meeshu’s house ! The tiger asks Meeshu’s mumma for ten rupees. Here, take (you gesture- give me imaginary money)

Ma: So the tiger takes the money (i gesture back- take the imaginary money and put it in my pocket) and goes to 9 to 9 and buys his pink chocolates. So do you think he should come home and give you some?

Meeshu: yes! but on his way back home, Michael Police comes and eats up all the chocolates! (Michael police is this imaginary policeman you are scared of- he is the one who keeps turning your TV off mysteriously)

Ma: oh, so Michael police is good or bad?

Meeshu: Naughty Michael police…papa goes to his house and does dishum-dishum! Michael Police does aaaaaaa, oooo…..

Khatam!! The end, ma.

 

How entertaining, my doll. Thank you for making my life so full of laughter and madness :-)!

I love you.