Halloween craze
has totally taken over our house. The kids woke up at 5.30am (no, not for any sane schedule reason - but the bubbling excitement inside would not let them sleep!!) to paint Halloween spiders, black cats, ghosts and ghouls and you-name-it with "glow in the dark" paint...
I slept at 3 after working on my submission and at 5.15am I was woken up by whispering Arunav, "Mamma can I go and check the time?" - why whisper!
Believe me, kids' excitement is so genuine, so sparkly that it is infectious and before long I found myself digging up orange and black playdoh to make halloween pumpkins and sticking them over our door. MEd thesis just does not have that charm.
In the meantime, Aarushi also announced she would not get married because she just will not know how to go around "I don't know the roads! I can't get lost with them, so I cannot marry, unless I make the guy do all that work." Unbeatable robust reasoning!!
Aarushi's story.. written and typed by her
Lyvia and the magnificent swan
Once upon a time, in a large clearing lived a
poor family, called the Nace family. In the family there were: one mother, one
father, three sisters and one baby. The first sister was called Lyvia and she
was nine. The second sister was called Glarentine, the short form was Tine, and
she was seven. The third sister was called Jessica and she was five. Their baby
brother was twelve months old. Their mother was called Nancy and their father
was called Fred.
One day, in the dark of the night, Lyvia,
Glarentine and Jessica sat wide awake in bed. “I know we’ll go out for a stroll
in the night” suggested Lyvia. “I agree with Lyvia’’ came Jessica’s voice out
of the dark room. “We might see some ducks floating in the lake’’ agreed
Glarentine. “We’ll need to leave quietly though” whispered Lyvia. As silently
as a mouse, the three girls crept out of the door. The whole clearing was
silent. The three friends started making their way through the cold night air.
They had walked for hours and their legs were tired because of the walk but
they urged their legs on. Soon Jessica let out a small agonised cry. Glarentine
and Lyvia stopped walking immediately. Jessica lay sprawled among the grass. A
rock was beneath her. ‘‘I’ll stay with you’’said Glarentine immediately as her
eye caught Jessica’s bleeding knee.’’I’ll carry on’’ said Lyvia. Lyvia hadn’t
been walking for a long time, when a pretty lake came into sight. There was a
magnificent swan floating gracefully on the lake. Lyvia wished that her parents
had more money so that they could take her, Glarentine and Jessica to
Disneyland. Then
mysteriously there was a brilliant, blinding flash of red light and suddenly a
small pile of money appeared in front of Lyvia. Belwildered, Lyvia picked it up. She
walked back to Jessica and Glarentine, still puzzled. Jessica had a knee bandaged
with leaves and vines. She told them what had happened… “A pile of gold coins appeared
in front of me,” she finished, gesturing towards the gold in her hands. Lyvia
put the money in the treasure chest in their playroom. After that they went
back to bed and fell asleep, thinking about their adventure.
The next morning, Lyvia went to her parents and
showed them her money which she had got the previous day. To her surprise the playroom
was full of money. Finally Lyvia, Glarentine and Jessica were able to go to
Disneyland and stay in a hotel there.
THE END.
Post script: Aarushi has been wanting to go to Disneyland hotel 'again' for the longest time and we have been telling her it's too costly specially because we stay in Hong Kong. I don't think we have a choice after this - we have to make it on her 7th birthday :)
Many good things
makes us all happy.
It is school holiday. Kids are at home, eating breakfast in the bed with the sun streaming down their backs. Then they make sour candies at home and lap it all up :)
THE professor told me my presentation of my dissertation was so good that it is worth publishing if I am willing and he does not easily throw empty compliments for encouragement nor make empty promises. That boosted my spirits to work for my dissertation which has been lying in a dusty corner as I run around with kids. But who do I share the satisfaction with - N, the lady far from the other side of the world who is as strong as any woman I have seen before. She was more excited and impressed than I was, 'Shu this was brilliant - pls work on your dissertation - send me after you write a section and I will help you with it.' What a woman! (Not because she offered me invaluable help, but I know what load she has being a doctorate student, mother of a 2-year old and father living elsewhere)
Aarushi stunned me again by solving almost all of her brother's maths homework - she mentally solved 1.28*4 in less than 30 secs. I always thought maths was not her forte.
She was upset with me yesterday for not giving her any work just like I give 'dada'. She got onto her desk angrily and started writing in a copy. She ended up writing a lovely girly story about Lyvia and the magnificent swan, which I will surely put here another day!
Life is good when kids have holiday :) but I still have a choice to make. So should I publish -should I pick up the platter in front?
A statement
So this mother sitting outside with me casually said, 'The ratio of intake is 2:1 for boys to girls'.
It favoured A, but I was surprised at the ratio. That seemed quite skewed to me. If anything, it should have been the other way round considering the performance of girls in academics recently. It did not sound right to me. On hearing me she very firmly said, ' But boys are smarter than girls - girls are more well rounded in development, but boys are smarter.'
That was quite a statement. I never was brought up believing such a myth and yet the conviction in her voice and the deliberation by a well reputed government agency was quite astounding to me. It reminded me of the bengali lady long time back who very convincingly told me the same - 'chheleder buddhi to onek beshi, onko te to meyera onek pichhiye' - huh?!
I know at least 3 girls who were way ahead of 200 boys learning in the same maths class - whither 'Shakuntala Devi'? .... Averages are rubbish when it comes to predicting individual performance - how can they generalize? Maybe they do not, maybe the statistics is revealing only 'averages' - but a fixed ratio as skewed as 2:1, is not an accidental occurrence - it is deliberate manipulation!
Why swim?
was a question a very upset Aarushi asked me.
I said, 'well it may be because it is a survival skill you need to learn so you don't die by drowning - you know 3/4th of the earth is water, right?'
Still frowning,'I will never go near sea.'
Me: 'what if the plane crashes?'
A: I will never go on vacation or in a plane
Me: What if there is a tsunami?
A: I will die anyway - no one can swim in tsunami!
Oh dear.... finally logical thinking gave way and I am guilty of bribing her with a lollypop after swim. From all my parenting learnings in workshops and books, I have leapfrogged into the sweet world of "whatever works" - and yes, I do mean the word "leapfrogged" - it is an advancement - huff!
The beautiful pool
The water was cool, fresh and soothing. The time was just right. The moment was captured. We climbed the rocks. Took a dip. The water washed away the little blood from the little cut from the little slip that A had.
The autumn's mellowed sun, the heat of the walk, the shade of the trees, the cool of the running mountain water, the quiet of the mountains, the excitement of kids as they explored, tried, overcame little obstacles.
Is the 'bliss of solitude'.
A walk too long
One which we thought would be just 5.5 km and it turned out to be near 10km! Poor kids. Pool fun like this in between saved us from a crash.
The report
The latest report said, she is in remission. I looked at it and did not know what to feel. Is it true? Can it be true? Negative Immunofixation test?!
The doctor said, 'Her response is categorised as CR - complete response.'
Why do I feel scared to rejoice - it is great news - at this point in time, no news can be better than this - yet I have this nagging fear, that this is not the end of story... I am afraid to be as happy as the news is supposed to make me. How old and cynical am I getting?
Who knows tomorrow? Today I should be happy - today looks good. So smile and be happy!
