Goblie (Story for ages 2-5)

There is a monster called Goblie,
who lives in the Caribbean sea.

She is blue, big and good,
and no, children are not her favorite food.

She has eyes the colour of the sun
and hair on her head looks like a bun!

One day when she came up for air,
there was a fishing boat stuck in her hair!

To be Contd...

The diamond trip of United Kingdom ... Part 1

Thats what we like calling it! Our trip started out with six energetic adults and three enthusiastic children and finished after seven days with five tired adults and three enthusiastic children (no..we didn't loose anyone.. One adult flew back home!).

My brother H and wife N and my parents settled in their car and we stuffed ourselves and the tents and the groceries and the sleeping bags and the duvets and the clothes and the picnic table and chairs and the folding chairs and the stove and the gas and the vessels into ours!! After a lot of breaks we finally reached Wasdale...a lovely place in lake district..where we had been before. Karthik and I love the place. It holds something for us, I don't know what. But I would return there again next year and forever till we are in UK. A few snaps of the place before I continue the tour diary.v I can't seem to put in words the feeling we had when we set out after having had hot idlis( my doad was the kitchen..rather, stove in charge during the trip and he managed to get us delicious south indian food all through scotland!) to walk around the lake. A few pictures might speak a thousand words, or it might not convey anything at all. Tell me.

Parents at home

After months of waiting, dad and mom are here! The kids had been getting frantic a week before they were due to arrive. Kachi and Kautu would start the day enquiring if they have come and krithika starts putting on her shoes to go and pick them up! Then finally, the D day arrived and we all set off, my brother and wife, karthik, me and the kids to pick them up. Oh..so joyful to see the reunion of the oldest and the youngest in our family!
The time spent with us seems all too little now. Barely two weeks after he arrived, my dad went back. We managed a cross England camping trip that lasted a week, a single day exploring London, punting on river Cam and loads and loads of shopping the while he was here. Mom is here another month, and I have put on an additional few Kgs with all the good food, morning, noon and night!
Ah...I really was missing my almost every month trips to Chennai to see them, and the frequent visits of Mom to Bangalore, when Karthik and I would take off from our duties and relax in her cooking and pampering! Isn't it so wonderful that you have someone who loves the kids as much as you and you can unburden yourself totally to them and relax without a thought in your head? I often think of children who don't have grandparents...how much they are missing, all the old stories, the feeling of listening to and loving someone other than your parents and ofcourse, the yum food. Anyway, let me enjoy myself a bit more and get back to the sorry posts after they have gone!!

When we reached paradise

We reached it by around 4 in the evening, last saturday, after a 7 hour drive from Cambridge. We knew we were entering it when the country side began giving way to rolling hills and mooing cows and baaing sheep. We exited the motorway to go past the lush greenery and the beautiful, quaint cottages with flowers hanging from every possible corner and stopping the car every now and then to allow for stray sheep and lamb on the road. And then, we took a turn to the right and nearly had our eyes fallen out! We saw a pristine lake at the footsteps of a tall mountain, with flowers adorning her side and nothing else. No civilisation, no people and we had a ten minute drive by the side of the lake till we came to our campsite.
From then on, it was sheer fun and time whizzed by till we found ourselves home! Pitching the tent, making dinner on our small portable gas, chatting away outside the tent while the kids slept, surrounded by no other noise than the sound of the sheep, looking around to find your vision blocked by trees and mountains, waking up the next day to a hot cup of tea which I sipped sitting under a tree and watching the kids playing around, the drive to the lake, the brilliant three hours we spent there-feeling like the only people in the whole wide world, the kids throwing stones for hours on end into the water, the picnic by the lake, the scramble back into the car when thunder threatened our outing, cooking lunch, eating hot hot sambar sadam, heaviest rain we have seen in England, water seeping through our tent!!, walk by the mountain farm in the evening, the bridge across forever, the fallen pasta and eager mouths, the night in the tent with the rain outside, sitting by the lantern light and having a pasta dinner, talking into the night while the kids slept, the last day blues, packing up the tent, trip to windermere, river cruise, swans galore and the long drive home.
Suffered a mild depression after coming back, for we had left a large part of ourselves there, and we have promised ourselves another trip back there soon.

Why?..I am beat!

Why do we blink our eyes?
Why does the wheel rotate when the pram moves?
Why does the pram shake when it goes over the stones?
Why do we have a mouth?
Why does that aunty shake while walking?
Why should we wake up when the sun comes?
Why do we have to sleep when the sun is still there? (sunset is at 8.00pm these days, after the kids bedtime!)
Why do we come down when we jump? (explained a lil bit of gravitation and the apple falling!)
Why do we have 10 fingers and not only 1?
Why does the cycle not have life? ...
cause it is made of metal.
Why is it made of metal?
cause it has to be strong enough to carry you.
But why does metal not have life?
*sigh* *..forced to go back to the easiest reply possible ..* cause god made it so!!!


...Kashyap n kaustubh's questions, karthik n I get a thrill just hearing them and trying to think of an answer they can understand.

Life has been going on...

at full speed. Kids have even changed schools in the few months that we've been here. They got admission to the school at the end of our lane, so pulled them out from their older one which was less than 10 minutes walk to put them here. Really, such absurd distances kids have to travel to school here! They seem to like the new one too, though I was a bit skeptical, and this change was quite a difficult one for me. Coz I liked the 10 min walk. Coz the old school had a lot more discipline. Coz I had made a friend there. Coz the kids loved their teacher. Coz they brought back a drawing each day. Coz they had a lovely climbing bar in the ground. Coz it was close to the library and the park.
I do hope I have a lot of Coz of this school too. Now baby was getting bored in the house when the kids were at school. So I have started taking her to the playgroups here. Such a lovely concept. I pay 1.5 pounds for two hours and there are ample toys, snacks and even tea and coffee and biscuits for the moms. Not to mention, a lot of other moms you can chatter away with. The last half hour is filled with rhymes and music with all the moms and dads taking part. Its quite a lot of fun and we even have walking songs where you hold hands with your kids and take them around in a circle singing their favorite songs. Baby loves every minute of it. I love the tea, the conversation and the books that i take along. These groups meet just once or twice a week, so have found three different ones so that I have a playgroup to go to everyday.
And then, we usually walk/drive to the park in the evenings, when the climate is nice and sunny. So that takes care of the rest of the afternoon and evenings. So time is flying and how.
Kids are having a blast and we are too. I think, the right words for any kids are:
lots of play, different places every three hours, good food and relaxed parents. Am I right?

How much more sweeter can it get??

......when your son hugs you spontaneously and says " I love you, Amma". I tell him "I love you too" and he says "I love you three" and opens his hand wide just letting you now how much he loves you!!!
......when your daughter comes and cuddles with you and starts pinching your cheeks, kissing your face all over and tells you "Amma..I want to konjafy" (She wants me to cuddle with her!)
......when the kids eat all the food you lovingly prepared for them and say "Mummy, your food is yummy!"
......when you wear a new dress and your sons say "Amma, you are looking VERY pretty!" (they like me wearing black).
......when you see their face lighting up as they spot you waiting outside their class door and they rush with their days activity sheet in hand, eager to show you their scribbles.
......when you spot the stickers your sons have from school says "Good work", "Teachers special award", "hard working" and "star student"!!!!
......when you take them to a play pen and they spend four hours inside, hanging, rolling, climbing and sliding, and then you join them, creeking your aging bones in the process and find them directing you "Amma, you have to climb like this and then go like that ...."

It can't get sweeter than this, can it?