Santa Fe - Fall 2015

When little Miss Haana was born, one of my dreams was to travel the world - go and stay in different places with her. Keep alive the spirit of adventure, not only in her childhood; but in essence bring my childhood alive as well. She's four now and able to experience the world and have an opinion about what she likes and when, I thought it was time to test-drive the theories, and begin the ride.

To test the waters I decided to head out on an impromptu trip to Santa Fe, NM for a couple of days. And here are just some of the highlights:

We stayed as paying guests with Susan and Steve and their beautiful house in Santa Fe: https://www.airbnb.com/users/show/28066905
To say that they were gracious hosts would be an understatement. Miss Haana became very thick with both of them and soon was narrating to them all the happenings of her classroom, her teachers, her best friends, what she likes and what she doesn't. She enjoyed the attention of the two new-found, doting friends of her's as she pranced around the house! Before leaving she also let them know she'll be back soon. At Christmas! We left with warm hugs and an even warmer feeling of having made unexpected friends at unlikely places!

The best part of being on a vacation should be that when you get up in the morning, there is absolutely, candidly, completely, nothing better to do than to roll around in bed for a while! Miss Haana woke me up one day and said "Mumma, Mumma, wake up! My stomach just growled".
I asked - "Gugu, did you eat a lion yesterday? Is that a lion growling from your stomach?"
"Noo!!", giggles all around.

If there was ever a time when I had my hands full and my mind occupied with things to do or stuff to carry, there was this little helper who would remind me (there was definitely a motherly nagging in that little voice):
Hey, Mumma, don't forget to put my buckles on the stroller! And don't forget to put the buttons on my jacket!!! (delirious laughter along with "Who does that?!")
Hey! Don't forget to pick up the jacket, huh! (snickering follows)
Hey Mumma! Don't forget to pull my pants up! hahahah! (Don't ask)

At the New Mexico Museum of Art, we found some children's books on Georgia O'Keefe. Miss Haana and I sat and read through each one of them. Then, the little girl declared she wanted to draw and paint. Now. We headed out looking for paper or colors. The little girl confidently walked up to the museum shop and asked for paper to draw on, all on her own. I was proud of her. We continued on our quest for colors in nearby store full of trinkets. But now, she got all distracted with all the other "stuff". We sat and read several more books.

On canyon road, strolling up and down the galleries, little Miss Haana decided which galleries to get into. There were several bronze sculptures of dogs, horses, boys and girls in the yards. And someone was prancing around through all of them. Once inside the Barbara Meikle gallery (one I wanted to visit), we met with the artist; Miss Haana told her she was an artist too. They talked and talked about what she liked, and the bronze sculptures, and played games in the gallery.

Theme for our entire trip was this sentence repeated through the trip:
Mumma!! I got an awesome idea! Let's go on an adventure!
But then also this from time to time:
I want to go back home!

On our drive back to Albuqurque to get on a flight back home, I told Miss Haana to bid the mountains good-bye. Then we noticed someone was following us:
We noticed we left most of the snow covered mountains behind as we headed south-wards, but one mountain was following us down south. I told Miss Haana to talk to him:
"It's ok, Mountain. You don't have to follow us around to our home. There are no other mountains down there, you wouldn't have any other friends. We'll be back in Christmas, Mountain. We'll all play together then. Go back home now Mountain, ok?"
I have to say, the talk did work because I haven't seen any strange mountains back at home lately!

On the airport on our way back, we saw the most wonderful plane of all! It was the Mickey Mouse plane on Alaska Airlines:
http://www.alaskaair.com/content/travel-info/our-aircraft/739-spirit-of-dl2.aspx
We stuck like flies on the glass windows at the airport, wondering whether Mickey Mouse, Donald, Goofy and all were headed to the Clubhouse.

Another note - everyone doted on little Miss Haana! On her jacket, the bow on her jacket, the braid in her hair, her cowboy boots, and most of all - her!

I was a bit tired coming back from the trip. But it was an absolute fun filled adventure!

Day At Work

Amongst all the fun that can be had by 4 year olds at work, this is by far the funnest :-)

From left: Prema, Rushil, Anya, Papa, David, Mumma, Miss Haana. And then there's a ladder for home.

Favorite People

Little 4 year old Miss Haana transitions back and forth between drawing and writing now.

Here's a list of blocks on which she's written all her favorite people's names:

From the left most pink block:

Anya, rushil, Suhaana, papa, Rangoli, Mumma, Rajesh.

And the last block, even though it's not visible due to the color, it says: sweetheart!

:)

What do you want to be for Halloween?

Last year little Miss Haana and I were both cowgirls- with chequered shirts, vests, cowboy hats, cowboy boots (with real spurs in my case!). Last year, it wasn't really a question. I decided the Halloween costume, and the little girl just went with it.

Such simple times are now behind me. And so, this year things are more complex. All decisions are made by a 4 year old Big girl. 

Till a week back, we were all absolutely sure it was going to be an Elsa Halloween for us. I had started looking for an Elsa costume for me. The little girl already had one since several months back (her Jinu aunty had gifted the whole ensemble to her).

But then, new, previously unrealized options appeared on the Halloween horizon. Daddy suddenly surprised the little girl with a tinkerbell costume! And suddenly it started looking like it will be a tickerbell Halloween for us. Just as I was going to look for tinkerbell costumes for me, a new option loomed.

Yesterday when I asked the little girl what she wants to be on Halloween I got this:

"A Zombee".

We never watch any zombie movies or tv at home or talk about it. Where did she see or hear about zombies?!  Then she volunteered clarification. When I asked her what a zombie is, she said it a buzzing bee, but it's very big in size, so it's called a zom-bee! 

What does it look like, you wonder? It has yellow and black stripes. That's a zombee!

We laughed and laughed; and briefly I wondered how I would do inside a big buzzing bee costume. And then I hoped the zombee wave would die down soon!!

Olaf

Couple of weeks back an amazing thing happened:

We are currently in the phase of our lives that can best be described as Disney's Frozen Fever. Little Miss Haana was coloring in her Frozen coloring book. She was coloring the eternal optimist snowman- Olaf.

But then, once she was done, she sounded the name Olaf to herself slowly a few times. And, carefully began writing the letters as they sounded.... O...l..a..

Then she came to show me what she'd written.

I reminded her the name Olaf ended with an "ff" sound.

She knew what was missing. She added the letter "f". Now she had just written, by herself, the word Olaf. All by herself! Did I mention- all-by-herself?!!

I was besides myself with so much pride that she had applied herself to it, and figured it out  all by herself. 

While I was still oooh-aahh-ing on what she had just done, she proceeded to write c-a-t. And Elsa too.

So proud of my little thing!

Satisfaction Guaranteed

Sandwiches have never been my thing. But that was before I came across the Hazelnut and Cocoa spread - a chocolate spread made from hazelnuts and cocoa. Delicious, chocolate-brown, finger licking goodness! 

But in order to pack more protein I decided the sandwiches with the cocoa spread ought also to contain peanut butter ( by far the most protein rich nut- far better in protein than almonds). So, here's the recipe for the sandwiches:

Remove the crusts (can't be a sandwich with crusts on!), spread roasted peanut butter on both slices. Then spread hazelnut cocoa spread on both slices. Cut in half, and ready to eat.

Only problem is, little Miss Haana would much rather her delicious, finger licking goodness of chocolate sandwiches not be tampered with or adulterated by anything. Especially peanuts! 

This morning the sandwitch went through some thorough interrogation. I handed her the sandwich.

Right away she retorted it has peanut butter, so really can't be expected to be that tasty.

I said, no! It has the chocolate spread.

She handled the sandwitch gingerly. Some of the peanut butter got stuck on  her finger. She showed it to me- See! It's much lighter ( in color). It's not chocolate.

I knew something had to be done.

So I said, Nono Gugu, when you spread the chocolate spread it gets lighter on the sides. That's why it looks like yellowish on the sides, but if you look inside the sandwitch it's all brown like chocolate. She peaked in. My story checked out.

Finally she bought it. And ate her sandwitch.

Both of us felt satisfied!