Pumpkin Patch

Is been amazing weather lately. Thinking it would be a shame to waste it, I decided we should be spending our Saturday morning in the nearby pumpkin patch. It was to be little Bobby boy's first pumpkin patch visit! He was unawares, but I was excited about it!

I packed some breakfast for us to eat along the way. We picked up coffee on the way. And pumpkin patch, here we come. It was warm and sunny with cool wind. Beautiful weather. It was a small pumpkin patch with hay stacks all around and pumpkins of all shapes and sizes on 2x4s next to hay attacks. Scarecrows peeped in from corners. In the middle there were more hay stacks and a wind mill. At some corners there were cartons with smaller baby pumpkins. 

Little miss Haana got to work immediately. Scouting for the perfect pumpkins to take home. I parked myself on the hay stacks in the center next to the wind mill, and curated the pumpkins she was selecting. Little Bobby boy had pants and socks on,  but no shoes. He didn't mind it. He was on the prowl like his big sister. He was finding pumpkins half his own size and was trying his best to lift them up. Soon he found the stack of smaller baby pumpkins. He could handle those no problem. First we were just stacking the pumpkins we wanted to take, in a corner. But later little miss Haana got us a cart where pumpkins - the orange vegetable or the mobile, pesky ones - can be parked into. Bobby kept finding baby pumpkins and filling the cart up with them. He was on a mission, and he was busy at it. 

Soon little miss Haana spotted some kids with face painting and found out a corner where face painting was in progress. We went to get her some. I guess she got a fairy face paint. We played and hung around some more. It was a beautiful beautiful day. 

Our pumpkin patch adventure ended and soon it was time to head back. But not without several pumpkins loaded up in the trunk. The pumpkin patch was coming home with us!

The Cow Says..

Many popular toddler books introduce farm animals. And then they inform what the farm animal looks like, and what it says. I would argue that in reality the sound a sheep makes is hardly what we hear in the "Ba Ba Black Sheep" sing-along. Frogs don't exactly speak "Croak" or "Ribbit". Birds don't exactly talk "Tweet". 

I had been reminding Bobby boy the cow says "Mooo" for some time and it hasn't been sticking. So recently I thought I'll shake things up a bit and told him the cow says "Meee". He thought that sounded more funny and smiled. Soon he's been repeating after me "Meeee" and we both laugh after. I figured the sounds are only loosely based on reality so I can exercise some creative freedom here. 🤣

Once we get to a real farm Bobby boy will figure out for himself what the animals say. But for now the cow says "Me! Me!".

Corrupt

Oh no! We have corrupted the little boy! 

Bobby boy likes to play. All through the day he plays with his babysitter Preethi. In the evening he wants to play with Mumma and Papa and little miss Haana. But sometimes they all are busy, doing their own thing. They are cooking in the kitchen,  finishing their homework or doing art work etc. No one is playing with him! This makes little Bobby boy unhappy🙁.  He fussed. He tries to find new places to rummage. Sometimes he slinks away unseen to Mumma's office table and finds treasure in her drawer, or into the bathroom drawers and tries to taste the lip balm. 

So one day, we put Coco Melon on TV. Initially Bobby boy didn't care much for it. In stead, little girl Haana was hooked on to it! 😄. For Bobby boy, it was just something colorful in the background. 

But then yesterday something new happened. Bobby boy decided no one needs to play with him. He sat up on the couch and asked Papa for remote "Mo(te)? Mo(te)?". And when Papa got him the remote, he offered it back to Papa and asked for "CoCo?! CoCo?".

Papa laughed when he got Bobby boy was asking for Coco Melon! And Mumma laughed something about corrupting the boy!!

Bad Boy

Little Bobby boy has been told not to throw things. It can be dangerous. He's been told not to throw food. A rule he thinks is at his discretion to observe or not. 

The other day the little boy was done eating but still had some good on his high chair. Rest of us were not done with our dinner, so no one was getting him off his high chair. The boy was fidgety. He took a morsel of food, twisted sideways and threw it down with purpose. Then he peered down to see if it landed where he aimed it at. Papa was sitting next to him on the counter, he saw the deed but was not impressed. Before he could say anything Bobby boy removed the entire tray and threw it down too, with all its contents. Pieces of food travelled far and wide. "Bobby!!", I screamed, "No throwing! Look what you did!". The boy quickly switched to pensive mood. I knew by now pensive mood means nothing really, he'll still be up to the same things he would've, except now he'll look like he's really considering alternate options, except no alternates are being seemed quite right. 

But now he had 2 pairs of eyes glaring at him! He looked down pensive. Then looked up at us, and gave us his toothy smile to melt us. The 2 glowering pair of eyes met and couldn't help laughing!

Bad boy Bobby!

Mother Daughter Day - Down for the Books

Last Friday little miss Haana's school was off.  I took off from work too, to make it into a mother-daughter day. But our plans were sketchy at best. What will we do?

I asked little miss Haana for suggestions and some expected patterns emerged. We will lunch at the Korean bbq place we dined last time. I looked up movie schedules but nothing good jumped up. Little miss Haana asked to go to a nail place, but it seemed too repetitive. Then I thought of visiting the immersive Van Gogh experience on Friday, she would love that. But when i read about it, I thought Bobba would like that too; perhaps all of us should check that out. But then what of our mother- daughter date?

On Wednesday night I was listening to an audible, and the author mentioned 'SUP' rentals - Standing Upright Paddleboarding. It struck a familiar chord. A few weeks back in Colorado, we went boating on the lake, there were a couple boys who rented a paddleboard and paddled their way through the lake. Little miss Haana had wanted to do it. Instead, the next day she did kayaking by herself on a single person kayak, along with Dad. I looked up if there are SUP rentals on my area, and found out -Yes! There were! There was a paddleboard class near by!! Available for friday! So perfect! 

Next day I called them up to make sure they had equipment for 9 year olds, and then made my booking for friday morning. It was a 2hr class. I figured we will spend some time on the docks while the instructor explains to us how to be stable on the board, and then the 2nd hour being in the water. 

Next day on our mother daughter date, little miss Haana and I had a hurried breakfast and headed out for our 10am class. Put on our current favorite song in the car, singing along as we went. At the class, we put on our life jackets and within the first 5 minutes, we were already on the paddleboard floating on the water. Our instructor told us how to paddle, how to steer, how to turn etc. Somewhere in the middle of that little miss Haana asked when can we be in the water. I wondered what does she mean, we are already on the water. But I realized in a minute, she meant when can we be 'in' the water. Soon after she jumped off her board to float in the water! Of course! She is part mermaid! I somehow cajoled her to get back on her board so we could head a bit farther down the lake. But soon when we were a little bit father, she wanted me to jump off the board too. I didn't at first, but soon our boards rammed in together and i lost my balance and jumped in anyway. Oh! It was great! The water felt great in the summer sun. Little miss Haana and I laughed in delight at the unadulterated fun we were having! We floated for a while and played with each other. It was great! When we got back on our boards it wasn't for very long. Thanks to little miss Haana we were back in the water soon enough. But it was a lot of fun both ways! At one point our paddleboards seemed to be floating away while we played in the water; we had to swim up to catch them. 

After a lot of fun it was time to head on back. We were both hungry by now, it was time to move to our next activity of the day. We dried ourselves and changed in the car then headed to the Korean bbq place for lunch. We both love Korean bbq. We had a big lunch and headed out. It was time to head home. 

But there was another activity in our mother daughter date yet. A movie! I popped some popcorn in the microwave. Made myself a decaf coffee, little miss Haana made herself a decadent hot chocolate with whipped creme and chocolate syrup drizzle on top, and we headed to the couch for our movie afternoon. Little Bobby boy was taking his nap, so it was timed well.

The movie began but soon I had trouble keeping my eyes open.. it was all so cozy and perfect! I may have slept through the whole movie, though little miss Haana kept shaking me up every so often. I woke up just at the closing credits. It was a good movie indeed! :)

It was a great mother daughter date! A perfect one in fact! :)?

2nd Grade Show And Tell- Family Heirloom

I forgot writing about this earlier, it's been almost 2 years, but hey, better late than never. 

For 2nd grade winter break assignment, the theme for project work was- family. Little miss Haana had to interview her grand parents or family about how growing up was different for them. She also had to prepare to show a family heirloom and talk about it in class. 

She wrote her interview questions and then called up nana, nani in India on how it was growing up back in the mid 19s for them. Some things do remain the same - she discovered they were naughty at school too, they liked hanging with their friends in school, took home lunches, liked recess time. But some things were different - they had to walk or bicycle to the school, the school didn't have any laptops or devices, school was more strict with teachers who were not that fun, and classrooms were uninviting.

The family heirloom project had me scratching my head.. what family heirloom? Then somehow i remembered something.

My nani (maternal grandma) was very good at sewing, embroidery, knitting and crochet and a whole bunch of other things. As a little girl I used to love my dolls. I still do even though I didn't actually have so many dolls then. Nani had stiched several fancy dress for my doll. In the winter time, she knitted sweater dresses for her. Fancy dress with multi-colored wool and custom belt and tie-back ribbon. I loved these dresses and my doll changed her clothes every now and then! 

A few years back, when visiting my parents in Delhi, my mom handed me these dresses and since then they are with me in my dresser. 

Those handful of doll-dresses are my family heirloom! They're so cute and precious. And they represent the unique bond I shared with my nani. I didn't actually learn how to sew or knit from her; at that time growing up, I wanted to be like a boy. And those skills were too girly for me. Now i don't think of skills being girly or boyish. 

For little miss Haana's class show and tell project, she prepared her speaking part. We wrapped one of the dresses carefully in a ziplock bag, attached it to the rest of project work on a big cardboard. In class, she narrated her story of heirloom and little bitty dresses to her fascinated friends while her teacher recorded her. All her friends wanted to see the dress up close, touch it,  marvel at it like I have for the past decades.

Of course I only breathed easy once the dress was back home, and safely back into my dresser with the others :-). That's where a family heirloom should be!

Rakhi

This last weekend was Rakhi. Sisters tie a "rakhi" (bracelet) to their brothers, and the brothers get gifts for their sisters. They also vow to protect and care for each other. 

When I reminded little miss Haana about it on the Sunday morning, she quickly ran upstairs and returned with yarn and her crochet needle. Soon a friendship bracelet emerged. But I complained it is too plain, maybe we can make a pom-pom. Her eyes glittered with an idea. Ran back upstairs and she came back with 2 white and 1 huge green pom-pom. These were tied to the bracelet somehow. I complained it looked a little dorky, but little miss Haana insisted it will have to do. Bobby boy was still sleeping but someone couldn't wait to tie the rakhi. So she tried tying it on little baby wrist. It obviously did not last long. And more, the small white pom-poms disappeared. I wondered of Bobba tried to eat them. I guess we will never know. 

Meanwhile I had a thought. What about rakhi gift for little miss Haana. Hmm.. only the previous day little miss Haana and I had run into the store and got several knick-knacks for the both of us. If I had played it better, I could've claimed one of those was a "gift" from Bobby boy. But too late now. 

So, later that morning I headed out with an excuse to visit the store. I had an idea of something little miss Haana might appreciate. All kinds of hair accessories - scrunchies, ribbon,  fancy hair clips; and then earnings and a set of friendship bands to be shared amongst best friends. 

When I got back, we did the rakhi thing over again. Bobba got the rakhi tied to his wrist (this time without the white pom-poms), but again he didn't tolerate it even for a second. But this time, I claimed Bobba got little miss Haana a gift in his onesie. Little miss Haana was very pleased with "Bobby's" gifts. 

But the best part came in the end. When little miss Haana saw the friendship bands that said "best friends", she took out 2 of them. She wore one on her wrist. And the other, she put on mine!! Oh how I hoped she would do that!! I showed my bracelet to Papa with pride, 'Look, she gave one to me!! I am her best friend! Her first, bestest friend"!! Little miss Haana's comment - "You should take it before I change my mind" :-D!