Thursday, August 21, 2014

My Book is Out!


Check out http://littleguruskool.com/ and support LittleGuruSkool by buying and sharing this.

This is the email my co-author sent that I shared with everyone I know:


Little GuruSkool has a new look!

Celebrate Your Name!

Custom books for kids imagine India in every name


Dear D,

I am thrilled to announce the launch of Little GuruSkool's whimsical personalized book for kids, "Celebrate Your Name"!
Connect kids to Indian culture in a fun way with this custom book, where colorful illustrations and playful rhymes weave a magical story based in Indian folklore. Celebrate the sights, sounds and colors of India as each letter of the child's name brings to life an Indian celebration!

"Celebrate Your Name" is now available to order online for only $29.99 plus FREE shipping in the U.S. and flat rate International shipping to the rest of the world. Use ourinstant preview feature and see exactly what your book will look like when printed.

Thank you for your time and I hope to hear from you soon!
P
Here's how it works:
1. Enter a name and instantly preview your custom book
2. Place your order online for only $29.99
3. We will print and ship your book in 5 business days
Shop now
Like what you see? Show your support!
Buy a custom book today for a special child in your life
Forward this email to at least 5 people who would love to hear about us
Join us on Aug 28thfor a virtual Facebook launch party to win some cool prizes



Tuesday, March 18, 2014

Meet Michaelangela, Vani Goghi and Reenuaar

These names are all potential pseudonyms for my little-baby-turned-budding-artist. 

Big S started art classes this January. The irrepressibly proud parents that A and I are, we can't help feeling that our first-born is blossoming to be a fine artist. Or at least has a fine love for the art, which is what really matters.

Our second-born turned 3 months old last week and of course, I can already hear her gurgle 'art' and 'Picasso' everyday. Mind it.

Talk about eating one's 'art' out, I'm pretty confident that Michaelangelo, Van Gogh and Renoir also ate their crayons as a strategic move towards blossoming.

Here is a collection of my dear daughter's first encounters with artwork and art materials. Chalk, paint, crayons, sketch pens, pasta. To the untrained eye, these are nothing more than scribbles. To me, this is precious fine art that I will treasure forever in my own private museum. 

Check out the artist at work 
















Thursday, February 13, 2014

When Your Husband Brings Home a Second Wife

My husband is a golden egg. This blog post is not about him. 

Can you imagine how a woman feels when her husband brings home his second wife?

In my humble mom-pinion (hey I coined a term!) this is exactly how baby #2 felt when we brought home baby #1.

To be precise, she was cutesy and all excited to see her dearest mommy and a new tiny baby when she visited us at the hospital. 

When we came home from the hospital, she was thrilled to have dad home 24x7. 

A couple weeks later though, she suddenly realized that this baby was here to stay, it wasn't merely visiting. 

So now think about how you would feel if your husband brought home another wife and said  "i love you so much, I decided to bring home another person just like you!" OUCH!!!

Wouldn't you want to banish the new wife away to some far away land full of thorns and cactii and black ice and no sunshine?

Well, that's sort of what my older one seems to want these days. We have extreme emotions that are displayed on demand. She switches from shrieks of delight at the baby's coos and gurgles to screams of anger and pure jealousy when her dad or I carry the baby.

This image is from the internet. My daughter wants to do this but did not
Of course in this case my first daughter is torn between hugging and kissing the little baby versus throwing an instant tantrum because mom is spending too much time with the little one.

When I carry the baby...or kutti paapa, my older one says...no, ORDERS me in her most commandeering tone:
Kutti paapa (in the) bassinet 
Kutti paapa (in the) mamaroo 
No kutti paapa 
No kutti paapa holding 

I'm trying to spend more time with my older one, so she doesn't feel completely displaced by the new baby. It's hard on her. I can't wait for when the girls start playing with each other and I can read a whole darn book in one sitting.

Just 18 more years....I can do this!

Sunday, January 26, 2014

30 things I can do in my 30s


I can
1. Talk about my weaknesses without being ashamed of them
2. Call myself a mother
3. Quit a job I love to spend more time with my family
4. Make sleep the #1 priority for my family in 2014 and feel good about it
5. Love to bits two little people who never existed two years ago
6. Kiss my husband in public and not feel self-conscious
7. Embrace my wavy-curly-messy hair and feel perfectly fine that it's not poker straight
8. Love my skin for the flawed, imperfect little bumps and bruises it is 
9. Feel amazingly proud that I had two drug-free, pain-filled intense births that I joyfully experienced
10. Analyse people I meet into MBTI and Keirsey temperament and personality types 
11. Savor drinking my chai for a full ten minutes without multitasking 
12. Wonder how the heck my parents sailed through and are sailing through parenthood so easily
13. Listen to people without judgement 
14. Listen to people without interrupting them 
15. Listen to people without needing to add my opinion 
16. Talk softly (ok, compared to before)
17. Drive a big fat black car in the US
18. Drive with a screaming toddler behind me and stay calm
19. Cook an authentic Mangalorian meal
20. Cook an authentic Tam Brahmin meal
21. Bake bread
22. Bake a veggie dish
23. Thank my parents instead of taking them for granted
24. Say 'I love you' to the ones I love instead of feeling all awkward about saying them and thinking "Isn't this implied? Why should I say these words aloud?"
25. Be my own boss 
26. Make big eyes at myself in the mirror because I found my first grey hair
27. Accept that my husband prefers playing a world conquest game to sharing his thoughts, feelings and emotions with me on a Sunday evening
28. Realize that I kind of knew nothing in my twenties
29. Accept that I still kind of know nothing HAHAHHA
30. Maintain a blog and feverishly update it right after returning home from giving birth as though it is the most important thing in the world 




Monday, January 6, 2014

Frozen in Chiberia

If there was ANY reason you ever envied me (admit that you want my Hollywood hair and Roman nose), you can erase all of that envy this week. 

I am currently living in the hellhole of a city fondly nicknamed Chiberia by news stations. 

I've experienced the snowmageddon, snowpocalypse or snowzilla of 2010 but Chiberia? That's a whole new level of brrrr.

YES! You got it right, Watson. Named after Siberia. That very place that has somehow never been on your '100 must-see-places-before-I-die' list. Because once you go there, you WILL die of the cold and then you won't be able to successfully complete your list. HA!

Good news is that since everybody who is even partially sane is staying home today, I asked a bunch of my Chi-town friends to send me phonecam pictures of what they are seeing right now outside their windows.

Here's a snapshot of what they most obligingly shared. Mind you, this is deceptively beautiful snow but horrifyingly, mind-numbingly dangerous minus 15F ie minus 26C weather.

Sort of like how drop dead gorgeous women are all evil witches in reality. Look but don't you dare touch. Something like that...

Thank you so much, my dear friends, for sending me pictures so promptly!

Pictures: 

Andersonville

Roscoe Village-1

Roscoe village-2

Bucktown

Logan Square

Lakeview 

Streeterville (view from 23rd floor, can you spot Lake Michigan?)




Lake Michigan frozen and iced over this early morning, my friend said it looked like it was 'smoking' 

Old Town -view from 19th floor 

The Loop - view from 27th floor

Lincoln Park-1

Lincoln Park-2 

Lincoln Park-3

Bronzeville

Montgomery, IL

Just to boast that 'my snow is bigger than your snow', I requested a few special guest pics from my cousin in neighboring Michigan. Things are just as bad there, looks like.

Royal Oak (suburbs of Detroit)

And a few pics from a friend in Canada, who has thigh-high snow in her backyard. Yikes 

Oakville, near Toronto

And none of this is half as bad as Grand Forks, North Dakota, where another cousin lives. The temperature is just as bad and wind chill plus driving conditions are even more challenging than in Chicago. 

They can even boast of unique atmospheric occurrences out there. It was so cold, a rare sighting of a sun dog appeared. Wikipedia says that a sun- dog (or sundog), mock sun or phantom sun,scientific name parhelion (plural parhelia), is an atmospheric phenomenon that creates bright spots of light in the sky, often on a luminous ring or halo on either side of the sun. 

Can you see the twin rainbows on either side of the sun? 

This is a far cry from my hometown, namma Madras where the temperature is currently a sunny 25C or 77F and folks are donning their monkey caps because they feel cold. Ah well. I was once exactly like them! 

Stay warm, folks. And visit Chicago sometime. In the summer.