Morning musings... What does this parent really want for her child?

Mere ghar aayi ek nanhi pari
Ek nanhi pari, Ek nanhi pari

I used to sing this to our first born, our nanhi pari, who entered our lives, our hearts, our home seven years ago. Words shall forever fail to explain the thrill of a parent holding her baby for the first time - the one that you made, the one you will nurture and help grow and learn, the one whose infectious laugh and mischievous smile and antics will fill your lives with joy. Of course, also the one that will make you pull your hair apart, punch your pillows in quiet rage, the one whose countless ‘Why Amma??’ questions will make you think ‘What was I thinking!?!’ (This is not a sponsored blog, so I WILL state the real picture, thank you). But it’s funny how you still feel everything is perfect at the end of the day, how you could not have been happier if it weren’t for your children– the little ones who always bring a smile to your tired faces, who teach you to enjoy the little things in life and be happy in the moment, the ones who influence you to do things you’ve never done and never thought capable of doing, the ones who help you become a better you. Indeed, the ones who have given you this life you lead. It has been a happy merry-go-round for us.

So, why so thoughtful today? What happened? Well, this first-born of ours started her first day today at her new school. After a tough decision-making period spanning more than a year, we decided last winter to take the plunge and move her to an independent school. But she’s been to school before. We’ve experienced the regular – half-eaten lunches, tiffs with friends today and playing again with them the next day, birthday parties, early morning screaming and rushing. Been there, done that. So what’s new? As your child grows and as time goes by, parents are exposed to a myriad of experiences and learnings. New books, new trends, new classes and games, new benchmarks, new what-nots. And if you are a parent of a little one today, you know it is not too tough to be impelled by all that’s new and exciting. After all, we wish for our children to have all that we couldn’t, and all that we can contrive to provide. You make sacrifices so your children can have the life they deserve, like your parents did before you, and their parents before them.

But what I find myself thinking today is what is it that I really wish for my child as she starts a new chapter. This is, after all, a promising beginning for her – top rated school, fantastic teachers and carers, opportunities galore, competition, challenges, exposure to a gamut of experiences. Truly, the world is her oyster. I remember something I read recently in a book where a reluctant parent of an autistic child comes to terms with caring for his child – “When you start out as a parent, you have these big ambitions for your child: success, popularity, brilliance. But as life goes on, sometimes that scales back to something much more profound. Happiness”.

And so it comes to pass this morning at the school gates, as I close my eyes to rein in the emotion that I feel as I kiss and bid her a good day that I find myself wishing for her only one thing. I want her to be truly happy. To make friends, laugh and play, wake up with a smile and be enthused to begin an exciting new day, every day. Yes of course, I do want her to be successful, to seek and realise her potential, be responsible and sensible, but I also know now that if you take care of one thing right, everything else will follow. I’m not worried. I have resolved to not worry. This benchmark is good enough for me and I hope I get it right.

Tu dhoop Hai, Chham Se Bikhar, Tu Hai Nadi O Bekhabar
Beh Chal Kahin, Udd Chal Kahin
Dil Khush Jahaan, Teri Toh Manzil Hai Wahin!!

Tujh mein agar pyaas hai, barish ka ghar bhi paas hai
Roke tujhe koi kyun bhala, sang sang tere aakaash hai

Roshan hui saari zameen, jagmag hua saara jahaan
Ho udne ko tu azaad hai, bandhan koi ab hai kahaan

Someday down the line, when I show this write-up to my daughter, I hope she gives me a hug and a kiss and says, ‘Yes Amma, you did get it right!’.  Oh, how happy will that make me!

Merry Christmas!!

To believe in making wishes and have faith that they can come true

To believe that you can find some joy in everything you do

To believe in giving gladly for no reason, just because to believe in LOVE

That's what it means, to believe in Santa Claus.

Ho! Ho! Ho! Folks!!

Christmas has always been special since the past 4 years now.. after our little one was born. There is something magically innocent about Christmas, and I feel it much more than ever, all around me, now that we have moved to a Western continent. London has been all 'Christmassy' ever since Halloween... anywhere you go, you see only red, white and green - decorations, crafts and activities, food ideas, gifting, home decor ( I once even saw toilet paper with the snowman and reindeer print!). Everyone is gearing up for their biggest event in the entire year - the holiday season - to be together as family, to pray for warmth and good health, its the season to be happy together and spread joy!! And add to it the wonderful romance of winter:-)

Now I've been impatiently waiting for some snow here ever since winter set in. No luck as yet, and I'm told that it doesn't snow heavily in London and it could be just be a couple of times that it might happen. This has made me more anxious - what if I were to miss the snow if it ever happens in the middle of the night?? So checking the scene outside the window first thing in the morning and last thing as I wind up at night is something like a ritual for me now. I hope to be rewarded for my wait soon!

My little doll has 3 weeks of holidays for Christmas here and this set me off on a mission to look for creative activities to engage her all day. Turned out - it isn't a very easy thing to do. You see, arts and craft did not mean much to me as a child and though I like to see my child colour her heart out now, I realised that it is not something that would come easily to me. To think of things to do, to organise stuff that is required, the most difficult part being getting her to be involved in the entire activity without losing my patience and... and especially to handle the panic inside me when I see the mess all around.... yes ma'am, that is an important part of trying to promote creativity in a child - the mess!! It is going to happen!

So I finally hatched a plan to blend the two very exciting ideas - preparation for Christmas and craft! I decided to make by hand all the decorations that go on the tree! Hmmmm... mighty plan? You can say so! Yep - my mother would faint with shock (but be happy later on) to know that I shopped for yarn and needles among other stuff from felt to foam, acrylic to water colours and embellishments to fancy paper. And we were ready!

Since I did not want this post to look like a craft activity page, I've created a separate post to write in detail about the labour of our love :-) You can find the link at http://sabkuchrama.blogspot.co.uk/2013/12/christmas-craft.html  :-)

I am attaching some pictures though of some decorations that we made. We managed to do this with a lot of inspiration from the blogs of super creative moms across the globe! There are so many talented creative beautiful people out there!! :-) Thank you all for getting someone like me involved in making colourful, pretty creations  - I hope to channelise this new found energy and enthusiasm in exploring and opening up a whole new bold, creative world for my pre-schooler!

This is a very cute Xmas tree that we made from tissue rolls. Simple to make, doesn't require too many things and very beautiful!

And we put up all together to make the prettiest Christmas tree!! It made us so so happy!!! :-)

It was completed with a reading every evening of the Nativity story and a reiteration of the wish-list from Santa :-) He even visited us in our dreams!! So, we decided to put up the Nativity set as well that we purchased last year.

And that made a very memorable Christmas! :-) Meeting friends, chilling out totally at home, watching movies, Christmas party at school, Christmas party at daddy's office, my first Boxing day shopping experience and of course- the true spirit of happiness is in giving, isn't it? The playschool gave us the opportunity to do that - all the children were requested to bring what they can to make other children happy - they took the children over to the community centre to make the donations -  all culminating into a magical, beautiful Christmas. Like someone so aptly quoted - "Gifts of time and love are surely the basic ingredients of a truly merry Christmas!" 

But for our little one, the one who inspired us to learn something new and truly celebrate the spirit of Christmas - the belief that Santa would come visit her - was the most enchanting of all. She waited for weeks trusting that Santa would visit because she had been a good girl and Santa wouldn't disappoint, however busy he was. I lived that dream with her every single day, smiling happily to myself thinking of the joy that awaited her. She even got up at 4 am on Christmas day because of a dream that Santa had come - ohhhh, there was so much love and longing in that sweet little heart, it would overwhelm us at times. It is so beautiful to be a child at Christmas... I quote again - "There’s nothing sadder in this world than to awake Christmas morning and not be a child.” (Erma Bombeck (1927-1996), American author and humorist).  

And let me tell you what else is beautiful. It is beautiful to be a parent who gets to see the delighted face of his/her child, first thing on Christmas day, to want to believe that magic does exist in the world. To be reminded that we can bring so much joy to our little ones with simple acts of giving, sharing and the gift of togetherness and love.

I do not think Santa Claus comes down the chimney - he comes in through the hearts of beautiful innocent children. 

Wish you all a very Merry Christmas! :-) 

Christmas Craft!

This has been our first Christmas in the UK and we celebrated it in style! With our new found love and energy to create beautiful things at home, this Christmas involved a lot of craft! :-) Yes, most decorations on the tree were self-created between my girl and me. We had a lot of fun making them and we made full use of the 3 weeks of winter term break that we had from school!

So here goes our list of beauties!

1. Christmas buntings  - 

Simple and sweet... decoration with coloured papers! All we did was write out the letters in different coloured card paper and stick them on to contrasting coloured paper and cut them out to make them double-coloured. We strung them through a satin ribbon and hung them up with blu-tac!

For this, we cut different coloured papers in long strips and make circular bands while interconnecting them. I could have left them plain as they were colourful and pretty by themselves but since I wanted my girl to actively participate, I gave the strips to her to draw/colour/shade them as she pleased. If you looked closely, you will see smileys, cycles, gardens, flowers, snowmen, moons and stars and even people on them! :-) She soon got bored though, and so I connected the rest of them plainly.

2. Cardpaper Christmas trees - 

The first type is pretty simple - cut out a tree shape on green cardpaper and let your child drawout her favourite fruit/flowers on them. When done, insert the tree shape into 2 tiny slits on opposite corners of the topside of a tissue roll.

For the second type of tree, which I picked up from http://www.outnumbered.be/craft-creativity/paper-christmas-tree/,  my girl tried some folding which did not quite come out right so she ended up just sticking on the stars to the tree. All you need is a medium sized green cardpaper sheet, tissue roll cut in two with tiny slits on the sides and some glitter glue n stars or anything else that you might want to spruce them up with. Fold up the card paper sheet into small folds, join them at the top with strong glue and stick the fan end of the tree into the 2 slits on the tissue roll. Voila! Your christmas tree is ready!  Simple and beautiful, isn't it? 

3. Hand print wreath - 

This was again a very simple activity... A Christmas wreath - which people put up on doors to welcome visitors and offer goodwill, their circular shape representing a symbol of eternal life. Traditonal wreaths are made up of fir twigs and tiny branches, wild holly, pine cones, satin ribbons, what not! This is also a popular craft activity with loads of ideas on the internet. I picked one up with handprints on green cardpaper arranged in a wreath shape. I twisted the idea a little bit and sat down to make handprints of all the 3 of us on different coloured paper. Again, my girl was allowed to show her artistry on the cut-outs, before I connected them to form this beautiful wreath. I created the holly and the bows with foam pieces leftover after some other craft. Don't you like it too? :-) 

4. Painted pine cones - 

This seems to be a very easy job, but boy oh boy! This is a tiresome job! My girl played truant - she picked up a loadful of these pinecones from the garden and came home to colour. She didn't even finish a single one! I had to do them all by myself and had to actually sit up late one night. I used acrylic and metallic finish paint on them.The beautiful and romantic outcome at the end of it was what made the effort worthwhile! :-) You can hang them on your tree like decorations by sticking on a ribbon sling on top, though I also used most of them to decorate around my Nativity set (photo below)

5. Assorted traditional Christmas decorations -

These were my first experiments with felt, foam and..... sewing! Now again, I am not the kind of person who can sit in one place and do something that involves concentration and precision. Thats why sewing, knitting, crochet (I still know very little about the difference between knitting and crochet!) are not activities that I thought I will ever get close to doing! But there I was, sewing up stars, snowmen and X-mas trees, candy sticks and baubles! Though, I'll admit that there is very little sewing involved, and that too the kind with a decently big needle and yarn involved, which is relatively easy. And I was pleased with the results too! 

There wasn't much for my bundle of excess energy to do, so all I could let her do was to decorate the creations with buttons, embellishments and glitter glue. I just left her alone with the supplies and this is what they ended up looking like :-)

6. Farm animals with felt - 

This was my most enterprising work! Farm animals with felt! I even learnt a new sewing style, called.. ohh.. what was it called?! Ohh yes.. Blanket stitch! (at this point, I can actually visualise my mom's I-cant-believe-it shocked face! LoL ). This idea was picked up from http://www.freekidscrafts.com/felt_farm_animals-e1943.html  I hope you can make out the animals / birds in these! :-)

7. Lady bug with Air Drying clay - 

This was an activity lifted straight from Mister Maker! Air drying clay, a spoon, ear-buds and colour! Thats all... aren't these pretty pretty ladybugs?

8. Tissue roll X-Mas tree -

This is again an activity taken from http://www.outnumbered.be/craft-creativity/creative-christmas-activity-with-toilet-paper-rolls/. Here, I had to take a lot of help from my dear little girl. She had to colour all the tissue rolls green inside and outside. My job was only to even out the colours, stick them together and put the baubles into them. I added the star and the satin ribbons to give it a richer look. I loved this artwork greatly! :-)

And all of these came together to make the prettiest Christmas tree!! It made us so so happy!!! :-)

It was completed with a reading every evening of the Nativity story and a reiteration of the wish-list from Santa :-) He even visited us in our dreams!! So, we decided to put up the Nativity set as well that we purchased only last year.

There are my pine cones making up part of the outside of the stable! 

Merry Christmas and happy holidays!! :-) 

Do send me your comments and suggestions and I would love to also hear of more creative ideas from you!! :-) 

My first Navaratri in UK

Its that time of the year again! Navaratri is my favourite festival of all! After I got married, my mother in law and I decided to start the tradition of Golu keeping in our household, which is basically an exhibition of various dolls and figurines, mainly featuring Gods and Goddesses and mythological characters and stories.It is said to represent the presence of Goddesses Lakshmi, Saraswati and Parvati in the household. To me personally, its a big feel-good factor and happy time with family and friends visiting for darshan and prasad and similary, us going along to everyone's places and catching up on the times gone by! :-) I also happen to be a die-hard mythology fan and this gives me the opportunity to show off my knowledge on the subject! Ha!

This year, it was just 4 months since we moved to the UK and I was pretty low about the fact that it is going to be a quiet Navaratri. Though I had brought the entire Golu collection to UK and there was no deliberation on whether to put up the Golu or not, I knew it wouldn't be anything like it was back home. Little did I know it would be so unimaginably beautiful and exciting!

Firstly, as we were putting up the Golu set, which itself is quite a laborious task, with 7 steps, we got news that cousins are visiting us from Dubai! They have 2 beautiful girls and this was particularly happy news as my little doll would have company! Brilliant! I rejoiced at the news that they would be with us for almost a week. Secondly, a very dear friend of ours from Bombay ( I insist, Bombay it is) was on an official visit! Yay! Third, I had invited my old school friends who were settled in London for a traditional Indian lunch over the weekend! All in all, this was turning out to be the best Navaratri ever!!! :-) And boy, it was! 

We freaked out totally with our cousins - hired a car (we haven't bought one yet)  and took the kids out to zoos, museums, restaurants, parks and to friends' homes for lunches and dinners.... day after day. My doll, who is as such a total outdoorsy child, loved to be with company and had a rollicking time! She cried quite a bit when they left, but it was great having them - spruced up my Navaratri totally! The friend from Bombay -  he brought a cartful of stuff for my doll - ranging from her favourite jelly chocolates to hairbands and books and games and toys - advance birthday gifts that they so lovingly put together for her :-) Thank you guys, we love you!!!! :-) And the lunch party was great! We were meeting each other after decades, it felt so good to meet and get together - at a different time, a different country... Different people, almost - now as we are from those days of pigtails and pinafores. Now we are grown women, with responsibilites ranging from the careers to the kitchen, home to children, present to future. And its great, isnt it? To realise that coming out from the same classrooms, we have chosen different lives for ourselves and to come together to discuss those and learn how we are different and/or similar? It indeed is!

So all in all, it was everything I could have asked for. Family, friends, festivities, socialising, vacationing, meeting new people, making yummy sweets for prasad and yes, the haldi-kumkum / vettalai-paaku - the essential segment of Navaratri. I'll give you a little peek into my Golu arrangement, which made me so nostalgic and reminded me sorely of my family and closest friends who I would have met if I were back home.

A few dolls that are ubiquitous to almost all Golus - 

The pot-bellied Chettiyar couple, representing the prosperous business community of South India who traditionally run grocery shops. Fruits, vegetables, and kiddie-kitchenware filled with grains and pulses are kept in front of them to represent the ideal Chettiyar shop. They stand for growth, prosperity and well-being. 

The attractive dancing girl, ideally called the Thanjavur Bommai which is again a mainstay in Golus. They are colourful and vibrant, and since each piece is balanced on top of the other, one touch gives the desired effect of a dancing woman.

This is the Marapaachi bommai (Mara = Wood, Pachi = carved). A very important part of the arrangement, it would be impossible to find a Golu without this husband and wife couple. They represent togetherness between a couple.

The 3 Devis - Saraswati, Durga and Mahalakshmi, who are worshipped throughout the 9 days - The first 3 days Goddess Durga is worshipped, the next 3 days Goddess Lakshmi and the last 3 days, Goddess Saraswati is worshipped. Though traditionally, Navaratri is said to be dedicated to the 9 forms of Devi Durga, culminating into Dussehra, which is celebrated on the 10th day - it is also referred to as Vijayadasami. 

Over a span of 7 years, we have collected these figurines for our Golu. In most households, the Golu bommais are brought down over generations, from mothers-in-law to daughters-in-law and the older dolls command a great deal of respect and pride in the Golu arrangement. Though we are nowhere there, we sincerely hope to carry on this tradition in our household for as long as we can. Collecting the dolls is also very interesting as we look around for souvenirs from places that we visit on vacations.

It's a tad too late to wish, but hey, is there a particular time ever to wish happiness and peace? So here's wishing you all a beautiful Navaratri and a prosperous future!!

Shubh Aarambh - A colourful, makeshift Onam Pookalam and a delightful Sadya!

Hello....

This is my first post and have no idea how to start! We moved to the UK three months back and my husband, my 3 year old doll and I have, well.. As Dr Sheldon Cooper would say it... 'found our spot!'. :-) We've moved into our home-sweet-home, my husband has got busy with work and deadlines and travel and all that blah regarding work, which I'm blissfully out of now,  my girl has started nursery and me.... Well, I've finally found time to doodle!! :-)  (I hope I sound as happy as I feel!) I decided to go all out and have a great time for all of us by planning a nice Onam. Which I kinda did! :-)

A traditional Onam rangoli is done with flowers, flowers and more flowers! I really wasn't sure how cooperative my doll would be with an effort as much as that it would involve and since it would also mean leaving her alone to her devices ( which in my personal interest, I wasn't keen on!!). So, I introduced a variant... Water colours :-)  and what a great idea that was!! It takes as much time, but it's more colourful and more importantly kept my girl happily busy! I did the border colours and madam helped me with the complete colouring! :-)   Here is how it looked:-)

And I also managed to cook up a decent feast... Here is what I managed :-)  The recipes are all traditional and standard, nothing exotic!

That's it for now... I had been itching to post so that I start off! Now I'm gonna be regular! :-)