The ABC of Scout

[Posting delayed..]

Age: 9 months to this day.

Boy/Girl: Boy.

Chews on: Everything although he doesn't have teeth yet.

Dotes on: the grandpa (before he left). Now he spreads his attention equally between amma and appa.

Eats: Cereal, Mashed Veggies, Fruits. 

Finds: the teeniest bit of paper or dust on the floor and picks it up ever so carefully between his thumb and fore-finger.

Gagged: On a band-aid that the nurse stuck to his toe on his right leg after she pricked it for a blood test. On the way back from the doctor's our man sat in his car-seat, put the toe in his mouth and pulled the band-aid off and tried to swallow it, only to be caught in-time by amma when she stopped the car at a red-light.

Hi-fives: Sometimes.

Ignores: older toys.

Jumps: when amma says 'jump-jump-jump'.

Kicks: his blanket off.

Loves: his 'Shapes' book. Wires. The pedestal fan. Tearing paper. The laptop.

Moves: by crawling.

Notices: swaying branches of trees. aeroplanes. chanda-mama (moon).

Opens: Books. Kitchen cupboards.

Poops: daily.

Questions: with an 'eh?' sound and actually expects an explanation.

Races: to bang keys on laptop left unattended.

Says: thathatha, mamama, apapapapa, buvabuva (I think he means 'huva' (flower)).

Toys: Likes household utensils, dabbas, paper etc more than the standard toys.

Uses: Aveeno lotion, soap and shampoo.

Vary of: being left alone in the crib.

Wants: to chew on the phone.

XOXO: Doesn't initiate a hug or kiss yet.

Yawns: widely when sleepy..

Zzzzz:  but takes forever to actually fall asleep.

Another one..

What do you call it when someone (read aunty type) claims that deep frying uses only as much oil as shallow frying? And also adds a "idu yella scientific" ("It's all scientific") to it. 

MiM orders a 55-er

Continuing from here as ordered by God herself in the comments section ... :)

She addressed him as 'Sri Sri' instead of 'Sri Sri Sri' but that didn't make him laugh. She said his 'Vatapi Ganapatim' was in 'Kalyani' but even that didn't make him laugh at her. She used her final weapon. She called her mother a great vocalist. Out came his side-slapping guffaw and the buck teeth.

What do you call..

the dad who puts hazaar fundae all thru' the day about sleep training the li'l one and then turns into putty and pleads to be permitted to pick the baby up on the first wail of the night? :)

What do Bose, Dev, Dravid, Gandhi, Khanna have in common?

They not only have first names of 'Rahul' but a bunch of us girls in college had what we thought were insufferable crushes on all of them. We thought they were incurably 'hawwt'! So we did some "desk graffiti" (aka scrape-writing-desk-in-college-classroom-with-a-blade) on this topic. We listed all their names and ranked them by marking stars next to their names. I think Bose got 5 stars (highest) and Gandhi got 3 stars (lowest) and the others fell somewhere in between. Smug to have found some outlet to the uhh hormones, we moved to the next lecture in a different classroom discussing Bose's latest movie and Dravid's batting average and such like. What we did not realize was that the next class had a bunch of girls (or guys?) whose sense of hotness was as cheesy as ours. For when we came back we saw that the ranking we had assigned to the Rahuls had been modified. So we drew a box around *our* Rahuls and wrote 'No trespassing' next to it. The next day the folks from the other class wrote 'Whose property?' and so the conversation continued on the desk. Adding to the cheesiness, one of the friends, a very sensible girl otherwise, wanted to name her son 'Rahul' hoping that he would turn out to be cute, and ahem, yours truly hoped that she would find a boyfriend named 'Rahul'. In retrospect all of the girls in the gang are married now and guess what, each of us has a son also. Let alone getting married to a 'Rahul', none of us have even named our sons 'Rahul'. (Note: Nothing wrong in naming your kid Rahul. In fact it is a lovely name but it would have been extremely amusing to still be stuck with a senseless college crush). Wonder what happened to the folks from the other class. Wonder if people elsewhere around that time had a thing for the Rahuls as well. Did you? :)

Note: This post inspired by cluelessness's comment here.

Another phase is over..

The in-laws have left as planned. Real parenting begins. Power to us. Luck to Scout. :)

First award and tag

Got my first award and tag from the wonderful MiM and I have been gushing like a 12 year old since then. Thank you MiM! Like Zeenat Aman had Dev Anand giving her the first break, like Madhuri Dixit had Subhash Ghai-ji, like MJ had Quincy, I have MiM. :) 

So here are the answers to the questions in the tag. 

1.What is your current obsession?

Reading up on how to make Scout sleep through the night (and not acting on it).

2. What are you wearing today?

Capris and a white sleeveless top.

3. What’s for dinner?

I think it's chappathi and capsicum curry cooked by the good mil.

4. What’s the last thing you bought?

A school bag for the niece. And a 1:24 RC Ferrari for the nephew.

5. What are you listening to right now?

'thathathathatha' goes the Scout.

6. What do you think about the person who tagged you?

She is my Godfather in blogdom. Now-a-days she is being called Mygodblogger-in-Malaysia (MiM)

7. If you could have a house totally paid for, fully furnished anywhere in the world, where would you like it to be?

Right here in this freakin' expensive neighborhood. Go ahead, make my day!

8. What are your must-have pieces for summer?

I wonder why my wardrobe is full of winter clothes in summer and why it is full of summer clothes in winter. Sigh!

9. If you could go anywhere in the world for the next hour, where would you go?

Somewhat realistic answer: To the swimming pool.

10. Which language do you want to learn?

Tamil or Telugu as I have many friends who speak these languages.

11. What’s your favorite quote?

Right now? I'm trippin' on what 'Confucius say'.

Confucius say 'You want handsome doctor, you got to be patient'. Tehehe!

12. Who do you want to meet right now?

My late grandfather

13. What is your favorite colour?

Blue

14. What is your favorite piece of clothing in your own closet?

All the pre-marriage clothes which I'm hoping to fit into. 

15. What is your dream job?

Own a restaurant.

16. What’s your favorite magazine?

Don't read mags these days. 

17. If you had $100 now, what would you spend it on?

A cool red diaper bag.

18. What do you consider a fashion faux pas?

I'm in a fashion coma these days. Wouldn't know a legging from a stocking.

19. Who are your style icons?

Don't care much for 'icons' but do admire a few friends who put themselves together nicely. 

20. Describe your personal style.?

In the land of the geeks, anything goes.

21. What are you going to do after this?

Eat some yummy mango cake. You want?

22. What are your favorite movies?

Schindler's list, Chocolat, My cousin Vinny, Rainman, Cinema Paradiso

Could go on.. 

23. What are three cosmetic/makeup/perfume products that you can’t live without?

Don't do make-up on a daily basis except for some moisturizer and lip balm.

24. What inspires you?

People who are passionate about their jobs. 

25. What do you carry in your bag?

Wallet, cellphone, sun glasses, keys etc. Nothing really interesting or scandalous.

26. What do you do when you “have nothing to wear” (even though your closet’s packed)?

Dig through and find something that I haven't worn in a while and hope that it miraculously fits.

27. Coffee or tea?

Either. Neither. Depends.

28. What do you do when you are feeling low or terribly depressed?

Rant. Rationalize.

29. What is the meaning of your name?

Not suffering from the Lake Wobegon effect. 

30. Which other blogs you love visiting?

Some mommy blogs. Tech blogs. Home decor blogs. Real estate blogs.

31. Favorite Dessert/Sweet?

Flavor of the week: Tres Leches

32. Favorite Season ?

Fall 

33. If I come to your house now, what would u cook for me?

(Bangalore) Masala puri.

Will take a raincheck on the tagging part till I can comfortably say 'you are out' to some fellow blogger but you are most welcome to 'out' yourself. :)

Questions you must ask the guy or girl you are seeing..

... if there's even the remotest chance of you ending up married to him or her. :) These are anecdotes gathered from married friends of various backgrounds. Many of these couples knew each other for ages before getting married but were still zapped by some of these daily nits. These questions are not based on big earth-shattering differences but they are daily pain points that won't go away. Heck, it might be even useful to ask the in-laws to answer the questionnaire while at it. ;) All disclaimers apply! I'm not paying for your shrink fees if these questions backfire. :P

1. Are they a bread-eater or a rice-eater or both? Even among the rice-eaters there are those who like each grain of rice to be separate when cooked and those who like everything mashed up. It matters because I wouldn't expect to cook two types of rice everyday in a 2-member household. Other questions on commonly used condiments (like preference for thickness and consistency of yoghurt or the general healthiness of food cooked) might be valid questions here.
2. In summer do they want the fan on or the window open when they sleep? (Or other corollaries of this question.)
3. Do they do their accounts daily or do they never do them or where do they fall in that range? Really, who cares about accounts before marriage but, it is going to come to bite you soon after. :P
4. Do they shop for grocery in the street market or in the upscale all-organic store?
5. Do they research like there is no tomorrow before buying even a pin or do they go and impulsively splurge and bring home a bimmer?
6. Are they a Friends person or a Seinfeld person? Go on, make them admit it if they secretly like Chandler Bing or George Costanza. Gives you an idea of the TV-remote-wars that might happen once married. 
7. What is their tolerance to left-overs? I have known husbands (never the wives somehow) reluctantly throwing away the smallest part of the vada or pizza that was fungi infected and eating the rest. On the other hand I have known wives and husbands who cannot bring themselves to eat even the afternoon's lunch for the evening's dinner.
8. Is Sat morning the time to catch up on Himesh Reshamiyya's latest crooning while eating a big breakfast or is it the time to scrub the bathroom floor clean?
9. and of course this...
10. and this.

The saga of the blouse piece

The Scout whined and writhed his way through his first *symbolic* haircut at the temple on Sunday. Symbolic because just five wisps of hair were cut. This was followed by a festive lunch at home with friends and family. Lunch included poori, saagu (vegetable kurma), bisi-bele-bath (heavenly-rice-preparation-lost-in-translation), alu bonda, anna(rice), saaru(rassam), towwe(dal), kosambri, gulab jamun and a few other accompaniments. Co-ordinating all that was the easy part though, I swear. Co-ordinating the various blouse pieces, bangles and assorted gifts to be given out to people, according to their distance from the center of the universe and other celestial objects to merit such gifts, was the hardest part of the event. The critical section here was actually the blouse piece gifting. A logistical nightmare because of the differential and integral calculus level formulae that need to be applied to determine who gets what kind. For example, if you are a close friend who helped us with something once, you might get a pure silk one. If you are a friend who is acting off lately, you might get a silk mix in a totally random color. If you are just an acquaintance you might get a cotton blend. If you are "too modrren" you might get a smaller piece. And please do not ask about the utility of gifting a piece of unstitched cloth of unmeasured length, random material, and arbitrary color unless you want to incur the wrath of a million aunties for whom the joy of receiving and giving blouse pieces easily compares to the glee with which kids receive and give candied goodies at their parties. I'm glad to report that said blouse piece gifting was accomplished smoothly on this occasion. Commanded by the mil, who is the font of all knowledge when it comes to fast and accurate calculation of the degrees of separation and the gift exchange history of each family member, strategic military precision planning happened to organize said gifts in advance. Queueing theory was applied and an efficient supply chain was established to streamline the process. And all the maamis returned home with their own precious 'blouse piece' goody bags. Now with the expertise acquired after my first successful mission, I want to create a 'blouse piece' gift on Facebook and generously gift every unsuspecting friend and non-friend with it. Isn't that a neat way of upholding the tradition? Would the mil agree? :P

Trivial pursuit

The niece's  somewhat random question on Beethoven's life brought forth some happy memories from a past life in the quizzing circuit way back in school and college. When knowing and spouting trivia was considered cool. Nerds that we were! But there was many a cute trivia that I got to know only because of quizzing. The one about the Asimov/Clarke treaty. The one about Newton being a member of the British parliament and the only words he said during his term were 'Close the window'. That the BMW insignia actually depicts the white nose of an airplane against a blue sky. That Persis Khambatta was a Miss.India turned super-model turned Trekkie. That Jughead had a cousin called Souphead. That Playboy's first issue was undated because Heffner thought there wouldn't be a second issue and that he had wanted to call the mag 'Stag Party' (yikes!). That Wassim Akram's wife never watched cricket although she counseled many of the players in the Pak team. That Baywatch was at one time the series that was dubbed into the most number of languages. That Heisenberg's epitaph read 'He lies here somewhere'. Right now I'm lying here thinking about all the juicy questions that I liked or nailed all those years ago. Do you have a favorite trivia piece that you like to spout given half a chance?

To all the aunties who think card playing will result in children becoming drunken penny-less gamblers: think again! There is Math in it. There is logic, strategy, memory, discipline and of course, chance! Valuable lessons I would think. What do you think? Would you let your let's say 8 year old learn or play card games with friends?