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Wednesday, August 28, 2013

Rohan, the poet

A few days ago:

Rohan - "The days die.."
Mamma - "Uh?"
Rohan - "The days pass, and they die."
Mamma (a little anxious) - "Well, I guess you could say that.. Does it make you sad?"
Rohan - "No."
Mamma - "???"
Rohan - "Only the other days are sad, those that haven't passed, because their friends are gone."

Another time:

Rohan - "Mamma, you are the yolk of the egg!"

This is clearly a metaphor, which makes me proud. Whether it is also a compliment, I am still pondering.

Yet another time, when he was smaller:

Rohan is crying. We try to wipe his face. He says, angry: "Don't take my tears away! I need them!" 

Friday, August 16, 2013

Homeschooling in pictures

In case you are wondering what our homeschooling looks like, here it is:




This would be on a good day. I don't think I want to show what it looks like on a bad one.. :)

Thursday, August 15, 2013

The Money Rat Was Here

Rajiv has lost his first tooth yesterday. I think mom and dad are even more excited than he is - at least I am, for sure. The first tooth! That makes him almost a grown up, right? Well, Rajiv would be quick to agree on this :)

It is one of the bottom front teeth, not so easy to show in a photo. We tried a couple of poses, yesterday night:


and again today morning:


but I'm afraid we will have to wait for one of the upper teeth to go if we want the classic toothless shot.

Rajiv and Rohan have heard of the Tooth Fairy from American books and movies, but I grew up with the "Little Mouse of the Teeth" (literally translated from the Italian "Topino dei Denti") and I told them about this a few days ago, when Rajiv's tooth started to wiggle. It might sound ridiculous, but I don't feel good lying to them about this sort of things, so I just told them that this was a story my aunt and grandmother told me, never saying it was a true story. The thing is: kids are eager to believe in gift bearing magical creatures and there is no need to push the idea, they will right away embrace it, even when they know that it really doesn't make much sense.

This is the compromise I have worked out for now so that they don't have to grow up without Santa and the old Befana just because I have a problem with encouraging uncritical faith in the supernatural :)

Anyway, what I was told as a child was that if I put my tooth, all wrapped up in aluminum foil, in a corner of the kitchen floor, at night a mouse would come to take it and leave a little bit of money for me in exchange. This is supposed to be a gentle little mouse, the kind that you might not mind too much having around your house at night, but for some reason the kids have decide to call it the Money Rat. Not as charming as the original, in my opinion. More changes: we wrapped the tooth in colorful paper instead of foil and Rajiv insisted in keeping the little packet under his pillow, which would make more sense for the Tooth Fairy, I guess, but is really not the natural place for a mouse to go and look - at least we would hope.

In spite of all these changes, as it turns out, the Money Rat showed up. He took the tooth and left another little packet under Rajiv's pillow, wrapped in paper of a different color. The same kind of paper we used too! Inside the paper was 100 rupees bill. The rat was very generous, maybe because it was a first tooth, which is very special.


Wednesday, August 14, 2013

Three Little Heads

At Casa Gialla in Ooty, last weekend. We had to stop playing that game shortly after this picture, though, when Lila tried to swallow the cylinders.



Tuesday, August 13, 2013

Football (or soccer, if that's how you like to call it)

Now that we have settled back into our routine after the trip abroad, we have also started to look for some extracurricular activities for the children. Homeschooling frees up a lot of time for that and it is good for them to meet other people, both children and adults, that are not just mamma and papa' (incidentally, this is also very beneficial to the parents' mental health).

As a start, we have signed up the children for a couple of after school classes at Lila's daycare, which used to be their daycare too and is therefore not a scary new place. Rohan, I think,  was especially happy to see a few of his friends and teachers again. So far they have art on Mondays and freestyle dance on Fridays. Art is going very well, but the dance thing was probably a little too complicated for them last time and they are not so enthusiastic about a repeat. Still we have paid for a month and so they will give it a try for a few more weeks, then we will reassess.

The best catch though, was being able to enroll Rohan and Rajiv for football practice right here on the institute premises. This kids football group used to meet for practice in a different area and just moved here, where we have a half decent field next to the hostel and the canteen. Some good luck, for a change! The children just went for the first session today and if it works out they can practice three or four days a week. I didn't want to be the mom with the camera on the very first day, but maybe tomorrow I will try to casually get a couple of snaps. Now I am off to take a look, more later..

Monday, August 12, 2013

Il topino dei denti si prepara a farci visita

Appu sta per perdere il suo primo dentino. Come e' possibile che sia gia' cosi' grande? Eravamo in macchina, diretti in montagna, quando ci ha annunciato senza scomporsi di avere un dente traballante. Noi non ci abbiamo creduto e abbiamo subito controllato, ma naturalmente aveva ragione lui. Piccolo Rajiv cresce..

Saturday, August 3, 2013

Saturday Afternoon

I am at home with Lila. All the boys are out and we have retreated to the bedroom for a bit of ACed quiet time. While Lila rolls on the bed, and on me, I am trying my first post ever from the ipad. It seems easy so far, except of course for Lila tapping on the screen. (In case anybody wants to know, I am using Blogsy and I like it so far..)