Happy Ganesh Day!

Bananas

Today I was chased by a monkey. After lunch, I was leaving the canteen building at the institute with S and the boys and I was carrying a couple of bananas to keep as afternoon snacks. S was a few steps ahead and called me to show a few monkeys coming toward us. Usually we are quite excited to see monkeys, but this time one of them moved quickly in my direction and caught me completely by surprise. It didn't even occur to me, at first, that it might be after my snack. I took a couple of steps back and then just turned around and ran back to the lunch area. When I looked back I saw that the monkey had stopped, but it charged again soon after. I ran again and tossed the bananas on top of a table, were the monkey collected them easily before jumping away.

The monkey was about half my size, but it looked quite strong and scary right then. No more bananas out in the open! At least the kids were not scared, in fact quite the opposite. We had to have a little chat to explain that no, it is not ok if a monkey "just wants to jump on you, mamma" (Rajiv's words). :)

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!" 

A week ago in Ooty

A few photos from our trip to Ooty:

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.. :)

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.

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.