Photos you have missed - Part 4

Story Time! (From early November)

And, for the record, they are reading "I have to go!" by Robert Munsch. This is one of Rohan's favorite books, about a boy who has to go pee. If you ask Rohan, very slowly, "Andrew, do you have to go pee?" he will answer, very happily, "nonononono!" :)

There is no sunshine (literally) when papa' is gone...

.. but we do our best to cheer up!

Big snowfall last weekend. We got knee high snow overnight.


This is the house across from us. Somewhere in the middle should be the road.


And here we come to the heart of the matter: someone has to shovel it, this snow. So mamma did it, with Rohan in the backpack carrier.


And just for completeness, this is our backyard.



Cozy indoor for most of the time, we had a few photo sessions. The kids were enthusiastic, as you can see.














A future in modeling? :)

Butterflies

La settimana scorsa Meaghan ha portato i bimbi ad una mostra di farfalle. La nebbia che si vede nel video e nelle foto e' dovuta alla condensa che si e' creata sulla lente per sbalzo di temperatura dall'esterno al clima tropicale creato per le farfalle - beate loro.. :) A quanto pare Rajiv a spinto Rohan nel passeggino per tutto il tempo!

Last week Meaghan took the kids to the butterflies conservatory. They have a tropical environment in there, which explains the mist in the video and some of the pictures (the lens needed some time to adjust, coming in from the totally non-tropical Ontario winter).

They were providing strollers for babies and apparently Rajiv pushed Rohan the whole time. Here is the video:



And some photos:



These are the pupae. Appu loves the word and somehow he knew it even before they went there. He must have learned it in school, I'm impressed!


There was also an owl exhibit, which they liked a lot.




Overall it was a successful expedition and the kids really like to look at the video again and again. I would have had no idea that this event was going on, if not for Meaghan. Same for when she took them to a pumpkin patch in the fall. Having a nanny who knows the area much better than us can be really useful!

In posa :)

Both my kids are very aware of the camera. They like to pose and then admire the result. A selection of shots from a recent session...

Sunday morning with papa' - (and not)

Queste sono foto - e un video - di domenica scorsa. I bimbi parlano con il loro papa' su skype e poi tornano a giocare. Abbiamo messo un po'di musica e come al solita Rajiv ha cominciato a ballare e cantare. Ho cercato di immortalare il tutto in un video, ma naturalmente a quel punto lui si e'subito messo seduto; se avete un po' di pazienza pero', e aspettate una trentina o quarantina di secondi, con una piccola spintina da parte di mamma, Rajiv ci mostra almeno qualche passo (e parecchi salti).

These are actually from last Sunday, just to be precise. You can see the kids talking to their dad on Skype and then a rare shot of both brothers looking at the camera without grimacing or closing their eyes. There is also a nice photo of Rajiv, in which I think he looks a little like his cousin Jayadev.

The video was taken while Rajiv was dancing and singing along with the "little monkeys jumping on the bed song". As soon as I started the video he stopped moving and talking right away, so the first part is quite boring, but if you are patient he will eventually start jumping around.

Updated photos

Ho finalmente cambiato le foto sulla barra laterale - quelle di prima risalivano alla nascita di Rohan! Commenti?

I have changed the photos on the left side bar. This is long overdue: in the previous ones Rajiv was two (it was his birthday picture) and Rohan was half an hour old! Do you like the new ones?

Bed time is a tough time

The most dreaded part of being alone with the two little angels is putting them to sleep. When S was here we shared the task equally: I put Rohan to bed and slept with him, S put Rajiv to bed and slept with him - in a nice big boy bed with a star canopy :).

Rajiv is not ready yet to be in a room all by himself, especially now that he seems to be so easily upset, probably as a consequence of his father's absence. So I decided that for this month the three of us would sleep together in the Big Bed.

At first I was doing my usual goodnight thing with Rohan, while Appu watched some cartoons so that he would stay quiet. Rohan loves our bedtime routine: we read lots of books and he gets to choose which ones, so often we read the same book several times in a row. It is our special time together.

Unfortunately, with this method Rajiv would stay up very late. Sometimes he didn't want to leave the couch at all and one day he had a huge tantrum that resulted in us going to sleep after 1 AM, because I couldn't risk waking up Rohan by taking his screaming brother to bed before he had fully calmed down. Then Rajiv was very tired in the morning and wanted me to stay in bed with him, so I was never out of the house before 10AM.

The new routine, that has been in place for a few days, consists in us going to sleep together. Rohan doesn't like it, because sometimes we read books chosen by Rajiv and he just can't accept it - so he screams or grab the book, but we are working on it. This way it seems to take forever to make them sleep, so I always end up falling asleep too. Which means I don't get time to tidy up the kitchen or do anything else unless I do it before bedtime, which I don't always want or can do.

Of course one also has to account for The Unexpected. This could take the form of both children deciding they are hungry just when I was about to put off the light. The result is that we end up having a picnic with cookies and yogurt on the bed, while singing (not me), jumping around (not me) and reading books (me). Not very good for oral hygiene, because at that point there is no way I can make them brush their teeth again, but fun overall.

The Unexpected though could also take the form of Appu deciding to get up a 3AM and go downstairs to sleep on the couch while mamma puts her body all around him so he is "like in a cage". This is not so much fun. These days Appu is always busy making nests and houses and - since yesterday night - cages to hide into. Fortunately so far I have managed to convince him that the best nest is in our bed, where he gets to arrange his two current favorite blankets and the pillows just in the right way. Otherwise, sleeping with his head on my knees and his feet on my face seems to work too.