During one of our phone conversation, my husband was singing our favorite song Saiyyan Saiyyan… Tu jo chhoo le pyaar se, and then he asked me if I can write a blog post on that song….I know he was just joking. After a slight pause, I told him “Yes I’ll write”. In surprise, he asked me “WHAT?????” and was curious about the blog title. I told him it’s about TOUCH (based on chhoo le in the song). He started laughing and wondered what my wife is going to write on TOUCH ;-). Ok..here…it goes…
As we all know, there is bad touch and there is good touch. Well… there is only one bad touch that make others feel bad, depressed or results in fight. With so many rascals on the road, it’s better to teach our kids the difference between bad touch and good touch at an early age. I’ll leave that to the parents and move on to many good touches we encounter in our lives….
Touch of mother: Touch is a great way to bond with new born baby and it makes the baby feel secure. Infant massage is another form of touch that has so many advantages for baby’s well being.
Not only new born babies, even big babies sleep well for mother’s massage in her lap. I feel like sleeping in my mother’s lap now :-).
Here is an interesting story about mother’s touch: http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/38988444
Doctor’s touch: Touch is one of the vital tool used by doctors to understand patient’s health.
A mother can almost always predict kid’s fever before it shows up on thermometer…. that’s mother’s special touch and her sixth sense. My husband always wondered how I could be so sure of an upcoming fever. I always tell him, "you got to be a mommy to understand that special touch" ;-).
Touch as a vital sense: Out of five senses in our body (sight, hearing, smell, taste and touch), touch is something that is not associated with single part, sense of touch is found all over the body.... thanks to our skin to carry signals to the brain.
I truly enjoyed watching the movie BLACK directed by Sanjay Leela Bansali and great performance by Rani Mukherjee. It depicts how a person who is blind, deaf and dumb uses touch as a means to communicate with the surroundings.
Touch to get blessings: As per Hindu customs, we touch our elder’s feet to show respect and get their blessings. Nowadays, we are too worried to bend down completely and touch the feet... sometimes we adjust by just touching the knees…. it could be our fat tummies that won’t allow us to bend 180 degrees. But there is a hidden exercise in bending our body ;-).
Touch to scare ghost: OK….I have a Ghost story to share. Sounds interesting…. isn’t it? Not sure if it was a Ghost or something else, but I had this experience when I was in my teens and it happened around 5 to 6 times. Never got a chance to experience it after that…ok… here is the story….
When I used to sleep on my back… that too after midnight (Oooooo…can you hear the wolf sound ;-)), I could feel something sitting on my chest. After that, I absolutely had no control on my body, but mind still working. Each time it happened, I tried my best to move myself…..but in vain…I couldn’t even blink my eyes. With no fear for Ghosts (of course, we are Ghosts wrapped in flesh), I was very curious, if I can ever see it or at least move myself. This is one of the out of body experience I had in my life. This happened for few months and then no more.
One thing was very interesting, it happens only after midnight and that too, when everyone is asleep. The moment my mother (who used to be in deep sleep ;-)) TOUCHES my body, I’m back to life. Not sure what TOUCH has to do with this phenomena. It is still an open question to me. Would like to know if any of my blog readers had similar experience in their life.
On Wikipedia, they call it Sleep Paralysis. They say it could be result of insomnia….but I never had sleeping problem in my teens. I wonder why it happened only in the night? If it was sleep paralysis, why it didn’t happen during the day and why it went away with touch of my mom?
Touch to express love: Who will forget the first touch by their partner. Touch is one of the beautiful way to express love. Not just direct touch, even touching an object touched by lover elevates the other person to heaven :-).
Touch for reproduction: Touch and hormones are the building blocks used by God for creature reproduction....with test tube baby being an exception.
Touch products: Nowadays everyone wants touch screen…whether it be mobile phone, laptop or TV…everything is bitten by touch concept. Electronic gadgets are competing with each other to feel the touch of human being. btw, I like the ad by Karbonn k1212 that says DO NOT TOUCH.
OK…OK Punya stop now. Looks like I can write an entire book on TOUCH. Still there are so many touches to write… touch to calm animals, stories of touch by famous gods etc…etc…Anyways, I’ll leave them to the readers now… but one last touch before I stop….
Touch to heal: Few years back, my husband broke his femur and was hospitalized for 12 days. We both tried our best to control our tears in front of kids…. one of the real ACTION taught by God. Being all by ourselves, I had to take care of kids in the morning and once they fall asleep in the night, rush to the hospital to stay with my husband by his side…holding his hands most of the time.
One day, he felt pity on me and requested me to stay home. Next day morning, when I visited him, he bursted into tears like a baby.... and requested me to stay by his side. It’s not the pain that made him cry….but the missing touch. TOUCH definitely has healing effect on our souls http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Therapeutic_touch.
I would like to THANK all my friends, co-workers and neighbors who extended their enormous help during those tough times.
And to all my friends in US, HAPPY THANKSGIVING and safe BLACK FRIDAY!!
When you get time, do watch the beautiful performance by Mouni Roi for Saiyyan Saiyyan song ….the song that is an inspiration for this blog post.
If you are parents of toddlers and school going kids, you know what I'm talking. Yes....FEEDING kids is one of the biggest challenge of today's parents.
The journey starts when the baby is inside mommy's womb. But the magical umbilical cord takes care of feeding the baby. Once the baby is out, mother gets sole responsibility of feeding the baby... it's a bliss to bond with baby close to her heart. As long as the baby is in mother's womb and mother's lap, everything seems to be ok. But the real challenge starts when the baby gets the chance to eat food.
Most of the parents wait for THE DAY for their babies to start eating food.... thinking that it is one of the easiest job. But kids will give us no time in repenting on what we thought. Whenever I used to see Gerber bottles (baby food) in the store, I used to feel happy... that my baby will eat when she turns 6 months and will continue until toddler age. Ooooh.....big mistake. The moment I put Gerber food in her mouth, I was totally disappointed by her expression.
It felt like "What the hell I'm doing to my kid?". I wished for an INVISIBLE umbilical cord that feeds my baby whenever I eat my food. Hmmm.... we are in Kaliyug... our wishes will not come true... we have to accept the fact that we have to struggle. So started preparing food at home and that helped her to come out of those expressions. But.... is that all? Nope... making them sit at one place and feeding them was another big challenge. Thanks to booster seats and high chairs.
If they are not in booster seat.... you better be ready to play hide and seek with them :-).
Once they are out of toddler age, eating good food is an untouchable thing for them. They do everything whatever they want...except touching the plate.... and they don't even bother to look into the plate.
Does that mean they don't eat anything? Then we are wrong....they have their own choices, and if they get what they want, they don't need our help at all.
Wonder why we spend so much time behind our kids. Whenever my parents come home, they always say one thing " we never spent so much time behind you and we never had any problem feeding you guys...then what is wrong with today's generation?". Truth is... today's kids are more creative and they want variety. ...if not, they'll say "again the same thing...Oh no...".
Being mother of two, I learned a lot and trying my best with some crazy cooking for the creative kids. It feels good when my kids say "Wow... I like it, can I have some more...". And I feel proud when they say "mamma, you know what... you should go to master chef" ;-). Oh..well...if they eat all the food I give them....that is the biggest compliment I can get from my kids.
When I've time and energy, this is what they get when they come from school.... strawberry milkshake, boiled corn, papaya, beetroot halwa and grapes... yummy isn't it?
With their inspiration, planning to start another blog especially for kids....of course, it's for big kids too :-). I know there are many blogs and websites dedicated for big kids...but hardly see any for little kids. Hope this will help other parents too....
Last month, kids had a trip to an orphanage in Pune, as their school raised money from Dandiya event conducted in their school premises. Thought I'll also pay a visit to the orphanage to see how kids react when they interact with the kids there. As I could see, kids mixed well and they were busy exchanging games they play in their respective schools. And they had fun playing together.
By the time I reached there, Harshita made friendship with a girl by name Karishma. Now Harshita is pitching in to share her views...I'm typing as she is telling... "Karishma is a 11 year old girl and she is short for her age. She has a big brother and a small sister. Her parents could not afford money for them. So they sent them to the orphanage. The orphanage has a school, library, cafeteria, bedding and clothes. They like their home, but they are forced to drink dirty water and eat the same food everyday...that too, in small quantity. I think they are very creative, good at dancing and very friendly to visitors. They also participated in a dance competition and won. When we visited them, they danced on the same song as in the competition. Their dance was on a Ganesh Sloka. But I must say, they danced pretty well. Karishma was very happy when our school served the orphanage Bournvita and notebooks to write in. There were many poor kids who were being comforted by the elder ones. Most of the people felt very sympathy and were also making them active. Karishma is a Marathi girl. She mostly talks in Marathi, but can understand little Hindi. It was a little hard communicating with the orphans. But I think they were able to understand what we were saying. So in my view, I think the orphanage field trip was the best one until now."
Here is the picture of Harshita with Karishma.
Kids were curious to know about each other....
And I saw these two kids sitting on one side and talking to each other. When I asked why they were not playing, they replied that they love to talk with each other. So cute....
Here is some art work done by the kids there..
School kids enjoyed distributing Bournvita and see them smile...
Kids there seemed to be very happy. Life has taught them a big lesson to live without parents. The person who is in charge of the orphanage was very proud to say that the kids are very responsible and very good in their studies too. I couldn't control to capture their smiles....
Here is the information about the orphanage, "The orphanage in the name of Bhatkya Vimukta Jati Shikshan Orphanage(BVJSS) is run by its founder Mr Shivlal Jadhav, a post graduate in Economics & Politics. This home has abandoned children from the streets of Pune and at present there are around 250 children between the ages of 5 to 15 who are provided with food, shelter and education in the premises itself. "
Now listening to Kunal Ganjawala's song on SaReGaMaPa "Life is good. Life is wonderful. Life is pain.... it's all part of that game...." very true.
It's two days past Deepavali, but still we can hear the sounds of fireworks, string of lights flashing in the balconies and commercials on TV channels. It'll take another three to four days to come out of Diwali Dhamaka :-).
For us, Deepavali celebration started with Harshita bringing the lantern she made at school and then buying Diyas.
Kids hand picked their own Diyas and had great fun coloring them.
They got colored Diyas as Diwali gift from their art teacher.
String of light bulbs hanging in neighbour's house made kids bug their mommy to buy one for them. So we got lights and Lotus lantern to show off.
Also kids had fun choosing firecrackers and rangoli colors.
Finally on the day of Deepavali, kids woke up at 6.30am triggered by their mind clock. They came to their mommy who was still debating to come out of bed after short night sleep. But their enthusiasm to draw Rangoli woke me up. They directed me in filling the colors of the rangoli.... and here is the output.
As usual, our maid took off on Diwali. At least I was happy that our cook agreed to prepare sweet in the early morning at 7am. Thinking that all the puja preparations will be done soon, I took oath to do fasting. Believe me, I'm very bad at fasting... empty stomach makes me go cranky and results in bad headache... with my body taking control over my soul. So I usually don't take the pain of fasting. But somehow, thought I'll fast this time on Diwali. Unlike people who fast by drinking juice, tea and eating fruits and Saabu daana kichdi, my fasting is only with water... so bit hard on me ;-). Anyways, I tried my best.
With fasting in place, I had to do all the household chores. It was indeed a very good exercise. btw, I see some people taking exercise classes and going to gym to shed extra body weight. Dunno why they are wasting money in paying the instructor and also to maids. Doing household chores is the hardest exercise anyone can do.. it involves all sorts of bending, moving, lifting and what not ;-). Anyways, it is my personal opinion... no offense to anyone.
OK...it was around 10am...still my cook didn't turn up. Thought I'll be disturbed by rats in my tummy... but I had no time to think about it. As per my kid's request, prepared their favorite lemon rice. Harshita gave good company in taking pictures of the preparation and now she wants me to blog it....so I need to start another blog... will be coming soon...stay tuned :-). btw, here is one of the 34 pictures she took on lemon rice preparation...
At last, cook turned up at around 11am and started preparing Karanji(Kajjikayalu). Usually I prepare with Poornam (chana dal and jaggery paste). Now I learned Karanji preparation and hope I'll get it right when I prepare next time.
Then we started our puja preparations. There is nothing more than the joy of offering home grown flowers to God.
After Puja, it started drizzling outside and the smell of fresh rain was awesome.... felt as if God was happy with my fasting and was giving me blessings. btw, I didn't realize that I was fasting the whole time. Felt good at last..... now I can proudly say that I can also do fasting ;-).
Had our meals after Puja and then I had to fulfill my kid's wish of doing Mehndi on their hands. This was one of the tough job for me. Never used Mehndi cone in my life... all I used to do was to put a big round circle in the middle of my palm and small dots around it. So it was indeed a big challenge. Anyways, internet was there to rescue in finding some Mehndi patterns. So sat down and tried my best. Kids were boosting me by saying "mamma.. you are a professional..... see, how nicely you are doing the pattern with cone.... and that too.... for the first time...". I know they learned the art of praising me and getting their work done ;-). Here is the result of my hard work and there is one invisible result too...my back pain for sitting so long...
Kids started the fun with small roll caps....
And small tablets that grow into long snakes when lighted....
In the evening, we lit Diyas at the front door and kids were happy to place their Diyas in the Rangoli.
Then we armed with firecrackers and marched to the area dedicated for fireworks in our society. Kids had GREAT time playing with crackers and also watching so many people enjoying Diwali at one place. We tried our best to be sound free... but couldn't make it smoke free. Will help the "Go Green" theme by doing some planting this weekend. Finally kids got bit scared with the sounds and we had to return home when big soldiers marched into the field.
btw, today is Bhai Phota and kids had fun saying "Bhai-er Kopale Dilam Phota, Jom Dvare Porlo Kata" to their brothers three times on phone. It is one of the biggest festival in West Bengal and similar to Bhai Dooj in North India. On this day, sisters apply sandlewood tilak as Phota on their brother's forehead for long life. Planning to celebrate next Bhai Phota in West bengal. Let's see... For now, kids went to sleep and gave me sometime to blog :-).
See you next week....
