Astrophotos
Ashwini: cold box
This post is very very overdue. Should have wrote about this last summer. We had noticed Ashwini calling the appliance that keeps our food cold, ‘frigerator’. We thought that it had to do with her difficulty with pronouncing certain “R” words. Her teacher (~25 yrs age) was at our house for babysitting and she asked about keeping food in the ‘frigerator’. That solved the mystery about Ashwini’s pronunciation. Ashwini and her best friend Sydney have picked up so many little behaviors and speaking styles from their teacher that sometimes it is hard to figure out if we are listening to Ashwini or Sara. Sydney’s mom made the same observation.
I had an intern (~20 yrs age) in my lab last Summer and she used to say ‘frigerator’, too. Must be a newer slang.
Ashwini will be four years old in another week. When I see her photos like these, it is hard not to think about leaving my job to become a house-husband.
This American Life on TV
My favorite radio show, This American Life, comes to TV (Showtime) on March 22. Here are a couple of trailers for the show.
[youtube www.youtube.com/watch
[youtube www.youtube.com/watch
Letter to Dad
Ashwini has gotten much better with her writing skills. She can write most of the letters pretty well. I think “S” is the only problematic one. But, when she is writing anything, she doesn’t follow the rule of writing from left to right. She just keeps writing whereever she finds space on the paper. This is surprising as she reads properly and knows to follow the sequence of letters from left to right while reading. I really like how her teachers teach reading at school. At her age, the brain is just like a sponge sucking in all the information. It is easy to memorize the spelling and read out the words. That is how I learned to read english and I now realize that it was so wrong. When Ashwini reads a word, she makes the sounds for the letters and then mixes them up to read the word.
Well… this post is about her writing skills. So, back to what we got from her school. Ashwini made some art by drawing and putting stickers. Then, it was put in an envelope to send to us as a letter. There was one for me and one for V. Here are photos of the envelope that I received.
Ice ice baby
After a winter storm that dumped freezing rain instead of snow, everything was encased in a layer of ice. It was a lovely sight to see Sun rising from behind the trees that were completely covered in ice. The tree limbs shimmered and sparkled as if they were made of cut-glass.
Adit the grouch
Oscar the grouch from Sesame Street is Adit’s most favorite character. He behaves like Oscar too, as seen here with our trashcan. We thought that he likes our trashcan because it is made of shiny stainless steel. But, his teacher commented the other day that Adit is after trashcans at daycare as well. Maybe, it is a sign of things to come. He may take up trash handling/sanitation as a profession when he is a grown-up. He will be in good company with the likes of Tony Soprano. That means I don’t have to worry about my retirement. My “Family” will take care of me in the old age.
Vagina?!?! What is that, aunty?
Eve Ensler’s very famous book, “The Vagina Monologues
If a 9 year old girl doesn’t know what a vagina is, there are some real problems with this family. Also, this book is about how women don’t have very high regard for their genitals and how they avoid discussing this topic. This floridian lady just endorsed the main point of the book.
Big helper
V left early this morning for a business trip and will be away for a couple days. My conversation with Ashwini when she was getting ready for school.
Me: Ashwini, do you know that Aai is not going to be here for 2 days. A: Yes. She told me last night. I’ll be your big helper. Me: Will you help me get Adit ready? A: I’ll do anything you want. When you go away, I am a big helper for Aai. She just asks me a “flavor” and I do all her “flavors”.
She is very helpful in making sure that all the lights are turned off and all the doors are closed so, Adit doesn’t get to stairs. Oh, yeah… I forgot to mention… her official designation is “light turn-offer”.
Fun in the snow - 2007
This fall/winter had been very funny. First there was no cold and there was no snow. Then came bone-chilling cold followed by snow and cloudy skies with fierce winds. Yesterday, it warmed up to a toasty 20+ F and the Sun was out. Perfect time to go out and enjoy some winter activities. Adit and Ashwini get to do these things at their school, but it was out first family outing of the season and it was a lot of fun.
Food... food... food
It was a busy and fun weekend. My brother and sister-in-law came to visit Ashwini and Adit. They also talked with us because we were around.
As usual, all we did was cooked, ate and drank. The theme this time was Indo-chinese (thanks to Sanjeev Kapoor’s books) and street food.
Friday dinner: Chili Paneer and vegetable fried rice Saturday brunch: Pancakes (only exception to theme) Saturday dinner: Kanda-bhaji, Batata-vada, vada-paav Sunday lunch: Vegetable Manchao soup Sunday dinner: Bhel-puri and Dahi-vada
Don’t want to list all the wines that were had. (Maybe, I don’t remember).
New kids videos
[youtube www.youtube.com/watch
[youtube www.youtube.com/watch
If you can’t see them, you are not on my friends list at Youtube. Send me your id and I’ll add you.
Chance to see Mercury
Mercury and Venus are close to each other in the evening sky. Venus will serve as a good guide to search for Mercury, which is usually hard to find. On Wednesday, Feb 7th Mercury will be at the greatest elongation, i.e. farthest away from the Sun (18.2° east of Sun).
Look out to the west after Sunset. It is hard to miss bright and shiny Venus. Mercury will be to the right and just below Venus towards the horizon.
Curious headgear
While changing clothes, Ashwini used to have fun with leaving her shirt over her head. Such behaviour can’t be encoded in genes, but Adit loves it too. I was surprised when he looked in the mirror and started cracking up at his own image the first time.
Popsicles
After the recent freezing rain/ice storm, everything is covered with ice and there are icicles everywhere.
Ash: Daddy, I like eating icicles. Sydney and I were hunting for them in the playground. I love to dip them in the snow before eating. They taste so yummy.
Me: speechless
The Indian Autorickshaw Challenge
The Indian Autorickshaw Challenge
This must be a really exciting race. Should follow it in August.
Winter is here...
It is cold, but not cold enough for good snow. We had a lot of freezing rain. Now, everything is covered in ice.
It is 1:59 am Monday morning. If you know what it means to be drunk with Tequila and be playing role playing game called dofus, you’ll appreciate how happy I am.