Another Kindergarten Graduation..

Just when you remember writing a post about how time flies, you are writing it again, three years later, with another kid going through the same thing!

We remember talking about this in 2008 and saying "before we know it the baby will be finishing Kinder!" and there she is!





Have never seen her happier!

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Busy week

A lot more things happened this week, than the adults watching Dasavatharam!

Jr. finished Kindergarden. One more year just flys by!

Here is this years Photo. Jr. was so proud and happy. It was a treat to see her prepare for her graduation performance, singing, dancing, having fun!



One more year of married life completed this week! We are happy, healthy, constantly fighting, constantly reconciling after fighting, managing to maintain the status quo for another year. Time IS really flying by fast.

As though to symbolize this event, we had a special flower bloom in our front yard. Thought it was just an ornamental non-flowering plant when we purchased it six months ago. Now we know better.




The flower bloomed over a whole week gradually. It was amazing!




and as if to say, "yeah right!" for the association of the flowers blossoming to our wedding anniversary, another flower bloomed!

It looks like an Allium, but seems to say "pOda ....."




Let us see if you can guess what flower this is!

And finally, Father's day! A very special day for me because Jr. always makes my day! The first thing she did when she woke up was to run to me and say "Happy fathers's day daddy" and she gave me a bookmark. She had kept it a secret for a whole week. The little one still doesn't understand what the hoopla was about, but joined in the hugging and kissing.

An eventful week this one! Guess, going forward we will have the second week of June becoming a busy week because of the Graduation, fathers day, anniversary combination!

Wishing all those dad's out there a very happy Daddy's day!

ps. After reading last years post on Jr.'s graduation, I just realized.. This Blog completes another year!!!


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Random Photos..

It is pretty late in the night (by middle aged daddy standards).

So why not let the mind wander and just pick some photos from the last few days and post them ?

First, a nice graduation shot of Jr. thanks to another parent's camera.




Next a tip for people who suffer migraines in the middle of a hot summer afternoon. If you ever said to yourself, "If only I could chill my head", I have the perfect tip.

1. Take some crushed ice in a Ziploc (or other local brand name) resealable plastic bag (the sandwich size bag works best).




2. Wrap it in our Indian towel(aka thundu). This does not work with the turkish bath towels!




3. tie it around your head so that the crushed ice bag ends up just above your neck in the back of your head, and lie down so your head is pressed against the pack and in a few minutes, the headache is gone! At least this works for me.




Actually the last three pictures were taken in reverse sequence. San took a picture of the "sick me", and that prompted me to take the other two pictures as I unwrapped the towel.

Finally, to complete the randomness(?!), a picture of a squirrel at our local park, which took off just as I had him in focus..




I did not know that squirrel ears were that intricate. Did you ?


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The time, it keeps on flying..

As a person who skipped Kindergarten completely and went to first grade at the age of 4, the whole hoopla about a pre-Kindergarten graduation ceremony for Jr. sounded crazy!

Graduation party ? For graduating from what ? Playing in the yard ?

Add to that the timing of the party at 10:30 in the morning on a weekday, there was no way I was attending the ceremony. Jr. came and gave me the extra special hug and kiss and practically begged me to come. I still had to disappoint. San however relented and went for an hour. Apparently the ceremony was a huge success. All the parents were teary eyed that their little ones were now graduating from the daycare and moving on to different schools to attend KG.

In a way, I guess it is fitting to have some kind of graduation, because making it through all that playing in the yard, knowing your ABC's and 123's is an accomplishment by itself. All that hype with the gowns, tassels and caps are a little too much, but maybe even that is for the better ! They get used to the graduation ceremony concept at an young age.

The only problem was that San took the old S30 to take pictures.
San suffers from a not so rare disease called newmachineophobia where the symptoms are :
initial fear of touching new machine
expectation of extensive hand holding in terms of using said machine
learning to love the machine
hogging the machine
forgeting that they actually were afraid of the machine at one time
declaring that they always were okay with the machine

The beauty of this disease is that it cures itself. We have seen her go through this with the car, the van, new DVD players, cameras, camcorders, etc. Now she is going through it with the new Canon EOS! So she took the S30, which failed to open its shutters during the ceremony! Now we are waiting for photos from cameras of the other parents who were present, so I can get glimpses of what happened at the ceremony.

To compensate, I took a photograph of the little one with her hat..




Now, that is something to get all teary eyed! My little baby is all grown up..

In other news, this blog graduates after its second year and on to its third! Let us see if can go on for another year!


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Overnight Wings

Once upon a time, in a land far away,
lived a happy couple, who entered family way!
Before you knew it, they had a kid or two,
Lost sleep, track of time, but were happy to
In time their little ones grew up
Left home for far away lands
To study, work, and even hold hands!
And it was their turn to enter the circle
of big tummies, gurgles and school
The all too familiar routines
that were tiresome yet cool!


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The ties that bind!

When it comes to binding two surfaces together, there are many approaches. In fact gluing two surfaces or nailing them together would probably result in a much better bond than just using some form of rope or thread. However, when it comes to bonds that last, they always have "tying" associated with the bond.

Caveman probably used rope like material long before he came up with nails or glue! Maybe that is the historical reason ? But in retrospect, humans have associated permanent or long standing bonds with a tie.

The earliest and strongest is the umbilical tie ! Somehow even after the bond is broken physically, it leaves behind an imaginary connection that allows a mother to remote control her child, when he is 13964 Kilometers (or 8678 miles) away. A mothers ability to make a grown up child cry over a few words during a phone call, and the even more amazing ability to restore the same grown up child and make him wipe off his tears within a few minutes by calling him back, has to do more with the imaginary connection than the phone connection!

Then of course comes the tie that follows the umbilical tie. The "aranakayaru" tie! A black thread that the dad ties around a baby's waist on the day the kid is named as an attempt cast off the evil eyes! Hope this tie works as well for me as it did for my daddy!

The third tie that I can remember is the tie that initiated me into culture and religion. I am refering to the Upanayanam ceremony and the sacred thread that has been slung across my shoulder since I was thirteen! Although I have not been as faithful to all the duties and daily prayers that I agreed to perform, I still have not forgotten them. Just do them at my own terms and have come to accept it for what it is worth!

The fourth memorable tie is the tie that binds me to education and my profession! Well, I am talking about the colorful sash that my co-advisor tied around my neck during my Ph.D. graduation ceremony! Something to remember for the rest of my life. I have been studying all my life, but that moment stood for a milestone along that path. It was almost like stopping in Coalinga on a long drive from San Francisco to Los Angeles and smelling the cows, except much nicer!

The last and most important was the knot I tied around my fiance's neck to get her to be my wife! Of course she was my fiance for a total of one week before she became my wife! Cannot put my finger on it, but was it the knot, the circumstances under which it was tied, the audience at the event, the rituals ? Guess it does not really matter because somehow it gets etched deep down into your head and can still resurface from that depth real fast!

The same ties keep going over and over again, generation after generation, binding people in an inextricable way.

Ah, the ties, they do bind !



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