When someone decided to teach mamma how to sweep the house like a boss!

So first we start with the balcony. 

You know, lift up empty shoe racks and sweep underneath. Why, may I ask, is the said shoe rack empty? Because we like to munch on shoes whenever we feel like munching! Gah! How long will you go on teething?

Coming back to the actual sweeping rather than giving out pointless blabber about teething toddlers, we sweep under shoe racks and then we dust shoe racks! This is how it is done, freak woman! Learn something already!

And then we sit down and pick small particles of dust. This is how we "close a deal" perfectly.

We always hug our tools. Like you the laptop, I the broom!
(I have always looked down on mommies who put words into the kids mouths! I couldn't resist doing this myself. Kill me! If crazy cat ladies can do this, I can do this too. I might be the crazy baby lady, Shhh..........)

So continuing with the baby voice over, we move to other rooms....

We sweep under the baby stroller/ laundry basket. (Since Dan is no longer a baby and will not sit in a stroller anymore without jumping out of it and causing mini heartattacks to amma, we found a new way to use the stroller. We take it out to the balcony, we fold our dried clothes, we push the stroller to the closet, we transfer the folded clothes. In actuality, now nobody goes to the closet for clean clothes. Everyone knows that clean clothes can be found folded/not folded on the baby stroller! So yea, the baby stroller is now the closet of this entire household. You want clean underwear, check the baby stroller :P

And amma finishes her blabber about stroller-closet, we proceed to the dining area.

And then we clean the surfaces of little chairs, and we clean the insides of little chairs. This chair also doubles as the toy collection basket.

And finally we sweep the drawing room. When we sweep the drawing room, we don't pick toys and keep it away in inassessible places. We let it be. This is how boys do things! Check the Tee! :) Teehee!

This is how it is done. The house is now pronounced clean! Also I am pretty sure the kid will file a case against me for posting his childhood activities in fake detail. I like to bail out with love.

The little Red Book of Malayalam Alphabet

After the wild and unimagined success of the alphabet book I made for dan (it was the most widely read post on this blog so far and it got featured in Malayala Manorama, so double yay!), a little boy's pretty mom asked me to make a custom book for him. So I made one. My first attempt at making a full fledged hard bound book from scratch!

Ta-da!

The little red book!

Well, it is completely handmade and hand bound and I don't have a letterpress or professional cutting machines. So excuse the amateur look! 

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But it is pretty, no? I feel major amounts of pride in making it. :) 

                                                                      The title page

There are about sixty little pages and pictures. It will be impossible to post all the pages. And hence here is a sneak preview into few of my favorite pages...

Like this mother and child who are doing a balloon stroll...

Or this cute snail and chameleon perfectly rocking this pink page,

Or the medicine bottle and the teddy bear,

This father who sits cozily and reads a story to the child,

This little fellow peeping from the window,

This scene from the sea,

And D is always Dinkan in the mallu child imagination! :) Say it loud, folks! "Ethiralikkoru Porali!"

This stick figure Dolak player!

And the parrot which gave green its name and fame,

This charming fruit basket....

This deer whom Salman Khan might have wanted to pursue,

This cow, oh, this cow, does she need a description?

A lion in most child related households are zimba, but in our household a lion is always "Alex, the Lion!"

This pictogram representation of rain, the ultimate mallu fantasy!

This whimsical well with face and a smirk!

This kungfu kid!

This peacock, this fish!

The book will now rest and set under thick academic books we have in plenty. The book will then be sent off to the lovely little boy, Noonu :) I hope Noonu will like it. I will look forward to reader's approval from Noonu and shortly from his little brother/sister! :)

Thanks a lot Joshina Ramakrishnan for asking me to do this. Doing this was a really really happy experience! I also learned a lot about the lipi from the chats we had on facebook. :) Much love,

That boy in Yellow Socks!

This is the nice phase of Delhi Winter. All you have is a nice cool weather, bright clothes to layer with and more importantly bright coloured socks!

Soon it will be super depressing bone piercing cold. Before that mood sets in, here is some cheer in the air.

Presenting the boy with the bright yellow socks :)

The boy is happy with his choice of socks, obviously.

And the boy's mom is clearly obsessed with pretending that the boy just loves to read Malayalam Alphabet all the time :P Self praise much!

And there, the boy has visitors.

Ardra and Archa in conversation with the boy :)

And games with Ashok :)

And the boy decided to raid some lady handbags....

And pull out phones and headphones....

While mom tried desperately to get a perfect arial shot, which never really happened.

And then the show off that mom is, cannot really exclude her experiments with poetry and paint, can she , like ever? 

Excuse this thus. 

Thread and ink alien monster tutorial

A lovely alien right? How did I create it,  now that was a fun process. The unpredictability in creating stuff like these is really interesting. Kids do it, they see things in weird ways grown ups fail to. You can have endless amount of fun if you just let the kid in you imagine alien creatures and make up stories. 

I just found this little monster on my sketchbook today. While I was doing it, till the end I was not aware that this guy is going to show up in the end. Look at him. What an adorable monster :) 

The basic thing i did was this thread ink craft kids used to do all the time.
I used to spend hours doing this as a kid. It was such fun.
Doing this is still fun.

Here is how you do it.

Just the humble thread and normal fountain pen ink. A pencil to assist you in dipping and filling the thread with ink. Any notebook. Even typed pages or already written surfaces. The layers it can create will be amazing.

So first step is to wind thread on to the tip of your pencil. A thicker twine will be nicer. This is what I found today, so I used this.

Next step is to dip the thread in ink. Leave it there for a couple of minutes for the thread to soak all the ink in.

Next step is to take a notebook and make a pattern with the ink soaked thread. You will spill some ink in the process. Don't worry about that. It will all add to the effect. This is messy fun! Make the most out of the mess!

Now close the book, press down firmly and pull the thread while pressing the page down!

You will have this beauty in your hands in a matter of seconds! Dip in ink again and make a different pattern, you will get a different picture. Fair warning: This can be addictive. Do not try it if you have any deadlines to meet.

The best part of it all is you get an identical picture on both sides of the page. You can just keep admiring what you just did, or enter more interesting worlds like I did.

The childhood craft ends here. I tried to do more with the sketch I got. I continued to do different things until I got a satisfying effect. If someone else did it, they would have created something completely different from it, I am sure.

First I doodled all over with regular wax crayons.

Then I gave a light wash with watercolour paint. I am a big fan of what water does to ink. I loved the smudge it created. 

And some outlines later, a terrible monster of adorable features was born! 

The thought behind sharing this is to inspire people to embrace the fun side of life. You know, grab some cheap paint and go wild with it. :) Unleash the monsters within you! 

PS: Corporate people who are constantly in search of de-stressing can try this out. Name your monsters according to the names of your Managers, or irritating customers. Create a story in which the wicked monster undergoes transformation and becomes all good and understanding and all. Even create a story in which the wicked monster meets a terrible end. Whatever makes you happy!