Jackfruit Hunter, Chick Magnet

Our kerala vacation is ending today. Some highlights from the month long stay. 

The boy grabbed some noses...

and was the welcomed guest of honour in neighbourhood households, really, I get it when people say it takes an entire village to raise a child.

So he danced around in chaddis,
and hopped on to autorickshaws...

and was in general pleased with his lifestyle...

He witnessed the dismembering of many a jackfruit bodies...

and supervised if the cut was nice and neat...

and tasted the jackfruit to see if it was just the right kind of ripe...

he even had his beloved ancy aunty to give him company in jackfruit tasting...

but when Ancy aunty and grandmom fussed over the jackfruit being not ripe enough, he lost interest and walked way. Chinnu chechy was the only one who kept a watchful eye.

Alone the jackfruit pilot went to wash his hands near the washing stone,

and shared heart laughs...

and together they ventured to another venue where the chicks are...

The boy liked playmates in his eye level...

So he summoned them to come closer....

He tried harder...

But they were as stubborn as, well, a bunch of chicks.

The boy pleaded again to come play with him.

But then he decided that he has had enough...

So he thought he will leave...

He turned around to look back one last time...

Then "kakka" (crow) got his attention, he was thrilled.

But oh wait, the story doesn't end there, for the chicks came looking for the boy.

And they played for a while...

And then he danced around among chicks...

Lo and behold, meet the original chick magnet!

Adventures of the boy will continue from Delhi. :)

Farm Animals we met

 In Delhi, chicken was the frozen meat that came in a packet which we cooked and ate. In Kerala, chicken are those pretty two legged runners who makes his evenings lively. After a month long chicken rearing and chakka-manga-thenga-perakka hunting, we decided to go meet some new farm animals. We went to meet a local farm in Neendoor, Kottayam called JYes Farm where the boy met lots of strange new living things. 

For example the goose. 

Or the strange and ancient Emu. The emu gave him the scare of his life. The boy now calls every bird kakka ( crow). Emu was a big scary kakka he met. He was excited and bewildered to meet this gigantic bird. That night he woke up in his sleep crying "kaakka"!! This is the boy's second nightmare, the first was on that dreadful night last year when he met the Ganesh Chathurthi Yo yo honey singh enthusiasts on the road in a traffic jam.

We like jumping around. 

Like, a lot. 

See, maamaa, Kaakka!!!

Ammachi and the boy.

The boy made friends at the park.

And sat next to a huge cart wheel which was brightly painted!

Fun!

A love note about the co-parent :)

I have not been blogging for a long while. In times of tight financial circumstances, one has to drop everything else and concentrate on the paying jobs, however uncool they might be. Well, I am back. Not that we have attained nirvana of the monetary kind. I am taking a sabbatical from the joint parenting and chilling all by myself at my home in Kerala. The grandparents take care of the boy. The responsible adult of my life is alone in Delhi, missing us (better be) and possibly enjoying the childfree days of his life. I therefore have time to sit and blog.

This note is about him; the person who read out poetry to my pregnant belly; the one who cooks not just occasional fancy dinners but the everyday simple dinners too. Our days and nights are full of love, punctuated with yells and meltdowns and sarcastic remarks. I cannot imagine a life without having the sarcastic titter tatter we share with each other. Seriously, if some random person hears us talk, they will readily assume that we are having a nasty fight, but hey, we are romancing. Caustic wit is the binding force in our household. The more acerbic the words, the better. Only we can deduct the teasing romance from the seemingly sarcastic wordplay. 

The marriage is rather new but the relationship is old. The relationship goes back to immaturity while we were friends who posted regular letters to each other. Inland letters, you see. We then became obsessed lovers who acted either possessive or detached and called it mayhem. We practically matured together and became these evolved sorted lover beings. We still revisit our mayhem days from time to time. We have clear likes and dislikes, about each other and about the world in general. But we are getting there, that familiar space where you likes and dislikes match. Some things are left in an “oh-you-are-like-that-only” void.

I like the neckpiece of Chicken, fat chunks in pork, and fat lined slices of beef. He doesn’t like to eat the exact same things I love to eat. I am not so much of a chicken breast, meaty meat person. This is how we attain perfect harmony in our dining table. We are the Yin and Yang of balanced meat consumption. Now any meat lover would know what this means to a relationship.  

What makes this bond special is the fondness we have for each other. There were days when we yelled unpolished words at each other. There were tantrums, frustrations, sadness and quiet. There were days when we overflowed with love. There were days when we had absolute domestic bliss. There were days when domesticity was nothing but leaky drainpipes and fatigue. The fondness is what keeps us going, day after day.

For some time I honestly thought that a person can never have a best friend. Wrong. Here he is, my best friend, the best parenting partner, my body shaped dent in the sofa, the most comfortable place to be.

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! 

,

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.