Larger than life bananas

The boy visited my cousin, his aunt. There he met a calf and learned the word "Pashu", he saw a banana bunch that was bigger than him and he rode a jack fruit. That's my cousin Nimmi chechy holding my boy.

"Pashu"- Cow.

"Pazham": Banana

"Chakka": Jackfruit

One good happy day!

10 ways to entertain a toddler while travelling

Travelling with a toddler is not easy. It can turn into a nightmare if you are travelling alone with the said toddler. Having one favorite toy might not really help to get you through the hours of waiting time in airports, railway stations, tedious road trips. Giving your smartphone to your toddler seems to be the easy way out these days. During our last trip to the pediatricians, we met a family. The father, mother and the kid all of them were glued to their individual phones. They are detached from whatever was going on around them, they were detached from each other, they were mighty bored. Getting glued to the smartphone is the last thing I want to do to myself or to my family. Here are some travel friendly tips to keep the toddler entertained.

1. Fake Wallet 

I don't know about all toddlers, but as a general rule, toddlers love to open a wallet, examine the contents, take things out, put things back etc. Save up all the random visiting cards and bills, stuff them into your old wallet, carry it along. Do not hand it over to the kid immediately. This is the golden rule. Pretend that it is your real wallet, let the toddler snatch it away from you. You will have him or her engaged for a minimum of seven minutes. Seven minutes is so long in the toddler and mommy world.

2. Bindis 

I always keep a bunch of colourful sticker bindi packets handy in my bag. When the kid starts to show signs of boredom, I take one bindi out. Point to be noted, a bored toddler can graduate to a troublesome trantrum toddler in a matter of nanoseconds. I stick a bindi to the boy's hands or feet. He usually tries to remove it, put it somewhere else in his body, on my face, on my bag, clothes etc. Bindi's always give him atleast ten minutes of fun and give me ten minutes of peace. They are not messy, they are easy to carry around, they are pure gold.

3. Bangles 

You cannot carry million little toddler toys when you are travelling. One entertaining toy for a toddler is an abacus which will let them count or just fool around with. There is no space in a travel bag for a toy like that. But there is always the possibility of wearing a lot of bangles on your hand. It will work as a rattle, it will work as an abacus. You can let the toddler count it, play with it while wearing it. You can remove a couple and just let them wear it on their hands, remove it, wear it again. Again, a minimum of seven minutes.

4. Lollipop 

Make sure you have a food item that will last for a long time. The time is the most important factor here. Do not give the kid a chocolate or something else that can be wolfed down quickly. A lollipop is my perfect travel companion. It has a handle, it is a chore to finish it. It will take atleast ten minutes to finish one. There will be a considerable amount of drooling, but you can always wipe the sugary drool.

5. Fellow travellers 

It is really ok to talk to strangers. Sometimes they might turn out to be the best travel companions. Like this old woman we travelled with this time, she was happy to take the boy out on a stroll inside the plane introducing him to other passengers on board. The kid had fun and I had a five minute break from holding a wiggly toddler in my lap while sitting in the really tiny airplane seat.

6. New book 

Carry one new book with a lot of pictures to look at. Seven minutes. Ten minutes guaranteed if it has a goofy rhyme.


7. Activity Toy 

Carry one toy which has an interesting for the toddler irritating for you kind of activity. Something that can open and close a million times with a clicking noise would be perfect. May be a box with a lid, a car with a door, a ball point pen with the spring action. It will give you atleast five minutes.

8. Play dead 

This is an extremely ridiculous and hugely entertaining game we play. I play dead and he will try to wake me to life, often by poking to my eyes. This game is a never ending fun game for us. Most often I get bored with the game and I distract him to some other activity. He never gets tired of this one.

9. Count random things 

The kid can count two and three. So where ever we go, we count the twos and threes, be it chairs, buses, stairs, people, trash cans, anything.

10. Luggage Stroller  

Another entertaining item in an airport is the luggage stroller. I put him in the top most space in the stroller and I keep the luggage bags under. He enjoys the ride for sometime. Soon he will realize that this is somewhere you can't run away from and then he would want to run away.

I hope at least one or two of these tips will make someone's life easier someday.

PS: Always always wear a backpack. You need both your hands while travelling with the toddler.

PPS: Carry  hand towels and  a change of clothes at all times.

The little book of fish

Remember the very tiny alphabet book and the little red book of Malayalam Alphabet? We made another little book, this time about fish. This is dedicated to Daniel and his love for fish. 

Mee Mee is the kid lingo for fish in Malayalam. He calls fish Mee Mee! 

There is a tiny aquarium in dmy place in Kerala. That was bought in when Maman was a little boy. Maman was the first batch of DPEP, the primary education program that emphasized on alternative methods of learning. The aquarium is kept alive even now. I remember the little boy Maman obsessed with creating a perfect natural habitat for the fish. His text book told him to create an 'avasa vyavastha' for the fish. Avasa Vyavastha was probably the first ever big malayalam word he learned. Anyway, years later, Daniel too enjoys looking at Maman's aquarium and the fishes in their aquarial avasa vyavastha :) 

And like any other fellow Mallu, he loves his fish fry with his rice. :) That makes him a well rounded fish-lover.

His favorite fish is Rohu. While we are in North India, we try to overcome our coconut oil hangover and fry the Rohu pieces in Refined Mustard oil.

But we love other fishes too, sea fish, fresh water fish, dried fish, pickled fish, all kinds of fish.

And that is our little story about mee mee.

Panda House for Daniel

A child's attention span is anywhere between one minute to five minutes. You get them the expensive toys and you can see your money going into the trash in less than ten minutes. I am always trying to make inexpensive recycled toys and other play elements for the boy. It is one way of quick crafting for me. I don't spend a lot of time, patience or expensive supplies while making toys for the boy. It will be destroyed in a matter of minutes, so cheaper, quicker crafts is what I plan when I make stuff for him. 

We have a small collection of Panda's that comes with the Cadbury's Gems packets. Daniel is fond of them Pandas. So when a couple of friends visited us with a box of Rasgulla's, I thought I could whip up a small house for the pandas from the cardboard box cover. I used rangeela tempera colours and camel drawing ink. 

Presenting the panda house.

The doctor panda.  

The biker panda. Since my brother the biker is the only biker this boy knows, we call the panda with the helmet "maman panda".

The magician Panda.

The detachable roof. I kept the roof detachable so that the kid can take it out and put it back, like you do in a building blocks game.

The pandas are very happy with their brand new home.

The boy was thrilled too :)

See, detachable roof :)

Much love. 

anybody can doodle

Dan was a wee little fellow when I saw this story about an artist collaborating with her four year old kid to create wonders. Check it out here. I wanted to try collaborating with the boy, but I couldn't wait till he becomes four. So I decided to try at 18 months. I handed over the adult tempera colours. It was unfamiliar territory for him. He was used to crayons and sketch pens, pencils and regular pens. This was new.

He was hesitant to put his fingers into the tiny tubs of paint. I made him dip his fingers. He freaked out in the beginning when he saw paint on his fingertips. Then I showed him how to dip fingers in paint and use it for finger painting. He made some strokes.

I had to hand him his sketch pens after a few minutes of finger painting.

The finished toddler art.

And then the mother gave the toddler art piece a wash with water colours. Finally the mother doodled all over it and folded it and made it into a greeting card for the father.

Here is the final product.

Since the kakka aka crow is his favorite word (he sometimes wakes up uttering the word kakka), I decided to put that down in the card along with a little crow on a tree branch. 

Fishes from the mother.

And butterflies from the son.

The crow.

Doodle triangles.

Us, the Doodlers.

This signature will be used for future collaborations from the mother and son. :)

That's all folks.

NB: The father of the boy liked the greeting card. :)

Growing up

Dan is 18 months old.

Growth-o-meter :)

In the Nehru-Gandhi Backyard

We became regular visitors to the Teen Murti Bhavan premises, the former residence of Jawahar Lal Nehru, the first Prime Minister of India. This indeed is a dynasty building where Indira Gandhi's children played around. There are these vintage pictures of Rajiv Gandhi standing with grandfather Nehru, pictures of the Kennedy's relaxing in the back verandah facing the big lawn and so on and so forth. The premises now hold the residence of Nehru turned into a museum, the Nehru Memorial Library which according to the history teacher in the household is one of the best libraries in India, and the Nehru Planetarium which we intend to visit when a planetarium will start making sense to the boy.

So the recent development is that since the father wants to attend a lecture series happening in the library, the mother son duo decided to hang out and explore the loca.We pack some snacks and water bottles and roam around to our heart's content. We have now became familiar faces in the museum and library, the boy has befriended the security police men, the karamcharis in the museum, library and the library canteen. We also meet a lot of people doing their customary teen murti visit in Delhi Darshan programs. The boy is now so familiar with the former prime minister's residence that he has started to consider it as 'apna hi khar' :)

On one of these visits, we decided to click some pics too.

The library entrance.

The spring flowers.

Boy is fascinated by the ramp and the railing.

The prime minister's residence, back verandah.

Also, spot the boy.

The backyard where the little gandhi's grew up.

 the boy tries to break and enter in to the prime minister's office at every visit.

This drawing room might have inspired the home decor style in many Indian homes.

 The famous rose bud on the nehru jacket, our mirror selfie.

The boy made new friends in every visit.

He is expecially fond of this huge letter box that is thrice his size.

And we took mom-son selfies.

 And then we were tired, we just wanted Appa to be back from the lecture.

Appa came back wearing a 'let's go home' face. And that was the end of that day.