The following took place while Tanay was coloring some dinosaurs.

Tanay: Look how pretty she is!

Me: So, the T-rex is a girl?

Tanay: Yeah. She is a girl. And girls love lots of pretty colors. Omigosh! she is so so pretty!

Me: Who is the other guy?

Tanay: Eh…He is just some plant eater. But just look at how pretty my girl meat eater is!!

Me: uh..huh (starting to panic now)

Tanay: I really really hope that she eats this plant eater. I hope he does not poke her tummy with his sharp spikes. That would make me so sad.

OK. Is it just me or does anyone else think that there is something wrong with the way this conversation is going??!! Any words of advice are highly appreciated.

On Saturday, we went to the Point Pleasant beach on the Jersey shore. Finally. Last summer, we kept thinking and planning and then we thought and planned some more. But we never really put our plan into action. This time we didn’t plan. We just got into the car and decided to go. First stop was Aditi’s house. We wanted to see if we could drag our butts and make them fit into one car. So we had Ashu and his dad in the front, three kids in their car seats in the second row and me, Shubham & Aditi in the last row. Shubham’s six feet, sorry six feet one inch (edited by Shubham)  had to be ironed and folded and rolled into a ball. He is still slouching and my butt still hurts. Trust me, I don’t think the MDX has ever seated so many people…. EVER! But it was so worth it. It’s a whole different experience sitting all cramped up in a car, falling all over each other every time the driver as much as touches the breaks. Also, this is a relatively common practice in India. There was this one time in college, when ten of us crammed into a five seater. Ofcourse those were also the days when I could fit into a size zero. But let’s not get into “those days”.

So, we park ourselves on the beach, get a couple of umbrellas, spread out the blanket and get ready to relax. The kids and the dads were in the ocean in no time. Unfortunately Tanay was not amused. “THE WATER IS YUCKY!” So after a customary dip, he was out for good with a “CHANGE ME RIGHT NOW…. THERE IS SAND IN MY PANTS!!”. The waves were really strong and hitting hard as they rolled onto the beach. Shubham and Ashu were quite enjoying themselves and I was getting rather snap happy with my trusted Canon. When suddenly I saw a giant wave creeping from behind, the two of them go under and come out blinded. Literally. The waves took their glasses. And without them both of them are absolutely blind! Unlike Shubham, Ashu had a spare pair in the car, which he promptly retrieved. After that for the rest of the day, they kept sharing the glasses for sight seeing purposes, if you know what I mean Such true friendship! Applause!

So, we had to stop at the mall on our way back to get him a new pair of glasses, because….. that was his only pair. All was well. We had a fabulous time at the beach, Shubham got  a new pair of glasses and someone off the Coast of Bahamas is probably jumping for joy because he just laid his hands on a pair of D&Gs.

Last week Tanay got back from school with a ” I am very very sad” look on his face. On probing, I found out that he was feeling left out since I had not signed him up for swim lessons in school. ” My feelings are hurt when the teacher does not call my name“. So, I relented and signed him up. Frankly we hadn’t really done much of swimming this summer. Feeling rather guilty, we decided to make the most of whatever little time we have left. In addition to swim lessons in school, we will also be going to the local YMCA come September. (I just hope I haven’t over done it). This past Sunday, Shubham took him to the community pool which luckily for us is right behind the house. It’s ideal, since we are THE laziest family on the street. Also my constant ooing and aahing about Michael Phelps in the last few days has made him Tanay’s hero too. Phelps is my kind of an obsession. I wholeheartedly support it.

Yesterday we noticed that Shubham had this huge bug bite on his arm. Now, the only time he had been out in the wild (ahem) was when he went swimming. The bite had two tiny white spots on it. Shubham’s theory was that a snake probably jumped high up in the air and bit him. That too in the ten steps it takes to get to the pool from our house. Thrilling but very unlikely. Anyways, it looked nasty so we headed to the doctor’s office. I dropped Tanay off to school. But before he went he passed on some words of wisdom to his father, who by the way has a history of panicking at the mere sight of a needle. It’s no wonder that men don’t have babies. I digress and I don’t want get into the million other reasons there are for it.

“Momma… you don’t go with him. Let him go alone. And Papa, DON’T CRY THERE (I have a reputation, you know!). I am going to be very MAD if you cry. BE BRAVE”.

Thankfully there were no needles involved so both Papa and son were happy with the outcome. As for the flying snake who allegedly bit him…. WE ARE ON THE LOOKOUT!

Also, I have an update on the trashed dinosaur situation. A couple of days ago, Tanay stormed into our room early morning and demanded,” WHERE ARE ALL MY DINOSAURS?!”. Ugh! not a pleasant way to wake up. I very clamly told him that he knew exactly where they were. Of course he wanted them all back and I was immediately deemed to be VERY MEAN. I cannot tell you the relief I felt. Finally, ALL WAS WELL WITH THE WORLD. My dino boy was back! So we negotiated and worked out an arrangement. For every day that he is good, he gets one back. Of course, we HAVE to thoroughly clean it. After all it was in the garbage! Duh! I know its going to be a long time until all of them are back in the house. But I think it will be worth the wait.

Nothing much has changed since my last post. I am still up late night watching the Olympics. Only I am literally injecting myself with caffeine to get through the day. Now that Michael Phelps is done with his races, I have switched my focus to Track & Field. I don’t think I have spoken to many of you about this, but I was very active in Track & Field in school. I did the short distances - 100m & 200m and the long jump. There was this one time I tried the high jump. My coach felt that I could be good at that. All was fine while I kept trying the straddle technique. It was only when I tried to give the Fosbury Flop a hand, did things turn nasty. I started off, arched my back, jumped over the bar….. only when I came down the other side, the bar came down with me and hit me on my mouth. Now that wouldn’t have been so bad, only if I wasn’t wearing braces. The metal got all mangled in my lip and well…… I won’t say any further, keeping in mind all you people with weak hearts. It was not pretty. That was the end of my tryst with high jump.

I absolutely loved being out there on the track. I loved working hard and I loved the adrenalin rush. But there really aren’t much facilities available to pursue athletics as a career in India. Which means you have got to do well at school. No college is going to open their doors just by looking at your stack of medals. So, when it was time to make a choice, I picked academics. But I still have very fond memories of my sporty days and there is a box full of medals in my closet in Bombay to prove it.

After watching Usain “Lightening” Bolt waltz through the finish line like it was some child’s play, Tanay has started running around the house as if he were in a race. At the end of each race, it is a must that we hug each other and pat our backs because, “That’s what teams do”.

And on a parting note, James Mcavoy has been replaced by Michael Phelps on my personal Most Wanted list.

The Olympics are officially killing me. The last couple of weeks have been crazy busy and sitting up late every night is definitely not helping. But seriously, it is humanly impossible for me to take my eyes off Phelps. Every time he won, I saw the pride in his mother’s eyes and I couldn’t help but show Tanay the clip and ask him if he would make me just as proud someday……. “ROARRRRRRR” is the only answer I ever got. Sigh! If dinosaur roaring was an Olympic sport, watch out Mrs. Phelps, you would be envious of me.

Talking of dinosaurs, last week, I served Tanay with the most unthinkable punishment of all. I packed up all his dinosaurs… yes, all 147 of them and threw them in the trash (actually they are in a cabinet in the garage). I felt that his behaviour deserved it. And I thought that if this did not devastate him then nothing else in the world would. Not that I wanted to devastate him. I just wanted to have something that would work. I mean, I have already started playing the Santa card. I know…. I know.. it’s way too early. Sorry.. but I AM DESPERATE! But I was so wrong. Tanay was as cool as a cucumber. In fact, he found a couple in the bathroom upstairs and promptly handed them over to me saying,

“Here Mom, throw these too. I was not nice yesterday“.

WHOA! WHAT JUST HAPPENED HERE!

I am defeated, yet again. As I sit here writing this, I see him on the deck playing with his dino sand table, sans dinos, just pretending that they are there. I have no answer to this.

The beginning of our Toronto trip was a roller coaster ride. Literally. To begin with, we were flying in one of those tiny jets. And to add to it, the weather was just nasty. We flew through thunder storms all through the way, so much so that even the flight stewards were asked to remain seated. You may ask, what’s so bad about you not seeing the stewardess’ face during an hour long flight. Well… NO JUICE!! You see, Tanay loves the cran-apple juice which they serve on flights. He probably thinks that there is something very grown up about saying, ” I will have some juice please” and then spilling it all over your pants and then have her get you a refill! When we boarded, Tanay was sitting with me, but then just when we were about to start, he had a change of heart and he jumped to the next row to sit with Shubham. This turned out to be one of the wisest decisions ever made by my three year old. The flight was choppy right from the very start. And it just kept getting worse. To the extent that at one point I felt as if I was sitting in one of those Frog Jumper rides at the amusement park, which you know I HATE. While I tried to distract myself by chanting my favorite God - Lord Ganesha’s name, Shubham and Tanay were going WOO-HOO…..WOO-HOO with their arms up in the air!! Had he been sitting with me, I would have forced him to panic. I have never been more relieved than when the flight landed. And this from a flight which I expected would be nothing but an hour of sipping soda and flipping through the latest People magazine.

Every trip of ours includes a backpack full of chargers. Yeah…. for cellphones….laptops….ipods. We usually are very careful about stuff like this because this is after all the most important thing that you can pack. You don’t want to go on a vacation and be cut off from the world! How do you expect me to change my facebook status otherwise? And how will I check my mail every ten minutes? I mean, what if there is a crisis and I am the ONLY person who can solve it? You get the point. So, Shubham realised that he had forgotten both his cell phone as well as his laptop charger. He was all…. I HAVE GOT TO FIND A MALL!! That’s how we ended up at the Toronto Eaton Centre within 2 hours of checking into the hotel. While Shubham hit the wireless stores, Tanay & I just walked around aimlessly, until all peace was shattered with a “THE DISNEY STORE!!”. I was all.. what? where? Oh! there. (DAMN IT!). Now, when it comes to the Disney store, we really have exhausted all our options.Trust me. I am not exaggerating.  Except for the pink stuff. Ofcourse. So, Tanay looked and looked, trying to find something which he could buy. Finally he had it. A Sleeping Beauty figurines set. At first, I was a bit shocked. Coz after all it was a Princess related toy. Then I asked him why he wanted to buy it. Actually I should have anticipated this answer. “I want it for the dragon and the witch” OK. What followed was a mini obsession with the Sleeping Beauty story, which to tell you frankly, I was quite happy about. Anything other than the same old dinos.

A couple of days later, I was telling Shubham about Tanay’s soccer coach getting married to one of his teachers. Tanay stopped in his tracks.

Tanay: Married? Why are they getting married?

Me: Because they love each other. Just like the Prince and the Princess in the Sleeping Beauty story.

Tanay : What about me? I am sad. I want to get married too. Whom do I love?

Me: Ummm ……….

Tanay: WAIT. I love the witch. I WILL MARRY THE WITCH.

I always knew that he had a thing for the villians. Be it Black Pete or the Big Bad Wolf or Swiper. Turns out…. we love the vamps too! BIG TIME. And if this is any indication, I am terrified to even think about how his teen years are going to be! I am in so much trouble. Help me God!

Tanay woke up this morning with a, “We haven’t been to the museum in a long long time”. And since staying at home meant emptying the suitcases, which finally arrived yesterday late night, and doing laundry, we decided to go for Tanay’s suggestion. Also, if you have had any experience at all with a toddler, you know that a happy toddler = a happy home. So we gobbled up some breakfast and headed out to the city.

If you don’t already know this, the American Museum of Natural History is our (read Tanay’s) all time favorite hang out spot. Frankly, I have never been the museum going type. But today, I actually found myself looking forward to going and realised that Tanay had changed me… for the better. Who would think that a three year old could be responsible for such a positive impact on my life?! And for that, I Thank you…..Tanay. Since we already know each and every dinosaur exhibit by heart, we decided to check out the non-animal sections of the museum. Also we had never seen any of the shows before, so we picked the Cosmic Collisions at the planetarium and Sea Monsters at the Imax theatre.

Now, I have NEVER been inside a planetarium before. We did have the Nehru Planetarium in Bombay and I vaguely remember talking about visiting the same. But we never got around to doing that. So, this was my first experience ever. And OMG!! IT TOTALLY BLEW MY SOCKS OFF! I think I actually had an out of body experience! I had shivers running down my spine when I saw the meteoroid collision with the earth with ultimately lead to the formation of our moon. A similar collision was also responsible for the extinction of most of the dinosaurs. This information was obviously not very happily recieved by my dino boy. “So THIS is the rock that killed all dinosaurs!!?” But he too was awestruck by the entire show, which kinda gave me hope that maybe….just maybe, this could be the beginning of a new passion. sigh! As for Shubham, he was equally mesmerized. He has been to the one in Delhi when he was kid, and according to him it was no where even close to this. Now I don’t feel bad at all for not going to one earlier.

Another first was my very first Imax movie theatre experience. This Sea Monsters movie was actually tailor-made for Tanay. He was all wide eyed and excited and almost clapped in glee every time the monster gobbled up yet another unsuspecting prey….. much to the amusement of the folks sitting in front of us. Being able to experience all this also made me a little sad. I kept wondering if Tanay could have been a part of this, had we been in India. I don’t think so. But why not??? Each and every kid in this world deserves to be able to enjoy and learn from this. It’s just not fair. But then life is not fair…. So…..umm… I got a li’l out of hand there.

And this brings us to the last, but not the least first (does that even make sense!). We drove in and out of Manhattan without our loyal GPS. Did I say, the ride was a peaceful one? OH… NO! We had more than our fair share of tiffs simply because the city traffic makes my dear husband a bit loopy. And without his darling GPS on his side, he was like a fish dragged out of water. But we survived and got home safe and sound. I think our relationship just jumped up to the next level!

I am back home after a week in Toronto. It was my first time there and I am actually quite glad that I tagged along with Shubham, who was there on business. Not only did I get out of spending 7 torturous days alone with Tanay, constantly answering, “When is Papa coming back?!”, I also got to meet up with some old friends. My good friend was also there with her twins and we had a great time walking around and exploring the city. Keep your eyes on the Daily Photo section for some visuals.

Now, travelling with Nidhi is like travelling with a walking-talking Lonely Planet. Yeah…she is that good! Not only that, she has this tremendous passion for knowledge and is constantly teaching the kids new things, right from stuff about the human body to the delicate intricacies of the hookah. Why, when we passed the Toronto stock Exchange on one of our walks, she even told the kids everything about how stocks are bought and sold. In fact I have decided to send Tanay to her place every week for a crash course in all those important subjects which I am not good at. Actually that includes just about everything. I admit that I have a huge problem when it comes to coaching of any form. I have very little patience. Yes. I know. I have to work on it. Trust me… I am.

One evening, after dinner, we happened to walk by the Toronto Stock Exchange once again, and Tanay repeated all that he had learnt from her. Shubham was quite impressed. We talked about how we should take a cue from her and try and introduce Tanay to new things. After thinking for a while, Shubham announced, “Start playing Mozart for Tanay. And the rest will fall right in place!” Not that it made any sense to me, but I have learnt not to question him when it comes to music. Just as I was instructed, I obediently played some Mozart the following morning.

Tanay (listening attentively): Why are there no words??

Me: Because it’s just instrumental. This music was made by Mozart…. one of the greatest musicians in the world.

Tanay (eyes litting up): Was he scary?! Maybe he was Mozartosaurus!

Me (thud): No….. He was not scary.

Tanay: Oh! Let’s pretend that he was scary. 

I am really at a loss. When is this dinosaur phase going to end? I mean, what do I do with a kid who will spell Megalosaurus (of course with help), but not even try to attempt C-A-T.

Tanay : I LOVE you Mommy!  I LOVE you Papa!….. It’s a beautiful day and I am so lucky to have you!

Me: Awwww… I love you too darling!

Tanay: Come, let me give you a hug! You are the best!

Me (eyes welling up) : Awwwwwww…….. WAIT! What have you done?! Should I be suspicious?!

Tanay: Yeah… I want you to be susp….suspi….suspicious!

at Dhaba on King’s street.

Guy: Are you ready to order your drinks?

Me: Yeah. I will have a Mango…

Guy: Mango Lassi, Mango juice, Mango soda?

Me: No. Mango Margarita.

Guy: Oh! hahahaha (fake laughter)

Damn… you sure do shock easily, don’t you?!