Obsessivemom

05/09/201408/11/2022

10 wonderful things I learnt at school

Like for most others, schooldays were perhaps the best days of my life. However, I like to think that my school was better than everyone elses. Yeah! yeah! you can say what you like and argue all you want but ours really was just that tad bit better. Today on Teacher’s Day I’m sharing some priceless lessons that I got at my school.

1. The joy of singing in a choir

The skill and energy that the nuns put into teaching us hymns at school will stay with me forever. In fact when I had the twins I found myself singing ‘Joy to the world‘ while putting them to sleep. And later when my son took up music and came home humming ‘Give me oil in my lamp‘ I felt such a sense of home coming. Others might think of Rajesh Khanna at the mention of the piano but I will always remember Sister Alice Mary.

2. To say it with cards

We made cards for everything. invitation cards, thank you cards, sorry cards, get well soon cards! A habit that has stayed with me and one I’ve tried tirelessly to pass on to the children.

3. That punishment could be given creatively

We got some of the most creative punishments in school. We’ve been paraded before our younger siblings (‘Look how careless your OLDER sister is!’), made to sing Edelweiss, made to hold our tongues, quite literally (just trying doing that for a while), made to stand inside a waste paper basket.

4. That books are to be respected

‘No bookmarks no books’, was the rule in our library and I remain compulsive about bookmarks. The other day I’d gone to get a passage from a book photocopied and as the lady there turned down the corner of the page I winced so audibly she thought I’d hurt myself.

5. That girlfriends are the best friends

Aren’t they? That comfortable feeling of being completely yourself, of being able to talk about ‘anything’ under the sun. Yeah girlfriends are special.

6. That cricket isn’t the only game in town

Along with basketball, throwball and volleyball we played games like French Cricket and Danish Rounders. Heard of them? Anyone? For the record: We played no cricket.

7. That all religions are to be respected

I think it’s a great idea to study in a school of a faith different from yours. It gives not just tolerance but love for that other religion. Growing up in Lucknow in a Hindu household, with Muslim culture all around and a Christian school. It can’t get better.

8. That it was perfectly normal for girls to play boys’ parts in school plays

… and hilariously funny for boys to play girls’ parts in all-boys schools.

9. That kids with raffle sheets deserve kindness

Those weren’t the times of multi-storied societies. Only I know how many times I have roamed around houses brandishing raffle sheets and trying to explain to people (very far removed from raffle sheets) what it was all about!

10. To keep my knees together when I sit

Right from my earliest memory of school, I was never a girl – always a young lady. And there were some things that ladies never did. They never shuffled their feet when they walked, they kept their shoulders back and heads up, they always spoke politely and they kept their knees together when they sat.

So tell me what’s special about your school people.

03/09/201415/04/2017

Sickbay tales

This Friday while everyone was welcoming Ganapati, N, the strong one, the girl who never falls ill, caught the virus. She’d been up early morning and dressed in all her festive finery ready to go visiting all the Ganapatis that were arriving at our friends’ and relatives’ homes. Even as I sponged her burning forehead she refused to change out of the Chaniya Choli confident that she’d be up and about soon. After all, she never did fall I’ll.

H wandered about listlessly with nothing to do since his favourite ‘toy’ was out of action and the house was so so quiet. By the night, as expected, he followed suit.

Next morning The Husband was travelling for work and I spent my day sitting between the two children sponging them turn by turn. N opened her feverish eyes once to murmur happily, ‘our house looks like a sick-bay’ and then went off to sleep again. Why she seemed so happy about that, I have no clue. Meanwhile the Husband caught the virus too and slept his days off in his hotel room!

H firmly believes what N can do, he can do better and so he decided to have rashes along with the fever and I was rushing to the ped yet again. To make matters even more interesting they got calf-cramps, apparently that’s a viral side effect. They couldn’t stand or walk and proceeded to crawl all over the house like one year olds. No, the option of sitting in one place was not an option at all.

Phew!!

Finally day 6 sees them better. The biggest problem has been FOOD. They just do not want the regular stuff and my limited cooking skills have been stretched to the limit.

I’ve had a hard time steering them off television, with limited success. Today, however they spent the day making Teacher’s Day cards and gifts all on their own. Yeah sometimes I do get the feel that they’re growing up after all.

Those rolls are ‘pencils’ which they intend filling up with sweets.
And that’s a ‘tippy tippy top’ with a straw pushed through to make a flower.

So that’s what the week’s been like! I still haven’t managed to go Ganapati visiting. Hoping the next few days will bring better health and some peace to our home.

31/08/201415/04/2017

Observations from the book club

Last week was the fourth meeting of the Book Club. And so it’s been a month I’m still at it, that makes me pretty happy. The children had been asking when they would get to act out a sequence and so I thought it would be a good idea to do a bit from Swami and Friends during the Book Club Meeting. Since it was the first time and I didn’t want to disappoint any of the kids, I made up 7 speaking parts. Don’t even ask how difficult that was. However, as I was to find out, that turned out to be the easy bit.

Chaos reigned..

…as none of the kids, except the one playing Swami, were happy with their parts. They argued and argued and argued. The most unhappy were H and N. N couldn’t fathom why, when it was her mum giving out the parts, she couldn’t have the lead. H wanted to be the sole narrator. Uff… it was crazy. Finally, after much changing and exchanging, a whole lot of appeasement and a few tears too we had our cast in place. And then the fun began.

They really are an acting, dancing, singing bunch. The bits where they had to raise ‘Quit India’ slogans were the most fun. It still puzzles me why kids revel in so much noise! They sang ‘Sare jahan se achchha’ with gusto and refused to stop after one stanza each time we practised. Despite the tears and the disagreement it turned out to be a fun meeting.

Learnings for next time:

– A chat with H and N on not expecting special treatment (Promises to be a tough one since I still have no clue how to go about it. Suggestions are so welcome!)
– Ask for volunteers for each part and draw chits.
– Since I’m no playwrite I’d hardly done a good job with the dialogues. They need to be shorter and simpler. I could let the kids go extempore with a few guidelines and leave them to improvise.

An observation

What I thought was a personal problem with H and N seems to be a pretty universal phenomenon – most kids lack listening skills. They are too impatient, too excited, too curious about too many things to give their total attention to one thing.

And so this week…

… we started off with a game that would encourage listening as well as creativity – a story spinning game. I started off a story and each child took turns taking it forward. Since we didn’t follow an order and any child could be asked to take up the story, they paid attention. Happily enough, they also questioned the improbable bits and built up the characters pretty well.

Also, the two boys in the club had asked for adventurous stories so the poor Happy Prince was put on hold (yet again) and I picked a Russian folk tale for this week – Ivan Tsarevich and the Grey Wolf with a firebird thrown in for good measure. It was a personal childhood favourite and the kids seemed to like it too.

We also practiced saying ‘Thank You’ in various languages including Russian. That was super fun. For a change I didn’t have to remind the kids to say a ‘thank you’ to me, which I always have to otherwise, but that’s another post.

27/08/201415/04/2017

12 most intriguing mom-types

Once I was obsessivemom. I outgrew it.

I think I did. I sure hope I did. The thing is you never know.

I do however, remain, a ‘mom’ observer. They’re interesting, believe me. Being a mom changes you in a way you would never have imagined. It makes you a new, different person, sometimes unrecognisable by your old self. A lot of these moms below live inside me.

1. ‘My child best’ mom: She’s easy to spot. She wears her child like a medal. Nope, God didn’t make any other child as wonderful as hers. No one can dance like her, sing like her, write or speak or jump or run or even walk as gracefully, as athletically as hers.

2. Know it all mom: Yeah she knows it all. A stomach ache? She has the cure. A dance class? She knows the best one. Fancy dress, super recipes, parenting styles – she knows all. Have a suggestion? Well keep your mouth shut!

3. ‘Go get it’ mom: She’s the ultimate motivator. She’ll push and she’ll prod and she’ll push some more till she has her child on that victory stand. She won’t pause, she won’t stop. Not even to check if her child wants to be there at all.

4. The co-curricular mom: She’s the one you’re most likely to bump into in elevators. A Hi! and Bye! and she’s gone, kids in tow – one class to the next. Her kids need to learn everything. From chess to ballet, piano to Spanish, basketball to the drum, she has it all covered.

5. Food fanatic mom: She’s the gajar ka halwa, the garam garam roti mom – the one who spends hours whipping up the perfect recipe. She revels in the fact that she makes her own ketchups and jams, that her pizza is better than Dominoes and her burger better than Mc Donalds.

6. The psychology professor mom: She’s Ms Analysis. Every action of hers and her child’s is examined and cross examined, analysed and cross analysed. “I yelled at him. Will it scar him for life?” “He scored badly in his tests, will he go into a depression?”

7. Academic mom: She’s the one who lives one unit test to the next. Exam times see her at her peak. She will obsesses about each quarter mark lost and will keep track of her child’s ranking like Shylock counted his gold.

8. Cleanliness freak mom: That can of sanitiser will give her away. Open her bag and you’ll find dry tissues, wet tissues, tissue rolls, soap strips and napkins. She covers her mouth when she steps on the road. She sanitises her kids’ hands every five minutes and wipes glasses and plates in restaurants before food is served.

9. ‘I’m your friend’ mom: This ones not quite a mom at all. She’s a friend, a pal. She dresses like her daughter and shares her makeup. She uses slang like her kids and hangs out with their friends on FB.

10. The ‘Awww’ mom: She’s the one who cannot get over how wonderful her kids are. She tears up at every smiley her child gets at school and cries over every ‘I love you note’ from her child. She can’t talk without a ‘sweety’ or a ‘honey’ and is always found hugging, petting and cuddling her ‘baby’.

11. ‘My kids are my life’ mom: Her life begins and ends with her kids. Her conversation never strays from them. Suggest a coffee date and she’ll fix you with an incredulous stare, “What? Without the kids?”.. and you’ll slink away feeling a mean and selfish mom. As for me time… what’s that? she asks.

12. The perfect mom: She’s the toughest to define. Um.. actually she’s the easiest to define for aren’t all moms just perfect?

Oh they can be annoying, intriguing and so so different, but they don’t deserve to be judged. They all, yes all, love their children and are trying really hard to do the best they can.

This post was done for Write Tribe. For more ’12 most…’ entries go here.

23/08/201415/04/2017

Independence Day at The Book Club

I missed updating about the last book club meeting and as Saturday is here I don’t want to have two meetings on my conscience, so here I am.

Remember, the weekend before Independence Day I had been awaiting my package from Amazon? Well they did oblige and I got my copy of We the children of India by Leila Seth just in time for our meeting. It is an amazing book for kids 8 years and above and a wonderful way to acquaint them with the constitution and the preamble. We had a great time reading it. I wish I could have handed out a copy to each of the kids but a photocopy of an excerpt had to suffice. We were so engrossed in reading it that we had no time left for an activity.

So then last week we started off with a craft activity. We made these super cute book readers. Check them out. The kids drew their favourite book cover and pasted them on.

We read an excerpt from Swami and Friends by RK Narayan; the bit when he throws his cap in the fire. It’s a wonderfully warm story of a child’s first taste of the war for independence. The idea was as hazy in Swami’s head as in the kids of today. I hope they do imbibe his enthusiasm and love for his country.
This week we intend to act out the passage. I’m ready with the dialogues. It was quite a challenge to make sure all the kids have almost the same number of dialogues.

Before I sign off let me show off these covers too which we did for the kids’ Book Club Files.

They get to fill in details and colours to personalise them while retaining some bit of uniformity.

The story for the coming week will be, finally, The Happy Prince by Oscar Wilde again. However I have a feeling in today’s session we’ll not manage much reading. The play acting’s going to be too much fun. Looking forward to a happy session.