Officially Naughty

Recently, the kids were paid the highest compliment by their class teacher.
Those who’ve followed this blog for an extremely long time know that we adopted the twins in September 2007, when they were just over a year old. When we brought them home from Pondicherry in a taxi, and for many weeks and months following [...]

Dressing Down

I like to think that in my childhood days, I was a bit of a tom-boy. Actually, I like to think that I still am, at least a bit. At any rate, I’m very much a jeans-n-t-shirt sort of person, who avoids make-up and high heels.
Don’t get me wrong: I don’t by any means [...]

Watch What You Say

The twins are almost entirely toilet trained and have been for months. When they started school, Tara had about three toileting accidents a week for the first three weeks or so; Mrini had none. I asked the teacher why, and her answer was that Tara just seemed to be too engrossed in whatever she was [...]

Conveniences

Before the kids came, or more specifically, before the kids began to be toilet trained, I hardly ever used public restrooms.
As an aside, why on earth are they called rest rooms? The thought of actually resting there is hardly appealing. Relief rooms I could understand – if you find one when you urgently need one, [...]

Dosa, Boys, Chicken, and I’m Not Asking You

It seemed like we were on track to leave for school at the usual hour this morning. Then came a minor disaster. The bread turned out to be completely mouldy. Really, this cannot be my fault. It was a pretty fresh packet, we only opened it last evening. Anyhow, there were, of course, no fresh [...]

More Twinnings

Oh, the small joys of parenting.
The first words I heard at 6.30 a.m. on Sunday morning before I was fully awake, were, from Mrini: Mama not there. Mama gone to tennis court. Only Baba there. Whereupon, she turned on her heel and headed back to her room with something close to disgust.
I was there, buried [...]

Twinnings

While driving the kids to and from school, and also at sundry other times of day, I’m treated to absolutely delightful snippets of conversation and logic. Why should I have to enjoy these all on my own?
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M: Mrini is a good girl.
T: Panda also good girl.
Pause. Long pause.
M: Panda is a boy!
T: No, Panda is [...]