At 6........

Today I am saying good bye to five- the age five that is.

My baby girl has turned 6 today. That reminds me every time I call her "Baby Girl", that she is not a baby, so please don't call her that in public :)

I don't remember being 6. I have tried really hard. So I decided instead, to write Anvesha a letter, so that if she forgets what 6 is like, she can refer back to this.

My dearest darling and my first love Anvesha,

I am writing this letter to you for you to preserve forever who you are right now, as you turn 6 years old.I hope one day we can read this together, laughing and smiling as we remember what an incredible girl you were when you were 6.

At 6 you believe that magic exists- you believe in unicorns, fairies and their magical wands.

At 6, you still love me the most-est and think that I am one awesome Mom- even with my flaws.

At 6, you are a total girly girl, who loves to dress up, choose her own outfit, likes to do her hair and comes up with one of most complicated hairstyles and ask me to make them for her.

At 6, you are learning to read and are doing an amazing job at it. You are so thrilled to get chapter books every week from your school library and I am so proud of you.

At 6, you love to draw and are an amazing artist. I am so touched with all the cards that you make for me. Sometimes I feel I don't deserve this love at all, coz no one ever made such beautiful cards for me ever. Thank you for that.

At 6, you love your dolls- baby dolls, barbie dolls. You love ponies. I am pretty sure we are soon going to have a pony town since we have ponies in all shapes and sizes too. I guess, you can play ponies and dollies all day if I let you :)

At 6, Elsa is one of your favorite characters. You love everything about Elsa. You also have an Elsa backpack that lights up- Gosh!!! I had to run errands to find that one for you. Your shoes have Elsa and Anna too and you love your light up shoes. Only few days back you asked me to get shoes with laces for you because that's what "big" girls wear. Phew..... I want my baby back..... please don't grow up so fast Anvesha.

At 6, you are having a love hate relationship with your little sis- Anvika. Both of you are like Tom and Jerry. You are absolutely protective about her in public, but at the same time fight like cats and dogs at home.

At 6, you are an amazing ballerina. I love the way how your dance moves are getting more refined.

At 6, you are playing your piano very well.... you still need a little more practice and I feel guilty of not giving you that one on one attention, because, well we have your little 2 year old sister at home who wants to do everything that you do and therefore becomes a big distraction.

At 6, you are in awe of your kindergarten teacher, whom you like to call Ms B. So much that you literally begged me to take you to MOD Pizza just because that's your teacher's favorite. She must be really amazing that she had you eat pizza- which you are not very fond of.

At 6, you really get torqued up when you make mistakes. But I want to tell you one thing, you don't really need to be prefect- you already are even with your faults and mistakes. Go easy on yourself- that is what being human is all about.

At 6, you think "pretty" means sparkles, fancy dresses, bows, shoes.

At 6, you are a miracle, a spark, a gift.

My heart expands with each and every of your birthdays. Happy birthday my love, I hope you have the time of your life.

Santa Claus is coming to town

It's that time of the year again..... days filled with holiday lights, candy canes, cookies, cakes, pies, gifts and of course that very special picture of the kids with Santa which you want to take every year.

But meeting Santa may or may not turn out to be a pleasant experience. You get in the long line and hope that your child's meeting with Santa goes well. Some times it does and sometimes it doesn't. For some reason young kids, especially toddlers find Santa very scary. Anvika too is afraid of such characters. When we went to Great Wolf Lodge, she was so scared to be even close to their mascot. Keeping this in mind I did not want to stand in a long line, pay 25-30$ only to find that my dearie gets scared by the sight of the big fat old man.

With Prateek gone to India these days and the weather so cold, it gets hard to keep the kids engaged and entertained. Come weekend and it gets even more challenging. So I am always on a lookout for some fun things to do with kids. Since it is December, Santa pictures are in great demand. I took the girls to meet Santa Claus and hopefully get a good picture of them with him. I am so glad the picture turned out nice without a single tear.

Santa was super friendly and the girls loved to chat with him. Anvika also gave a high 5 to him. Since pictures with Santa are in vogue in December, everywhere we go we always see Santa house. The other day we went to Cougar mountain zoo and we had a Santa house there as well. It was a fun day. The line was long but there were reindeers along the way and the girls were super excited to feed them along the way up to the Santa house.

Santa asked Anvesha what she wanted for Christmas and she replied that she wants ear rings that glow in the dark. That was a wonderful moment and I am glad I was able to capture it.

One thing tick marked in my December to do list :) I am sure the girls will love to watch these pictures when they grow up. 

Wishing everyone a fun filled holiday season and warm hugs from all of us here :)

Baby Dolls

A favorite doll is the child's first best friend, often much before they actually develop real friendships. To some kids it's a cherished security that they find in snuggling them and they begin imitating how their parents care for them, eventually playing out real life situations that sometimes astonishes you.

As a child I loved playing with dolls, combing their hair, giving them bath, changing their dresses. I remember while playing games like family, I actually had my doll get married to a friend's doll :) So when it comes to my girls, it's no surprise that they love playing with dolls too :) May be it's more of  a girl thing. Don't get me wrong, I want them to have interest in sports, board games too, but believe me, Anvesha and Anvika are both naturally drawn towards playing with dolls. They have a huge doll house where all of their Barbies are kept- Elsa, Anna, Beauty, Supergirl, Snowhite, Ariel..... and many more.

Speaking of dolls, their current favorite is playing with baby dolls. From the moment they both wake up in the morning, till the time they sleep, it all about these silicon creatures. And we have these baby dolls in various shapes and sizes too :) In order to avoid any conflict among the two (which of course will still happen no matter what we do), we have a baby designated to each one of them. These days the baby dolls come with a magic milk bottle where the milk magically disappears when you feed the baby. Isn't it so cool?

So the way it works out is that Anvesha is responsible for HER baby and Anvika is responsible for HER baby and by responsible I mean feeding their babies, putting them to bed with blankets and pillow, giving them bath, reading a book etc. One day I was really amused when I found all the babies next to each other and I asked Anvesha what was going on. Very innocently she replied that our babies are having a sleepover :) 

Conflict arises when Anvika takes away Anvesha's baby and the two get into a fight. So, no matter what we do, they will still fight. 

Keeping the fun part aside, I feel there are also some developmental benefits of playing with baby dolls that apply to girls as well as boys. One main one is that they develop caring and nurturing skills. Looking at the adults, the kids learnt about caring for their baby- feeding them, keeping them warm, cleaning them etc. Some dolls come with zippers and buttons and that is one great way of helping a child learn how to button- unbutton, use zippers, tie a knot etc. With the help of Anvika's baby I am also able to teach her about the body parts and to Anvesha I am able to teach her about the 'good touch' and 'bad touch'. 

 I don't care if people call my girls doing only girly stuff and I do not want to develop any kind of pressure on them to play with something else too. If that's how their personality is shaping up, so be it. Yes, sometimes it does get overwhelming to watch my girls play with only dolls, but I just want to cherish this phase. I am pretty sure when they grow up, they will have a smile on their face watching the old pictures of them with their babies.

Anvesha's Ballet Recital

Anvesha has been doing ballet ever since she was 3 years old and I can't help recall my old post, "Anvesha learns to dance". She has come a long way from a 3 year old ballerina to an almost 6 year old ballerina. Her dance movements are more refined now and she loves to do her courtsey in style at the end of each dance.

Yes, she still goes to learn ballet and tap from Miss Sue and she absolutely loves her. I like her too- very professional in her teaching approach and young girls are very fond of her.

Every year Miss Sue runs two ballet recitals- one at the end of school year around June and the other one is mid year around Nov- Dec which is called the nutcracker.

Yesterday was Anvesha's nutcracker performance. We were not sure if we will be around during the recital so I had pulled out Anvesha's name from the performance list. It was so kind of Mss Sue to add her back in the list at the last minute.

Anvesha performed on the tunes of "Spanish Chocolate" and it was such a delight watching her on stage. She looked more confident and her movements were more refined.

And here's  the video of her ballet earlier this year in June. She danced on "Let's have fun". I loved her costume. All the girls looked adorable, but my eyes were glued on my butterfly :) She looked so pretty in her pink ballet dress.

I hope to post more videos of her performances. Over the years it gives such joy to watch these videos. I am sure Anvesha would love to watch them too.

Love you sweetheart. You're the cutest ballerina in town. All the best for all your future performances.

Hugs, Mamma

Anvika's first haircut

Anvika had entered the world of luscious locks and wanted to comb her hair herself everyday. Little hands trying to comb those curly locks often got tangled and it took me a lot of effort to untangle them, not to mention the effort and patience it took to have her stay still while I comb her hair. I was shocked one day to see scissors in her hand and she actually cut her hair because she couldn't take off her rubber band. So we decided to get her a haircut. Don't get me wrong- I love her two piggy tails and she looked adorable in them. We call them aeroplane :) But with 2 kids and that too girls, trust me 10 mins saved in combing their hair each morning mean a lot.

First things first- I gave her a heads up that she will be getting a haircut and she will look super cute. To make her feel more comfortable we took the two girls together for a haircut. These days kids salons are super fancy and have fun chairs to sit on- like an aeroplane or sheep or giraffe. Kids can choose to see their favorite movies while they get a haircut and thats what I call cherry on the cake :) Often kids get very anxious and that makes it difficult to have them stay still. So while Anvesha chose to watch Tinker Bell, Anvesha chose Mickey Mouse.

Anvika also got her favorite baby to the salon so as to have her hands occupied. She refused to wear a cape and after several attempts I gave up and  had her sit without one. I must say the lady did a very good job keeping her clothes clean.

Here's a small video from that day

Iam so proud of her. She did great !!! I have known kids who cry their hearts out while getting a haircut. But my little doll was just fine :)

Here's Anvika in her new look

Here's a certificate from the salon

Well this wasn't technically her first haircut, but yes, first haircut after the mundan.

I am grateful for.......

Dear crazy munchkins of mine,

It's me- your Mamma, yeah I know I am not sleeping with you even though I pretended to be, just so you fall asleep and I can sneak out to get my break. Yes, I need a mini break from you gals because you sure know how to drive Mamma insane. I mean, can you two get along for the 5 minute that I am finishing up my work? Or give me some break when I am cooking for you a nice well balanced meal? Why do I need to watch "My little pony" or "PJ Masks", or "Super Monsters" everyday? You know what, I think I have learned all the lyrics better than you! ha ha

Even though it may seem like I am complaining, which I am, I just want to say that your Mamma loves you. Like a lot a lot a lot !!

But sometimes, I feel like I am not the best mom that you may want me to be. I feel bad that some times I am not able to play with you when you want me to. I feel terrible when I shout at you when you dropped milk on the sofa. I feel like I am not there yet, being a good enough mom.

But then I look at the two of you, I look at your faces and let's try to get passed the fact that you two look like your papa and not me, even though I try to convince myself that you look like me because I am the prettier one here :) Looking at your angel faces I realize that I am not doing a bad job after all- I see that you smile when you see my face first thing in the morning. All you want is Mamma when you get hurt. You eat the food cooked by me like it's the best thing in the world. You laugh at my not so funny jokes and smile when I make silly dances. You listen when I am teaching you. You cuddle and hug me when I read you a book and love my make believe stories.

You trust me
You believe in me
You know I will protect you no matter what.
You love me unconditionally.

You two are my best friends- for real- yes you are- even though this may sound silly. Even though at times it may seem like all I do is scream, clean, change poopy diapers, know that I am watching you, I smile when I go down to the basement and see the two of you playing.

I just want to say THANK YOU to the two most beautiful monsters in my life.

Thank you for reminding me that my mistakes and flaws do not affect you- all you want is your Mamma. Thank you for reminding me that there's no such thing as perfect mom but a mom who is the best mom for you two.

Thank you for the good night kisses and morning hugs.

All I want is for the two of you to be happy and loved. I am happy that I am achieving that everyday. The rest will come in time.

Love you,
Your silly Mamma 

Happy Children's Day

 There are some things that we can't buy, one such thing is our childhood. 

Today is children's day, a special day for the kiddies. This day is set aside to celebrate and appreciate the children in this entire universe. Every child is different and unique in his own special way and deserves a special treatment.

A very happy Children's Day to my butterflies. I love the way you girls are growing up. You deserve a wonderful treatment because we as parents are so blessed to have you two in our lives.

ANVESHA means quest, discovery- quest for happiness and discovering happiness in an all entire new way. Happiness in seeing you happy :)
ANVIKA means powerful and complete- you made our family complete in every sense.

Seeing you two play together brings back old memories of my childhood. Both of you are so different yet so similar. The house is so annoyingly quiet when we don't hear your chitter chatter, laughter, cries and constant fights.

There are things you do or say that changes me as a person. These things may be small or forgetful to some, but mean a lot to me, like how Anvesha brings home a new rock every day from school and gives it to me saying, "Mamma this is a special rock that I got for you from school."  The way Anvika kisses me out of the blue and wants to keep giving me kisses for the next 10 minutes. All these little gestures make me feel so special and complete.

I might be biased here, but my girls are the most affectionate humans I have ever known. I am also afraid as the outside world is hard and so I want them to remember few things:

1. Be kind and generous
2. Love deeply and at the same time let yourself be loved too
3. Trust God and most importantly, trust your instincts
4. You are worthy of all the good things, so never ever settle for the second best.
5. NEVER EVER give up and don't be afraid to fight for your rights.
6. Never let the child in you go away.

Absolutely the most joyous time of anyone is without doubt their childhood, so never grow up. Keep the child in you alive. A smile of yours can show heaven on earth and the twinkle in your eyes can still us for ages.

It's Children's day today- YOUR day!! So have a hip-hop-happy time.