Stars on Earth

Watched Taare zameen par the other day - amazing story! Thumbs up to Aamir bhai & Co.

"Every child is special" is the message to all parents. I agree, the story addresses one extreme - where the kid is dyslexic and the school and parents both, instead of identifying the problem, deem the kid as "abnormal"



But deep inside, aren't we all made different? Aren't we all gifted in one manner or the other, and probably would have been better off pursuing what we're "good at"? Yes and may be

I am all for parents helping their kids make the right choices in life until the kids are adult enough to sit in the driver's seat. I mean, that's what parenting about, right?

• Kids are like small plants at first. They need care and feeding at every step. Even a ray of direct sun could wither them. So you look out for them


• With time, the plants grow up a little. The stem shows some strength. It can take a little bit of sun and wind on its own. But you still look out for them - cause they're not there yet


• Then the plants show some new colors - colors of youth! They stick their head out a bit. Even challenge the sunlight and winds once in a while. You let go a little, keep your distance. Watch mostly, and caress


• And then as they say - one day - the plant looks more like a tree. Providing more than it takes in. Ready to serve its surroundings with fresh air and fruits and shade

You let go here, don't you?

Nature (or God, with a capital or small 'g') has its way of making us, letting us grow up and flourish in our own manner. We, as parents are to our kids what a gardener is to a plant

Again, I don't want to say one should not discipline their kids, or not guide them as to what's good - that's probably our biggest role right there

But, stereotyping our kids into a livelihood that we deem is "best for them" is a tricky one. And I am not sold on that one yet...

Who's your daddy?

I never understood the depth of it, when people said their lives changed after they had babies. Until of course Pragya came along.

This is specially true with filling forms - with a new baby around, chances are that you're filling forms for her more than anyone else - stuff like: Birth Certificate, Social Security form, Passport et al.

I was filling the Social-Security form for her the other day. I sat down to fill all those "sections" on the form, begining with "Name (First & Last)" and quickly realized it is her name being asked for, not mine!

It's funny how your own context changes now - you are not "the One" anymore! It's the kid...hmmm, okay, let's move on

Now come the "Father's" and "'Mother's" names. The names that you were taught all along as "Papa's name" and "Mamma's name" will have to take a back-seat now - it's your name in the "Father's" and your wife's in the "Mother's" names (!!)

Thank God, the "Address" remains the same, so you don't have to think twice before filling that. Same goes for the phone-number and cellphone-number (until she wants her own flip-phone one day, of course)

And finally, remember that last section that said "If this form is not filled by the applicant..." that you always ignored? Not anymore. You got to duly sign that section declaring that you're that "Other guy" in the kid's life (at least as far as those forms go) :)

So, welcome pals, to the world of "3rd Person"

Tee Vee Land

She's watching TV today! Yes, already!
So much for the attention problem. She has an idiot-box that'll attend to her..

Softners de tissu

Ever wondered why those 'fabric softeners' are sold separetely? Not as part of your detergents? I think I am starting to find some answers...

For starters, they advise to use a full-capful on the bottle of laundry soap - so even if you don't need that much (unless of course, when you've not washed your clothes in a year or your profession generally leaves its marks on your clothes) you still end up using one capful of detergent. As a result, your clothes can't get rid of all the detergent in them, and become what they call 'hard'

So, what to do, Mr Tide?

"Well, lets see... how about a hefty funny-looking bottle of fabric softner. It will drain all extra detergent and make the clothes softer"

Guess what, they made us put all that extra detergent in in the first place. As a result, what they end up doing is sell more detergent, and sell fabric-softner as an add-on!

And what exactly is this fabric-softner. I came across this article that explains the general ingredients of a softner and the health hazards related to them. Apparently there is a movement going on to participate in a class action lawsuit against manufacturers of fabric softeners.

Recently we saw our baby's pediatrician for a general visit. She noticed a somewhat elevated amount of baby-acne on her face. Although it was nothing alarming, but she suggested using less detergent on her and our clothes - about one-tenth of what they suggest on the detergent packs!

At first it sounded strange - to use such a little amount of detergent on a full load of clothes. Thing is, with babies, we often miss the point that the little ones come in contact of our clothes as much as they do with their own!

Moreover you don't need that much soap on even your clothes. As unless your clothes are used by a farmer or construction worker, they are not soiled enough to use that much soap. Plus, its more eco-friendly to drain less chemicals down your drains, right?

So here's my reasons to use less detergents:

• Easy on your clothes - you might extend the life of the fabric
• Excellent for babies
• Good for your skin too
• Environment friendly
• And hey, did I say you save some money?

Happy washing....

Babies "Я" us

We are learning new tricks everyday to keep up with the changes our little daughter is going through in her life.

She is 2 months old now and has started paying attention to our activities around her. She wants us to be around while she's awake...and while she's sleeping too! The first part is not a problem, as that's something we love to do - playing with her, talking to her and taking pictures:


..but the second part is a little tricky, I mean leaving a few times when its absolutely neccessary you can't be awake around your baby the whole night....right?

Me and Poonam (my wife) tried a few things - a large part of which was of course staying awake! Besides that, holding her in our arms and singing also seemed to work.

Recently , we read somewhere that one should try not to hold the baby to her sleep, but rather let the baby go to sleep on her own. They say rocking and ciddling the baby helps her become drowsy, and the you can slip her into the crib. Yeah, sounds easy huh? The trouble is the last part - slipping the baby into the crib. Seems like they have sensors on their back that tell them when they're being put on the bed (yeah, I know we all do - they're called nerves, but I am just trying to make a point)

I even tried to fool that - by cuddling her in my arms and then bending slowly into the crib such that she still had her face on my shoulder and that she won't feel a difference when I left her in the crib. Than slowly lifting my body up - leaving the princess in her golden bed.

This worked for a while, but not too long. This way she was still in an early stage of her sleep when I left her, and as soon as she moved or woke up - voila! where's that shoulder?

Then we started to rock her for a while afer putting her to sleep, to make sure she still felt our touch for some more time. This seemed to work better than the others, in that she went to a little deeper sleep before we could snap ourself away. But apparently there was something wrong in the way we rocked.

Lately we (especially I) have tried to work on the rocking thing. I try to gently move her back and forth while she's in the crib. That seems to tell her that she is still in my arms and gradually she goes into her dreamland.

Babies (and probably all of us) breathe differently as they move forward into their sleep. They have a shallow and fast breathing when the sleep is shallow, and it grows quiter as they go into a deeper sleep. So, as soon as I realise her sleep is deep enough, I gradually pull back, kiss her good-night and (hoping to get some sleep myself , deep or shallow) slip into my bed...zzzzzzzz