Likes and dislikes

Today our kids are easily impressed or turned off by things. They also have very short attention spans, considering the amount of time spent on DS and playing Temple run on the iPad, iPhone.

The six year old makes 1.5 million points in under 10 minutes of playing the game. I tried it a few times (okay a few tens of times) and cannot seem to cross 100k more than once or twice.. see, I digress as usual.

We do not have NBC, ABC etc. on our cable. San has signed us up for some special deal where we get only the Tamil channels so everyone except me can watch all the Tamil soap operas while I watch TED talks on the iPad for entertainment and get my news from the internet.

That means? We cannot watch the Olympics. So I keep showing the girls the highlights snippets on the NBC site for olympics.

They both can recite the Chevy Volt Ad by heart because it plays before every video. To top things off more than half the videos crash thanks to Adobe Flash and we end up sending an error report.

Today the six year old says "I hate Chevy volt and I hate Adobe" and she says "why cannot we watch this video in the iPad?" to which Jr. chimes in

"It is Flash. i things don't play flash because they crash"

I was amazed by their knowledge of this. Asked junior how she knew this and she said "We tried to play things on the Mac Mini and tried installing flash player also and we found out that flash cannot be used on Mac and that is why we get a ? in iPad for flash videos"

Technology has truly changed our world when a six year old can hate Chevy volt (for no fault of Chevy) and a 10 year old knows Flash doesn't work on Mac devices.

In another coversation yesterday, told the girls that after my time they can have the house. There was talk of "after my time" because the last two days have been busy with all kinds of tests.. x-rays, EKG's, heart ultrasounds, etc. etc. The good news is my heart is okay but my lungs are not, but will be in a few days with some medical help.

The kids had their usual discussion.

Jr. : What do you mean we can have the house?

Me: We will leave it to the two of you so you can live here

Little one: How can that be possible?

Me: Why not? You just live here till you are old!

LO : But only one of us can live here when we are old and have our own family! Which one is it going to be ?

Jr. : yeah daddy. we cannot both live here at the same time with our husbands and kids. That won't work. So you will have to give us two houses!

My Mom was speachless after hearing them say this. For a generation used to living in joint families to hear from a generation that living as an extended family is not even a consideration in thought was a shocker.

Told my mom that it is high time she understand why San and me have to save for a retirement home early enough! She still has a difficult time reconciling with what she heard...

Another conversation, this time with Jr. after I came home from work..

Jr. : (who happened to be doing her Kumon math on the couch with great difficulty) Grandpa keeps telling me about all his tablets every day . . .

Me : What is he telling you?

Jr.: He keeps counting his tablets, all 18 of them, tells me their names and they always have a number at the end of the tablet name and tells me what they are for. How come he needs so many tablets? and how can anyone have so many problems?

Me: Half the problems are because of the tablets themselves. He takes one tablet for his heart. that has a side effect. he takes another tablet for that side effect and that has two side effects and it keeps going...

Jr.: I am having so much trouble with this Kumon Appa. I really don't want to do it.

Me : If you don't do your Kumon and practice your math, you won't be able to count your tablets when you are as old as Grandpa!

Jr.: In that case I definitely don't want to do the Kumon!

Me: Why does Thatha (grandpa) keep counting tablets? Because he has nothing else to keep his mind busy. You might want to know your counting well because when you are his age and your body is weak, you might be happy that you have something to occupy your mind.

Junior smiled an understanding smile and got back to her Kumon. Not sure if she really understood what was said but at least she got back to the math..

The kids have been over nice to me the last four days because they have seen me visibly sick. They all breathed a sigh of relief when my heart tests came out good.

Today the entire house is in a happy mood that daddy is on the path to recovering.

Wheeeeezeeeee

Wheezing and allergic Rhinitis are not new to me. 2011 saw me skip the allergy season, which was attributed to Bikram Yoga and the regularity with which I did the yoga practice.

This spring season there was a lot of travel and in spite of that did Yoga here and in Austin with reasonable (read that as > 50% average attendance on a daily basis) and there was no hay fever. There was the stomach infection which took me down by another 4 lbs in 10 days and made me weak enough to miss yoga for almost a 10 day stretch. That is behind and have been catching up to the routine.

Something is changed, not with me but with the environs. Why?

Last thursday night, had just gone to bed at 11 and was already deep asleep. Suddenly woke up close to midnight and found myself wheezing pretty badly. No sign of any other symptoms. Just an inability to breathe and the old familiar feeling of drowning in your own bed.

Came out and did the usual remedies and made it to work and couldn't last even half a day on Friday. All precautions went back in place. Scour the kitchen for any accidental introduction of foods I am allergic to, clean the house for dust, etc. etc. as well as some extensive steam inhalation, medication etc.

Friday night comes and I wheeze at 11PM. Go to the hot room on Saturday and felt some relief. The lungs were clear again temporarily and spent a few hours with the kids and visited a temple to offer prayers to thank god for getting this over with. That was shortlived as Saturday night the wheezing started at 9PM.

Today it is not yet 8PM and I am gasping for breath already!

Anyways, there will be visiting doctors and more precautions and this will be resovled sooner or later. But the one good thing from this post?

One of my co-workers saw my plight on Friday and told me "I have some Indian Herbal cough drops that really work like a charm. Have some!"

What he gave me was called Zam Zam and I have never heard of it before, but boy did it give me enough of a repreive to be able to drive back home.

Note the formulation, exactly what my grandma used to give me when I was a child with these symptoms and the "Ella Pugazhum Iraivanukke" (all praise be to god which was popularized by A. R. Rahman at the Oscars).

Whoever made this thing, a big thank you.

Now we wait for a better tomorrow.

Summer success

Jr. has been busy with a nintendo DS. In spite of our pushing her to do something else to occupy her time from a learning perspective she has been busy with the DS.

The only things she has done to make a pleading daddy happy are

Read the first Harry Potter book. She is halfway through the book and seems to enjoy it so far. How a kid who loved books till second grade suddenly became averse to books is beyond us. It is not like she reads iBooks and therefore is averse to paperbacks. She just doesn't like to pick up a book. Have been trying real hard to change that and hopefully Rowling will do the trick for us.

Play the Alto Sax with coaching!

She has improved a lot in the last month and has impressed most importantly, herself! She can see that she is improving and that keeps her going.

Hope is that she will keep going and learn the saxophone to an extent where she can play a geetham on the alto sax by Navarathri. At least that was the goal set for her by daddy.

Told her that we will play a duet with Guitar and Saxophone before the Golu season begins. The little one who is now pining to learn some instrument or other overnight has volunteered to video tape said duet.

Time will tell.. through this blog of course!