Head over heels

Well, if it is not your heels then it is your head they play with!

After a gruelling work day where 14 hours out of 24 were spent staring at a monitor came home to find the kids in a playful mood.

Had to oblige them with anything they asked for as it was just day 2 of school.

They wanted me to play outside and we tried that for a few minutes and they realized how tired daddy was. So we moved indoors and the little one said "daddy, I know just what you need. We are going to dress you up and pamper you!"

Well a six year olds idea of pampering daddy involves

1- combing your hair

2- adding rubberbands to your hair that will ensure you have a reduction in hair count that is way more than what you can tolerate

3- decorations with accessories

The only difference this time was that all these things were being photographed in the iPhone. It was nice to see the pictures and be surprised at the things that make my day!

So without much further ado..

We present..

Princess Daddy!

Did not quite understand why the glasses. The little one had an explanation for that. Apparently that was the Grandma daddy with "neththi chutti" photo! (Neththi chutti is a decoration used by indian brides on their forehead). Mommy's dolphin necklace had become a Chutti.

If she finds out....

Well.. she will when reading this post!

Why can't they comb mommy's hair, I ask and the answer?

"We don't want mommy's hair to fall out. You don't have a lot of hair anyways!"

Honesty is sometimes overrated and cruel.

and yes, usually she does things to my feet. Nailpolish, pedicure etc. Sometimes I prefer the heel treatment to the head treatment, but all said and done, head over heels in love with my little angels.

They can do whatever they want in the makeup sessions.

Kids, in case you read this blog years from now.. please know that you put me through this and I did it with a smile!

Rites of passage

If you are from Vanatu and you go through a rite of passage odds are there is a vine tied to your feet and you are going to take a 80 foot fall..

However, if you are born to a geek the rite of passage might simply be the handing of a Scientific Calculator from your dad..

Yes! My daughter is now a fifth grader and today was her first day of school. The back to school list said "Scientific Calculator" and she insisted on buying one at target as part of the "back to school" shopping ritual last week.

"Naansense!" said daddy in his typical Tamil accent. We shall have a small ritual at home where Jr. will get the keys to geekdom!

Problem was the calculator which was dad's first (the family's first for that matter) was a 1989 vintage Casio and it has been sleeping in dad's collection of memorabilia in a shoebox for the last 12 or so years.

Today the old "Novino" batteries purchased someplace in Varanasi in early nineties was replaced with some Kirkland batteries from Costco and the thing powered up!

Hat's off to Casio for making something this good. There was no battery leak in the battery compartment either! So a big thanks to Novino also for making some amazing batteries!

Jr. was happy that she gets to use the same calculator as daddy! Daddy is so proud that Jr. is using a Scientific calculator in fifth grade when he used it for his freshman year in college!

It is a win-win!

Barnum and Bailey

We made it to the circus today. My parents heard there was a circus in town and started going into deep nostalgic drives of the old Kamala three ring circus and how I could not stop talking about it for months after my first (and possibly only) childhood circus visit.

Have taken Jr. to the circus when she was very little and most of her memories of the circus were from reading the blog post.  Amazing what a blog post can do to jog a kids memory!

Looks like they have changed the show a lot. There was one man with six tigers before. Now it was one man with 3 tigers and 4 lions. The elephants did not do as many stunts as last time and didn't have to walk across pretty ladies.

Two new items which were really amazing were the Shaolin Kung Fu demonstration and the motorcycle dare devils. They fit 8 guys on bikes into this steel cage and it was simply superb. Have seen two guys inside the cage in the Indian circus (actually remember it). This one must be some kind of record.

The animals didn't do much and they are mostly captive born and trained and today we should be happy that Barnum at least brings elephants to big cities to show they are not "wild" creatures that are to be shot for trophies.

The protesters outside were shoving pamplets into my kids hands that said "stop going to circus, stop the cruelty" etc. they had gory pictures of dying elephants etc. This kind of upset me. No one gets to push such things to my kids. Was downright rude to one of the ladies.

This is soliciting in a way and don't understand why this is allowed. Millions of turkeys are grown in really horrible conditions in this country and slaughtered every year.

The three creatures that are supposed to be able to feel a human being accodring to old indian sages are cows, crows and snakes. They say these three creatures can sense the human vibration and a cow can actually shed a tear when it commiserates with a human.

Cows are in horrible conditions in the US. Not that they are slaughtered for food but the fact that most of them are cramped into a confined location for their entire lives and are fed things that are not normal and are not even slaughtered in a quick and relatively painless way.

It is impossible to show kids elephants, tigers or lions these days. You go to Chennai and you cannot find even the occasional temple elephants! Forget lions and tigers. Now who is responsible for this? Barnum and Bailey? Think not. These folks should go protest outside upscale chinese restaurants that serve tiger penis soup as a aphrodisiac or sell ivory products as art.

Yes! Elephants may be prodded to make them learn a few tricks. Do not know how extreme it is with this circus but the animals we saw today were all hale and healthy and looked like they were well taken care of. Same thing from last time where they were smiling as all ten of them walked past us in the back street. To me this is a better way to show kids that elephants and lions and tigers are valuable to us in some way!

My little one wants all bees dead because one little bee stung her! It took me months to teach her that without bees there will be no flowers and without flowers no fruits and vegetables and we will all starve to death pretty soon.

Same thing with spiders. Told her that we have lot of baby moths in the bathroom because she asked mommy to kill many spiders. Now the spiders are not eating the moths anymore because they are dead and instead of one spider there are ten moths!

Again, way too much digression from what started off as a post on a great show! It is still a great show. Maybe not the greatest show on earth.

That title has been conferred to the Disney pre fireworks Castle display in Orlando by the Traveling Narayanan's.