GOD, On the Eyes of Kids...

We had a casual Ganesha Chaturthi Party last Saturday inviting few friends and their kids. It was nice family get-together both for adults to share the holiday spirit and for kids who had good time making Ganesha and getting to know about him.

I was requested to show the kids how to make Ganesha because they thought I am an expert in Ganesha making by looking at my Clay Ganesha from last week's Vinayakar Chaturthi. I accepted the request and just took the chance to show off my artistic ability. Ladies prepared instant artificial dove and got it ready for the art lesson.

I recollected my skills of making Ganesha from last week. F irst I took a trial run to practice myself once and then showed the kids step-by-step to make him. They wanted 3D Ganesh instead of 2D which I made last week. I gave it a try. Ladies helped kids to follow my lead. Actually they did better than me.

Check out the pictures of cute Ganesha's - different shapes and sizes,

My 3D Ganesha

Kids busy taking my lead creating their own Ganesha

Parade of Ganesha from artistic hands - Isn't so cute..



Close up look at them..

After creating Ganesha, Kids were lead by my friend's wife to tell slokas and thotrams as a prayer. Also she explained reasons of Ganesha's Elephant head, big stomach and other characteristic via some old stories. Some intelligent kids heard similar stories, tried to argue with her on different versions of it.

One who was like 12 years old, tried to make fun of the stories on cutting the elephant head and so on. It was funny to hear his argument but I went on to explain him, that these are just man made stories to make people believe in some good things. "Do you think its true?", I asked him. He started talking to me like, "Why can't it be true, if its not true why do follow, endless list of questions followed". I don't know what to say.

I am going throw out a big question, "How do yo tell GOD stories are imaginary ?!", "How to answer kids on that topic of GOD & RELIGION ?" In general, how well it can be explained to make them believe in religion you believe in. I know its a difficult question with too many answers. As parents many of you already gone thru this rapid round questions from your kids, whether its when you take them to temple or celebrating festivities. They are so picky but smart to ask simple questions like, "Why do we have so many GODS? Why do we celebrate Deepavali, Navarathi" like every American ask us?! "

We all have well versed answers for these questions with stories which was transferred to us by our elders. But Kids of this age, they are really smart and they are touch different religion in their very small age. I feel its lot more thought process need to be involved in answering this question in a simple way.

I believe in GOD greatly but I also know very well that these stories aren't actually true as an adult. I am conscious enough to differentiate them and believe or not to believe it. I also believe in ONE GOD, a super power which guides us but we all happen to continue our own HINDU tradition of worshiping many GOD's. Its all easy for us to think about it but when the small minds try to digest this big thing, its not an easy fact to grasp.

I had similar arguments with my wife and she strongly believes that we should continue to instill our beliefs to our kids but in a right way telling the true facts. We should walk in a fine line to explain about GOD and also about our religion not crossing the line. I totally agree with her. If we seed wrong belief system at this smaller age, it might end reaping adverse effect in the future.

What do you guys say ?! I love to hear from others on this very broad topic.

DISPOSABLE DIAPERS -Savior of Today's Parents

"OMG, he just peeped on me. Its all over.~Sigh~ I have to change my shirt before I leave to work."

"He is making a big mess of his poo poo, come quick to clean it him up.Otherwise he will start playing with it"

I am sure you heard this dialogs or screams so many time at your house or friends house who has small kids or babies. Cloth Diapers so called "langotee" torched (I should say) the babies giving them uneasy, fuzzy and yakee feeling all the time.

I have grown up with cloth diapers and if my guess is right, whoever is blogging at sulekha as of today also might have had similar experience with uncomfie cloth diapers. I know you don't want to go back, thinking about it. But that's the truth right?!

Those are the days, the soft reusable cloth diapers are the only option. No other choices available. Now, the new comers of this wonderful techie world has so many options. They are so lucky getting comfie with new Pamper or Huggies Diapers.

In the cloth diapers, Babies/small kids never get to sleep well because its get wet and don't dry off. It has to be changed otherwise they can't sleep or get cold. Also they make a big mess every time they poo poo or pee pee since its not water or foolproof. Cloth diapers need to be changed every time its gets wet. No security for the person who holds the babies or toddlers.

It is also great deal of work for the mummies. Washing and drying every cloth diapers often beats the heck out of Gym workout. Just imagine cleaning those diapers with poo poo's, isn't it disgusting. but our moms just did that. I can see weird expression from all your faces.

An important thing rather irritable point about Cloth diapers, they are not use and throw. You have to secure them like a gold to take back home to clean and make use of them again.

Now babies are so comfortable playing, sleeping. Best of all, no mess to cleanup or don't have to wake up at night to change diapers. Thanks to the one of kind inventions of these days, disposable Diapers. These diapers really gave salvation to agony of the parenthood.

How it works

Disposable diapers contain the same chemical as astronaut 'maximum absorbency garments", fire-control gels.. This super-absorbent chemical will continue to absorb water until there is an equal concentration of water inside and outside the polymer. By absorbing the liquid, it expands and keeps the top layer dry and free of moisture.

What makes it special?

It comes in all sizes and shapes. They absorb and keep it dry helping kids to feel so much comfortable. So they get to sleep better which reflects in their health. Well rested baby/kids will be active and at their best. I know there are few drawback in using these poly disposable diapers. They do leak at times if its overloaded and heats up during summer giving rashes. But all them are avoidable and far better than always wet cloth diapers. Best thing of all, its use and throw.

It took away the burden and releaved mummies from lot of work. I can 't imagine Kids growing up without them these days atleast in america. Its slowly catching up in Asian countries. It is expensive but its worth paying the price than suffering the agony.

If I would have to vote one of the best invention of this century for important purposeo. I will surely vote for Diapers. Can I count your vote too ?!

**** - Photos collected from net.

PEEK-A-BOO: My Son, Me and Fun Things...

My Son, my sweet little son who turned one last week brightens up my morning everyday with his cute little smile. A smile which shows all of his 4 teeth's on top and 2 teeth's on bottom like a squirrel which is so adorable. He is no more a baby, he is a growing boy. Here in US they say, he is not a infant anymore. He is a toddler now.

Toddler meaning a person who toddles, esp. a young child learning to walk. We are yet to see him walk. But he crawls so fast, we couldn't catch him at times. He didn't want to walk. We figured out from his laziness to put this steps forward when we tried to make him walk.

This is the right time to start walking doctors say but every kid is different. So we are just going to wait and watch to catch that moment. We did buy him a walker, hoping it will help him to use his legs and eventually he will try to walk. He enjoys his new ride in the walker which helps him to reach the untouchables and takes him to places.

As soon he gets up in the morning, he unleashes himself and get ready for a big search like an archaeologist. He starts wandering all around the house from hall to kitchen to bedroom, making tireless trips back and forth to find every little things he can see thru his eyes and tries to pull him out and do a research on them like a scientist.

He has hordes of toys to play with but seldom touches it anymore. His interest are now diverted to search the house like a CBI to find something new every time, to poke around and play with it. He is such a Rat!!

Especially, when my wife is working at kitchen he just want to work with her like a another chef. He wants to know what she is doing. He also opens up all the cabinets and throws out the utensils from inside and tries to make his orchestra party playing and banging the spoons on the vessels. I spent my whole weekend putting up locks for the cabinets. He can no longer open it now, but he just waits for the nick of moment to get in as soon we open it to get something. He is that fast.

If he finds us going to the bedroom, he immediately follows like a security guard, opens up the dress chests and throws all clothes out. He then opens up drawer which he can reach and take out one thing at time to discover them slowly. He will try to open bottle lid if it has a lid with his strong teeth's.

If his eye notices anything under the bed, he immediately crawls inside squatting slowly entering at one end and coming out at the other. We didn't even know that there was enough space under the bed to crawl. He does it with so much care without getting hurt on his head and gets out with the item like a soldier.

His most favorite things were electronic items especially he is crazy about my Laptop. He takes the cordless phone, TV remotes, calculator and tries to hit the buttons and also bang them real hard in the floor. They are still surviving so far including my laptop. As soon he find me opening my laptop, he just drops everything to get close to it. He slowly peeks his hand to get the feel of the keyboard and bangs on it. He tries out to see and looks at the monitor to see anything come up. I have to beg almost every time to take away the laptop from him to get some work done.

To stop all the mess, we put him on the Sofa or bed hoping he won't be able to get down yet. He cries for a bit and then we won't hear a sound. When we check him out after a few, we see him trying to get down carefully to start his act again. He knows to get down with ease from sofa and bed now.

He picks up every small thing on the floor like paper or thread and try to put them in his mouth. He does it without any sound. If we don't hear his sound, we can immediately guess he is doing some wrong.

So when my wife just calls him "ASHWIN, Where are you?!" to find where he is now.

He immediately throws everything in his hand and crawls away so fast, after hearing her voice. He somehow knows and remembers that we told him its wrong. He is so sharp.

Kids at this stage are like Parrots and my son is no different. They just try to repeat whatever we teach them. Right now he blabbers a lot and tries to call "AMMA", "MMMA", "THATA THATA", "No" "Nooooo". We are trying to teach him different words everyday so he can pick it up atleast few.

He is so crazy about watching the ad's in the TV especially kids type ads because of their rhymes songs and colorful scenes. We have SUNTV and he is also an addict to some of the serial theme songs. He is so finicky and has his own favorite ones. He immediately gets infront of the TV as soon he hears them. He won't even blink an eye while he watches them.

We found out that he likes to listen to music from his 2nd month. May be it the gene thing, since we both love music a lot. We use to put some good tamil songs and he sleeps without an hunch. His favorite was lastyear hit song from the Kamal movie " Vettaiyadu Vilaiyadu ", "Paartha muthal naale". Its like a magic song for us to put him to sleep.

It still continues today with the recent new songs including new release "Shivaji". I also try to put him to sleep with a bed time song which my mom always sang to us. My fav. being "Kannan varuvan kadai solluvaan, vannamara thotil kati thalathuvan..."

I try to play with him whenever I get a chance, almost all the time. As soon I get home from work and he hears my voice, he just wants me to pick him up and hold. It makes me feel that he is been waiting for me but not yet exactly at this stage. I know they just long for attention thats all.

I play Peek-A-Boo, Hide and Seek, Catch me if you can, Swing, Horse ride and more. His favorite being the Catch me if you can. He will be sitting on the floor on one end of the Kitchen and I just go close to him to catch him, he crawls fast smiling and laughing and goes to other end of it. I then try to go to the other end of the Kitchen to catch him, he immediately turns around goes the other end of the Kitchen and game continues.

We play a smaller version of Peek-A-Boo in our bed. I try to hide myself inside the bedsheet and keep shouting at him "Ashwin, where his Appa(dad)?" and he keep searching for the voice and before he finds I just surprise him saying "Peek-A-Boo". He smiles and . It is so much fun to play all these games with him.

Kids are God's precious gift. Its tough to imagine a life without them. They are so innocent at this stage, same time sharp enough to grasp things faster. They make your worries fly away far enough with their cute smile and make your heart feel lighter.

I already hear somebody murmuring, "Wait till they grow older". Whatever it may be, they are wonderful.

These things are just a few sample of all he got going these days. My wife couldn't able to handle during the day. So except many more to come...