News – Page 15 – Nourish-n-Cherish

A Nefelibata’s Santa Claus Myth

I rarely save the works of art that my children produce. For one, there are so many, and for another, while some of them are hilarious, they are no masterpieces (yet! – I read somewhere that good parents don’t say things like this and always leave the doors open for whatever the future might bring. If the future springs the brilliant artist, I don’t want to be the lousy mother thwarting the Sotheby’s auction, do I?) So, I have no way of comparing the drawings of the six year old daughter to see what hidden psychological messages were in there. According to this news article, deciphering a six year old’s drawings can give us remarkable insight into their minds.

http://www.npr.org/blogs/ed/2014/12/08/368693069/kids-drawings-speak-volumes-about-home

I tried analyzing the work of the 3 year old son, and I could make out nothing. He asked me to guess what the picture he was holding up was, and I told him it looked like a very shiny pig or a jellyfish. He cackled loudly and said that he tried to make a pink christmas tree. I don’t mind tapping Freud from his grave and asking him to interpret that, but I am pretty sure, he’d choose to remain dead.

Jellyfish or Pig or Pink Christmas Tree? — This is my drawing of course, because I did not save the original one – but you get the gist.

Anyway, this brought an interesting question to mind. What if I interpreted my own drawings? I had in a recent drawing placed a house on a dog’s tail (which was kindly brought to my attention by a reader later on)

See house on dog's tail? — See house on dog’s tail?

What would that mean in the light of the latest letter to Santa? The daughter had asked for a dog. She very well knows there is no Santa for the past few years at least, but just plays along to see what she can get.

Regular readers of the blog know that the request for a dog in the household rears its head every now and then. It is usually silenced by me (a trifle vehemently at times) or in a more wishy-washy sort of manner by the husband, who then looks sorry when confronted by me on what he meant by saying, “Maybe we will think about one in a few month’s time.”

“How many months?” asks the daughter expectantly

“What do you mean by months?” I say pushing a couple of daggers out of my eye sockets, and the husband scurries for safety.

Hitherto while asking for a dog, she had relied on techniques such as “You don’t have to do anything. We will look after the dog.” (By saying ‘we’, she includes the toddler brother who stands around nodding enthusiastically without having the least idea as to what it takes to have a dog in the household. The few occasions he has been in the presence of one has been spent like a monkey on a tree with a lion prowling down below) The matter gained traction again a few months ago and I wondered where the renewed vigor was coming from. Now, I was getting the old oil, “Oh! Don’t you miss not having someone to cuddle up with, now that we are all grown-up? Hey! You know what might help? A dog!”

It was only when I went to talk to her teacher a few weeks ago that the mystery was unraveled. Her teacher had told them how to form a convincing case, say, on how to get a dog, and she assures us that she had never held a class in such rapturous attention. Apparently, she had told them to come up with points that will help their cause, for example: come up with what the other party will gain out of the proposition. The daughter, having racked her brains, could easily see how I would poke holes in the We-will-look-after-dog theory, and went in for the psychological wringing.

Well, I was not buying it (yet). Let me explain why. There are some images that cannot be easily wiped from one’s brain. Two vicious specimens come to mind. Both of them were not more than 5 inches in height, long and had tempers like vipers about to be curdled in whatever-vipers-are-curdled-in and bites like adders. To their considerable repertoire of talents was the fact that they could smell like hounds ( which they were), and ornamental nose though I had, it was completely useless in detecting dogs hidden behind bushes. The results had been extremely disturbing. A physical education teacher of mine, once saw me leg it up 67 stairs at one go in the pouring rain and opined that the best way to train me for the forthcoming Athletics Championships was to set a couple of dogs after me. Not pleasant I tell you. Not pleasant.

Now, I know that dogs in the United States are extremely docile beings and rarely bite. But I am not sure I can move past the canine horrors of my past and embrace a dog in the household.

More than any of that, I am not sure I need another living being to look after, I have 4 large fir trees, 3 fishes, 2 children, 1 husband, 1 apricot tree , 1 cherry tree, many plants to nurture and often have visiting parents. Maybe the Myth of Santa has to be officially busted this year, I thought to myself and peered at the letter below the tree and saw amendments.

There, in brackets it said: (I know my mom will not like a dog, so can I have some king doh if not a dog?)

I like this pragmatism even though she is lost in the clouds of her imagination, an imagination liberally spotted with unicorns and dogs sometimes. (I found an interesting word that means just that by the way – Nefelibata)

Raining on the Parade

I bowled along as usual trying to catch my commuter train. My bag was flung behind me with a velocity that can knock rhinos off their feet, my car beeped hurriedly as I locked it and I charged as fast as the recently rain-soaked streets would allow me to. Why I don’t leave just 2 minutes earlier is a lingering soul-searching question. There are days when there is a game and the trains are crowded, but these are mostly during the evening commute, not mornings. But this morning was different. People were milling around the station first thing in the morning. All of them were dressed in Orange and Black, like they belonged to some sort of Halloween fraternity. Closer observation, however, revealed that they were devoted followers of the SF Giants team and that team, having won the game, was having a victory parade that day to which all the enthusiastic fans were going. I could have checked the news before leaving I suppose, but that would have made me charge for the next train not this one.

I squeezed myself onto the train, and hoped for the best. What I was not ready for, was for folks to glare at me just because I was not dressed in Orange & Black. I was wearing a pretty royal blue and black skirt and I admit I could have been more warmly dressed for it was a rainy sort of day. (I could also have checked the weather before starting. ) But I still did not think that people would be so worried about my feeling cold. I mean, their concern was touching and a trifle disconcerting. Freedom of dress and all that, what? (I suppose that is not a fundamental freedom, but it felt like it was worth tacking one on, on that long train ride) There was a guy who looked at me and pointedly yelled, “Giants Rule!” to great back-thumping and cheer. I smiled ruefully and looked down avoiding all eye-contact. (Avoiding eye contact is another art you master over the years of traveling with a wide variety of co-passengers : some dotty, some dodgy, some rude, some out to make an ass of you, but mostly ordinary folk like myself that no one wants to bother with.)

I was glad to get off at my station, only to be met with more stares as I walked down the crowded streets towards my office. The rain was coming down pretty heavily and I was enjoying the raindrops and trying to navigate the crowds. The parade was to pass through the main street artery of the city and people were spilling out of liquor stores and doughnut shops. The combination of excess sugar and liquor on a rainy morning was a bit too much to contemplate. I was glad to enter my office and look down safely on the crowds from the window. That was atmosphere enough for me. I checked the news on arrival and found that I had missed a triple hat draw: It was the SF giants parade, Halloween and Critical Mass (which means all cyclists take to the streets and blow traffic flows to the wind from their rooftops). Combine all three events together to imagine the traffic snarls and train crowds.

Various reports jostled at me : The local school authorities had requested folks to attend school that day instead of the Giants Parade. Another report said that it was to be an alcohol-free day. I grinned and sneaked a peek at the street below. It was 9:00 in the morning and the liquor store across the street looked like a very busy place! A number of children, evidently of school-age had not listened to the school authorities pleas and were looking happy and excited too. The sea of Orange & Black was like watching a large, mutating cloud. Strangely exciting and slightly unnerving.

It was only when I touched upon the topic of dress with a colleague that he enlightened me on the stares. Apparently, I was dressed in the colors of the opposing team that the Giants had battled so valiantly to win against. As if the weather gods were not doing it enough, I had rained on their parade. The staunch supporters of the Orange & Black Giants team, who braved the colds and rain, probably thought it was excessively rude of me to flaunt the opposing teams colors on their faces. Sigh. I can only thank my stars that people were nice enough to not do anything more than glare at me. Still, it seemed prudent to cover up with a jacket on the ride back home! One can never be sure of the effects of a day full of alcohol, rain and sugar, can we?

Happy All Hallows Eve

Did you know November 1st is Saints Day? With Halloween around the corner, I thought it might be fun to see how the word evolved. So, here goes:

November 1st is All Saints Day

Therefore, October 31st is All Saints Eve

October 31st is All Hallows Eve (‘Hallow’ also means to make holy or respect greatly and hence, synonymous with Saints)

October 31st is All Hallows Even (It is the evening after all)

When you try to say ‘Happy All Hallows Even’ about 30 times in 2 minutes, you get at ‘Happy Halloween’. (I suggest you try the exercise in private.)

All this is fine so far, but if you are unsure as to how All Saints Day got associated with ghosts, ghouls, spirits and ugly decor, please check out this news item that walks you through the progression of Halloween over the centuries.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/10/28/forgotten-history-of-halloween_n_6062236.html?ncid=tweetlnkushpmg00000067

In the meanwhile, two diabolically different worlds are coming together in the household this year for Halloween. A perfectly poised Hermione Granger (replete with the fake British accent) from the Harry Potter Universe will boss around 3 year old Lightning McQueen. Uncharacteristically, for Lightning McQueen, he will listen humbly and follow unquestioningly all the directions that Hermione sets forth for him. So what if the Harry Potter Universe is still using floating candles and speaking Latin, while Lightning McQueen is off touring the world and racing big-time? Who said there should be no collision between fictional worlds?

Speaking of fictional worlds, it is time for us to peek into that lovely forest with all the animals to see what they are doing to celebrate Halloween. Halloween In The Jungle is now available in the iBook store. Tango Tiger, Oby Elephant, Biso Bison, Percy Parrot, Zebo Zebra and many more join in this adventure to make Halloween a success in the Jungle. Please grab a copy, and listen to the story while sipping some pumpkin juice from Farmer Hasalot’s pumpkin patch.

https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/halloween-in-the-jungle/id928925386?ls=1&mt=11

The Jungle is a busy place with Halloween approaching, eerie orchestra sounds, pumpkin juice and lemonade stalls, spiders at work. You must feel just a little bit compelled to chip in, right?

The Jungle is a busy place preparing for the Halloween Party

Happy Halloween! May the force be with you!

Lead Kindly Light

Lead Kindly Light Amid the Encircling Gloom
The internet has been agog with the fact that sitting is killing us. We were meant to be standing up and we are changing something fundamental when we move towards sitting this long. Of course, I have been reading all this sitting smugly on my chair, sipping tea and resolve to fix it immediately. How, one may ask, but I could not answer for I do not know.

http://time.com/sitting/

There is a very sensible article that seemed to tell me exactly how to repeal all the horrible effects of sitting. Apparently, if I gave myself 3 small walks for every 3 hours of sitting, I could reverse the appalling effects of sitting. Though how I can throw in a dozen small walks a day is beyond me.

http://www.sciencealert.com.au/news/20141109-26159.html : 3 short walks required for every 3 hours of sitting.

On another note, the son has been accessorized with a pair of shoes that light up. The sister of his came up with ridiculous arguments for the shoes:

He needed the light-up shoes because when he walks at night, the lights from the shoes can light the way.
It saves electricity because when he wear those shoes, there is no need for any lights in the room: This coming from a child who leaves a light bulb trail wherever she goes in the house, and I yelp behind her switching off every single light on the way. I, to prove a point of course, switch off lights in rooms before I have made it to the door and bang up against something unceremoniously only to have a cackling I-told-you-so afterward from the daughter. but it is all in a day’s work and I bear my grievances with fortitude.
If he is walking in a forest and the sunlight does not come through, he can help us out with his shoes.

The last reason may have been the reason I caved in. One never knows when one can get stuck in a forest where the sunlight does not reach the floor right? It turns out that he got to walk in a forest within a week or two of his new shoes. To give the little one his due, he walked and ran for miles on end in the forest. The novelty of the light-up-shoes coupled with a serene forest atmosphere no doubt. But he did seem to emanate the ‘Miles to go before I sleep’ aura about him.

Maybe, I too shall get myself a pair like that and then parade up and down throwing in a dozen walks or more a day. In search of the light.

Lead Kindly Light Amid the Encircling Gloom

The Doodling Circle

The son walked into his new preschool talking like a man in control of his emotions. He yapped and clacked nervously telling us all what he can do in the school. His doting elder sister had told him of all the fun things that a school provides – friends, play areas, play doh, blocks, story time, circle time, the works. There was no denying the fact that he was excited. The poor fellow asked us repeatedly whether we will be coming to school with him. I assured him that on the first day, we would. We will walk him to his chair and then say ‘Bye’ and leave. He was not very happy with that, but I told him that the school was only for children and therefore, we would leave. His face fell a bit, but not much. I swelled with pride that my little boy was being a brave boy after all. He chatted happily as we made our way into the school classroom, we settled him in and turned to leave. It was only then that he realized that his sister was not going to be with him in class either, and she would leave too. He started to cry: silent, heaving sobs clinging on to his sister’s hands. He thought that when I said school was for children I meant his sister and he could stay.

Long story short, the fellow started preschool this week, and brought home his first piece of “work”. The work is (un)helpfully labelled ‘I can draw a Circle’. In my opinion, they need not have done that. Because they said ‘Circle’ I was forced to look for one in the doodle that my son produced, and it was a daunting task.

A word about his lineage might be appropriate here. The son is the grandson of two Maths teachers, and when asked to draw a circle, he sees whether can he draw two and two square and two cube circles. He experiments with Venn diagrams. He experiments with non-linear curves without curvature. He tests the hyperbolic strength of a loosely held pencil. Or he just doesn’t know what a circle is and produces the hapless picture above.

The d.sister took it and stuck it up on the wall proudly as his first art work. All fine so far. That is what a family does. They save the embarrassing first works of Art to show it to them when they unleash their creative works on you later in life as adults and show them the long path they have traversed and then smile proudly. What I was not prepared for was this.

http://www.iflscience.com/brain/childhood-drawings-may-indicate-intelligence-teenagers#wfpJDDkqfsksqPlK.99

Apparently, this study studies the first art work of children and then produces a moderate correlation to their abilities as teens. Luckily the article is as vague and under-researched and steers off clarity as a lot of articles on the Internet, and I am assured that the first piece of Art is nothing more than that. A Doodle.

Doodling does have its uses:

http://venturebeat.com/2014/08/13/first-female-to-win-maths-top-prize-describes-her-2-brainstorming-strategies/

Happy Schooling and Doodling Dear Son.

Fist Bump

Our little fellow is methodical. For example, if you find that he has done something good, like putting away his toys (read: moving his cars from high foot traffic area to under the sofa), we sometimes give him a high-five. Then, his sister taught him low-five. So, his ritual became high-five, low-five. A few days later, the ritual included a high-five, low-five and a fist bump. Even if you only wanted to give a high-five, you had to do that high-five, low-five, fist bump routine or not at all.

Well, recently, that schedule has increased some more to include a high-five, low-five, fist bump and ting-ting-ting (that is a spot on either cheek with the middle-ting being for the nose).

Even the ting-ting-ting seemed okay till I heard that the fist bump is fast replacing the handshake as it is cleaner.

http://www.webmd.com/news/20140728/fist-bump-may-beat-handshake-for-cleanliness

The fist bump has evolved Darwinian style – going from being perceived as an aggressive gesture to a acceptable, even sweet one

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/08/18/fist-bumps-natgeo-psychology-video_n_5688725.html

What if the ting-ting-ting becomes a thing too? I am not sure I am up to having random people ting me on my nose. It is precious to me.

Oh well.

#Direnkahkaha

Getting the folks in our family to laugh is easy. Most times, a lame joke about three-men-in-a-boat type of joke is enough, and there we are, rolling on the floor. But the occasion demanded something sterner, that is the reason three generations of women were seen tickling each other on the street after a hearty meal and laughing hard, while an amused son looked on trying to figure out what was going on. Tickle parties are fun and tickle parties are necessary he seemed to say earnestly.

A Turkish minister has a protest on his hands that has people laughing their heads off, after a remark at his Ramadan speech. He said, “A woman should be chaste. She should know the difference between public and private. She should not laugh in public.” He says that his remarks were taken out of context, but if it gives people a moment to stop in their day and laugh, why not?

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/30/turkish-women-defy-deputy-pm-laughter

The Harry Potter star and newly named Goodwill Ambassador for UN Women is just one of thousands of women who have been protesting the politician’s remarks and even included the hashtag #direnkahkaha, which translates to “resist laughter.” Thousands of women have posted pictures of themselves cracking up with laughter.

http://time.com/3069703/emma-watson-turkey/

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/turkey/11005428/Emma-Watson-joins-protest-against-Turkish-politicians-claim-women-should-not-laugh-out-loud.html

Enough people have joined in on the backlash against Arinc’s remarks that both the hashtags ‎#direnkahkaha and #direnkadin (“resist woman”) have become trending topics on Twitter.

Laugh on folks!

The Headache Machine

We all know that the use to which a particular technology can be put is only in your hands till such time that it becomes public. I wanted to find some weird uses of technology. This is what I love about the internet I tell you. Every time I want to find some weird examples, somebody has already helpfully written an article on it, leaving me to twiddle my thumbs and stand around. I love the one where the egg is fried on a hot laptop.

http://www.zdnet.com/weird-tech-12-geeky-uses-for-technology_p12-7000010007/#photo

Anyway, the product I am about to touch upon today is the Fitbit. Fitbit might have modeled its products for a range of uses such as measuring activity, promoting a healthy lifestyle or a move to encourage active living. I don’t think they saw it as a Headache Machine.

A friend of mine who works with preschool and elementary school children on a regular basis got herself a Fitbit. All day long, the curious children wanted to know what it was, why it was used and were thrilled with the fact that every time they pressed the button, a number bigger than before came up. In a few hours, the situation was encompassing a wide spectrum of emotions such as :

* Competitiveness (It must be 500 more. Nope: she was not walking while drinking that cup of water. Want to bet? )

* Entitlement (She will show it to me whenever I ask. I am a good boy.)

* Pessimism (Maybe it is only 2000 steps now – she sat for sometime, so it should have reduced steps said the algorithmic expert)

* Altruism (I am tired but I can walk with it for you to increase your step count)

One particularly persistent child asked to see the device about 7 times every 15 minutes. It was at the end of this long day that she told them all that it was a headache machine. The children looked at it in awe and shushed themselves. Reminds me of this article I read a while ago on the Fitbit.

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2014/06/30/140630fa_fact_sedaris?currentPage=all

Sounds about right. A headache machine it is. Ever since I acquired one, I hold 10,000 steps as a holy grail. I don’t want to run because it records less strides for the same distance. I would rather sidle up to the daughter to get her to bring me the Fitbit from upstairs or invent a huge contraception to get me the Fitbit when I no longer have it, than to waste those steps in going to get it. Do unrecorded steps help in your statistics? No, they don’t! Yoga? Swimming? Cross-Fit? Don’t bother mentioning those forms of exercise that don’t count towards my step goals. The worst is when I am really tired and hit the bed and see 13689 on my fitbit. Just 311 steps more to make it a round 14000? Come on! I tell myself and off I go.

There are ways I could help myself I suppose, like not taking Fitbit with me, but what if I want to use it the next day? My weekly average numbers would take a toss.

What would really help is the calorie counter. The Fitbit helpfully counts the steps I take to forklift a load of <insert healthy or unhealthy snack here>, but does not tell me how much I ate? What it needs to do is detect the chomp rate and prorate the step counter accordingly. A headache for the company maybe ….

Let Children Play Outside

Please indulge me once more as I meander down the memory lane. After all, The business of life is the acquisition of memories.

Regular readers of my blog know that I grew up in a beautiful hill station surrounded by hills, forests, springs and tea estates. Obviously, I spent a good part of this time enjoying my life. I’ve tasted berries whose name I know not, played in the rain, walked through the fog not knowing whether I am heading for a cliff, I have walked and run so far away from home, but nature always guided me back to my home (well, mostly, folks who worked in my parents’ school and realized I was lost), drank water from fresh water springs, cycled on ‘bridges’ made of slender logs, ran helter-skelter after spotting wild boars hiding in bushes.

Maybe, I could have died in a hundred different ways, but I also lived in a thousand beautifully different ways.

Which is why modern parenting makes me stop and think. Do we structure our childrens’ time too much too soon to remove the true benefits of unstructured time? Are we over-protective? So many of the things this article spoke about resonated with me.

http://time.com/3005611/helicopter-parenting-chilhood-obesity/

I quote from the article:

But today, to keep our kids “safe,” we drive them back and forth to school. “Arrival” and “dismissal” have morphed into “drop-off” and “pick-up.” Kids are delivered like FedEx packages. About 1 in 10 use their legs to get to school.

Do we really need 599 cars dropping off 599 children in a school less than 5 miles from home every morning? What happened to biking, walking or taking a school bus to school? It is no wonder that obesity rates are spiking.

The fact that I don’t see residential neighborhoods filled with children playing on the street saddens me. The only way to change that is to open those doors and step outside. Let children play.

How to Pack, Write and Other Things

The world is full of nonsense if you will just open your minds up to it. For example, one of my news feeds once thought it relevant to show me an article on how to pack when you have children and are going on a flight trip. Now, that is a nice title, knowing how we travel with children, and how often we have done it in the past with our own brood.

Maybe an example would help here. If you see us go on a week-end trip somewhere close by, you know drive for a few hours and get back sort of place, you would understand why I clicked on this link to read what novel piece of advice it had to give me. You see, once we had the car packed with the following among other things like suitcases and books:

1) Shoes (1 extra pair each for each member of the family)

2) Jackets (1 for every member)

3) 2 strollers (We only have one stroller rider, but I packed one in and the husband packed the other.) Both of us looked extremely proud of ourselves and told the other, “Ha! I packed something very valuable. The stroller. “

“What?! I packed it too. The red one.”

“I packed the blue one.”

I know what goes through the brain at this point in time. The stroller isn’t exactly a button. How then, does such a large thing get lost in the trunk? Well. Now, you know how we pack. If the place we are going to, has an attached kitchenette, the trunk gets fuller. Suddenly, rice cookers are jostling for space beside shoes and the curry powder is nicely sprinkling its aroma on the jackets.

Flight trips are another saga altogether. (https://nourishncherish.wordpress.com/2012/04/23/never-awaken-a-sleeping-tiger-cub/) For, we manage all of this and more within the prescribed baggage limits.

We are planning on a small trip again and I wanted to gain the foolproof method of compact packing. I had enough of the “pack everything you need, may need or may one day need during the trip” doctrine.

To be honest, it astounds me that tripe like this gets clicked on, read and paid for. There isn’t a single thing of note here.

http://abcnews.go.com/Travel/things-parents-forget-plane-trips-kids/story?id=23102623&singlePage=true

But, such is the world of news and writing. The unimaginative jostles with the trite, the run-of-the-mill nudges the novel aside, while a few pieces of inspired writing sprinkles its splendor on the web.

PS: I read this wonderful article a while ago, on how story telling is the best method to activate our brains. (http://lifehacker.com/5965703/the-science-of-storytelling-why-telling-a-story-is-the-most-powerful-way-to-activate-our-brains), and another one on how the brain relates the linguistic with the musical (http://www.billboard.com/biz/articles/news/digital-and-mobile/6091974/computers-classics-and-cadenzas-making-math-music-from)

Maybe we need a story around packing while traveling with children and background music to match the process.

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this: