Keeping Mom on her toes... for my toes...

Mom cut nails of my fingers yesterday, but then got busy in other household chores. Today when she was talking to my nani, I was fiddling among her things in her drawer. I spotted the nail-cutter, took it out and sat down near Mom - trying to use it on my toes. Mom's expressions were worth seeing (as always!)... she immediately cut my toe-nails also, murmuring '... how could she..... keeps me on my toes...... doesn't leave any room for incompleteness....... ms. monk...... '

Back in NY!

Woke up early early morning to rush to the airport, and caught our flight to La Guardia. Dad went directly to the office while Mom and I headed home. Finally, after a looong loooong time, I was back with all my fav toys, my playhouse, my friends – Shruti, Viraaj, Mahika, Anika… ! Vacation’s over, back to same old routine!

My First Rodeo Show!

Last night automatically resulted in a very late morning, and by the time Veer’s friends Vijay, Lavanya and Karthik joined it was already noon. We all headed towards Dallas Arboretum. This was a lovely park full of flowers, and the added touch of pumpkins everywhere made it even more beautiful. I’d never imagined there could be so many shapes and sizes of pumpkins alone!
Karthik and I quickly became best pals… so much so that if I couldn’t find him for a while I’d start asking ‘Karthik kaha hai?’ !...

After dinner we split and Veer, Shilpa, Mom and I headed towards Fort Worth downtown to Speedway Rodeo – to see a real Rodeo show. I had slept on the way, but within 15min of the show-start I woke up, and from then own I was mesmerized by all the horses & bulls jumping and putting-up their splendid show.
The best part of the show was – when they invited all the children to come to the arena and cactch the sheep. Now, these were no ordinary sheep – they looked really big and mean, but my Mom took me to the arena, and we ran around chasing the 2 sheep along with all the kids. It was a looooot of fun!!!
Before heading back home, all four adults tried the mechanical bull outside the Rodeo while I kept jumping on my stroller shouting ‘Jump jump jump!’

Dallas - Day Two

Busy busy day since morning. Dad was extremely occupied in his work, so he dropped Mom and me to Anjana masi’s house. Now my concept of ‘house’ is the small apartment we have in NY. By that standards, this looked like a mansion to me! Anjana is also Mom’s childhood friend, and at her place I loved the space to run around.
After lunch Silpa picked us up and took us to her dance classes. This was my first introduction to classical Indian dance Kuchipudi, and where there is dance there is fun for me. I kept following the teachers instructions along with shouting – one, two, three four…. !
Later in the evening we went to Masala Wok for dinner and slept really late.

Return trip

We’re finally bidding adieu to Villa Coronado, after an excellent stay for 6 weeks. As we drove towards LA airport, I kept thinking of the wonderful time we had here. Maybe some day I’ll get to visit my first school again!

The travel was unusually good fun. Before boarding the flight while waiting at the gate, Mom n Dad started singing ‘If you’re happy and you know….’ to keep me entertained. Now, if I haven’t told you so already, let me tell you that I love this poem more than any other, and it always cheers me up. So as they sang the poem, I started following the actions of the poem….. ‘clap your hands’…’turn around’…. Now, before I could move to the third stanza, a 6-yr old boy standing nearby also started singing loudly. That excited me even more, and I started dancing even more rigorously. By the time the poem ended, everyone waiting at the gate was looking at me and smiling, and many were standing forming a semi-circle around me. I immediately became conscious and ran into my Mom’s arms.
The story doesn’t end here… incidentally that boy’s seat was just ahead of ours in the flight, and even though I’d had enough of the poem that day, he kept singing it during the flight as well… which seemed to really vex her mom!

We flew into DFW airport at Dallas, where Veer chacha (who I call Veer for simplicity) was on his way to pick us up. Even though he got late due to traffic, I had a terrific time at the airport, where I kept playing hide-n-seek with Mom n Dad for about an hour, using all the open space to run around.
Veer – amongst Dad’s closest friends since his grade 4th – is one of the sweetest guys you’ll ever meet! We immediately become friends, and over the next 3 days we had a great time playing together. But that night I was tired, and as soon as we reached his place, I met Shilpa, played a little and went to sleep.