Maartje, Eelco, Rick, Kaat & Duuk: March 2013

Blue Brothers?

Last night both little boys in the family crashed in the playroom.

This morning, not on purpose they woke up at the same time and not too long after I realized they where both back in the same place. (No - Honest they did not sleep there).

Anbu & Chandramma

Just a few pictures to show you how happy we all are with the help at home we now have.

As most of you who have been to our house in Houston know Rick lives on our couch. He sits, plays and if we let him eats on it and drags everything back to it. It was also the only couch in our huge Texas size living room so if not parked at the bar many visitors also ended up on Rick's couch. Rather then doing away with it when we moved we brought it over hoping that it would fit in whatever kind of play or tv room we would have.

After a few weeks here I decided to clean out the couch with our new vacuum. And with the help of some kitchen tools we managed to extract a whole lot of treasures from the crevasses of the couch.

Considering the size of this loot I also decided o clean out the new couch which after 4 weeks also already had a sizable score. Guess we need to add couch-treasure-trove hunting to our monthly routine or so -;)

Happy Holi

Yesterday (the 27th) was Holi here in India. Holi is a Hindu festival held at the start of spring celebrating an old Hindu story associated with good prevailing over evil. It is celebrated with colors (literally colored powder) and water, preceded by a whole raft of rituals in the days leading up to Holi which we did not take part in.

All guide books warn about Holi celebrations as they can get quite rowdy, some people refer to it as an Indian holiday on which anything is allowed, and once you have seen the pictures below you can imagine that in a public setting this feast offers some opportunity for groping, pick-pocketting, and ganging up on 1 or 2 individuals etc when celebrated in public places.

Some people at Windmills though had organized a celebration for sunday morning in the private setting of our own playground, so we bought some colors, put on some old clothes and showed up fashionably late (15 min after start time) to find the music blaring loudly but NOBODY there?! After a stroll around the boys started to show up with there massive water guns and we realized we where ill equipped. Quickly we rushed home for some plant sprays and beer jugs and started distributing colors - easing in gently.

Rick got the hang of it pretty quickly...

and covered his sister in a whole pack of green color. Kaat was not so bothered by the powder in her face but refused to keep any wet clothes on...so she celebrated Holi looking like the Scots in 'Braveheart' dressed not in a quilt but a diaper.

The big boys left our kids more or less alone and most adults started off gently with us with just some blotches on our cheeks, shoulders or hair and lots of 'Happy Holi' greetings (blessing us for the next 12 months).

Once Oma Marijke helped Rick strategize how to get to the big boys all was fair game...

Completely as expected, Oma Marijke immersed herself in the celebrations with enthusiasm.

You are supposed to wear white or a light color but we did not have enough old clothes here to do so - as you can imagine the stuff does not really wash out. You can see the result is much prettier when you do!

The water was everywhere too and very welcome on the hot morning.

I would say that the boys in the family yielded the best results. Rick as the wettest.

Eelco for most area covered in color

and baby Duuk for managing to stay totally clean throughout it all.

Food was served after which was lovely and after 3 showers and 4x in the pool Kaat is no longer green in the face. Some blond neighbors still sport yellow or purple patches in their hair. Rick had a little 'encore' at school on the day itself, mainly focussed on the well wishing part of the ceremony getting colored hands from all his class mates.

Next year we will be even better equipped and all show up in white. We had a blast!

The end of the Rainbow?

Rick spends his days collecting and playing with treasures. I seldom manage to get all 3 near and in such a happy state. My chair must have been placed at the end of the rainbow this morning as I struck a huge pot of 'gold'!

Cool and the gang

Dertig Dagen Duuk

Duuk is a month old - on Wednesday I tried to deny it by claiming he was 'just' 4 weeks and that February messed me up by having just 28 days. But no matter how I calculate - we have past 30 or even 31 days so no matter how I try to play this - if anyone asks now I will have to say - yes he is a month old now (You know Marlouke I will try to cheat on that -;)

He has put on some weight (not sure how much), some fat very clearly from the extra chin, cheek & (baby) chubbiness and some length too judging by the clothes. Way too fast for my liking, but there is nothing really I can complain about at all as he is clearly healthy and happy most of the time and just very very easy!

MasterChef

The Marriott has opened up a new hotel just down the road from our house. To get the place of to a good start and attract as many people as possible from Bangalore itself also the place has been organizing quite a few special events. One of the events was inviting over the winner of the Australian version of the tv show MasterChef. The show is also super popular in India and here they all got to see the Australian version so everyone knows the lady (except for us restricted to everything American only for the past 4 years) named Kate Bracks. I was invited by the wife of the hotel manager, a nice girl, together with about 50 or so other women to attend a cooking class on Friday.

I of course had to bring little Duuk along, which was no problem as he sleeps very well to the sound of ladies voices chattering. Kate demonstrated 2 of her recipes, and we got to taste all. Many questions where asked and answered and we had some fun as many people in the audience - the biggest group - all knew each other. Amazing also to me to see how many people you meet in such a short time as I knew at least 1/3 of the people there if not more!

Having only been of work 3 weeks the whole thing felt a little surreal to me! We all got apron's and Kate's cookies and a little mini cook book and then we where invited to a trial lunch at the new Italian restaurant to be opened in the hotel next month. They went all out for us ladies and after all that we needed no more food for the rest of the day.

The papers also covered the story. Sometimes nice and one in a quite negative manner as you may expect with prejudices for events like this. yes of course for the hotel it is a sales pitch, and no a reality TV star is not usually an A list star or may not have eternal fame, and no not everyone was really there as they are the managers best friend and yes we are all expected to come back and spend money at the hotel, its restaurants, its bakery etc. However I think the event was great business and marketing for the hotel and I just saw ladies with smiling faces who where having a great morning - so what is wring with that? The fact that Kate also attracted 2x 400 people the day after for more events (with much less freebies) was a sign of how popular this all was is. By far the (expat) wife gathering on the Friday though sounded like the best one so I feel like as if I am having the best of both worlds seeing these things during my leave and be treated to things like this.

And to little Duuk - I am still his #1 Masterchef. And so is my new friend Candice to her boy who she also brought. And us MasterChefs in the Milk Kitchen even had (purely coincidental) the same but our own milk aprons.

Soccer Mom

I vouched never to become a soccer mom - but I should know better then to say never. There are not too many activities in Bangalore for kids under 4 (compared to the US that is) so when we found out that a South African teaches little kids soccer at the pitch of the French sports shop we decided to take Rick (who is at the younger end of the group). Automatically it is of course Eelco's job to take him there and take part / help the trainer as needed. Except, this weekend, the 2nd time Rick was due to go Eelco could not make it (because I had arranged something else for him and his parents).....

So there I was, Saturday afternoon 4pm, with 3 kids of which only one had done a half decent nap, time to take the whole lot to soccer as there was nobody at home to watch any of them. I was so organized that we where in the car and at the pitch 15 min early. So after watching some big boys play for that time Rick's attention span for soccer was kind of already spend......oh my!

A friend also there with her boys dropped them there and then left for the mall to buy some birthday present. As I needed to do the same for the same party we made a deal and agreed she would buy a present on behalf of us all - but asked though if I also could watch her youngest, who then and there had decided he did not want to take part after all.

So I ended up with a dreamy and distracted Rick on the pitch who needed some encouragement to listen to the coach and do the exercises rather then his own dreamed up game, watch Kaat and the other little boy and prevent them from running onto the pitch, stand too long in the sun or run off, whilst holding baby Duuk who was wide awake.....normally these things for kids this age last 30 min max but as the pitch could only be booked for 60 min stretches and as the group also had older kids I got to manage 60 min of this.

Still or even more so - if it is up to me I still say I never want to be a soccer mom (again). Especially of there is no (wine) bar, coffee, seating, shade, bathroom or safe place to keep the other kids!

Duuk's Days

Duuk's days are full of bliss - for mom mainly - but I hope he is enjoying himself as much as I do. Our cooperation is working well (though on a way too high frequency for my liking - feeding every 2 hrs average!) so there is milk in the freezer too and Duuk has had his first bottles with enthusiasm.