My cup of Trouble or Delight!!

When the triplets had turned 9 this summer..Richa had asked me when was it going to be her birthday. Actually, she had put it better,

“How long for MY birthday, Mama?”

Hers was the only name not on the cake..during this summer birthday.  Seemed so unfair. I had answered,

“6 months, Richa!”

She had exclaimed a disappointed “Ahwwww!” like she had any clue what 6 months meant.  Even today when somebody asks her how old she is, she answers in the elaborate..

“I am 4 olds now and I will be 5 olds in Ja-nu-ary. In 6 months!”

I’ve heard this phrase called  “The terrible 2s” but, seems like in case of Richa, the 2 is just extending seamlessly across all her years.

Of late she’s been troubling her Didis to her hearts content. She steals their pencils or erasers or just about anything they are working with and runs away, inviting them to a game of tag. 

How else can she get the attention of these popular angels of our home. She hasn’t been accepted into the sorority of her sisters, yet! Frustrating enough.  They seem to talk cool stuff, get to go in this big yellow school bus along with the rest of her friends, seem to know much more than she knows or comprehends!

She just wants to be there … at their level because the possibility of them toning down a little bit and talk stuff that sounds less gibberish to her..seems like a remote option.

She’s not the type who wants to give up, is she?! She’s up for the challenge. She makes up by showing them how agile she can be…

Just sneak up to them and flick their stuff and run around. They’ll be running behind her, the next second. She knows!  Now , she has the whole troop behind her…chanting her name!  Maybe bellowing sounds closer to the truth.

All of them running behind her..yelling

“Richa!! Richa!!! Richa!!!…give it back..!”

Sounding like music to her ears, her adrenaline getting a kick. The triplets, frustrated with this guerilla attack on them..have formed a union against her for such situations. They have realized the im-pon-tence (Richa’s version of ‘importance’)  of this phrase

“United we stand..divided Richa rules!!”

One of them is available to shout out,

“Mama..Richa took our stuff!”

Another is running behind her to get it back..without hurting her, for if Richa even feels any molecule in her body move because Didi managed to get a tight hold of her..she would be ready with her version of a war cry which even includes some foot stomping, following which, her Didi would be in for a dose of Mama’s medicine. 

So, that calls for some fine handling.

The third one is hiding all the other stuff from the table so Richa would not get her hands on them. After a full summer of dealing with this, day in and out, I’d only started to breath a little easy when I realize that the start of schools didn’t mean a stop to all this.

Now that the triplets had discovered Richa the Menace, they had started to keep their doors closed to her. They would lock the door of their room from inside and almost immediately, we have holler,

“Mama, Didis are never gone let me come into their room!!!”

Then, another one follows..this time from Mama,

“PNK!!!! What’s all this?!  I said, no playing with the doors!!”

Immediately..the doors open and Didis are shouting

‘Mama, she is stealing our things!”

Now, it was time for Mama to find a place to hide…

As much as she has been troubling the living day lights of us…every thing she speaks is a delight to hear. The other day, as I was working, Richa comes to me and asks..

“Mama, Did Didis tell on me?”

“About what?!”, I ask

“That I had taken their legos and run away!  Did they tell on me?”, she asks without even realizing that she is the one who is doing the TELLING on her!

“No, they didn’t say anything.., Why are you touching their stuff, Richa?!”, I ask, now that I’m aware of what she has been up to.

“Mama, Didis are never going to let me touch their city..their lego city”, she continues…

As much as she is enjoying being the shoe stealing puppy..she is very aware of all the talk around her .. She makes it a point to stop us point blank and clarify…her big doubts!

Hubby dear, who was on a call is heard saying..

“Ok Guys..I’m going to drop off now!”

“Drop off! What are you going to drop Papa?!”, she asks immediately. Or, another time…

“Mama, what is opposite..why did you say opposite?”

Which wasn’t as difficult to explain as when she asked..

“Mama, Why do you say internet?! What is internet?!”

She had just eavesdropped on a conversation that Papa and me were having.

“Richa, its another planet. It has lots of stuff called information in it and I can get that information on to my computer through these wires..”,

I say, suddenly caught unawares, unable to use words like networks, communication and sharing, emails etc.  I suddenly realized as I blurted out what had come to mind…I really wouldn’t have been able to define it if the triplets had asked me either.

They know better now..they find it easier to “Google” than to find out what a dumb a-- Mama is!!

Sometimes its confusing to understand the kids of this generation. How much information is too much for them, you wonder?

Thinking again, I don’t think anything is too much for these kids now-a-days.  I tell you, you start explaining to them the concepts of networking and trust me they will get it, much better than you did the first time!  I have that confidence. Then, I wonder, why I hold back…

Sometimes she reminds me…as if telling me

”Make no mistake of my innocence, mama!”

Like the time I told her…that bugs will start to make their homes in her hair, if she keeps refusing to wash her hair…and she replies, saying,

“You’re funny Mama!”

The other day, after we came back from school, I tried to find out from her if she had in fact eaten her lunch or thrown it in the garbage.

I was sure she would’ve have finished the yogurt because, that’s something she can live on and not want anything else. But, I still went on..

“Richa, are you sure you finished your yogurt?!”

“Yes..Mama, I did!”

“I will talk to Ms. J and find out if you really did”, I said, intently watching her for her reaction..Waiting for her to say…”Fine! I threw a little bit, Ok!”. Instead, she answered.

“Ok!..”

“Did you finish your jelly sandwich?!”

“Yes, Mama”

“How much did you throw in the garbage?”

As she searched for the right words…I was already glowing inside..thinking..

“Ahh there! I caught you baby!!!”

“Nothing!…I placed the two slices of bread on each other and then..I ate it all up, like this!”,  she answered, acting out the whole episode!

“Ok, let me check you tummy and see if I can feel the 2 slices of bread”, I say.

I just pressed a little bit here and a little bit there on her tummy…and acted like I am touching something and said..

“Here! I can surely feel one slice of bread here!”,

“But, where’s the other slice?!”, I asked..

“Really!!!, You can feel the bread in my tummy?!”, she asks, her eyes popping out,  totally believing me..Astonished, that one can do that.

She then..stops walking and spends some time feeling her tummy for a while and says..

“Ma…that’s 2 slices of bread! I can touch 2 slices of bread!”, she said with a sly smile that she couldn’t help hiding,  totally catching me of guard and letting me know.. “It was me who was taking you for a ride all this while, missy!!”

Recently, she had her hit with a harsh reality called HOMEWORK!   That she is liable to learn stuff forcefully too!!!

She has been getting a few minutes of Music and Dance lessons from the triplets Guru and suddenly she finds herself in midst of something that she had not signed up for!!  HOMEWORK!

She was supposed to memorize the Dadra Taal. A taal constituting of 6 beats (A measure of 3 beats!) with the finger movements. The simplest of all taals.  Somehow, this didn’t come across to her as a fun activity. You see, It came to her in the form of HOMEWORK!

Wasn’t HOMEWORK..something only Didis were supposed to do?!  She never had to do this before..She was just meant to do fun stuff, where she got to decide what she was in the mood for.

There was another insider information she knew about HOMEWORKS! Mama or Papa would eventually need to check it, sometimes with..some soft words, and other times, with some more softer words…not soft enough to mean they were fun..She knew that. 

She’s now liable for all this?!! 

When did life take this weird turn?!  The consequence of approaching her 5th birthday in another 4 months now, I remind her.

Why don’t birthdays feel enticing anymore?! I could hear her insides scream.  Same shoes that I find myself too Richa, I commiserate with her mentally.

She has suddenly understood the importance of remaining a small kid…

“Mama, I’m a baby still, you know!”, she reminds me. Already fearing a backlash, she adds,

“Fine!!! I’m not a baby, right, I’m bigger but, still a tiny kid!”, she says, trying to defend her stand, for not being subjected to any homework!

Sitting with me…as I’m trying to teach her this sequence of 6 funny words, to be repeated in a pattern, and she stares at me and says..

“I don’t know how to say that Mama”

She has learnt it early enough..agreeing to do some homework today, will be like asking for more, tomorrow!

Here I am…with my hands on my head, trying to hold on to whatever sanity is left while some more seeps away, well aware, that this girl will soon be doing all these things expected of her…Only, the road to getting there, doesn’t seem like an easy one. And, I wonder..why everybody asks me..

“Triplets!!! How did you take care of them?” 

Weren’t they the easiest, I wonder.

Landscape (Part 1)

The landscaper who did our yard, a very knowledgeable person when it comes to big trees is in awe at my knowledge when it comes to perennials, annuals or bulbs.  He once introduced me to somebody saying

“This is Gayatri. She has 4000 plants in her garden”.

I am an avid gardener.  I seem to have collected some information over a period of time( a tad more than a not so avid gardener) on the perennials and bulbs and annuals that I find around, and if I don’t find it, then I get the information from the internet. This idiosyncrasy of mine is quite interesting to the people I know. My children always try to point to any bush or tree asking me what it is, more with the purpose of quizzing me, than to get information on what plant it is.  Its very exciting for them to see the answers flow by, like a mathematician is able to play with numbers and is able to spit out answers for problems like the fifth power of 12975 without consulting a calculator. 

I owe this green thumb to my father who was an avid tropical climate gardener himself.  The purpose was different then. He only planted fruits and vegetables.  Most weekends, we had to march to the yard so, we could dig, weed, sow or water. In India, from where I come, we don’t experience the four seasons like I do here in the US. Living in the north east all my married life, with its extreme weather patterns, I’m have had the fortune of experiencing the four seasons in its full splendor. 

Here I present the changes in landscape in out yard…from spring to fall and then, winter.

The spring usually starts with the crocus in our yard, showing itself followed by the Scilla and Chinodoxia.

 

 

 

Followed by the Narcissi blooming from April through May. Daffodils are my safe bet spring bloomers. The deer avoid them and they naturalize so well if left untouched. Last year, just the week of April got so hot and almost burnt the daffodil bloom. There are so many types of daffodils. Of them, I love the pink daffodils. The cup changes color through the week from pink to orange but, needs to be planted in a not so hot spot.  We also get sun proof varieties in Daffodils. “Ceylon” is one that I have seen to withstand hot days so well. Then, we also have the double daffodils. They look so majestic and big. I’ve had the opportunity of owning a couple of those cultivars.

I particularly got the late blooming single tulips. They survive the deer better. When the deer attack the yards in early spring, these tulips have just started to pop out of the ground then, just a tiny bit, but the flower is still underground. so, even if the deer bites the leaves (In spite of the repellents, or it was unable to pull the bulb from the ground), the flower is still underground.  I’ve found the late blooming tulips to still flower in May, by which time the deer stops visiting the yards. Although the tulips are not perennial, the late blooming or the Darwin tulips show this behavior.  They manage to show up at least for 3 –4 years, by when, I have had new bulbs grow up to give flowers.

A tidbit about Tulips: Although they look so pretty, the deer love to feast on them. They will even dig the ground to get to the bulbs. On the other hand, they will not touch a daffodil bulb. Another bulb they cannot stand is Fritillaries'. Its a beautiful umbrella flower, very majestic and sends out a kind of scent that I in particular don’t find it disgusting, but to the deer, it is so. This bulb is expensive and is supposed to naturalize well but, that didn’t happen in my yard.

 

 

Next comes the Late Spring - Early Summer ones, the Alliums, Muscari, Irises (Siberian, Bearded, Japanese) and the Asiatic Lilies.

 

 

Its also the time for Salvia to bloom.  Among all the salvia’s that I have, my favorite is the Amethyst.

Over the years I’d collected quite a few Irises. They had naturalized quite well. Thanks to my landscaper who had overturned my yard last year to create a landscape that would include evergreens and trees too, I lost quite a few bulbs in this process. Before he could touch my yard last year, I had spent 2-3 weeks digging out most of the Iris and had washed the bulbs and had waited for him to finish the landscape so I could plant the bulbs.  The guy didn’t complete, I had to leave them above ground and planted them in Spring. Last spring the Iris display wasn’t anything like I had had in the previous years.  

Siberian Iris (Caesar's Brother)RET5 

 

Collection of Bearded Irises.

There was also this year when the viola’s had made my home theirs and had provided us with colorful splashes here and there. They reseed so easily and spread. I didn’t mind this considering the colorful displays I got.

Because the area where these Asiatic Lilies were planted was untouched…This display wasn’t affected.

Then summer is almost here and the Echinacea, Rudbecka (black eyed susan), Shasta’s , Croscosmia’s, False Sunflower, Lavender, and many other summer blooming plants start to bloom. Most of them are Perennials now.  The zone where I live is 6b, not feasible for the Gladiolus to survive outside, still for the last 2-3 years these bulbs have been flowering. 

 

Agapanthus Lily…has been surviving in the pot for the last 4 years now. I put the pots inside once the nights get frosty.

 

Crocosmia…A beautiful bulb from the Gladiolus family. A perennial that naturalizes very well. Gives a beautiful bokeh display for almost 2 weeks in summer.

 

Summer is also the time for Oriental Lilies to bloom. As Evening descents, their scent is so heavenly. It can be felt at long distances too. I’ve had neighbors tell me they take a walk along our road to feel the scent. When I had planted them..I didn’t realize their scent and hadn’t taken care to plant them close to windows. So, this fall, I will be replanting them, so they are located at spots close to windows. Pictured below is a double lily called Elodie.

 

Ah! Shasta Diasies.  The summer grace. Looks so beautiful, those tall stalks of bloom standing so high up. Such well formed flowers. The only down side to all this bloom is the messy look when the blooms are spent. The clean up is a big work.  

 

I had gotten a tiny root of this False Sunflower from Walmart about 3-4 years ago. The plant appeared the next year. Every year, the bush was bigger. The flowers are so long lived. Almost 2 months of clean blooms. The yellow is visible from a long distance. Again, requires lot of clean up. Although perennials provide so much bloom, they look like a mess once the flowers are spent.  Clean up is no easy task.

Another of my favorite is Lavender. There are so many cultivars of Lavender. Every year, the local farm  has a different cultivar for sale.