Certification time yet again

Those who have been regularly following me on my blog would know already, how I've been faring on the certification side, that my company has mandated. Now they have slightly modified the rules. 2 certs in an year has been changed to one cert every 6 months!! So it requires you to take the certification every 6 months, you cannot postpone till the year end :( And I had to take one before Sept end. And since my chetts and fmly are coming over for Onam which falls on the first week of Sept. I just thought it would be best to take it before Onam. And I was feeling quite confident on taking this exam, as I was also involved in preparing the training material for this certification sometime last year, I hoped it would all come to me, while in the certification hall.I just needed sometime to read the material once.I had registered for the exam on 20th and on 18th nite, Achulde started showing symptoms of fever!!!Now , how many times I've warned myself against procrastinating- and I dont understand how I end up doing that all the time. And I had kept most of the material untouched, saving it for a last time read on the eve of the exam!!! I ended up touching the material only by 8 in the nite, after taking Achulde to hospital et al.Ended burning midnight oil and somehow managed to read it all once.

Managed to scrape through, which is more than enough for me. Couldn't ask for more. :)

On Sabarimala and grand parents

Last time the husband went to Sabarimala was before our kalyanam, and he'd been planning to go eversince. So when his cousin called up , informing his plans to go during July, he decided to go alongwith them. So we all went to Aluva and from there they did the Kettunirakkal and proceeded to Sabarimala. It has been raining cats and dogs this monsoon and the Manalppuram temple is already submerged.

You know what, every year, during the monsoon, the river overflows and the temple submerges completely, during which time they move the Deity to another place in the vicinity and perform pooja there. And where the area allotted for regular car park et al during the normal times, the river would be just ankle deep when it overflows - making it an ideal place for recreation-the whole town would be present there on such occasions . That evening me and Amma took Achulde and Mommolde to Manalppuram, and both of them were scared in the beginning, but I somehow tricked Achulde into entering into the waters, after which we had a nice time there. He just refused to come out later on.

The husband and cousins had a nice Darshan at Sabarimala and came back by evening of the next day.

After coming over to Tvpm, we've been frequenting Aluva atleast once a month, I guess.My children have been getting to meet both set of grand parent quite frequently. And they are quite attached to them as well.That I think is a very rare thing to happen these times.

Aerobics

Though I'd not put on much weight during my second pregnancy, whatever I've put on has been on the wrong places,and its just refusing to go way. And since you could call me a foodie, there's no way I could diet my way into my good ole' clothes, that have been waiting patiently in the wardrobe all these years. I just had to shape up to get into those , I kept on telling myself, but couldn't bring myself to start attending any session - there was nothing in the vicinity and I was way too lazy to start practising on my own. It was then that the HR team of my org announced a week of activities based on themes. One of the sessions was Aerobics, High speed exercises were never my cup of tea. I preferred the Yoga any day. But in this session, that lasted for barely 40 mts, we were made to do a workout for 15 mts, that left us all out of breath and panting and excited as well. I never thought I could move fast and I thought I needed a long time to grasp the steps. But I guess, I was just imagining thing up maybe. So when this hoarding ' Learn Aerobics' popped up in my neighbourhood, I decided to give it a try. yeah true, it takes me more time to master the steps, but I've been improving and I've not called it quits yet as well(touchwood!!!). Though the results on the weighing scale are not encouraging, I am determined to continue. I would love to wear those dresses before the new year!! No high hopes, as I am fully aware of binging habits and weakness for good food!!!

Roller skating

Now that the summer holidays have started, all you can see all over the city are advertisements for summer classes for kids for Yoga, aerobics,painting, musicals- vocal and instrumental and dance.And my excitement hit the roof when I saw advt for skating classes put up all over the city. that is one skill I'd always wanted to master. We'd tried to find out coaching classes while in B'lore, but were quite unsuccessful. One more thing to add to the list of good things that happened after moving to Tvpm, I already told myself, as if I'd already joined and mastered the art. I called up the phone no that was given in the advt and the guy who answered was amused to find that I was not in the age range of 3- 18. he couldn't believe his ears when I told him my profile, I think he just didn't tell me that he thought I'm nuts to attempt at this age. So he told me to call him after the ' Peak season'. So I waited patiently for 2 months and called him up in June, He refused to answer. And finally when he picked up, he said, he cannot spare any time for me. I felt so let down. I was not asking for exclusive time, I was ready to learn along with the others, i couldn't possible understand why he wouldn't teach me and the hubby. So when we saw this write up on The Hindu about one skating academy near Chaaka, which is almost 30kms plus from where we stay, we decided to enquire there. They sounded okay, when I spoke to them over phone, so early morning on Saturday we both went all the way to Chaaka and while passing by the Kowdiar palace, we saw this group skating right in front of the palace and assumed that it must be the guy whom we'd spoken to earlier , who;d refused to teach us . Though we went all the way there, we just ended up watching the trainer and the students from inside our car, as we knew it was not going to work out,the distance was way too much.So reluctantly we came back and on our way back, we spotted the same group still practising in front of the palace.This time, we decided to give it a try and convinced ourselves that if the instructor talks to us, he mite realise how enthusiastic we are about the whole thing and mite decide to teach us. This person turned out to be yet another instructor and he was more than glad to take us in as students. And so we've begun our skating sessions. I just hope, I'll get rolling sometime in the near future.

Achulde turns 3

Achulde turned 3 years old on 28th. Man, time flies!!! He wanted Mickey Mouse cake for his b'day. We'd placed the order at Ambrosia and they were okay with delivering on the b'day morning directly at school. But on the previous nite, we heard rumours about a hartal in the offing. Well this is the land of bandhs and hartals , that too lightning ones, that just gets called on and off at some political party's whim and fancy!!!So we thought it would be a good idea to bring and keep the cake in our refrigerator itself , so that we can avoid unnecessary worries. So we went and brought the came from there and guess what, very soon found that the cake was too huge to fit into our refrigerator, We took it out of the cardboard case and tried to place it inside, but still it refused to go in. Do I need anything more to worry abt and in the huzzlebuzzle that followed, the side of the cake that I was holding , slipped from my hand and while trying to catch, my fingers wen right into Mickey's throat!!! I was in tears. There was only minimal damage, but that was enough. How would Achulde take a damaged one to school?! I mustered all my courage and called the cake guys up. Although it was closing time, they were good enough to wait till I took the cake back and then corrected the damage and offered to safekeep for me and deliver the next day despite the hartaal!!! We have the baddie, the bandh and hartaal guys and then we have such nice ppl also around too, for a change :)

PN: Achulde's b'day celebrations went well too :)

Hospital time

Normally its Mommolde who marks his calendar regularly every month for a hospital visit.Achulde would be the culprit though, bringing in the cold n' cough without fail every month. But he doesn't fall sick really. He gets just a minor version of it, but he loyally passes it onto Mommolde who ends up in hospital most of the time.Once we switched the doctor, we were able to contain with just visits and no admissions. So this time around, when Achulde fell sick,I thought it would be like every other time. But his fever spiked by Friday evening and it was well past the Doc's private consultation hours,so we had to take him to the OP.And I knew what was on store for me. They almost invariably manage to get the child admitted, based on my previous experience, but when your child has fever around 103-104, you stop worrying about all that, don't you. My main concern was that, I was so sure, I wouldn't be able to make Achulde stay in the hospital, he would be scared and restless for sure and he would cry out so loud that he would turn the whole place upside down. I was hoping that we'd get a single room.But like I knew already, there were no rooms available and they admitted him in the Paediatric ICU. He placed himself in their hall of fame, when they attempted to have the cannula on his wrist for giving antibiotics, by producing the highest decibel voice in the known history of the hospital!!!I was there in the room, so the Nurse aunties asked me to wait outside and 3 of them managed to hold him and took the blood for all the tests and inserted the needle for the cannula as well. Inside the ICU also, only one of us could be with him and he created quite a tantrum by calling out for Me when I was outside and for the hubby when he was outside. We both knew he just had a fever out of this chest infection , but that was not the case with some other children who were admitted there. Some of them were really unwell and the last thing those parents would want in the vicinity would be an impatient toddler crying away to glory and showing tantrums.He just refused to sleep on the bed and wanted the cannula to be removed and wanted to go home. After a couple of hours he fell asleep on my shoulders and that's when I finally managed to put him on the bed after so many hours.In the morning, he was running all over the place with a couple of balloons and trying to make friends with the other kids prompting one doctor to think loudly ' whether the hosp admits healthy kids also these days?!!!' I was worried for him ,as he mite catch infections from other kids and worried for the other kids due to the kinds of disturbance that he was causing. We were just waiting for our doc to come, so that we would be discharged from the hosp, but that was not to be. Since the fever was persisting, they decided to discharge him only on Sunday. But luckily for us we got a room just in time, so the next 24 hours were much better.I was just hoping that fever would be completely gone by Sunday, the last thing I wanted was Mommolde catching this infection.Moreover Mommolde was pretty upset that all 3 of us were missing from home all on a sudden.Reached back home by Sunday evening, and by Monday morning, lil Mommolde was running a high temperature!!!But luckily it subsided well in 2 days time and we didn't have to get him admitted. I was esp worried as it was Achulde b'day on 28th.
But these hospital visits are humbling experiences indeed.

The City of school seasons

I think Trivandrum is one city that revolves around school and academics year round. While you know places,where you see activities/happenings based on seasons or events or maybe festivals etc, i think I can rightly state that this city has everything running based on school activites and timings alone.Maybe this has something to do with the fact, that majority of the population would have moved in and settled here 'coz of the govt jobs and the sole focus of the middle class has always been education of their children.But they get way too focussed and I think, most of the parents dont have anythingelse in their mind other than the education of kids till 12th and professional degree course after that.Its all about school classes and then the tuition classes before school hours and then tuition classes after school hours. You often see huge crowds gathered in front of houses at odd times- 7:30 - 8:00 in the morning or 7:300- 8:00 in the nite, which would be anxious parents waiting to pick their kids after the tuitions.Am indeed skeptical about being sucked into this vacuum.

Every person I meet has this standard question to ask me already ' Are you trying for Loyola admission?'I think its a tmatter of time before I succumb to the pressure , maybe. Cant help wondering how tough it would be on the kids as well.Can't help feeling sorry for them. I dont know whether I'd want my kids to join Loyola. No doubts abt the fact that its one of the best schools. But then you are getting the best of the best, you are just bound to do well. But I dont know really whether they aim at developing all facets of the childs personality, finding out what he is good at and encouraging that, I dont really know abt that. And here you cant ask any directly either, am not sure whether they would understand what I mean to ask. I've heard that Loyola takes admission during UKG and in 2nd standard, and if you dont qualify in their UKG exam, you cannot attempt the 2nd standard entrance exam. And that based on the academic performance they move kids to ICSE , CBSE and state syllabus etc. I dont know how the kids can take this sort of pressure at this young age. I heard that there are people who even conduct coaching classes for the Loyola entrance!!! But the school must be really good, 'coz I've not seen a single loyoloitw who doesnt beam with pride while mentioning abt their school.The one that Achulde goes to currenty is the Early Learning Center of Trivandrum International School. Achulde loves going there and I must admit, if there is one thing that I dont regret on for moving to Trivandrum, it is the school that Achulde has been going to.From whatever I have seen, its based on how they do schooling abroad, its all theme based and the kids get to actually try their hands on the things that they are learning. The cute pieces of work that Achulde brings from his arts classes , the joy and pride on his face , as he shows off all these to us. The other day, he brought this cute cutting of a boy in blue sleeping on a hay stack. They were learning the rhyme ' Little Boy Blue'. But they say, this kind of schooling would not help the child in this competitive world. They quote the results of this school with the results of the city's best schools.So the experts think its best to have the kids in this school for their overall grooming and then move them to where they'd be ready to face this competitive world!!!The sad part is that they have only the ELC in the city, and from LKG onwards, if you plan to continue in this school, my kids would have to travel a good 40 kms every dayby bus.(The main school is almost in Attingal, you could say!!!)

I guess it would be the same scenario everywhere, be it Bangalore or Cochin!!!Maybe not to this extent, I hope.