Born to Rock, Forced to Work!

My gym instructor wore this T-shirt. I liked it so much that I asked him where he got it from. He did not remember but thanks to google, I found it and bought it too.. ;) for Anshu. Not for me. I think I was born to work :( Besides, I Rock anyways.
Its really interesting how people create certain perceptions. Most of the people who have met Anshu live rest of their lives believing that he is a musician or plays guitar. And they can hardly be blamed for it..

Nine years ago-
I went to pick him up at the airport and had known him for just a few months then. He walked out of the gate carrying this guitar case with hair longer than his shoulder and a truly shabby look.. like a perfect hung-over rock star.. who cares if the guitar strings were missing and I cant remember if he ever owned a working guitar. But the look is all that matters..

Seven years ago-
By now I was already married to my rockstar.
I was in a store walking around and met this girl whom I (and Anshu too) went to undergrad school with. She started talking and randomly asked me, "if I was in touch with Anshu -the guy who sang at the college concert. "
I told her," Yes I am very much in touch with him. I am married to him."

Five years ago-
We were at our favorite club Fibbar maggies where they have live music every Friday night. I think this Fibbars was in mountain view which got bought by someone later. We met with a bunch of friends and I have very faint memory of this becos I was too drunk may be.. so I dont remember the details.. Anshu was on the stage singing and it was one of the songs that I liked and knew. :) I am sure he will know it if I ask him which one it was. I dont think he sung all that well but I do know that he acted damn well..

Three years ago-
(Should be more like 4 something but I just like to put 3 so it looks good on my blog.) This was in Fibbars atSunnyvale and the band was singing some song that came as a request. Anshu was standing in the front and singing loudly.. the lead singer pulled him up and had him sing the lyrics and said.. "wow you know the lyrics better than me."

One year ago-
(now this is really one year ago more or less.) There was a LOUD sound from Anoushka's bedroom and both Anoushka and Anshu were dancing. Ever since this has been Anoushka's favorite thing which is to dance with daddy on the 'Monkey song'. She said that in front of our friend who happily started to sing "Ten little monkeys jumping on the bed." but that is not what Anoushka meant.. She was talking about the 'Monkey business' by Skid Row.

Art and Wine Festival

We went to the Art and Wine festival of Santaclara I think 10 days ago.. It seemed really big this year and had some really nice stuff.. I stuck to the standard Marzen from gordon beirsch though they did seem to have some good wines as well. The food was ok too. The best part was the funnel cake which was not even in the food aisle. Anyways, I bought this beautiful Wine holder. I just LOVED the way it looked.. Its perfect to keep opened wine bottles. Had it not been for the displayed wine bottle, Iwould not know what it was used for. I am not regretting now buying more of these. I thought they made a perfect gift for casual occasions. May be I should look it up on the Internet and get some more..

Made in Renuka!

I dont know whats with my babies and wine. Sania hardly shows interest in eating food but is all over the wine glass.. She licked the whole glass and would jump into it if she could. Then I pulled up a picture of Anoushka from our France trip. She was super interested in drinking wine. This is Anoushka drinking Muscat in France. It is all hardwired in the genes and pre-programed seems like. And I still cant get over the fact of how similar they look- Made in Renuka. I am curious if I have more kids and girls, will they all be the same?

Our Halloween family tradition..

We have (created) this little family tradition for halloween. All the women in the family get a pedicure with Halloween theme. :) And we LOVE it.. Last year it was me and Anoushka. This year there were three of us. Luckily (for Anshu) the third one did not get a pedicure but I took her pic nevertheless.

I got colored tips in orange like a French pedicure but put really cool BAT stickers on them. How creative!

The "Hand- off"

Long time ago, my boss described the problems with VPNs saying, "VPNs are like children. You dont want to hear them or see them but you want them." and obviously enough he never liked children and never had them. I thought to myself I am just glad that my parents (or his for that matter) did not think like that. :) And then years later after I had my own baby, I knew what he meant. They are obviously a lot of commitment and work and not everyone (specially the "T" kind of people) can appreciate the innocent cuteness. Anyways, when the reality hits and both parents have to go to work, you go through the toughest part of parenting - keeping the child away from you! The most intimidating and challenging thing for me has always been dropping the child to the daycare. I can breeze through the toughest business situation becos all it needs is analyzing and rationalizing but dropping the kid off to the daycare is another story.

Fortunately with both our children we could keep them at home for the first whole year. Thanks to both the grand parents who took care of them at home when we were gone to work. One of the reason why I can boast about uninterrupted professional service (UPS :) ) to the employers for whom I worked for during that time. Emphasis being on the P since I never took time off to cater to sick kid due to daycare infections.

As Sania turned 5 months, we were at the point where we did the handoff from one set of grand parents to the other. First picture is Anoushka handoff between the grandmoms and next two pictures are of Sania hand off. That is part of the reason for my being MIA on the blog scene as I was coping up with the change myself.

The most memorable event was Anoushka's walking over to my mom and saying," Dont worry. I will take care of mumma!" She figured I was very sad that my mom was leaving. The best part is that almost immd she determined that it was my weak point and immd leveraged it against me. Nowadays when we argue she threatens me to not take care of me!