Hanuman ji please give me toilet paper

Tuesday night while I was trying to nurse Neel and sleep Gauri both at the same time, with lights turned off, to make it dark enough for Gauri to try to sleep (and stop playing with Neel, so he could also sleep), Gauri suddenly gets up and whispers in my ear – “I need to go potty”, and then we had the most interesting conversation of all times. Here is exactly how it went:

Gauri: “Mum I need to go Potty”
Me: “Are you sure?”
Gauri: “Yes, I have to”
Me: “Then go”
Gauri: “No, you take me”
Me: “I can’t I am nursing Neel”
Gauri: “Pleeeeeeease take me, please come with me”
Me: “No Gauri, I cant honey, just go…..you cant do it on your own, you are a big kid now”
Gauri: “but there’s Bandar(monkey) in the Bathroom”
Me: with a little stress in my voice “Gaaaaauriii – there is NOBandar, don’t make up things, just go if you have to”

Note: Somehow Gauri is scared of monkeys, and I really have no idea why and where did she get this in her head, but suddenly one day she stared saying –monkeys will hurt me…We were worried at first and asked her why she thinks so, but then we thought it probably is normal for kids her age to get the concept of being scared sometimes.

So anyway,
Gauri: “Will Hanuman ji ask Bandar to go away?”

Note:
As per Hindu mythology, Hanuman ji is an incarnation of God in the form of an Ape. He is considered the one who has the powers to take away all difficulties/ fight demons for anyone who prays unto Him

Me: “sure, yes He will”
Gauri steps down from the bed and stands at the door whispering
“Hanuman ji open the door”
“please open the door for Gauri”
Now with stress in the voice:
“Please open the door Hanuman ji”
“Hanuman ji – open the door for Gauri, I have to go potty”
I was trying to avoid talking since Neel was trying to fall asleep in my lap, but then I had to intervene between Gauri and her Hanuman ji conversation
Me: “Gauri Hanuman ji does not open the door, you open it and go”
So she finally did go.
After a few minutes I hear Gauri again:
“Hanuman ji please give toilet paper to me”
“Hanuman ji ??”
“Hanuman ji I need toilet paper”
“Hanuman ji please give toilet paper”
“Oh god - Hanuman ji please give me paper towel”
After asking Hanuman ji for several minutes, I guess Gauri took the Toilet paper own her own and very disappointed-ly came back to me. BY now Neel was asleep and I was free to talk to her.

Me: “Gauri are you okay, did your potty?”
Gauri: “yea, but Hanuman ji did not give me toilet paper mama”
Me: “Its Okay Gauri”
Gauri: “I don’t think Hanuman ji can scare away the monkeys if he cant open the door and give toilet paper to me”!!

She was quite disappointed that night and I was half laughing and half wondering what and how am I to explain such complex things like “God” to an inquisitive kid like my little “Sweet-pea”.
She slept disappointed but I slept smiling thinking about this funny dialogue.

Since I have no pictures from that day, here are a couple of new ones of all of us.

Happy Janmashtami

Krishna Janmashtami, the festival celebrating the birth of Lord Krishna, is an important festival in the Hindu calendar. It is observed on the eighth day (according to the Lunar Calendar), of the dark half in the month of Shravana (again Lunar Calendar). I think personally, that this can be compared to the Christmas in the western world.

This is such a special festival for us specially because we all are Krishna Bhaktas (Devotees)and His Birthday is SUPER Special. Gauri already knows about “Krishna’ since she always offers prayers to Krishna before her meals (something that her nanu taught her and her prayers goes like this – with her eyes half closed half peeking she says “Krishna please eat this food ….please please please….” And sometimes she commands “Krishna eat ALL my food”, she looks so cute when she says that).

Every year we both observe fast the entire day and only eat/ drink after the birth of the Lord at midnight. Only milk and milk products are consumed, as these were the favorites of Lord Krishna (and mine too). We usually have a big celebration at our house and we invite lots of friends and family for the evening Puja, Abhishek and Prasadum. We also have some Krishna Games to add some fun to Krishna’s Birthday party but this year we choose to keep it small since both Neel and Gauri were super exited and it didnt seem feasible to cook that lavish Prasadum, decorate our Deities with wew clothing, jewelery and flowers and I knew its would be too tempting for Neel (now crawling) to leave ‘Baal-Gopal” on his alter. Last year we had a mini-accident when Gauir burnt her palm in an attempt to grab the light Inscent stick; we knew it would be best to keep the celebration very small this time. But we still had lots of fun and while Mani and I were singing our favorite Bhajans, Gauri declared “where is Krishna’s Elmo cake?” and “we need to sing Happy Birthday to Krishna” and “Krishna says he wants Balloons” – I wasn’t surprised at her demands – she was right, that’s the minimum we need to do for a birthday. Sorry Gauri – I’ll remember the Cake and the Balloons next year. Both Gauri and Neel dressed in traditional Indian clothes and boy did they ever look cuter!!

Happy Janmashtami to All – Hari Bool!!

Ok, so if you have been wondering where are we and what is Gauri up to these days here is a little update on Gauri (Neel's to follow shortly). This summer has probably been the most wonderful summer for me. I am having a blast with Gauri and Neel (of course sometimes they both do drive me crazy and I do feel that my IQ level, my vocab, my music repertoire are now that of a 2 year old, but still I don't remember having this much fun ever).

Gauri is a very energetic little girl and she does keep me on my toes. I need to keep her busy with challenging stuff otherwise she get very weepy and irritated. She has a never quenching thirst for books, and so we do visit the library VERY often. She loves to pick up new books from there and meet her friends from the "story time" program. I have to say, she loves to play with most of them but she prefers to play with older kids and read with them rather than the younger or even same age as her (I think that's the trait she picked from her dad, at least that's what Mani tells me).

Another interesting thing right now is the "pretend games" we play these days. Gauri is super super imaginative and is always coming up with new pretend games, her most favorite one is to play "Amma-dadu" (Grandma-Grandpa). She will mostly put a scarf around her neck just like her Amma (Amma wearing Salwar-Kameez) and pretend being amma and I will have to paint a mustache on my face and pretend to be dadu and she can play this game for hours all together.... another one of her favorite pretend games is playing Doctor-patient and I am always the patient and she is always the Doctor, She loves being the Dr. (ah, how I wish that she actually becomes one.....and yes I do remember that my Favorite toy as a little girl was always a stethoscope - hah what a coincidence)!!

Apart from that she has been dancing dancing and dancing on all sorts of songs since she was only about 20 months and this summer she showed great interest in ballet, so I finally did find a ballet school for her. She was super excited when she heard that we would be going for ballet class, we bought her ballet attire and she couldn't keep her hands, rather feet off those Ballet shoes....
She loves it there and keeps asking every day "do we have ballet class today?". She is probably the youngest of all in that class but definitely not least intimidated, fluttering around like a butterfly and chatting nonstop like a lil' monkey and looking so so so graceful, super cute I mean.

Here is a sneak-peek of her class.

We plan to continue ballet into fall and if possible Gauri might be able to perform next summer. I am super excited that she is learning dance (as some of you already know, I learned classing Indian dance growing up and was always performing as a little girl and I still love dance, oh and I still remember my first dance teacher's name - Ms. Krapa, and boy she was so strict and such disciplinarian that I almost hated her at that time) and I so wish that Gauri does embrace this form of art, it is very relaxing, uplifting, graceful and teaches self-discipline.

Apart from this we are also taking ice-skating for several weeks, and although Gauri can walk with those skates on, she still has days when she would not skate atall, but she loves being on the ice when it is scorching 90 degrees outside. I dont have any pictures from that but I'll soon post some.

And the most wonderful thing of all - Both Gauri and Neel are playing together very nicely. I have to give credit to Gauri for being super nice with Neel and although she has her moments of not wanting to share "her" toys with him but she will soon find something that she is willing to let Neel have. And they do have a blast whenever they are in the water together. I am so proud of her, being a baby herself yet acting such a nice big sister. May their love continue to grow like this forever.

All this and much more keeps Ms. curious somewhat busy otherwise, I was beginning to believe that "terrible twos" is truly terrible, now I think its "terrific"!!