Weekends? What are those???
I had just run to the local supermarket late evening on a Sunday. Normally, I never shop on a weekend evening close to the beginning of the month. After all, who wants to bump into your neighbours discussing the merits of buying daliya over Oats for breakfast or meet a your kid’s friend’s mother well ahead of you on the checkout counter… But this time I had to get my daughter’s preferred Horlicks flavour or risk a mutiny in the morning before they leave for school on a Manic Monday.
As my luck always, I was in the last in the long line of the checkout counter and there was no express counter that was working. And much like Murphy’s law, the other two checkout counters were definetly moving faster than mine.
That gave me time to reflect over what I had done on a supposedly Lazy Sunday. Well for a start I woke up a whole two hours after my normal weekday wake up time and then rushed to get a heavy brunch ready, got lots of stuff done in the kitchen as pre-preparation for the week, gave my daughters a quick oil bath and ran to get my vehicle serviced. Came back home, helped my daughter prepare for her Maths exams, ran out with her to her library and then stopped by to return the DVD of this neat Tamil movie (more about that later) and then stopped by in the supermarket before heading home. Whew…..
Well, my turn was still long time away so I was thinking back on how things were when I was probably 9 years old. Well those days all of us (Dad and us) had work and school 6 days a week. There was no concept of a weekday. Sundays meant lazing around, eating elaborate lunches and then seeing some lovely programs on the TV. I think we had Star Trek in the mornings and then we had time to go visiting in the evenings. We had no car back in early eighties so we used to walk to the nearest bus depot a good 15-20 minutes walk from our place, take a 30-40 minute bus ride, visit and come back home well in time and be fresh for the next day. The way life was those days was definitely more relaxed and easier on everyone. I don’t remember my mom fretting over her shopping not done on a Sunday, and to think they used to go to different wholesale markets to buy things right from veggies to masalas!
Not so these days, we rarely go beyond a 10-12 km radius over a school weekend. Anything else is postponed for three day weekend or vacation time. Weekends are no more for relaxing. Weekends are for supermarket errands, bank work and all miscellaneous items that we never get time to get done on weekdays. Saturdays is probably when we have a little more fun; kids go for their weekend activity classes or we get some shopping done or probably catch a movie. But these 48 hours just fly past our eyes.
So here comes another week and starts the mad run again….Have a great week folks…
Monday, March 28, 2011
Tuesday, March 22, 2011
Summer vacation fun
Another week to go and then starts my overtime. Yes my daughters start their summer vacation. All these years, I never sent them to any summer camps – I used to think that I could do a better job of keeping them entertained at home – when I have done it for 9 and half years I can do for 60 days no big deal. But this year I am having second thoughts…
Well there is no major paradigm shift in my thinking so to say, but then the options available are so interesting that it makes more sense to send them and get them to have a whole new experience.
For my older one, there are options ranging from a Theatre/Drama course to a Science-experiment based one. Of course we have ‘I do everything’ kind of camps where u can pick a couple of indoor, couple of outdoor activities and have peace for 4-5 hours every weekday. My younger one who is almost 6 can take a pick from craft classes, art classes, cooking dance and music and the like. No heavy duty learning stuff for her. Some places even offer a once a week field trip to a farm, planetarium and the like. Then there is the usual swimming and tennis reserved for noons and evenings. They love to read, I am sure there will be couple of visits to the library over the week. So I think that if they doesn’t get tired by the end of it, they can look at me for inspiration and flop down on the sofa to look at her eyelids….Notice how my husband is missing from the action in all this. Vacations may come or go but his office ensures that they schedule some important project release close to the holidays and make a mess out of any longish vacation plans.
I have never attended a summer camp all my life and don’t think I have done badly for myself. I remember two months long holidays in my granddad’s place where we cousins used to get together and laze around in the mornings, followed by a relaxed breakfast and lunch and follow it up with long Monopoly/carom sessions and end the day with long walks to the beach and get a Aavin cone /Ambika puff as a treat at the end of it all. I remember the many stories my granddad used to conjure up for us. I learnt to play a game of ‘Chozi’, make a cup with the jackfruit tree leaf and maybe a little bit of gardening too from him. But those days are all gone. When we were in high school, during the summer vacations, my dad took us for 10-15 days to show us places around India. We never went just to Shimla, we took time to explore Chandigarh, the Kumaon range, check out Bhimtal and other such way off places along the way. It helped that he worked for a PSU so he had sufficient leave for a long holiday. Those memories stay a lot longer than a 3 day 2 night package in a lush resort that we tend to favour these days.
These days, parents cannot be away from their home base for that long. Kids also get bored and miss their friends back home. And there are only so many stories /games the poor grandparents can think of. And add to that the blessed IPL matches during the summer holidays and you can ensure that come evening and no one wants to step out of their homes – so there is no scope for any socializing in the evenings…. Lalit Modi I hate you for this….
So that is pretty much my summer plan for this year – get the kids off to a camp, get them to do a sport in the afternoon / early evening and then send them out to play later and I can see days zooming past.
So will my daughters like it? Well ask me that on June 1st :) Happy holidays to all the kiddos and their moms…
Another week to go and then starts my overtime. Yes my daughters start their summer vacation. All these years, I never sent them to any summer camps – I used to think that I could do a better job of keeping them entertained at home – when I have done it for 9 and half years I can do for 60 days no big deal. But this year I am having second thoughts…
Well there is no major paradigm shift in my thinking so to say, but then the options available are so interesting that it makes more sense to send them and get them to have a whole new experience.
For my older one, there are options ranging from a Theatre/Drama course to a Science-experiment based one. Of course we have ‘I do everything’ kind of camps where u can pick a couple of indoor, couple of outdoor activities and have peace for 4-5 hours every weekday. My younger one who is almost 6 can take a pick from craft classes, art classes, cooking dance and music and the like. No heavy duty learning stuff for her. Some places even offer a once a week field trip to a farm, planetarium and the like. Then there is the usual swimming and tennis reserved for noons and evenings. They love to read, I am sure there will be couple of visits to the library over the week. So I think that if they doesn’t get tired by the end of it, they can look at me for inspiration and flop down on the sofa to look at her eyelids….Notice how my husband is missing from the action in all this. Vacations may come or go but his office ensures that they schedule some important project release close to the holidays and make a mess out of any longish vacation plans.
I have never attended a summer camp all my life and don’t think I have done badly for myself. I remember two months long holidays in my granddad’s place where we cousins used to get together and laze around in the mornings, followed by a relaxed breakfast and lunch and follow it up with long Monopoly/carom sessions and end the day with long walks to the beach and get a Aavin cone /Ambika puff as a treat at the end of it all. I remember the many stories my granddad used to conjure up for us. I learnt to play a game of ‘Chozi’, make a cup with the jackfruit tree leaf and maybe a little bit of gardening too from him. But those days are all gone. When we were in high school, during the summer vacations, my dad took us for 10-15 days to show us places around India. We never went just to Shimla, we took time to explore Chandigarh, the Kumaon range, check out Bhimtal and other such way off places along the way. It helped that he worked for a PSU so he had sufficient leave for a long holiday. Those memories stay a lot longer than a 3 day 2 night package in a lush resort that we tend to favour these days.
These days, parents cannot be away from their home base for that long. Kids also get bored and miss their friends back home. And there are only so many stories /games the poor grandparents can think of. And add to that the blessed IPL matches during the summer holidays and you can ensure that come evening and no one wants to step out of their homes – so there is no scope for any socializing in the evenings…. Lalit Modi I hate you for this….
So that is pretty much my summer plan for this year – get the kids off to a camp, get them to do a sport in the afternoon / early evening and then send them out to play later and I can see days zooming past.
So will my daughters like it? Well ask me that on June 1st :) Happy holidays to all the kiddos and their moms…
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