Small joys
This anniversary
- We didn’t take a day off from work
- We didn’t go out to see any movie
- We didn’t go out for dinner
- We didn’t even exchange gifts
Yet this was one of our best anniversaries ever…
- Hubby made the most awesome paneer parathas for dinner
- I baked a chocolate cake at home which was cut by the “three” of us
- Cheebu made me a lovely, colorful beaded necklace
- We had a nice cosy dinner at home and Cheebu says “Mumma aapne bahut achchha paneer banaaya aur Papa aapne bahut achchha paneer paratha banaya
” (Mumma, you made very nice paneer and Papa, you made very nice paneer paratha)
One of the joys of having a daughter is undoubtedly shopping for her clothes In fact I love shopping for her more than I do for myself. Such lovely colorful dresses… Can you blame me that I can never pick just one
Some more Cheebu stories
Every evening we go for a walk after dinner. We enjoy the cool night breeze and we tell Cheebu that “Chalo achchhi hawa hai. Yahan baith ke hawa khaate hain” which literally translates into “there’s a nice breeze here. Let’s sit here and eat the breeze ” and actually means that “lets sit here and enjoy the nice breeze” Every single day Cheebu sits with her mouth open pretending to eat the breeze
One evening as we are walking she says “Mumma, aaj to hawa nahin chal rahi hai” (Mumma, there’s no breeze today)
and then …
“Shaayad humne saari hawa kha li hogi, isliye aaj hawa nahi hai” (Maybe we have eaten all the breeze, that is why there is no breeze today) 
*****
One day she asks me”Mumma, jub aap chhote the tab aap mummy children the?” (When you were small, were you Mummy children)
Me: Mummy children???
Cheebu: Arre jo bachche school se apni mummy ke saath ghar jaate hain. (those children who go home with their mummies after school) Apparently, when school leaves her teacher says “Daycare children line up here” Since children who go to the daycare are daycare children, she has given a name to children who go with their mummies as mummy children
Another day she asks me “Mumma, aap mujhe S ki tarah mummy children kab bana rahe ho?” (Mumma, when are you making me mummy children like S) ** S is her friend from daycare who is right now mummy children as her mom is on maternity leave after the birth of her second child. So apparently she wants a sibling only so that she can be mummy children 
*****
One day, on our way back home from the market in the car, hubby and I were pretending to argue with each other over something when hubby playfully hit me on my hand. Cheebu who was watching the entire thing from the back seat “Jhagda band karo. Kitni baar bola hai aap logon ko ki jhagda mat kiya karo. Koi meri baat nahi sunta ” (Stop fighting. How many times have I told you not to fight. Nobody listens to me.) We looked at each other and couldn’t stop smiling.
*****
Cheebu is quite fond of animals – dogs in particular. Few months back she started demanding a cutie-cutie doggy as a pet. So we would tell her that you already have a cutie-cutie doggy pointing to her soft toy dogs. Then she would say “Nahi mujhe chalne waala cutie-cutie doggy chaahiye” (No, I want a cutie-cutie doggy that walks) . Since then we tried to convince her that we cannot keep a doggy at home. Who would take care of the doggy when mumma-papa were away at work and she was at Daycare? Since then, she has adopted one of her soft toy doggy as pet. Every morning when she gets up you can hear her “Pooooochi! Pooooochi! Kahan ho?”
And it doesn’t stop here. There are plenty of crows around here. Quite often, we keep the leftover chapatis or bread on our balcony sill for the crows. Cheebu loves feeding the crows and watching them. She lovingly calls the Kauvi… and many times you will find her standing on the chair in the balcony and calling “Kauvi, kauvi aa jao” (Kauvi, kauvi come here)
*****
Past few days
…have been busy.
We have a holiday planned But planning it was hard work I must say. Started with convincing hubby that we need to go for a holiday, then deciding the destination and researching about it. We decided on a destination and after 2 weeks of discussion and research on it changed it to another. Crazy you can call us. So again we started with our planning for the second destination, researching which places to cover, should we go for a packaged tour or just book the hotels and decide our own itinery, which hotels to choose … and by the time we had decided, tickets were not available for the dates we wanted to go on. So then again rescheduling our plans so that it was convenient for all 3 of us. It was a mad, mad time but finally we managed … and hopefully if everything goes well we start next weekend for our much planned holiday
We have resumed our after dinner evening walks. We enjoy these walks so much but it keeps getting off our routine for some reason or the other. Mostly due to hubby’s travel schedules, sometimes the weather and more recently due to Cheebu’s early morning school in April. Since school was at 8 in the morning I had to make sure that she goes to bed early which left us with no time to go for walk after dinner. But now that summer vacations have started we can afford to send her to bed a little late. We walk some distance to our favorite benches, sit there for sometime, enjoy our little time together in the cool summer breeze and then walk back home. Sometimes we meet friends in the building compound, so we chat while the kids play. Being summer vacations many kids can be seen playing in the building compound at this time. Apart from being a healthy routine it is also our chance to spend some time exclusively together as a family. I am glad to see that Cheebu is turning into a nature lover. She notices different trees, flowers, creepers and loves to discuss about them. Sometimes we stop to smell the nocturnal flowers on the way … the rajnigandhas and harsingar… we see the different phases of the moon …
Keeping up with my baking experiments I tried baking cinnamon rolls apart from this. The cinnamon rolls turned out great. You can check out the recipe in Seema’s and Ani’s blog. Yesterday I made sabudana wadas for dinner for the first time. Cheebu’s compliments made my day. She is normally reluctant to try anything new… but for a change not only did she try it enthusiastically she went ahead and told me that she would love to have this in her tiffin box. What more could a mother ask?
I managed to read a couple of books during the weekends… “Life is what you make it” and “Tea for two and a piece of cake” both by Preeti Shenoy. I was looking forward to reading these for a long time and enjoyed reading them. I am really trying hard to fit reading into my schedule. I used to read a lot all through my student years and after that when I started working till I was on maternity leave. But after joining back work with a baby and home to look after reading took a back seat. Finally, I did resume reading last year but not at the pace I would like to … just a few books here and there … during vacations and sometimes on weekends… But reading about reading and book reviews from fellow bloggers I feel desperate to get back to reading again. The trouble is that weekdays are a mad rush and weekends are the only time I get where I can do some activities with Cheebu or try my hand at some out of routine cooking. I don’t even have travel time to work … it is just a couple of minutes drive … on most days hubby drops me… so where do I get time to even open a book. Sigh! But I do wish to get back … and am planning to rejoin the library that I gave up when I went on maternity leave.
Today is our 7th marriage anniversary. Almost 11 years of knowing each other and 7 years of married life out of which 2 years were spent staying apart in different cities … we have come a long way Cheebu does not like it that it is her mumma-papa’s anniversay and she is excluded from it … she likes to say “hum teenon ki anniversary hai” . As of now no special plans for our special day. Both of us are at work… in the evening we may go out for dinner or have a special dinner at home.
Eggless whole wheat flour chocolate cake
I love cakes, but the maida in it is not good for my stomach. So, when I heard from one of my neighbors that she makes eggless cakes at home using whole wheat flour/atta instead of maida, I wanted to try it immediately. I made this cake on Mother’s Day using her recipe and it turned out quite well
Ingredients
Whole wheat flour/atta – 1 & 1/2 cups
Condensed Milk – 1/2 tin (200 gms) (I used milkmaid)
Clarified butter/Ghee – 3/4 cup
sugar – 3/4 cup (you can adjust this according to your sweetness preference)
milk – 3/4 cup or as needed for getting right consistency
baking powder – 3/4 tsp
Soda bicarb – 3/4 tsp
vanilla essence – 1 tsp
Cocoa powder – 2 tbsp
Gems/chocolate bar of your choice for garnishing/decoration.
Method
Preheat the oven to 180 C. Seive the whole wheat flour, baking soda, baking powder and the cocoa powder together into a large bowl. In another bowl, add the condensed milk, melted ghee, vanilla essence, sugar and the milk and mix well. Add the dry ingredients and mix well for some time moving the mixing spoon in one direction only till no lumps remain. The mixture should be of dripping consistency. Add more milk if needed. Pour this batter into a greased baking dish dusted with flour and bake for 30-40 minutes at 180 C until a toothpick comes out clean. Garnish with grated chocolate and gems (I use gems because Cheebu loves to decorate with Gems ).
