Movie Review: MIB 3

Hubby is a great fan of Will Smith and I have been pretty excited with the upcoming third installment of the series, which came like after 10 years of the sequel. Its been a while since we brought Sanju for a movie, and his attention on the movie trailers seemed like he might enjoy the movie given the weird aliens and all. And as for Jeev, we just hoped that he would nurse and nap as much as he wanted.

We made sure we bought the tickets hours ahead of the show, and only had to show up at the cineplex minutes before it started. Our punctuality missed its precision, we entered the cineplex miliseconds before the movie started. And this time we made no mistake of buying the popcorn, remember KungFu Panda 2?

The movie starts with Boris the alien criminal escaping the prison, and travels back in time to kill Agent K, who had arrested him back in 1969. This causes a major change of events, allowing Boris' alien race to overrun the Earth. Agent J finds a way to travel back in time to 1969 in order to save Agent K and rectify the tragic consequences of his death.

There are several 1969 cultural references that perhaps would be familiar to the older generation. For us it just provided with some light comedic moments. After the climax, there is a little revelation about Agent J that makes an 'awww' moment for the audience.

It is always a pleasure to watch a Will Smith flick. This one was no exception. The movie was good, but I think our expectations were higher. The time travel story was very similar to the 'Back To The Future' we had back few decades ago. Only thing this one had added an extra ingredient, the aliens. 

The visual effects were nothing to rave about. The aliens in this installment were more in quantity and super extra creepy. What happened to those rugged and rustic aliens from Cybertron, those Transformer dudes, don't they ever use MIB's immigration services? I would surely love to see that!

Enough about the movie. How did the kids fare? Sanju left his seat and sat with his daddy, kinda terrified with the Boris alien (Transformers would have been less creepy), but watched it till the end. And my little Jeev watch a little, watched the people on the row behind us, and slept the rest of the time. It went almost perfect till 5 minutes before the movie when Sanju demanded to go toilet. We told him its ok to pee in the diaper but he still insisted and poor daddy had to miss the ending bit. Overall a success, hoping for similar future movie to bring the kids again.

Beating The Monday Blues

Who says SAHMs (Stay At Home Mother) do not face Monday blues? Monday blues is a global phenomena that hits people of all walks of life, even Garfield is affected by it! No matter what, Monday blues is not fun, and the toddler is the one most upset by it.

What is so wrong about Mondays? After an eventful weekend of activities, the quietness of Monday usually feels so lonely and depressing. On weekends our schedule is packed with our family time, outings, shopping (even the early morning grocery shopping is a boon), visits by our families and relatives and other unexpected plans or drives.

Weekends means having hubby at home for me and the kids. My personal way of celebrating it is making some special breakfast whenever I can get the chance. We get to wake up late (thank god the kids love sleeping late as well) and take our time in getting on with the day. The rest of the weekend is spent chatting, playing, and catching up with chores for both hubby and I.

Visits by our family means Sanju gets playmates he loves to be with, and will be fully occupied playing and creating all sorts of new mischief unknown to us. With all the excitement, Sanju gets into this special weekend diet that he hardly eats, only takes in various forms of liquids, be it milk, milo or any fruit juice. In rare occasions he would take a bite or two from our plates.

As for me, I am free to drive out to the nearby 99Speedmart for the smallest reasons without thinking twice, as I have got hubby willing to babysit the kids. I also get to choose the take-out or eat-out menu as I don't cook on most weekends.

The first hour of Monday itself feels so gloomy because the kids wake up when daddy has already gone to work, and we get back to our usual slow weekday routine with just the 3 of us. By now I am back in full force making sure Sanju takes all his meals in. And again, sadly for Sanju, I am his only playmate, with the occasional involvement of Jeev which ends with Sanju accidentally being rough with him, and some crying and pacifying later on.

What keeps me going? The kids' and their antiques, every single day is a new day and unpredictable, so I tackle it as it comes. This keeps me going through the boring Monday, and prepare to take on the next few days the same way. By the time Friday is here, I literally shout TGIF when I wake up, and look forward to the weekend again. Happy Monday all!!

Addicted To Food

The title should really be titled 'Addicted To Food Channels' but I think it sounds a lot more exciting this way. Yes, I am confessing that I am addicted to food channels. I've been spending my afternoons drooling over the team of chefs cooking and baking away on AFC and TLC channels while the kids nap away.

The beauty of the cooking show these days are the clever sound sync of every vibration of the ingredient molecules, which is the splash of the stock or even just water, the crisp of a vegetable and the sizzle of the meat chop, the works! These shows are more like designer cooking shows with designer chefs making the food look good as good as they taste. They make something effortless look so grand and something complicated look so simple. All the foodie creations look so delicious that it gives me the satisfaction of indulging myself, minus the calories. How cool is that?! I seriously do not afford to have any extra gram on my already up-sized post baby body. Speaking of addiction, ask Tim sykes if you are addicted to Facebook.

With the Astro Beyond that we got fixed last week, visual food indulgence is on a whole new level on the Food Network Asia. They even have Racheal Ray's show! After watching good, delicious, yummy and juicy food in High Definition, it makes me not want to change the channel at all.

I don't just feel satisfied with the visual indulgence, I get tonnes of ideas that I can incorporate in my daily cooking. Now that Jeev is very much crawling and exploring all over the house, I have my time everyday to cook for the 3 of us and I am proud to say that I am coming up with snazzy menus daily, thanks to my food channel indulgence. 

On top of everything, there is also Sex And The City series, on freaking HD on the beTV, thats definitely a bonus! How I miss Carrie Bradshaw! I recently watched the Sex And The City 2 movie and felt it was not on par as the first one. Although it filled all the chic fashion and style quotient, there could have been better story content, or I guess there is no such way to receive that balance. I did however identify with the part on marriage and life after kids. Secretly I felt glad (and perhaps relieved?) that the characters have grown up with me, from singlehood to marriage and to parenthood.

How life has evolved from fashion and massive retail joys to simple motherhood and cooking joys. And glad to know I am not the only one. Millions of mothers across the globe experienced the same evolution!

Boys Will Be Boys

Being the mother of 2 boys is like a Bollywood action movie experience. There is a lot of action, drama and plenty of song involved in my daily life.

Action is when the brothers pull stunts with each other, either the toddler pretending to wrestle or the baby in full exploring mode, crawling all over. Both of this usually ends with a light fall, after which comes the drama of crying and pretending like it hurt a lot. 

At most times, big brother Sanju is trying to play wrestling with baby brother Jeev. His gestures are sometimes a little bit rough and usually ends up as below situation.  

When baby Jeev is not playing, Sanju tortures his toys instead. Sanju has inherited several action figurines from my brother, who was only excited pass it down for another boy to enjoy them. Remember Sanju bringing the Mickey house down? Well this time, he has been so rough with the toy that he broke Ninja Turtle Leonardo's hand. It was such a classic moment that a figurine kept safely for more than 20 years is now disarmed! (Pavers not included)

The brothers also enjoy taking rides together in their numerous tricycles and push cars, and these moments only remind me of the famous friendship song from the famous movie Sholay:

Here is my version of Veeru and Jay:

 

Their studio photo shoot was coincidentally taken in the same ride theme, months before we shaved Jeev's head:

And after a long tiring day riding, wrestling and creating drama, the brothers would nap together in peace. The happy ending of a Bollywood movie lasts just as long as their nap, and after which it starts all over again.

The Many Faces of Sanju Part 3

A long awaited continuation of the Sanju series. My dad armed with his handphone camera has been working overtime with Sanju clicking away poses that I can never get Sanju to do. They make a good team photographing together. Photos styled and directed by (my) daddy dearest.

Serving time with waste management

Busy closing a deal

Living a zen life, yoga-masterji

Hands-up!

Shoot!

Part time helper

Broom Vroom

Lorry driver

Little Krishna and his herd

Confessions Of A Second Time Mother

A second time mother confessing up. When I was pregnant with my first kid, Sanju, I read and memorised all kinds of materials to prepare me welcome and nurture our baby. By second time around, life got so exhausting. With an active toddler at that time, I was in no position to be particular about every single detail. Plus with some experience from the first baby, I did take note of some things that can be changed, improved, or just made simpler! So I loosened up a lot of my previous practices that I followed religiously. This was based purely on my own experience and by no means recommended to anyone unless you are very sure about it. And here goes the list based on Amazon loan:

1. I skipped the baby mittens from birth, only put them on for night time as we sleep in air conditioned room.
2. No gripe water on my baby, it does not affect the colic much, instead I gave colic drops when needed.
3. No more sterilising bottles, occasionally washed the bottles in hot water. This reduced my chores tremendously. Plus it is always good for baby to build their immune rather than have everything totally sterilised.
4. Baby bath given anytime of the day, as opposed to the earlier stern morning practice.
5. Formula or expressed breast milk feed at room temperature, warm not necessary.
6. In no rush to feed him solids this time, unlike Sanju's time. I took my time introducing at 6 months, he have tongue thrust so I skipped a few days and tried later. In between when we moved house and all, I skipped solids for him for several days.

So here is my product of second time mothering, Shanjeev, just after shaving his head at Batu Caves last weekend, finally, at 9 months of age. Suddenly I can see the rest of his face, missing his curly locks!

Before:

After:

 

Oh yes, I have received a lot of comments on him being a 'girl', and I guess dressing him in the pink magnifies the confusion. I just enjoy the guessing game. Once at the clinic:

Nurse: Oh, baby is so cute, whats her name?

Me: Shanjeev (smug and ignoring the female reference)

Nurse: But Shanjeev is a boy's name, isn't it?

Me: He is a boy (smile)

Only In India

I am sure you would have received tonnes of forward emails with the above title. Most often than not, those pictures doctored to contain funny signboards or roadsigns. In this blog post, while battling flu with vaporizers, I have some real stuff to share with you. Pictures that truly depict things you can see only in India, courtesy of my dad who recently went to Uttar Pradesh, India, to fulfill family duties.

During each of my dad's trip to india, I am always looking forward to his emails on his experience and accounts of his stay, apart from the yummy sweets (at times flavor infused) and pretty clothes that my parents buy back for us. And this time round, he decided to let his pictures do the talking. His stay was mainly at  Purvanchal, which comprises the eastern end of Uttar Pradesh state.

As you may know by now, my dad has a unique sense of observation and humour, coupled with his handphone camera, he managed to capture some real 'Indian' moments in the true sense. Captions are in his genuine form of humour. Enjoy! Only in India...

You see a handphone savvy peasant mother

A school van (in hindi) doesnt resemble one

You see such an open air mpv

Buffaloes come first

Can a bus driver conduct household chores while driving

Can you do a threesome for 10km on a bike without helmets

Can you drive thru a shaky bridge made of drums without wetting your pants

Traffic stand still in the real sense of the word

Flogging an almost dead horse for extra horsepower

Might has the right of way - biker shoved to side in face off with oncoming bus

Booking a table means just that, note the absence of chairs

Monkeys reign supreme - inset mother monkey and baby monkey