Monthly Archives: February 2009

A Recessionista mom's guide to Birthday Parties

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By Piya Mitra

birthday-cakeI don’t need to tell you that there is a recession underway. Headlines scream “The worst recession since the great depression”. These are uncertain times and everyone is tightening their belts. While cutting down expenses is the need of the hour some things can not be cut out completely, like the occasional get-togethers and parties, specially birthday parties for children.

So if you are on a budget and still want to throw a fun party the thing to remember is that more money spent doesn’t necessarily equal more fun.

Here are some fun and budget-friendly ideas:

A Hiking Party

This one can be tons of fun for older kids 9 yrs and over.

Venue: Park with Trails. Choose a short hiking trail and let the group enjoy a picnic at the end.

Food: Bring simple picnic foods. Hot Dogs/sandwiches, salads, corn on the cob, Gatorade, fruits etc. Here’s a link for picnic food ideas.

Activity: Choose a short hike so all kids can keep up.

Favors: You can give each child a drawstring backpack with a water bottle, Trail mix or Granola Bars and visors to protect from the sun. Oriental Trading has some good deals on these items.

A Cooking Party

This one is for older kids too, over 6 yrs.

Venue: Home-Kitchen

pizzaFood:Pizza: Buy some Pizza dough from the grocery store and a bunch of toppings. Pizza topping ideas: Spaghetti sauce, mozzarella cheese, shredded pepperoni slices, ham slices or Canadian bacon, pineapple chunks, pepper slices, sliced mushrooms, sliced olives etc.you will need 8” Disposable aluminum foil pie tins (Mark each child’s name on it with a sharpie), a few rolling pins. Roll out the pizza dough into small rounds and put it in the pie tins and let the kids put toppings on them.

Cupcakes: Bake cupcakes and let the kids put icing on them and decorate them with the toppings of their choice.

Ice cream sandwiches: Make Ice cream sandwiches using two chocolate chip cookies and ice-cream let the children choose the flavor of ice-cream they want from two or three different flavors or they could add all the flavors you provide. See how proud they feel eating the meal they prepared!

Party favors: As for party favors aprons and chefs hats, check your local craft store or good old Oriental trading has them by the dozen.

Another alternative “Cookie Mix In A Jar” with the recipe attached to it.

Nestle has recipes on their site.

Art Craft Party

Venue: Home-Garage

Choose some art projects for kids to do .Two or three different projects so they don’t loose interest in one. Crafts must be age appropriate for the kids to enjoy. Here are some craft ideas for preschoolers.

Or how about one big masterpiece?  Get a roll of art paper available online or in educational supply stores, lots of crayons/water color. Spread out a drop cloth in the garage, lay out the paper roll on top, give the kids some idea as to what you want them to paint say animals in a zoo or “under the sea” (you might even want to make an out line. Let each child sign an autograph on one corner and this could be a keepsake for the birthday child. Be sure to ask parents to send their kids in washable clothes in case of any color spilling onto clothes.

Talent Night./American Idol/Indian Idol

idolVenue: Home (economical) or Restaurant

Invite: Send out invites asking parents to help prepare a 2 min special act for each child to perform. Song, dance, comedy routine anything they  want to do. Here is a free printable invite.

Invite all the parents to join you 1/12 hrs after they drop off the children. Let them do a dress rehearsal for the show. Choose a MC(You’ll always have  a few kids too shy to perform). Once the parents come in let the show begin.

Favors: Give each child a small trophy after the show. You will find  many American Idol themed party favors at Party stores.

All these ideas can be budget friendly as long as you make a budget and stick to it. It is very easy to go overboard when planning a party. Just remember all kids need to have fun is the company of some good friends.

Piya Mitra or is an event planner whose company Elegant Eventz organizes events throughout the Bay Area. Her blog can be found here.

For all you non-believers out there..we have a name for you

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Most thinking people will admit that they have doubts when it comes to faith. I was born a Hindu and Hinduism’s easy-breezy style of focusing more on rituals and less on dogma is perfect for the mind taught to trust science when it comes to belief.

Over the years I have described myself as an agnostic, an ugly word that conveys more of a sense of wishy-washyness than a genuine interest in exploring the dimensions of spirituality and faith without blind belief. I have a friend who prefers the term “spiritual”, de-linking herself from the smothering hold of religiosity and creating a strong set of moral values of her own.

I suspect many of us who were born Hindus choose to do that. We are not comfortable in believing in a literal “blue” god or a multi-limbed destroyer, but they serve as useful anchors for a belief system that is personal and customized. We don’t have priests telling us how to think and behave and no compulsory practices that reinforce our Hinduism and this gives us the freedom to create our own morality.

But what can we fence-sitters call ourselves? “Atheists” is too harsh and most of us would be uncomfortable categorically denying the existence of a higher power – we have all had moments when we gasp at the sheer wonder of the world; no one can be unmoved by a look a clear night sky, when the glowing stars make us feel at once minute and universal.

Take a look at the following passage and see if a beautiful term pops out at you. It is from an address by President Obama at a Prayer Breakfast this morning at the White House.

We know too that whatever our differences, there is one law that binds all great religions together. Jesus told us to “love thy neighbor as thyself.” The Torah commands, “That which is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow.” In Islam, there is a hadith that reads “None of you truly believes until he wishes for his brother what he wishes for himself.” And the same is true for Buddhists and Hindus; for followers of Confucius and for humanists. It is, of course, the Golden Rule – the call to love one another; to understand one another; to treat with dignity and respect those with whom we share a brief moment on this Earth.

Yes, I am a humanist. Anybody who believes in the Golden Rule must be.

"The HPV Vaccine Controversy Book-: Sex, Cancer, God and Politics."

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book-jacket-bestAs a mother of a young daughter, the new vaccine for cervical cancer has been at the top of my mind. On one hand, I am not wildly enthusiastic about vaccines. Personal experience with the older child has shown that some immune systems just can’t deal with the onslaught of vaccines that we seem to be subjecting young bodies to these days. On the other hand, cervical cancer, caused by the Human Pappilomavirus(HPV), is the second leading cancer in women (worldwide – in India it is the leading cancer) and is responsible for  about 250,000 deaths worldwide.

When the vaccine (Gardasil, by Merck) was introduced a couple of years ago, it created a storm of controversy. This was because while the cancer is generally considered to be a sexually transmitted disease, the vaccine is administered when the child is 11 or 12, sometimes even as young as 9. Parents could not come to terms with the fact that their young daughters could be sexually active one day and resisted the vaccine. Then there was the issue of the newness of the vaccine and its potential side effects and the cost of the vaccine, which is very high (about $360 for the three doses required.)

photo-shobha-mrk_1553Dr. Shobha Krishnan, a gynecologist based at Columbia University, set out to educate parents about the cancer and the vaccine and its risks and benefits. I spoke with her about her well-researched tome, “The HPV Vaccine Controversy Book-: Sex, Cancer, God and  Politics.”

Why did you feel there was a need for this book?

SK: This is a vaccine for a cancer that is sexually transmitted and parents have to get their daughters vaccinated at 11 or 12. They have doubts and doctors can sometimes fall short at informing and reassuring parents. I think this book answers all questions about HPV and cervical cancer. It empowers parents who are going to be faced with this decision.

What does the book cover?

SK: The first 5 chapters tell parents what the controversy is about; what the risk factors are; the different kinds of disease that HPV causes. One chapter that has never been dealt with anywhere else is the emotional aspect of the disease. A young person may be infected with the HPV virus for years before it develops in to a cancer for which there is no cure. They have to make important decisions like what to tell their partners if they are infected with this dormant virus. Then I go into vaccines. There are two at present for cervical cancer. Both cover the two strains of the virus which are responsible for 70% of all cervical cancers.

The conclusions I came to were that should the studies show that men could benefit from the vaccine, then boys should be vaccinated too and that women should still go for pap smears because of the 30% of viruses that cannot be vaccinated against.

Given that regular pap smears in the US make for early detection of the precancerous lesions that signal cervical cancer, is this vaccine really necessary?
SK: Prevention is still better than a cure. In the US, regular pap smears detect any precancerous lesions in the cervix, which can then be treated. But it still makes financial sense to prevent that from happening. Elsewhere in the world, where regular health checkups for women are not the norm, this vaccine takes on a greater significance.

The other problem is that unless this vaccine reaches the same group of women who can’t afford pap smears in the first place, the mortality won’t go down. The cost of the vaccine must come down. In India the Bill Gates foundation is working on this. GAVI, a global alliance for vaccination in poor countries, is working with the pharmaceutical companies to bring the costs down.

How safe is this vaccine?

SK: This is a fairly new vaccine. Last year, I wrote an article about the side effects of the vaccine. There have some cases of fainting spells and some vaccinated people have complained of muscle weakness. But between 2.5 to 8 million doses have been given and the incidence of side effects has been very low. For the number of doses that were given, the percentage was thee same as any other vaccine. The main side effects are pain at the site of injection and redness and swelling. As of now the  FDA and CDC do not believe that the vaccine is responsible for muscle weakness. I think this vaccine is as safe as any other vaccine.

It has only been 2.5 years since the vaccine was introduced so it is hard to gauge long term effects. The reason I am comfortable with it is that lots of doses have been given and had there been some concerns  I believe something would have come up.

What would your recommendations to parent of daughters?

SK: There is no substitute for knowledge and proper parental guidance. In this age of premarital sex, we want to do everything we can to protect our children. When we teach our children to ride a bicycle, we make them wear a helmet not because we want them to have an accident but as insurance. Because this vaccine it is preventive it makes sense to give it at a time when the antibodies can be produced. At that age children normally go to the doctor for booster shots.

How long is the vaccine effective for?
SK: At this time we know that both vaccines are good for 6 years. Vaccines are a breakthrough technology so no one knows if they could have a longer effectiveness.

How do we know the vaccine is really working?
SK: That is a good question. Unfortunately, we don’t have a registry for precancerous lesions so we don’t know if the incidence of these lesions has come down. We need this registry so we can track the effectiveness of the vaccine. Cervical cancer is a very slow growing disease. We will not see any effects in one or two years, only in the next generation.

Dr. Krishnan’s book can be found on Amazon and in India on Flipkart. She can be reached for comment via our feedback form.

New York City: Settling in

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By P.R. Ganapathy

This week has been so filled with new experiences that most of the early part of it is a blur. I actually had to check my calendar to make sure it had only been a week since we arrived in New York.

Settling Dhruv into school
school-busOur first major task this week was to settle Dhruv into school. As I mentioned in my last post, we had a meeting with the Admissions Director scheduled for Monday, and we rode the M16 cross-town bus to our appointment. Riding public transit regularly has been the single biggest change so far, from checking schedules prior to departure (Google maps’ “Public Transit” feature has been really useful — I don’t think I even noticed it in the Bay Area) to waiting for the bus, queuing up to get in, swiping your MetroCard to pay the fare, giving up one’s seat for old ladies, pressing the “tape” to ask the bus to stop…  a whole slew of fascinating new experiences that become more familiar with every passing occasion.

Steve Zownir, the Admissions Director, turned out to be an affable, tall, middle-aged man, with an easy-going manner with children that caused Dhruv to warm up to him immediately. After a few minutes filling out the paperwork, he informed us that Dhruv was going to be in “Jon’s” Kindergarten – and he then proceeded to take us to the classroom, to introduce us to Jon. Jon was also very friendly, speaking first directly to Dhruv, introducing himself as “Jon” and specifying that he expected the kids to call him just that — Jon. And they called California ‘relaxed’ and the East Coast ‘stuffy’? The classroom was your pretty standard Kindergarten classroom, colorful, warm and welcoming.

Mr. Zownir then showed us around the rest of the school. The playgrounds were rather disappointing, compared to what we had in suburban Fremont — a small area, hemmed in by chain-link fence and tall buildings. The cold weather and dirty snow lying outside the boundaries of the playground did nothing to enhance its attractiveness. I tried to picture it filled with laughing, playing children, but could not.

On balance, we were quite happy with the school. The environment seemed safe, warm and welcoming.

Starting trouble
As the sun set on Monday evening, Dhruv began whining about not wanting to go to school. We cajoled him into postponing the discussion and managed to put him to bed. The next morning was no better – in fact, he was positively in tears. On the bus, we ran into a friend’s wife and her two kids – one of them was in the same school, in the 4th grade. That seemed to reassure Dhruv a bit.

As we stood in the small yard waiting for his teacher to open the door to the classroom, he started crying again and hugging us tightly. Several other kids gathered around, puzzled, and asked him what was wrong. One of them encouragingly said “but we only do fun things in school!” None of that seemed to help.

The door opened and Jon came out — and Dhruv’s crying became even louder. Jon said that we could come into the classroom, although we were hesitant — these things are best done quickly, and surgically, and we didn’t want to prolong it any longer than we should.  So steeling ourselves, we left him there, said goodbye quickly, turned, and walked out. It so happened that we had to drop off some paperwork in the office, and so ended up standing outside Dhruv’s class on the other side — Sandhya saw Jon signal to her to everything was “ok” and that gave us some relief.

He came home that evening quite cheerful — Jon had told Sandhya that “Dhruv’s California teacher must really miss him, because he’s the best student in my class” and he was all aglow as a result. I hoped the cheerful mood would continue, but as evening approached, he began whining again “I don’t want to go to school tomorrow…”. He whispered in Sandhya’s ear: “Nobody likes me. They all look at me funny. Nobody wants to be my friend”. Our hearts really went out for him. The children in his class had probably all made friends, and a new kid coming in mid-year was probably not very welcome. Unlike the Bay Area, there was just one other Indian kid in his class, so he was an oddity is more ways than one. I recalled my own days as a child – my father was in a transferable job, and we moved a few times, and always in mid-year. “Was it as bad as this?” I wondered. What if he doesn’t settle down at all? Will it be bad enough that we have to move back?

Snow showers (our first) were forecast for the next morning, and I slept fitfully.

The forecast turned out correct, and I decided to take a cab instead of the bus. (which involves a short walk from the stop to the school). I asked our friend’s wife whether she’d like to join me, and she agreed. As the cab pulled up, Dhruv climbed in first, and she and her kids climbed in behind him, leaving no place for me in the back seat. I then proceeded to get into the front with an extremely agitated East European driver – agitated because Dhruv was howling from the back seat, thinking that I was leaving him alone. The driver proceeded to let fly a stream of choice Russian (or so it sounded) invective, and I was really afraid he’d stop mid way and tell us to get out of his car – into the increasing snow flurries. By putting my hands through the gap between the front and rear seats, I managed to console Dhruv enough that the bawling came down to a whimper, and that’s how we rode all the way to school.

At school, a teacher’s helper was taking all the kindergarteners and escorting them inside — as soon as she saw Dhruv, she bundled him up and told me I could go – Dhruv reached out pleadingly but I steeled myself to say a crisp “Bye” and left. On the way home my friend’s wife (who is a child psychologist, by the way) consoled me the best she could. I must’ve looked more worried that I actually was.

Again, that evening, he returned home cheerfully. He seemed to have enjoyed school, and I began to hope that the crying was at an end. While giving him a bath that evening, he whispered in my ear “Do you know what a girl said to me in class today? She said ‘I love you, Dhruv!'”.

“You must find out her name tomorrow”, I said. “That’s really nice of her to say that”.

The sun comes out
Day 3, Thursday, was like a switch had been thrown. He woke cheerfully, and got ready all by himself, had his breakfast, and cheerful skipped down the stairs to the bus stop. He chattered happily all the way, skipping along, waving to every dog that he saw. My heart was filled with pride at how quickly he had adjusted to the new environment and relief that it had been so short. After a day of snow showers, the sun was really shining today in more ways than one.

I decided to pop the other big question: “Dhruv, are you ready to go to school in the school bus?” My heart was in my mouth as I said it.

“You mean, alone?” he asked.

“Yes”, I said. “We’ll drop you off at the bus, and it will take you to school.”

“Sure”, he replied. And then just to make sure that I didn’t doubt his sincerely, he looked up at me and said “See? I’m even smiling when I said it”.

I wanted to bend down, grab him and crush him in a big bear hug at that point.

We reached the school yard a few minutes later, and he waved goodbye, told me I could leave, and ran off. I couldn’t resist quietly watching him for a while longer, and saw him chatting with a few other kids, and then all of them went to a patch of snow and began playing around in it. He seemed genuinely happy, and I felt like a weight was off my shoulders. The move to New York was going to be a good decision after all.

He went to school by the school bus on Friday, and returned home cheerfully in the evening. On Fridays, they have cheese pizza in the cafeteria, so he didn’t carry lunch. He also found out the name of the girl who told him she loved him – Minnow (I think) is her name.

IKEA shopping
ikeaOn Monday evening, at short notice, we decided to go and buy all the remaining furniture we needed at IKEA in Brooklyn. This meant taking the Number 6 Subway line to Bleecker Street, and then changing to the F line. Bleecker Street! Made famous by Simon and Garfunkel’s song of the same name!

Voices leaking from a sad cafe
Smiling faces try to understand

That’s what is so special about New York. Everywhere you go has this sense of… well, history is too weighty a word… it’s just special – a uniqueness and excitement that’s hard to describe, but difficult to ignore (if you’re looking – New Yorkers don’t seem to realize it).

We found a shuttle to IKEA and made it to the store, where we had about three hours before store closing to buy everything we needed. Thank goodness for the research we had done online, because we generally knew what we wanted, and quickly went through the store noting aisle and bin for self-service pickup. Check out, then wheel it to the delivery counter, and they said it would be delivered the next day. Yes, we could definitely get used to his home delivery thing. No more struggling to tie down unruly mattresses to the top of a borrowed minivan, and then trundle slowly along the freeway, watching all the cars whizzing by look at you…

Assembling furniture
The IKEA folks delivered right on time, and I began assembling stuff right away. The funny thing about IKEA furniture is that it has this “it’s not me, it’s you” precision about it. If something seems wrong, you can be sure you’ve made a mistake. Just once in the past 10 years have I found a place where they had made a mistake (drilled the holes on the wrong side of a board). Thankfully, I assembled most pieces without major mistakes, and a day or two later I basked in the warm sense of achievement that comes from building something constructive with your hands.

While assembling furniture, the mind fills with thoughts. Thoughts and voices from times past – most often, my father – with advice and admonishments.

“A good workman always knows where his tools are.” — this comes to me just as I’m hunting for the hammer that I used just 15 seconds ago… No, I’m not a good worker by any stretch of imagination…

“Always use the right tools” — just as I’ve ruined a screw by using the wrong size screwdriver and setting the torque too high. Sigh…

Union Square, Macy’s
macysI had a business meeting in the Union Square area on Friday morning, and Sandhya made me meet her at Macy’s at Harold Square after that, to buy a much-needed warm woolen overcoat. It was fun to try to figure out the right Subway line to take (I installed a really cool app on Sandhya’s iPhone, called KickMap, which gives you a very useful map of the NYC subway system) and I met her at the store.

It was huge. It advertises itself as the largest store in the world, and I think they’re right. Seven floors of one whole city block, no kidding — someone can spend a lot of time, and a lot of money, in that one place. It’s a direct bus ride for us, which makes it particularly convenient.

Health club hunting
On Friday evening, I decided to go and try to find a squash court that I could play at regularly. The New York Sports Club (NYSC) at 86th and Lexington Ave on the Upper East Side is supposed to have a pretty good court, so I decided to go there. There was a Best Buy there too, and since I needed speakers for my stereo system, I thought I’d kill two birds with one stone. Waterside Plaza runs a shuttle bus every half hour – alternately to Union Square and Grand Central, so I used that to get to Grand Central.

The bus dropped me off around 6:30 PM at the intersection of 3rd Avenue and 42nd Street, and I walked the few blocks to Grand Central. Waiting to cross 3rd Avenue, I looked uptown and Downtown, and I got one of those New York sights that fills you with joy and excitement. Brightly lit, and tastefully decorated store-fronts all around. Look up to see offices brightly lit in the buildings all around. Look around and see smartly dressed, fit, people all around you – purposefully going about their business. Cars and taxis up and down 3rd Avenue as far as the eye can see. The occasional Bentley passes you in the street – reminding you that this is a city with some of the richest people in the world. Intimidating and exhilarating at the same time.

My trip uptown turned out quite a waste of time – I got neither the speakers nor the membership, but I increased my familiarity with the subway system (taking an “express” instead of a “local”) and was also surprised by how dramatically the city changes complexion from one neighborhood to another.

An active weekend
Dhruv had received a Toys ‘R Us gift card from Sandhya’s cousin before we left Fremont, so we took him to the Times Square store on Saturday morning. It was a direct bus ride and a short walk, but it was bitingly cold (forecast maximum, 26 deg F). The store is quite amazing, with a Ferris wheel indoors to boot. The poor child had such a difficult time trying to decide how to spend the “budget” we gave him, but finally settled on something that he liked. We also did a little shopping at Bed, Bath and Beyond, and then rode the subway and bus back home. We’re really getting comfortable about the public transit system now, and my green conscience is really feeling much better as a result. I think I’m going to miss not having such transit options when we are back in Suburbia.

dinosaurOn Sunday, we decided that Noble Tasks Should Not Be Delayed, and signed up for an annual membership at the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH). A taxi (we missed the bus by 2 minutes) and subway ride later, we walked into this magnificent museum on Central Park. Dhruv had a real blast going around the exhibits, and we just spent three hours there, taking in a few sections slowly and deliberately. It was really satisfying to see him take it all in – jaw dropping in wonderment at the enormous skeleton of an Apatosaurus / Brontosaurus, or the teeth of a T-Rex. This is what we moved for – for easy access to these great institutions, and we think we’ve made a good start.

That’s the plan with the AMNH and the Met – visit frequently, a section at a time, instead of packing it all in and getting so tired by the afternoon that it seems like a chore. That should be the advantage of living in Manhattan, and we intend to leverage it to the hilt.

More on his experiences in New York City can be found on Ganapathy’s blog here.

Picture of schoolbus by Mr. Hamish under Creative Commons License.

Picture of IKEA by jag9889 under Creative Commons License.

Picture of Macy’s by sachman under Creative Commons License.

Picture of allosaur by A.Belani under Creative Commons License.

Apologies

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failHad to face a blogger’s worst nightmare – the site crashed last Friday with no warning and no explanation. After 2 days of intense argument with server-side people on one end and application developers on the other ( no bipartisanship there – it was all about finger pointing) hubby and I decided to start afresh, wipe the slate clean, get a do-over..you get the gist.

Thanks to backups of the content, we seem to have got the site up again. It is missing a few bells and whistles and we are going to be very careful putting them back, since it may have well been a bell or two that precipitated the crash. I’ll push out the posts, and hope you will resume reading.

Picture by diamond mind under Creative Commons License