Life with Princess Aduvati and Madame Molly!

I'm still unsure about my feelings for kids!
For most part of my life I've openly said that I will not like to have any children.
And on very few occasions ( Times when I meet friendly kids who I get along with), I've felt my heart say otherwise.

One of these times was when I met Aadu ( Aditi- 7 years) and Molly ( Mallika- 9 years) around a year back. They are my cousin Ganesh and Vrinda's daughters. The first time I met them I was so happy in their company ( and the happiness was also accentuated with a couple of drinks) that I told Ganesh I would love to have daughters like them.


I'm always in a dilemma now a days, whether to join their parents and their friends for a drink or say a quick good night and slip into the girl's bed and tell them bedtime stories!
I love telling them bedtime stories, and I love talking to them!

Now, the first time they asked me to tell a bedtime story, I was confused as to what story to tell them. Especially considering all the complicated stories I make up on my blog. I was very much aware that I did not want to get myself into a story which would scare the hell out of the girls! So the safest story was that of Prince and Princesses. I wanted the story to be interesting, because Molly has already read more than I've read my whole life! She is a voracious reader, and me? I've never read a children's book my whole life. I've jumped from Noddy ( which I started reading in 7th std......( yeah right, have a laugh!!) But I've never been much of a reader!) to Hardy Boys the same year and by the year end got glued to Sidney Sheldon! So there have been no Enid Blyton's, Roald Dahl's, Calvin and Hobbes for me!

Impressing Molly was a difficult task, so I diverted my attention to Aadu who  hasn't yet started reading books and who loves the Barbie and princess related cartoons on the TV.

In order to make it more interesting I named the main Princess as 'Aaduvati'! The first story, about Princess Aaduvati's 7th Birthday was a mess, with loose ends and Molly questioning every now and then about the logic of what I was telling them. Somehow, I ended that story with the Princess getting to wear the most beautiful gown ever made in the whole world, and the maker of that gown was a tailor from Sri Lanka who had picked up beautiful crystals and shiny items from the ocean bed, and with whom the Princess falls in love!

I soon realised that making up a new story every night was very difficult and started avoiding going to bed early with the girls only because they would insist on a story and I couldn't come up with one. So after taking a break of around 5 days, and the girls starting to get disappointed with me and me too missing all the fun of the bedtime story telling decided that it would be a bit simpler to continue with the Princess Aaduvati plot.

So when I declared one night at the dinner table that there's more to Princess Aaduvati, both of them got excited and danced around, and I got loads of sloppy kisses from Aadu!

( By the way, about the picture: We sometimes dress up for the story telling session!)

And so began the story of Princess "Aaduvati" who stayed in "Aaduland" with her parents, the King and the Queen. She was the only child and her parents were very old in comparison to the age of their daughter. This was so because Aaduvati was an adopted child. And what nobody knew was that Aaduvati's real mother was a Witch who was the Queen of a nearby Kingdom called "Witchland".

I don't want to get into the details because the story has already crossed the 15 episodes mark( and that's a lot considering there are no ad's and slow movements and repeated shots and I talk continuously for over an hour) and it has been getting interesting with every episode. I've put everything I've ever watched, read and heard about witches, about magic, about the mystery of life into this story! The story which started as a fun princess story is today at a point where Aaduland was attacked by a nearby kingdom, and the attack was so severe that nobody but Aaduvati could protect her people with her inborn witch powers, and that's when the whole Kingdom realises that their princess is actually a Witch and they turn against her. What would Aaduvati do now? How will she win back her people?
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I felt a bit bad that this fab story revolves only around Aadu, and has character names of only her favourite people such as Prince Arnav ( Arnav being one of her favourite pals at school) ,  and so I wanted to weave a story around Molly, but Mollyvati sounds too lame ! For a long time I kept thinking about how I could include her into some story. The answer to that question came just yesterday!

It's Aadu's 7th Birthday today, and we have decorated the house and made it look like a Palace with drapes and lights. Yesterday when I picked up a gift for Aadu, I also found something interesting that Molly would like. When I got them wrapped and had to write the names on the card, for Aadu I wrote " Happy Birthday Princess Aaduvati", I wondered what I should write on Molly's gift? ...After a bit of thinking, I wrote, "To Madame Molly". And that was a start of a new story that I told them yesterday night. The story of Madame Molly and Mrs. Pittsbal!

Madame Molly's story dates back to the 17th century and took place in the suburbs of London. The name Madame might make you think she's old, but no! Madame Molly is the youngest of the 7 children of Sir John Jr and Madame Hazel. Sir John works for the government and they have a palatial house where they live a very lavish life.
The eldest daughter is Jane (21 year old 'Jane' is the English version of my name in this story. So Jane is really me :-),
the second daughter, 19 year old Demi - is the English version of my sister Devaki's name,
the 3rd is a son, 17 year old Austin- taken after the Initial A for Akshay, my bro in law ,
After that comes 15 year old Jack- It's just the name of Leonardo Di Caprio in Titanic,
Then comes 13 year old Kimberly,
11 year old Emma,
and the youngest, naughtiest and the smartest , 9 year old Molly!

This story has had only 1 episode so far in which Sir John runs into some trouble in his office and there are a few misunderstandings and he ends up making dangerous enemies who plan to kill him and one fine day when he's on his way home in his car, a huge truck runs him over and he dies.

Hazel is devastated! She doesn't know how she will take care of 7 kids with 5 of them ( the youngest 5) always getting on to each other's nerves! She rushes to the nearby church and prays to the lord and cries all night long not knowing what to do next. When she wakes up the next day, she rushes back home , worried about her kids.

At home, at the table she finds Jane and Demi pouring coffee and making toast to an old lady whom Hazel can not recognise. The 55 year old lady, introduces herself as Mrs. pittsbal, a governess!
"How will you handle my kids at this age?" asks Hazel.
"Let me spend some time with them and then you will know." Smiles Mrs. Pittsbal.

And she spends not more than 20 minutes with the kids and surprisingly the kids listen to this magical old lady!

The starting of this story is a mix of 'The sound of Music' and some other film  I'd watched long time back, I don't remember the name now. But because there are so many characters in this story, I think it's going to be my playground :-)

Okay, the kids have started arriving at Princess Aaduvati's Palace and I gotta go catch the fun.

Next time, I'll tell you some more about all the fun I have with the kids, also I will talk about the delicious food Vrinda makes for us.....

Today I made this 1st cup cake of my life! 

These are all the cup cakes for the kids!

And the Grand Cake!

It's so tasty.....it's totally Yum!
The first cake I've ever witnessed being made!

I helped to decorate it :-)

And that's both of them again....My sunshines!

If I ever have a dull day, all I gotta do is press the bell of their door and their twinkling eyes and those beautiful smiles will drive my blues away!