Growing up really fast

There are so many different things that I have to write down here about Nishka and Anirudh since the last time I wrote. Nishka continues to amaze us with the new things she is learning. She is super active and wants to do everything that any of us is doing.

Her talking has improved a lot lately. Some of the words she says clearly are - Dadi, Daddy, Mumma, Chiya,  Nana and Daada. She tries to imitate the words we say and some words she is able to say exactly. But after saying them for a couple of times, she just refuses to repeat them again however much we try. For e.g. she said "good girl" for two whole days but however hard I tried later she ust wouldn't even utter it. Same happened with "Chalo", "Betu" and few other words. Some of the words she says sound similar to the original word. For e.g. diaper she says as 'dapa'.

I had been playing a game with her where I count her fingers and say one-two-three-four-five. And now whenever I start counting, the moment I have said the word "two" she says "thee" or "tee" and feels so happy after saying it. When we earlier used to ask her "Nishka kitnee badi?" she would just raise her hands over her head. But these days whenever we ask her the same question, she raises her hands and simultaneously says "ittee". Its just too adorable to watch her do that.

She walks more confidently now even though she falls down after 7-8 steps. I think she tries to walk too fast and that is why she falls. If she tries to walk a little slowly am sure she will be able to walk longer distance and not fall down.

She conveys what she wants to by making different sounds, whining or by other actions. For e.g. she is playing with Anirudh and I pick her up she would immediately push me back and start whining and I can understand she wants to go back to Anirudh and the moment I put her back, she is happy and playful again.

Other day she was making a lot of noise when I was trying to get Betu finish his homework. Since Anirudh was not able to focus, Anurag called out to Nishka and then put his fingers on his lips to shush her up. She looked at Anurag, immediately put her finger on her lips and shushed Anurag back. Me and Anirudh both just rolled over laughing looking at this. And I told Anurag that he has a tough road ahead :)

At the same time since about a month she has developed greater affinity with Anurag. She calls out to him, wants to go to him and showers him with her hugs and her trademark sunshine smiles. Its so precious to see both of them together playing and laughing and just being together.

But nothing beats the love/fondness she has for Anirudh. He wrestles with her, twists her, hangs her from her feet and she loves it while I get so damn scared lest she gets hurt. And when I get very uncomfortable with this wild play of theirs' I ask Anirudh to stop. But she immediately comes back to Anirudh and starts jumping over him to start it again.

She is very fond of flipping pages in a book. Be it her books or Anirudhs or for that matter any magazine. Her hair after mundan have grown but we feel they are growing at a very slow rate. I like to put those cloth hairbands but she just doesn't let us put any. She just pulls them out within seconds. We really have to distract her to some other things so that we can at least click a picture.

Nishka turned one on Sep 30th and we had organised a party. She was clinging to me most of the times but was not cranky or fussy and was giving her sunshine smile to all as long as she was in my lap. She enjoyed walking all over holding my hand and playing with the balloons. For the first time she even enjoyed the bits of chocolate cake that Anirudh fed her after cutting her cake. She was so excited during the birthday celebrations that even though she was sleepy she wouldn't sleep. Seems like she also wanted to fully enjoy her birthday celebrations :)

I've been wanting to get her off the bottle since about two months. But after trying about 1.5 months back I just stopped trying. But a day before her birthday i.e. on Sep 29, I again tried giving her milk using a small silver tumbler. She did fuss a bit but eventually drank it. I did a silent victory dance as it was too soon and I didn't want to jinx it. Later in the day also she did fuss looking at the milk in the glass but drank it. And since then there has been no milk bottle for her but only glass. Its been 5 days today and she still continues to fuss the moment she sees the glass of milk in my hand but I say "Nishka is such a good girl." and start singing her favourite rhymes and she starts drinking the milk. She doesn't finish the milk in one go and we need to give her a break of 10 min for her to finish the milk completely. But I'm glad the way it is progressing and glad that she is off bottle now.

Yesterday was Nishka's first day at daycare all by herself as her home nanny, who used to accompany Nishka to the daycare, is not well. In the morning Anirudh was so very worried as to how will Nishka be all alone. He tried really hard requesting me to take off from work but as I was not agreeing he started crying. I had a tough time consoling him and telling him that it will be fine (even though I knew it may not go fine and was a little apprehensive myself). I told him that even he went on his own and it takes a few days and it will be just fine. But as expected Nishka cried a lot in the first half. Was slightly better in the later half and was clinging to the head of the daycare in charge. And once Anirudh reached there after school she was better. Today her papa will drop her there at noon and I'm hoping things will be better today than they were yesterday.

Things have been improving with Anirudh with respect to his behaviour/attitude. He has also been doing better at school and there have been lesser spelling mistakes be it in Hindi or in English. His scores in tests have also improved even though me and Anurag both know that he can do much better if he is given better attention. And we tell him so too.

Although he doesn't say it but there are days when he feels I'm not giving attention to him as much as he wants. It shows in his behaviour. Sometimes I feel he also doesn't know why he is behaving irritated but I've observed many times that the moment I try and spend time with him, he gets fine.

Earlier packing lunch for Anirudh was never difficult. I used to have so many options. But now whenever I give him options of what I can pack for him, he will just say no or wrinkle his nose. Oh God...he makes me go crazy!! He will always demand stuff which is not possible. He used to love uttapam and now he hates it. He used to love omelets, now he abhors it. He used to love palak paranthas and now they are yuck. Uff!! I hope its a phase. I really really hope.



 

Story telling

Anirudh participated in story telling competition in his school and came back super happy after coming in the 2nd position.

He had told me a week before about the competition and the story he plans to narrate. He then asked me to help him out in making the props of the characters in the story. After deciding that we shall get to it sometime later in the day, we both totally forgot about it until the evening before the competition.

So after finishing the dinner and putting Nishka to bed we got down to it. Thankfully Nishka was so co-operative that she went to sleep without a fuss that day.

So out came the white sheets, after some searching though. Out came the crayons, the pencil, the scissors. I drew out the outlines of the chracaters using pencil - A king and his three princes.

I then emphasized the outlines using a black sketch pen. As I kept completing one character I would pass it on to Anirudh for coloring them up.

We also needed to draw a dragon but I wasn't confident to draw it freehand. So I asked hubby to trace it on an A4 sheet using his laptop which we then pasted on the thicker sheet and then carried on to repeat the steps of outlining and coloring.

After all the coloring was done, we got down to cutting them to their shapes and then pasted ice cream sticks for holding the props during the story narration. I was surprised that we finished the whole of the activities in just about 40-45 minutes. That's a feat in itself!

I forgot to take pictures after we had done making the props and when Betu returned he had lost the props for one prince and the dragon. So here is the pic of what he brought back -

Since these were all drawn freehand, the shapes of face/eyes etc. may please be ignored.
I also want to capture here the story which he narrated  -

एक राजा था| उसके तीन बेटे थे - तरुण, वरुण और अरुण | तीनो बेटे बहुत आलसी थे| वो कुछ काम नही करते थे| सारा दिन बस सोते रहते थे| राजा ने एक दिन तीनो बेटो को बुलाया और कहा "कल मेरा ज्न्म दिन है| मैं तुम तीनो को रू100 देता हूँ और तुम लोग जाकर मेरे लिए एक तोहफ़ा लायो| तुम्हारे पास 1 दिन का समय हॅ|

तीनो बेटे चल दिए राजा के लिए तोहफ़ा लाने | तरुण जगह जगह घूमा. यहाँ गया. वहाँ गया | बहुत घूमने के बाद उसको एक कलाकार मिला | उसने बहुत सुंदर चित्र बनाए हुए थे | तरुण ने सोचा की राजा को यह खूबसूरत चित्र बहुत पसंद आएँगे | उसने सारे चित्र खरीद लिए और वापस महल की ओर चल दिया |

वरुण भी खूब इधर उधर घूमा पर उसको कुच्छ समझ नही आया. घूमते घूमते वो जंगल पहुँच गया. उसने वहाँ एक गुफा देखी. उसने देखा गुफा में कुछ चमक रहा है. वो गुफा के अंदर गया तो उसने देखा एक बहुत बड़ा ड्रॅगन बैठा है जिसके सिर पर एक बहुत बड़ा चमकदार मोती है. वरुण ने ड्रॅगन से पूछा "क्या तुम मुझे अपना यह मोती दोगे? मैं यह अपने पापा तो तोहफ़े में देना चाहता हूँ." तो ड्रॅगन बोला "अगर तुम यह वादा करो की तुम मुझे रोज़ मछली ला कर दोगे तो मैं यह मोती तुम्हे दे दूँगा." वरुण ने वादा करा और उसे मछली ला कर दे दी और ड्रॅगन ने अपना मोती उसको दे दिया. वरुण खुशी खुशी महल की ओर चल दिया.

अरुण भी अपने भाईयों की तरह इधर उधर खूब भटका पर उसे कुछ भी पसंद नही आया जिसे वो अपने पापा को जन्मदिन पर दे सके. घूमते घूमते वो इतना थाक गया की एक पेड़ के नीचे जा कर सो गया. जब वो सो कर उठा तो उसने देखा पास में कुच्छ ग़रीब बच्चे बैठे थे. वोह बहुत भूखे थे. अरुण ने अपने पैसो से उनके लिए खाना और कपड़े खरीद दिए. बच्चे बहुत खुश हुए. और अरुण वापस महल की ओर जाने लगा.

यह सब राजा के सिपाहियों ने देखा लिया और महल पहुँच कर राजा को सब बता दिया |

अगले दिन जब तीनो बेटे राजा के सामने आए | तरुण ने अपने खरीदे हुए चित्र राजा को दिए और राजा ने बहुत खुश हो कर वोह महल में लगवा दिए | वरुण ने अपना बड़ा चमकदार मोती राजा को दिया और बताया की वो कैसे उसने एक बड़े ड्रॅगन से लिया है | राजा बोला की वो उस मोटी को अपने मुकुट में लगवाएगा | जब अरुण की बारी आई तो उसने उदास हो कर बोला की मैं आपके लिए कोई तोहफा नही ला सका | तो राजा ने उससे पूछा की उसने दिए हुए पैसों का क्या करा तो उसने बताया की उसने गारीडब बच्चों के लिए खाना और कपड़े खरीदने में वो पैसे खर्च कर दिए | राजा यह सुन कर बहुत खुश हुया और बोला "यह मेरे लिए सबसे अच्छा तोहफा है" और फिर राजन ने अरुण को इनाम दिया |"

ह्में इस कहानी से यह शिक्षा मिलती है की तोहफा हमेशा पैसों से नही खरीदा जाता. और हम किसी के लिए अच्छा करते हैं तो उसमे हमारा भी अच्छा होता है |

I've no idea if he had read this story somewhere or was it a mix of his imagination and a previously read story. But I really liked the way he showed enthusiasm and participated.

P.S. Don't know why but hindi text is not legible in Chrome but appears fine in IE.

Summer holiday homework - Part 3

Here is the duck pond that we had made as part of his holiday homework. It was a bit difficult for him to do so Betu just painted the thermocol rocks and the pond. He also helped in sticking the cutouts and the rocks.

I forgot to take the pictures of the Rhino and the flash cards he had made for numbers 1-99 where he wrote the numerals on one side and the wrote them in words on the other side. He had also made flash cards for Hindi and English words where he wrote a word on one side and drew the picture of that word on the other side.

Summer holiday homework - Part 2

We made this brown paper bag pillow yesterday.

First we decorated the paper bag with cutouts of flowers and butterflies which were colored by Anirudh and then cut to shape by me. Anirudh wanted some star shapes also so I took the easy way out and asked him to use his star shaped stickers. Lazy mumma ehh? :)

Then Anirudh made some crushed newspaper balls and we stuffed them inside the paper bag. Lastly we sealed the paper bag from the open end as well and voila..a beautiful paper pillow was ready!

Summer holiday homework - Part 1

One part of the craft work that we did from his holiday homework crafts last weekend:



We still have to make a Hippo (or was it a Rhino?) and a duck pond. Hopefully this weekend we should be done with it.

Looking at the output, Betu is now excited to do rest of the one quickly too! What else do I want :D

School activties

Every year Betu's school organises "Open Day" where the kids do various activities such as enact stories in the form of skits, sing songs and rhymes, do some word building activities and basically have fun. Last year betu was the giraffe in the "Little blue elephant" story. This year he was the troll from the "Three Billy Goats".

The school organises this open day for pre-primary kids in the open grounds, under the sun during the light wintry days. Each class takes a corner and show their activities there. Its good fun for the kids as well as for the parents.

Here are some pictures from the day -

With his entire class and the class teacher - Sharbani Ma'm

His play "Three Billy Goats"

Singing the song "B I N G O"

Working on a word puzzle

Mera Pappu pass ho gaya

Today I went to Betu's school to collect his report card. It was nothing more than a formality. I knew he was doing fine and I knew very well what he had been doing throughout this year because he would come home with bits of assignments which we would do together. So to cut it short, I was happy with how he was learning and growing in terms of his vocabulary, English conversational skills etc.

So with a brief interaction with his teacher wherein she said all the good things she also mentioned one thing where she felt he needs to focus on and improve over a period of time. And that being conversational skills. I was actually taken aback. Him and conversational issues? I could have agreed if it was not listening to instructions or not doing work. But this surely was a surprise. I asked her to tell me in detail. And then she told me when she asks them questions in a group, turn by turn, he invariably fumbles and ends up doing "umm..." and not responding at all.

After I heard her in detail, frankly it doesn't matter to me. Some are comfortable speaking in front of a big group and some aren't. Its just OK.I will try to tell him to not be nervous but I am not going to do any bit of pushing. I'm going to let him be.

So to conclude "Pappu pass go gaya" and shall be going to KG now. Yippee! Good job Betu. :)

Annual Day at Betu's School

Anirudh's school holds a separate Annual Day for Nursery and KG kids. I really liked the idea of a separate one for such small children.

He was part of a play where he was supposed to play the role of a granpa. He told me about this play about 15 days ago and said "Pata hai. Main dadu hoon!". I looked at him a bit bewildered wondering what he meant. Later he explained me that he is in a play where there is a boy Ken who doesn't take care of his toys and his dadu helps him fix his toys. He then proudly told me that he is playing the role of Dadu.

As per Swati, he was just perfect for the role looking at his bossy nature. She has also written in detail about his cute bossy nature in a guest post on this blog :D

Coming back to his performance, after the experience from the open day and also from one of the rehearsal sessions I attended, I was not sure he would say his lines. But the moment he entered the stage, it didn't matter to me if he would say it well or not. Just seeing him on stage made me feel so very proud of my lil guy. But then today he said them just perfectly making me even more proud. Its another story that after saying his lines, he was standing with his back towards the audience (as you can see in one of the pictures below) and playing with the other kids on the stage.

Now I leave you with some pics from his Annual Day -

My cute little Giraffe

The play titled "Blue Elephant" was staged on feb 14, 2009 where he was supposed to say the lines "I've never seen an elephant which is blue in color". After initial hiccups of making him learn the lines since he wouldn't accept as he had seen a blue elephant. So when the final show day came, he was very excited since the morning.

I sent him off in the same brown dress which I used for the goat activity. I just didn't have any other dress at home which could be brown or yellow in color from top to bottom. Betu did question me saying "Yeh to goat ki dress hai" but I somehow managed to convince him that lot of animals can have the same color.

They were to perform twice and the parents were given time slots to come and watch the show. Ours was the second slot.

I did a mistake here. I forgot to tell Betu about the slot business and when he didn't see us but saw the parents of all his friends he started bawling away loudly. He didn't say his lines at all and was crying in the top of his voice. So was I told from a mother of his classmate, called me to ask where was I when she saw him crying, with whom I'm pally with.

So when I reached he was in a really off mood and it took a lot of cajoling to agree him to speak his lines again. But when the second replay happened he spoke only half of his line "I've never seen a blue elephant which.." and he broke off. It was obvious that he was still not OK.

I didn't say anything to him but just said a "good job" when he came back to us. here are some of the pictures from the show

Goat says...

I'm sure all of you would have already read about the whole goat mask making exercise and the activity at his school.

So when I asked him what did he say when his turn came.

Betu:
"Thank you teachers.
Thank you children.
I'm a Goat.
I say woof-woof.
I give milk"

Me : Goat says what??
Betu: Woof woof

Me: *slapping my forehead* woh to Dog bolta hai. Goat kya bolti hai?
Betu: After thinking for a few seconds "baaa"

Me: Fir aapne woof woof kyun bola?
Betu: *looks blankly at me*

Me: Fir Ma'm ne kya bola?
Betu: Sab hasne lage

Me: *in a disappointed voice* koi nahi..next time theek se bolna

And I left it at that. I know I should have at least praised him for speaking up in front of all but I was quite disappointed. He was saying it so well at home.

Today he had to go and say these lines as a part of a small skit "I've never see an Elephant which is blue in color".

So over the weekend I practiced it with him. But he rehearsed these lines with a lot of reluctance. Every now and then he would say "Par maine to blue elephant dekha hai. Dumbo!! cartoon network mein aata hai." :D

Now I wonder what will he say during the skit. Will he be able to say the lines properly or will he add these lines of seeing a blue elephant? :D

Craft time - Making a goat mask

On Tuesday evening I got a note in Anirudh's school diary that we have to send him dressed as a farm animal on Friday, Jan 30. So I asked Anirudh what he wanted to go as. Pat came the reply "Goat" along with the baa sounds. :)

So I started to think of the various ways I could manage that. The first thing that came to my mind was to make a goat face mask. And for the rest of the body I thought I can send him dressed in white or brown. Since I didn't have anything brown, I decided to go full white way. But by Wednesday morning the whole dress up activity was out of my mind until yesterday evening. And then I was kind of stuck what to do with so little time on my hands. I started to search the internet for goat masks outline. I managed to find only one decent mask but that was way too small. And then Photoshop came to the rescue and I enlarged it and did some tweaking and lo and behold I had a face mask which I could use for making one of my own. But somehow it wasn't looking good enough to me. And then I suddenly remembered Rohini's trysts in dressing up her son as a goat for his school activity. And there I found another goat mask which she had put together wonderfully by taking bits and pieces from 2-3 goat images off the internet. So when I saw this mask, I was sure I want to use this one and not the one I had found.

With the mask ticked off the list, now it was the turn of the dress. After humming and hawing I thought I will just send him in regular clothes. And then I remembered his dress from his annual day function at his earlier daycare "Pink Elephant". But that was 2 years ago. Since the dress was quite big (read that as 'QUITE BIG') for him that time I thought I will give it a try anyhow even if the chances of it fitting him were not even 5%. But the biggest hurdle was to find it. I vaguely remembered putting it in the loft of the guest bedroom. So when I reached home, I searched for it there and actually found it there!! I quickly undressed Betu to try on the dress and it was short at the legs and the arms. It was fitting just perfectly on the rest of the body. I heaved such a big sigh of relief.

So with everything in place, me and Betu went to the local stationer and got white ivory paper, traced the mask outline, cut it up and then colored it. This is how it looked once done.

And this is Betu err..a little cute goat today morning :D

When I was done coloring up the goat Betu said he didn't like it. I was pretty upset hearing this and said that he cam make his own and sat holding the mask with a pout. Within seconds he came to and hugged me and said "Yeh bahut achha hai. main isko hi pahnunga." Par main bhi kum nahi hoon. I told him "Nahi aapko pasand nahi hai ko mat pahno." but he insisted and we both smiled and hugged each other.

These are the sentences that I taught him to say

I'm a goat

baaaa..

I eat grass

I give milk

baaaa..

I kept telling Betu that he can slide up the mask a little up but he was adamant on wearing it on the face so I let him. I just hope he remembers to say these lines when his turn comes.

Here is the face mask that I used to make one -

And here is the other mask that I got from the net and modified to fit my requirements -

Reading sentences

Now that Anirudh's school is coming to the end of the nursery session and he knows the phonetics pretty well, he is able to read some basic words that they have been taught. The school calls it "sight" words. And now he can read sentences using these sight words. I didn't know this till I got this sheet to practice with him on a long weekend and he read them all correctly minus a few mix-ups. I was feeling so proud of him and rewarded him with a KitKat chocolate for reading so well.

Here is the picture displaying some of the sentences that he got as holiday homework. There were 20 sentences like these that he was to practice reading.


I can't describe how elated I was thinking "My son can read!!" :D

School Activities

Yesterday, Anirudh had to go dressed as any of the people who help us in our day to day lives. For e.g. Doctors, Postman etc.. I actually forgot totally about it till 8:30 PM the previous night. And then I just couldn't think of what to send him in as. I went to nearby shop, which was just about to close down, and bought the only available doctor set. It was pathetic quality-wise but did I have a choice?

Even though I bought it somehow I was not too game for using those stupid looking things which were to be called as a stethoscope, thermometer etc. Suddenly a bulb lit up in my head and I smacked myself for not thinking of such an easy yet a good option earlier. Why did I have to first waste those 100 rupees before this idea struck me. I decided I will send him as a "tailor". All I needed was a measuring tape, a scissor and a piece of cloth. And I surely had all of this.

So when I told him he shall be going as a tailor and not as a doctor, a lot of bawling and throwing tantrums happened. But somehow I managed to convince him about the uniqueness of it and he agreed. Now I had to make him remember few lines to speak. this is what I taught him - "I'm a tailor. I stitch clothes. This is the scissor and this is a measuring tape."

Although at home he recited them very well but I was quite doubtful if he would remember as I had taught him these sentences in the morning only.

Anyhow, when I picked him from daycare I asked him
Me: Did you do your tailor act in the class?
Betu: Yes

Me: How did it go?
Betu: Bahut achha

Me: What did you do?
Betu: Maine bola "I'm a tailor." Uske baad main bhool gaya isliye maine bola "Main phate huye kapde silta hoon".

Me: *trying to control laughter* Very good. What did Ma'm say?
Betu: Unhone bola "Good".

I was infact amazed at how he got this idea of "phate kapde silta hoon". And I think it was quite creative and spontaneous of him to come up with soemthing like this.

Later on asking who all had come as what, I figured only 60% of the kids came dressed as various helpers. Out of those 60% of the children, 90% came as doctors, one came as a teacher, one as a barber, one as a postman and he as a tailor.

So I used this to tell him "See. I told you everyone will come as doctors. No one else came as a tailor. You were special." A big grin came on his face hearing the word "special". :D

Sports Day Celebrations

Before the Sports Day Celebrations and Prize Distribution Ceremony at Betu's school fades away from my memory, I finally decided to write it out here.

The said event took place on December 5, 2008 at the Saket DDA Sports Complex. We were to be seated by 10 AM and I reached well in time by 9:45 and half the podium was empty. I found a friend and his wife who's child also is in the same school. I was glad I had company in case the event turns out to be boring. But there was no scope of any boredom thanks to some weird set of parents about whom you shall read in detail later in the post :)

So as we took seats, and settled down by 10:00, there was a lady sitting right in front of us who had 'reserved' 4 seats for her acquaintances by placing the program schedule over the seats. Despite protest from a few parents, she just wouldn't let go of those seats. The funny part is that her acquaintances didn't turn up till 1 hour after the start of the program. And during that 1 hour one parent actually ignored this lady's protests of these seats being reserved and settled down. I was glad that someone did that finally. And then one of the organizers also came and told her she can;t do that and let other parents take those seats which left this lady fuming :D

Even though the podium was 60% vacant, the program started right on schedule. Or rather 5 minutes before scheduled time of 10:00 AM. We were surprised but glad too.

It was an International Sports Meet and schools from other countries had also come for the event. A team from an Iraqi School had flown down especially for this event. And teams from Russian school and Japanese School which were located in Delhi itself came down as well.

Soon the formal march past started and after that the casual march past of younger kids. The parents went totally berserk...as if their kid has broken a world record trying to capture their kids in the digicam/handycam. They didn't even bother if they were being an obstruction to the people sitting behind them. Within seconds, I had a wall of people standing in front of me. But I kept calm till this point. A organiser came and asked them to all settle down.

Then the cultural activities started and again all the parents went hysterical. And again the organiser had to come and settle the parents down. I still kept calm till this point. Surprised? Even I was with myself :P

The third time this happened I just couldn't keep my cool anymore and in my loudest of voices told them to please all sit down as we can't see a thing. I told them "We all are educated, literate people and lets behave like one and not like untamed animals." Lot of eyebrows and nasty faces were made while looking at me but that didn't make any difference to me because they did sit down after my statement.

When the fourth time they again stood up, I again shouted "Can you all please sit down? We have also come to watch the program. And why don't you go to the back if you want to click pictures?" This time again everyone turned to glare at me and some sat down while some didn't. I could hear some snide remarks like "Trying to show attitude!" and "What a snob" etc. But I just couldn't resist answering back to the lady who said "Peeche waale log co-operate bhi nahi kar rahe". I told her "Pahle co-operate ka matlab dictionary mein dekh kar ayo before using the word. Cooperation is not one sided. It has to be mutual." But then as you all know, such people are just incorrigible, shameless and insensitive. Whatever you say or do doesn't make any difference to them. I have wondered time and again why are we becoming so selfsih natured and I still have no answer. It really bogs me down but I really don't know what should I do.

The friend couple who I was sitting with told me that there is no point telling them anything and we moved away to find a better place and we actually did. We sat on the stair styled seats and managed to click some good pics as well. Sharing some pics from the event:

In his costume!


Kids running in colorful costumes!


Iraqi School


Russian School


Japanese School


here's my little champ!


Japanese students playing their special drums.

His first day-trip from School

They have gone to the School's farm. He was mighty excited. When I saw the note in his School Diary on Wednesday, I told him about the upcoming trip to the school's farm. The first thing he asked me was "Wahan par keechad mein pigs bhi honge?" (The pigs in the mud will also be there?). I just laughed and nodded.

Since then everyone he comes across, he HAS to tell them that he is going to the School's farm. And today morning when he was being fussy in waking up, we just had to mention the words "Today you will go to the farm!" and his eyes popped open and he went scurrying around to get ready :)

When I dropped him at the school in the morning, I asked one of the teacher's who is to go with them on the trip about the address and the contact number. I was quite surprised when she asked me why do I need to know. She said we have your numbers so if need be we will all you. I really had to explain really hard to her why I need to know, why a parent needs to know. And it took a lot of convincing to tell her that I'm not going to be pestering her with calls every now and then or land up at the place. Its just that WE NEED TO KNOW! And then she gave me her mobile number.

I think this is something very basic that the school should do - to give the details of the place they are going to and one contact number at least. Am surely going to be bringing this up in the next PTM and may write to the Principal also about it if I hear any resistance on the teacher's part in understanding the need.

Library books from school

His second library book from his school.


I managed to reap the benefits from the moral of the story immediately after I was done reading it to him.

He quickly cleared the clutter of the toys that he had made in the living room. What more do I want :D

His first library book

Betu has always been fond of books and I've tried to keep a good stock of books all the time. In fact if someone would ask me what to get for him I would say "books!" without even thinking for a second.

He has a huge collection now. And I plan to buy some more that go with his current age and interests.

Yesterday he came back with this book from his school library and he was mighty excited about it. So I read it to him at bedtime. It was about a girl who ventured out of the house, without telling her parents, to her friends house. So when the friend's mommy came to know about this she took the girl back to her house saying her parents would be looking for you. So the moral of the story was to teach the kids to never go out alone and without asking parents permission.

In the end they had an exercise where I was to try and make Betu remember the phone number along with telling them what to do in case they get lost. Betu knows both of our cell numbers since long so first part I had already dealt with. But not the second part. So I tried to explain to him what he should do in case he gets lost (which I sincerely hope he doesn't ever!). He nodded as if he understood and I am hoping he did and shall remember it too. I will try and keep reminding him of it from time to time as well.

So I quite liked the book and the concept and now both of us are looking forward to the next book.

~~ Keep Smiling! ~~

Sent on my BlackBerry®.

Art work from school

Betu had got some art work to be done as summer holiday homework. Just about 8 activities. Some were mere coloring, some were tearing colored paper and sticking in the defined areas or alternating colors.

So here are 3 of these activities that I really liked :)

This is a handkerchief which we have painted using Fevicryl (fabric paints) from the sliced vegetables. And you can see the name in the bottom which he painted himself. I first wrote the name using a pencil and he painted over it. We used ladyfinger, bitter gourd and a leaf to make the patterns.

This one is supposedly a wiggly worm which he painted using finger painting and ear bud painting.

And this one is a sun, but obviously *wink*. We first painted the sky light blue and then we tore up yellow paper and red paper to give it a look of the sun!

Little Einstein comes to the rescue!!

Almost everyday is a big tussle to get Betu to get ready for school as he would want to keep saying "5 minutes" every time I would ask him to brush his teeth or come for bath. I even wonder if he knows "5-minutes" as such. He must have heard us using it and now its become his favorite way of saying no when we ask him to do something. His 5 minutes keep getting extended.

Anyhow, so talking about Little Einstein, I recently discovered it is aired on Disney Channel at 7:30 AM every weekday. Since he loves to watch it, it has come to my rescue very well. I wake him around 6:45 or 7:00 AM and then coax him to get ready fast saying "Jaldi karo nahin to Little Einstein finish ho jayega!" (Be quick else the program will get over) and it works! Touch wood!

I've him ready mostly by 7:30 AM these days, give him something to eat before I head for my bath or do some little errands and we are all set to leave by 8:10 AM.

What tricks we parents have to use to make our children do what we want! But thankfully they work!! :D

End of day 3 and starting the day 4 at new school

Day 3 ended quite well. Much better than how I had expected it. I reached his school early yesterday afternoon and sneaked inside the reception just next to the area where the kids assembled before being dispersed to their respective school vans/buses or handed over to parents. And I was peeping through half open blinds to see how he is faring. They stopped letting the parents in soon after I had got in. Thank God for that!

I saw him walk along with his classmates and teacher who made them sit in a line on the steps just outside the reception area. I kept looking at him all the time. He was smiling and looking here and there and then he looked at the window. And he locked his gaze there. And then he smiled and just wouldn't look away. It was obvious that he had seen me. And I was like..this boy is so amazing..how the hell did he see me through those tinted windows and half closed blinds??

I smiled back at him and stayed inside because my purpose was to do a sneak check on the driver. But after a minute I just came out because he just wouldn't look away..he kept looking in my direction and kept smiling..all the time!

The moment I reached him, and bent down I got a nice hug from him and then he started to sing the new ladybird poem they were taught. Told me he had Kadhi-Chawal for snacks and that he had lots of fun. He told me that today only one kids was crying. When I asked him if he tried to pacify that kid he told me "Woh to Ma'm kara rahi thi na" :D

Things were much better handled and organised yesterday. It was not as chaotic as it was on the 2nd day. Kids were not crying, there were no parents inside to trample on the kids. It was so very peaceful. So after his driver collected all the kids, he sat in the van and went away to his daycare.

Today i.e on Day 4, he has gone in his school uniform. The school had given the leeway to send the kids in home clothes for the first week. Yesterday we bought his white school shoes and a water bottle which made his uniform complete and thus decided to send him in his uniform itself. Since he was excited about wearing the uniform too, I thought why not!

There was a slight difference in his behavior when I dropped him at school yesterday and today. Yesterday he didn't even turn back once to look at me but today he turned back at least 5-6 times. He did not seem as happy as he seemed yesterday. He wasn't smiling today. But I'm not worried. We all used to have days when we didn't want to go to school.

its 1 PM right now and I called up his daycare. They told me he reached there 5 min ago and was having his lunch. I am so eager to know how his day went today when I meet him in the evening :D