I wonder if the celebration was because "Glad thats its over!" or was it because they felt "It went well!" :D
Anyhow, whatever be the reason, the function was pretty decent and all the kids were pretty excited. Anirudh and the gang of boys danced to song "Hare Ram Hare Ram" from the movie Bhool Bhullaiyya.
Here are some pics:
You realise how much your child loves going to his playschool when on Sunday morning he wakes up and says "Mumma, jaldi se brush-your-teeth karenge, fir nahai-nahai aur fir school jayenge!" And it gives such a relief that you have done a right thing, chosen a right school and a place where your child looks forward to going! What more can a parent ask for?
These are some pictures from his new playschool which he started going to from July'07 when his old playschool plus daycare closed down.
With his teacher (Center)
Looking at the animals chart!
With his Papa!
With his friend Prithvi!
He was happy, playing and eating a slice of cake (the non creamy ones) when we, myself and his papa, reached his new daycare to pick him up in the evening yesterday around 6 PM!
When he saw me coming he ran towards me and hugged me. When he was hugging me, he saw his Papa coming and Betu ran to him to hug him! After coming back from his papa, he opened his mouth wide to show me the cake that he had in this mouth which was his way of telling me he was having a cake! Seeing all this gave me such a big relief!
So on the way back, he's happily plopped in my lap and we are talking. This is how our conversation went:
Me : Aapne kya kiya new school mein?
Betu : Main Pithvi (Prithvi) ke saath khela.
Me : Aapne kya kya khaya?
Betu : Snacks
Me : Snacks mein kya tha?
Betu : Cake
Betu : Aap chale gaye the to main ro raha tha!
Me : aap roye the?
Betu : Haan! Main Mumma-Mumma bol raha tha.
Me : Aap big boy ho na? Rote nahi hain! Mumma shaam ko aati hai na betu ko lene?
Betu : Haan, main big boy hoon. Main nahi royungaa. Pithvi roya tha na ..woh mummy papa bol raha tha
Me : Prithvi roya tha isliye aap bhi roye the?
Betu : Haan. Fir didi ne bola chup ho jayo. Didi ne bola Mummy shaam ko aayegi!
Me : Ok Aapne khoob saara khela? Aapko mazaa aaya?
Betu : Haan.
His Papa : aapne ninni kari?
Betu : Haan kari thi.
Me : Aapko new school achha laga?
Betu : Haan! Achha hai!
And that was it! I needed nothing else to hear! Those were the only words that my ears were yearning to hear!
Today morning we dropped Betu at his new daycare - The Oxford Kids. Somehow I was feeling so empty, so anxious leaving him at a totally new place with all new people.
And this is when he has been going to daycare since he was 9 months which is almost like since the past 2 years. So why am I feeling this way? I was up from 4 AM thinking about him going to the new daycare, thinking on what to send for his breakfast. Thinking on how he will adjust, will he cry, will he tell the new nannies when he needs to use the wash rooms, will he eat fine, will he sleep well....just about everything was worrying me.
I called up his new daycare an hour after leaving him and he was playing good. Another one of his friends from the previous daycare is also going to this new one so that's a big relief for both the set of parents that they have at least one familiar face in the crowd. When I called up this new daycare around 4PM, I got to know they have hired the 3 nannies from the previous daycare too! And that brought about so much relief to me! Now I'm just dying to meet him in the evening and hug him and cling to him. Hehehe..sounds so funny...instead of son clinging to mumma, its the other way round :D
But when I think on this behaviour of me, I feel so stupid. And I wonder how will I react/behave once he starts going to formal school. He will start nursery from next year. Anyhow, I not thinking that far as of yet. Right now I just want to see him!!
It will be the 3rd ever since he started going to one since the age of 9 months. The first one was Kiddies Corner in Lajpat Nagar. After a stint of one year we shifted him to Pink Elephant in New Friends Colony. Reason for shifting was "Too many kids, too little space" which resulted in Betu catching infections quite often. And now just after about a year and few months at Pink Elephant, we need to look for another one. I would not have moved him from here at all if things were in my hands. The playschool and the daycare is closing down because of space issues. This was a rented place and the owner now wants it back. The management has not been able to find a place within its budget without increasing the costs for parents. We already were paying about 6K per month so I wonder what they would have increased it to. So they decide to close it down.
It was the perfect place we could look for. Be it the space, the facilities, the teachers..just about everything.
Anyhow, no point in thinking too much about it. We have already looked at 2 other options and now we need to decide which one to go for. One option is The Little Scholar and the other is Mother's Pride. Me and DH went today and saw both of them. We liked both. I was really amused with the bathrooms in one. They had washbasins built up for heights of toddlers. So if any adult would stand next to them, the heights of those basins would not even reach to our knees...maybe just halfway between knees and ankles! I found the idea so very cute and amusing!
Both these day cares are located quite close to each other and close to both our offices too. I guess a little more closer to my office than DHs. So by this weekend we need to decide on one and then take betu to the selected one on Saturday before he starts going there full time from Monday.
I've been trying to mentally prepare Betu by talking about a new school and new friends and as far as talking about it goes, all is well and he seems excited. Rest only time will tell.
Knowing his nature, I will give him about max 2 weeks to settle in there. Since he has been going to a daycare since he so small, I feel it won't take more than that. But also now that he's a big boy and has his share of likes and dislikes, I'm giving him that much space to settle down. I know for sure he will settle quite well.
I feel really proud of my son and thankful too when I look back when I started sending him at 9 months. If it was not for him, I would not be working as of now. If he had not adjusted in the daycare, things would have been totally different for us. Its not that I need to work to make ends meet. I need to work because I like to. I really appreciate mothers who quit working after having their child! Hats off to them. Staying home whole day and just managing the house will drive me nuts within a week. Managing the house is just not my cup of tea.
I would be lying if I just attribute it to the fact that "I like to work". We could easily do with extra money to give him a good lifestyle and good education and also to give us some pocket money for some of our whims and fancies :D. So basically its the need+want to work combined with need for money.
I had been on maternity leave from 1st week of March 2004 since my OBG had expected me to deliver around 1st week itself. But who knew betu had his own plans. So almost 1 month of maternity leave got wasted waiting for the D-Day.
By the time my maternity leave got over, betu was just about 2 months. As I had been working with this company since quite a long time I had accumulated about 40 days of leaves. So we decided that I will use them as well and join back work a month later. All got settled and my extended leave started.
This is the period when we started to try formula feed for betu since I would be joining work full time. From one feed a day for a week and gradually increasing it, betu did just fine and adopted to this other form of milk as well. Although I had to try many a shapes and brands of bottle nipples from Indian makes to imported before he settled on one. It was Avent and only Avent for him. Nothing else. DH used to say that betu doesn't settle with anything but the best! It was around 6-7th month that he started drinking from other shapes also.
Time passed and the day the came when I was to join back work. I was so nervous inside as I had never been away from him for more than an hour and a half. And here it was the question of 9 hrs. Somehow I went to work and got busy and everything settled fine. It must have been 2 hrs since I must have been in office when I heard a baby cry somewhere outside of our office. On hearing it I got so anxious and started to miss betu soo much that at one point I almost had tears in my eyes! I waited for lunch time as I used to come back home during lunch hour to feed him and also as I needed to relieve myself.
This went on for a month and then I spoke to my CTO saying if I could work half day from home and the second half from office. He understood my problem and agreed to this arrangement. I couldn't have asked for anything more. So this arrangement went on for 4 months till November when I decided that I should be working full time now as he had already started on other food items since long.
We started his diet other than milk when he was 4.5 months. We first started with daal and then with rice, banana when he was about 5.5 months and after 2-3 weeks we started his cerelac too. So many a things were added to his meals gradually like daliya khichdi, mashed potatoes, thin soup, suji upma although quite watery and what not. Whatever he liked, we gave. He was particularly not fond of sweets. So all tryouts for various meals for him were salt based.
Most of the times he was quite a good boy and would eat almost everything without making a fuss. And sometimes meal times would involve singing poems, songs and making voices of various animals and birds. That would distract his focus from the food and he would eat fine. When he grew older this method also would not work all the time and then I would put a cheeseling or a rice puff on every spoon of the meal. That used to amuse him a lot!
Till First week of January, we used to drop him off along with our full day maid at my SIL's place and in the evening we would pick him back. But by this time we had had a lot of problems with maids and their unplanned leaves that we decided to look for a daycare. After looking at 2 which were nearest to our house as well as work, we chose one that was walkable distance from my work.
Betu was 9 months and a week when we sent him to the daycare. It was a very tough decision for us to send him to place full of strangers. Handing over our baby to the unknown is not an easy thing. Myself and DH both felt that we had to be stronger at heart more than the child. He would get pacified after a few minutes of crying by playing with other children. For quite a long time everyday at the drop off time he would start crying. Probably crying is a softer word. He used to wail like crazy.
After about 2 months he got adjusted and the cryings would usually happen only on Monday's because of 2 day holiday of Saturday and Sunday. Everything went on smoothly till his ayah at the daycare left. She was quite a good lady and to quite a large extent our feeling satisfied was also because she used to take care of betu. We had built up great confidence in her.
So as things progressed we decided to change his daycare. And we changed it just a few days before he was to turn 2 years. The premises were much more spacious than the earlier one and since he was 2 yrs, we started his play school activities as well. Betu took about 10-15 days to settle down in this new place and then the time came when he would so happily jump off the car and wave us good bye when we used to drop him off at this daycare. Sometimes Monday's would not be as smooth again because of the gap of 2 days and little bit of crying used to happen. But nothing major for us to get disturbed about.
We could see remarkable change in his personality within the month of him joining playschool. That made us feel good that we had taken a good decision. A big relief and satisfaction for any parent I'm sure.
