Craft activities

Till date whenever Anirudh goes to any birthday party, when the khoi bag is broken, he would still collect more of the confetti than the goodies. And so it happened too when we went for a birthday party this Sunday. He had collected plenty of colored thermocol balls this time and was asking me to do some craft with them. When I asked him for examples, he told me lets make a tree. But then we didn't have many green colored ones so then he suggested to make some flowers. And this is what we made using those thermocol balls and some paper cut-outs.

Betu and me both liked the output from this craft activity and now we are planning to buy a packet of these balls and made more things. Betu wants to make a rainbow, a butterfly, a house and so many more things using these thermocol balls.

My skating star

Its been about a year since Anirudh has been learning skating thrice a week at his daycare. And now I can see the confidence in him and the also the ease with which he does whatever he knows so far. Since the timings are from 4-5PM, I had been unable to see him skate until few days ago. It really felt so good to see him skate so smoothly. I took some pictures of him recently which I will share with you. Although I had shot one video also, but its a little heavy to upload here.

 

My skating star

 

What a smooth sailing...err rolling!

  

Thoda style to banta hai!

Well done my boy! You are just so awesome!

Braveheart - thats my little boy!

Yes..that's what I called him when I saw him being so brave after he got hurt on the forehead which required suturing up. This happened on Mar 23 late afternoon around 3:30 PM. He was playing with another boy who was pulling his t-shirt from behind while Anirudh was trying to run forward. Suddenly the boy let Anirudh's t-shirt go from his grip and Betu lurched forward with the impact of sudden release and bumped his forehead on the wooden chair close by.

I reached his daycare by 4:00 PM and by that time he had been bandaged up by the supervisors there. They told me how brave and strong he has been throughout and how he didn't cry at all minus the initial tears at the time he got hurt. And that was not all.When I took him to the nursing home nearby, even at the time of stitching and cleaning up of the wound he did not shed a single tear. That is why I called him a brave heart while I was going weak in the knees, heart, hands, head...weak in every single part of my body.

While I was still shaken up throughout the rest of the day, he was up and about like any other day playing and talking and laughing. I was also trying to smile and laugh and be normal but I knew it wasn't coming naturally to me. Every time I would look at the potato sized bump on his forehead I would get so uneasy.

After we came back home me and him played with his newly bought wooden building blocks, our gift for his 5th birthday a week in advance of his birthday. The mother of the boy who he was playing with at the time of injury and the little boy dropped by our house as she was feeling a bit apologetic. Somehow I never even developed any ill-feelings towards them as it was a just-by-chance accident. They are kids and they will play. Sometimes wild and sometimes not. However I did pull up the daycare people to be careful so that the wild play doesn't go out of hand to this extent again. They were feeling quite sorry too and I knew I didn't need to drive it in their head any further.

Mar 23: Few hours after the injury. Notice the bump on his forehead just above the right eye?

Mar 23: Playing with the wooden blocks.

Mar 26: The stitches (in blue colored thread) all dried up.

Today on the 3rd day post the injury we went for a checkup and his pediatrician said its healing up well. He removed the bandage and asked us to leave it open. When I showed this pic to Betu he was actually excited to see that the stitches have been done in blue color :D

These kids I tell you...

"Disney Cars" pasta

Thanks to Ruchi Mausi, Betu got a box of car shaped pasta few days ago. It was only today that I finally was able to cook it for him and but obviously he was ecstatic.

But after 10 min I was ready to tear my hair out because he would look at each piece for 2 minutes by turning it left and right and only when the full inspection was done that he would eat it. He did this for the first 10 minutes and then I asked him to finish eating it or I shall take it away. Call me a meanie mommy or whatever..I don't care! :D

Our contribution to recycling

Betu and me are helping towards the cause of Global Warming by doing our bits in recycling/reusing stuff. This is one example of it -
Using Surf Excel Matic boxes in which we get the washing machine powder as toy storage boxes. I had thought of covering them up with some paints etc but now I'm just leaving them like this.
What says you guys about this?

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 -

The cutest panditji ever

Ain't I right? :D

His summary of the Manali Trip

On the train from Chandigarh to Delhi (Shatabdi Express), our seats were right in the center where we get a table. So the crayons and paper that I had carried came to the rescue and I managed to keep the kids busy for good 1 hour.

There was another kid besides Anirudh and Prithvi and I'm sure his parents must be thanking me in their hearts too :D

The first thing Anirudh asked me when get got paper and crayons was "Main kya banayoon?" I told him if he wants he can draw whatever he saw in Manali. The idea really appealed to him and he got down to it. And this is what he made -

There is the sun, the clouds, the mountains covered with snow(blue bit on top of mountains) and with fir trees growing on them.

He drew a horse (pink one) and a monkey (blue one). he also drew the big boulders he saw near the mountains and in the river Beas (black and brown ones).

I think he did a splendid job of drawing a summary of his Manali trip. What says you all?

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

Amused

While driving on the way back to Delhi from Jaipur on Jan 19, Betu saw these buffaloes being transported in a truck. Our conversation:

Betu: "Yeh buffaloes truck mein kyun ja rahi hain?"
Me: "Kyunki jiski buffaloes hain, woh unhe kahin le ja raha hoga."

Betu: "Par truck mein to samaan le jaate hain. Inko kyun le ja raha hai?"
Me: "Truck mein saman ke alawa bhi le ja sakte hain."

Betu: "Hum logon ko bhi?"
Me: "Haan bilkul. Log bhi ja sakte hain"

Betu: "Par woh truck mein kyun ja rahi hain? Chal kar kyun nahi ja rahi?"
Me: "Unko door jana hoga isliye."

Betu: *no response and with the same amused expression on his face looking at the truck*

Making Pop-out cards

Me and Betu made these pop-out cards recently using rough paper. Betu was mighty thrilled while making these and even more thrilled to see how they finally turned out.

I would draw the outlines and he would color them up. And then it was my job to cut at the right places. I did get a good scolding when I didn't cut the aeroplane properly and actually snipped the plane.

We first made the Christmas tree and then all sorts of ideas kept popping in his head which I was totally incapable of making. His ideas included a frog, a a crocodile, a ship and this aeroplane also. ALthough I was not sure if I could make an aeroplane one but still tried. Although it didn't work out as expected but it was good enough to make him happy. Here is the pic of the ones that we made -

Next in our to-do list is to make a rocket and a dolphin. I will have to wrack this rusty brain of mine to figure out how to make these.

Shaitani dimmag!

Yesterday morning I went for my bath after Hubby had given Betu his bath.

The moment I reached the bath mugs I let out a big gasp. WHy? Because this is what the sight was...
Can you guess what it is in the those bath mugs? No? Look closely and see whats similar in both the things. Yeah..may be you are getting an idea now :)

Those are his pair of socks. The ones that he was wearing when he went for his bath. Both socks have been duly thrown into each mug.

Sigh...main kya karoon is ladke ka??

Capturing Mumma-Papa's room

He captured our room by putting his toon stickers on the bedroom door. So now he says, its his room now and he is being nice to us by 'sharing' the room with us.

What can we say about losing the battle when we were not even given a chance to fight the battle. *sigh*

Writing his own name

After helping him spell his name whenever he would play with the pre-school activities where he would need to input his name, I was surprised to see today he had written it all by himself without any help whatsoever. He has finally learnt it by heart.

This is picture of the envelop which he asked me to make for him an hour ago, to keep his 'important' papers in with his name written on it by His Highness himself :)

Don't know why but I'm feeling quite happy seeing this :)

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.

Doing Prayanayams

Since the past week when I do Pranayam in the mornings I make Anirudh also sit with me and do 2 of them - Kapal Bharti and Omkar.

Got him started specifically after he got down with viral 5 times in the past 2 months. Initially he would cry and make a fuss for not doing but after 2 days he has probably realised that Mumma is not going to relent so I better do it :D

This is the picture of him doing the Omkar. Its quite funny to actually see him doing them. His entire body moves up and done with every breath.

And nowadays he himself sits down to do them on his own. In fact today I didn't do but he did his. So its my turn to learn from him to be regular :D

Castle

Betu gave me this drawing saying "Yeh aapke liye castle hai!" :D

Thank you my adorable Betu!

Celebrating Rakshabandhan!

Rakshabandhan with Vaidehi Didi & Sowmya Didi.


The Noddy rakhi was sent by his Vaishali Bua from Mumbai. She always sends Rakhis that keep Betu so excited. Last year she had sent a Spiderman one.

Anamika Bua had sent one with a teddy bear sharpener on it. He plucked off the sharpener even before the Rakhi could be tied. You can see the yellowish round base behind Noddy's head in the picture above where he is showing off his rakhis.

Dancing a la Shahrukh Khan style!

Yesterday night when I was getting Betu changed into his night dress, I asked him to take his shirt off. After opening the buttons, he stood still for a few seconds and was eying me in a very naughty expression. I was wondering why and before I could think too much or ask him anything he broke into the "Dard-E-Disco" dance (from the movie Om Shanti Om) opening his shirt wide and shaking his body just like Shahrukh Khan does in that song.


I couldn't help laughing at this sudden act of his. He also started to laugh with me and kept at it for another minute. Later he asked me "Aap has kyun rahe the? Main to Sahrukh Khan jaise Om Santi Om wala dance kar raha tha" (He cannot pronounce 'Sh' as yet unless I made him say it slowly) I had no answer and just smiled but he wanted an answer and kept asking me so I simply told him "Mujhe mazaa aa raha tha aapko dekh kar" :D

His creations!

Isn't this beautiful? I just loved the strokes and the combination of colors he used!

He really loves painting!