Time to celebrate..

And to celebrate not one but two things. The first one being that Anirudh won us a meal for two at Machan, Taj Mahal Hotel. Yay!

You may remember that on Oct 6, 2007 he had a fancy dress show at his play school. They had a raffle also along with it. But the draw was to be taken out yesterday i.e Oct 11, 2007. So when I had bought the raffle ticket, I wrote it out in Anirudh's name. And I completely forgot about the draw. But yesterday when I went to pick him up from the daycare, I got this lovely surprise!



As I was telling about this news to his Dadi, she said "Dekho Betu abhi kamata bhi nahi hai aur abhi se 5-Star mein dinner par le ja raha hai!" (Betu doesn't earn yet and he's taking you out for dinner already at a 5-Star!) :D

Although this was the 3rd prize I'm really glad we didn't win the 1st prize! Yes..its true. The first prize was a free stay for 2 nights for a couple at Taj hotel in Khajuraho, Madhya Pradesh. And that would mean planning a holiday trip with other expenses involved. For a person who would have been thinking of a trip to go to, it might be the perfect prize but not for us! :D

And the second reason for celebration, but that reason is only for me, because I realised that this is the 100th post on this blog! A 100th! Its a 'Wow!' thing for me!

So double celebrations! Yipee!!

Anirudh as Krrish!

Anirudh was so excited from the day before his Fancy Dress at his play school that he wanted to sleep with the mask next to his pillow.

I had a tough time arranging for his attire and finally had to make everything at home. So first a mask was made at home from a black sheet of paper. Then the search started to what to make as his cloak. So a black Georgette dupatta was searched for and a rope to tie it as a flowing cloak. I couldn't get any black jacket so we carried on with the red t-shirt that I had home.

So even after practicing and showing us the steps that he was supposed to do on the song 'Dil na diya..", he got so excited just being on the stage that he just kept hopping up and down all the time!!

So here are the pics of our very own Krrish!

This is the pic of a girl dressed as a tribal and I think she looked simply adorable!!

All the kids looked so adorable in their attires/dresses. And I didn't see even one repetition of the character in this batch. From Sachin Tendulkar to Hanuman, from Panditji to Spiderman, from Rahul Gandhi to the tricolor flag. Must say the Hanuman looked super cute wearing just a skimpy lungi and carrying the armour. He was a cute little plump boy and he looked just adorable as Hanuman.

And what I really liked was that the school didn't have any competition as such for the fancy dress. They gave a token of appreciation to all the participants. It surely makes sense looking at the age group of children. None of them were older than 4 years. Anirudh got a coloring book and a story book. They had different things depending on the age of the child which again was a neat idea!

"Badhiya ho gaya na?"

Anirudh has a fancy dress show on Oct 6, 2007 at his school. After thinking for a long time I couldn't think of anything interesting which would be easy too as far as the dress goes. Plus I just didn't want him to walk on the stage and come down without doing anything.

And then the idea of dressing him up as 'Krissh' and dancing for a minute to the 'Dil na diya..' from the same movie. He just loves this song and asks us to play it over and over again when we are in the car. So I felt it would be a good idea.

So I got the cassette and his daycare teacher is teaching him and another boy of his class the same song and they will perform it together on the stage. Its just been 3 days since he started learning the steps and he is enjoying it very much.

So yesterday after I picked him up in the evening from the daycare, I was asking him what steps is he going to do in the song. So he is telling me all the steps saying "Pahle rolly karenge, fir aise karenge(showing me by action), fir aise karenge, fir legs aise karenge.." and he ended the description of the steps with a question "Badhiya ho gaya na?" :D

I was kind of amazed to hear him say the word 'badhiya' as in my conscious memory this was the first time I heard him say it. Somehow it kind if indicates me that he's growing into a big boy day by day! Sigh....

Proud to show off his assessment sheet!

Yes! I'm a proud Mommy! Very proud! We had a PTM (Parent Teacher Meeting) on September 8, 2007 and we were shown his assessment sheet for the month of August! My little boy has fared amazingly well. The sheet boasts of 'A' and 'A+' completely except for English Conversation where he was graded as 'B+'. Since in their grades chart even 'B' stands for 'Adequate', so no concerns on that part too!! Its not his fault as such. I mostly talk to him in Hindi and even if I speak with him English and he replies to me in Hindi, I never tried to make him say it in English. But he surely likes to use English when he gets angry. He repeats what I say when I'm angry such as "No talking to you!", "Stand in the corner!", "No toffee, no chocolate for Mumma!" etc etc. :D

Anyhow, seeing his grades in the sheet made me so happy! Although for a moment I thought "Come on..he's not even in class I. This is just a preschool assessment" But I just waived off this thought and said "So what!" Him doing so well in any level is as good as it can be and every parent should be proud of their child's achievement however big or small it may be!

Frankly I was not really knowing he would fare this well because whenever I would do alphabets with him, he would just jumble them all up and not say them all correctly. But his teacher told us that he never falters there in the class leaving me " o.....k......a.......y" and wondering if at home its me taking his test or is the other way round?

So here's the Mumma proudly showing off the pic of her son's assessment sheet displayed for all to see and applaud!

His new playschool!

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!

Yet another daycare!

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.

Joining back work and starting his daycare!

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.