Back to School ...Excitement Galore!

So the siblings marched out the door, after having waited all these years, to go to the same school, finally! The younger one's excitement over the past few days had to be seen to be believed. Incidentally, we were also going camping the day after their schools re-opened and were to set up tent and sleep in sleeping bags and were to go with 7 more families, all the kids' friends from the complex that we stay in and with whom they literally spent almost every waking moment with during their summer break. Needless to say, they were way too excited about that as well. So one day Chica, after thinking for a while, asked me "Mom, guess what I am more excited about ... our camping trip or starting school?" To give you an idea of just how excited she was, she told me I was wrong when I answered "our camping trip".

This picture sums up their feelings pretty well on the first day. Niño felt like a very responsible big brother and wanted me to drop them to school on their first day so that I could guide Chica as to where the Kindergartners need to stand to get in the building, which he otherwise considered his responsibility. Chica, on the other hand didn't want to delay getting in the bus by even one more day and told us that I and Niño were welcome to come by car, but she was way too excited to take the bus and was unfazed and sure there would be teachers to tell her exactly where she should enter from! 

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Back to School Fun Photo Labels

A quick picture post to share with you the first craft of the summer this year. Yeah we had a craftily lazy summer vacation this year :) But today the kids were extremely excited with this activity that took up our morning when we had originally intended to finish off all the labeling of school supplies. But I guess in the last few days of the kids home, one could give themselves and myself this much leeway :)

Work in progress ...I took printouts of letters of the kids' names from these Alphabet Printables and  stuck them onto different colored construction paper. The kids then cut them out and decorated those with crayons and stickers.

Then came the posing against different backgrounds! A brown tree trunk, green grass, blue sky!

 

I then put the 4 pictures to together on Picasa, made a collage, copy, pasted 4 of them on a Word Document and took printouts. And lo and behold, we have among us a lovely label and an extremely proud and happy soon to be Kindergartner! 

The older sibling made it quite excitedly but doesn't want to have to do anything with it at all thereafter. "No way am I carrying it to school!" Well he is just a growing boy, I suppose.

The idea came from one of my absolute favorite activity blog here.

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Part 1 of Summer 2012 - The London Olympics

 

Niño has been dreaming big and imagining even bigger. My only regret is I am no longer as prompt with the camera as I was last year. But the Olympics have been playing big on his heart and mind as he watched the opening ceremony with wide eyed awe and wonder. And then went on to make Michael Phelps his hero and Gabby Douglas his heroine ;)

So he planned an opening ceremony with all the props at hand. A gun shot was fired with his toy gun to mark the beginning of the ceremony. He then switched off all the lights and switched on the light of his toy projector and started rotating a Rubik cube in front of the projector light in order to get a flashing disco lights effect; realized that the cube is opaque and only gets him shadows, got some Ikea translucent kind of different colored bowls and got the desired effect. He had then orchestrated a band with the instruments they have which included him on the violin and Chica on the piano and I and A were handed over maracas and tambourines. I was then duly asked to play some marching music on youtube as he handed us handouts of names of countries with their flags - which he had carefully drawn beforehand. I was to represent India, the father son duo were from USA and the sister was from Russia because she is a good gymnast. The Atlas was seen outside and this was the time I realized it had been taken out to draw Russia's flag. Finally I was asked to play the British National Anthem and the climax had to be a self done Light Saber show because of course he can't let his absolute favorite thing down by not including it in the ceremony.

And ever since Swimming competitions have been going on in the home and outside - never mind that a swimming race just means running inside the pool from the 3 feet end to the 4 feet end :) (Swimming has eluded him by far). Plans are made as the Big gang of children meet every evening either in the pool or while biking for the next day's events of their very own Olympics. Tennis, Basketball, Track and Field have all been held in one way or the other.

While I wish I had taken pictures of Niño doing all this, this year; I will share here pictures from his fascination with the Commonwealth Games held in New Delhi while we were there in Oct 2010.

Weightlifting - a hot favorite! Don't miss the expressions and the weight - 225 kgs, in case you are wondering ;)

He's a pro at getting the body language and the expressions just right! 

And these are the current cool dudes and wannabe Olympic swimmers!

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Soon enough...

You know what, after months of being away from the blog, except blogging about the events or the places we have enjoyed, currently I am in a frame of mind where I want to savor my kids wholeheartedly and completely and delight in the joy they bring to my life. Because now is the time with the new school year beginning, children of relatives and friends who are ready to fly the proverbial nest, to pursue their studies away from home, often cross country now, the things their parents have to say, the feelings they describe they are going through, the emptiness which is so evident in their hearts and minds, the few more days they are longing to spend with their children who are soon going to be far far away, it tugs at your heart, especially if you are mother with kids who are growing at lightning speed. The first thing you do is place yourself in those parents' shoes and feel what they feel, knowing that soon enough you will be them. Knowing that soon enough the very fights with your kids you crib about will exactly be the ones you'll crave; soon enough the physical and the mental work it takes being a mom of two young children that seems too much now would be the one you'll realize to be the sweetest, most enriching and most satisfying thing you have experienced in your life; soon enough the hugs and the kisses that are now so abundant that you often take them for granted would become rare luxuries because soon enough its going to be your kids leaping and taking flight out of your nests and eventually making their own.
Why don't I write about all these moments more often when I started this blog for just that, a tether to hold on to for just those 'soon enough' times. Well, as of now I resolve to and I will. I just want to keep the tone of this post philosophical, so whats been up with us would be the content of the next post which will come up pretty soon!

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