Summer 2011 Writing Journal

Vansh got a Summer 2011 Writing Journal at the end of his Kindergarten last week. He has to write a couple of sentences, the more often the better, and draw a picture for each entry. To make up for the utter negligence that I have rendered to my blog, I decided on the same strategy for myself. Summer is a great time for this part of the world. We have been going out on weekends and sunny week days. There have been so many fluctuations in the weather this season. Its close to 40 one day and 12 degrees the next...its bizarre! Thankfully the city is absolutely new to us and has so much to offer both in terms of indoor and outdoor fun.

May 22nd - Lincoln Park Zoo

It turned out to be a much hotter day than expected. It was hot even in the shade. So the highlights of the day were cooling off with almost baths at every water outlet along the way.

Cooling off with snow cones and showing off the rainbow colored tongues thereafter.

And an indoor air-conditioned tree house climbing for kids. We strategically asked Vansh to go first and Jiya after him so that she eggs him to go on further rather than Vansh telling her to not go any further and go back with him.

I deliberately have missed out on the animals in the zoo this time because the dainty Miss Jiya was overwhelmed with the heat and the fact that she had to walk through it. I had not carried her stroller from India thinking which soon to be 4 year old needs a stroller. Turns out that mine does. So had to buy another one after this rather hopeless trip in terms of us doing anything fruitful because she tires out so soon. Luckily we went with friends who went around the entire premises with their son and Vansh to see all the animals while we sat in a gift store with Jiya sleeping in my arms.

Jun 4 - Last Gymnastics Class

Jiya is really fond of music and sways to any music that plays quite rhythmically. When we reached here in March, preschools were not enrolling any new students because the session was anyways about to end in a few weeks. So I enrolled her in a couple of classes so that she can get out and meet some children her age, get used to the language and accent, et al. Dance was our first choice but we didn't have options for that again during that time. So we picked gymnastics and she loved it so much that she literally went through the entire class with a smile on her lips. The first session ended Jun 4th and she now says that she wants to continue with Gymnastics and not dance at the moment. Her very flexible body is a bonus.

Jun 12 - Last Soccer Game of the Spring Season

Vansh was quite keen on playing cricket right after we came here from India. The World Cup fever was on. India won it while we were here which added to the craze. I told him he could play baseball which is also a bat and ball game but realized he won't be able to continue once we move back to India. So suggested soccer (football elsewhere) to which he had had some exposure last year during the Football World Cup but didn't remember much. But he decided to try it out and after a slow luke warm start, took a liking to it and started getting the hang of it. And has even asked me to sign him up for the next season in fall. I think the fact that he got a popsicle and a really cool medal at the last game and that he looked all glam and jazz with that shiny oversized red jersey(white in some games) and the shin guards has something to do with it ;)

I think his expression in the picture is because he was trying to smile but fighting back tears too though he doesn't admit it. But yeah lately he has become way too sentimental. A phase? I don't know.

June onwards

We have undertaken a really cool project at home titled 'Around the World'. The idea came from the really cool Choxbox's really cool post on studying Mexico over here. Since Vansh has been extremely fascinated with different languages and cultures and countries, locating them on the map and the likes, I thought it would be a good time to pick it up. We started with making their own passports. We found some very neat resources online for profile pages, immigration stamps when you visit a country and the place profiles.

We started with Germany. He colored the country on Europe's map after looking it up in the Atlas. We looked about its climate and current temperatures on weather.com which anyways is bookmarked on our computer because he likes to go on it every hour, if not sooner, to check the weather conditions. Listened to the German counting song on youtube. Jiya did a craft where she colored and dressed up a German boy. And they both added details in their respective passports.

We have studied India after that but more on that later. As also our adventures from last week because duty calls now. So ciao and hope to keep up with this religiously :)

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Which language do you speak?

It so happened that when Vansh started going to school here, he came across a lot of different children from different cultural backgrounds and speaking many different languages. It was kind of funny, though natural for a 6 year old to ask among one of the first questions he asked his friends or in fact anybody he met, was whether they know Hindi. Hindi, being his preferred and most used language of communication, he felt comfortable if he could express himself naturally to just one friend when the rest of the time he had to talk in English, which he can speak in though not spontaneous. Now the answers of his friends started fascinating him. While someone replied that they knew just a few words of Hindi because they spoke in Telugu at home, another child said she knew Spanish, another one said Tamil and a little boy moved to our complex a few weeks back who speaks Marathi. He told his Telugu friend that he knows two words “Annam tintinawa!” and formed a bond. Similarly he told his Spanish friend “Hola!” and yet another bond was formed. Which is why childhood is considered to be so sweet and innocent. J The fascination kept growing. Since he also displays interests in names of countries, where they are located, which flights operate via them (*rolling eyes*) and so and so forth, I got him a Children’s Atlas from the library.

Now the Atlas is pretty cool for young kids in the sense that it has the very basic starting information which keeps kids occupied with the tidbits it provides and neat pull outs for every continent containing lots of information like the countries in that continent, animals found there, what’s manufactured, their flags and yes the languages spoken in the various countries. Oh my God! It was such a hit with him. Most of all for the languages he got to know people speak in different parts of the world. So many new names he didn’t know exist. His conversations were so animated. He looked like a model child, any mother’s heart would swell with pride at, when she saw her child chatting with his grandfather in India on Skype with an Atlas open in front of him and saying “Nana, do you know they speak French also in Canada, so your so and so friend must also be speaking French, ask her!” I had also told him that my mom and dad were born in Pakistan (pre-partition), so he asked them what language is spoken there and learnt a few phrases in Urdu.

During our conversations, looking at his interest I told him a few phrases of the different languages I knew, thanks to the song “Angrezi mein kehte hain ki I love you!” I told him I could say that in Bengali, Gujrati, Punjabi and boy was he impressed. (I didn’t tell him about the song though J) I threw in a few more phrases in German – Guten Morgen, Guten Naakht, and the counting eins, zwei, drei till zen. And he was thrilled asking me where I learnt all that from. I milked the opportunity like a true Desi mom and told him how I studied so much when I was a kid and learnt so many languages ;) So now when someone asks him how old he is he answers zecks and then proceeds to say that’s German for six. Showoff!! Ricky Martin came to help with his Un, dos, tres after which Maria has become his favorite song he keeps humming and claims of mastering Spanish.

I got him a book yesterday from the library which has 12 common phrases like Hello, What’s you name, Thank you, Good Bye etc in 12 different languages and he devoured it with much delight remembering his bua from Dubai, checking that Arabic is spokem there and saying next time he meets her, he’ll greet her with a Salam and the friend in class who speaks Spanish with a ¿Cómo Estás? and the Tamil friend with a Vanakkam.

At times, the scene is hilarious when four friends are playing in the park, two good at English, one at Hindi (Vansh) and the fourth one at Marathi. The two recently moved from India (the Hindi and Marathi speaking one), high on cricket take it upon themselves to teach the other two the game who have no clue how its played. So a lot of animated hand gestures, shouting out “no this, no this”, come “ikde”, “tu ye pakad” and everybody just trying to hurriedly tell everybody something in their language, we have a jolly good time, often times literally holding our tummies while laughing.

Edited to add: Thanks to his dada, who is an active member of the Sindhi Panchayat in our locality in Delhi, Vansh participated in a couple of Sindhi programs when we were there. In one of them, he learnt and recited a rhyme in Sindhi. At times, I and Ashwini speak to each other in Sindhi as a spontaneous gesture (and sometimes when we want to communicate something we don't want the kids to understand) and he picks up a few phrases. An oft repeated one is Khile thi (she is laughing) when he sees Jiya laughing and he asks me to then appreciate him for his Sindhi skills. When I tell him thats just one phrase, he recites the Sindhi rhyme that he had learnt :)

So friends, can you please leave us a phrase, any one you like in a language you know and you’ll make a boy who would be hugely interested very very happy J

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Garfield Park Conservatory - a true gem!

A couple of weeks back, when the weather was still not good enough to plan an outing outdoors, what with the spring being hugely late this time (or so I hear :), we went to the Garfield Park Conservatory. It was a wonderful place and we had a day well spent. Its such a huge conservatory with 8 indoor display gardens and 3 outdoor gardens. The indoor display gardens where such an amazing variety of flora thrives under huge glass vaulted ceiling makes you wonder what would it be like if they were out in the open. I was especially impressed by the Palm Room designed as an idealized tropical landscape, it's where graceful palms, interspersed with a variety of other tropicals, soar up to the ceiling as also the Fern Room where lush ferns, rocky outcroppings and an indoor lagoon evoke a swampy landscape, complete with the wet mud smell which I love.

The sights would have been enough to make the place worthwhile but the icing on the cake is there's so much to do as well, especially for the kids.

There are Scavenger Hunt sheets in the lobby itself where you enter on which there are about 10-12 different plants that you have to find throughout the Conservatory in different rooms. The kids loved it. Once they spotted some plant, they were so excited to take off the sticker from the back and stick it next to the picture of the plant on the sheet.






The Children's room is absolutely awesome. There's a big slide amidst all the plants and greenery.












When they climb up the stairs to get to the slide, there's a mezzanine where there's a sensitive plant which cringes when touched. My kids, esp the younger one adored it.










There's a book nook with books to be enjoyed in the great surroundings, a giant bee to be manoeuvred to pollinate a giant flower.











There's a discovery area where they have a sand box with toy bugs, tools to remove them, flowers, pots, and a lot more.











And plus they do a new hands on activity every Saturday and Sunday. The day we went, the kids planted their own pizza garden where they planted seeds of tomatoes, bell peppers, basil and oregano and are now proudly watching them grow at home everyday.

And the best part of all, ,its all free. Even the parking!! One of the greatest and most incredible places we have visited.

A few handy tips before you go -

- The only restrooms that are there are the ones located in the lobby as soon as you enter. Try to have the kids go their before you enter the Display Rooms rather than coming all the way back for them.

- We spent almost 3-4 hours over there because the kids were having so much fun. There's no place to order eatables inside. I had carried fruits and snacks in ziploc bags and they came in really handy.

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Dear Kids

A few days back I was going through my archives and came across this post and this. My God! Yes, those were tough times, really tough and I blogged about them to let it out of my system, to look for support from fellow bloggers and friends and it helped. Now, when the times are GOOD, in all fairness to both of you, I should and I am going to blog about it too :)

- Knock on wood! But the way both of you have been behaving is nothing short of awesome! Great job V and J. I mean I can actually take 45 minute long showers in contrast to the 1 minute loo break that I dreaded taking at times. You work silently on worksheets, talk to each other about the colors that will look good on whatever it is you are coloring, Vansh, you help Jiya with writing letters and when I come out from the shower, you are playing nicely and talking to each other even more nicely. And today you actually told me, "Mom, we are kind of fighting but just with words and not with our hands!" How cool is that! And then after a few more minutes, "Even the word fight is over!" *Phew* I wonder you are the same children from the posts above. Yes you have your moments of getting on each others' nerves and mine but then phrases like the ones I just mentioned so make up for it.

- The way you stand up for each other melts my heart so many times in a day. Like the other day, when I took off a 'quarter' sticker from Jiya's reward chart because she had hit you, Vansh you told me that its okay, I should give it back to her because she is little and doesn't understand the right thing at times but will not hit you again. I mean you guaranteed that for her on her behalf when you yourself were the victim just moments ago. I wish I had words to describe that feeling and more than that I wish I had a sibling who would do that for me. *Sigh*

- And Jiya, how is it that when I tell you to clean up, there is a possibility that it might fall on deaf ears (sometimes, I have to admit :) but when your hero, your older brother tells you that, I can be certain that the job will be done :) And yes, I am talking about cleaning up here, can you believe it!!

- And again, you gave me another of those I don't believe it! moments when the other day Vansh was singing his oft repeated "Bad girl Jiya" song which is more like to tease you when things don't go his way, for instance, when he is losing in a board game, I know not a very nice thing to say but then you don't seem to really mind it most of the times. But the other day, you actually laughed and told him "You are so funny! I didn't even do anything now!" , you know like its a ha-ha thing between you two and he did in the wrong context. I found it rather amazing for a 3 year old to react that way :)

So well, atta boy and atta girl! I am so loving this gig of being your mom at this phase - laughing, playing, clowning around! Amen to more such times!

Love you forever,

Mamma

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Chalk and Cheese

Scene 1

We are watching the movie Jumanji, all four of us. Its the scene where the young boy Peter rolls a 5 and Alan Parrish (Robin Williams) comes back from the jungles after 26 years and immediately starts calling out for his parents in his house, unaware that a lot has changed and that his parents no longer stay there. In less than a minute, Vansh asks in an extremely wavering voice which becomes quite loud when he is feeling the way he is right now, trying hard to hold back tears, "Where are his parents? When is he going to meet them? Why is he not being able to find them? Why are we watching this movie? I don't want to watch it! Lets switch it off!"

We switch it off. Before we can pacify Vansh, Jiya starts screaming "I want to watch it! I want to watch how he comes out of the game. I want to see elephants and monkeys and dinosaurs coming out of the game! Turn it on, turn it on!"

We somehow manage to settle for a break - changing into night suits, water, brush, the works! In the meantime we are able to convince Vansh that its just a movie - its fiction, it never happens for real. Alan will find his parents soon! (We hadn't watched the movie earlier but Hindi movies being our staple, we guessed he would.) We switch it on again - Vansh clings, Jiya gets closer and closer to the TV almost wanting to be a part of it. If she could, she would have just grabbed those dice and rolled them good.

Scene 2

We are at Chuck E Cheese and the Vansh is looking at some screen touch game and Jiya is going on those climbing tubes and slides. She tells me that she wants to go to the police car on the other end the way to which is a kind of a maze. I tell her she may and I'll guide her with my hand and eye movement because she can't hear me once inside the tubes. She moves on and after every meter or so there's circular peeks from where we can see each other. She keeps moving and at this point Ashwini calls out to Vansh to look at what Jiya is doing and if he would like to join her. I tell him not to do so because then Vansh wouldn't let her go either. Anyways, Vansh hadn't heard Ashwini (thankfully). So Jiya continues. She comes to a point where she has to change directions to get to the police car and I would not be visible to her for about 2 meters. I move my lips and my arms slowly to tell her to turn left and go in the green tube and then turn right. She starts but by this time Vansh comes and looks at her in the tubes and freaks out, waving to her to get back. A worried look flashes on her face. I repeat my previous arm and lip gestures. She goes on and in a few seconds reaches the police car and waves triumphantly, stays there for a few minutes and following my directions again comes back down a slide. Vansh, in the meantime has reached the end of the slide (from the floor side) and is calling out to her to come down soon.

Jiya wants to go again. Vansh tries to dissuade her. We try to encourage him to go with her. He says he'll just come down the slide (which is at the very beginning once you climb up) but is tempted to go further because there's a spaceship at one end and a police car at the other, both his favorites, asks in an uber innocent tone, "Jiya will take me there?" and somehow musters up the courage to go. Once they climb up, he is two minds whether to slide down or go ahead. Jiya is able to convince him to come behind her. The tube to the spaceship is straightforward. he quickly rushes there, stays there for like 4 seconds, follows my hand movement to the police car, stays there for another 5 (seconds) and rushes back and takes a different route. To be honest I had feared that. Its not rocket science but after all its a maze like 12 feet above the ground. Till the time I reach below him, he starts crying (we can't hear each other). I just calmly guide with my hands and lips as to which color tube to come through and he scrambles and finally back. Jiya wants to go yet again but all of us decide against it.

He is super cautious, she is brash. He is extremely sensitive, she is laid back.

And then there are other times when he'll just go and talk to people he has just met a couple of times in the apartment complex and be such an affable kid and she'll be this taking forever to warm up, unsociable child.

But what is constant is that if one is chalk, the other is cheese. We have read this pretty cute book on opposites about a brother and sister who like to do all things opposite - like drinking cold milk vs warm, playing outside vs inside, taking a light bag vs stuffing all soft toys. They seem to be playing those roles to the hilt.

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Chicago - Part I

As I loaded the dishwasher and went over the happenings of the day, I realized what an eventful one it had been. Not just the day, in fact this week had been pretty significant. The second car on Monday, Vansh's first day of school on Tuesday, the bed today, Jiya's Kids Club class, a preschool tour, a successful visit to the Social Security Office, and waiting for a few more big ones in the next few days. I also realized that I am never going to get time to get back to my blog, I'll have to make time in the midst of it all. So as I am waiting for the milk to cool for setting the curd, I switched on the computer and resisted the urge to go onto craigslist for finding an easel and a tent with a tunnel and after a quick look at my inbox, opened blogger. The kids are growing up way too fast with personalities emerging and changing with lightning speed and I wish at least to pen down the big points if not all.

The few friends who still follow my blog probably know already that 3 weeks back we moved to Chicago. Yeah destiny again showed its enormous presence and owing to Ashwini's job we moved yet again. What we had thought to be the final move a little over two years back turned out to be not so. Now the post can take several directions but what I had in mind foremost was to pen down how the kids are taking it, how they are conducting themselves while interacting with peers at school, at other classes, etc, how they are feeling and the likes.

I am rather pleased that they are not giving me a hard time as I had expected they would. From a joint family filled with much love and pampering and many sights and sounds all day long, someone to play with and talk to any time of the day you feel like, the charged atmosphere that results from just the fact that you are staying in a city like Delhi, to the stark contrast of the noiselessness of a quiet Chicago suburb, the weather still not conducive to pulling people out of their homes for walks and hence some socializing in a new place, I had expected them to be dull and bored the first few weeks. Luckily they were very excited about the new surroundings, literally soaking in the newness of every experience they got. From spotting the familiar goldfish (from 2 years back :)) on the Target aisles, the Cheetos that they always used to have with a Subway sandwich, the chalupa at Taco Bell, Vansh was rather happy to see he had familiarities to come back to here.

His interaction with people around has been splendid. Not withstanding that his spoken English needs much improvement, he doesn't hesitate all to say what comes to his mind when someone talks to him. He conducts himself very confidently. Two weeks back, I was at the park and in my conversation with a gentleman who was there with his son told him that we had moved from India a few days back. Vansh added to say that "we come by Lufthansa from India to Munich and Munich to Chicago". At the library, when a librarian asked him how he was he said "I work (am working) on the computer just like office!" Yesterday at his school, they took the children to the computer lab and had them do something (draw a flower, he says) on iMacs. He, needless to say, was elated and told me that today asked his teacher whether they would be going everyday to which she said no. I can bet had she said yes, his next question would have been would they be getting a laptop/iPad for home.

Jiya was confident too in her preschool program today. In a few minutes was ready to leave me and join the group for a bubble making activity. Right now she is enrolled for just once a week class and I told her that if she does well there, plays with other kids, talks to them and the teacher, I would enroll her in a dance/music class since she loves it. She is on the shy and reserved side though she is getting better. To which she said "I promise I will be good! Please enroll me now only."

In the mornings when they were home, the kids chatted with both set of grandparents and their chacha chachi, who are missing them enormously, almost everyday. Vansh told them about everything he had been doing, the new things he had been getting, showed it to them on the webcam and alongside got a chance to browse nokia and blackberry sites since he got the laptop not password protected during this time. He is way too crazy about phones and computers. He now troubleshoots online when something is not working at the grandparents' end much to their delight and admiration! At that time, the kids are almost like there again, sharing notes, making silly faces, laughing. Its really heartening that technology lets us do so much inspite of being far away.

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The world of .com

It so happened that one day my father in law's inbox was open on the desktop. He stepped away for a few minutes to attend to something else. It was during the time when IPL was going on this year. I think the Mumbai Indians team was flashing on the side of the inbox that caught Vansh's attention. He clicked on it and lo and behold. All the pictures that he could ever dream of, a very very catchy look with all the jazz, it was like a dream come true. He spent a lot of time on it looking at cricketers' profiles, snapshots of various matches, speeds of bowlers because speed fascinates him.

In more or less the same time frame, looking at his passionate interest in airplanes, airports, etc (he remembered the color of the two planes that we had taken one and a half years back from US to here, the time when the wheels folded when the planes took off, he remembered E8, the gate number from which we had boarded the plane and that was the first combination he made if you gave him magnetic letters and numbers), I searched for some take off videos and videos of inside the cockpit on youtube and showed it to him. His little yet fast paced mind put two and two together and gradually made him realize that there's an address bar where in you punch in a few letters followed by .com and what follows thereafter is nothing short of a magical journey. Ever since, there has been no looking back.

The things that he now does are rather amusing. One of his favorite thing to do remains looking at airplanes' videos on youtube. It helps that once you type in the first few letters of 'kingfisher', say 'kin...', several spellings come down below making his job super easy and rendering mom's help useless.

During the Commonwealth games here, he saw Ashwini look at the games' schedule and book tickets online and in short create magic again and so he added it to his mental list of favorites. He was often found browsing through the website clicking on various stadium names and trying to book tickets himself. Thank God he still doesn't know the concept of credit cards, for the concepts he does know, he puts them to excellent use. Like he once put in Ashwini's company name, say XYZ, in google. Unimpressed by the technical website which was the first result, he clicked on the second one which was a jobs website where you apply for jobs. He typed in his name at the correct place, our home phone number which he has recently memorized in the contact number space and XYZ where it said company's name and went on to announce smugly that he had applied for a job in papa's company.

He often visits spicejet.com or air-india.com to book tickets to Bangalore or Chennai which was where Ashwini recently travelled for some trainings. I mentioned his immense interest in KBC in my last post which is also a regular destination because he is very very keen to register me as a contestant.

And to get an opportunity to get his hands on the computer, he has become one smart negotiator knowing and implementing the tricks of persuasion, black mail, sweet talk to the hilt.

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