Why?

At last night's presidential debate a four year old should have been the moderator. It would have been much more fruitful because a 4 year old, for lack of civility, doesn't let anyone sway away from the question and would not rest until answered!

Here's a sample of everyday questions...

• Why do we call an Orange an orange? We don't call things by their color!
• Same silliness is with Plum, why ?
• Why is it raining so hard?
• Rain is hard or soft?
• Why do we grow up?
• Why do we live only in one country?
• Why did you flip that pancake?
• Why do you cook?
• Why do we change clothes?
• Can we touch the sky with a very very very tall ladder kept on a big big big ship in the middle of the ocean? If yes, why? If no, why?
• Why do you have to turn the car to go left or right?
• Why do germs make us sick?
• Why do things good for our tongue are not good for our belly? ( I am in love with this one ! Could someone please pass on a calorie free cheesecake?)
• Who will be in my belly when I grow up?
• Why did you get married to daddy?
• Why do we call strawberry a 'straw'berry? I don't see any straw!
• Why do toilets flush so loud in restaurants and stores?
• Why don't they make sinks low everywhere so children can also wash hands comfortably? We are still growing up! (Are restaurants listening?)

.............................. and more!

Musical Recycle

Saumya likes to make things. Things like putting a big oval bead at the end of a string which becomes her fishing line and sitting on her blocks wagon that is her boat and then she goes fishing.
This is when she got a big bite and had to pull hard and fast! All those wooden beads on the carpet are the fish in the lake.

She usually steers away from the intended use of things and tries to make something else. For past few days she has been collecting her yogurt containers
Today she filled them up with beadsThese are push pin kind of beads that are a part of a puzzle where you push in the beads while matching it with the color to make it into a pattern. She has spent a lot of time with this puzzle and is now trying to find other uses for it. So she filled her yogurt containers with these beads to make Maracas! While trying to shake those maracas and enjoy the music but seeing those falling out one by one for lack of a cover, she got the idea of covering them with "the shiny thing in which Mamma sometimes pack her bread for office" a.k.a Aluminium foil. So there we have our own handmade maracas! Seems it's going to be a musical weekend
at our house!
Sunday we will be heading off the Welcome Back Fall Festival at her school!
What are you planning to do this weekend besides getting soaked up in the rain?

Apple Trouble

Today was my turn to volunteer at my daughter's school. I was in the library, reading story to kids and helping them check out the books. I was a bit apprehensive about how would Saumya behave with me around. But it went very well. She gave me such a naughty smile while listening to the story. Being around with kids in a school setting reminded me of the time when I was a kindergarten teacher. How the little ones want to touch you, just be near you. Whatever you say are the golden words for them and the ones, who look like non listening are actually grasping every bit and reproduce it at home for their parents. We read a story Apple Trouble Hedgehog has finished building a cozy nest for winter. Unfortunately, a ripe apple falls from the tree above and gets stuck in her spines, making it impossible for her to fit in her new digs. She has several friends to whom she can go for advice, but their instructions simply make her situation worse. She ends up with other bits and pieces stuck to her body in addition to the apple -- including nuts, a pear, a dried leaf, and some berries. Then she meets another animal that is able to ease her situation by eating everything stuck to her. It was a very cute story! Then we did an activity where children were asked to put the pictures of things that fell on the hedgehog in a sequence.
I am thankful to the school for letting me be a part.

image courtesy http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51m750W3D2L._SS400_.jpg

FAQs

Saumya: Can you wash this yogurt container?
Mamma: Yes, sure!
Saumya: Now can I play with it?
Mamma: Yes, you can.
Saumya: Why can I play with this?
Mamma:??????????
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Saumya: Why do we need to sleep now?
Mamma: See, how dark it is outside?
Saumya: Why is it dark?
Mamma: It's night time.
Saumya: Why is it night time?
Mamma: So we can sleep?
Saumya: Why do we sleep?
Mamma: So our bodies can relax and get refreshed for another day!
Saumya: Why do we have another day?
Mamma: So we can have all the fun again.
Saumya: Why should we have the fun again?
Mamma: You don't want to have fun?
Saumya: I do!!
Mamma: Then sleep!
Saumya: okay!
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Mamma: Let's go out for a walk.
Saumya: No.
Mamma: Oh, how come?
Saumya: OK, I will go for a walk only if you take me to the end of America.
Mamma: End of what?
Saumya: America, you know my country! I want to see where it ends.
Mamma: .....Ummmmm, well....
Saumya: Do you know where it is?
Mamma: I have no idea!
Saumya: Well then let's not go for a walk!
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Saumya: Mamma who is your mamma?
Mamma: Your Nani ma!
Saumya: When you were a little girl then also she was your mamma?
Mamma: Yes.
Saumya: Are you going to be my mamma even I become big like you?
Mamma: Of course! And daddy will always be your daddy and you will always be our daughter.
Saumya: That's funny!
Mamma: What's funny about it?
Saumya: The funny thing about what you said is How can something be always?
Mamma: speechless and weak in the knees and thinking- has she figured out the big reality already?


image courtesy: http://www.clipartof.com/details/clipart/17041.html

Practical Life

Lately a trip to the Indian grocery store has become an excursion for our preschooler. She insists to accompany me and when there, she eagerly waits to reach the refrigerator where Cilantro and Mint is stored among other herbs and vegetables. Indian food is usually garnished with cilantro leaves and is used in many chutneys along with mint. Turmeric infused bright yellow subzis and curries bring to life with the fresh green contrast of Cilantro. Looking at her continued enthusiasm the vendor last time commented "She must love cilantro in her food" , rather it's the most annoying thing she can have in her food!! Why is she so excited to buy these herbs then? Once back home from our little trip to the store, we sit on the floor together with two trays. One to catch the stems and one to put the plucked leaves. Now I am only a spectator of the act while the preschooler finishes the task from arranging the trays on the floor, plucking the leaves, throwing the stems in the trash and putting away the leaves in a bag and then putting the trays away. The act might seem mundane but it helps develop skills for many advanced activities like pincer grip which prepares the fingers to hold the pencil and helps in developing the writing ability.. It provides practice in hand - eye coordination. It also is a good exercise to learn about categorization ,bunch - stems - leaves, it prepares the developing mind to understand the order or the steps to follow to complete a task
1.Pick a stem from the bunch
2.Pluck the leaves
3.Put the leaves in the second tray
4.Put the empty stem in the pile other than the bunch.

According to the book Child of the World, Essential Montessori for Age three to Twelve With activities like this She learns to concentrate, to control muscles, to move and act with care, to focus, to analyze logical steps and complete a cycle of activity. This lays the groundwork for mental and physical work in all other areas of work, not just in early childhood, but throughout life.

An Open Letter To My Daughter - 2

Dear Daughter,

The day you started your new Montessori School or "Office" as you like to call it, was a big day for you and significantly bigger for me! As you enter your office in the morning and I am left standing outside the door waving bye excitedly while waiting for you to respond, I feel like an intruder. Your office is such an engrossing space that the moment you are greeted by your colleagues, you totally forget about me. This particular act of yours is a sheer joy when I talk about your school to other people and is so comforting when I think about you later but every morning when I am in that very moment, I feel so left out of your life.
As you grow each day and gain new skills to do things independently like bathing, using the toilet, eating, dressing yourself, buckling the car seat, bringing your clothes to the laundry room, waking up, making a sandwich and many many more, I swell with pride at my parenting skills and I say to myself "I must be doing something right". There was a time when I had to prop your mouth open in order for you to get started with the feeding and now every act of yours is prefixed with "No, don't do it for me, I will do it all by myself". I am finding it very difficult to come to terms with these times when you do not need me as much. I might get into a tug of war with you at times to do things for you to satisfy the mother in me. I am much older than you are but the mother part of me is just your age. She was born with you and that is the reason that your mother sometimes doesn't act the way you expect her to. While I am there to help you with the setbacks and the failures, there is really no one with her. She will grow but at a much slower pace than you are. All this is very new to her, she is just so used to being indispensable in your life!

America Day

For past months I have been extensively reading expat blogs, non-Indians who are living and working in India. It's interesting to see your own country through the eyes of people who have not been born or brought up there.
Among the expat community there is a term India Day which is a day when everything goes wrong,the personal chef came few hours late, the gardener brought the wrong plants, power went out for hours, internet stopped working, plumber didn't show up and the likes. Now as an Indian living in America I was thinking what would it mean for us to have an America Day?Making your own food - no chef
Cleaning the house - no maid
Mowing your own lawn - no Gardner
Falling sick with no one to help you - No hired help or family close by
Plumber shows up and now instead of the empty water tank, your wallet is empty.
Getting a doctor's appointment not before two months.
Treating your car like a pick up truck because delivery for everything is so damn expensive.
Doctor taking a look at you in the "emergency room" after two hours you showed up!
How we miss our homelands while enjoying every bit of the luxury the host country has to offer.
image courtesy:www.tagdv.com

Global Perspective

Saumya: Mamma, do you know there is a country Australia and the colors of it's flag are red, white and blue, just like American flag!!

Mamma: Oh really? What else has it got just like American flag?.

Saumya: (Thinking with finger on her cheek and then jumps) Stars, it has stars just like American flag and it also has red stripes but they go like this (making a criss cross in air) and not like this (making horizontal lines in air).

Mamma: Wow! Which other flag did you see?

Saumya: America, India, China and Australia and there is one more but I don't remember the name so you will have to wait till I come back from school. I will tell you then.

Mamma: Why does your office (she calls her classroom her office) has flags of different countries?

Saumya: So I can get to know about those countries mamma! My office also has two globes which shows where all the countries are.


This speaks volumes about Montessori education which inculcates a global perspective at the right time, the time when we are ready to learn about others, when we don't have preconceived notions about far away places, the time when we are about 4 years old!

Image courtesy : http://www.international.sbc.edu
http://www.bastroplibrary.org/

Lunch - Day 2

The first full day at school went well. It's a new environment, all the faces around her are strangers for now. Must be hard to make the way through. At the time of pick up, my daughter was exhausted "Mamma let's reach home and relax on the bed together, it was a long long day and I am very tired" It was a long day but it must have felt much longer as she didn't each much. The school has no trash policy so the leftovers are sent back in the box. Works for me as I get to know exactly how much she ate. According to her lunch was good, so why didn't she eat "My belly said that's it for lunch" Oh well.
Her lunch today has Arhar Dal Parantha (Lentil flatbread), Oven Roasted Baby Red Potatoes and Strawberries. I am not keeping my fingers crossed but kind of expecting it to go better than yesterday.

How are your kids doing adjusting back to school?

School is in....

That's all I can think of these days. Our preschooler has started her Montessori right after labor day but the week was a transitional period with only an hour each day. Starting tomorrow its school time big time! I cannot think of anything else. I have been choosing clothes for her to wear, creating a weekly wardrobe in my mind and then there's lunch! The most tricky thing to think about. Brainstorming ideas, reading blogs and many books, I was prepared to breeze through it but right the first night before I got stuck, partly because I had way too many choices and couldn't decide on one! Finally I made a simple pasta salad with kidney beans and vegetables mixed in, a side of vanilla yogurt and a banana. It's like writing an exam and waiting for the result. If she eats I succeed as a mom who knows her child and if she doesn't, well then I will keep killing myself with the thought of her going hungry the whole day. I am missing my doll so much today.