Tri or Bi-cycle?

Not really a post, just a random thought. I'm seeing kids his age still riding tri-cycles and I wonder if he started riding a bicycle(with training wheels) earlier than usual? He's been riding one for the past 7 months now, so he started when he was 2 yrs 8 mos or so.

The last time he was out with it, he was doing circus monkey tricks on it - riding tummy down on the seat, feet up in the air! After seeing that, we've been considering taking the training wheels off and letting him have a go at it. Too early? Only one way to find out :-)

Did you say *car* show?

Our schedule is suddenly filling up with all these random events that ...well, were never on our radar before. Case in point - Vintage Volkswagen show.

One of his teachers from the toddler room is in a band and she was performing at this event. She invited us, so we figured we'd go. Plus, there would be cars so we knew we'd have no trouble keeping him occupied. Of course, by the time we got there her band had packed up and was probably already starting its next gig somewhere else. So we didn't get to see her, but we did see a lot of Volkswagens.

M felt it was his duty to point out the car brand to us, so he was saying "Volkswagen" as we went from car to car to car..He also figured that most of them had their engines in the back, so that had to inspected and verified for each car as well. As you can imagine, i got over the excitement pretty quickly. But there were some pretty cool cars there and M was in heaven, so can't really complain, can I?

Showing Mama how things work:
Re-energizing:
Orange car!
Soaking it all in:

Spring Break

Thought we'd be worrying about spring break only in a couple of years, but this is year 2 of spring break. The Montessori system is taking schooling a little too seriously :-/ But for M, its been a good week. D managed to take mon-tue off. M had been sick, so nothing was planned.

But come Monday morning, he was feeling allright and it was a rainy day, so D and he ended up at our favorite spot - Children's Discovery Museum. They seemed to have a fun day, with both of them collapsing in the afternoon :-)

Tuesday - another adventure-filled day. Papa and M took the train to Redwood City - mama's office. While he was scared by the sounds and sight of the train arriving at the station, he loved being inside. We met for lunch, took a tour of Mama's office and both were suitably impressed(who wouldn't be?). After a mad rush back to the station(with some bawling thrown in), they made it on the train, with M happily napping on the way home and then keeping Papa on his toes by staying up the rest of the afternoon.

Wednesday - Mama was supposed to be off taking care of him. But late Tuesday evening, I found out that I had to be in San Ramon for a customer meeting. And D had to go to Folsom for the day! We were getting ready to draw lots on which one of us would be fired from our jobs first. But then... Enter Ms.Jasmine. Milind's teacher from the toddler class. She was(& hopefully still is) in love with him and had been asking me when she could come by to spend some time with him. Well, I couldn't have dreamed up a better day! She was luckily available and even agreed to show up at 8 AM. She did show up at the agreed time *and* we were all on time. But..Milind was in hysterics when I left him, saying "don't leave me alone, Mama...". That was one of he hardest moments with M - I was almost in tears driving away that day. I could hear him bawling even as I drove out the garage :-( After about 20 mins, I couldn't stand it anymore and called home. And whaddaya know - I can hear M singing in the background, Ms.Jasmine says they finished b'fast and she was debating where to take him to - Chucky Cheese, Toys R Us or the park! When i got back home around 1PM, they had just scarfed down some pizza and Ms.J was opening up a couple of cars(an Audi and Mercedes) that she had just bought him :-O M had even brought a screwdriver from our toolbox so she could get them out of the packaging(!). That day was probably the highlight of his week. He now asks for Ms.Jasmine on a regular basis.
Thursday - Papa stayed home again, but it was a rather uneventful day.

Friday - I stayed home, but had to be out in the afternoon. Papa was busy at work, so now we were on the lookout for a baby sitter again(seeing a trend here..? Mama supposed to be in charge, Mama bails out, frantic search for baby sitter.. Anyway..). This time, enter Naveen Mama. Aanya also had spring break the same week and Naveen and P had been doing the same dance. Luckily, Naveen was home with Aanya that afternoon and bravely agreed to baby sit M and Aanya at their home. This time, Milind couldn't wait for me to leave. He had packed his lil' rollie bag full of of cars, some books, a puzzle and even some Cheerios for Aanya :-) I was still giving poor Naveen instructions on how to handle this hot potato and M was already settled in Aanya's room, rummaging through her toys. I hastily accepted Naveen's offer and scooted out of there before he changed his mind. M and Aanya played, fought, "cooked", fought, ate, fought, watched TV - had a *blast*! Seen here stuffing his face:
He's been asking when he can go back there every day now. Apparently, there was a lot of "Oh my goodness!" and "Let me tell you something, Aanya" from M all afternoon - enough to keep Naveen smiling.

D and I got one thing out of it - M is totally ready to for a baby-sitter! Now all we need is a victim (insert evil laugh here).

Schultüte

Eh, what?

Well, I happened to see a picture of my German ex-manager's kids(on Facebook, of course) holding these huge..cones, all wrapped up with a bow. Had no idea what they were, but luckily there was a comment that referred to "Schultüte". One Wikipedia hit and Google search later, I had it all under control. I knew all about the German tradition of Schultüte and how to make them. Yaay! Now to find a victim.

Milind's graduation from Toddler room to pre-school couldn't have happened at a better time. So here we are, celebrating the "graduation" and welcoming pre-school.

Who cares what its called - its *huge* and looks like its full of ...stuff!
Digging in - Cars, games, his own scissors, crayons, books, candy... Didn't hear a peep from him all evening!
Except for a "Thank youm, Papa-Mama"

Graduation day

Yup, you heard me - "graduation" day. My little baby is all grown up now - graduated from toddler room to Pre-school.

Like all graduations, it was a day of mixed emotions. So proud of our little boy for mastering his ABCs and 123s. He had also dazzled everyone with control of his natural instincts to beat up anyone smaller than him and, of course - his bladder. At the same time, we knew there was no looking back - he is a big boy now!

He had a party at school, complete with banana bread, chips, fruit and apple juice to toast with. He even got a diploma - first of many, no doubt :-)

Getting setup for the parteee:
Diploma, Ms.Dobrila and Ms.Jasmine:
One last look at his class:
Good times at 8b, looking forward to more in room 6!

First words

Not really his first words, but we noticed that he says some pretty random things when he wakes up in the morning. And I mean *first* thing in the morning - his eyes are not even open most of the time, he's still lying down.

I figure its worth keeping a list of these.

(1) Where my red car? (expected, quite normal..)

(2) My ears so soft, touch them. (what?)

(3) Can you turn the fan off, please?

(4) Where my donkey?

(5) I don't like that room.

Puerto Rico - the next adventure

Seems to be the year of travel..Soon after we came back from India, mama changed jobs and so we took a mini vacation right before she started her new job. We dashed off to Puerto Rico for a week. Of course, for the entire week leading up to it M was chanting "I go Puerto Rico". Mama's last day at work was Friday, Jan 22nd and we headed to the airport that very night!

We were out for an entire week and had a nice two-bed apt in Old San Juan for the duration. M was super well behaved(or slept through) the flight and settled in quite comfortably in the apartment. He had his own room and we had ours - along with washer/dryer and a fully equipped kitchen.

Highlights of the trip:
- Drinking dudhu from the balcony every morning, watching about the army guarding the Governor's mansion next door. That meant cop cars, cop motorcycles and of course, gun-weilding cops(!).
- Intro to Plazas. Every other block ends in one in Old San Juan and the sight of one of them seems to set off something in the brain of a 3 yr old. A seemingly uncontrollable urge would take over him to run loose, scream, chase any hapless pigeons that happen to stray in his path, trip, climb steps, catch the spray from fountains - not in any particular order and all at once if it were possible.
- A new fear of ..well any animal. Cats were abundant and we even had a resident cat in the building. A new ritual for entering or leaving a building was created, which involved *a lot* of screaming and either letting a cat in or out(which is all it wanted in the first place). Pigeons were friends for one evening, where he even fed them out of his hand.
But on a following visit, M and I "attacked" by a mob of hungry pigeons!
So pigeons were out. He was already scared of dogs, so that remained unchanged. Seen here trying to recover after a stray dog happened to walk past us in the rain forest. Poor dog!
We did encounter a horse at our guide- Raul's - dad's house, and that elicited a similar reaction.
You get the idea..

- Roughing it out.
Our lil' trooper was so amazing as we made our through jungles, waterfalls and caves.He walked everywhere with a smile on his face - even in the rain and happily jumping in for a dip in freezing cold waterfall water with Raul uncle.
He even braved a blowhole with crashing waves that had me more than a little nervous..
- Garbage truck watching.
We didn't know this, but San Juan is a *super* clean city and garbage trucks come by TWO times a day to pick up trash. You can only imagine what that did to M. We *had* to stop an watch the truck finish its pickup, wherever we happened to be, at any time of day or night. He also had new heroes - the cool "uncles" hanging on the back of the truck. Seen here trying to emulate one:
- Just hangin' out..Old San Juan was perfect for just walking around, stopping for a bite or a drink, taking pictures of the gorgeous old facades and M loved every minute of it.
Of course, this also meant we tried every bathroom in the city as we walked all over. Most "experiences" were uneventful, he even had fun in some of them:
But a few were....well, I probably don't need to go into detail on that topic.

Now I need to find something nice to end this post with..How about an image of the gorgeous, warm sunshine:

The real deal: India

India was 3 weeks of non-stop fun. For M, it was seeing grandparents, uncles, aunts and cousins - most of them for the first time. It was an amazing time, with family and friends making a special effort to be there for at least one of the many occasions, and so, some of us were seeing each other after 10+ years! Its hard to capture the whole trip here, so I'll focus on the highlights that I hope M will look back and smile about one day. We landed in Calicut and M and I spent a week there, while R headed to Mysore in a day. We had Valiyachan, Ammama and tons of mamas and mamis. Milind soon attached himself to my dad @home. It was a common sight to see him walking around the yard(shoe-less, with muddy feet), looking for him and screaming "Valiyachan, Valiyachan" all day long. And while we were busy preparing for the wedding and the reception, he was discovering all the things he wasn't supposed to be doing... Headed to Mysore for what was sadly a very short stay, where he flashed his smile more and got his way even more.. Along with Dada and Dadi, he made another best friend - Sunil Mama. Morning, noon and night all we heard was his Sunil Mama, Sunil Mama... His other friend there was Umesh mama - they got along amazingly well. And, he had TWO cars, can you believe that?? Seen here driving one of them. Next stop, Bangalore. Here, much to his delight, he was re-united with his Dubai and Calicut cousins. And he finally got to go to "The party". He had been waking up for the past 10 days and asking to go to "The party". His dream finally came true :) Little did he know that this was only the beginning.

Party 1: Cocktail dinner.

Ready to rock and roll! Party 2: Wedding
Next stop, Calicut.

Stopped at Kadavu resort one morning with all the cousins before all the "official parties". Unfortunately, there was no Appu and Milind had no idea how to deal with Varun and Govi. They are the nicest kids on the planet and he got everything he wanted, he didn't have to fight them for anything! He was totally confused :)

Party 3: Family dinner
His various partners in crime, enjoying a quiet moment without him :)



Party 4: Reception

Seen here stuffing his face with ice-cream while adoring big sisters and brothers look on..Notice the fallen comrade in the background.


A month later(an eternity in toddler life), he is still talking about India, the flip-flops that Valiyachan bought for him, dada car, Appu..