Fun with Fire Engine

Moon peeping from behind the girl in red

All get stickers

Getting off the fire engine

All poise for a group photo

Children were shown a fire engine at Moon's pre-school today. The fireman (not Sam) came in at the pre-school and explained children in a very interesting way how they help people in case of any fire and emergency. He also showed his special dress that he wears while putting off fire to protect himself. He demonstrated various parts of the dress like helmet, head and neck cover, gloves, trousers and shoes by putting them on five different children volunteers(obviously Moon was not one of them) who were barely seen from inside the massive garment. Moon first started to cry slowly when he saw those big helmet, gloves etc coming out but when I reassured him he not only stopped crying but also agreed to touch and have a feel of them. Children were told that they have to dial '999' in case of emergency and also they were asked to repeat ' we should not play with matches and lighters'. I still doubt how much the children, almost all under four and half year, understood the whole thing, but anyway, the fun part was when they all were taken out to see the actual fire engine which they would have seen in 'Fireman Sam' or maybe rushing past them with a loud 'nee nauu' sound, hardly giving them the chance to have a good view. All the children were very exited to see the big fire engine from so near, not only that, they all got a chance to climb on it from one door and taken down from the other. I don't know how much the children understood about safety but it was more of fun morning for them. At the end everybody poised for a group photo and got a treat of a story book, stickers, fridge magnets from the fireman. All in all a fun morning for Moon, me and all the children.

Fun with Bookstart Bear at the library

Yesterday, Bookstart bear came to the library to have fun and participate in the rhymes and listening to the stories along with all the toddlers. This was specially organised by the library and the Bookstart team to give a change to the children from the usual stories and rhymes sessions on the Thursday. Though we will again be going to the library on this Thursday for the usual singing and also Bhavya would be getting a certificate for the big wild read that he did this summer. I just hope i can walk up to the library if the weather allows us.
Bhavya had a great time with the life size bear, quiet contrary to what I thought. As soon as he saw the bear, he got all exited and jumped out of his strollers to run and hug the bear, just the way he hugs me. It was a real visual treat to see Bhavya hugging the bear forgetting all about my existence.

I could manage to take only two pictures with my mobile as I had forgotten the camera as usual. Moreover, there was a professional already taking the pictures, in which case i guess we were not suppose to take pictures.
I'll post more pictures here if i could manage to buy them.

Weekend Hungama

'Weekend hungama' , this was the name given to the invitation that we received for the birthday party. Party was kept to be on saturday 26th of may at our friends residence. We reached there by 12 noon though missing the prize that was suppose to be given to the first arrival as we had another friend came before us, who generally happens to be the last person to arrive and is always teased by the whole group to be the last always. Probably this time the inspiration was the very successful ' First arrival gift' of the host. People started coming and we were almost six families i.e. around fourteen adults and 6-7 children. While children were busy with their toys, fighting, running around....ladies working in the kitchen and gents having a session of gossip which they don't do much but had to opt for that day as there was no football, cricket or any other match going on, on the TV. I should not ignore the fact that gents were very efficiently looking after the kids as well while we were busy helping the host, though there was not much left to help as she had already made the mouth watering lunch and all we were helping her was to warm up the numerous dishes and serve them.

After having the delicious and heavy lunch it was time for us to play our games as we usually do in almost every getogether. All the gents were way too sleepy to play but one of my friends 'belan' (rolling pin) worked as it always does( i m not mentioning any names here as people might not like it).

We played a game in which all the ladies were lined up and a man who is blind folded has to come with a rose in his hand and try giving it to the correct lady ( his wife) , ladies were not suppose to change places as it will make it almost impossible to recognise as nobody would touch to find their spouse obviously, its a filmi game but we moulded it to our convenience....believe me its very difficult even if the target doesn't change place.....we were a bit daunted at the beginning to play this but it really came out to be a big hit and everybody was laughing there lungs out. Another game played were bowling with the kids bowling set and I was in a close competition with the winner. We also had a round of our evergreen antakshri. We made two teams of ladies and gents as we always do, but at the end both the teams fight to prove that they won, the irony of the situation is nobody knows who actually won. Ladies generally play very sincierly and in true sporting spirit while the gents tend to cheat and were looking fo songs on mobiles, video cassetts kept nearby.....my friends belan as usual works wonders in such situaitions.....

not to forget the musical chairs in which i again lost though was very close to winning...

last but not the least we played passing the pillow/parcel, this was equally funny and enjoyble.

all in all we had a great time, though we had aching cheeks because of laughing so much.

Bhavya had a nice time, did some skating as he was not scared and knew that he is well supported by the carpet and cant fall, he also poised nicely to be clicked.

All were off by 8 pm as we needed to prepare ourselves for the party very next day, given by our friends on the occasion of buying a new apartment.

Next day we went at around 1pm as there was no gift for the ' early arrival' .....naaa....just kidding....this was a bigger event as there were more guests here than yesterday. We had a grand lunch and were ready to play some games as it is an unavoidable part of out every getogether....as there was not much scope for physical movement, the place being packed with people, we settled to play our regular feature antakshri and enjoyed it as usual. Then we had a round of dumcharads of movie names.....goshh...i cant believe these men never play sincerely and gave us the toughest of movies to enact, couple of the movie names doesn't even exist but they somehow convinced us to act them out. I should accept that ladies almost lost in this, but it was because of gents cheating so much .....ahhhh.....all tired after a correctly named 'weekend hungama'.....honestly, we has a blast over the weekend, thanks to both the hosts .....

Monday morning was a relaxed morning as it was a long weekend......the hangover of the weekend was still not over......the phone rung.......guess what?? yet another invitation for the birthday party on thursday :)