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.

Touched on Mother's Day

It was Mother's Day on 2nd March (They celebrate in UK at this time, in India it is celebrated in May). It fell on a Sunday so they decided to give all the mums a little surprise on Friday at Moon's Preschool. They prepared beautifully wrapped gift boxes with lots of kisses inside which mums are never suppose to open, else the kisses will fly. Not only this, all the children were given a bunch of Daffodils to gift to their mums , wishing them a happy mother's day. Moon's teacher told me that he was not much interested in wrapping and decorating the gift at first but then when they said, its for mum, he happily contributed. On the gift box is a heartwarming poem which goes like this:

'This is a very special gift, that you will never see,
the reason it's so special, is it's just for you from me,
Whenever you are lonely, or even feeling blue,

you only have to hold this gift and know I'm thinking of you.

You never can unwrap it, please leave the ribbon tied,
just hold the box close to your Heart, it's filled with love inside.'

Touched I am, and shall keep this gift for life, all wrapped.

Tag time----A to Z of me

As usual Neera has tagged me to do this one.....so here i go

A-Available?
Depends who's asking

B-Best Friend
When I can't be best so why expect it from others. I believe 'Best' and 'Perfect' don't exist.

C-Cake or Pie?
Cake

D-Drink of choice
Water, Coke, Tea, Buttermilk, Shikangi(Indian Lemonade)

E-Essential things used everyday
Air, Water and Food

F-Favourite colour
Sky blue

G-Gummi bears or worms
None

H-Hometown
Ghaziabad (near Delhi)

I-Indulgence
Mints and lettuce

J-January of February
January-a new beginning

K-Kids and names
Son-Bhavya (nicknamed 'Moon')

L-Life
A journey with new lessons every minute

M-Marriage date
14 december 2003

N-Number of siblings
One sister

O-Oranges or Apples
Oranges

P-Phobias
Darkness, being alone

Q-Quote
Live and Let Live

R-Reason to smile
My son and his sweet talks

S-Season
Summer- can go to the beach and make sand castles(this is what i can think of in this terrible winter, really looking forward to this summer)

T-Tag three people
can't think of any, Neera i wish i could tag u back

U-Unknown fact about me
Will not remain unknown if i tell, so better let it be unknown

V- Vegetable you don't like
Bitter guard and Arvi(dont know the english name for this)

W-Worst Habit
Short Tempered

X- X-rays you have had
Backbone(MRI), Chest, Dental

Y-Your favourite food
These days I long to eat food in North Indian wedding, spicy, oily and purely unhygienic

Z-Zodaic
Libra

Moon's hand and foot prints

Few weeks back, they were doing foot prints of all the children at Moon's pre-school but obviously he did not want to get it done because of his extreme love for his shoes and a sense of insecurity which I guess every child of his age faces while removing shoes (or any other thing for that matter). It was a relief to know that quite a few of the kids did not get it done. Last week was half term at pre-school so it was week off for him. I decided to do his feet print as he did'nt do at school. I wanted to know how he reacts to the idea when at home. In the beginning he was not very hapy with the idea but then when i reassured and comforted him, he agreed and got it done happily. He, on his own took an initiative to get a print of his hands as well. Now it had become a game for him, at which he was expert by now. Got a few of hands and feet prints, and i took pictures of them. But when asked whether he would like to get it done at school, he completly denied. Anyway, my job was done, we are not very late to record his three year old hands and feet, but it came as a pleasant shock to me when he said the next day "Mummy phir se hand aur feet colour karna hai"......

Moon's Tea Party

We have these tea parties every evening when its mum's tea time. Mum prepares a tea for herself and Moon prepares tea for few of his pretend friends. 'Police' and 'Kun' to name a few. Yes very unusual and strange names, i know. He properly lays down the cups and saucers in this particular tray which was not a part of his tea set. and pours some tea for all his friends from a teapot. Loves to have a chit chat with his friends over a nice cup of tea and when they are done, gathers all the tids bits for a washing up, again pretend one. I am happy, till now he has not asked me to fill these cups with water or any other beverage to make it closer to reality.

Please excuse the big pile of clothes in the backgound, they had been there for 4-5 days to be ironed, finally did them this weekend.

I've been tagged

I've been tagged by my blogging pal Neera. She was my inspiration to create a blog and now once again she gave me a reason to get back to it and to stop lazying around, give my mind a shake and my fingers a move. Am not very sure what am going to write on this one but anyways i've sharted. Am not going to get enough blogs relating to each of the tag and enough blogging friends to tag but feel exited to at least give it a try. Lets see. Here i go....

Rules For The Tag

Post 5 links to 5 of your previously written posts. The posts have to relate to the 5key words given : family, friend, yourself, your love, anything you like. Tag 5 other friends to do this meme. Try to tag at least 2 new acquaintances (if not, your current blog buddies will do) so that you get to know them each a little bit better.

Family : its really strange that the caption on my homepage goes ' its my family' and i don't have single post to match this tag. All I can search for is Bhavya's Homecoming and three of us reuniting again. Family to me is really important as am a real family person, its a different story that i've not written much about it here.

Friend : well, i should really call it friends, can't think of anything else other than this when we are with friends. Friends for me are for caring, sharing, and being mad when I am with them. I truely treasure my friends and have them for life.

Yourself : I seem to have forgotten 'myself', a bit after marriage and completely after having a child. Sorry for being a spoilt sport on this one, but i couldn't find anything relating to 'me' on my blog though it is all 'mine'.

Love : Well again, i don't have any post on this one, but can say that for me 'love is life'. Love means caring and sharing for me, and the person who does that surely loves me, be it my friend, my child or my hubby. Am truely a librian, as am too romantic and love surprises and show offs of love by my hubby.

Anything I like : Now coming to the real one. I can go on and on, on this one as i am completely a chatter box. I don't like, I love to talk about anything and everything under the sun. I can talk to people according to their tastes and preferences, like i can talk to people who talk more about being independent, job etc and equally with a person who only wants to talk about their kid/s, and with a person who want to talk about their MIL issues ;) I guess I am a good company, do u think I m praising myself too much? I must shut up then. Other thing that i like is tidying and cleaning my house though it is not much evident these days, with toys and books of my lil one overflowing from each corner of the house. Again I don't have a post to link.

Now I tag, tough to find someone....Neera if u wouldn't have tagged me then i would have tagged, but now i guess i can't tag u back, can I? Let me find someone....

Jyoti : Don't know her, but we share a common communty on Orkut. Looking forward to her tag.
Nimisha : A good friend, know her through orkutting, not sure whether she'll be able to attend to her tag as she's not writting much these days.
Shubha : Again an Orkut buddy.

Ishita : Don't know her, looking forward to know more about her.
Dr. Manoj : Oops....tagged a Doctor. Pardon me doc saab if you are to busy for this. I just love the priceless info. on your blog.

There you go, its done.
Thanks Neera, cause I did'nt attend to my tag when i was tagged before, but you knew, only you can compell me to do this. Thanks for once again reviving my blog world. Looking forward to knowing all the blog pals better.

Happy Tagging....enjoy.

Moon is three years

Its really surprising, when I come to think of how quickly last three year have gone. Time sure flies and I guess even faster when we become parents. These years have been filled with big and small joys, sorrows, worries and practically everything which comes as part and parcel of being a parent. I have seen times of sheer excitement when Moon first smiled, rolled over, got his first tooth, crawled, stood, walked and said his first word. At the same time this journey also showed bad phases when we faced extreme depression, which only happened when Moon became unwell. I can still recall those sleepless nights when he cried for colic and those peak winters in which he made us to sweat as to we had no clue why he was crying. Really, there is nothing bad for a parent to see their child unwell.

On a lighter note, Moon has come an unbelievably long way in these years where his mental, physical, emotional growth is concerned. Coming to talk of it I cannot start in any other way but to talk about his talks. Well, he has become an absolute chatter box or should I say a question box in the past few months. He talks non stop and nonsense, if that makes sense. He can be caught anytime when he is awake and all that he would be doing is taking something to some pretend friend of his, named 'Police'. Yes, its silly but true. He has this one imaginary friend whom he talks, plays, shares so much that i get scared at times and this movie comes to my mind where a child in the house could see the ghosts that were not visible to anyone else. I really get a feeling sometimes that is there anybody that I m not able to see and only he is seeing. This pretend friend of his even follows us when we are out and about. It gets over my nerves sometimes.

Another peculiar thing in past few months has been his bullets of questions. Whatever you talk he is always ready with a question. A typical conversation between us goes like this :

Moon-"ham kahan jaa re hai"
Me-"Tesco"
Moon-"Tesco kyun jaa re hain"
Me-"Groceries lene"
Moon-"Kyun groceries kyun lana hai"
Me-"Khana banane ke liye"
Moon-"Khaana kyun banana hai"
Me-"Mujhe nahi pata/papa se poocho"
Moon-"Kyun nahi pata/papa se kyun poocho"

and then i faint. This is just one example, this happens about hundred times a day. Now this reminds me of yet another movie where Paresh Rawal asks so many questions that the person answering faints at the end. Moon can certainly make Paresh Rawal go dizzy.

I know all this are his developmental milestones and am enjoying every bit of it. To record his capabilities at the moment, here it goes :

-Can say numbers up to 10 and tries up till 15, also can count things up till 10 correctly.
-Can recognise almost all the uppercase and lowercase alphabets with an exception of only few. Also like to sing the ABC song but looses track after reaching halfway.
-Is getting really good at map reading with the only exception that hold the map book upside down.
-Sings numerous rhymes correctly like Twinkle twinkle, Wind the bobbin up, Row your boat, Incy Wincy spider, Scarecrow, Baa baa black sheep, Johny Johny, Happy and you know it and a few more, with the exception that knows only one Hindi rhyme 'machli jal ki raani hai' (that too forgets in between)
-Knows 'Namokaar Mantra' (our prayer) but tries to escape from chanting it.
-Can do simple activities with alphabets on starfall.com. Can click, drag, do simple puzzles and follow the instructions. Has been doing this from past 4-5 months now.
-Uses words like click, drag, select, website, download, close, open, shutdown, computer with respect to the cyber world, though doesn't know the meaning of even half of them.
-Loves the books to be read for him and demands for more.
-Likes to watch new cartoon series like 'In the night garden', 'Doodle do', without leaving the all time favourites 'Teletubbies', 'Brum' etc.
-Is fully potty trained, including night times. Getting really independent with using the toilet, including putting on the light, setting the foot stool, cleaning himself when done (though i prefer to wash him) and washing hands thereafter. Uses no toilet seat/ring.
-Fully settled at school with no crying.
-Getting too much into pretend play, be it pretend friend, bathing and dressing up the teddy, making tea for us, closing the imaginary door of his ride and so on.

All in all, am enjoying every moment with my child, but fear that these years will also fly soon, but I know each day is a new day, a new beginning with him and he always have something special for us in store.