My li'l zebra

Our faces are still hurting a bit from smiling so much.

The hall was filled with the children's parents, grandparents, friends, relatives, neighbhours, countrymen and i suspect it was with great difficulty that people left their pets at home.

Everybody cheered for every child as if he/she was their own. One child sang a really long classical music-ish prayer song and gave all the parents including us a complex(ex : gosh...arjun can barely sing ba ba black sheep correctly!!)

Another little boy actually gave the welcome address, all in one breath, without missing a beat and didnt help our self esteem one bit.

When it was arjun's turn to come on stage, maddy and i were pretty calm and collected if one did not notice our tightly held hands. Our zebra, wearing a pair of zebra striped dungarees with a white shirt, didnt let us down. When a hand pushed him on to the stage from the wings, he kind of hop-ran and took his place and kept peeping at the teacher in the wings. Then he gave up on her and started biting his nails and scanning the audience for us ... which was okay because all eyes were on the wailing little lion who kept walking into the wings and then kept getting shoved right back on stage. He was the real star of the show...tears and all :)

Needless to say, they got a thunderous round of applause like everybody else :)

So it was not as bad as we thought it would be.

junjun went happily to school today when i told him 'no more dancing'. Still feels strange saying that to a boy who sets the floor on fire when he dances at home!!

Dance Dodger

We had just about succeeded in developing selective amnesia about 'Sports Day' when the school actually thought it a good idea to send us a CD of the photographs of that .. ahem..special ocassion !?!

Now the note in his diary said we were to pay a certain amount for the video recording and costume for the ANNUAL DAY. I felt the undeniable stirrings of unease.

Rehearsals for the dances started. But that nagging feeling wouldn't go away.

My fears, it seems, were not unfounded.

Today i got called into the school with an ominous 'madam wants to talk to you'

Heart in mouth, i went in. There sat the principal of the play school, looking particularly woeful. I said Hi. And this is what i got in return.

"Arjun is JUST not dancing. He says the music is not nice and he doesn't like this dance. He says he will dance only to the music that comes from the music system in his house. One whole week, we have been talking to him trying to convince him to dance but he just refuses.

Yesterday, he started crying. First he was in a different dance but now we have put him in the simple 'zoo baby' dance. Here he is a zebra and just has to jump up and down and he refuses to do even that. Seeing him, the kids who were dancing properly are also not dancing. Please talk to him! "

Had it not been for her angst filled expression,I would have laughed my heart out and given her a big hug. I suspected she would take serious offence if i even smiled. So i solemnly promised to talk to him.

Back home,i asked him why he was not dancing. "That dance is not nice amma. I like jab-we-met music only. i will dance at home amma. i DONT like to dance in school'

After a lot of coaxing and cajoling i finally gave in to the highly undesirable but effective method of getting things done from a three year old. Bribery and corruption.

"Arjun, if you dance really well, Acha and i promise to take you to xyz rides. But i will check with your teacher, ok?"

Arjun has promised to dance 'very very well'

March 22nd is the day of reckoning. I am kinda hoping a certain jumpy zebra will be the star of the show...but that nagging feeling is just not going away....

Health is Wealth Day!!

Junjun's sports day was called that. And it has taken me quite some time to recover enough to write about it.

His grandfather was an athlete and so was his mother and his dad was a hockey player - so how bad could it get?

Real bad.

There they were. Seven little ones ready to start off on their running race. Arjun's name was called but i couldnt see him there! And then at the end of the track, there is this tiny boy with his back to the starting line. It cant be, i thought to myself. But it was. Our very own flesh and blood, obviously minus the athletic genes.

The whistle blew and our man calmly turned around and strolled across the first few steps .... and .... stopped! By now all the other children were running and all their parents were screaming with joy and pride. And then there were Maddy and me...watching in stunned silence as arjun became one of the only two children to be escorted till the finish line by an ayah.

But never mind. we thought. There was still the parent-child race and i had geared up for it by ensuring i wore my sneakers. I had decided i would let arjun run on his own and would only do the puzzle placed half way across the track and then let arjun run again. But that apparently was not the idea everybody else had. Barely had the whistle blown when the children were swung around hips and parents both big and small dashed off to do the jigsaw puzzle. My little man bawled his lungs out when i held his hand and started running. So i had to stop and pick him up to prevent the impression of torture. I had barely bent to put the 6 piece jigsaw together when i realized i was the only one still sitting! So my butterfly jigsaw had a distinct picasso effect as parts flew all over the place and i trudged off with arjun.

We came last. Not just last but so very last that no one realized we didnt actually complete the race. I looked at Maddy sitting under the shamiana and he shrugged and shook his head in disbelief. I was totally torn between wanting to laugh and hide at the same time. And all this while arjun was shrieking his head off.

Since this was a pre-schooler event, it was clearly mentioned in the invite that all events were participatory and NOT competitive. So the end of the day saw arjun get a medal and a certificate just like all the other kids. (applause!! both for the school and junjun pl)

I suspect Maddy was relieved he came for the event in a different car so no one would know that he was connected to us in ANY way. :)

I would write more but i've got to go pay for my membership in the new gym thats opened up. They asked me if i wanted to lose weight and after i narrowed my eyes, they quickly added 'or gain weight?' i told them i wanted to be fit. After all i have just 12 months left for the next sports day!!!

Yay!

Arjun singing before he started school :

a b c d.....h i j k l m n o p


Arjun singing after he started school

yay b c d e yeff g yech ........yell em .....


With due respect to all the wonderful teachers i have had, this post is dedicated to Mark Twain who is reported to have said 'Let not school intefere with your education' !

Cheers! :)

To send or not to send

Junjun is going to be 3yrs and 4 months old when the next academic year starts. Two months short of three and a half which would make him eligible to start LKG.

Do i put him in some other school where the rules arent so stringent or do i let him go to play school for another year?

Mom says let him enjoy another year...once he starts, there is just so much for him to handle. Maddy is worried it would be like losing a year. He would be around 6 months older than the common age.

If he goes to proper school next year, i could start working again and get back to a life i badly miss. But as smart as he is, if he is the youngest in class, school might just wear him out.

I've got to decide. Fast.

Grand Day!

It was 'Grand Parent's Day' at junjun's school today.

With thatha being out of town, ammamma took time off from work to take junjun to school for an hour.

Apparently he showed her the toys he plays with and they did a puzzle and some coloring together. There was also some singing happening and the grand finale was a round of Musical Chairs which made everything worthwhile for amma. The reason being...in the course of playing musical chairs, when his ammamma didnt get a chair to sit on, jun jun bawled and brought the house down.

A very thrilled ammamma came back smiling :)

Today is 'Bring your favourite toy to school' day.

With arjun, as with any other child, the latest toy is always the favourite. My boy went to school with a musical gun (it plays a tune when you keep pressing the trigger and also has a ball on top which kind of opens up and reveals a little man inside). It has the add-on feature of being a whistle if you place the barrel in your mouth - like one would if one is planning to shoot himself.

Since we didnt know about the built in whistle, you can imagine how shocked we were when we saw arjun putting the gun into his mouth barrel first. A thousand thoughts flashed through my mind in a second. Did this act have some dark psychological basis? Have we failed as parents? Is he watching something he shouldnt be on television? (he can switch it on by himself now). Luckily these pleasant thoughts were stopped in their tracks by the piercing, mind shattering sound of a whistle being blown.

Boy, what a relief!! Toy makers though, are having some kind of sick fun.

I just hope the teacher doesnt reprimand me for sending that gun to school. He does love it so....

Mr Student

They were right.

Today, arjun went to school like a true professional. (If you dont take into account saying bye about 10 times to the automan!)

Did i mention that junjun's name in school reads 'arjun - PG II'?
Post Graduate? Naah.... PlayGroup!!! :)

Uh Oh!

The only objective of sending junjun to play school was so he could have lots of fun with other kids. Period. We really dont want him to learn anything. Just want him to have a ball before the responsibilities of real school begin.

Unfortunately, the novelty of school seems to have worn off. Protests to go to school - 'amma, pl tell auto man we go shopping, no want school' have become a daily affair. His 'bye amma' in a choked voice at the school gate makes me wonder whether we are doing the right thing.

The only reason i still take him there is because by the time i go to pick him up, he is his usual bright, cheerful self and has obviously had a fun time. People tell me its only natural and that he will settle down soon.

But the mornings are terrible.

The right baby

Maddy and i have watched with raised eyebrows as junjun Happily tripped along to school every day. Knowing the history of our attitudes to school we wondered whether they gave us the wrong baby at the hospital. Yesterday though, arjun screamed...'school VENDAAAA' ...

....and all is well with the world again :)

The first full day

I was tempted to make arjun bunk his first 'full-day' at pre school. He had slept for a mere 6 hours the night before. But then not wanting to feel like an indisciplined mother, i took him to school anyway. He went happily. He was not cranky. He apparently fell asleep WHILE having lunch :)

Fourth day of school and he gets kicked out for falling asleep. I dread to think what the future holds for us!

Note : Its funny how seperation anxiety is hitting me harder than him.... if it is hitting him at all.

Day I

Not one child cried.

It was such an anticlimax, it wasnt funny. I was all ready to preen over arjun as he remained his cool self while all the other kids bawled ... but they all settled down quite amicably with their little hammers and went about banging coloured balls through the holes in a box. I did catch myself telling junjun to play with his own balls and leave the other kid's balls alone. Took all my self control not to clutch my stomach and giggle away when i realized what i had just said :P

Five kids is a small class. But it has four boys and one girl. Maddy thinks for the 15 k we are paying, junjun getting just one girlfriend is a raw deal :)

We had barely come back home when junjun was out for the count. I'm loving it!