School

Our county council has decided on the school that Anirud will be attending from next year. In UK, unless you opt for private education, it is the local body that decides which school the child will be attending. Although a kid's future depends on his own destiny and the the circumstances, we want to provide a good head start to Anirud for his education. We do wanted to walk that extra mile if that would make a difference in his life. More than a year before we were about to apply for a place for admission, his mom started the ground work. She spent hours poring over Ofsted Inspection reports of various schools in the locality, went through Primary School League tables for the last few years and even checked up schools in the nearby towns to see if it would make sense for us to relocate to that place. Our address falls within the catchment area of a school (A), which is not so good. We didn't want him there at all. It was not even our last choice. After lots of consideration, we shortlisted two schools (B and C)- which were a mile away from our home.

In terms of rankings and performance, both were very good and it was a difficult choice to make. As we have to list three preferences in the application form, we listed School B as our first choice, School C as our second and chose one another school (D) as our third option. When the letter came in, we were praying that it should not be school D or worse, it should not be A (even though that is not our choice). Thankfully, it was school B. We are so glad that he is going there. We can still appeal to the authorities to allot him School B, but there is very little chance of him getting there and we don't have any regrets with the current choice.

This school is set in a very nice environment, surrounded by beautiful countryside and our brat would be walking into the school as a student from Jan 2010 onwards.
Anirud's school on a snowy day in Feb 2009

School Field
Woodland area within the school
Another view of the woodland area within the school

Birthday Bash

We attended a birthday bash recently where Anirud got to meet quite a few children of his age. Parents of the birthday boy had organised few games (as in photo) as well and it was really funny - especially to those adults who were watching, with every child going their own way. As we had to travel more than 120 miles, Anirud was woken up well before his normal time and as a result, he was very moody at the beginning. At some point during the party, he came to life and actively participated in 'kuthaattam', which has become a tradition in the Indian parties that we attend in this part of the world.

Facebook

Last evening, we were just talking about the social networking website 'Facebook' and how addicted people are to it. We did notice Anirud frantically searching the book shelf for something. Couple of minutes later even as we were continuing to discuss about Facebook, Anirud with the below book in his hand declared - 'enakku facebook theriyum. namma adhai vechirukome, paaru' (I know what Facebook is. We have got one, see). Apparently, Facebook for Anirud is a book that has got a picture of someone's face. :)

Idea!

Anirud doesn't like the process of applying hair oil on his head. However softly we do that, he will always ask us to handle it a bit more slowly. Today morning, he caught upon an idea - dip the plastic comb in the hair oil and comb the hair. How does that sound?