Fourth Birthday

Anirud's fourth birthday was a semi-low key affair. :) We had two of our closest friends at our place for dinner. A week before, when 'Shanya' (Saranya) aunty offered to prepare a birthday cake for him, Anirud promptly asked for a green one as that is his favourite colour (He has been telling us that he will be changing his favourite colour soon). Apart from the football cake that every one liked, he got some enviable gifts as well. As his school reopened after Easter break, a day after Anirud's birthday - he had another round of celebrations by cutting a 'Thomas - The Tank Engine' cake and sharing it with his peers.

4 Years!

Happy Birthday sweetie pie!

Can't believe that 48 months has whizzed past since that nervous wednesday evening in April 2005. What an incredible ride it has been. May 'ummaachi' grant the best he could possibly grant.

Easter Bonnet

We were not aware of Easter Bonnet until we were asked by Anirud's school to get one ready for today. Today is the last day of the term, before the school breaks for Easter and they wanted every kid to be with a bonnet today. As it is, Easter Bonnet is nothing but a decorated hat, traditionally worn by women during Easter time.

Anirud's mom put up lot of effort in getting the hat decorated, while I contributed to the activity by supervising her. The result of 40 minute work was a nicely decorated, but girlish looking bonnet. As we were quite new to this concept and also since Google Images returned few pictures of boys wearing such bonnets, we excused ourselves for the girlishness bit. What mattered in the end is, Anirud liked it every bit and much to our relief, we saw few other boys at school having such bonnets.

Tennis

We enrolled Anirud for Tennis lessons at a local club. The lessons will be with a group of children of his age and that will be for about 30 minutes every week. It is not our intention to make him a Federer or Nadal (we certainly don't mind if he becomes one eventually ;-)), but our idea is to pull him out of the couch and make him get some exercise. One of the first lessons for this couch potato is to place the ball on the racquet and walk a certain distance balancing the racquet. He did pretty well on that, much to our surprise and that of the coach. So far, he has been there for 2 weeks and he seems to like it. If he continues to like it, we might think about increasing the frequency of lessons and see how he does.

Statue of Liberty

There stands the Statue of Liberty.

It was entirely Anirud's idea. He took few sheets of paper, stood on a stool with his hands raised and claimed himself to be the 'Statue of Liberty'.

Parents Day @ School

Every school term, Anirud's school organises a day where the parents can go in and have a look at what their wards are up to. As it is a school based on montessori way of teaching, on a typical day children are mostly on their own exploring with various stuff in the school (there are loads of things for them to look/feel and learn) while the teachers (directress, as they are called) gently guide them appropriately.

On the day when parents where invited, children were asked to show their parents what they normally do. Although his initial reaction to my presence inside the school was like 'what the heck are you doing at my place', he got over it and took me around to various tables and started to explain things with lot of pride. He struggled hard when trying to get the torch bulb glow by connecting the wires to the battery and eventually succeeded. As he normally likes any role play, he was more than happy to be a vet in the Vet's corner. He was very excited to show me so many things around that the way he moved around the place had an air of 'this is my place and I know what I am doing' kind of attitude.

I also got a chance to have a detailed chat with his key worker away from his earshot and was pleased to hear that he was doing well. She reported that everything is fine with him and also that he is good in 'trying' out things, rather than sit laid back. He seems to come out as a bright kid in generaland it was an interesting observation that he likes activities where he gets to use his hands a lot more (example - playing with a play dough etc). She did mention about the way he adores two other teachers - Miss Fiona and Miss Lucy, whose names we hear a lot when Anirud talks.

One little concern that came out was the way in which Anirud approaches other children. More often than not, when he wants to join other children in some activity, it seems that he just barges in taking them for granted. The other children, who are also 3 or 4 year olds doesn't seem to like that. All he needs to do is to learn the art of 'asking', which I am sure he will pick up gradually.

In all, the visit to the school gave us a feel good factor about what and how Anirud is doing away from home and we also had few action items on us as well.

Theory

Q: Anjaneyar with his tail on fire jumps in to the flowing river. What will happen now?

A: The river will have hot water.

Take a Guess

Before reading any further, take a look at this picture and try to guess what it is.

Anirud 'drew/painted' this and claims this blue-green mess to be an ambulance. Irrespective of whenever or however you ask him, his answer has been consistent. Also, he went over board by proudly displaying his work of art and asking his mom to point at the doors of the ambulance. Unable to bear that annoyance, she put her hand somewhere on the picture and said that this is where the door is. We are not sure if Anirud considers himself as an expert of art or an expert in ambulances, but it was certain that he didn't think of us as any of the above. Pointing at various parts of the supposed picture, he started explaining like 'This is door mummy. See, this is a wheel. This is the siren.....'. Ugh! We gave up. :)

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?

Keyboard

Anirud busy playing in his keyboard

Talk Talk

Following are the new set of words / phrases in Anirud's dictionary.

Listen to me
Yes, Please
Don't worry, I can manage
No, Thanks
Stand in the queue please
I am going to sing. Listen now
Don't be silly

Favourtie Man

Guess who is Anirud's man of the moment? In his own words, "Obama daan ennoda favourite man" (Obama is my favourite man), whatever that means. :-) The day after Barack Obama's inaugration as President of USA, we were at a shop gazing at dozens of newspapers - all carrying the pictures from the inaugration. Initially, Anirud was excited at being able to identify Obama and later on he became excited as he recognised the event that he watched the previous day. At that very instant, Obama became his 'favourite man'. :)) As Anirud has been chattering non-stop about the world's powerful man for the last couple of days, I asked him what he knew about Obama for which he replied that his favourite man gives speeches and everyone claps. One question that I am unable to answer him was - "Why didn't Obama become the President of UK?".

Girly Stuff

While picking up Anirud from school, I pointed out to art works that other children had done and asked why he didn't bother to do anything of that sort. His reply was very simple - "Adhellam girls panradhu pa" (Those are girly stuff daddy).

Anirud's Theory on Bones

1. Milk has calcium. If you drink lot of milk, your bones will become strong and won't break. Milk is white in colour. So, bones are also white.

2. If you drink Complan, your bones will turn yellow because Complan (Mango flavour) is yellow in colour.

3. If you drink coffee, bones will be strong because coffee has got milk. (No comments about the colour of the bones, whatsoever)

Show Off

Today morning, when I dropped Anirud at his school - he had a word with his friend P, then came running back to me and started searching my pockets frantically for something. He located my mobile phone and before I could say a word, ran towards his friend and said 'My dad has a Blackberry'. He turned back to me with a satisfied smile after noticing the jaws of his friend drop. That was clearly a show off. Seems that his friend had boasted about something else his dad had got and this fella wanted to do a 'mine too'. Will be interesting to know how his friend retaliates.

Eating Habits

Due to rounds of cold, cough, flu etc affecting everyone in the family over the last few months, it was easier for us to feed Anirud by ourselves. Clearly, we didn't have any bit of energy with us to beseech him to sit properly and have his food or to stand his occasional tantrums if he is not in a mood to eat.
Now that we have got back to normal, we resolved to make this little brat eat on his own. I should say, that it was a sort of shock when we offered him breakfast and asked him to eat. He flatly refused and the bowl was removed after giving him 20 minutes. He was more than happy to go hungry. It continued the same way for lunch and he was demanding us to feed him ('ootti vidu ma'). Not eating for the whole day might be fashionable, but he couldn't withstand it. As chapathis were being prepared for dinner, we could see him grab that in his plate, run away to his table and within a matter of 90 seconds he finished a chapathi and kept asking for more.

Conversation

அப்பா: ஹ்ம்ம்..... என்ன பிள்ளை-டா நீ?

அனிருத்: கருவேப்பில்லை

[Dad: Enna pilla da nee? Anirud: Karuvepilla (curry leaves)]

There is no meaning or anything to what he said. The spontaneity of his reply was very funny.