Astrovelo

Taken on the shores of Lake Michigan in South Haven, MI.

• Two major changes happened in Ashwini's life during the last month. I wrote a post about one of them, i.e., her move to the preschool class. It has been 3 days since that transition and she is coping very well. She is getting comfortable with new schedule (shorter nap time), new friends (and teachers) and new responsibilities. Ashwini has cliqued with 2 older girls that were in her toddler room last year and they help her do things that she is still struggling with. Overall, we are relieved that this transition has gone well without any problems.
• The other big change is Ashwini's sleeping arrangements at home. She is out of the crib and moved on to a spanking new bed. She even helped me dismantle her crib. She calls her bed, "my beautiful bed" because the sheets have lots of pink, green and white flowers that she likes. Ashwini is quite sure that cribs are for babies and she is a big preschooler who needs to sleep in a bed. Over the last two weeks, she must have fallen from it several times, but, we have a mattress on the floor to soften her fall and she hasn't complained about getting any 'ouchies'. Sometimes, we find her on the floor in the morning and sometimes, she just climbs back up in the bed and goes back to sleep.
• Ashwini has been learning more and more songs and rhymes. We got a new Marathi CD for the car and she is picking up those songs, too.
• Ashwini's jaws probably ache by the time she goes to bed every night. All through her waking hours, she is constantly talking, screaming or singing.
• She is eating more and more new foods like fresh cut tomatoes, sauted bell peppers, sauted okra and eggplant. We are so happy to see her eat all the vegetables from our garden. We have started giving her multiple items of food on the plate at the same time. She also started eating a typical marathi thing: toop-sakhar-poli rolls.
• Ashwini still has problem pronouncing some 'sh' sounds like in shower. She says 's' for 'sh' and makes it 'sower'. If we imitate her and say 'sower', she doesn't like it.
• Ashwini loved going to the beach last weekend. We were in the water for about an hour. She was running in and out and splashing water and sand everywhere. She finally figured out that sitting in the water and letting the waves come to her was much better than running after them. There was a big grin on her face all through that hour. We should make more trips to the beach.