Ashwini helping me clean up leaves from our deck.

This month, I am late by 3 days. This is not excusable. But, being busy at work and busy at home with Ashwini has made me lose track of time. Most days, I don’t know what date it is.

I am continuing with last month’s format by transcribing a couple of notes from her preschool:

  • Sept. 29, 2005: Ashwini has made some great gains this week. She is becoming more responsive in the large group and requires less direct instruction. At family group time, the children painted self-portraits. Ashwini picked a paint color that was very close to her skin color and when I asked what color yarn she wanted for the hair, she said, "My hair is black, Sara".
  • Oct. 21, 2005: I am so excited for Ashwini, she is really starting to bloom socially. This week she seeked Payton out to come play with her outside. She asked Syd to sit by her at lunch. On the bus-ride home from the Pumpkin Factory, Ashwini & Payton sat next to each other and were talking about the leaves on the trees and being silly at the Pumpkin Factory.
  • Nov. 4, 2005: Ashwini had a lot of fun this week playing our phonemic awareness game, for example: we found one compound word (hotdog) and turned it into two words (hot and dog). She also liked playing Spanish bingo. When Ms. Luz would call out something she had on her board, Ashwini would say, "Yo lo tengo" (I have it). She was also a big help setting up for lunch.



  • Ashwini has been showing interest in learning Spanish with Ms. Luz, who comes to their preschool class one hour per week. Now, Ashwini can count to 10 in Spanish and knows a lot of simple words. I have to get a book for myself and learn a few things to help her practise at home. She is also learning to count in Marathi and can count upto 5.
  • Finally, the much anticipated and dreaded 'why' questions have started. Here is a snippet of conversation between Ashwini and her Aajoba (Grandfather):

    Ashwini: Why do you have white hair, Aajoba? Aajoba: Because I am an old man. Ashwini: Why are you an old man?

    This kind of questioning goes on about everything around her.

  • Ashwini is getting exposed to American football this year. I was watching a game and got excited about a play and started shouting, "touchdown... touchdown". Ashwini was standing near me. She promptly bent over and touched the ground. Seeing that, I couldn't stop laughing for several minutes.
  • Last night, she had a lot of her painting stuff just spread around (to our eyes) on the floor. Getting annoyed with all the mess, V was starting to put it all back in its bag. Ashwini came running to her and said, "Aai, don't move that. That is my creation." It is just surprising how she uses these big words appropriately.