ashwini
Flu vaccine
Ashwini received Influenza vaccination last night. While we waited in the examination room, Ashwini was standing up on the table and looking out of the window. The nurse walked in after about 10-15 minutes.
Nurse: Hi Ashwini, what do you see outside the window? Are there any cars? Ashwini: No. I am looking at Venus and Mars.I am not sure if any of those planets were visible from that window, but, I was just very happy to hear her answer. The nurse was totally taken by surprise... A two and half year old talking about spotting planets in the sky... I was showing her the planets almost an hour earlier while we drove to the doctor's office, but we weren't talking about them at the doctor's office.
The nurse administered the shot with such quickness, that it was all done even before Ashwini could look at the needle. No crying, no tears or protests from Ashwini. Ashwini happily said goodbye to the nurse and asked for a lollipop. I hope we get this same nurse for all our future vaccinations.
random update
Stop taking my pictures. I am not going to smile anymore.
This morning, when we left the house, Moon was about to set and was getting close to the horizon. Ashwini pointed it out to me and said, “Look at the Moon. He drank a loooot of milk and got big.”
A coule of days ago, we were making up some story to make her drink milk: Moon drinks milk and on the days when he drinks little, he is small and when he drinks a lot, he gets big. I was surprised that she remembered it and applied it to what we saw.
Happy 2.58333 th Birthday, Ashwini!!!
Taken atop Konica tower near Niagara Falls.
We receive a note from Ashwini’s preschool every week. Here are a couple of notes from her teacher, Sara…
- Sept. 9, 2005: Ashwini spent a lot of time with Annie this week. They fed babies together in dramatic play and they picked flowers on the playground. She also spent time digging in the sandbox with LaRhonda. Payton was sitting on the potty. Ashwini went to sit on potty next to her and said in a supportive voice, "ooooh Payton, you're going poop". She is doing awesome and stepping out of her box.
- Sept. 15, 2005: Ashwini has been talking a lot about potty time this week, although she hasn't been doing much when she gets there. Ashwini wasn't much interested with art this week and she refused to eat snack a couple of times as well. She is talking to other children and playing side-by-side. She is not yet to the point where she is actively engaging in collaborative play.
- Sept. 22, 2005: Ashwini is doing amazing with her letters and numbers. She is beyond all of her similar age peers in recognition. She can identify 1 to 10 as well as almost all the letters. She can find her own name at circle time and snack. Ashwini has been singing a new song in school. It goes "choo choo" and it's got a lot of words I don't understand. I think it is Indian. I would like to learn if I could. :)
- Oct. 7, 2005: Ashwini has always loved books but this week, more than ever, she had completely immersed herself in them. It is the first thing she asks when she comes in, she takes them outside with her, and if I am busy working with something, she tells, "I'll read it to you". Ashwini and Cameron were playing boggle together today. Ashwini was helping Cameron find letters for different words.
Ashwini wasn’t well a couple of weeks ago and when we went to the Doctor’s office, we had to see a different doctor, not her usual pediatrician. This doctor had some great techniques to deal with small children. He let Ashwini do everything to him with his instruments, i.e. looking into ears, looking inside the mouth and listening to his heart with a stethoscope. Ashwini was extremely thrilled with this and then let him examine her without any fuss. He kept telling her that if she became a doctor, she’ll get to do all that stuff. After this visit, whenever someone asks her, “When you grow up, what will you become?”, she replies, “doctor”, without even thinking for a second.
BTW, if you are wondering what song Ashwini was singing in her school, it was a Marathi song, mamachya gavala javuya. Unfortunately, I don’t have a recording of that song yet. But, here is Ashwini singing another popular Marathi song, Chandoba chandoba, bhaglas kaa?
chugga chugga ... wheesh
Ashwini received her first train set on her 2nd birthday, earlier this year. Since then, I have been buying more and more trains and track components. Last week, I made a table to house the whole set. According to V, this toy is more for me than for Ashwini. But, that is not true. Ashwini is totally and completely in love with Thomas, his other engine friends and the whole train track set. I just like to play with it along with her.
I was told not to make a post without Ashwini’s photo. So, here it is her playing with the trains.
Happy 2.5th Birthday, Ashwini!!!
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.
A new beginning
When Ashwini goes back to daycare next week, she will be going to Preschool. It will be a big change for her. Her teachers have been preparing her and 3 other kids for this for the last 2 weeks. She will be moving to a new room with new kids and new teachers. One saving grace, is that her current teacher will also move into the new room. That will make the transition easy. We have been really lucky to have the same teacher for Ashwini since the day she started going there almost 2 years ago and I guess that it will continue for another 2 years.
For the last couple of weeks, Ashwini has been getting ready to become a big ‘preschooler’. The kid-to-teacher ratio goes from 4:1 to 8:1. So, the children have to be a lot more independent in terms of putting on shoes and clothes, taking care of their own waterbottles, toys, etc. After a lot of practice, Ashwini can put her sandals on and take them off. Same with t-shirts and pants/shorts. She still hasn’t made much progress with potty-training. She sits on the potty but still doesn’t know what to do next.
I am just amazed at her insistence at putting clothes/shoes by herself even at home. If I help her a little, she takes off the piece of clothing that is being put on and starts all over. So, many times she ends up with her pants on backwards or right sandal in left foot and vice versa, but, she is pleased at herself that she did it all by herself. As per her teacher’s comment we don’t try to correct her as long as it is not causing any ‘ouchies’. It is good to let her be proud of doing things by herself and after a few mistakes, she’ll learn how to do it correctly.
Did I mention lately that I adore this daughter of mine? :)
Ashwini went on a field trip today to a waterpark. I went along with the group too. It was too much fun. More pictures later.
Polite streak...
For the last couple of days, Ashwini has suddenly become polite. She always used to say, “I want to read this book”, “I want to sit in the chair”, “I want to eat mango”. It has all changed to “Can I read this book?”, “Can I sit in the chair?”, and “Can I eat a mango?”. Must be something that they are working on at daycare.
Also, she adds ‘miss’ before everything. miss Katie, miss Sara, miss Aai, miss Dada, miss elephant, miss ball. One of her teachers at daycare, Katie, taught the kids to call their teachers, miss Katie, etc. Ashwini just extended that to everything.
Happy 2.416667th Birthday, Ashwini!!!
Getting to know the Gorillas. Taken at the Toledo Zoo, last week.
- Ashwini's talking has been the focus of her monthly progress reports past few months. This month is going to be the same. Her vocabulary, making long sentences and use of proper grammar has increased by leaps and bounds. Here are a few examples:
She is getting the hang of using past tense. Along with the correct use of verbs, she comes up with lines like “I throwed a ball”, “I tripped and falled in the playground”, “The birdie flied away”, etc.
Same is the case with using plural forms of words: mouses, racoonses, ballses, etc.
She remembers the words by their sounds. For the longest time, she couldn’t remember “Toledo zoo”. She used to call it tomato zoo, burrito zoo. Finally, after a week or two, now she remembers the word, toledo.
Ashwini is starting to use “I” correctly. Earlier she used to say “my” when she meant “I”. There is still some confusion with gender-appropriate use of “him” and “her” when she is very excited and talking fast.
- She knows the whole alphabet and tries to identify the letters when she sees something written. She can count to 10 and with some help, can go upto 20.
- Ashwini likes to listen to music and songs. She demads music while she is in the car. When we watch "Thomas the engine" DVDs, she wants to fast forward the sotries and watch just the songs. While singing nursery rhymes or other songs, she is pretty good with getting the correct tune and tempo.
- TV is slowly working its way into Ashwini's life. Along with Thomas, her current favorite TV show is "Blue's clues". Thankfully, her short attention span limits her TV watching to 15-20 minutes.
- Her love for books continues. She can read out complete books without knowing how to read a single word. New books get memorized in a day or two.
- It is becoming hard to distract her from whatever she is doing. If she is crying for something and I try to make her laugh, she would laugh with me but, switches back to crying in half a second. Old tricks don't work anymore. Have to come up with new ones.
- On the food front, she still likes fruits and eats her vegetables without any problems. Lately, she has been ODing on mangoes. Also, these days, she wants to eat from our plate and wants to try whatever we are eating.
- Ashwini can hop like a bunny from one end of the room to the other. Just a couple of months ago, it was a struggle for her to lift both her legs together while jumping. She also wants to do physical tricks like balancing on one leg and walking on the lines in a parking lot, etc.
- No big news on potty-training yet. She can make some peepee in the potty, but, it doesn't always work. We still need to do a lot of work with this.
Doodles
Ashwini has suddenly improved her sketching techniques. Till recently, the only thing she could draw intentionally was a straight line. We were amazed last week when she doodled these sketches on board right in front of our eyes. Here is a self-portrait…
Check out the same photo on Flickr with a legend for identifying body parts.
And, here is a portrait of me done by Ashwini.
Ashwini's first camping trip
Last weekend, Ashwini went on her first ever camping trip. And, she absolutely loved it. I could see her disappointment, when I was taking down the tent on Sunday before coming back home. We went to Waterloo Recreation Area and had a campsite that was very close to the lake. So, this weekend, Ashwini really went to a beach and played a lot in the water. So, if she tells you about it, it is not a made-up story.
It is good to be in a stage when you know no fear.
After the swim, Ashwini spent some time on the beach drying off, eating a snack and of course, modeling.
It was a lot of fun to hang around the campsite. But, when the imperial troops attacked the park, our young jedi sprung into action.
Ashwini was very thrilled to sleep in the tent and to use the flashlights in the night. While planning, we were worried that she’ll make us come back home on the first night. But, she didn’t even talk about home or her room. From this experience, I think we’ll go out on more camping trips in the near and long-term future.
Happy 2.333rd Birthday, Ashwini!
If you come by our house these days in the evening, you’ll find Ashwini in this same pose. Recently, I bought a 2 liter container of soap solution for blowing bubbles. Hope it will last through this Summer.
- Ashwini has been talking a lot. I am not sure how much of it she understands, but, she absorbs everything she hears like a sponge and repeats it just like a parrot. A couple of recent conversations:
Ashwini was eating lunch. I brought some milk for her in a sippy cup without the lid, the way she uses it at her daycare. A: Where is the cap, dada? What is wrong with you?
Ashwini was sitting at her ‘blowing bubbles’ spot, waiting for her Aai to come out. A: (screaming) Go away. Go away from me. V: (ran out to find A shouting at a tiny little spider) What happened, Ashwini? A: This spider is trying to get me.
While drifting off to sleep a few days ago…. A: I love Aai, I love Dada, I love Ashwini, I love Dashrathking, I love Shantanu, and I love Wam from Wamayend.
- The second most favorite activity after blowing bubbles is watering plants. Our veggie garden is very happy to receive plenty of water everyday.
- She is becoming more and more independent every day.
- Ashwini is getting better with numbers and alphabets. She knows all the numbers (can count and shows correct number of fingers) and almost all the alphabets (capital letters only). She recognizes signs on the road and tells Aai which exit to take on the way home. "3 and 1, thirty one. Turn here, Aai". Always calls out stop signs. "Stop sign!!! stoppp and go".
- She is getting good at spinning stories. Her daycare teacher wrote about Ashwini describing the 4th of July weekend at a beach, playing with a beach ball. In reality, we never went to a beach and we don't even have a beach ball. Today she was telling us that she ate 'spooky spider sandwich' for lunch.
- Ashwini's current favorite story these days is 'chal re bhopalya tunook tunook'. (sorry! english translation is not possible.)
- Her current favorite fruit is mangoes.
This list could just go on and on but, I should stop and keep some stuff for more posts.
Typical day...
A typical day in Ashwini’s life:
| 7:00am | wake up, get ready, some breakfast |
| 7:40am | leave home for daycare |
| 8:00am | breakfast at daycare |
| 8:30am | playtime i.e. read books, painting/art projects, etc. |
| 10:00am | morning snack |
| 10:15am | more playtime i.e. going outside on the slides, swings, sand box, etc. |
| 11:45am | lunch |
| 12:45pm | naptime |
| 3:30pm | afternoon snack |
| 4:00pm | play outside |
| 5:00pm | leave for home |
| 5:30pm | help(!?) Aai with making dinner |
| 6:15pm | dinner |
| 7:00pm | playtime i.e. watering plants in the garden, swingset, just running around. |
| 8:30pm | bath & getting ready for bed |
| 9:00pm | reading stories in bed and drifting off to sleep. |
At the end of every day, I think about what Ashwini did and become very jealous. Sure, I have my freedoms, and get to make my own decisions and don’t have to wear diapers. But, still her life seems more attractive than my own.