Astrovelo

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.

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?

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.

I had to post this photo after seeing premkudva’s this post.

Ashwini was about one month old when this photo was taken.

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? :)

new toy toppled over. needs some maintenance.

When I saw this post by draupadi, I had to copy the idea. Just couldn’t resist…

July 2003


July 2004


July 2005

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.

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.

Sporting her first 2-piece swimsuit