Astrovelo

Happy Father’s Day to me… Over the last two years, I grew up as a father and learned so much more about life and love than I ever knew before.

Ashwini’s class went on a trip to a petting farm on Tuesday. I decided to go along and give a hand to her teachers. There were 4 teachers with 10 kids including me. Thankfully, it was a cooler day after last week’s heat wave and everyone enjoyed the trip. It lasted only a couple of hours that included going on a hayride, eating a snack and petting goats, sheep, ducks, pigs and cows. I went back to work and all others went back to the daycare.

It was a farm complete with barns, windmill and tractors.

The hayride was a little bumpy, but, it took us around the farm and we could see all the cows and the horses.

Here is a photo of all the kids in Ashwini’s class. Who wouldn’t want to go out and play with them???

• The greatest achievement for Ashwini over the last month is singing songs in tune. Many of you must have already heard her rendition of A B C D. We get to hear a lot of songs these days... Jack and Jill, Itsy bitsy spider, Two little blackbirds, Little miss Moffet, Wheels on the bus, and some that she makes up. She can also sing Marathi songs: ye re ye re paavsa, chandoba chandobaa, sasaa sasaa disato kasaa

  Here is one more song from Ashwini. I should record some Marathi songs too.

• Running around the house and playing peek-a-boo is her favorite passtime right after reading books.
• Ashwini loves to be outdoors on her new playset and also helping us with gardening. She has her own set of tools and likes to take her wheelbarrow around carrying things.
• Any place we go out to is a 'grocery store' for her. Doesn't matter if it is a restaurant or a store at the mall. The only special case is 'Home Depot'. I think she just likes to say those words together. Even in the morning, she wants to go to Home Depot instead of her daycare.
• She is very good with recognizing colors: even different shades of pink or purple.
• Anywhere she sees some letters, she starts to idetify them. She is very good at finding 'A for Ashwini', but also knows 'P for dada' and other letters. I think she knows half the alphabet by now.
• Now for the bad things: Ashwini's tantrums are growing worse by the day. She cries for no apparent reason to us. V: Why are you crying, Ashwini? what happened? A: Ashwini crying. I want to sit on pillow and cry. She proceeded to get a pillow, sat on it and cried for a few minutes. She stops crying if distracted, but goes right back to it after a minute or two. Hope this phase passes quickly.
• It is getting more and more difficult to get her ready in the morning. A couple of days ago, she didn't want to wear any clothes. She wanted to go to daycare in her diaper. I am resorting to something that I didn't want to do. These days, I bribe her with TV to make her sit down to put clothes on and do her hair.

Here is one more picture of Ashwini watering the new saplings in the veggie patch…