Childcare update

I think I haven't mentioned this yet. We are transitioning from having a nanny to having both children in the daycare center near home that we - Rajiv especially - love so much. Rohan is still too young to go there, as they generally only take children older than two and a half, but now that he is almost two they are willing to make an exception. It will be only for a few months though, until we leave Canada. It's too bad for the boys, because they really like it.

Rohan already knew Appu's school from having dropped him there in the morning several times and picked him up some times too, so he was well prepared for it. In fact it almost seems as if he has been waiting for this opportunity all along :)

Normally the first day it's easy to leave a child at daycare, because there are children and toys to play with, but then once the child realizes that he is going to be there the whole day without his parents he becomes more tense when he enters the daycare and it takes a little while to adjust. This anyway has been our experience so far after every change of care. But so far, Rohan seems to really like his new school - although admittedly this is only the third day. We were told that he gets a bit sad about an hour before we pick him up, but that's because it's hard to go the whole day without "latte".

I was a bit worried of how Rajiv might react to having to share his special school, teachers and friends with his brother, especially given all the fuss we are making about this. But Rajiv is not the kind of boy to point out this sort of thing. If it does bother him, he will "misbehave" in some way and it's up to us to understand. So who knows what he thinks now? It did help, I hope, that yesterday Rajiv got to be the center of attention because of his birthday and he got a card from all his friends, so he knows they all still like him :)

Momma is 4 and has blue hair

When I picked up Rajiv at his preschool on the day of the concert, they gave me a little paper bag with some Mother's Day things and a plastic cup with three small seedlings growing in a little bit of soil.



Now the seedlings are only two and something must be done urgently before they die off. I don't even know what they are supposed to grow into, but a couple of clues lead me to suspect them of being sunflowers. Yikes! What am I supposed to do? I guess moving them out of the plastic cup should be a priority... On the other hand, if these little plants survive life under my "care" they will be surely ready for the big world outside, just like my children :)



Anyway, let me move on to the real subject of this post. Because we were going to the concert when I received all these things - plus a little bit of drama with Appu who seemed to have had his hand smashed by a door but then at a closer inspection was in fact ok - I just put it all in the car and I was very proud of myself when I remembered to take the seedlings in the house, but I didn't think twice of the bag.



Then a couple days ago I opened it. It contained a candle in a glass cup, all decorated with glitter by Rajiv himself, and then the real treat:

Now, first of all I would like to point out that the teacher who wrote down Rajiv's answers should have written "mamma" with an "a", because that's how I spell my name. It's incredible. I always get my name spelled wrong abroad and now even my mommy name has to suffer the same insult.. :)



I don't need to comment on the rest, except for the last line. Within myself I am debating whether this means that I am spoiling my children with too much shopping activity - for them and not. But leaving that question aside, it is funny that Rajiv should rate our shopping outings so highly.



What do you think our shopping looks like:

Like this?

Or maybe like this?

I will let you guess.



No, ok, I'll tell you: It's a little bit of both.

Butterflies

La settimana scorsa Meaghan ha portato i bimbi ad una mostra di farfalle. La nebbia che si vede nel video e nelle foto e' dovuta alla condensa che si e' creata sulla lente per sbalzo di temperatura dall'esterno al clima tropicale creato per le farfalle - beate loro.. :) A quanto pare Rajiv a spinto Rohan nel passeggino per tutto il tempo!

Last week Meaghan took the kids to the butterflies conservatory. They have a tropical environment in there, which explains the mist in the video and some of the pictures (the lens needed some time to adjust, coming in from the totally non-tropical Ontario winter).

They were providing strollers for babies and apparently Rajiv pushed Rohan the whole time. Here is the video:



And some photos:



These are the pupae. Appu loves the word and somehow he knew it even before they went there. He must have learned it in school, I'm impressed!


There was also an owl exhibit, which they liked a lot.




Overall it was a successful expedition and the kids really like to look at the video again and again. I would have had no idea that this event was going on, if not for Meaghan. Same for when she took them to a pumpkin patch in the fall. Having a nanny who knows the area much better than us can be really useful!

Photos You Have Missed - Part 3

This is Meaghan, also known as "The Nanny" :)
All the photos below were taken by her while spending time with the kids, on various days in November.

Questa e' Meaghan, la ragazza che si occupa di Rohan, e alcuni giorni anche di Rajiv, mentre io lavoro. Le foto che seguono risalgono a Novembre e sono state scattate da lei.


No worries: the train only comes twice a week, at predictable times, and it is a veeery slow charming old train.




Rajiv and Rohan have fun sweeping the leaves in front of our house.


Art time.





Playground.




Coffee break.



More playground... and Rohan finds a friend!



Right next to the playground it's also fun to look at the animals, but little fingers have to be out of the net at all times!

Week twenty four

This has been another horrible week for me, in so many ways. I will surely talk about it in future posts but right now I prefer not to talk about it, so please respect that in the comments.

So let's move on to the kids, which is why you are reading this anyway, right? :)

To start, Rajiv has been promoted from "butterfly" to "dragonfly". It's a big thing, it means he now gets to hang out with older children at daycare and I am sure he loves that.

The daycare sends a daily update by email, just a couple of sentences about something that the child did or said, or learned. Today's update says:

While playing a game, Rajiv heard the instruction that he had to touch something in black colour. Some of his friends touched their hair. Rajiv realised that he could not do that, so he ran after his friend to touch her black hair!

Sometimes these updates leave me speechless. Who is this amazing kid that pretends to be my son?? But seriously, fancy Appu knowing the color of his own hair... or Appu playing an organized game, for that matters! I am soooo proud of him!

In the meantime, Rohan's main occupations are drinking liters of toxic pink stuff (antibiotics, they tell me) and trying to crawl. The latter is a source of great frustration for him. He can position himself on hands and knees, but then no matter how hard he tries he is unable to move forward. He rocks on his knees trying to jump forward and a couple of times he actually managed to swing his legs ahead between his arms, like a gymnast. I don't see a future for that technique, though.

Another small but important milestone: I am now carrying Rohan mostly on the hip, like a big boy! And I do carry him a lot, because he is often crying these days. Part of it may be the frustration from his failed crawling efforts, sometimes the floor might be too hard for him, who knows. He also has a cold and an almost healed ear infection, and a tummy surely bothered by all the medicines. And he is also teething, but you knew that already...

Fridge art

One of the joys of daycare: knowing that your son can express himself with paint, glue and what not, and he is not doing it on your walls. :)

Week twelve

We are moving (or "shifting" like they say here) tomorrow morning, but if you could see our house now you wouldn't be able to tell. That is not good. However, I trust that everything is going to be fine and by tomorrow night everything is going to be magically arranged in our new flat - the team of movers being the essential ingredient of the magic :) . Too bad my optimism only extends to such small daily matters, but that would be the topic for a different and much darker post.

Instead, let's talk about children. I am typing with one hand while trying to nurse Rohan to sleep. He is not a newborn anymore and putting him to sleep is harder now, but then he stays asleep longer, so no complaints. He is almost three months old, we are almost through the dreaded "fourth trimester". We no longer swaddle him to sleep and the uncontrollable crying doesn't happen so much anymore. To be honest though, he really has been no trouble. As I was telling him earlier, he is a baby for beginners, no previous experience required. Somehow other parents have confirmed to me that you never seem to get one of these the first time around. Go figure.

Rajiv has started daycare again and is having a little bit of trouble adjusting, but at least he seems to remember having been there before. All this changes must be hard on him and he makes it clear by kicking a screaming furiously, until the desperate parents manage to find a suitable distraction. It would drive us insane, if he wasn't so sweet at the same time. Earlier we were on the bed trying to create a sleepy mood and he would just lie down next to me, looking at me with the smile of the toddler who is not fooled by his parents tricks, and then he would say "mamma?" and give me a kiss on my mouth. This went on over and over again, then he realized that dad wasn't there and we went looking for him for more hugs. And of course he didn't sleep, but so what?

Week four

We almost made it to a month. I would say this with more enthusiasm if I weren't so tired and sleepy, but overall things are still going quite well.

Noteworthy events include:

• We got the PIO cards that we had applied for in October!
  
• And I just received a few minutes ago Rohan's birth certificate (which could have taken several more weeks to come, so this is close to a miracle)...
• ... so it seems we are actually going to be able to leave the country at the end of August. Yay!
• We found some daycare for Appu in a really nice place, with his friend Kalena, and it is likely that the same center will accept him when we come back after my maternity leave. It is walkable from both home and the office and it is the most peaceful daycare center I have seen in my short but intense career as childcare seeker. What else could we ask for?
• In the meantime, while Appu starts transitioning to the new center, we keep taking advantage of all the summer activities that Waterloo has to offer to desperate moms with toddlers. Last week it was the music class, this week it is the swimming class. He was scared of the water at first, but we already made a bit of progress, so perhaps he will not be stapled to me like a clam for the next two weeks... The high point of the class: we learnt the "fishy" version of the Boogie Woogie song. "Put your left fin in, put your left fin out...

My favorite photos from the past week:


Appu trying to pretend he doesn't care about the camera while keeping a dignified silence and a very serious expression. This was some sort of protest, but unfortunately for him I have no idea what the problem was.



This instead is a variation of the classic measurement problem, aka "you cannot capture on camera a peacefully sleeping baby - especially if you are using a flash".