A New Beginning!

What does the new year mean? Does it mean that we turn over a new page in our lives….resolving to make it different from the last page? Or is it just another day like any other day……we get on with our lives, the only change being a different number on our date/time settings. I feel it’s a little bit of both…..it is after all another day in our routine-driven lives. But it also represents a new beginning ……a new year ahead with new discoveries and challenges …… a new role that we grown into, a new phase that our little ones grow into…..and may be new resolutions to make or break!!! :-)

For a four year old…..I guess it is just another day except being called in to wish “Happy New Year” over the phone to friends and family.

Today being the first day of the New Year…I predictably read a book on the New Year’s Day “Shante Keys and the New year’s Peas” by Gail Piernas-Davenport and illustrated by Marion Eldridge. An American tradition demands that black eyed peas be cooked for good luck on New Year’s Day. So Shante, frantic that they’ve run out of the peas at home, goes around the neighborhood looking to borrow some black eyed peas. Being a quintessential American neighborhood, she knocks at the door of Chinese, Mexican and Indian households who celebrate New Year’s their own special way. She manages to avoid a whole year’s bad luck by finally procuring some black eyed peas for the New year’s feast that all her multi-ethnic neighbors are invited to. Actually, Abhay loves black-eyed peas too…at least he did until last year!!

Another book that I read to Abhay is “A Good Day” by Kevin Henkes. The cute little characters in “A Good Day” are all having a bad day. A little orange fox can’t find his mother, a brown squirrel dropped her nut, a white dog gets tangled in the fence, a little yellow bird loses its favorite tail feather. The entire scene changes when things do turn out the way they want – One finds his way, one gets lucky, another perseveres, and yet another simply changes her attitude and moves on and the bad day transforms into a good day!!! Well……a good note to start the New Year …isn’t it? It’s all in the way you think it is!! Reminds me of my dad’s wise words “ It’s all in your mind”!!

Wishing everyone a Happy New Year!!