Friends Forever!

With exactly a week left to go before we leave Portland, it’s time to bid farewell to our friends here. For most people living abroad, friends are your extended family and over the years they actually come to mean more than your family back home. Though we’ve lived in Portland only for a short time, our friends here are our friends for life and we will always cherish the good times we’ve had together! Over the last two weekends we said our final goodbyes to many of our friends and Abhay also got to rub shoulders with the next generation one last time before he meets new friends in India. To Little Maahi, Eera, Satchit, Saahil, Sreemayi, Ritu, Dhruv , Keshav, Suhas and Gauri – Abhay will certainly miss you and to all my Portland Sahelis and our IBM and non IBM friends - will definitely miss you guys!

  

Over the weekend and today, I had an eleven month old and a fourteen month old respectively as a special guest presiding over my story time with Abhay! I must say that both the times, Abhay was not the most attentive of the listeners!!! In fact, today the fourteen month old Satchit kept pointing towards the illustrations of various trucks in “I love trucks” by Philemon Sturges as if instructing my restless four year old to pay attention instead!  Thanks Satchit for setting a good example! :-)

Anyway, with Little Eera and Abhay, I read “The more we are together” by Tanya Roitman. A perfect board book for babies and toddlers, the book features the  popular song “ The more we are together, the happier we’ll be. With my friends are your friends and your friends are my friends….the more we are together….”! Sure to interest toddlers with colorful illustrations of toddlers doing fun things like singing, playing and jumping around. Abhay who knew how to sing this song, sang it for Eera but didn’t agree with “your friends are my friends “ part as he felt that Eera’s friends could not possibly be his friends as he is a big boy!!!Okay.....grandpa!:-)