Parks and Peak hour traffic!

It has now been three months since we moved back to Bangalore and though we’ve been doing pretty well on the transition front, there are still some issues that we seem to have an issue with! Patience is indeed a virtue and you definitely need lots and of lots of it, when living in Bangalore. Though we’ve been doing our best in trying to tolerate the otherwise intolerable, yet there are times we just can’t help sounding like “US returned” – something we’ve been consciously trying to avoid! For instance, our internet was down for the whole of last week (which is the reason for my absence on onestoryaday) and there was nothing we could do but wait; Traffic on the streets has been my sole problem ever since we’ve moved to Bangalore and l continues to be so even after three months! Walking on the non existant sidewalk is a nightmare and walking with a fiercely independent five-year old totally oblivious to the dangers lurking on the streets is a catastrophe waiting to happen! Anyway, though the weather has been ideal for outdoor play, I haven’t been able to take Abhay to the park very often as I probably should, partly, because the parks don’t even seem half as inviting as the ones in Portland and partly because jostling through the evening traffic is the last thing we want to do when heading to play! Though it is a too little early to say, in just three months of summer in Portland, we’ve gone to the park more number of times than we probably will in one whole year in Bangalore!!!

So as if to motivate myself, I got the book “Pam had a Map” by Francie Alexander and illustrated by Ken Spengler, a Scholastic Early Reader. Highly recommended for the preschoolers working on their short “a” sounds and blends, this is about Sam, his sister Pam and his dad. Sam has a map that has directions to the park. SO he sets out with Pam and his dad wearing a cap. But Pam who has a jar of jam, grabs the map and the map now has jam! So now they are faced with the prospect of trying to locate the park with the help of a jam smeared map and when they do, Sam and Dad have fun playing ball at the park and Pam has her fun too – she naps happily in the park! Not much of a story, but was glad that it helped my early reader nap while I tried to map the parks in the vicinity!