Happy New year!

New year’s day is a time to reflect on the year that has gone by and brace oneself up for the year ahead! Whether you expect this year to bring in more changes, challenges or cheer, you cannot deny that 2013 may just add a new chapter in your life – it may mark an end of a tenure and the beginning of a new one or you may complete a milestone in your personal or professional life or you may be relieved from your responsibilities this year or you may be able to finally go on that dream vacation or seize that lifetime opportunity you’ve always been waiting for! Whatever it is ……..being at the threshold of a new year is always a time for anticipation, sometimes apprehension but most of all, an opportunity to start afresh! Here’s wishing everyone a great and fulfilling year ahead!

Well, some may have made plans for this year while some haven’t, today we read Maisy’s plans for the year ahead. “Maisy’s year” a Maisy Fun-to-Learn book of seasons by Lucy Cousins. Though Abhay is a little too old for a lift-a-flap book, since some of the children’s libraries were closed for Christmas vacation, this is the only book I could find to get Abhay to think of the year ahead. Starting with spring, Maisy looks after all the baby animals followed by a summer on the seaside. Maisy spends autumn gathering the year’s harvest soon caught up by winter that is reserved for playing in the snow. Abhay quite liked the last page where Maisy shows what she loves to doing all year round and Abhay could relate to dressing up, shopping, reading and drawing but not things like ‘cooking’ and ‘cleaning’! So after he read the book, I asked him what were his plans for the year, to which he declared that spring would be the time to play outdoors, summer is the time to visit Wonderla (an amusement park located a couple of hours from Bangalore) and his grandparents’ farm at Dharmasthala! Since autumn falls during his birthday month, he announced that his birthday will be celebrated in a mall (looks like we have no say!) and December, according to him is an ideal time to bake ginger bread cookies (something we couldn’t do last year)! Phew! I only wish we adults were as clear as our kids when it comes  to planning the year ahead! Happy new year once again!