Lunch Box challenge!

Ever since Abhay started after-school day care, my biggest concern has been packing his lunch! If getting your little one to relish piping hot meals at home is a challenge, then having him  polish off his lunch box is an extreme version of the said challenge! Needless to say, Abhay is not exactly thrilled at the prospect of eating out of a box packed in the morning. So I’m still in the painful process of figuring out what clicks and what doesn’t! Besides, I have to work my way through several cooking challenges that in fact closely resembles a Master chef contest -  Abhay’s lunch should neither be spicy nor bland, neither sticky nor dry, neither mushy nor hard, neither contain too many vegetables nor made plain and finally not-to-forget perfectly fermented curd or curd rice!!! To top this, I have bear in mind the nutrition quotient of the meal!  With such high standards to meet, can you blame me for being on an obsessive prowl for lunch box ideas all over the internet …… so here's message to  all you food bloggers…. HELP!!!

 So today, I read about a girl whose aversion against her lunch could well be Abhay’s story! “Samira’s awful lunch” by Bharati Jagannathan and Preeti Krishnamurthy throws light on how to tackle picky eaters who treat lunch boxes as mere samples rather than full meals! Samira,  (whose mother I sincerely pity) cannot appreciate what her mother packs for lunch – noodles remind her of worms; upma feels like wet sand and idlis taste like mud and not surprisingly, she does not like the day's  lunch - parathas and brinjal curry! Determined not eat it, she closes her lunch box and heads out for a stroll in the school grounds when she meets a row of ants who empathize with her and decide to offer her their lunch – a cockroach wing! Disgusted, she runs into the garden when she meets a butterfly who agrees that vegetables are boring and in turn encourages her to drink the nectar off the flower! So Samira meets all her animal friends from the crow to the cow who seem more than willing to share their lunch with her. But compared to the half-eaten mouse offered by the crow, or the barley-seed lunch of the sparrow, or a cow’s meal of grass and hibiscus bush, Samira runs to open her lunch box to find parathas with brinjal to be the most delicious lunch she’s ever had!!! So a good read to help turn your little one's lunch box from awful to awesome!:-)

Heavy duty trucks at work!

Like most boys, Abhay too is fascinated by any construction work, especially when the work involves huge earth movers and excavators. In fact, there’s one happening right across my parent’s apartment and Abhay’s favorite pastime at his grand-parents’ house now, is to gawk at the giant sized crane and backhoe, while admiring the construction crew who work those machines.  My mother who is adept at weaving stories around Abhay’s favorite themes (like race cars, buses, trucks) has now graduated into making up stories with construction vehicles as central characters and Abhay is the protagonist calling the shots at the construction site, in Bob-the builder style! Similarly, we have a house being built opposite ours and Abhay couldn’t have asked for anything else! Since in the US, one doesn’t get to see a house built from the ground up, as often as in India, we too had forgotten what it feels like to have huge piles of sand, cement and bricks unloaded literally in front of our doorstep!  While we adults consider any construction work as nuisance, children don’t see it that way!!! They can’t be bothered by the inconvenience caused, or the emanating noise and the dust; instead all they see are mighty machines at work! May be if we see the world through their eyes, we wouldn’t have that many complaints! J

Anyway, making up stories of rivalry between cement mixers and excavators is something only Abhay’s grandma can do, I am a traditionalist – I look to books! So today I read “Heavy Duty Trucks” by Joyce Milton and illustrated by Richard Courtney. Since it was a Level 3 Early Reader, I read it more like a picture book. This book makes an interesting read to your little truck lover, as it has him wonder what would it be like to drive a big truck. In fact, this book figures as a mini-encyclopedia of trucks – describing different kinds of trucks, their different names, their various features, how they are operated, and in what circumstances they serve best, so on and so forth. From trailer trucks and auto haulers to tractors and corn planters, from street sweepers and garbage trucks, to bulldozers and back hoes – it has everything your little truck lover wants to know about heavy duty trucks!  You read this to him and don’t blame me, if he says he wants to grow up to be a truck driver! J

An evening well spent!

Over the weekend, I met up with some of my school friends, whom I happen to see after almost 17 years….and as I write this I still can’t believe it’s been that long since I passed out of school! It was a nostalgic evening indeed – a time to recollect and relive those bittersweet moments of the good old school days. As we tried to remember how we were back then, in our green and cream uniforms, wondering who was in which section, recalling the names of our favorite and not-so-favorite teachers, revisiting those moments of mischief and banter inside and outside class, and while harking back to the age of adolescence and innocence, we were also excited to reconnect with each other, all over again.....like we never left! Though it was a reunion of just over 11 of us from the batch, it felt like we had the entire class of ’95 with us…..we remembered each and every one of you who couldn’t make it this time! For the ones, who made it happen, Three Cheers to the first Reunion of MIHS-95 and here’s wishing many more to come!!!!!

I took the liberty to post a couple of pictures on my blog considering we are all over Facebook!

 While I was catching up with my old friends, I had my husband take care of my son, and so had many of my friends. The father-son duo had the whole evening to themselves and I must say, they didn’t miss the mommy at all!!! So…is that a good thing or a bad thing? Hmmm….you can’t have the cake and eat it too! Right? Anyway, just like Abhay, today we read about a girl who likes to shop with her daddy! “I Shop with my Daddy” a level 1 Scholastic Reader, by Grace Maccarone and Denise Brunkus. A little girl is excited to drive to the store with her daddy, where they pull a cart and shop for groceries and vegetables when she eyes a packet of cookies.  (we’ve all been there, dealt and still dealing with that…right?) Her father asks her to put it away when they head to the bakery section and she picks a chocolate treat to which her dad refuses to  give in ( Not bad!) As they complete their shopping and it’s time to go home, the little girl makes a last ditch effort to extract some goodies from her dad and both of them make one more stop before they return home -  the ice cream counter! No wonder the kids love to go shopping with daddy! Similarly, when Abhay and daddy came to pick me up after their jaunt, he had a new toy to flaunt! So Abhay for one…is all for reunions….and so am I!!!:-)

Uh Oh!.....Look what I am going to do!

I have been frequently asked by many as to how do I manage to pick a book ideally suited to the situation discussed. The truth is I don’t always go looking for the perfect book. Of course, I try to find books associated with the different events and experiences Abhay goes through or may go through in the future. But it is also true that as any parent, I do pick up books in random and go “Hey…this is so much like the situation at home!” Similarly, there have been times when I have been just lucky to find the right books at the right time – like the book on washing hands..  That said, there have also been times when I wasn’t so lucky and had to make do with the available titles, even if I would have preferred to read something more appropriate to the situation. For instance, I looked everywhere for a specific title on daycare but found none as there were no Indian publications on the said subject and the foreign publications were not available. So I had to settle for one on school. Today’s book is something I picked up while aimlessly browsing through the children’s books section of the library, though it didn’t relate to any particular context/situation in our lives. But Abhay liked the book so much that he decided to imitate the mischief in the book and provide a future context to the story!

Uh Oh! Harry and his bucket full of Dinosaurs is a step 1 early reader written by R.Schuyler Hooke and illustrated by Art Mawhinney. Little Harry is seen holding mom’s cup and Uh Oh! he accidentally breaks the cup. He first thinks of hiding the cup from his mom, but then decides to fix it with the help of his Dinosaur friends from Dino World. He jumps into his bucket full of dinosaurs and is transported into Dino World where he glues the pieces back to form a cup, only to realize that it leaks. He then heads home to find his old cup and repaints it to make his mom a new cup. Just then, his mom arrives and not only forgives his mistake but loves her new cup! So inspired from little Harry, Abhay too thinks breaking my cup is an exciting proposition! So ever since we’ve read the book, I have been safeguarding my favorite coffee cup from being shattered into pieces as a re-enactment of Harry and his Bucket full of dinosaurs!

Busy day at School!

Abhay started day care from yesterday and though it was him who was being sent to after-school care, I was going through ‘separation anxiety’! Since Abhay’s school is only for half a day and I plan to get back to work soon, I decided to enrol him into an after school program. Of course, he can always come back straight home to his grandparents (a Godsend support structure for any working mom), but I didn’t see anything wrong in having him spend his afternoons in a structured set up, in the same school where he spends his mornings!  Besides, this would also prep him for a full day school that he is scheduled to attend from the next academic year. Having said that, right before I dropped him off the school bus, I had second thoughts about whether to send him or have him come home in the afternoon like he used to for the last three years! Though it was conscious a decision on my part to send him anyways, I must admit that, afternoons are not the same without my baby at home! I hate to say it….but I do miss receiving him at the bus stop in the afternoon along with other pre-school moms, nagging him over finishing his lunch, cuddling up to him with a book just before his afternoon nap and watching him fall asleep in the light of the afternoon sun! As far as Abhay is concerned, since many of his classmates attend the same day care, he didn’t have any complaints. A part of me is relieved that he seemed to have got on well with the new arrangement, and another selfish part of me is sad to see his dependence on me decline!  As our kids grow up, it is important for us let them go and watch them fly ….which I now feel is easier said than done! :-)

Today being a busy day at school, I read “Busy School” by Melanie Joyce and illustrated by Sue King, a Ladybird publication. It is Cilla’s first day at school and she is experiences what is known as “first day nerves”! However, as soon as she enters her class, she feels reassured by her teacher Miss Miller who helps her settle into her new environment. Miss Miller helps her find a place next to Annie and Viv who both greet her cheerfully. As the day progresses, Cilla begins to feel at ease as they move from Math to playtime and then to story time, when Cilla feels uncomfortable in the presence of a noisy Freddie. But soon she and Freddie are friends and all’s well that ends well. This book features the highs and lows of Cilla’s first day at school - something I guess Abhay could easily relate to as it was his first day at daycare too.