Tuesday, September 29, 2009

Kedaar & big nice school

Its been a week since Kedaar started in the new school.
From the second day onwards, Kedaar started saying that "I dont want to go to Nanny's day care, I want to go to the big nice school" on his way to school (the day care and school are same route, so he thinks that he might still go to day care). We generally drop him in his classroom, but today for the first time we dropped him with a teachers assistant who picks up kids from school entrance itself. Kedaar just took his water bottle and happily walked into his class room even before the teachers assistant dropped him. It was so cute to watch that.
He seem to like the school as there are lots of kids to play with and also lots of activities to keep him engaged for the whole day.
In the last week, they let him do some activities to generally explore around and also few things to help him to build focus (like putting push pins in apple shape etc). He learned his teachers names (Ms Indu, Ms Ginger, Ms Mary), school name and tries to tell us what happened in school in the evenings. He also sang couple of new songs (naming days in a week etc). Overall he seem to be liking the school.
We packed lunches for Kedaar in the last week and most of the days lunches just came home as is. He didnt seem to like some common stuff he eats at home as packed lunch(like rice, pasta etc). Yesterday we tried a chapati wrapped with black beans curry (and called it "Enchinada" which Kedaar tasted in Trader Joes one day and liked it). He had that wrap for lunch without complaint for whatever reason and we are super excited about it.
However we don't think we have creative ideas to make his lunch interesting, so we are ordering the hot lunches for him from today onwards (a service(myorganicmeals.com) provides the hot lunch for several schools in this area). Kedaar doesnt eat several items in their menu also (like burger, tofu etc), but we are just hoping that he will learn to eat as he will get hungry otherwise.
Overall we are still happy with the decision to move him to Montessori school and we think he is having a lot of fun.

Saturday, September 26, 2009

Aksharabhyasam ceremony

Yesterday as it is an ausicious day (Saraswathi puja in Dussera festival), we did Akahsrabhyasam for Kedaar. We need to do this when the kid is in his 3rd year. The pandit in the temple did this as a group and we joined it. The ceremony was done traditionally and everything went nice.
Here are some pictures from the occassion.

Monday, September 21, 2009

Nursemaid Elbow incident

This happened when we went Victoria trip in August.
Kedaar as usual was running superfast around the inner harbor in Victoria. I tried to stop him by holding his hands, during this time his hand was pulled hard unintentionally and he immediately started crying with pain.
Kedaar had hit so many things and got hurted just like any child, but that was the first time his pain just didnt go away. He couldnt move his left hand and did not even let us touch him. He became week through out the day and did not eat anything. Our return ship (victoria clipper) was at evening 7 PM, so we took a Victoria sight seeing bus trip so it can help him to take rest. But the pain was so bad that even the slightest bumpy road hurt him and he continuously cried. We explored some options to take him to doctor, but we didnt have car in hand and we couldnt figure out a children's doctor. Chandra kept carrying him all the day and even in the return ship. We went to Children's hospital emergency that night immediately after we came to Seattle directly from the port. They already had 12-14 kids in queue for emrgency service at 10.30 PM in the night and we waited till 11.20 or so without being called . Finally after a big argument/discussion with Children's doctors , we could raise the emergency of the situation. Kedaar was crying all this time. A doctor came out and said that it could either be a fracture (in which case needs x-rays etc) or could be ligament dislocation (happens when kids are pulled hard by hands as their bones are not completley developed). He held Kedaar's hand and gave it slight twist at elbow and told us to wait for 5 mins and see. I went to bring water for Kedaar. By the time I came back, Kedaar was smiling after 14, 15 hrs of pain. He said "We can go home mummy, doctor uncle did magic and my neppi is gone". Doctor said that we need to be careful with his hand as there is a chance of repeating it easily as he got it once. Kedaar got 2 red color popsicles from the nurse, ate them in car happily. We returned home that night at 1 PM.
2 things that I think will never forget from this experience.
1. Be extreme watchful when handling kids. The temporary frustration when kids are uncontrolable can really hurt them.
2. Kids emergency situations should be dealt by pediatric doctors. I dont think any other emergency doctors could have dont that as a first thing before doing x-rays etc.
Its there on my mind in the last 1 month all the time and I thought I should probably have it in this blog.

Wednesday, September 16, 2009

First day of school

Kedaar started school at American Child Montessori, Bellevue today. We have been preparing him for few days now by telling him why school is fun, teachers names etc.
He cried for a min when we left him in the morning. In the evening teachers told us that he did great at school (he did course work nicely, slept, played like a good boy etc)
We have been very worried from several days about the decision to join him in school before he turned 3. Now we are just happy to have this good start.

Saturday, September 5, 2009

Vinaya Chaviti 2009



We celebrated Vinayaka Chavithi at our house this year. We did most of the prep and decoration for the pooja by the time Kedaar got up (we also put one of his books this time at the pooja :)). Kedaar was very excited to see everything when he got up and was eager to start the pooja. We had to engage him with Thomas & trains for an hour or so so I can wind up the cooking :)
Later we did puja followed by he himself doing the gunjillu, pradakshinam and sashtanga pranamam. Overall everything went well that day and Vinayaka Chavithi is always a fun for him and us to celebrate.
Here are some pictures & videos from the occassion.