Kedaar's cycling videos

Kedaar cycling outer circle


Kedaar cycling inner circle

India trip

Kedaar had a lot of fun this time in India trip. It was a long trip and he is still getting used to the routine of having to go to school not just play after we are back :)
Few things to share regarding the trip.
1. Just like last year, he is super interested in going in the elevator in our Hyderabad flats . He made friends with one of my brother's colleague's family who lives in second floor. He spent so much time playing with their kids (calling them Sai annayya, Chintu annayya). He doesnt even want to come back home and wanted to eat there, sleep there all the time.
2. Kedaar watched lot of TV. Interestingly several kid's channels come in even local languages in India now. Kedaar's most favorite channels are Pogo, Cartoon network,Disney XD. He used to watch the "Chota bheem", "Krishana and Balaram" type of mythological stories endlessly in one channel and enjoyed "Tom&Jerry" tirelessly in another. We saw him so many times laughing out loud while he wa watching Tom&Jerry. Interesting to watch him get involved so much into those.
Other than the kids channels, his favorites were watching singing reality shows , mainly the Saregamapa-Little champs on Zee telugu, maa TV-super singer. He used to not even allow us to change channnels when these shows came. Additionally one more favorite show for him was the "Wow" show in E-TV. They have a round in that show similar to the "hole in the wall" show. Whenever it comes he used to put pose like that hole shape immediately. :)
3.He played a lot with his cousins, my sister's son, brother's son and also chandra's sisters sons. They visisted us in Hyderabad, Kurnool. He just wanted to go with who ever is leaving. For everyone, he used to ask "mummy, daddy, can I also please go with them, can you please come with me". When my brothers family was leaving, Kedaar went to extreme and was just ready to go with them and got into car saying "bye" to us. He didnt care to ask us to come with him. My mother arranged a small family get together when we were in Hyderbad, so Kedaar got a chance to meet with my cousin's families and kids as well. Needless to say that he was super busy that day and played a lot with eveyone. He basically likes a lot of people around him. He maynot necessarily play with them all the time (and just spends time with his car or train), but he just enjoys people presence around him.
4. Kedaar had a good/fun time with grandparents. He used to help rolling chapatis, cutting vegetables ,drying clothes, taking bath etc from my mother, reading books, learning telugu alphabets etc from my father. I also took lot of coloring papers for him so he doesnt forget totaly about his school in Seattle. He did some coloring for the first 2 weeks and then stopped. He used to stick all his coloring papers in the main hall in my parents flat and then show them to everyone. One day he was saying that "I have so many Thaathayya's and so many ammamma's , nanamma's here, I like it :)
5. We watched one movie "Katha" in theater whie we were there. We watched it incidentally 2 times. Kedaar was there with us both the times. He watched some part of the movie and then slept off, However he clearly remembers the songs from that movie. Whenever the ads come in TV or even when we play songs here in car, he says "It is from Katha, the story movie, I like it so much". He also sings the song "taka taka taka evaro" song.
6. We didnt visit any places during this trip other than Hyderabad and Kurnool, mainly due to the agitations in Hyderabad due to Telangana issue. However we went to some local places like Birla mandir, birla science museum/planetorium, necklace road eat street etc. We also made sure that Kedaar went atleast one time in Auto per day while we were there. For some reason, he likes travelling in auto so much. This was the case last year and contiinued to be same this year too.
7. Kedaar also learned few bad habits while we were there. The first and foremost is hitting people. I think he was not engaged with lot of acitivities during that time other than having fun and playing. Also having watched all the "Bheem" kind of stories (:)), he learned how to hit people and become excited for small things. We see that he is still showing this tendency even after coming back to Seattle.ng that tendency. We are trying our best to control it.

Bhogi Pallu, 2009

Here are few pictures of Kedaar's bhogi pallu this year. We just did this at home in a simple way.

Back from India

We came back from the India trip last Friday. The trip was long (49 days for me and kedaar), nice and relaxing. We are back to work and Kedaar is back to school without complaint or crying. Kedaar clearly knows that India, Seattle are 2 different places and many things are different in terms of weather, daily routine, transportation mechanism etc. So we didnt have too many things to worry about getting him back to the routine here.
I will write about India stories, Kedaar's new friends in a separate blog post soon.

All set to go to India

I and Kedaar are travelling to India today. We will be back on jan 7th. This is a last minute kind of plan that came to our minds in November. Chandra will join us on Dec 11th. Its exciting to go to India for so long. Kedaar is completely prepared for his India trip and accidentally called me the other day "Thaathayya" :)
He is also talking about all the things he did in his last trip like "do I get playdough there", "will be there be tracks in Thathayya's house", He also understands that he is travelling alone with mummy one way and saying that he will be a good boy and hold my hands all the day.Looks like he also told his friends in school here that "I am going to India, I will miss you". We were surprised for the "miss you" part. Anyway, hope our journey goes smooth.

Kedaar's interest in Saxophone

We had an instrumental song (Sambho Siva Sambho) played by Kadri Gopalnath on Saxophone in Ipod from long time. Chandra recently played it car after getting bored by the routine songs one day. That song is wonderful, kedaar liked it instantly and started saying that "I want sivudu song again". He also learned from mummy that it is an instrument called "saxophone". He listened to it couple of times and said "mummy, they are playing Saxophone and also drums" in that song".

After coming home, I played a couple more songs by kadri Gopalnath in Youtube and Kedaar sat with very interest and watched those entire instrumental songs. Here is a pose mummy tried to capture.

Birthday pictures

Here are Kedaar's birthday pictures.

Fun conversations

Coming back from work around 6 PM
-----
[Daddy]We need to take Corn for the ThanksGiving lunch at Kedaar's school
[K]Daddy, its not lunch, its luncheon. I will wear a turkey hat
[D]Can we go to Costco
[K]Costco is closed now
[D]But why Kedaar
[K]because its so much raining, costco is closed. Its finished. But daddy, Target is open, we can go there, there are so many toys :)

Before dinner, daddy is playing with Kedaar. Kedaar tries enact as his teacher (that is his regular routine now, he stands on the fireplace base and acts like teacher)
-----
[Kedaar gives some work to Daddy and tells him] do your work and I will come back and check with you, Ok?
[Daddy]Kedaar , can I get some help?
[Kedaar goes little away from Daddy]ok, you need to be quiet and then raise hands ok
[Daddy raises hands]
[Kedaar]ok, tell me now. This is the way to do it, OK?

After dinner, time to do some puzzles
-----
[Mummy]Kedaar, do you want to do some Thomas puzzles
[K]Yes (comes closer, but exactly then mummy's laptop is running out of power and made some beeping sounds before it shuts off)
[Mummy]oh, No, power is almost gone
[K]I can help you, I can get a charger for you
[Mummy]How do you know about charger?
[K]Because I am a big boy, thats why I know. Mummy, you like me, I good boy too :)

Loose bag

Kedaar's class teacher does "Sound of the week" based on the Alphabets (Aa, Ba,Ca,Da etc). Each kid takes some items from home that start with that sound everyday and they all together learn those new words by writing them on board and also share them friends. They call it as "Sharing toys". Each kid needs to get their sharing toys in a loose bag (ziplock or some bag) so that they can take it home in the evening in the same bag.
Kedaar is very particular about his sharing toys and preparing his loose bag. This week's sound of the week is K(ka). Since last week, Kedaar started saying that "next week's sound is K, K for king, K for Kangaroo, then K for Kedaar, its me, you can take me also in a loose bag too" :)

Halloween 2009

Kedaar had a lot of fun in this Halloween. Kedaar's school teacher started teaching kids some Halloween related songs starting 2-3 weeks before itself. So he really understood and started thinking about his "Costume" much before. We got a "Curious George" costume for him this time. He used to say "I have a monkey costume, I will act like a money oooo aaaa" everyday. He also told us lot of monster stories something like "Dont go into the haunted house, monster will be there reading a book, sleeping. usshhh, dont make any noise (with whisper), talk slowy otherwise monster can getup" etc etc.
Finally the day has come. Kedaar wore his costume, went to school. He got little scared looking all kids in costume and started crying in the beginning, later he slowly started to enjoy. The school conducted several activities for kids along with "trick or treat'. After school fun, Kedaar & Chandra came to Microsoft to join Halloween celebrations in the evening. Kedaar collected lof candy and had a lot of fun there as well. After coming home, he literally told about each and everyone's costume in class.
Here are some pictures from the occassion.

Kedaar explaining Vocanoes

Kedaar explaining volcanoes with excitement


His school teacher is telling them about Volcanoes , Washington state.
Here are some more things he told than what is in Video already
1. George Washington is our first president (he could show the George washinton picture on the $ notes)
2. Scientists go near Volcanoes to learn about them.
3. When Volcano erupts, yucky smokes comes first, then Lava comes and then magma can cone. magma pushes the yucky smoke

Kedaar's compositions

Kedaar has some new talent now. Instead of listening to music,rhymes and enjoying, he is coming up with new lyrics/customizing lyrics for the tune of other famous songs.
Here are the lyrics he came with in the tune of "If you happy and you know, then you clap" song :)

"Thomas and the train going on the track, ta ta
Thomas and the train going on the track, ta ta
If you thomas and the train, if you thomas and the train, if you thomas and the train going on the track, ta ta" ., the the same thing with another train name like
"James and the train going on the track" ........

If we ask him "who wrote this song", he proudly says "Kedaar wrote this song" :)

My name Nandan Kedaar

[Daddy] Are you thunder
[Kedaar]Noooo
[D]are you wonder, are you blunder, are you grinder
[K]no, no, no
[D]then, what are you
[K]I am Nandan Kedaar daddy (pronounces as KeDaaaar), Kedaar is a nice word, Nandan is a nice word

Happy 3rd Birthday Kedaar

Today is Kedaar's 3rd birthday. We celebrated Kedaar's birthday on last Friday at his school with his school friends and today at Seattle Children's museum with family friends.

We did school party with balloons and cup cakes.The teacher showed how Kedaar looked like at 1 yr and 2 yrs to all his classmates as part of the "earth goes around the sun, one year completes" rhyme, where Kedaar carried a globe and went around a chart with months. It was interesting and educating for kids.

For Today's birthday party at museum, we chose Thomas theme, a natural choice for Kedaar :)
Kedaar got Thomas balloons, Thomas Shirt, Thomas watch (shirt, watch got from Northwest railway museum store), Thomas Carnival themed cake , Thomas plates, cups etc etc, full of Thomas. We got all the birthday party supplies including goody bags from birthdaydirect.com and it worked well. After the party Kedaar and most of the kids played in museum for lot of time and had fun. With all uncles, auneties, Kedaar nicely answered to the "How old are you" question saying "I am three years old, I am a big boy" :)
In the evening, we went to Balaji temple in Redmond and did Archana on Kedaar's name. Kedaar liked sitting in temple and reciting the stotras told by the priest and ecnouraged mummy & daddy to do the same when they were just too lazy :).
One statement he made when we were in template stuck in my mind and I thought I should porbably write it. Looking at "Shivalingam" in temple
[k] Mummy, who is that.
[M]Kedaar, its shivudu , this is called "Shivalingam"
[K}mummy, is Shivalingam happy or sad
[M]Deva (god) is always happy naanna
[K]oh, just like me (says with smile)
How innocent kids are, how happy they are, I always wish how nice to be so pure and happy like that and how beautiful childhood is.
Anway, Kedaar's birthdaywent very well and created a great memoral experience for us.

Dreamy dreams

Since childhood, I remember Kedaar smiling, laughing some times during his sleep. I dont know what beautiful dreams he got then. It continued as he grew bigger. Till some time back, he used to say once in a while "Thomas", "Percy", " I want to get James mummy" etc in sleep or as first thing after he gets up from sleep which probably aligned with his fascination for trains. Most recently, his dreams are about school . In sleep, I saw him laughing once in a while, saying sentences like "Excuse me rakesh", "can you pls come here Ms Indu", "Atharva, dont scare me" , "Atharva is my best friend" etc :)
It is so interesting to see that kids get attached to the activities they do, people they spend time with and actually build some dreamy land around it.