Where do I start? Okie all is well at our end and thanks a bunch to all of you who have emailed to check on us.
Adi’s school closed for summer on 15th June and she is enjoying the summer at home with my parents. Yep, it was all a rapid decision and my parents landed here before I could blink my eyes. We discussed on Wednesday, checked with amma/appa on Thursday, booked the tickets on Friday and they landed here on the following Wednesday. I couldn’t find a good summer camp for next two months and even the ones I have registered her to are closing at 3pm in the evening. I have got additional responsibilities at work. Work is pressing for both of us and we cannot afford to take off or work from home often this summer 😦 . So, the only option was to fallback on the god gifted support system (read as grandparents).
It was also one of my long pending wish to let Adi take it easy and spend time with grandparents on summer. You know like getting up at her own time, laze around the home, brush at her convenience, enjoy the hot brunch (the girl is getting up at 10am these days), laze around again, bury her nose in books, watch TV (of course with a limit), play with grandparents. She is living this dream of mine now to every detail. Appa is teaching her chess (we had a daddy/daughter game on Father’s day. I paired up with Appa and Adi paired up with M. It was a tie as M’s my team had to give up at every stage :)).  The deal between grandpa and granddaughter is that she gets $1 from thatha if she wins and $1 from me if she looses (win-win situation for her :)).  Appa is also keeping himself busy with his regular walk, park visits and exploring the neighborhood.  He is now giving us directions to the store at the other corner of the city that we were not aware of.  Amma is cooking yummylicious dishes for her granddaughter, playing board games with her,  letting granddaughter talk for no reason and fascinating at her English accent, enjoying the way granddaughter struggles to converse in Tamil, catching up with all the TV shows she missed to watch at India and generally not stepping out of the four walls in contrary to Appa.
I am still pinching myself now and then to check if its all real. At office, work is overloaded and after reaching home I am acting like that hutch puppy following Amma. I have lost my thinking ability at home.  My mind is not functioning. The fact that Amma is with me is still sinking in. My laptop usage at home has plummeted.  We spend evenings sitting at backyard deck talking nineteenth to the dozen. It has been ten days now and we are not done yet. We have so much more to talk about adhutha veetu athai, pakathu theru periamma, ethir veetu mama, chiti-oda onnu vita anna-noda ponnu, namma oru pookaramma, palkarar and all that important stuff.. Appa pitches in to share his knowledge on every topic.
I have showcased some of my cooking/baking skills to amma already. She is going all ooh and aah 🙂 at least I made her to do that 😉  I baked Marble cake and prepared bhel puri for M’s birthday, made paneer paratha and chinese style noodles the other day. Also, showed her all my food pictures from albums. All she knew was that girl who gets her hand burnt while trying to boil water in the stove. She is awestruck looking at my kitchen skills or so do I think 😀
On another happy note my reading has improved. I have finished my recent reads  “Steve Jobs”, “The most beautiful thing” recommended by Smitha and started with “How to Eat a Cupcake” by “Meg Donohue” that was borrowed from local library.   Can you believe I discussed the book “Most beautiful thing” with Adi. She is my tracker with reading. I have this habit of telling her how many pages I finished every day and also discuss the plot with her.  Ah a blissful moment.
Adi will stay at home for rest of June, Â go for Swim summer camp in the month of July, go for another camp for two weeks in August and stay at home for rest of August and September until the school reopens. Appa will pick her up at 3pm from the summer camps. I cannot put my relief in words. Of leaving her at home safely with grandparents, Of letting her wake up late in the morning, Of not rushing her through any chores, Of letting her have free time for whole week at home. Â It is indeed a big deal for me as she has started her daycare from the second day of reaching USA at the tender age of two and a half years and continued with it till this month. Â Hope, this summer will turn out to be one of the best for all of us though we don’t have any vacation plans.
I want to savor every moment of my parent’s visit and spend the maximum time with them on this summer. They will stay here for next two months and I am already missing every second that is passing by. Â We are staying together for more than a week after seven long years. Pinching myself again.
Hope you all understand my emotions. This is my first official break from the blog world. Though I read your posts between work I am not able to comment on them as work is demanding and at the same time I also try to go home early in the evening to join the grandparents/granddaughter club. I will try to comment whenever possible.
Thank you all once again for your emails. I will come back after couple of months may be when Adi is ready to start her second grade. Btw, Adi cleared first grade with “First Honors” 🙂 🙂 and we celebrated it at a local pizzeria with a lunch treat.
Leaving you all with few pictures… The same day uploader of pictures in me took more than two weeks to upload below pictures. Can you believe it? Such is the power of having parents around 😀 😀 😀
This is a “fabble” that Adi wrote on last week of school, inspired from Anant Pai’s “Amar chitra katha bird stories”. I admit that it was a shabby work and she took one whole day to do this. She read the story and penned penciled down the same in her own words. This story book was created by her under no supervision. The paper clip idea to make it as a book, title of the story, bird picture everything was done just by her. Though M was not impressed with the work, I didn’t have the heart to make her redo the work that took one full day of her time.  I wanted to try this out someday. Instead of sitting next to her and correcting before she makes mistakes or reviewing periodically I wanted her to own the complete work.  Hope she had learned something from this.
Front cover
Page 1
Page 2
Page 3 –
Page 4
Below are the art works sent home on the last day of school (please to ignore the repeated story book images. WordPress gallery settings doesn’t have selective display. It displays all images from a particular post). Â If anyone is aware of selective gallery display please share the details. The art images are also added on the First grade art page of this blog.
Adi and her friend received below gift from their after care teacher on the last day of school for being good helpers. Her teacher told me that they were the only two kids who helped her throughout the year to cleanup the room before leaving the room. (remember my mention about this in the birthday post?)… 🙂  🙂 Its so nice of her teacher to appreciate their efforts.
See you all on the other end. Till then take care you all and stay happy 🙂
Between my littles and me 