Missed opportunities

As a parent there are many things that you never get around to. For me, one was making a baby book. I still have her foot prints from the hospital and my own thoughts on being pregnant, loosely lying in manila folders. Another was to sew play food like this. Now Anjali is barely interested in playing in her kitchen.

Tonight she was writing about slavery in her journal. She asked me why slaves didn't know their birthdays; And I didn't know the answer (we googled it).

How do they grow up so fast and where does the time go?

Read-o-rama

A miracle of childhood is how kids learn to read seemingly overnight. Anjali started kindergarden reading words such as ‘cat’ ‘hat’ and ‘pot’. By the end of the school year she is reading at the 3^rd grade level. I always wondered how the letters transform in their brains and make the sounds. Its still an amazing mystery to me. The books that have taken us by storm are the Mary Pope Osbornes’ “Magic Tree House” mystery series. These are delightful in their weave of mystery, fact, and fiction. She is on book 31 of the series! She reads so much that we’ve had to set limits. (Here she is reading while we are having a picnic).

I love to read out loud and a little sad that I dont get to do it as much now. Our present designated read-together book is the original Charlotte’s web. What a masterpiece!

Hiking

I love to hike (or even walk). And this photo of Anjali and me captures why.
When I was pregnant with Anjali I made a vow to myself to show her the beauty of the world as I see it (before she realized that it is not all so). Its a simple concept that your feet can take you to extraordinary places. And when you are in that place everything you know looks different, better. And you realize you are part of something much bigger. And its no small feat that she climbed 1200 feet in almost 4 miles!

On becoming a ballerina

Anjali debuted her solo ballet performance at the school talent show. As parents we were blown away by her grace and confidence on stage and leading up to the performance. She put a lot of thought into her routine and her personality was not lost on her choreography notes where she made notes in two columns, left in green (things a ballerina should do) and the right in red (the things she must not). We loved it!
She also got tons of praise from the older kids (huge deal), the principal, and her class teacher. I am so grateful that her (public) school provides kids this opportunity. This is a picture from her classmate.