She is growing up

Yes, my little girl is growing up fast. Today was her first day in first standard at school. She was super excited and so was I of course, but one look at her all dressed up in her new uniform, the uniform for big kids, made me go all sentimental. She has grown up so much!! Wasn’t it not so long ago that I had brought my little baby home from the hospital… and today she is ready for first standard! My big little girl! Days are going so fast and though I may constantly complain that I do not get enough time for myself in the midst of all the madness that my life is, I know deep in my heart that I will always cherish these days spent with her, seeing her grow. Each new milestone comes with mixed feelings for me, that of happiness on seeing her grow and also sadness that these days will soon be gone.

She was so excited that she woke up early on her own in the morning, got ready on her own, had her breakfast … all this without being told. Sigh! If only all days could be like today… but I know, it is only the initial excitement and soon we will settle into the old routine of me waking her up, being after her to finish her milk and get ready While I gave her a hug on seeing her dressed up, she bent down to touch my feet I don’t know how such things strike her She was at her angelic best today. She then went and said thank you to God with hands joined and recited all the shlokas she knows… the Gayatri mantra and Asto ma… We then went to school. I took her to her new class room. She was a bit apprehensive at first, but relaxed when she saw familiar faces of her classmates in the classroom. Her earlier class teacher from prep also came. From whatever memories I have from my first day at school, I remember feeling a bit insecure and my heart was heavy wondering if she was feeling the same. But soon a friend came and sat beside her and she bade me bye with a big smile and “All the best”. Yes, I need all those good wishes too

Last year was good at school. She did well and more importantly, she was interested in learning. We did not have to force her for anything. She always did her homework on her own. There were no academic exams, just some assessments like drawing, clay molding, fancy dress, story telling etc in which she did quite well. She even managed to get a second prize  in a sports event. She went for school picnic with her friends where she enjoyed a lot.  For the prep day celebrations (which is the annual function for the pre-prep and prep students), she was selected to give the welcome speech  on stage. And she delivered it so well… there was no stage fright and it was so perfect. She made us swell with pride. She also performed in a group dance where she enjoyed herself thoroughly. So overall it was a good year.

Today, she also moves to a new section at her daycare with bigger children and where the caretakers to child ratio goes down. She is excited, as for her it is a sign of growing up while I am a bit worried if she will manage. I can’t wait for evening to pick her up and get updates from her of the day.

In other news, her first tooth fell off yesterday. Thankfully the tooth fairy was prepared with the gift When she got the gift today morning, she told me “You know Mumma, I thought tooth fairy didn’t exist. But now I know that she does” Of course, she does my dear

Holi

Like every year, we celebrated Holi this year too with lots of fun. To me the first thing that comes to my mind when you say Holi is… No! Not colours… but Gujhiya!!!  :)  Ever since I can remember, I remember having made this at home with my family for Holi. It was for gujhiya that I waited the entire year for Holi. Making Gujhiya was an affair where the whole family was involved.  My mother used to start preparations for making this sweet well in advance before Holi. She made lots of Mawa at home with milk and dry fruits and then the rest of us do the filling part. The Gujhiyas were then fried. I remember those days we made hundreds of them. We always had friends visiting for Holi and between us and the visitors, it was consumed in a few days. Now we neither have so many visitors for Holi and nor do we prefer to eat too many for health reasons, but still to keep the tradition alive for Cheebu, I  have been religiously making a few every year. This year too, I made them over the weekend before Holi.

To me, Holi is also associated with lots of food Some things that my mom always made were Pua, Kachoris and Dahi bade. I also try to make these every year for Holi

Holi celebrations began in our building from the eve of Holi with Holika Dahan or burning of Holika.

On the holi day itself, morning was spent in cooking and eating Luckily hubby was home for Holi. Did I mention that he is now home only on weekends. Yes, he has moved and I am a single parent during the weekdays managing home, work and Cheebu (pat on my back ) Anyways, I digress. After breakfast we went down to play holi with friends. We have  community Holi celebrations in our building where everyone comes down to play. Cheebu had lots of fun with her friends and so did we We came back after a couple of hours all of us beyond recognition I didn’t take any pictures this year but here is a collage from last year

So that was our Holi filled with fun, food and friends. How was yours?

From our morning walk

Nature is at its best these days with flowers blooming everywhere. Cheebu’s school has a couple of weeks of vacation before school starts again. We are making the most of it by going for early morning walks everyday. Mornings are cool and pleasant in contrast to the hot days and these walks in the company of nature leaves us refreshed and happy. Some images from our walks

Cheebu is busy blowing bubbles

while I try to capture these beauties…Such a pretty carpet of red, yellow and white flowers.

While I am busy clicking…

Cheebu is busy again …

There goes  a bubble..

Nice one

The cannonball tree in full bloom

It has such beautiful flowers

Some yellow beauties…

The Harsingar flower

They bloom in the night making the air around fragrant and fall down on the ground in the morning. Cheebu picks them up and brings them home.

She is still busy at it

In a few days these Jamuns will ripen and turn yummy

The amaltaas or golden showers are begining to appear

Pretty! Aren’t they?

These trees with yellow flowers are already in full bloom

There are some leafless beauties too

We also saw a beehive

And this is the silk cotton tree

In a few weeks these pods will break and silk cotton will come out. Cheebu and I are planning to collect this and use it to make pillows for her dolls.

And how can we miss out on some common birds.We enjoy our morning walk so much. More flowers, the pink and purple ones on trees will bloom in a few days. With so much beauty around, does one need any more reason for a morning walk?

Wordless Wednesday 16 – Images from the Mahakumbh

These photos were taken by my dad at Sangam in Allahabad.

 

 

Road trip to Velneshwar & Ganpatipule – Part 3

If you haven’t read Part 1 and Part 2, do read them first.

Day 3

We woke up early. It was cold, so we decided to head to the restaurant to have some tea. Since breakfast was also ready, we had some breakfast of idlis and poha along with hot tea. While it was cold sitting there, the rays of the sun were already on the sea and beach and it looked inviting

After the breakfast, we went to the beach. The water was surprisingly quite warm… so we had a nice time just walking across the beach through the waves.

As it became warmer, we discarded the woolens and spent the next couple of hours just playing and relaxing in the sand.

We made sand castles, dug out wells till the water came from it

It was total bliss… the blue skies, the sea and having the entire beach to ourselves (It was monday… remember we had extended our trip by a day so there were very few people left in the resort).

Sitting here, the mad rush of the everyday life and work seemed so unreal.

I love watching the sea… the way the waves lash against the beach

Sometimes quietly… sometimes with a roar… I love the sound of the sea and can sit for hours just watching and listening to the sounds of the waves breaking on the seashore… and this is what I did

When it became too hot to sit on the beach, we headed towards the sea and spent a good hour playing in the water. When we had played to our hearts content, we went back to our room for a proper bath After that we decided to visit the temple that Ganpatipule is famous for. It was Makar Sankranti day and it was slightly crowded, but we had a nice and peaceful darshan and came out

Darshan in any Ganesh temple is incomplete without visiting Ganeshji’s Mooshak People often whisper their wishes into the ears of Ganseshji’s faithful Mooshak who in turn conveys their wishes to Ganesha… and trust me this is a much more effective way of getting your wishes granted So we waited our turn to whisper our wishes into Mooshak’s ears before coming out of the temple. And when we had moved away, Cheebu said she wanted to go back… she had something more to say to the Mooshak Anyway, we went back and she again whispered into the Mooshak’s ears and would not tell us what she had told him, inspite of us asking her several times But Mumma-Papa knew (She had been asking us for a Hoopla ring for sometime and we got it for her in a few days)

We have a tradition of eating khichdi on Makar Sankranti day and I was feeling sad that we would not be able to do it this year as we were on a holiday… but we got lucky as the temple serves a prasad of Khichdi to the devotees I couldn’t have been happier  and between the 3 of us, we relished a plateful of yummy khichdi After the darshan, we explored the market near the temple and had lunch. After lunch we went to the main part of the beach… you know the crowded one and had some refreshing nariyal pani. There were some water sports here but we didn’t want to go one by one as  Cheebu  could not go, so we didn’t try anything.

We then decided to explore more of the area and visited the Prachin Konkan Museum. This open air museum displays lifesize models depicting life in olden times in Konkan.  There was a guided tour around and we found it quite interesting.

The museum was at a nice location with lots of greenery around. We went up a machan that gave a nice view of the place

And finally had some fun at the souvenir shop there

Apart from this the souvenir shop had some interesting articles on display. There were lots of wooden handicraft items which to me looked similar to the wooden handicrafts from Varanasi. However, we learnt that Sawantwadi, a place closeby is also famous for wooden handicrafts. There was also an interesting shell museum here.

After visiting the museum, we just drove along the coast line. A few km of drive along the coast brought us to the Bhandarpule beach. A beautiful beach again, but we contented ourselves from admiring it from a distance and didn’t venture into the waters.

We reached Ganpatipule back in time to enjoy the sunset, strolled along the local market and bought a few things, had dinner and went to bed early for we had a long journey to cover the next day.

Crafting with Cheebu

Here are some crafts done with Cheebu in the recent past.

Sail boats made from Walnut shells, toothpick and some paper.

Some river stones that we collected as souvenirs during our Bhandardara trip painted using acrylic paints and now being used as paper weights  

We did this to introduce Cheebu to the Warli artform. I made a cutout in cardboard of the basic Warli figure (the body comprising of 2 triangles and a circle). Cheebu then traced out the figures using this cutout on the paper added the remaining features.. the hands, legs, hair… bird and the sun and painted it with black paint. This craft was very useful for Cheebu can now recognize Warli prints. 

Road trip to Velneshwar & Ganpatipule – Part 2

If you haven’t read the first part of the trip, read it  here

Day 2

I had heard that, early mornings there is very good chance of spotting dolphins along this coast line. We were up early and took turns watching the sea from the verandah as we got ready… we did spot some black floating things in the sea but it was too far to be sure. Anyway, we assumed that they were indeed dolphins and Cheebu was very excited about the whole thing Today, we had to head towards Ganpatipule which is about 80 km from Velneshwar. After a nice breakfast oh Kanda Poha and tea, we headed towards the Velneshwar temple. This is a beautiful temple more than 1000 years old situated near Velneshwar beach.

There is something about visiting a quite and beautiful temple situated by the sea in the morning. It fills your entire self with a peaceful feeling. After our leisurely darshan where we took full time to admire the colourful beauty of the temple and soak in the peace there, we set out again. The entire Konkan coast has lovely temples… some big, some small… some little known village shrines, some well known ones… but all very pretty and colourful. There was another famous temple on our route towards Ganpatipule, the Ganesh temple at Hedvi

After a quick darshan and some prasad here, we were on our way again driving through the beautful coastline. With views as stunning as these, we simply had to take breaks just to absorb all that beauty inside.

The route that we chose, required us to cross another creek, the Jaigad creek by ferry boat again.  This creek was much bigger than the previous one and this time instead of staying inside the car, we went on the upper deck of the ferry boat to enjoy the lovely ride.

It was a perfect day… Blue skies, cool breeze and beautiful sights around and just the three of us together driving along such picturesque places and stumbling upon unexplored beaches like this with not a soul in sight Bliss!

Nature’s beauties were many, but resisting our urge to stop and admire at every such location, we finally managed to reach Ganpatipule before noon. Since we had booked at the last moment, we didn’t have much choice in the type of room at the resort. We had booked the Konkani cottages which was the only accomodation that was left. When we rached there, much to our delight we discovered that it was probably the best place to stay in the resort. The Konkani cottages are located about half a km from the main resort in a little forest of coconut and cazurina trees. The part of the beach that it faced was further away from the main beach and hence totally secluded. It even had a little restaurant of its own with a view like this

We had our lunch here enjoying the cool breeze and the sounds of the waves breaking on the beach. Unfortunately, they didn’t serve the local cuisine. Nevertheless even normal food in such surroundings tasted awesome.

That is an excited Cheebu dancing in joy

After a heavy lunch we decided to rest a bit before heading out to the sea, inviting though it looked.  We found a place near the kids play area where there were 3 hammocks tied close to each other. It was perfect lying down there swinging slowly under a natural umbrella of coconut trees with the sound of the sea in the background.

Cheebu alternated between playing in the swings and the slides and resting … and collecting coconuts of all sizes

As per the original plan, we had booked the resort for one day and were supposed to return back  the next day… but do things go as planned always? We had fallen so much in love with this place that we decided to extend our stay by another day We would have loved to stay there for a week, but well, you have to think practically sometimes. Sigh!

After some rest, we decided to explore the resort. We discovered that the resort was bounded by a quite backwater on one side.

We spent some time there feeding the little fishes biscuit crumbs and spotting tiny little crabs.

And finally after a nice cup of tea, it was time to hit the beach The beach is one of the most beautiful beaches I have seen with its vast stretches of golden sand. See for yourself…

The rest of the evening was spent playing and walking down the beach, drinking lots of refreshing nariyal pani , watching the lovely sunset…

And then the tiny moon, that was visible as the sun went down.

What a perfect day it was!

Teethy tales

For the past few weeks, Cheebu has been narrating to me tales of how her friends at school and daycare have started losing their baby teeth. Every now and then she comes to me excitedly “Mumma, today A’s teeth fell of or B’s teeth fell off ” followed by “When will my teeth fall off”. Apparently teeth falling off is a sign of growing up for her and so she cant afford to be left behind her friends A few days back she happily told me that she had started growing new teeth. A closer look inside her mouth revealed that indeed there were 2 little teeth peeping behind her lower front teeth. I was horrified… how could the new teeth come out before her older ones fell off. I did not reveal my fears to her, instead  I smiled and congratulated her about it for I did not want to scare her and spoil her happiness. But I was very worried. I immediately googled about it and found much to my relief that it is pretty common and happens with 1 in 10 children. I was relieved … but then people around me … friends and neighbours started pointing out to me that usually the dentists extract the baby teeth in such situations. This got me worried again for I didn’t want Cheebu to go through the extraction process Finally, hubby and me decided to seek the advice of a dentist . We got an appointment for an evening for a checkup. I reassured Cheebu that the dentist will do nothing and only examine her teeth but deep inside it was me that was more scared.

The dentist we went to is a very sweet lady. We had discovered her a couple of years back after an extremely bad experience with another dentist who had treated me for a root canal. I was in great pain with a totally messed up root canal when we found her .. and she was God sent for me. After several sittings with her for several months (with hubby and Cheebu accompanying me for most of the visits) could my damaged teeth be repaired. But I always had a pain free and peaceful session with her. Anyways, I digress… but I can’t thank this lady enough.

One look at Cheebu’s teeth and the dentist assured us that this was perfectly normal and no medical intervention was needed. Her baby teeth are shaking and should fall off soon making place for the new teeth. She didn’t even charge us for the consultation. I feel such genuine doctors are very rare in our country and times. Needless to say we are very much relieved for now. As for Cheebu, I hope the tooth fairy visits her soon