Tamizh Pulavargal

I have started teaching them spoken tamizh now. All this time i was torturing Ashu by teaching him ka nga cha na..and he was not too interested. One day when my mom asked him if he wanted more urula kizhangu, ashu was like huh?! then i realized i should teach them spoken tamizh too. Ashu can speak tamil quite well, but he doesnt know a whole lot as we use the english words at home. So, i started with fruits and vegetables and then moved on to colors, animals, body parts and birds. He is doing pretty good. What surprised us is that AJ was observing and read all of it on his own from Ashu's note book and knows everything now. My mom is totally amazed. Also, he saw ashu practising writing too and asked me to teach him to write. I taught him a, aa, e, ee completely and he writes all the uyir ezhuthu on his own and recognizes all the mei ezhuthu too. he cant write mei ezhuthu though. Ashu can write them too. I think they are making good progress in tamil and i'm glad i started tamil for AJ earlier than ashu otherwise it will be a vepangaai for him too. The only reason ashu is learning tamil is so he can go back to chennai. That's a trick i played on him and is working well.

Karuthu Kandasamy!

Whenever i give some advice to AJ i get some advice back. Something that the teachers tell him in daycare. So, if i give some advice like do not hit ashu, you should always love your brother..etc etc..he immediately gives an advice in similar lines..like 'we share with our friends' or ' we take turns' etc. Last week i said something and he said "You can go close to a flower to smell it, but do not eat it". I could not stop my laughter. I dont know which kid got that advice and i hope it's not AJ! :D

Mama's Visit

My bro visited us during the long weekend. It was total fun. I tried very hard to keep it a surprise for ashu and i was quite successful, but just one week before the long weekend, my friend asked me what my plans were and i blurted out without realizing ashu was standing behind me. He was super excited.
I told AJ, but i guess he didnt take it seriously. When he saw my brother he could not believe his eyes. He went to him and touched him to see if it was real! It was too funny. He kept looking at him in awe for the next 30-40 minutes. It was really hilarious :D

The next 3 days went in a jiffy though. We went house hunting on saturday and did some shopping. The whole day was gone and on sunday, we watched 3 movies!! and even managed to goto the park in between :-) Kids had a blast with their mama.
On monday, we did some more shopping and just lazed around at home and my brother left in the evening. Both kids cried so much. Ashu was really angry with me for not sending him to chennai with my brother!! and AJ was totally upset for the rest of the evening. Made me feel very guilty!!

Luckily for me he came back the next weekend too. Kids were so happy (me too me too), but AJ is under the impression that my bro is gonna come every friday and spend the weekend with us :-) We watched Flight 172 this time. It is still funny :) We went to the park and did some boating. We took a 4 seater as amma said she wont come. She just bench thechified as usual. We went in the 4 seater and ashu and my bro wanted to do the pedalling. So, B, Me and AJ sat in the back. Poor Bro had to do all the pedalling as Ashu had no strength :-) AJ was screaming the whole time that he wants to go to the front. Then, we went second round and B and bro sat in the front with AJ in Bro's lap. Bro had a tough time controlling him. I guess my bro will stay away from boats for a while :-) We all went to the airport this time to see him off since he left on sunday itself. Poor dude had the worst luck that day and his flight was delayed by several hours and he reached NJ only the next day. Adhuku, he couldve spent the night with us. :(

Award Ceremony

Ashu had his Award Ceremony on 26-May. He received "All As or Es" award and "Music Award". Music Award was a surprise for others in the family as he doesnt even hum a song at home :-) But, me and B have heard him sing some songs that Ms.Nicole had taught him for Veteran's day and he was really good, so we were not surprised :-)

I think they limited the number of awards to 2 this time and Ashu did not get the AR award. He was so disappointed as he was expecting that. He got the STAR rating though and he is reading at 8.7 level. So, even i was surprised that they didnt give him the award. But, i didnt ask the teacher since i thought it might be tacky. Later he convinced himself saying that the teacher must have looked at the quantity of books read as part of AR and since he reads bigger books he could not read as many as some of them. I felt little sad that he was upset, but it is an opportunity to learn to deal with disappointments. After we came home, AJ promptly snatched the awards from ashu and was running around saying i won two golden awards. Ashu was really mad and then surprisingly AJ gave him back the E award and kept the music award with him. He didn't fail to update any one who talked to him that day that he won two golden awards. He was honest only with Janani. When she asked him if those awards were Ashu's he said yes and she asked him then why are you saying those are yours. He just giggled :-) If it was not Janani and somebody else who asked that question to him there would've been a tantrum tornado!!!

One more update about Ashu is in Karate, he has got 4 orange stripes in his white belt now. He said he just has to take a test and graduate to orange belt. The master is waiting for another student to get 4 stripes so he can test them together.Dont know how lone he needs to wait.