Certificates and a new English Word

Certificates/Awards :
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Couple of weeks back (yeah i know i am late!) AJ got his first ever certificate :-) and it was unbelievable. He got 5 stars in all. The certificate for his gym bus.

Also, the only reason he goes to school these days is gymbus. He skips daycare the other days and stays at home with ashu and amma. Rendu perum ore kottam. Paavam amma i dont know how she manages :)


Moving on to the next certificate : Both Ashu and AJ finished their first set of swim lessons yday and got the beginner certificate.

Today, Ashu got his Orange belt in Karate. It is usually B who takes him for Karate class and i really had no idea about his progress. I was so proud when the Karate master said he was very proud to have a student like Ashu and he just follows instructions and does really great. I was dumbstruck when he did chinese splits. I didnt know ashu was that flexible. I always thought he was too stiff for that kind of activity. Ashu did really well.

Now to the new english word that AJ coined :

Yesterday, when i got AJ down from the car seat after reaching home, he walked outside the garage and came back saying, whew! it is so windy, it just "winds" my hair. I could not control my laughter. So he had realized by then that "winds" is probably not the right word, i guess. When i told B later that he said the wind just winds my hair, he came and corrected me saying, mommy the wind just blew on my hair! :D

Proud mommy and Toystory 3 - 3D

On 25 Jun, AJ said i look nice, pretty and beautiful. That is like Vashistar vaayaal Brahmarishi pattam. Ashu was (and is still) a total momma's boy. Anyday, he would say i'm the prettiest girl (Ok..lady!) in the world. Even if he thinks someone from his class is pretty he would say she is very pretty like you amma ;-) AJ on the other hand is blatant!! :P Once i asked him who is the prettiest girl in the world expecting him to say mommy and pat came the reply "Janani"..I tried asking him in diferent ways..nope the answer was standard "Janani". So, i finally asked who is the prettiest mommy in the world and he said "you" :-) So, i gave up after that and knew this kid was tough. Today, i wore a new top and he said you look nice. I asked only nice..he said pretty and i asked only pretty and he said nice, pretty, beautiful..ok? I almost wanted to ask if he thought i was the prettiest in the world..but why take a chance and spoil the moment :D

Toystory 3
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A very enjoyable movie. We went to watch this on 4th of july. That was the only thing we did on the long weekend as i had to work that weekend. GRR! Anyways, this was a good break for me. The movie was awesome. Very enjoyable. Loved the spanish buzz. Ashwin enjoyed it thoroughly, but AJ was okay. He still doesnt have the patience to watch a complete movie. He was concentrating more on the pop corn. He giggled few times and i really had doubts that he did gumbaloda govinda and laughed along with us. He was annoying me too by getting on and off the chair 1000 times. Only when the clapping monkey came he got super scared and climbed on me and hugged me and started looking at the walls and after that he didnt watch the movie. but atlesat he was quiet ;-) I loved the movie as much as cars and kungfu panda :)

Another AVK in the house :-)

Yep, now AJ realized how much fun Ashu is having at home and goes to daycare only part time. He stays at home three days a week. He is still very naughty and a little too much to handle for anyone other than me and B :-) So, i decided not to torture my mom by making him stay full time ;-)

My mom said that he doesnt trouble that much when he is at home, but it is still not a risk worth taking. Also, some days he wants to goto school. He dilly dallies a lot between school and home.

I did not sign up Ashu for any summer camp this time because B is travelling a lot and my project is at a crucial stage and i have to work at odd hours. That means i cant drop him some days and i didnt want the money go down the dumps as usual. He goes to Karate and i give him some work in the afternoons. He is learning tamil from me and mom as i mentioned earlier. He also goes for swim lessons with AJ, which deserves a separate post ;-)

I see a lot of improvement in Ashu's tamil. He speaks really good, but needs to cut that settu payyan accent. He recognizes almost all the letters..Makes me wonder why tamil has over 200 letters!! And i also realized that i forgot half of it and taught him wrong..i had no idea how to write nyu nyoo..etc. I have never seen those letters as part of any words, so i am not guilty of forgetting those ;-) I had to re-teach him after i found the UKG tamil book :D And seriously, the in india they teach ka nga cha na in UKG?!! Poor kids!

Both kids have started reading simple words. Ashu can read little more as he knows more letters.AJ recognizes 70% of what Ashu knows already. He learnt those like Ekalavya..he never sits and learns..just observes as he goes. He writes all of uyir ezhuthu and some mei ezhuthu and recognizes pretty much all the uyir mei too. Ashu knows almost all of them. Since i taught him wrong first he is still stuck with the wrong set of letters on some! My fault!! I got mixed up with tamil and hindi!! :P

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.