Simple pleasures of Life

There have been quite a few things or behaviours in Athiboy which reminds me so much or my own childhood and brings joy to the day. I'm trying to document them here so that I can always be reminded that the joy of life lies in the most simplest of things. Things which cannot be bought, but only experienced as a part of the life. 

1. Sleeping the moment breeze hits your face during travel - This is something I have been quite famous for when I was kid. I literally doze off the moment I board a bus to Chennai / Bangalore. As soon as the breeze hits me, I'm out into my own dream world. One other reason was I had motion sickness, so if I don't sleep, I'm going to vomit - so people preferred to let me sleep.    

With Athi, there is no motion sickness, but almost all auto rides have put the kiddo into sleep within 15 mins. I love how observing how he slowly becomes silent and gets into a trance state and finally sleeps take over. The position or the comfort doesn't matter at all - off he goes into his own world. This unworried and peaceful sleep is something that I so miss these days. Because as I grew older, and travelled more, I got the better off my motion sickness and my sleep during travels have drastically reduced, and even if I do sleep, its not as it used it to be when I was a kid. Some things are gone with childhood, and this is one such - but glad I could cherish it when I was kid. 

School!

Dear Kiddo, 

You started school on 27 June 2022. Before this day, you were asked to come over to the school for a couple of days to get know about the school environment, more like a trial class. The trial class also allowed the parents to sit in a corner of the room and observe what the kids do. You were totally in awe with the classroom and the materials that were available around. You happily went about exploring them one after the other, once in a while checking if I / V was around in the room. You enjoyed spending time in there, even though it was as short as 20 minutes. 

The way you enjoyed those 2 trial classes led me to hope that you'd be fine to be there on your own. Well, you proved me how wrong I was to make such an assumption. The first day came, and V and I took you along to the school. You were excited to be there, but when we told you that we'd not be accompanying you into the class, your whole mood changed. It started with a mild whimper and grew into a full blown cry with tears streaming down the cheeks begging us not leave you alone. We didn't have a choice but to leave you in there and walk out - it was heartbreaking, but had to be done. 

One hour later when we came back, you still hadn't calmed down entirely, but were glad to go back to your known territory and be around the humans you knew and recognized. 

Once the evening descended and we started talks about you having to go to school the next day, you went around the house pleading to each of us to accompany you into the class. But when none of us obliged, and you started telling you don't want to go to school. 

The next day came, and a lot of cajoling had to be done to get you into the school. Once there, the crying intensified and the same routine of us leaving you crying there continued. 

It's been about 1.5 months now, and still the crying while entering the class hasn't stopped. Every evening there goes a conversation at home where you ask each of us - School ku poitu azhava? Azhava? or you just say na school ku poitu azhuven, azhudunde vilayaaduven.. 

On a brighter note, you seem to enjoy the class and generally are very excited to tell us what activity you did each day. There are days when we don't understand what exactly you are trying to convey, but hey, we are learning too. Most often your communication is neat and clear to make us understand; but some days its tough - like the other day when you said you did grains pouring and I was hearing it as grinding and pouring which somehow didn't make sense.

Also there was this one instance where you randomly started singing Wheels on the bus rhymes and told us that it was sung in the class. We were stumped and didn't believe it until the teacher herself confirmed that they'd sung it in the class. Ever since, that song has been going non-stop in your mouth. Whenever you feel like singing you sing that, whenever you are bored you sing that, whenever you are engrossed in some activity you sing that. Its so cute to watch it all.

Here's to hoping you settle well in the school and enjoy it. Its going to be your space for more than a decade and I wish you like it as much as I did mine. Good luck kiddo!

Love,

Gayuma