Six!!

Happiest 6th birthday Athiyan! 

This year began on a super crazy note. After last year’s volunteering at Jawadhu and being reunited with the CTC family, I decided to enroll for a marathon. Vagamon became the buzzword, and it had a 10K distance for the people who weren’t very confident about 36/75K. As someone who was trying to get back into running, I decided to enroll for 10K. As we were sorting out travel and accommodation arrangements, a wild thought came across my friend’s mind, which was duly passed on to me & I held it like my own little secret - we decided to make our kids run/walk the 10K loop with us. What started off as a random thought, turned out to be an actual thing, as we started the race. You managed to walked almost 3/4th of the distance, except for the last 3km stretch, by which time you’d become super exhausted and we had no choice but to carry you to the finish line. But nevertheless it was a fun experience and the whole trip was something that both of us enjoyed a lot.

Post run medal show off

We upgraded to a new cycle this year. It was a little too tall for you initially, so we had to go back to attaching the balance wheels. The initial excitement about the new cycle, waned off in a few weeks, and the cycle lay around in a sad state waiting for you to ride it regularly, but you seldom went near it. After a few months, one fine day, we decided to I remove off the balance wheels, and you managed to cycle decently without support, but had a slight fear of not being able to balance on your own at the start. Slowly, as the months went by, and with lots of constant nudging, you are now cycling regularly on your own, sometimes a little too mindlessly and faster than the permissible speed limits.

This year, your closest friends at school moved from Primary into Elementary. I was initially worried about how you’d feel about this, but then, you were quite prepared and handled that transition quite well. In the last few months though, as we enrolled you into the Art class (where you get to meet those friends from Elementary) you’re literally itching to join them and can’t wait to move into Elementary. Just 3 months to go, and you can’t contain your excitement. 

We went on a car trip to Gudalur - Ooty in May this year - just the 3 of us, you, me & V. We went to Bandipur-Mudumalai, saw lots of elephants, deer and Indian Gaurs. Watching the animals excited you, but the long car rides and no proper company (kiddos / adults showering undivided attention to you) made you feel a little too bored to the point that you refused to get into the car for almost the whole of next one month.

On the classes front, you attended the Karate class regularly and managed to move from White Belt to Yellow Belt. Music is also going steadily though with some occasional breaks given by the Master himself. We also tried something new this year - the Parkour classes. Enrolled for a 10 day summer camp in May, and you had an absolute ball of a time there, and we continued the classes once a week up until September. The class is about 12kms away from our home - the cost of transport to and fro was getting to be higher than the class fees and hence we had to discontinue it. But it was definitely a place that you enjoyed the most. Hoping something similar opens up nearby. You’ve started art classes at school from the last month, and seem to be enjoying it, mainly because you get to meet your old friends and share your snacks. As for us, enrolling to Art Class was primarily to cut down your afternoon nap, but man oh man, that’s proving to be impossible (guess they’re my genes) - you return from school at 3:50pm, and doze off immediately only be wakened up forcefully at 5:00pm. There are a few days that go by without naps, but they are far and few. Let’s see how the next year goes.

You’ve become a board and card game fanatic. We’ve started building a collection of sorts, and the world of board games is as interesting to us, adults, as it is to you. Whenever any of our friends (yours, mine or V’s) come over, it’s a play-day - you bring out all the games and have a gala time playing them with everyone. 

I’m super happy that you enjoy listening to stories and reading books. Thanks to one of your friend’s mom telling about her book readings, I took the leap and started reading Enid Blyton’s Magic Faraway Tree Collections to you, and boy-o-boy, you loved that book so much (it’s been the most favourite book from my childhood, and I’m glad to see you love it too. It’s a classic). You were so hooked on to the story that you’d hardly let a day pass by without getting me to read a few pages from the book. After this, I’ve heard to tell that you’d started reading Ruskin Bond chapter books at school, and we did manage to find out a couple of them in our apartment library and I saw you try to read them on your own. Definitely a proud moment. You are a little too young for comics, but you’ve started trying to read Tinkle - not sure if you are able to fully grasp it as yet, but it’s good to see you try.

Music still happens to be an integral part of your life. You enjoy all types, ranging from Carnatic to Tamil Cine songs to Christmas carols. We watched Taare Zameen Par movie once and since then that album has been on your playlist non-stop. In Tamil, the current favourites for sleep are Kaatrodu Pattam Pola and Aararo Aariraro. You also “vibe” (the most used word in your vocabulary in the recent days) tand sing along Monica, Jingucha, Chikitu, Makkamishi, Yaara andha payan dei. Somewhere around the mid of the year, you learnt about Smule, and were in awe about how it worked. You tried singing Oru Naalil and Poren Naa Poren, and was quite impressed by your own performance. 

Amidst all this, you somehow caught me & V redhanded while we were doing the daily Linkedin Puzzles / NY times word games and have diligently make it a point to play Mini Sudoku (to my own surprise, you caught onto the logic pretty easily) and Zip daily now. You also love to play the One Word Search and Stackdown (this still needs a lot of help from me) but you are getting better everyday. You are also obsessed with all things Space - planets, solar system, black hole, galaxies, etc., and Volcanoes. 

All in all, this year has been one of new experiences, lots of curious questions and loads of books! A few things that I really enjoy are my bike rides with you as we vibe to your favourite collections, the times that I read the book for you, the daily puzzles, our library time (though neither of us read book there) and cycle rides around the apartment. You are a happy kiddo, and may you always be so.

Love, 

Amma