Hiding places

Today was the last of Ash's exams - so he has officially completed Grade 11. Hopefully, he will clear the papers with decent marks though all this year he has been telling me to let him be this year and that he will study in earnest next year.

Today was his least favourite subject - Political Science - and hence he didnt spend much time studying. Psychology is his favourite though he finds the theory boring. Economics is boring too but we are still hopeful he will follow his uncle's footsteps. Statistics is very interesting which is surprising for someone who found Maths his nemesis until Grade 10. English is a breeze while he is clueless about Informatics Practices which is not very conducive for online learning. Next year, the school will offer him PE as an additional subject to help score marks in case he fails to perform well in the other subjects.  The PE option is there for everyone.

What I was planning to write was not about his Humanities choices. Rather it is about how he wants to spend the next 10 days. Of course, half the day will go in sleeping and he will wake up to have lunch followed by videogaming. That is not good parenting, I know, but that is what children have been doing here in Covid times. The fear of the outdoors and a virus has meant that teens dont step out of their rooms. A very worrying trend that many parents notice in their homes.

So, our man as soon as the exams got over reminded me that I keep his PS4 remote controller ready by 2 pm. Since we have put him on to keyboard classes online on Mondays, it means that he will have to stop by 6 pm. The timings I allow is 3 hours when I hand over the controller but invariably he exceeds the deadline by an hour or two. The two days a week gaming hours will now revert to daily sessions.

I still havent come to what I meant to say in the first place. It is my penchant for hiding his remote controller after play. I have a few dedicated spots but sometimes in an absent minded state, I keep it elsewhere and I am not able to recollect for the life of me where I kept it. Since there is a spare controller, I somehow manage to find at least one of them on the days he has to play.

Today, again I couldnt find it and as I kept searching high and low, Ash came to me and said that I hadnt hidden it after all and it was there along with the PS4.

My other hiding activity involves chocolates and other sweets that I stock in the house for them. The ones that are not hidden are finished in no time. Most time, they detect my new hiding places. I must say I am having better luck with a few new places which unfortunately I cant divulge here.

It reminds me of a story my neighbourhood Madukamootil ammachi told us on one of her numerous visits to my granny. It was about the kids in a house stealing the money kept in the house. So the wife advises the husband to hide it in the Bible, a very unlikely place children will search or open to read!

Savage son

I tiptoe to Ash's room often during the first half of the day hoping to catch him unawares while he browses YouTube videos during class.

"Amma, you have to be smarter than that. I can quickly change the page by the time you reach my desk". 

"But I can infer what you're up to based on your hand movements," I try to play the smart mom.

I settle down on the bed behind to watch him. The mike is on mute and the camera is off in Teams, which is an advantage for the kids. 

The teacher is busy explaining how to go about the vacation homework next two months. 

Why holiday, I groan.

Why holiday homework, the son groans.

Little stars

At the annual day in Mira's school today afternoon... with the IInd year BSc Nutrition students of WCC after the programme, alone in her specially tailored dress, with her teachers, and singing hymns (left on the 2nd row).

The function lasted an hour and had - apart from the customary welcome note, vote of thanks, a couple of speeches by the college dignitaries - the children take part in a few rounds of singing, dance to the tune of "Five Little Ducks went swimming one day" (dressed like five bright yellow ducks) and later an African number (in tribal outfits) and a fat little boy sing "Old Macdonald had a farm" with some prompting from his teacher. While some kids looked extremely confident and comfortable with the whole show, some looked unsure and miserable (that lil boy on the extreme right in the bottom picture bawled loudly throughout the song session). But the audience, mostly the proud parents and their relatives, enjoyed their performance or lack of it. It made me misty-eyed as I watched tiny tots in the 2 1/2 to 3 1/2 age group perform under the watchful eyes and quiet prodding of the teachers.

To V's alarm, Mira looked the smallest among them all. She seemed to sing out loudly, and a couple of folks told me as we walked out that "she was full of life" and "sang well". She didnt recite the verses as she never got round to learn beyond the first sentence. While Hitansh (the 2nd boy from the left in the front row), the son of the Gujarathi lady I made friends with when I went to collect the application form for the nursery last year, confidently recited a couple of verses. We have ordered a DVD of the programme.

The girls of the Home Science dept, displaying their anorexic figures in brown silken kurtas, had arranged and anchored the programme. Mira told me the chechis dressed her up and coloured her lips. Looking at them, I knew why college girls called me, with my unmaskable mummy figure and visage, an aunty. It irritates me no end.

As the head of the dept of Home Science said, some of the little girls would come back to study in the college 12 years later. And some boys return to invite their teachers for their wedding or to just meet them. Someday Mira will realise that she was part of a special experience, being part of the laboratory nursery school of the WCC.

Many parents came with a baby in their arms. Which meant their wards were the elder siblings. Ash, who has his school in the afternoons these days, did not attend. We left the college in time to pick him up from school.

Back to school

Summer in Chennai is not something one looks forward to. But for Ash's sake I wish the cooler climes make way for hotter days and reduce his skin's misery.
Today we get adventurous enough to pack off a somewhat itchy Ash to school. Instead of sending him in the van, we drop him (so Mira has to skip school since her school starts around the same time and is in a perpendicular direction).
He goes to his seat and sits quietly, not scratching. A couple of kids come and make faces at him, and he almost slaps one in the end. The children have all become familiar and friendly with each other, and Ash has missed out on a lot of fun.
We wait till the bell rings and leaves after repeating instructions to the teacher and the ayah. The teacher seems confident she can handle the situation. We leave our phone numbers in case there was an emergency.
We then complete the formalities regarding Mira's admission to the same school. The principal hands over the admission letter and other papers and wish us (since Mira wasnt there) all the best. She even offers to accompany us to the school office where we are to submit the cheques, but someone comes to her for something and so we go on our own. But it does feel nice and special; since we had come to drop Ash we are, I think, the first to pay the fees. There is no queue to beat either.
However, at 11 a.m. V gives me a frantic call to say that the junior school headmistress had called to say that Ash was itching terribly and to take him home. She even wondered if it was something contagious. V explains eczema to her and then comes home to collect me (and Mira who insists on coming). We go armed with some literature on eczema; however I cant find anything at first glance to prove that it is not contagious, so we decide to shelve it. We instead explain his problem all over again to her when we meet her.
The teacher is apologetic and tells me that no one would have known if they didnt have music practice in the auditorium for the juinor evening next month. She tells me that he is fine and writing the alphabets, but Ash sees us and packs his bag to come along. The headmistress gives us permission to bring him to school at 10.30 am after the music class in case the dust in the auditorium is making the itching worse. She tells us we can keep him at home for 2 days and bring him on 27th, Monday being a holiday for Republic Day.
The teacher tells me to do as she says. She is a gem of a person, and has been extremely sympathetic to Ash and us. I go home to find that she has given A grades (Very Good) for Ash in the 2nd term progress report. It makes my eyes well up.

Aspirant No. 2

I have not had time to write much and bore my readers this week. The highlights of our first week after the hols have been: having my mom here until the 14th (she came along with me in a bid to oversee Ash's health), the maid's desire to be excused from service in two months to take up work in an Arab household in Kuwait, my sis-in-law and family on a flying visit yesterday en route to Queensland and Mira's interview for admission to LKG today.
Today being Muharram, the school had a holiday and so only parents and the little candidates were present in the campus. In a last-minute job, we tried to drill in Mira's head that her frock was pink and her bangles were red. She is pathetic with colours. We were relieved to note that she could sing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star reasonably well, though in her faintest voice. She is like that. The moment she leaves home, she is demure and quiet. That she could identify objects gave us some hope.
The Principal looked at her kindly and said, "I dont think she is in a mood to talk. Will she cry?" But Mira gave her full name when asked, her father's and brother's full names (after V translated the question in Malayalam) and identified a fish and a cat (which she called a poocha). She could however not identify three colours the male interviewer asked, and said honestly: "Ariyathilla (I dont know)." I guess they didnt mind that answer.
The Principal noted that there were quite a few applications from guys working in V's company. At least we know of one colleague of his who wants to admit his daugther in UCA. She informed us that the letter of admission will come in 10 days, a formality. Whcih means that Mira should make it without much hassle to LKG, especially as she has a sibling already studying there.
As a parting shot, she asked me: "Are you still working?"
A question that has made me think again about the need to take a work break for the kids' sake.

Sporty kids

I dont think I have ever attended a Kiddie Sports Day of the kind I witnessed today morning at Ashwin's school. When I was in school, the competitions included a plain 50 metres race, high jump, long jump, sack race (where u had to hop to the finish standing inside a sack), frog race (where u hopped forward to the finishing point sitting/squatting like a frog), lemon and spoon race (where you balanced a lemon in a spoon in your mouth and ran) etc. I cant remember the others. And since I hated participating in sports, I always looked at school Sports Days with dread.
But today's event turned out to be a day of great fun and merriment for parents, kids and teachers alike. And I have never heard about parents witnessing children's sports in schools in Kerala. V, who initially talked like an Indian dad about being too busy at work to attend something so trivial, agreed to come. The class teacher had sent me a note asking me to send in Ash at 8.30 am since he was in the race. And we presumed we could make a Bolt of him in 15 years since he ran as fast as a mouse.
But when we reached, the teacher told me that the he was in the group event - musical chairs - since the kid he was supposed to substitute in the car race was present today. The teacher's assistant applied a dab of lipstick on his lips and cheeks, and pinned a paper tiger on his shirt. The discipline they can instil is amazing - Ash did not budge from his seat even as we waited outside with Mira. So we trooped off to the venue, which was damp from the morning's drizzle.
Ash did not win any prize in his event though a teacher told me that he always ran well. Most of the kids didnt seem to know that they were to grab a chair when the music stopped. Ash would sit and then run to another chair that he found empty. He ran holding the hand of another hyperactive boy.
There were games that used the themes of Jack and Jill, Red Riding Hood, Parrots and Mangoes, Fishing and so on. All in all, we enjoyed the morning thoroughly.

Pre-schooler in college

The weekend had been hectic with two kids to manage. As V says, it is like having got a new child and we are still getting used to the new responsibility. And a great responsibility it is - to maintain the special care, balanced nutrition and great love that Ash's grandparents bestowed on him. He has been returned to us with a smooth shiny skin (save for itchy patches here and there) and a healthy body. They had taken care to make up for the absence of milk and non-veg food with fruits and other vegetables at regular intervals, a time table that we will struggle to maintain and the maid would love to shirk. We have to ensure that he gets his apple and juice when we are around, as we wont know if the maid fed him or not. And the kids are too naive to tell us if they got their share or if the maid ate them all up.

Sibling battles and adult mediation is in full force once again. My head is numb when I leave for work or when I hit bed at night. We are hoping they will be too preoccupied or tired once both start school.

Mira began school at WCC today. There was only an orientation programme today, and the girls of the home science dept presented some programmes that kept the children amused and quiet. The kids got candies while the parents were given refreshments.

There are two teachers and three ayahs, two to look after the kids and one to manage the food needs. The session starts with a prayer at 8.45 am, snacks at 9.45 am, play activities until lunch at 12.30, and a nap time before heading home at 2 pm. For a week the classes are from 8.30 to 11 am. There is a separate gate to enter the nursery school and parents are by no means allowed to use the college main gate for the purpose. No fancy bags, no fancy clothes, no socks - the kids have to be comfortable when they play in the sand or learn to get things from their bags. The home science students on the nutrition and human development stream will also interact with the children on a one-to-one basis, as part of their practical learning.

In all, I think the learning experience is going to be fun and we regret not having known about it early enough to send Ash.

p.s. Just as I do on crucial occasions, I forgot to take the camera along in all the hurry burry in the morning.

A difficult choice

I am confused. I have shortlisted 2 schools for Mira to do her pre-KG - the WCC Nursery School inside the college campus and Vatsalya montessori.

I prefer to put her in the former but V prefers the latter. His main reason in favour of the former is a school van that can drop her home. Also it is not too far in case he needs to drop her in the mornings. The van as well as the school, set in a residential area, is air-conditioned. The fee would come to some Rs.18000 for a year. But then a montessori school is big business in Chennai. This seems the most reasonable of the montessori schools I have considered for Mira. There are no trees and shade like at patasala, but the rooms are spacious and they seem to have the necessary learning material.

The WCC nursery school is supposed to be damn good, as a couple of people vouchsafed, but then it is slightly far from home and they dont have a conveyance facility. Parents have to make arrangements to drop the child by 8.30 am sharp and pick her up at 2 pm. Food is provided (the kids are the guinea pigs of the Home Science students) and there is time for a mid-day nap too. The campus is pretty good and huge with lots of trees and plenty of space for kids to run around. V tells me he wont have the time to drop and pick her every day. A chauffer wouldnt be a safe option either in these days unless I get somebody reliable, such as a maid, to go along. The present maid, a young one at that, cant be trusted with that. I cant run the risk of her eloping with the driver :0

I would have liked to say that my daughter began her studies in WCC and finished it in the same place - of course after a gap of 15 years after the nursery level. But it is not to be.

No reason to Smile

Every time I passed Shanti Colony in Anna Nagar, I was intrigued by the name of a montessori school run in a house - S.M.I.L.E. The full stops amused-intrigued me. The seemingly modest building made me feel that it was probably less expensive than 'patasala', so I decided to check it out day before yesterday.
The lady, who attended on my queries, was courteous and was probably the principal Mrs. Suganti Raja (I found the name on the visiting card she gave me as I was leaving). But the fee structure was no consolation.
Admission fee - 4000
Monthly fees - 1200 (or 14400 in 3 terms to be paid in June, Sept., and Dec.)
Additional fee - 2000
Uniform - 250 (boys)/ 300 (girls)
The school timings are 9-12 a.m. and snacks and a water bottle (also a labelled set of spare clothes) can be sent with the kid. There is no van facility.
And just as she was trying to dig information about me the parent and how much we were worth, I got an urgent call from V to make haste and leave for our next destination. She kindly gave me a glass of water seeing me coughing.
Vijaya tells me there are some kids attending her therapy who go to the school. She doesnt know if it is good.
Considering that the fee is not v. different from patasala's, I think I will send Mira to the latter if at all I send her to a montessori.

The montessori attraction

When I met a junior of mine from college on New Year's Day, he told me his son and daughter were studying in Lady Andal and Patasala respectively. Which was a surprise for me, since Lady Andal on Harrington Road was quite far from his residence and secondly, he didnt belong to the "rich, snob" crowd who could afford to send their kids to LA. And here I had decided not to try for admission for my kids at the said school for the same reason, though a couple of opinions I got from colleagues was well in favour of the school. I didnt want my kids asking me to take them to Switzerland on vacation or asking us to change our car for a high-end model! But Vinu my junior told me that the snob kids formed their own groups and our kids knew better than to mingle with them or know their limits. He also told me that the 'patasala montessori' I had once gone to for Ash's sake was a v. good school. Which made me decide then that I will try to get Mira admitted there for a year at least, before she joins a mainstream school.

So today afternoon we went with Mira to the school near the Mahalingapuram Ayyappa temple. We had to wait quite long as the couple who went in before us took a long time talking to the lady-in-charge, Shobana. We had been trying to drill into Mira's head that her name was Miriam, not Vaava or Kripa. But she kept mum when the lady asked her her name. The first thing she wanted to know was whether Mira was fully toilet-trained as they didnt want kids who soiled the bamboo mats they sat on. We said yes.

She also told us that they take in only 70 students a year in the 2.5 to the 6 year age group, while they had another school for kids upto age 11 near the GG hospital in Nungambakkam. That if students didnt turn up before 9 am, they would have to go back home! Classes are from 9-12 for the junior kids and upto 2 pm for the more older ones. There is a private van operator to some areas.

The fee structure was the best part. There is an admission fee of Rs.6500, a term fee of Rs.5000 (there are 3 terms), an equipment fee of Rs.2000 and some other fee of Rs. 2000. We collected the application form and prospectus for Rs. 100 and came off. I am having second thoughts...

School hunt

A lean day at work. So making up for the past few days' silence.
We are on the look out for a temporary good playschool for Ash, where he will have enough montessori-model activities to burn his energy. On the doctor's suggestion, we had come across a school called Saraswati Vidyalaya in Choolaimedu which has an interactive, airconditioned, disciplined playschool. V met the lady-in-charge of the nursery section, one Ms. Padma, who told me today that Ash can be admitted on a trial basis for a week. If he adjusts well and is happy there he can continue till the school closes for summer vacation in mid-April. They are not too keen on a temporary admission but we have already paid the school fee and donation at UCA. Whatever, we have to pay Rs.5000-odd as admission and term fees. The school timing is from 8.30 to 12 noon for KG. They also have a daycare which functions till 6.30 pm. That is an option we could think of when our maid woes get unmanageable.
Vinod went to Ash's old school to convey that he wont be coming any more - just told them that he is going off to Kerala for a while. They were a bit sad to hear it. The teacher said he had been a good boy, who grasped fast and did well. She showed his classwork and art work and stuff. His books have been returned.

On the eczema front, Ash's itching seems to be worse of late - dunno if it any food allergy or the change in medication - Zensoft, Flutibact and Cetaphil in place of HHsone and Atogla. Might have to meet Dr. Patrick again. To our consolation he had observed that eczemic kids are smaller and fail to thrive until they get the better of their affliction. Which made V wonder if the doctor himself, a small wiry man with dry skin, is eczemic.