The Club

This afternoon while Sanjay slept, Priya built "The Club". You have to be a member, a guest of a member or have Priya's permission to enter. I think her creation was inspired by our recent trip to the zoo as it consists of various animals (of the stuffed variety) hanging out in their individual cages. I snuck in tonight to take some pictures.

The cheetah and the polar bear (Simon) were set up next to each other...

Her horse, Flowers, had the most comfortable set-up, a blanket with no fence around it...


She didn't have enough materials to build cages for the dogs (Sparky and Chocolate), so they were just leashed to stay in place.

Of particular interest was the rabbit's cage (seen there behind the dogs) where she built a really intricate "latch" to hold the hanging blanket in place. Let's zoom in and have a look at it...



She slid a bracelet over the bed post, then slipped a pair of scissors in that at just the right angle so she could then take a clothes pin to pinch the blanket up with the scissors. Voilá! The blanket stays up and the rabbit stays in.

Sanjay happened to be in the room when I was snapping these pictures of "The Club". When I finished he insisted that I also take a picture of his cars. He'd be disappointed if I didn't share that with you, so here you go...

More Summer Fun

Some friends from Sanjay's preschool met at the zoo today and we joined them. It's been a while since we visited the zoo so it was refreshing to see the new exhibit with the moose, some grizzly bears, mountain lions and river otters. We're officially members again, so give us a call if you're looking for someone to tag along on your next visit.

Click here for a look at all of our zoo pictures from today.

These are a couple of my favorites:

Training Wheels - A Thing of the Past?

One of Priya's summer goals is to ride her bike without training wheels. We have been talking about it a lot, but tonight we finally decided to do something about it. A last minute decision, we pack up the bikes and head over to the local park. With abundant grass and some small hills, this should be the perfect practice ground for riding a two-wheeler. Oh, she's nervous alright, but after a warm-up lap with the training wheels, Daddy removes them from the bike. We find a nice gentle, downhill, grassy slope and get her on the saddle. First, we practice getting her feet on the pedals and letting her fall to one side so that she can learn to put her foot down and stop the bike from falling. That goes well... so we're on to some movement. As expected, she freezes up and needs to be reminded to keep pedaling. I hold onto the bike until we're just about at the bottom of the slope, and then I let go and almost immediately the bike tips and she's on the ground. Luckily the landing was soft... to be expected at a speed of about 1 mile/hour and falling onto a carpet of grass... so she picks right up and goes again.

Things were going well and each time she added maybe one more rotation of the pedals before finally tumbling over. We also noticed that she tends to slightly turn to the left when on her own. After several runs, she had an idea. She wanted to try on the flat grass instead of the hill. I'm thinking this isn't such a good idea because she needs gravity to help her since her pedaling is weak, and frankly a lot to think about when you're concentrating so much on balance. But, low and behold... when we let go of her on the flat grass, she kind of took off. I mean, we are far from there, but some serious headway was made tonight.

So, my immediate thought... I need a picture or video of this... but the camera was not with me. I grab the keys from Bartee, run to the car, drive home, grab the camera and head back over to the park trying to beat the sun going down. Priya's back on the bike, Bartee is steadying her and I've got the camera on... focused and ready for push off. Something is holding them up, Priya can't get her feet on the pedals or something. I'm saying "Hurry up... my battery is low... push her... let's go" and finally she's in motion. Then, at that very moment, my lens starts collapsing back into the casing and my camera powers down. Dang... I missed it. You will have to just imagine what she looked like on two wheels. I did manage to revive the camera long enough to take this shot, though not very impressive. Will try again, and hopefully have some pictures for you, once the camera is recharged.

New Habits

A little more than a week ago Sanjay invited his first friend to our house for a sleepover. He's been watching Priya have sleepovers a lot lately and finally it was his turn. It was with his best friend who is a little more than 2 years older than him. There are not words to explain the excitement that Sanjay was feeling that night. He was more rebellious than ever; he loved having someone around to crash cars with him full-time. It was a night filled with smashing stones, pillow fights, indoor ball throwing, toy banging and clanging, and very loud voices. Priya was out of the house at a sleepover so it was all boy play. You can see from the picture how much Sanjay adores his best friend.



Anyway, since that night... Sanjay has developed some new habits to be just like his buddy. For the past 3 nights he has slept without underwear, because he tells me "Alex sleeps without underwear". And then tonight he told me he wanted to sleep with his socks on because "Alex sleeps with his socks"... but this one lasted all of about 10 minutes. After I finished reading the story, he decided it might be more comfortable to take them off. Actually, I don't know if it was comfort he was after or if it was the tossing them across the room that he was looking forward to. Either way, he is now sockless.

If he's going to be picking up new habits from his friends... at least Alex is a good choice. He's a good kid and I'm thankful for that because tonight Sanjay informed me, "Mom, I'm just like Alex".

Good Morning!

You know those precious photos of sleeping babies and toddlers? Everything seems so perfect in them... quiet baby, serene expression, snuggled up in blankets with their eyes closed... there's a certain beauty that we can capture when our little ones are dreaming.



At some point though, when they become full-blown toddlers, we stop taking these pictures... perhaps because they are sleeping less or maybe we just don't want to wake them with the click of the camera or a blinding flash. This morning though, I peeked in on Priya as she overslept. With the sunlight in her room and her lying there holding her favorite stuffed puppy, all I could think of was grabbing the camera and capturing this moment. By the time I returned to her room and cracked the door a bit more... her eyes were squinting at me, trying to discern who was entering her space. Dang! I missed it.

Instead, I got the wrath of Priya in the early morning hours. She was not at all happy with me behind the camera lens as you can see in this photo montage. What's missing from the photos is the repeated sound of her angry voice crying "Mom, stop taking pictures!" and me saying "okay" then snapping a few more.