Progress Reports

We had a back-to-back session of PTA meetings for Chubbocks and Puddi last week. Chubbocks has always loved schoool, from his playschool days. And he took to Shriram School like a duck to water. But this year, he has a teacher that I sensed was strict and even I felt scared of her on orientation day, so I was not surprised when he later told me that he didn't like school as much any more because she was too strict. Plus he and his gang of 8-9 pals who have all been together since nursery have been split up into different sections, so he's not been altogether happy. Moreover, this year, he gets homework every day but Wednesday, so he has been feeling burdened. I didn't know what to expect from his teacher as a report.


It turns out I didn't have to worry. She has given him such a wonderful evaluation, as have most of his other teachers. In fact, she had written, "A gentle and caring child, he has earned the respect f his peers and teachers alike," which I thought was really amazing. I remember when he was younger, he used to get bullied/ occasionally beaten by other kids and A and I used to have this violence/ non-violence debate, so it feels nice to have his peaceful stance appreciated. And of course, since A and I are at the receiving end of his hair-trigger temper, it was quite a giggle to read that 'it is a pleasure to have such a well-mannered child in my class." As proof of living vicariously through my kids, I exhibit my inordinate pride in having Chubbocks's sports teacher point him out as one of the 2-3 kids talented at soccer - I suck at most sports but soccer was one of my few loves.


For Puddi, Shriram is the third school she's attended, since playschool days, but it's the first one which has such a long day. She goes off with Chubbocks at 7:45 am and they both return at about 3:15 pm, so it is a big change from going to school for 2-3 hours or so. She had a few adjustment problems for the first couple of days but soon got over crying on her way in. An even bigger milestone for her is that she also goes in the school bus along with Chubbocks. The school had asked for parents to volunteer to ride along from time to time to keep an eye on how systems are working, and the afternoon I rode along, I saw her in full action. This 4 year old marches into the bus with all the confidence of a much-older kid, finds a seat for herself and best friend Rehaan, and chattily says hi to the much older kids walking past. A 14 year old boy gave her an embarrassed and somewhat reluctant Hi Alena, as he went past, in response to her enthusiastic and loud greeting, so I guessed Puddi was doing all right. But this was the first formal PTA meeting we'd ever attended for her so we wondered what her teacher would say.

I was blown away by the teacher. First of all, the teacher says Puddi eats all her food fast and then walks around the class chatting with her friends - Puddi who's famous in her family for keeping one morsel in her cheek for as long as 45 minutes!!!Apparently it's a common sight for her to walk around with cheeks smeared with chocolate from her Nutella sandwich at snack times. Then the teacher raved all about Pud's dancing skills saying she moves so beautifully, so rhythmic, have never seen such coordination in such a young child...Some remarks: The 'singing nightingale' of her class; "P's glowing smile in the morning definitely makes one's day'. And the clincher - her teacher said with a wistful tone in her voice, in October, with some 6 months to go for the school year to end, that she's really going to miss having her in class!

Progress Reports

Got about a month to go before baby # 3 turns our world upside down, as per the doc. Can't wait to pop it out, methinks - more due to my growing discomfort than excitement at the new arrival as of now. It's been rough the last couple of weeks as I grow increasingly larger. I've outgrown my maternity wear! And wish I could wear my comfy, worn out old nighties all day, even to the office.

I had to make an emergency run to the nearest FabIndia to stock up on some affordable maternity wear to tide me over the next few weeks. Some of their stuff is nice and comfy but i need to remember to try on everything I buy from there - some of their clothing looks okay on a shelf but hideous on. I had an all-day conference at office on Friday and decided to get into the maternity dress I had just bought. Guess what? The dress is really, really long - longer than mid-calf but not ankle length which is funny and makes you look weirdly proportioned, especially when your ankles have ballooned due to pregnancy. Asked A if it looked ok, and just to be supportive he said yes. Then I asked my friend and colleague who'd come over to ride along to the conference - does this look like a housecoat? At her reluctant yes, I had to go back in the house and change.

Finding it increasingly harder to sleep, what with my back and pelvis aches and my stomach getting hard and bloaty every night - no amount of Eno seems to help and I spend half the night pacing around waiting for the bloat to go away. The weather has been pretty horrendous - hot so you need the AC full blast all night, leaving me with the sniffles. Am hoping the sniffles and cough go away soon - am shuddering to think how it'll feel to cough or sneeze with stitches in my belly :( And of course I can't believe I'm still nauseated. I have to keep eating every couple of hours or else I'm hunched over the basin, and I'm getting really tired of eating. During Chubbocks' pregnancy, I just couldn't bear to eat anything except bananas for ages, and then I lost weight during the first trimester so the doc had me stuffing my face. We'd nicknamed Chubbocks Pate, since I felt like the stuffed goose - I think this baby has me heading the same way!

On the plus side of sleeplessness, have come up to level 12 and 7500 points on brick-breaker on A's blackberry. Maybe I'll borrow the blackberry to keep me busy during delivery!

What with the house still under renovation and the workmen dragging out the schedule, I've almost no bandwidth to think about the new baby. The only thing I'm hoping to manage is to shop for baby clothes this weekend since I sent off all the baby clothes I had to my sister after Puddi was born, in the fond belief that I would never need them again. When Chubbocks was born, we arrived at the hospital with a suitcase full of clothes for me, but none for him, since I had checked in a week before he was born for pre-eclampsia. When Puddi was due, determined to redress the balance, I went to hospital with a suitcase full of stuff for her - clothes, bibs, diapers, bottles - but forgot to pack clothes for myself. This time I'm hoping to get it right - I knew there was a reason we were having a third baby!

Speaking of first and second, Chubbocks is really making strides in his swimming classes now, and swam by himself in the 5 feet deep area on Sunday, under the watchful gaze of the instructor. It's wonderful to see his growing confidence and enthusiasm for swimming classes. No matter how thrilled our own achievements may make us, there is nothing comparable to the thrill of seeing your child master something - the pride and confidence in his or her eyes.

His answers about what he has done in school remain laconic as ever, though he has plenty to say and ask about all kinds of unrelated matters. "I played" is his stock answer. His review with the current class teacher is coming up and I hope she'll be more eloquent than he is. His teachers from nursery seemed to be really fond of him and I remember that every time we went for a PTA meeting, the two of them would start giggling and laughing when it came to Chubbocks, which made us feel he was doing all right. His current teachers haven't made much of an impression on us so far, so I'm looking forward to the PTA meeting - hope it happens before the baby!

Puddi has become naughtier than ever and the best way to make her do anything we want is to forbid her from doing it. "Don't come and kiss abba - never come and sit on abba's lap" will immediately see her scrambling onto abba's lap and covering his face with her kisses. She's also learning English of a Tutti-frutti variety, mostly from hearing Chubbocks talk. So she keeps coming up with sentences which are grammatically correct but which she doesn't understand in the least! Five times a day, she asks, "Can I have a Toffee?", mouth all deliciously pursed up - but has no clue what she's asked for or what we have granted permission for when we say yes. She shows signs of having gymnastic inclinations and clambers up our inlaid Planter's chair like a monkey, holding on to its back. I wish I knew where one could enrol her for gymnastics lessons. With all the discoveries she's making about the world around her, her energy levels are sky-rocketing so it's become a real task to get her to sleep at night - she keeps getting more and more active as the night goes on. Good practice for # 3.

And last on our updates, I had a real Birbal moment at home yesterday with our latest and most gormless domestic help. My mobile phone was ringing and I couldn't get up. I asked her to fetch it, so she comes back and tells me it's in the bathroom.
Me: "Please bring it here"
After an interval when it kept ringing and she hadn't fetched it, I went out of the playroom to see what was the delay. I found gormless hunting for it in the living room, despite her having just seen it in the bathroom!

Dog Days, good days...

Ever have one of those days when you wake up and feel a year's worth of PMS coursing through your system? I woke up like that today. It's quite unusual. I may wake up still sleepy or tired or bright and bushy-tailed but rarely grumpy. So from the time I woke up, I was at it with the kids ( they hadn't helped by waking up twice during the night, then we had no power and the inverter conked off so no fan - it's already 33 degrees C here - then they woke up early...) - yelled at Chubbocks to drink up his milk in a hurry since we had to go in to school for his end-of-year PTA meeting, yelled at him when he accidentally ran his tricycle over Puddi's foot ( to his credit I must say she was behind him when he was reversing). Puddi was fractious because she hadn't slept well, with the mosquitoes and the heat, I was snapping A's head off, we got caught in baad traffic on the way to school and negotiated a 5 km distance in half hour, almost late for the meeting and I'm anal about punctuality...Chubbocks picked this morning, when A and I were dog-tired since A had an early morning flight yesterday morning and had woken up at 4am and gotten back at 11pm, to decide that he had to have our help to make a giraffe out of his new Lego set before we went to schoool...Let's just say it wasn't pretty!

Then we got to school and had our rendezvous with his teachers. Both of them always break into big grins the minute we discuss Chubbocks. They told us how he had become a meticulous and neat worker - a change from his first report. They commented that in every session where they discussed sounds and words, they always got the most interesting and unusual words from him. They said he loves performing...well, we could see that on form morning. They said they had almost nothing to 'discuss' since he was doing so incredibly well and that we should be really proud of him. If I had been wearing a hat this morning when I went to the school, it would be several sizes too small for me by now. Whenever I think of the meeting and the report card they gave him, I have the biggest grin on my face.

It just feels so nice to have someone else appreciate the special qualities that you think your child has. And what's nice about Chubbocks's school performance is that it's not as if we've been either pushing him or been all that involved in exactly what he's doing in school. We're actually quite lax, as you will see if you read this. But we do try and encourage him to learn just through simple every day activities - reading him a story or encouraging him to read or paint or build lego models. Most of all, I think it's his own enthusiasm and curiosity that has ended up motivating him to do well and to learn, experiment and enjoy the process. That's actually the most proud-making fact of all.

I wish more schools were like the one we chose, in their teaching methods, in their faculty and in their values. Philosophers have always maintained that formal education should actrually just be the conduit to teaching people how to educate themselves throughout life. If we think back to TZP or remember our own schooldays, I'm sure we can remember those strict teachers - the ones who frowned when you smiled or got sarcastic if you asked a question. There is simply so much emphasis on rote-learning and regurgitation in the average Indian school - as if we were a herd of cows who needed to chew the cud.

I still remember way back in nursery or first grade, that I would get poor marks in some subjects because I had not reproduced the answer exactly from the books but explained in my own words. How thankful I am that my parents realised why this was happening and instead of asking me to 'come first' encouraged me to express myself. Rote learning, particularly in a new and changing world, may be good for some things like the multiplication tables or the atomic table, but for almost anything else, what is needed most of all is a healthy sense of curiosity. No discovery in any age could have been made if not for that.

A recent global study of patents found that of course, as expected, Japan and then the US led in number of patents. The third country on the list was China - yes, the same China which also believes in rote learning and has people mugging up thousands of words rather than alphabets because that's how their language is structured. Even China has realised that in this day and age, innovation and inventiveness is the only way for a country to get and to stay ahead. India had an amazingly low number of patents filed, and I'm not sure why. Our daily life is so chaotic, that I'm sure all of us should have an incredible degree of mental nimbleness in order to cope and survive. But our education system really doesn't encourage asking questions, having doubts or deviating from the beaten path.

Not just from an economic point of view but the fact is, a good education broadens the mind, instills a natural sense of curiosity and makes life more interesting and possibly better, in the long run. I only wish more children in our country had access to this kind of education.