Ever So Caring

Our weekend staycation at Jumeirah was awesome. Kids enjoyed it thoroughly. We all went with the husband's brother and his family. He has a very small boy. A cute and happy child. Avyaya was very happy spending time with him. I never had to worry about Avyaya doing any kind of mischief. He has always been kind and loving with babies. So this trip was super amazing for him as we got to spend two days with his baby brother.

Also, it was wonderful watching him swim with Abhimanyu. Even though we all sat near the pool area, Avyaya stayed with Abhimanyu all the time as Abhimanyu doesn't swim well but loves to stay in the water and Avyaya is a good swimmer. He even carried Abhi and made him sit on the pool stool when the latter got tired for a while. He never left Abhimanyu Side for the entire three hours they were in the pool. He is willing to take responsibility. Like buying groceries alone but we are a bit hesitant as he will have to cross the road to reach the mart. But he insists, he will cross cautiously. His confidence is contagious!!! I am glad he is growing up into a fine boy.

Covid positive

The fear of coronavirus is tremendous. Never imagined Avyaya will get covid positive. It was challenging to grasp the reality that my little boy will become one of the carriers. No, it was not his fault. He is a very careful boy making sure to sanitize everything or not to touch anything from outside. He washed hands the moment he entered the house and reminded all of us to do the same. SO how did he get the infection? Well! A slight negligence from a neighbor who got covid infected but didn’t know she had, transferred it to Avyaya but was sincerely regretful once she got the reports. It was a difficult time for all of us. Avyaya was kept in home isolation for 10 days .Both Avyaya and Abhimanyu understood the significance of the situation and cooperated so well. None was adamant or cranky. Infact, Avyaya loved to keep the entire room to himself and called it “his DEN”.Thankfully by the grace of god he is fine now. And enjoying his vacations. The lesson I learnt as a parent while going through this tough time is that never put your guards down. We always were extra careful even after getting vaccinated. No movies, no restaurants and no summer camps. Al these were precautions we were taking besides sanitization and haldi milk. I would recommend to everyone that they should follow protocols. We need to tell our loved ones the same. Sometimes we can be upfront and tell them directly and sometimes we can convey the message in an indirect way. Telling straight on the face is a much kinder way rather than gritting your teeth behind. Also, we need to stop saying YES just to please people. This!!! I learnt the hard way. It’s better to tell the people if you cannot say it directly then you can always say to keep the conversation on the phone unless it's very much urgent to visit. Especially when you have kids you can easily say that since kids are not vaccinated yet we are not going out much and neither visiting friends. People will get your point. It's better to be upfront than being sorry later.

Cyber safety for Avy and all the kids

Now that Avy is growing up and stepping to a bigger class every year, he is also being exposed to the internet. Like we all know, as concerned parents, the internet is a hub of information and entertainment. So Avy is very much attracted towards it, and the covid pandemic was like an icing on the cake. Last year’s school was completely online and during the learning process, he also accessed loads of websites. Most of them were educational while few were just vain. Avyaya got through various gaming sites, various gaming YouTube channels and so on. He had such a wonderful time. BUT, it was my time to put myself on alert mode. Various questions popped into my mind. What sites is he watching? Are they virus proof? Can these sites hack my computer? I got worried. And then I thought, rather than being super strict and running around with the binoculars in my hand it's better to teach Avyaya about cyber safety. SO one day I sat with him and explained few things. •He should not enter any personal information into websites. Even if he is required to fill the form he should call me and if I find that form is not appropriate for him. I explain it to him and after a couple of questions from his side, we decide we will not fill any such form. •Avy should not post anything on the internet without my knowledge. He should take either mine or his dad's permission. Most of the time kids don't realize what info we can give on the net and which we cannot. So it's our job to make them understand. For example family pictures or locations should not be shared anywhere... they should always be given on password-protected sites. • I have told Avyaya not to do anything if he fined anything suspicious or he is not supposed to download any attachment unless we approve. Private chats are absolutely no-no. Even with their close friends. We parents should know what our kids are talking about. And with whom are they chatting. Last but not the least, chatting with strangers while playing games are strictly not allowed as we don't know who he is chatting with. These are just basics which we have told Avyaya also told him the repercussions if we don't follow these safety guidelines. Of course, he understands and follows them, but that doesn't mean I don't keep a watch on his activities. As a mother, I am super-duper cautious!!!

angry Young Man!

Avyaya is 9 years old now. He is growing up. He is also developing some characteristics. The very basic one is getting bored and angry about different things. Otherwise a very loving and very well behaved child I don't mind him getting angry. That's an emotion. And it is very important to let out our emotions. It all depends on us parents how we tackle that emotion in kids. The kids chose to express their emotion of anger either by screaming or hitting when they are toddler because they don't have the words to express their sentiments but gradually as they grow up these actions are reduced and annoyance and anger take the place where they start behaving badly and talking back to parents. This is a time when the parents need to show some patience coz when the child is showing his emotion and we revert back in showing back ours then it aggravates the situation. The best thing that worked for me is staying cool that time and once Avyaya is calmed down we speak about the reason and try to solve it together. Not being commanding and scolding at the time when he is angry helped me a lot. Avyaya now realizes whenever he loses his temper or gets annoyed and apologizes on his own without me telling him anything. I am happy he does that.

First Day IN School

After sitting at home and having online classes for a year, Avyaya was too excited to go to school. He got up early, went to bath promptly, got dressed quick and eagerly waited for his bus to pick him up. When he came back, he was extremely happy to meet his old friends and also new friends since they had reshuffling in new grade, so there were many new faces, he met. He was excited to meet his previous year's teachers whom he had seen online. He was happy to meet new teachers. Last year taking online classes was not so exciting for him and I feel that kids couldn't learn that much as they would have if they had face to face classes.

A great Team worker

Working in a team sounds fun and easy but there are certain qualities which every team member should have sincerity, out of the box thinking, sharing and most of all motivating. Today I witnessed all these qualities in Avyaya while he was on a Zoom call with his 4 other friends working on an Arabic project to make PowerPoint slides. his enthusiasm was outstanding, he was giving good suggestions and also patiently listening to others. one thing that really made me feel happy was when out of 4 kids one was very quiet avyaya noticed it and asked him why are you so quiet. has something happened to you? when the boy still not answered avyaya said do share your ideas, don't hold back even if you think that it's not going to work, still, you say we might like it. and it will help us. I was listening to all this from the other room. I was feeling so nice and proud of him coz this was all from his heart and not told by us. great going little Champ!!!