To swim against the tide :)

It all started a long time back when I was about 12 years old. It was summertime, Darsh and I were attending a swimming summer-camp for about 30 days. It was all good until about 15 days. I had been taught the front stroke and was in the process of getting to know diving. That was when the incident happened :-D.

I remember only bits and pieces, not the entire thing (it has been more than 18 years!). We had these 2 kids living in the house right in front of ours then and we used to play together a lot :). I remember we were playing one of our games, probably some kind of a run and catch game when it happened. I fell and my right knee got scraped pretty bad. It wasn't really a scrape, it was as if all the flesh on my knee had been cut open (I don't know to this day what I fell upon to cause it to rupture like that but the speculation is that it was a part of dad's scooter :-D). There was some white visible stuff underneath all the blood (this is what Darsh keeps insisting scarred him for life :-D. Again don't know whether they were some kind of nerves or bones exposed!)). Thankfully dad was at home and immediately took me to the nearest physician, who was also our family doctor.

Well, the first concern was not really a scar, but to close the opening as soon as possible. The doc could have suggested me to be taken to a hospital, but he decided to stitch me up himself. I was given a tetanus shot and stitched up. Don't know the number of stitches, but I know it was pretty bad, because that opening was certainly bigger than my forehead one. My leg was bandaged and I was told to keep it as straight as possible (not to fold it) and keep it dry. There went my dream of becoming a swimming star :-D. To be honest, I never had that dream, but really wanted to learn swimming, so was very much disappointed. Imagine sitting at home with a stiff leg for 21 days while Darsh went swimming and being told enough stories to get me all jealous :-p.

After the 21 days I did recover and my leg has been okay (except for this ugly scar on my knee :-D). I did go swimming now and then, to practice the only stroke I knew how - the front crawl. I wasn't very good at it, but somehow never tried to take a class again. Indian swimming pools, to be very honest, aren't the most comfortable places for women as such and I would feel extremely conscious whenever I did go. But knowing what I know now, I wish I could have taken a class and improved my swimming lots earlier. Better late than never I guess :).

After I came to the US, I went swimming lots of times and took water fitness classes. I always had this idea running on the back of my mind that I should take classes and polish (to put it very lightly :-D) my skills. But I was somehow very embarrassed. Had so many "what ifs" running through my mind. I mean I had been told all my life that swimming is learnt best when you are young (same with cycling). What if I was too old to learn? What if everyone else in the class is young and I stand out? What if I was would waste away the money without results? So in the 4 years I had been here, I just went to and fro and never ventured into it.

I don't know what changed in November 2009. But something did. I think it might have been that we were thinking of enrolling Snugli into a swimming class and I wanted to be proficient around her :-D. I mean, I had seen parents guiding their children in deep water and I wanted to be that parent :). One day, I finally said "What the heck! Lets do it and think later" and registered for the class. I am a member of the local YMCA so it cost just an additional $26 for 8 classes which was not too bad. In the first class, I was relieved to a huge extent - I was the only one taking that class (2 classes later I was joined by another student who actually had hydrophobia and I was in total awe of her for even getting into water, but the first 2 classes were exclusively mine) and that my teacher was a young lady (very much younger than me :-D). The latter part turned out to be inspirational rather than disheartening because it was good to have a younger teacher who swims so well. The best thing was that she understood exactly what I wanted.

My front crawl, though I was able to swim a couple of laps, wasn't refined at all. I had practiced what I remembered from my summer camp (which wasn't much to go on) and I would always be out of breath at the end of half a lap. Which certainly implied that I was doing it all wrong. First of all I wanted to get that corrected and then learn all the different strokes (I could float on my back, but always failed when I tried doing the back stroke. The other strokes, I hadn't even tried till then). Another major thing for me was that I had never learned to keep myself afloat in the deep end, so though I wasn't really scared of the water, I was very much afraid of the deep end. I mean though I would go out to the deep end, I would always be afraid that if I lose breath somewhere in the middle, I have nowhere to go. So there was lots to learn in mere 8 classes :-D.

As I mentioned, the teacher immediately started pointing out the flaws in my front crawl and giving me tips on how to improve the moves. One of the first things she mentioned was to get a good pair of goggles (they let you see where you are going which help the confidence level, plus keep the chlorine out of your eyes). I hadn't bought anything as of then, so that was fine. She also suggested I don't buy nose plugs because once you get used to them, its difficult to swim without them. As far as the front stroke went, first of all I wasn't keeping my body straight and as much afloat in the water as possible. Secondly when reaching out for the next stroke, my arms weren't as out of water as they should be and hence they were slowing me down. Other than this, my breathing technique wasn't really proper (I wasn't breathing out inside the water and instead was trying to do it all - breathe out and in when I came up for air) which was tiring me out majorly.

Obviously I couldn't make all the changes in one go. If I concentrated on the breathing, I would forget about the arms. If I concentrated on the leg movement, I would forget the breathing. So the first couple of classes were tough on me. I had only one class per week, but I went twice a week to practice all I was told to. I also made it a point to pin-point my doubts and ask the teacher those particular queries. By the third class, my teacher actually said that she could see a conscious improvement (I didn't really believe her, yet :-D). Thats when she decided to teach me the breaststroke. Now that redefined "difficult" for me :-D.

The breaststroke has totally different moves compared to the front crawl. The arm movement is different, the leg movement is different, the breathing is different, basically just about everything is different :-D. For a person who has just been doing the front stroke for a long long time, it was like a different reality. The arm movement pushes the water outwards horizontally while the legs push the water out vertically. I kinda got the arm movement pretty fast, but the leg movement - I would simply forget and switch to the front stroke related leg movement, which certainly wasn't helping :-D. The arm and leg movement in a stroke obviously work together to propel the swimmer forward. So mix and match hardly ever works :-D. I still don't know how I got through that one, only that it required tremendous amounts of concentration. Now the breaststroke is one of the easiest strokes for me and I love it :).

I think it was in the 4th class that my teacher noticed that when asked to swim a lap, I would stop at the spot where I can still reach the ground and come back. Thats when I told her that I was a wee bit afraid that mid-way through the deep end, I would struggle and would have to be "rescued" :-D. So her method was simple, she asked me to get to the deep water, convinced me that even if I go down, it was hardly 12 feet, so I could come up very easily (I knew it but sometimes fear doesn't have logic :-D). And she showed me a move to keep myself afloat. It was a softer version of the breast stroke, standing up in the water rather than laying on the stomach. One point she stressed was that each person will have a point of balance on which they can do the movement and the trick was to find that point. In the subsequent practices on my own, I would force myself to go to the deep end and try different ways to keep myself afloat. I lost the so-called fear of deep end in the 4th class itself and started enjoying being there where my legs just can't reach the ground :).

I was also taught the backstroke in the 4th class. Yup, lots of things going on simultaneously :-D. As I said before I knew how to float on my back and it was only a matter of learning how to kick the legs out and the arm strokes backwards. The difficulty lies in the aspect that whenever you are getting the arms out of the water or putting them in, any splash of water can straight hit your face and in turn your nose, causing panic :). So the trick is to soften those 2 moves (for each arm, so total 4 times per each complete stroke) - when the arm is coming out of the water, use the thumb and when going in, use the side of the palm (rather than the palm itself which can result in an unwanted splash of water) :). So to learn the stroke itself wasn't that difficult, but these little tips were (again needed a lot of concentration).

The teacher did miss out one week in between the 4th and the 5th (and later b/w the 5th and the 6th), so it did give me lots of classes inbetween to practice :). The 5th class (again seeing my improvement), she taught me the butterfly stroke. Now this is the most difficult, the grand-daddy of them all :-D. The main problem of the stroke is that it uses the entire body, so there is no part of the body that is not exercized. And since it requires all of the body parts, it also needs lot of concentration, plus lots of stamina. In addition, its THE stroke for abdominal exercise, because it uses the core as the strength. The leg movement is the key (called the dolphin kick), coupled with the body movement, that give the swimmer the ability to actually push the upper body out of the water. Also there is a very tiny breathing window (actually a breath every other stroke is suggested, but I still have to take a breath every stroke ;-) :-D). Needless to say, I still haven't got this one perfect till now. I do try to do atleast 2 laps each time I swim, but every half-a-lap I have to stop for breath. My kicks aren't yet synchronized with the arm movement (there are 2 kicks to each stroke), so lots of practice ahead.

I did go the 6th week, to gather more little details and tips to make it all better. By this time December end had arrived and we had to leave for our India trip. The teacher and I decided to take it up once I was back, but you knew what happened after I came back - with my not keeping well and later the incident :-D. Even later when I wanted to, the teacher had some exams going on (she is still a student in our local university), so it got postponed again. So to this day, we haven't got a chance to get back to the 2 remaining classes. I want to improve my butterfly, learn flip turn (a great help in lapping without stopping - tried it a couple of times, but its been a long time since I have done any paltis, so my head reeled :-D) and learn on-the-spot diving (tried it, but my ears ring, so I'm sure there must be a trick to it :-D). Well, its been almost an year, so maybe I'll actually take further classes some other time.

Right now, I swim twice a week (thinking of making it thrice a week from next week onwards :-D). I have come a long way from someone who used to swim about 4 to 6 laps in an hour. Now-a-days I swim minimum 12 laps in half an hour including warm-up and inbetween flexibility exercizes. The routine is usually 2 front crawls, 2 breaststrokes, 1 butterfly and 1 backstroke, 2 times. Plus another 2 laps in the end as relaxation laps where its a lazy swim :). I love breaststroke and enjoy frolicking in the deep end. As for the rest, I am still practicing keeping my legs up in the front crawl (which I've heard improves the speed), keeping my concentration in the backstroke (lying on my back tends to get me wool-gathering and I forget the tricks until I get a splash on my nose :-D) and trying to improve everything about my butterfly. I've been complimented a couple of times on my swimming (which I cannot believe as I still feel very incompetent sometimes :-\) and I am very proud of what I have achieved :). I have been trying to convince Sri to take up some classes (he knows swimming, but he is not comfy with any strokes other than the front crawl just like I was an year ago), but well, he is still dilly-dallying :-D.

I still cannot believe that one year ago I even had the hesitation. One thing the whole experience has taught me is that a person is never too old to try something new. I mean, yes there maybe a hesitation, there maybe embarrassment, but believe me, its all worth it. It helped me prove to myself that this old dog can learn new tricks and oh man, is there a lot more to learn :).

'Destin'ations old and new :)

Oh man, its been a month since the trip to Florida already and I still haven't put it up. Well, I did have to edit/filter out the photos (which was awaiting the month end), plus upload them before I wrote this post, so that I don't have to upload them twice :-p. Excuses, excuses. Per kya kare? I have so much to write and literally very little time. Wonder what would have happened had I actually been working?

Anyways, we went to Destin, Florida, the Gulf coast, on the Labour day weekend. We had been to the same place about 3 years back before Snugli was born and para-sailed there. Though it was cold when we went that time, we loved the clear waters and white sand beaches and wanted to go there again. Well, the time was now :-D.

Sri did suggest camping at a lake around 2.5 hours south of us and trying some adventures there, but Destin seemed more attractive. The only thing we were worried about was the much talked about oil spill and the impact there. But after much research it seemed like that was alright. And so we packed the 3rd September 2010 day and headed out afternoon on the drive. I'm not going to put up the route map again, its pretty much same as the previous one (except that we didn't go to Pensacola at all this time).

Driving with an almost 3-year old Snugli is much easier these days. I mean I hardly need to pack any food except for snacks, because she's not fussy about eating stuff on road - loves pizza, pasta and tacobell chalupas (and one of these can be found almost any place :-D). I did take some toys and books for her, but again she enjoys seeing stuff on road (points to every damn thing from water tanks to power lines). She recognizes hotel rooms, gas stations (petrol bunks) and various restaurants, points them out and shouts until we make a response. For eg:

"Amma McDonald's. McDonald's. McDonald's! Amma Kelsitha? McDonald's" (Kelsitha means "did you hear?")

That can be a bit frustrating, to say the least :-D. But it does have it uses ;-). Also she loves music of any kind - so basically its easy to keep her occupied on the road :-D. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that this is going to be so for a while :).

As we generally do, we drove halfway to a town in Alabama (having dinner on the way at Woodlands, Nashville, TN - vegetarian South Indian food, yummmmmm :-D) to stay for the night (the time from then onwards in central standard time, so an hour early compared to home). The view outside the hotel the next morn before we left:




We drove all morning and it was after lunch that we reached our hotel in Destin. The order of business for the day first? Jet-skiing!!




We were worried about Snugli's reaction to the entire thing. But well, at first she sat in the front and fiddled with the controls, wreaking havoc on an already bothered Sri (he wasn't really getting the hang of it, plus was worried about losing control and dunking all of us in the deep ocean :-p). After sometime we had to transfer her in between us (she switched the jet-ski off when it was moving pretty fast causing Sri to panic :-p). Sri, free of her, was able to be more confident and things had just started to get interesting when Snugli, safely cocooned by my arms, promptly fell asleep on the speeding jet-ski! I was amazed! We are brave, but she is the ultimate :-D. After that, we were able to speed to our heart's content for more than half an hour and the girl didn't stir an ounce :-p. I wanted to get in the driver's seat, but well, didn't want to go into that circus with her asleep :-p. Here's us after the "ordeal" :-D.




After that, since we were already drenched, we just went to stroll on a beach :).




Night after dinner, we again went to a beach to enjoy the waves and the breeze in the dark. I did take some night photos, but nothing worthy putting up (Damn! I really need a wide angle lens ;-) :-D).

The next morning, the agenda was to head to a beach and do some kayaking if possible. One thing about the area is that you just have a single lane road most places and the place can get crowded very easily. I mean, everyone wants to go somewhere, especially to the beach :-D. Is is any wonder when the beaches look like this?




We did ask about the oil spill (worried after seeing some dark stuff on the beach, which turned out to be algae :-D) and found out that the spill reached Pensacola, but not Destin and no, they weren't affected that much.


We took a chair and umbrella rental for the day and settled down to enjoy the water. People were swimming, tanning, kayaking and jet-skiing. I call this - "The hare and the tortoise" :-D.




I took some photos, then stashed away the DSLR safely and set out to enjoy the water :).







(the above snaps were taken from a cheap point and shoot)

Snugli had a wonderful time playing in the water (as you can see) and then playing with the sand.




She would gather the sand up and go to the edge of the water to generously donate it all to the ocean (Kereya neeranu kerege chelli :-D), hehehe. Later she even collaborated with a boy to build a tunnel :-D. Sri picked up lunch from a nearby tacobell and we made a picnic of it on the beach. Relaxing under an umbrella on a hot day at the beach is something else :).




Sometime later, we rented out a kayak and went kayaking for about 45 min.




It was a lot of fun (though rowing is a bit of a hard work), but the sun was pretty harsh. So we didn't linger a lot. Sri did do some solo kayaking later for about 10 min or so.




We stayed for some more time, but then had to get back to hotel for a shower and a cleanup. We had a sunset cruise planned for the evening, so after resting a while, we headed to the pier to catch the boat (named "Kokomo" of Destin Snorkel sunset, dolphin and fireworks cruises).




The cruise started out pretty fun. The sunset views were pretty fabulous plus there was a flight show bonus :).







Here's us :).










One more sunset view :).




Form then onwards it all started going bad :-\. The dolphin part of the cruise started after sunset, so you can imagine the disappointment. We did see a couple of dolphins, but they weren't really in the mood to play, they were on their way somewhere. So that whole part wasn't really as much fun as we hoped it to be. Plus after that there was a long wait (more than an hour) for the fireworks and guess what, there was no cruising. The owner simply took the boat around in a no-wake area (means idle speed) and showed buildings ("Hello, we can see those from the car" :-p) for about 15 min.




After that he halted at a place where fireworks were supposed to start and then nothing for an hour! He had drinks available for everyone, but the cruise is advertised as a family cruise and there was literally nothing for the children (we had taken some snacks but it was almost dinner time). Plus there were singles and couples on the boat who thought nothing of smoking around the children (had we known, we wouldn't even have booked the cruise). There were a couple more families like us, but I felt it was a singles/couples cruise rather than a family one. So yeah, if you are planning to go on one of these cruises, please make sure about these stuff :).

Finally got to see the fireworks at about 9PM..




Had dinner at a Pizza hut and called it a day :).

The next morning the plan was to go to another of the beaches, stay a while and then head back on our way. So thats what we did..




It was hotter and sultrier than the previous day and Snugli just wanted to get into the water (which we didn't really plan on :-D).




So yeah, taking photos turned out to be a struggle, because she just didn't want to :-D.




Anyways, soon we said our byes to the place and were on our way out. We took turns driving for more than 8 hours and got to Nashville for dinner (yeah woodlands again, yummmm :-D) and stay for the night. We had to get up at around 4 AM the next morn (since its 5 AM at Lexington) since Sri had to go to work and took turns driving back home :). Reached home by 8 AM, back to normal chores and life :).

This was a very nostalgic trip. Most of the places we recognized, even remembered our hotel from last time. Plus it was wayyyyyy better in September than April when it was chilly and uncomfortable. We'll probably go there again if we get a chance :-D. Sometimes it feels good to revisit memories and make a second version :).

Of mouse and girl :).

Lots of things going on with and around me these days, but I just don't have the time (more like patience :-p) to sit and even write it down. But today's story, I just have to post :).

I've mentioned before that we don't really allow Snugli to use the computer. One main reason for this, according to me personally, is that I don't want her to "grow up too fast". I mean these days, parents seem hell bent on proving that their kids are geniuses that the kids have access to everything, and hence I somehow feel that it takes away the simple enjoyments of childhood. Moreover I want her to spend time with her toys rather than stare at a computer screen or a TV screen for that matter.

The exception to this rule was today. As usual we headed to the library and reached there pretty early. The children section has some computer consoles and I wanted to see what kind of games they have and switched one on. Found a simple game on Disney (a connect-the-dots-by-knowing-numbers) and told her to spot the numbers while I scroll with the mouse and click. She grabs the mouse, spots the numbers and moves the mouse and clicks them herself! I was stunned, stunned stunned!

Believe me, we have never taught her how to use the mouse (and its certainly not easy for a beginner to control it). Once we came back home for lunch, I put the game at home and demonstrated the entire "action" to Sri. I can still see the look of amazement he had on his face! We both were like, "a mini software engineer in the making" :-D. My God! Where do these kids learn this from? It shows how much she observes each and everything we do. It now feels like she wants to grow up fast and I'm holding her back :-\. From now on, I've decided to allow her 1 or 2 games per day, after all she has earned it ;-) :-D.

The war...

The war

Tumultuous waves bombard the very cores
Of inert rocks and long forgotten shores..

Incessant rain erodes the broken earth
Insensitive of the damage to home and hearth..

A strong wind turns into a hurricane gale
Crushing the spirits of trees, already frail..

Fires rage south and north, west and east
Scorching on their way, all man and beast..

Thoughts harass, pester and never retreat
Until the battered heart admits absolute defeat.

Camp rocks :)

Since I have already given you a clue about this in my last post, I don't think I have to mention that no, this post is not going to be about the teen movie :-p. After 3 years, we went on a camping trip. It was obviously Snugli's first camping trip, unless you count the fact that the last time we went I was pregnant ;-).

Well, the story happened on 13th August, Friday, that too pretty late in the day. We have been planning to go camping right since the start of summer, but something always came up (its funny how things always come up in summers and there's absolutely nothing to do in winters :-p). That day we faced a tug of war between going and not going. The weather was predicted to have rains in the night and camping is certainly not fun with thunderstorms (well, I disagree, but I digress :-D). When we checked at about 6Pm in the evening, the weather prediction had miraculously (yup, I am being sarcastic :-p) changed to clear skies :-D. After a little bit of to and fro, we simply decided to get going.

Packed up all we needed, bought the rest and got to the Lake Kincaid park (where we camped 3 years ago). We liked having the lake right next to the camping sites and thought that with Snugli around, the place would be a known devil scenario :-D. Plus the place has proper restrooms (albeit a bit far from the camping site). We were able to find a site (without advance booking) and started setting up stuff. Everything was smooth except that there were clouds near the horizon and it got dark pretty fast.

It was amazing how we put the tent together in a matter of minutes (another thing you never forget once you learn how :-p).




It was a little too dark to get stuff ready for cooking in the fire, but that part was manageable. The parts that weren't were the heat (it wasn't pleasant in any way) and Snugli's bewilderment. She was not really scared, just that being outside in almost total darkness with the sweltering heat was a strange experience for her. There were a few times when she hung onto me and refused to let go. But I did manage to distract her with the stars (that was one of the reasons we went - for me to try and photograph stuff ;-) :-D) and chirpy cricket sounds :-D. We somehow managed to eat up our usual camp diet of roasted corn, roasted veggies, roasted panneer and roasted burgers in the dark (we made a note of lanterns as things to buy for the next camp trip :-D). Later pumped up the bed and settled down for the night.

Or Sri and Snugli did ;-). I got up at around 2 AM to first catch some more meteors if possible (I saw around 25 meteors on the previous night, but no photos since I don't really have a lens wide enough top cover the entire sky :-\) and photograph the dark non-light-polluted skies. I did catch about 5 meteors, but again no snaps. It was literally Murphy's law :-p. So presenting the Deepthi's corollary to Murphy's law -

"If your camera is pointed to a specific part of the night sky, then the probability of meteors appearing in that particular area is much much much lower (almost close to 0) than that in the rest of the sky".

Sad, but true :(. Anyways I did manage to capture some pretty pics including this one of the Pleiades star cluster and emerging dawn (click to enlarge) :).




And one of Jupiter, the biggest "star" in the pic below (Before you jump to correct me, I know its a planet :-p).




I did take lots and lots of snaps (I think I was up for more than 2.5 hours! But the thing is without a tracking mount (which is helpful in contradicting earth's rotation), the only way to take good pics is by taking multiple short exposure photos (minimum 25 of each object!). I still haven't gotten to the post processing of images, so maybe will get back once I do :).

Went back to bed and got up after 8:30 AM :). After finishing our morning ablutions, Snugli got to play in the playground for a while..




And then we had breakfast at camp (yeah, I took the photo with a timer, had to run to and fro from the tripod :-p)..




Snugli enjoyed the morning camp much much more than the earlier evening (she surprisingly slept well and didn't fuss at all in the night). Here's her posing from the tent..




We then proceeded to dismantle the camp and head home :). All in all the trip was pretty much a success. It was great that the adventure lamp is still burning brightly within us and Snugli enjoying most of it was a bonus :). And photographically, it was another successful experiment :). Here are 2 daytime snaps I am pretty proud of :).







Very much looking forward to camping once again before winter sets in :).

Snoogli bear, off to school!

Have a load of posts to shed ;-), but somehow time keeps slipping away from me, like this quote I heard recently -

"Time sneaks up on you like a windshield on a bug." - John Lithgow.

One of the huggggge reasons for me not being aware of the time is that we finally started sending Snugli to a daycare/school since about 3 weeks back. Its more of a daycare than a school, I'm planning to search for a proper pre-school once she completes 3. Right now she is going thrice a week for only 3 hours each day. But the hours are from 8 AM to 11 AM and hence its been pretty bad for me as such. We changed our schedule to fit in with her school needs a week earlier - so we finish breakfast and all our baths by 8AM. Her school's lunch timings are 11 AM to 12 PM, so incase we plan to put her there for the entire day, we are also having lunch at 11:30 AM now. Which is all well and good except for the fact that my mornings are hectic to say the least. Yes I do get time for myself when she is away, but half of the time goes in cooking. And the morning work takes such a toll that all I want to do in the noon is lie down. I hope that as I get adjusted to the routine, things will be a lot better :).

Sending her to school hasn't been easy, it was pretty bad the first 2 weeks. Now she has adjusted to it, so things are a lot more smoother. So as I was saying, Monday August 16th 2010 turned out to be her 1st day of school :). The obsessive parents we are, we both went to drop her off at 8AM. She said bye and everything was fine till about 10 AM when her teacher tried taking her to potty and it somehow triggered something off (maybe because she isn't used to going with anyone other than us). She started crying for us and didn't stop until I got there (the place is just 5 min away from home). At first she just wanted to get out of there, but later she slowly confesses that "School chennagithu" ("School was nice") :-D.

Yet, the 2nd day, the hesitation started at the school door itself. She wouldn't let me say bye to her, so I had to sit in her class for half an hour (each time I got up to say bye, she'd come running and tell me - "Lets go" :-D). Then finally I convinced her that I had work to do and had to go. She did say bye, but later the teacher told me that she cried for me for a while and then forgot all about it. She did stay for the entire 3 hours that day (though she didn't go to potty :-D) which was certainly an improvement.

The 3rd day was the worse. She started crying while taking her bath and wouldn't stop. We tried not reminding her of the school, but she'd remember and tear up. Her big eyes would fill up with tears and her lips would start trembling. God, it was a struggle from bathing to feeding her breakfast. I stayed in the class again for a while, then got out. While I was signing out, she opened the door of her classroom and was bawling her heart out. I felt very bad leaving her when she was crying like that :(. I was totally upset the entire 3 hours and was wondering whether sending her at 2.5 years was even the right thing to do, basically second-guessing the decision. But guess what I find when I go back to pick her up? She was playing happily and her teacher said that she was fine just after 5 min (while I was stewing away at home :-p). She was even taken to the park to play and the children had a wonderful time playing with bubbles! That was it, I asked Sri to drop her off from then on (her school is on his way to office) :-D.

The 2nd week, once she started going with Sri, there was a 5 min crying period just before he left her there, but it was a lot better. On the 2nd week, 3rd day she had a cough and so we didn't send her to school. Despite Sri's protests, I told her that she wasn't going to school because she wasn't well. Come this week Monday, I tell her she has to go to school and guess what? She coughs dramatically (like the overacting old men in our old Hindi movies :-D) and says in a pretend-tight-throat voice -

"Cough bartha ide. School beda" ("I have cough, so no school")

My God! How fast they learn :-D. Sometimes she is so brilliant that I wonder whether all 2.5 year olds are this smart :-D. Anyways things have been a lot better this week, she even went to the restroom in the school with the help of a teacher. As for me, I somehow miss her quite a bit when she's not around. I keep listening for the sound of her anklets behind me and find myself wondering what she's doing (well, she misses me too as evident by the tight hugs she bestows upon me after coming home :-D). A part of me is obviously proud of her for adjusting so well so soon, but another part is saddened by the fact that I'm back to being alone (I've hardly been alone at home after Snugli came into our lives). I know I know that its only for a few hours, but well, there's no convincing the heart right? :).

Anyways, I have a camping trip post coming up (its been 2 weeks already since we went) and then we are out on another of our long drive trips for the long weekend. Lots and lots to write and don't know when I'll get to it. For the umpteenth time, where's a mind-reading blogger when you need one? :-p.