Nap Routines

Nap routines are all wonky lately. It's summer time, so little miss Haana is not going to school. And with all of us on home quarantine and not working due to covid, the sleep and nap times are all over the place. And, not to mention, some of us are getting too smart for the rest of us. 

This was Bobby boy's nap time routine today: 

I started working this week after a week of been out due to covid, and so I've been busy during the day. Bobby boy is still not going to his new school yet. I took a break from my meetings just as Papa was putting bobby boy for a nap, it was almost 3pm - way past his nap time already. I gave him tons of kisses and put him down in his crib. Monster ball, blankie, doggy dog and Bobby boy were all happy to be together in the crib for nap time. Instrumental nap time music on low volume. Check. Drapes blocking most of the light. Check. Bathroom door closed to block more light. Check. Me silently slip away. Check. Success! I went back to work in the study. 

Not too long after, I heard Bobby boy talking loudly to himself. I ignored him and went about my work. After sometime, I heard him cry. Not angry crying. Just low wailing.. he was calling out, "Monty bally! Monty bally!" (Cry). I melted when I heard that. Oh my poor baby! His monster ball must have fallen off. Oh my sweet baby. Poor thing is looking for his monster bally!! Awwwle! - i thought this as i rushed to the room. And as i suspected, he was standing up in his crib, looking down at the monster ball that had fallen off outside the crib. I got my poor baby, and picked him up. Picked up the monster ball, and reunited them. However, something was wrong. 

As soon as bobby boy was out of the crib, he gave me a satisfied smile. "Paani! Want paani", he said. I found his green sippy cup for water. Then, next he pointed towards the bed. "Bed? Bed?"  He asked. I knew it was more of an intent than a question. So i put him on the bed. As soon as he got on the bed, he rolled around a couple time and giggled! I didn't like where this was going.. this didn't look like nap time anymore! What's going on?! Also, had the monster ball fallen off the crib, or was she been thrown down to set all of these actions into motion, I wondered..

I leaned down and asked him to come over to me, "Come Bobba! Its neena time! Come!". He reluctantly walked over to me and said, "  Papa? Go to Papa?". 

"Papa is in office, Bobba", I lied straight faced. 

"Go to Gugu?". 

"Gugu's sleeping", more lying. She was very awake and working on her art work.

"Pati! Go to Pati" (paternal grandma)

"Pati is gone neena too". This was almost true, or rather soon to be true. 

Now, run out of options, Bobby boy decided he might just spend the afternoon with me, so he said "Come! Come on! Let's go", and started heading towards the bedroom door!

There was no way of getting him back to the crib just yet, so I let him get away for a few minutes. Will try and catch this wild thing in a few minutes..

No Hugs For Me

Life is a desert without love. And it is painful not being able to express love. 

Today, for the last 27.5 hours, I haven't hugged little miss Haana, kissed her, given her a pat (pitti), cuddled with her or generally tried in various ways to squash the living daylights out of her at the pretext of a hug. I haven't done any of those things. I haven't even touched her. And it feels like everything is missing. It sucks. Although, maybe suck is a bad word. I'm not super sure about these things. 

27.5 hrs ago I tested positive for covid-19. So did Raj. Little miss Haana and Bobby boy are ok so far and I hope that stays that way. 🤞

STAAR

I've been avoiding writing about the STAAR test. But here goes..

This is 3rd grade and little miss Haana will be writing her STAAR test for the first time this grade. STAAR, are a series of standardized tests used in Texas public primary and secondary schools to assess a student's achievements and knowledge learned in the grade level. In short, a big final exam! :(

Since little miss Haana is in LEAP advanced academic program, she was to take 3rd grade reading and 5th grade math test.

This year has been very hard. I've worried about her screen time. Add to that, that this year she'll give the STAAR test too. She's been a remote student all year, and it hasn't agreed with her at all. Looking at a screen all day is hard even for adults, but at her age, she craved to move about, have actual conversations, hang out with friends. Her teachers have told us she has been having trouble focussing in the all day video meetings. 

First Raj, then I, decided to spend some time with her outside school time, to work with her for a few minutes everyday. This had varying levels of success with me. Some days, she'll corporate, and we'll be done soon. Other days she'll resist, and we will have a fight on our hands. 

With STAAR in the horizon, I talked to her about focussing on getting good grades for all the time she's already put into learning the concepts and practicing. I talked to her about focussing so she doesn't make silly mistakes. The test format is a multiple choice; which means getting an answer wrong because you made a silly mistake or bevause you had no idea what to do, are both rated the same- wrong. 

One day, she had spent a few minutes practicing some math questions, and got most of them incorrect due to silly mistakes even though she knew all the concepts. We were talking about it, laying in bed just before falling asleep. I was not happy. She realized i was disappointed, though i didnt say anything, and kind of shrunk away. I asked her what's wrong. She said this- "I know you're sad because of me. And i wanted to make you happy. But I think if I were never born, then you wouldn't be sad right now".

Oh my God!!! What have i become! A high expectation parent? What is she saying.. if she were never born? Then I wouldn't know anything.. i wouldn't know such a wonderful beautiful person as her. I wouldn't know a love so intense it scares me. I wouldn't know such a perfect thing could exist as her. I wouldn't know fun like the way she and i share silly things together. I wouldn't live and love like this if it weren't for her. My life, all changed the moment she stepped into my life. And i'm having her think she's a disappointment!!! :-( I got tears in my eyes, we both did. I'm soo sorry, my sweet little miss Haana. 

We patched up with loads of hugs and kisses before little miss Haana went to sleep that night. I told Raj about what she said later that night. And Raj said something so good and right, he said -"I decided i will not be a pressuring parent laser focused on grades, like how we grew up. I will try to keep her focus on learning in stead of grades". I agree completely. Learning how to learn requires making mistakes, not being afraid of them, and then continuing through them. That's what i wanted to inculcate in her too. But somewhere I got roped into grades too. I hope its not too late for me to change. 

MIT Appathon

Sometime mid last month I came across an idea. MIT had organized an appathon and I decided it will be a good idea for little miss Haana and I to participate together! So, i entered us and then waited to see if they'll select us. The contest was to be on a theme that will be disclosed at the beginning of the week, giving contestants 1 week to come up with a functioning app using the MIT platform - AppInventor, that supports block coding. 

Meanwhile i suggested little miss Haana do a few tutorials to acclimatize herself with the platform. So we did a few tutorials over the weeks leading up to the appathon week. 

It took me some time to realize that my little miss Haana is only 8 years old. And the way the coding concepts were taught when i learnt them, which was at age 18, will not work for a child as young as her. Of course it took several fights for that realization to dawn upon me! But when it did, i was humbled. So we deviced our own lingo. We likened cloud storage to a reference book in a library, and variables to a cheatsheet, data structure like a list to a book with pages. And thus we learnt along; using every day things to explain the coding constructs. Anything that required exploring and picking up new things and tools, little miss Haana was way ahead of me.

Finally the big week arrived. We had been waiting for it for a while now! Except i messed up on the timezones a little bit, and didn't realize the 'clock had started' till the next morning, about 14 hours later. But no worries, we have time, right?

On day 1, we brainstormed a little bit and came up with some ideas.. On day 2, little miss Haana was ready to go, but i wanted her to spend more time brainstorming and then creating mind-map and then getting more detailed in what the app screens will do. Obviously we faught over whether she should be more prescriptive or get moving along. 

On day 3 we started some coding for the app. We were building a game for other kids her age. And in the game, the kid has to keep their character at social distance from other kids running around in the play ground. In our brainstorming we reasoned this is the best way to teach kids about good choices. We talked about how we could extend it to different scenes - social distancing at playground, within a classroom, at recess etc. Then we talked about how we could extend that even outside of covid. We could teach kids make good choices against bullying, against discrimination etc. In our mind it had some real potential. And we were getting excited now!!

On day 4, things were getting a bit sticky.. For me, things were hitting against a wall, again. I had been telling little miss Haana to work at it, and expecting she would just sit by herself and work things out by herself. And that was not happening, she was actively not working on it, even though i was reminding her that time was running out. It was soo frustrating. Why was she throwing all this time away? Its only 3 more days and then she can do whatever she wants.. Several times in frustration, i told her lets quit it. Free ourselves from this madness and go about our way. But repeatedly little miss Haana said no. She was determined not to quit. And she wasn't letting me either. 

But in spite of that, she wouldn't sit and work it out by herself. What gives? After another fight that Dad needed to break us up from, it somehow dawned on me, as to why these fights never happen with dad. I realized, i need to reset my expectations. I am expecting her to be like a high school or college kid, who figured things out by herself; once explained or told, she'll just work at it by herself. It dawned on me, she's 8!!! She will not be able to work something out by herself, especially something like coding she had never done before, something that's new and more than a bit daunting. It finally dawned on me, how unreasonable my expectations are. 

Next, I sat with her, asking her questions along the way. Ensuring she understands what she's doing. And asking her what she needed to do next. Telling her when she couldn't connect the next dot herself. 

And now we were making progress! On the app. But even more importantly, progress between us. And perhaps most importantly she was making progress learning and not backing down. There's a ton of information on the appathon and coding. On the slack channels people were asking all kinds of questions. All daunting and scary for someone with no coding background. Indeed i have years of software experience and yet i can relate to that fear of what you don't know: how big, complex and uncanny it looks. And little by little, piece by piece she was adding functionality to her game, and she was crushing it! Most important of all, she was a turning into a fighter! 

Day 6 she had worked and finished up one game for her app. We were feeling good. We decided we will add another game to the app. And a chat component too. She's already made a chat earlier when we learnt concepts of global storage, so it should not be to hard. 

Day 7 we worked ALL day long. We didn't even break for lunch and barely got up from our chairs. Our deadline was 7pm. At 4, she started working on the video, which also had to be submitted with the app. She had started working on the transcript of it the previous day. Now we were refining it. Other last minute glitches and nail biting later, we finally uploaded the app and the video at 654pm!!!! Phew but Yeahhhh!! We high-fived! It was an intense day! But all culminating in this great sensation of achievement. She gave her feedback on the appathon too. It was a great feeling!

I think i learnt a thing or two during the appathon. Tempering my expectations with some reality check. Both little miss Haana and I, together came to a place where she can talk about her feelings without closing and bottling them up, however intensely and powerfully they flood her being. If i could get to be a bigger fan of hers', i just nailed it. She didn't give up, when though i provided several opportunities for her to do so. 

I hope in this exercise, she learnt some thing about herself. That she really can and does do whatever she sets her sights at. 

You go girl!