Happy Place

Psst.. hahaha.. (giggles)

Little miss Haana giggled and laughed suddenly in her sleep. I figured it must be a dream. Filled with curiosity, i asked her, "What is it Gugu".
"Come on", she said, eyes closed, still asleep and evidently at a very happy place.
I wished to find out what was going on in the dream,  so i nudged, "Ok, I'm coming. But, where are we going?". Little Miss Haana, replied in earnest,  "Come on now". Encouraged I was getting some answers, I prodded, "But where are we going?".
But like a cliffhanger, the little girl turned around and no more answers are provided. Oh well, I thought.

Next morning, when I asked about the dream, the little girl remembered. She was skipping along on air, and jumping from cloud to cloud. I knew it! I know a good dream when I hear it!

The Big 7

Last week my little miss Haana turned 7. The Big 7!
We like to travel around the time of her birthday, so this year it was decided that Disney trip that we'd always thought to do the next year- this might be the year to do it. I've never been the one to be enamored by theme parks; nature and history and art places has always been my thing when traveling. But towards the very end of summer this year, we'd made a trip to Universal Studios at CA. It was a great visit! I was so in love with their Harry Potter world, that after coming back from there little Miss Haana and I watched the Potter movies all over again. It was spectacular, most of the rides and the Studios.

We headed to Disney the weekend before the little girl's birthday. The place she most wanted to visit- Pandora (we have recently seen Avatar). It so happens many people's most wanted to visit place was also Pandora. It's 2 rides were the most sought after rides in all of Disney. Having booked our excursion at the last minute(quite literally), we were looking at long lines at Pandora. After beaucoup waiting we were ready to try the Right of Passage ride on the Banshee. While miss Haana was jumping up and down with excitement, i had been fretting over the ride all along. I'm not big into very adventurous roller coasters, and this one had flyers to expect being high above the ground with directives of not riding if fearful of heights. I thought about my fear of heights. In the end, i decided to brave it and do the ride after all. And oh boy was it worth it. The 3d effects were spectacular and beautiful! Miss Haana and I screamed to our heart's content with thrill and wondrous excitement. It was an amazing ride, and the hours of standing in the lines were well worth it.

We did other rides at Disney, but that experience of the Right of Passage ride and the 3D effects of Pandora was the most amazing one in that trip.

We also did the World Showcase at Epcot, where miss Haana undertook an adventure- the world showcase depicted several countries around the world alongside a huge lake; each country represented by its unique architecture style, distinctive landmarks, shops, ethnic wear, language and gardens. Kidscot adventure, should you choose to accept it, was to find in 11 different countries, a special kids' table, collect postcard from each of the 11 countries to get a surprise! We did not anticipate the amount of walking this would entail. But even so, the day became an adventure, going to each country, looking through each shop, each decor to find the special table hidden away, to get our prized postcard. Little miss Haana was on a mission! We completed our mission late in the evening, tired but proud!

We came back from Disney in time for the day of the birthday. I had wanted to have some mother- daughter time on her birthday, so I had taken the day off. It was a beautiful fall day, with plenty of sunshine and a slight nip in the air! I couldn't have asked for anything better! How blessed!

I had no exact agenda for the day. Except of course a home baked birthday cake must start the morning at home. It was a chocolate swirl cake with icing (i tried a minnie mouse face!) with 7 candles. Ideally, the cake should be what little miss Haana wakes up to (like last year). But this year she woke up by herself when the cake was still in the oven.

Once done and iced, we sang happy birthday and the cake was cut. All 3 of us ate multiple slices, and then it was time for treasure hunt! We had had treasure hunt on dad's last 2 (or 3?) birthdays and little miss Haana had requested for one on her birthday too a while back. There were 4 treasures to be hunted- 2 of them dad had gotten, 2 from me. Soon little miss Haana found all the treasures, was wearing one of the treasures and getting ready to play with another!!

After getting ready, the next action item was for miss Haana and i to head out for some breakfast. We went to our favorite sit down breakfast place, meanwhile little Miss Haana attended phone calls all morning from grandparents, softy mausi, aunts and uncles.

After breakfast and after having sung our favorite songs in the car as loud as we possibly could, I decided to head to a nearby rose garden. I had never been there before either. It was a cute rose garden with rows of flowers, small gazebo and arches, benches looking into the flowers, and oh so many butterflies fluttering about! Miss Haana tried to play with her newly acquired drone in the garden, but the wind made it hard to control it. After it fell close to the canal once and dived into the bushes next, we decided it's best for the drone to wait in the car. We spotted a swing bench next to the flower bushes and jumped right on it. Miss Haana decided she was Captain Jane Sparrow and I was a ship mate. We played pirate for a while and came up with our pirate language. Our ship Black Pearl could go back and forth in time and distance.

Once we had had our fill of the rose garden we headed to the playground on the other side of the road to soak in some more sun and fun. Miss Haana monkeyed on the monkey bars, and went down the slides. I hung around and climbed up and down the slide. Next to the playground was a park with inviting green grass. I got my blanket from the car and we decided to lay down. We lay in the sun then moved to the shade, finally settling for a partly shady spot to lay for sometime. Even though it sounds very peaceful, miss haana and I managed to fight and then giggle, then complain to each other about each other,  and finally make up. And all in all, got not a moment of peaceful moment in!

We ate a late lunch and headed back home to meet up with papa, only to get ice cream. Later that evening we played arcade games, miss Haana did get first rock climbing (thrice, and all the way to the top all 3 times)! Favorite dinner place and we headed back home after a day well spent!

Happy birthday sweet baby!

Heroes Around Me

Miss Haana's Reflections entry for this year was not easy. Even though they give maybe a month (maybe 2?) to come up with the entries for Reflections, we got going only in the last 1 week. There may be a pattern here but I refuse to see it! Their school makes it quite plain that having an entry for Reflections may not be considered optional.

The theme this year was Heroes Around Me. We were quite lost with the theme this time. Then little Miss Haana saw a video about animal rescuers. I had talked to her earlier about a friend of mine who's daughter volunteers at a bird rescue house. And so she decided that animal rescuers are the heroes she wants to make her Reflections entry to be about this year.

I really love her painting and artist statement.

Artist Bio

Hi Mrs. G and Mrs. W,

This is Miss Haana's mom. I wanted to share something exciting that happened this week!

Miss Haana and I are displaying some of our paintings at our neighborhood Public library for this month! She has worked on her paintings last several weekends. 

For the display, I had Miss Haana write an Artist Bio for herself in the third person. We talked about writing in first person, second person and third person; and she wrote about herself and her paintings in third person. I'm attaching some pictures of her Artist Bio and the display (her paintings and mine) at the library. I'm proud of her writing :-)

Thank you for everything you both do! She loves her new first grade class. And she loves art! 

Glitter for First Grade

Tomorrow little Miss Haana starts another year of school. First grade.

We were invited to their school's "Howdy" night to meet the new first grade teacher Friday of last week. Miss Greene greated us and handed us a sealed envelop with the little girl's name on it in bold. She said it is to be opened only on Sunday night. The little girl met up with her classmates from kinder, who will all soon be first graders. It was a raucous affair. The wannabe-first-graders were bouncing off with delight. I lost track of the little girl at the school and for some time, caught only fleeting glimpses of her running away with her friends in tow.

Finally when it was time to leave, we somehow rounded her up and headed for dinner.

Later that weekend, it was sunday evening and time to open the sealed envelop. Inside, there was a poem about the fun to be had at first grade and advice about getting a good night's sleep before first day of school. And in the envelop was some glitter to put under the pillow for sweet, sweet sleep. (It wasn't really glitter, it was sparkly, glittering flowers and stars and other colorful, sparkly delights). At home, I dutifully put the glitter under the little girl's pillow, although I did manage to negotiate one sparkly, red flower for my pillow too! And we both headed to sleep!

Yes Master

Little Miss Haana likes to bully me when I'm putting her to  bed. "Mumma, tickle my arm". It starts off like that. But then, "Higher up". Then,  "Lower". "In the middle". Then,  "Other arm now". "Higher up". "Now tickle my back". "Not there, on the left side". "ON THE LEFT SIDE MUMMA!". Never shy about showing discontent! One morning, she told me to "Warm my arms now"!

So I thought it would be only fair for me to train her to my ways too. This morning, on the way to summer camp, I taught her when mumma tells you all the things you need to do, you need to respond with "Yes Master". She wanted me to try it first. So, she came up with a directive about her make belief toy: "You shall take this sword and bow to it", she said. "Yes, Master", I complied, eager to get to the rest of the fun.
Then I said, "Make sure you finish your lunch, take big bites and chew fast". To which, she replied with words like honey, "Yes, Master"!!!!

Of course I repeated my command to hear the yes-master several times.

Summer of 18

This summer we did what we haven't done in last 3 summers. Visit grand parents and great grand parents in India.

Unlike what people may usually think, the long plane journey to India is generally quite peaceful with little Miss Haana. She watches her favorite videos, eats what she wants(and not what she doesn't), sleeps once she's exhausted from the video-watching. It's a dream come true for her! And like all dreams this one gets over once we land.

We landed in Delhi, met nana nani (maternal grand parents) at the airport, and headed towards the home where i had grown up. At dinner it was discovered Miss Haana has quite a jet lag. It was past 1am and she had her batteries fully charged and ready to go!! For the next almost 10 days( almost half of our trip), she would sleep between 3-6pm in the afternoon and wake up between 2-4am.

After a few days of steady in Delhi, we continued to Chennai and various other places in the south of India. Visited the great grand mother, uncles and aunts and cousins. Walked coconut and banana fields. Everywhere we went little Miss Haana was the queen-bee! Commanding everyone's attention and channeling everyone's energy.

I had gotten several story books, coloring books, math workbook for miss Haana to spend time on while we were in India. Story books were a big hit! 

We came back to Delhi to spend about a week with nana, nani. This was also the time when we met with Softy mausi (my sister), Aby bhaiya ( nephew who's now 3 times the size of Miss Haana! And still just as sweet as before if not cuter still!), and Sid uncle. Like last time little Miss Haana followed Aby bhaiya around everywhere and they both kept playing games on their phones that no one else was privy to. We met several of nana-nani's friends and Veer nana and Anu nani.

And just like that, it was then time for us to leave and head back. Summer may not be over yet, but the great India vacation came and went. Like all India vacations, it was a whole lot, crammed into not many days.