Month: August 2018

5 must-do activities for 4 years old in Parks

Indira Park has been a favourite destination for O +ve and B +ve since their first year. It is not close to our house, yet the attraction of the greenery all-around and the complete freedom to wander makes it a preferred outing location for the girls, almost once every 2 weeks.

For the last 3 years or so, the girls have made their acquaintance with quite a bit of the park space. As the girls turn 4 years old, I have listed down the 5 time-tested must-do activities for B +ve and O +ve in Indira Park that makes it a much-loved place for them.

Chasing the squirrels:

The girls are in awe of the hop and running, getting up on the tree, running after each other, standing up on hind-legs, putting food in the mouth – whatever the squirrels do. They want to participate in each of the squirrels’ routine affairs and run behind them to be a part of their team. Alas, no squirrels have come to terms with their idol status with the girls. They jump and run away to protect their space to themselves.

It is O +ve’s fervent desire to caress the squirrel’s tail. Needless to say, she has been a complete failure in this task. Yet, she pursues it with total commitment each and every time.

Rock climbing:

Almost twice a week the girls tell us that we should take them out for rock climbing. I am unable to understand from where they get their fascination with rock climbing.

Before you visualize that there would be large rocks in Indira Park to get the rock climbing enthusiasts going, it is none of the sorts. Indira Park hardly has 8-10 rocks, most of them 3-4 feet in height. Our little rock climbers scramble on these rocks from all possible directions and claim their supremacy on reaching the summit. The descent is by sliding down the rocks into the sand.

Snooping on the Centipedes

A wild-life in any form is sure to get the girls excited. None better than a centipede. Like an eagle that can spot her prey on the ground from the sky, both the girls can catch a sight of centipede from a distance. They are occupied tracing the movement of centipede on the ground, following the insect all along till it decides to get swallowed into the ground. The girls have actually tried counting the legs of the centipedes but to no avail.

The girls have not been brave enough to hold the centipedes in their hands. The day they do it, we are sure that they would want to bring it home as their pet in their small flower pots. BTW, a snail is also as charming as centipede to the girls.

Collecting leaves, twigs and seed-pods

This is a major activity for the girls anywhere and everywhere, particularly in the parks. They carry their nature bags with them and start hauling their collection once they step into the park. They understand not to pluck the flowers from the plants. Hence, their attention has always been on dried leaves, twigs of all shapes and sizes and seed-pods lying on the ground. This collection gets used for their colouring activity and other arts and crafts everyday stuff at home.

The girls want to know the names of each and every tree and seeds and flowers and fruits, how and why a leaf’s design is what it is – what all these should be called. I realize with each of their questions that I am no good in my botany or biology.

Rolling and Sliding over the grass

The girls engage in this activity when they realize that their sojourn in the park is coming to an end. It is a pleasure to watch the girls rolling in sliding in the grass without inhibitions – unabashed.

The best a child can be.

It is not that these activities that can be done only in Indira Park. Any of the public parks with a green space to run around will suffice for the 4 years old girls for their 5 must-do activities.

A joy to watch the 4-year-olds at their best.

PS: Public Parks also double-up as a survival guide for children by teaching life skills.

My biggest regret as a stay-at-home father

The re-cap: My wife and I believe parenting to be an equal opportunity platform. Once we were convinced that our twin daughters can stay beyond the 24*7 comfort of their mother @ 2.5 years of their age, we swapped our roles. This has been the case for the last one and the quarter of a year of my being a stay-at-home father. We get asked a number of times – Any regrets?

Many times, I do get self-doubt. I keep asking myself whether the girls are better off with their mother than being with me. It has never been the case that I will replace their mother as a primary caregiver, I cannot. My wife has her own parenting workbook and style and I have my own. Our daughters get exposed to both. No regrets here, I suppose.

I had enough of corporate rat-race. No regrets here for sure (though I might as well end up where I came from for financial reasons, provided I get accepted in the first place).

There have been murmurs from some quarters that I rob my wife of her parenting joys. However, I am convinced that she is supportive of my role as a stay-at-home father. My wife works hard to ensure that I get as much support as possible. No regrets here.

If there are no regrets from the children(I suppose), the wife or my professional side, could there be any regrets? Yes, I have one and it is the biggest regret that I do not cook.

Gender stereotype

It is a conscious decision from us as parents that we will keep off our children from gender stereotypes as much as possible. They see their stay-at-home father and mother going to work. They see their father doing all normal household chores – buying vegetables and grocery, doing laundry, occasional dusting etc. The task of cleaning their poop is necessarily associated with their father. But, when it comes to any work inside the kitchen, they do not see me anywhere close by.

We have a full-time cook ever since I started my stay-at-home father journey. The cook does not turn up for any given 6-7 days a month. My wife ends up doing the cooking on these days, apart from her professional work and being with the children.

I am not sure about the other gender stereotypes but this particular one that man does not cook/enter the kitchen for cooking seems to be getting on with the girls. I do not like it for sure. When we tell them that men and women can do all the tasks interchangeably, we get asked why Papa does not do the cooking and I have no answers.

I am just not able to get myself going in the kitchen

At a second and more personal level, being at-home with children 24*7, I keep realizing on a daily basis how difficult job a woman does. She manages the family, the children, the household, all the related tasks, her professional tasks if she is a working woman, and above all she cooks.

I had 6 women reporting to me in my professional job. All had children. I never understood how they managed to be in the office for 9 hours plus the commute plus the household tasks plus the family and all of them managed to cook. I never had the courage to ask any of them. For that matter, I do not get it how my mother or my mom-in-law managed.

I get tired of managing the girls all by myself for measly 7-8 hours. And I do not even cook. I feel that I am just doing lip-service as a stay-at-home father when I cannot do as basic a task as cooking.

The daughters

The third regret is that my daughters do not get to engage themselves in the kitchen when they actually like to. They help their mother all throughout when she has to cook for 6-7 days a month. However, they do not get such a chance on a daily basis.

Yes, my biggest regret as a stay at home father is that I do not cook.

The promise

Our cook has decided to leave and we are not taking the replacement. My wife has said that she is going to cook, going forward. From my side, I know that I am not going to turn into an overnight chef but I am surely going to work on the gender stereotype that my daughters have on kitchen work, my understanding of a woman’s work inside the home and getting the girls a bit busy inside the kitchen.

Yes, I am going to help in the kitchen in some manner or the other.

Enough of regrets, time to make some amends.

Wish me luck.

Number Recognition Activity 0-9

This is one of the first activities that we put together for getting the girls to recognise numbers from 0-9. This up-cycled number matching box activity combines both the fine motor and the math skills in one go.

Materials Used:
  • Cardboard box (we used Surf Excel and Ariel Matic detergent powder boxes which are pretty strong and capable of enduring child play)
  • 10 popsicle sticks
  • Wooden coloured numbers available for craft work; alternatively, you could re-use cardstock which the children have scribbled or painted to create the numbers
  • 10 stickers to label the detergent powder box
  • Hot glue gun and Markers
  • Craft knife
Activity Preparation:

1) Using the craft knife, make 10 slits at different points on the cardboard box. Ensure that the slits are long and wide enough to insert the popsicle sticks.

2) Glue the coloured numbers 0-9 on to the popsicle sticks.

3) Place the stickers next to the slits and using a marker, write down the numbers 0-9.

We are ready to play with our DIY number matching box.

Play:

We, of course, created two boxes for O +ve and B +ve. Both the girls take their respective detergent boxes. They open the boxes and take out their set of 10 popsicle sticks. They enjoy finding each matching popsicle stick for the stickers on the boxes. As they begin matching the numbers, I start calling out the numbers, so as to practice number recognition.

When the girls were introduced to this activity, they took quite some time learning to identify 6/9, 2/5, 1/7. Now, they put the popsicle sticks in the slits in the chronological order of 0-9.

We have done this activity many times. The girls have learnt their numbers a long time ago, but they are still game to this activity to this day.

Little Moments: Memories with our children – 3

Little moments of beautiful memories of life with O +ve and B +ve. For the first part, please click here, the second part is here.

Using a map for hide and seek

O +ve has seen maps – in her books, in Uber and Ola apps, in videos, in our house as well. She has forever been fascinated by them; she feels that maps lead to a secret destination. O +ve keeps drawing lines, curves, circles and triangles on whatever she can get hold of and says that she has drawn a map. One day, just as we decided to play a game of hide and seek, she asked for some time, picked up her pencil and paper and set to work. After two minutes, she said she is ready with the map of our house and was pretty sure of seeking us out from any corner.

My little girl is gung-ho about discovering the world with her own maps.

Ramayana – an unfinished story

Who is Sita’s mother? What is her name?

Whilst on a walk, ‘If I touch this stone with my feet, will it turn into Ahalya?’ ‘Which stone should I touch so that it turns into Ahalya?’

Why didn’t Rama and Lakshmana take Jatayu to the hospital?

Why did Ravana take Sita?

What is the name of the squirrel which helped in building the Ram Setu?

At every point of the rendition of Ramayana, the girls had questions. We tried our best to answer them all, but Google also couldn’t throw up answers for the last one. The squirrel continues to remain anonymous. B +ve refuses to hear the story without figuring out the name of the squirrel. So, the Ramayana story-telling has been stalled for now.

Just as I am penning this down, it occurred to me that I could give B +ve the option of naming the squirrel. Maybe the story of Ramayana will continue after that!

Why doesn’t a bull give milk?

We were reading about farm animals. Cows give milk, buffaloes give milk et al. When the bull got introduced, B +ve immediately popped up the question – Does the bull give milk? Even before I could answer, O +ve came up with another question – Does the bull have an udder? I said ‘No’ and O +ve immediately turned towards B +ve and remarked with all-knowingness, ‘Bull does not have an udder, so it doesn’t give milk.’

On every occasion that we accost a member of the bovine family, O +ve and B +ve look down first to ascertain the presence of the udder to ensure correct identification of the animal’s gender.

Aadhaar Card as an all-in-one solution

The girls like watching videos of Australia Zoo. One fine day, they announced that they would like to visit Australia Zoo in person. So, we started explaining to them that to go out of the country, we need a passport and that we do not have one. To our utter surprise, B +ve said that we have an Aadhaar card, so what do we need a passport for? On thinking further, we realized that she is actually right. Why do we need multiple documents when we have already proven the citizenship of the country? When PAN card is seeded with Aadhaar, we can obtain passport basis Aadhaar, what is the need for dual paperwork in all such instances?

To be honest, we do not find any flaw in B +ve’s logic; just that the complex and convoluted Government of India will not see any sense in a child’s simple take.

A world trip with B +ve and O +ve

In the above Australia Zoo discussion, I also explained to the girls that going to Australia is an expensive affair and that we do not have money to afford a trip currently. O +ve quipped that I can go to the ATM and take out the money. I told her that one can withdraw money from ATM only if it is there in the bank account and I don’t have that many in mine. She gave me her ATM card (the girls carry our expired cards in their wallets) and told me to withdraw the money from her account for the tickets.

We have begun planning for a round trip of the world, courtesy – our girls’ ATM cards 🙂