This is Meaghan, also known as "The Nanny" :) All the photos below were taken by her while spending time with the kids, on various days in November.
Questa e' Meaghan, la ragazza che si occupa di Rohan, e alcuni giorni anche di Rajiv, mentre io lavoro. Le foto che seguono risalgono a Novembre e sono state scattate da lei.
No worries: the train only comes twice a week, at predictable times, and it is a veeery slow charming old train.
Rajiv and Rohan have fun sweeping the leaves in front of our house.
Art time.
Playground.
Coffee break.
More playground... and Rohan finds a friend!
Right next to the playground it's also fun to look at the animals, but little fingers have to be out of the net at all times!
Rohan is still very sick and of course it always happens on a holiday or on a Sunday - or both :) like this time.
Appu was very sad in the morning as well, because his sleep was again interrupted by Rohan throwing up (which he calls "spitting" and thinks that Rohan does it on purpose) and also because mamma neglected him in favor of his "silly" brother. Fortunately Kalena and her mom invited Appu to go for a walk and although Rohan and I missed him a lot while he was gone, he came back a new happy boy.
Rajiv didn't eat much today though and I am hoping he is not going to be sick like his brother. We spent the day watching cartoons, mostly, and eating microscopic portions of very plain food. Mamma too, because you never know.
In spite of all this though, we still managed to have some fun. The kids played with the Aqua Doodle (a mat on which you paint with water) and after fighting over the who is going to use the brush and who the pen they moved on to pouring full cups of water directly on the mat - just to see what happens, I guess. What happens is that the mat turn completely blue, then puddles form and finally the water starts rolling off onto the wooden floor of the living room.
The cutest moment was when I decided that Rohan needed a little reward for how bravely he was facing his troubles and so I opened a doll that I had purchased at some point by mistake and had kept in storage ever since. Look how cute he is with his "baby"...
To distract Rajiv from watching "George: a very monkey Christmas" for the third time, I decided to put away our small and beaten Christmas tree. The kids helped me to take the few surviving decorations off the tree and then we put them in a small box, that we proceeded to decorate with stickers. At first Rohan was having trouble and Rajiv was putting all the stickers, then Rohan got it and became an unstoppable sticking machine, while Appu moved on to posing for silly pictures with the tree.
Since the boys wanted to attack the Aqua Doodle again, which hadn't recovered yet from the earlier play, I redirected them towards a different water game instead. We put a plastic mat on the floor, filled some tupperware with water and played with a bunch of car- and truck-shaped sponges. They got all wet and that was a good excuse to move upstairs for pajama time.
Yesterday S left for India and we will follow him in a month. Among other things, in this month he is going to make sure that our new flat is finished, so we have told Rajiv that papa' is building a house for us and we will go when it is finished. Of course he already asked "is it finished yet?" after a few hours, so it's going to be a long month.
We are feeling a bit sad, but our friends Andrew and Anna Marie invited me and the kids to a little children party for new year's eve, so yesterday night we weren't alone in an empty house. They are the parents of Kalena, who is Rajiv's best friend - he told me :) . Other two kids were invited and some relatives and we all had fun.
Unfortunately Rohan was sick during the night and Appu doesn't seem to be in great shape either, but we still managed to have some bright (figuratively) moments in our day. It was a rainy but surprisingly warm day and Appu wanted to go out to make his balloon fly in the wind. Finally he decided that the balloon should not get wet, but we still went out, with the boys wearing their rainsuits.
Appu had fun and kept saying "I don't get wet" but as you can't see from the next picture, Rohan wasn't so sure :)
The photos below were taken about a month ago. I have been very lazy with my blogging recently, but before the holidays are completely over I felt that I had to at least post these.
And by the way, please don't underestimate the challenge of taking a family photo with a one year old, a three year old, big wrapped presents as props, and a photographer who won't take the shot unless everybody is at their places in a traditional family pose. By the time our photo session was over, the wrapping paper had been ripped and fortunately there was only one more family after us (it was a charity event with lots of families having their picture taken), but they had to hold the presents at strategic angles so that the damage wouldn't show too much.
This photo was sent to me by the organizer of the music group that Rajiv and Rohan attend together on Fridays. It was taken last Sunday at the holiday party, where we had a lot of fun singing and dancing with the other kids and parents. I just had to post this picture, just look at him!
In other music related news, Rajiv took his first cello lesson this week. He was so excited that he sat through the entire half hour of lesson without fussing and following the teacher's instructions to the letter. I was amazed, although of course I don't expect it to last, once the novelty wears off.
We decided to give this a try because Appu's fascination with musical instruments is second only to his passion for trains, he knows the names of most instruments in the orchestra and can recognize them when he hears them play. When I asked him what he would like to play himself, he always answered "cello", so I looked it up and I found a group of Suzuki teachers in the area. The Suzuki method for teaching music to young children seemed to me playful enough that it would be ok to try for Appu and we are happy so far.
You should see him sitting on his little bench (on the spot marked by a little ladybug sticker) and hugging his cello. We are supposed to practice for five to ten minutes every day, so it is really a minimal change in our daily life so far. Appu is supposed to name his cello before the next lesson, but so far we have only established that he thinks the cello is a girl (and the little guitar that we store next to the cello is clearly a boy, he says). Any suggestions for the name?
