17 Sept 2021

Dear Parents,

The week started with a question, will it rain or shine? To take a decision all of a sudden feels a bit reckless, but keeping the interest of everyone and the trouble of commuting through traffic and waterlogged roads, we thought it would be better to have an online day. And you might have observed it wasn’t well received by our kids at home. Luckily so much has happened in this week that I guess we have made up for the lost fun times.

Judiciary

Since this meeting was also online, it wasn’t so productive. Only a few kids participated. All the rest who usually run to the jungle gym had to sit in the meeting, since there was no escape. The main agenda for the meeting was to streamline the many meetings now we have. Judiciary, Emergency, Disruptors’ meetings and Circle time. You will be surprised to know that in this semester we have stopped reading complaints and no one gets any kind of consequences. But there are still complaints being written and there has to be a forum for discussing this, so we need to accommodate for that.

Karnala Bird Sanctuary

You all know that it was super fun. And would have heard all the stories too. What you might not have heard are about the anxieties that us facilitators went through during the hike. It's difficult to express, we should have carried a BP monitor along to exactly convey our condition. Few of our bigger kids were really adventurous. In a way it's good that kids were fearless and falling doesn’t bother them. But at that age what bothers them? Few of the times our hearts sunk into the bottom of our stomachs and sometimes we held it in our hands. Some of the edges of the hill had no barricades, and kids would be chatting and giggling all the way near it, while we were palpitating. Climbing up the fort wasn’t on the cards but the biggies ran up. They left us no choice but to follow them.

The steps towards getting up to the fort had pipe railings which was a relief but they seemed 90 deg steep and were two feet in height. We prayed and shouted at them to slow down. 

I know it's all the fear in my mind that’s speaking. No one wants to fall, but trusting them with themselves seemed so difficult at that moment. I know it's like the preacher getting a taste of his or her own preachings. If someone would have told me “trust your children”, I would have yelled at them. All the while we just kept counting the seconds during the descent from the fort. But all said and done, we are back safely with lots of interesting and funny stories. 

We observed that our kids need a big stamina boost, barring just a few, everyone had a tough time. So fitness now looks like to be put on priority for us.

Movie Club

Children of Heaven - Thanks to Pankaj for making it possible for us. This time we arranged the whole set up professionally. We opened our brand new projector and the big speakers too. 

The movie’s story is about a brother and sister duo, Ali and Zahra. Ali misplaces his young sister’s pair of shoes and goes through a series of adventures to find it. The movie is so simple yet so heartwarming and touching. Basically it is about the very innocent aspirations of the young minds. We wondered if kids in this age understand the simplicity of these dreams. Plus in this day and age where there is so much stimulating entertainment, this is just like a breath of fresh air. Do watch if you get a chance.

Plastic Collection

We are starting formally the plastic collection drive at LC. We have partnered with Sampurna Earth, an organisation who collects all kinds of dry waste. They have supplied us with huge plastic bags for segregation and collection. They will collect the following items: plastic of all kinds, hard and soft (all nicely cleaned and rinsed), glasses, tube lights, bulbs, newspapers/any papers, electronics things like wires, etc.

What we request you to do is collect all the plastic wastes and drop it at LC on 28, 29 or 30th Sept of this month. The dates for collection will be usually on the last days of the month. They can also come to set up the collection centre in your society or apartment complex, i.e., if you wish to set it up. If there is any query please call us for clarification or direction.

Guests

Deepika and Himanta with their daughter Kim (10 yrs) had visited us. Kim is interested in nature.

Samali, with her parents and triplets had visited us today. Aakar, Aarav and Kiara are 3.5 yrs now. They just returned from Uganda.

Friday Food

Frankie was on the menu today. Few ingredients were forgotten but we managed to buy from the local market closeby. It was a hit since the pot was wiped clean. To add as accompaniment to it we had samosa and cake too…:) There was a lot of mess and chaos but kids managed everything. 

NIOS application

Filling the NIOS application is taking a bit longer than expected. The website runs into a lot of errors/bugs and there’s no help available but to wait it out. So be patient and be consistent with your trials.

Food for Thought

This is a very a funny talk...hope you enjoy it.

https://www.ted.com/talks/julie_lythcott_haims_how_to_raise_successful_kids_without_over_parenting/transcript?language=en

That’s all for now…stay safe.