Book 12 - This way Ruby by Rebecca Harry

I picked up this book just because it was so colorful and with cute little ducklings!

The story is about a family of 5 ducklings. The smallest one of them takes things really at her own pace. Her name is RUBY. One day when Mama and Papa ducks are snoozing, the ducks set out to explore the river. All the other ducks breeze pass the river, but Ruby looks around and ponders at the sights she sees - the waterfall, the fishes, the lotus, the toads, the willow tree, etc. Suddenly there is a storm that gathers and all the ducks run helter-skelter. When they gather they seem to have lost their way. Then Ruby comes to their rescue. She confidently traces the way back past the willow tree, toads, lotus ...

Rating: 5*

Review: The pictures are fabulous. The story is short and zippy. Ruby makes a perfect hero.

Book 11 - Princess Prissy Pants Wishes Her World Pink by Ashley Evans

Well you could guess why Mysha picked up this book - it was PINK in color. It's one of the lessons that all girls need I feel - why their whole world cannot be PINK!

This story belongs to a girl called PrissyPink who wishes on her b'day that her whole world be PINK. And PINK it is, as God grants her wish. Then the problems ensue - The paraders fall into the river as they can't see where the road ends, the traffic is in a mess, Prissy herself runs into the wall and over her cat. Then its finally dawns on her that she is missing all her colors - the blue skies, the rainbow, her pussy's white fur - and finally she unwishes her wish and her whole world is colorful again!


Rating: 3*

Review: It is a great topic to cover with a girl. I wish though this book did not use rhymes because at times I felt the book lost its crispiness in trying to make things rhyming all the time.

Arshi's heart warming messages

Ever since we started to use Skype with Nasreen baaji's family, I have felt the bonding between Arshi and Msyha grow so well. Arshi often has Mysha all hooked up. From the names of all the Disney princess to fairy books and posters - she just has a pulse on what Mysha likes. For New Year, she made a sister's special new year greeting. Have a look. I am so proud of you Arshi.

Book 10 - "The Saturday Escape" by Daniel Mahoney

This story is a lesson on not lying. It was Jack, the bear's favorite day - Saturday story hour day. But mama bear said he could not go till he cleaned up his room. Jack was so eager to go, that she shoved all the toys under the tent and headed out. He reached Angie - the rabbit's house. She said she could not go because it was time for her to practice her piano. He suggested to her to put her recital tape so her papa would not know. The rabbit agreed and they sneaked out from there and went to Meldon, the mouse's house. Meldon had to paint his windows, but they suggested that he hand the job over to his little brothers. Then all 3 reach the library and in the midst of the story they realised that they had wronged. So they set back to correct things.

Review: 5*
Review: Wonderful way of not being told to stop lying but correction thru' self realisation on hearing a story. Stories are powerful and this one had one story within another!

Book 9 - "Mine" by Kevin Luthardt

I love books with just pictures. No words; no wonder they say 'A picture can say a thousand words"

This story is a lesson on sharing. The story starts with a brown parcel reaching the home of 2 boys. The moment they see it, each one thinks, "Mine" and then dreams of all the things each fancies - car, drum, yoyo, lollipop, drum and more. When the boys finally open the parcel they find a dinosaur soft toy. Then one boy marches away with it saying "Mine". The other one not to stay behind give the boy a blow and takes it away from him. A fight soon following - Mine - Mine. And then the unforeseeable happens - the toy tears. Ouch! Both boys get a scolding from mama and and sent to their rooms as a punishment. When they are called back for lunch, they go to the dining table and to their surprise they see the dinosaur all sown up. The boys look at each other and realise their folly. They give each other the toy saying "Yours" and but finally they realise that its "Ours"

Rating: 4*
Review: Simple, effective and short!

Book 8 - "My Best Sweet Potato" by Rainy Dohaney

Usually I read Mysha atleast one of her story books (that we are take home) at the library itself and not surprisingly that one is often her favorite one for the next 3 weeks that she gets to keep her books.

This story is about a little girl "K" whose favourite toy "Wollyman" goes missing. Usually K did everything from eating, swimming and racing together with Wollyman and usually Wollyman said boring stuff like "You are my best friend" when his string was pulled. But one day after mommy put her in the washing machine, he would always say "sweet potato" in every sentence. On one of K's usual day trip out she put Wollyman on a tree. Little "Mac" the weaverbird saw her. He took fancy of Wollyman and carried it way and he became a good friend. But K? she had kind of lost her world. Then one day she puts pictures of Wollyman on all the trees and Mac sees here sniffing. He realises that Wollyman has a buddy and then puts it back when he picked it up from. K is very very happy to see her Wollyman and as she grabs him he says, "Lets go for a ... sweet potato"

Rating: 4*
Review: The little girl is almost something any girl relates to and with a toy is completes the picture. The emotions of having, losing and then getting back a toy is most wonderfully expressed. The title and the situation of "sweet potato" was a little weird though.

Book 7 - "Little Polar Lear and the Brave Little Hare" by Hans de Beer

This is a series of a Polar Bear "Lars" and his adventures... Mysha identifies "Lars" whenever she sees one of his stories...

This story starts with Lars hearing a whimper and finds a hare at a bottom of a hole. He helps him outside and consoles the scared hare. As they are walking to go home, they see a car and the hare gets all scared. But Lars is all excited because he knows there is some good food around. After grabbing some good bits of carrots, fish and bread, Lars get curious about the noise coming out of the chimney. So he bends down to see and falls right into the controls room. He is scared and even more so as he hears someone coming. Now Hugo comes back into action and thinks he must save Lars. He goes to the chimney roof and kicks in some snow that distracts the man for enough time for Lars to sneak out. Then Hugo and Lars run for their lives before the man can get them. Lars praises Hugo as a brave hare!

Rating:  4*
Review: I love the adventures with Lars. The pictures usually full page are great often covering expressions in great detail so you feel right in the midst of all the action. Sometimes they are bit long for Mysha's age though :)

Book 6 - "Day out with Daddy" by Stephen Cook

I always like to pick up books with real relations. It creates some special reactions and feelings. This one was with Papa! Mysha specially liked the page where Papa is termed as the wildest animal (Mysha loves the camel, elephant, chetah rides with Ilyas)

"Day out with Daddy" is about a son spending his day with Daddy when mommy had to go out of town. Each event is told from the view point of the son and is humorous. For example, Daddy is excited to wake up at 4 am and "dressing to go out" means running outside in a panty with Papa chasing behind and "special meal" is "Papa pizza". In the end mommy comes home and is so sad to miss out on all the fun that she says she will never leave us alone again.

Rating: 5*
Review: Simple and humorous story that will ring the bell with any child. The visuals are great and the simple pun intended lines that go with them, even better.

Book 5 - "Petunia" by Roger Duvoisin

This story is about a duck named Petunia who finds a Red book and remembers overhearing that "He who owns a book and loves it is wise". So she presumes she is wiser in the procession of the book and others start believing that too. In her false wisdom (real foolishness) she tells the rooster that her red comb is made of plastic, and tells the hen that she has six chicks instead of nine. She also tells the horse that he would have to pull out all his paining teeth becoz she has none. The final nail in the coffin was when she tells everyone that the box of crackers was candies. BOOM!!! She has a lot of unhappy barn mates! The explosion opens up the book and Petunia notices that something is written on it. It is then that she realises that one must learn to read to be wise...

Rating 4*
Review - Book with great detail and a lot of words. Not good for Mysha's age but nevertheless a great story and message. Visuals are simple sketches that convey and move the story forward.

Little bag of panties!

The other day Mysha was flaunting her Kitty bag while she was going down to play. I asked her what she was taking down and she softly said "Panties" :) With a smile beaming across my face, I asked her why she was doing that and she replied, "..because I like it". Well, what do u sau to that. I recently got her a pack of pretty panties and boy did she love them. Later Anna was telling me that one of the other maids asked her if she would share one with her and the prompt answer in this case as you may have guessed was "NO".

Sheila Ki Javani!

It was Rhea, not me!!! Well she was the one who showed Mysha the hot number "Sheila Ki Jawani." And now Msyha says that's its her favorite number.

The other day when Rhea came home with her family the two kids sat on our center table treating it like a merry go round and dancing to the tune of Sheila.

Arna's day with Mysha

Last evening we had Jagan, Hasika and Arna come over for dinner. I love families with kids of Msyha's age. The kids seem to play so well with each other in Mysha's room leaving us to have a good conversation. Mysha did truly have a good time with Arna and they ended it with a quick playtime at the piano.

Who's that?

On one of Mysha's daily evening playtimes, I happened to chat with one of my friends and lost track of time. When I regained alertness, I did a sweeping glance to see where Mysha was... I almost missed her... there she was, on the ground, behind the shrubs, with her favorite friend Niki. What exactly were there doing? A closer look and they were actually in their kitchen making some food (only with mud :))

Oh how I love kids' imagination!

Obbsessed with stickers

 Mysha's obsession with stickers is growing ... need some evidence?

Sunday breakfast picnic

We live at such a beautiful river side place that I felt it was a shame that we don't consider it as a picnic spot like the others who visit the place. So this Sunday I promised Mysha that we will go for a breakfast picnic. After the usual biscuit dose for Mysha, our bags packed with sandwiches, biscuits and chips, we picked up Mysha's bicycle and off we went towards the river. Mysha had her usual bike ride on a road circling the river and then we settled down on our make-shift picnic mat. Just then, Ilyas called up after he woke up and we asked him to join in too... oh was this simple and enjoyable. I am sure there are many more Sunday breakfast picnics to come :)

Three Little Devils

All three - Abha, Aditi and Mysha were feeling a bit drowsy after dinner. Seeing the older one Abha go to sleep in the bed, the other two kids jumped right in.

Well... I asked for a smile and this is what I got :)

Lakdi Ki Kaathi

Here is one pending one recorded since a very long time ...

Yi Shan Yi Shan

Yes there is proof that Msyha learns Chinese at school! Listen to her version of Twinkle Twinkle

Mama, a playground there!

Usually when I take Mysha to the library we have sert routine to wrap up in 1 hr, partly because I have other things to do (really?) and partly because that is Mysha's attention span. The other day when I was at the library, I was looking at some books near the window when Mysha came by, pointed at the window and said "look Mama there is a playground there". I knew what was coming next ..."can we play there for some time". Usually I would have just dismissed it, but since I had nothing better to do, we decided to stop by and swing. Mysha completely enjoyed herself and so did I...

Dada Dadi gone to India

Ahhahh, its one of those sad times of the year when Dada Dai leave for India .. well not for a day, not for a week, not for a month but for THREE whole months :(


We went to see them off at the airport and on the way Mysha when I mentioned to Mysha that its time to say "Good Bye", she screamed back saying "No Good Bye - Dada Dadi don't go to India". So when we did after all bid them Salam, she broke out into a crying spell ... AWAAWW. Somehow I feel she is big enough now to miss them. Here is picture on the airport with Dadi while we waited for the wheelchair

Mysha First Bicycle :)

We have been contemplating getting Mysha a cycle for a long time now. The last trigger was when Nandika said she had one ... So finally here it is - a pretty little one in Mysha's favourite color - purple

A little tall for her, she almost gave up on the first day of trial. Then I told her that unless she enjoyed it she would not like it and pointed out to other boys riding their cycles. The point stuck immediately and she said "Mama I WILL enjoy it" and sprung into action. Then there was no looking back.

New swimming costume

Well this was long due I must say... her last one was REALLY small now and we used to just pull her in somehow ;) but the event of buying just kept postponing  :) Anyway, she was so excited with it (after all it was PURPLE) that she spent the entire evening in her swimming costume. ...caught this shot of her enjoying her dip in the baby pool today.

My new and old friends and a painting gift that had to be completed before sleeping

This weekend (Saturday to be precise) was Sushil's b'day. Coincidently we had invited his family, Joicy's family and Sanman over for dinner. Mysha is very happy whenever there is a party at home so she had a totally rocking time being pampered by everyone.

At cake cutting, she was the first one to get a piece and Joicy and Dolly helped her with her dinner and to top it all she got a glass painting gift from Joicy. We kept her from opening it for quite a while but finally after dinner we opened it. She got very interested and curious about it and with Dolly's guidance started painting. Even after everyone left she refused to sleep and insisted on finishing it. Realising that she was not going to give in, I joined in the party and helped her finish it. It took nearly half past 12 at night to finish the last stroke!

East Coast Park Picnic

One of the week days Vini and I decided to take Nandika and Mysha out to the East Coast beach on a picnic.Well that weather was not perfect but Dec/Jan is the season of rain the Singapore - but would that really deter us? The clouds were gathering in the background as the kids played in the sand with Anna.


Then it started drizzling so we packed up our things and walked to covered hut near the beach. And then came out the lovely sandwiches and biscuits that Vini made for us. We devoured them all in a jiffy. Then Mysha and Nandika found company in another boy who was waiting in the shade with us.




Soon it was time to go. Vini caught this shot of Mysha and Nandika with me just before we left.

Uncle Mo's BIG BEAR GIFT!!!

It was when he first saw Mysha that Mo, my colleague from Morgan, gave her a big brown teddy bear. The other day I received a message from him and gladly showed Mysha his photo. Mysha spent the next 10 min playing with her big teddy (who still sleeps with her in bed) and looking at Mo's photo ...
Long live Mo and his BIG BEAR GIFT!!!