Sunny Summer Holidays… Part I

Adapting from the legend, Cliff Richards::

“We're all going on a summer holiday
No more working for a week month or two.
Fun and laughter on our summer holiday,
No more worries for me or you,
For a week month or two.”

The first summer holidays of the daughter... Yayyyy !!! 💃

And the first-time dilemma:

Enticing Summer Camps vs. Camping At Home

We grew up surrounded by family and cousins – never short of company or engrossing activities during the holidays.

In a nuclear set up, with the daddy at 48x7 work (+traveling) and the mommy on 24x7 child surveillance, it does become a little tough.

Especially because the mighty pre-schoolers have been bestowed with certain super powers –

Super activeness, Question bank-ness, Supernatural ability to discover hidden “treasures”, just to list a few.

And the summer camps nowadays promise:

To keep the child engaged with exciting activities = A few hours’ breather for the carer at home.

Nevertheless, Hubby and I decided to simply “Let Her Be”::

1) After all that’s what we did in our childhood, right?

2) Mommy is at home – so why not let the daughter enjoy at home too?

3) The motherly (and over-the-phone concurring grandmotherly) over-protectiveness kicked in – Let her sleep as much as she wants.

School days meant waking her up earlier (and she has surely done the parental genes proud – definitely not an early riser).

4) Add to that, “She gets to eat her favourite complete meals at proper times”. And, of course, our hearts did the melting number.

5) Plus, when would she use all the resources that she has at home?  Toys, books, puzzles, the works….

6) And our consciences chimed in - she’s only 3 after all. Shouldn’t she be allowed to do just “nothing”, too, if she so chooses?

Q.E.D. She’s going to camp at home.

Shhh…. trivia:

Mommy also wanted a break from the daily groove of dropping her to a camp, waiting around there for the couple of hours before bringing her back.

And what an awesome summer holiday this has turned out to be. The delight on kiddo’s face each time she could engage in a different / new activity, reassured me that I was faring pretty well on the summer holiday engagement meter.

A fond look at just some of our regular activities :-

(Note: when she chose to do so)

Rollerball Paints – Mommy (nearly) Faints

She found herself her first activity - Rollerball Paints gifted to her.

Seemed pretty trouble-free to me.

Needless to say, she had a thrilling squealing colourful fun-time.

But, mommy was definitely not prepared to handle the eventual disaster.

Not only the papers and the ground around, but also her little self and her clothes were now a riot of colours.

So mommy promptly decided to do an “Abracadabra…. Vanish….” act and vowed to tread with caution on forthcoming projects.

Luck By Chance

Let’s just calls this “Lucky To Have A Birthday Right Before Summer Holidays” phenomenon.

She got ample chance to explore her varied gifts.

As she lounged on her new inflatable Hippo, she leafed through her new (picture/ rhymes/ story) books, narrating her interpretation of stories to herself or to her entourage of “children”.

For the uninitiated, she considers herself a mother to all soft toys and dolls that she possesses!!

Crayons, colour pencils, colouring books, empty papers – all were fully utilised as the lips were pursed up and the colours thrown in.

Sound of Silence

I heard my pots and pans and dishes clanking around.

I realized it had been 20 minutes since no other sound had been heard – no non-stop chattering, no giggles, no sudden wails, no singing, no…. !!!!

What could she be up to?

Aaaah, I had valiantly handed over water-colours to her.  And she was colourfully engrossed.

Now before you wonder, “Whaaaaat??? Didn’t you learn from the first Rollerball mistake??”

Well, I did. And I did not repeat the oversight.

My summer holiday mommy brain had been coming up with innovative hacks.

We didn’t have an apron to save the clothes…

Eureka !! Out came the outgrown bathrobe à Made her wear it back to front à And we got ourselves a handy apron without spending extra bucks.

So, while the little painter would keep busy, I would finish my chores. This daily routine had a serene calm at our residence.

Homework Quirk

I don’t recall ever being so thrilled about “holiday homework”.

She knew her teachers had given her few homework sheets.

And she wanted to finish all the pairing, colouring and other activities at one shot.

Took a lot of gentle coaxing to make her understand that we could do this over the holiday period.

But then who wouldn’t want to do such fun stuff?

Rub-a-dub-dub, Kiddo In Her Tub

She loves water.  And her school had been engaging them in Water Play just before they closed for the holidays.

What a perfect idea to keep her cool in these hot months.

Now, getting an inflatable pool = Space occupied, unnecessarily.

So what to do? Thought of another clever little hack.

Got out her outgrown bathtub à Pretended it’s a mini swimming pool.

Made her wear her favourite swimming costume.

Got her little squirting animal friends to join her.

Voila! We had a shrieking splashing fun pool.

Kept an ear on the happy squeals, an intermittent watch on the kid (and animals), and there, I could finish some more errands while she cooled in her “pool”.

This Is The Way I Help My Mom

The best thing was to involve her in the regular house activities – and she revels in doing things “on my own”.

💝 So I got a mini helper assisting me with::

💝 Setting the bed

💝 Putting out clothes to dry à Taking them in again in the evening à Folding little items neatly

💝 Keeping washed dishes back in their designated places

💝 Shelling the last remaining fresh peas from the market

And the list is absolutely inexhaustible…

And that kept both of us really content and happy.

Pat A Cake, Pat A Cake, Baker Mom

Holiday time – a perfect time to bake that whole wheat banana cake or experiment with a super soft honey-soaked cake.

And obviously she wanted to be involved

Proudly wore her little apron, mixed the batter, helped me pour, stuffed some raisins in her mouth, licked some honey…

And then patiently kept watch in front of the oven, lest the cake runs away like the Gingerbread Man.

Love Thy Neighbour

And then we adopted the daily summer holiday custom –

She would waltz into the neighbour’s apartment to play with her bosom buddy.

And then the little girls would come over to enliven our place. (This deserves a dedicated post)

There would be a mess once play ceased for the day – but it is the happiest mess that I cherished.

Evening meant park time where she giggled as she ran through the sand, climbed up the slides (much preferred over sliding down!!), bonded with other kids and basically, had FUN.

A few “Play Dates”, loads of birthday parties … hence, more happiness and fun.

Sing, Dance, Make Merry

The perfect opportunity to take out that musical instrument lying unattended at home.

And to re-introduce the little one to the beautiful sounds.

The perfect chance to play the favourite songs and dance along with the mini trainer – she alone knows how she conjured up those funny dance moves and comical facial expressions.

But these would probably be the most enjoyable work out sessions I have had in a long long time.

What Next… Puzzled??

Not at all!!

She took out the multiple puzzles that she loves working on.

Cute fruits, animals, vehicles lined up the floor.

And she graduated to solving ones with more pieces.

Maximum Utilization of Resources

Never before have all her toys/ activities been so fully utilized.

💝 All story books were read.

💝 The colourful wooden blocks were used to build many a houses.

💝 The cooking sets were utilised to whip up interesting fare like apple soup, strawberry chicken and whatever she deemed exotic.

💝 The Play dough was rolled out into various forms.

💝 The toy train set chugged along.

💝 Meows, Bow wows, Moos, Howls and Growls filled the house as Toy animals stepped out of the cupboard.

💝 Mommy totally enjoyed doing finger puppet stories for her.

Cherry on the Cake

Could a perfect summer holiday be complete without flying off to the granny’s place?

And that shall be the next blog post.

Till then… let me reflect on all the fun that the daughter lavished upon me this summer.😃