Books for 2-4 year olds

As a mom who loves to read and would love to inculcate her love for books and reading in her daughter I am always on the look out. Sites like the Saffron tree and Amazon provide much help and specially Saffron tree because the recommendations come from parents who have similar aged kids. Books recommended by other mommy-bloggers rate very high on my radar when I am looking out. Also the other problem is, many of these books I might not find in stores like crossword, landmark or Odyssey anytime I choose to walk-in. Once in these stores I just need to pick random books that look interesting but they are never half as interesting as the ones recommended by other bloggers. So this post is just for moms like me out there, who are looking for what to buy for their 2-4 year olds.

1. Barnyard Dance - Sandra Boynton
This is the first book that I bought after seeing it on ST. It was an instant hit with the both the kids, my daughter and my niece. They loved the rhyme and the different animals sketched.







2. JamBerry - Bruce Degen

Its a sweet story about a little boy and big bear out to collect all kinds of berries. The peapod wouldn't even let me bypass the first page, I have to begin with "JamBerry by Bruce Degen". The illustrations are so beautiful that even after reading it out to the peapod for almost 1-1.5 years she still finds interesting stuff in there. Yeah she knows the book front to back and can now sit on her own and recite the whole book..





3. The very Hungry Catterpillar - Eric Carle

Its a small book that we have. I am not sure if there are different sizes available but it is totally worth it. The book illustrates the transformation of a beautiful butterfly from an egg. I am still reading this one out almost every night.>







4. The Runaway Bunny - Margaret Wise Brown

This one is about how a little bunny tries to keep running away from its mom only to be found by his mom in various scenarios. This one is a cute book but not quite as hit as the others we have. Since this one doesn't have rhymes and a little too many lines to be read, the peapod looses patience while we read them. I hope she will begin to like it in the coming years.




5. Is your Mama a Llama - Deborah Guarino

This one is about a little llama trying to find his mom. The rhymes are easy, the pictures very cute and the illustrations are so well done there is always something new the peapod finds in there.







6. Who are you baby kangaroo? - Stella Blackstone

This book was an instant hit with peapod and she knew it by heart in 2 days time. She totally loved the repetitions and she already knew what the young ones were called and so it was familiar and new all at the same time.




7. My Granny went to Market - Stella Blackstone

When the book first arrived I was a little apprehensive. It talks about various places like Istanbul, Russia, Switzerland and so on and the pages illustrate various specialities about these places and I kept thinking this is too much for my 3 yr old. But once I started reading it, I realised I underestimate her pronunciation skills. She says Istanbul, Australia, Switzerland and now also identifies the things that come in from each of these places. And it helps me build a bit more about each place each night we read it. Initially she was pretty amused that the granny had short hair and was wearing frocks :), she has got used to it now. I think its a lovely lovely book.

8. My little picture dictionary - Rogger Priddy

This was a gift from her cousin and it is a beautiful book. She has had it now for more than a year and she can identify almost 60% of it all. A lot of verbs and adjectives that she can identify ONLY if we ask her the right questions but then its all malayalam and hardly any english verbs or adjectives. Its good for an another year or two.






A couple of books that we haven't opened yet are
1. Bringing The Rain To Kapiti Plain: A Nandi Tale by Verna Aardema
2. The Color Kittens by Margaret Wise Brown
3. If I were a Lion by Sarah Weeks
4. All the way to Lhasa - A tale from Tibet

Will tell you how they all turn out in a couple of months.

Most of these books can be bought in India at flipkart or landmark online. None of the other umpteen books around she has holds as much charm and wit as these. Feel free to drop in a few names of your favourites for your kids or your favourites as kids.

Child custody - who decides?

Ever since I saw this news flashed all over punetimes the last 2 days, its stayed on. The story is simple and is a common one as well with umpteen dozen divorces where kids are involved.

I do not wish to take a stand here for either of the parents and nor am I trying to be judgemental either but have a couple of thoughts brimming in my head.

If 2 sane sensible adults (lets forget all other kind of couples) in a marriage decide to part ways since their wavelengths do not match(forget all other reasons as well) and also for the sake of argument lets say both parents can give the child a secure & comfortable life, who is the best person or people to decide the custody of the child or children?

It is a tough decision to make for either parent. While being a mother I am really tempted to say a mother is more attached, but emotions for your child can not be brought out and measured on a balance scale, maternal v/s paternal. When 2 kids are involved how do you decide to split them even? Which of the parents want to make that choice, son with you, daughter with me? One of the parent must let go or both need to work at getting the marriage to work. Individual's happiness is important but both parents have a far greater responsibility towards the kids. A happy childhood is their right and they deserve it with both or one parent. Also, I think its cruel to split kids, even if there are 3 kids. Putting your child through the trauma of having to answer questions like "Mummy or Dadda" or having a third person, the legal system question the child or exposing them to the world when they are the most vulnerable is very cruel. For the love of your child or kids, parents need to settle that between themselves. If parents can not agree between themselves, one of the parent will still be miserable after the judiciary makes its choice. A divorce should help you live peacefully, happily and let the other person live their life as well. If one continues the custody battle long after the marriage is over, the whole purpose of a divorce probably is lost.

Having to steal/kidnap one's own child, getting to a situation where one needs to hide the child and self is definitely not the way to salvation but muckier waters. A divorce is bad enough, don't make it uglier by pushing the child or children in the forefront by making them your shield to fight your spouse.

The peapod at 3 and a half

At 3 and a half almost, she has grown tall and reaches my waist. With my piddly height of 5'1, I am sure she is going to take over me before she even gets through secondary in school.

She is a happy, active, thinking and an aggressive child who challenges her limits everyday forcing both me & P to rethink if what she did or said is actually off-limits or can we consider taking it a little easy, after all she is just a little child. While her teachers at school have very good things to say about her, she is a total spoilt brat at home. This bad behaviour I am guessing is reserved mostly for just when we are around. I have never seen her or heard about her harming an another child or misbehaving with anyone except for family. We are still struggling with getting her to behave herself in church. A couple of times P had to twist her little ears to simmer down her tantrums in church. There are times I can see it in her eyes that she knows she will get into trouble but inspite of it she tries throwing whatever it is one more time or howling once more and wait for our reaction and if we ignored, she would try it once more unless one of us got off our butts to tell her we had enough.

My sis from bbay is home with baby Neil for a week and the peapod has been hovering around him like a fly. She lies down when he is sleeping, entertains him with her rhymes and songs and plays his silly games to get that toothless wet kiss. She bosses my mom around if the little one is crying and my mom is on the phone or busy else where. "Ammmachyyy... Can't you hear Chiku crying?". She absolutely loves and adores him and is always always around him. Wouldn't leave him alone for a minute. She goes around announcing that we have 2 babies, one is chiku and the other is in mumma's tummy.

I had taken her for my 6th month ultrasound last week. I wanted her to see the baby. Like a restless puppy she kept moving from behind the doctor to under his right arm and then under his left arm. The doctor was kind and obliged her by showing her the face, the hands and legs. Ofcourse we all know how clear ultrasound images are. Though I could fairly make out the face and hands and fingers, I am not sure what she saw or understood. When we were out, she told me the baby has very very long nails, we should cut them. There are times when she is doing random stuff like drawing or coloring or watching TV, she would suddenly turn to me and ask me what is the baby doing. She will laugh very lovingly over any story I tell her and get back to whatever it is she was doing. Everytime I and she are at cross-roads, she threatens to cut me and the baby up. She threatens to box my tummy at times, but she never really does. Just 2 days ago she even felt the baby move. She didn't seem very impressed or amazed like I expected but she was happy and kissed my tummy and continued with her stuff.

Every night before we sleep we pray and I encourage the peapod to pray 4 lines. She begins with bless me, mumma, dada, and naming everyone she can remember and then would innocently ask me if she should pray for the satan as well? We have this very adorable yet-to-be-2 baby girl staying right below us. She is a darling. The peapod calls out to her atleast twice a day and specially if the little lady is heard crying. But yesterday when the little girl and her mom came visiting, the peapod totally ignored them and acted as if she never knew them. The sweet little darling went up to the peapod and kept calling her by name but she wouldn't even look at her. Absolute arrogance was at display and when I asked her about it latter, she just changed topics. I am hoping she was acting shy or pricey which she does once in a while when she meets my sisters or cousins after a while but comes around pretty soon but here she just couldn't bring herself to come around I guess and got caught in her own web. This morning when the maid was leaving, she said "thank you for cleaning our house" pleasing the maid no end. Endless questions, sometimes the same thing but just asked differently like, how does it rain, why does it rain, did Jesus forget to close the taps, why do you water the plants, why will the plants die, how will they die, I cannot see the sun, is it night now? I can see the moon, is it night now? and such umpteen questions.

Innocent and wicked, loving & stubborn, adorable and arrogant... that is the peapod at 3+ and just before the arrival of the second one.

With the arrival of the baby, my equations with her will change in terms of time and attention and I do not know what else. While I realize I need to prepare her, I am just basking in the helplessness of being in love ONLY with her. I don't want to let go this mom-daughter physical bond before it really needs to. Peapod is a co-sleeper and is used to bed time reading and casual talks before either of us drift off to sleep and this time is more precious to me than I guess it is to her. I am not sure how I am going to sort all this out in the next 4 months. We moved into this new place with just a handful of basic necessities & must-haves and have managed pretty well so far. A good bed, a rocker, a good storage unit, a couple of rearrangements in the room and a whole lot of baby shopping is all on my list now. Also by year end there is the whole circus around the peapod's admission that is waiting to happen.

And while at it check out this cute cute nursery. Wants me to copy-paste it as is.

My Garden