McDonad's vs my burger

Ekagra doesn't like eating anything except some fruits. It is really very difficult to feed him the main rice-based meal. But one thing that he likes is McDonald's burger.

Two weeks back, Ekagra told us that he wanted to eat burger. We took him to the  McDonald's outlet at the Forum Value Mall and bought a McChicken burger for him. Then last week Gitika was not well and it was impossible for me to feed him rice. So I took him to the McDonald's outlet again. He was happy. But now almost every day he asks us for burger. This morning Ekagra woke up from his sleep and told us that he wanted a burger in the bed!

I thought I would try preparing a burger myself today. So I bought a few burger-buns from Hypercity this morning and tried to prepare a burger for Ekagra in the evening. He was happy when he saw the burger being cooked in the microwave. But his expressions changed when I gave him to eat. He touched it, felt it and realized that it's not his favorite burger. He didn't eat even half!

Kids are actually much smarter than what we think.

Admission to Greenwood High

Ekagra would turn three in December this year and would start going to Nursery from next academic session (June 2011 onwards). We had two options - we would let him continue in Eurokids and then look for his Lower KG (LKG, KG-I, K-I) admission in the following year. Second option was to send him to a big school that has classes from nursery to class XII.

Honestly speaking, first option was only my option. Gitika never liked that. Getting admission to nursery is the easiest. It's usually on first-come-first-serve basis. After nursery, getting admission is not that easy. I thought of the first option because it's cheaper :-). One more year at Eurokids would cost us Rs 32,000; whereas admission fees-cum-tuition fees in good school would cost us more than 1 lakh rupees. I thought about the first option because our industry was recession hit and salaries were hardly growing in last three years.

But finally I was convinced by Gitika's arguments that it's better if we send him to a good school from nursery onwards. Gitika visited all the following schools:

1. Greenwood High
2. VIBGYOR High 
3. Deens Academy
4. Gopalan International School
5. New Horizon Gurukul School
6. Inventure Academy 
7. Delhi Public School, Bangalore East

Deens and Gopalan International School are at about 3 to 4 km from our residence. VIBGYOR is at at 5km, Gurukool at about 9km, and both Greenwood & Inventure at about 14km while DPS is about 20km There are some other schools in our vicinity - e.g., Gopalan National School and Ryan International School. These two were not in our shortlisted schools and didn't visit these.

We liked Greenwood High compared to all the other schools. It follows ICSE and IGCSE syllabus. The school provides ample opportunities for extra-curricular activities. We felt that this is the right school for Ekagra's overall development. Greenwood has a pre-activity center at Whitefield also where they have Nursery, LKG, and UKG and then students naturally transition to the main campus at Vartur Road. But we thought of giving him admission to the main campus itself.

Greenwood has started the admission for next academic session from this month (September 2010). Finally we gave him admission on September 6th. On that day, we reached the school early morning at 8:15AM. We first met the principal Aloycius D'Mello and had a chat with him at his office.

Ekagra would start attending nursery classes from June 2011 at Greenwood High International School.

Tonsured

It's a Hindu tradition that babies are tonsured. My parents told me that I was tonsured when I wast one month old. I think there is no definite rule regarding the time and people do it at their convenience.

Ekagra was two and half year old already and we were yet to tonsure him. His mother always wanted that we would go to Tirupati temple and will do the ritual there. I was always postponing that.

Finally we decided that we'd go to Tirupati in mid of June 2010. We were going to Tirupati for the first time. I was not sure how will be the environment there where hairs are shaved - will it be very crowded, will we be able to control Ekagra there in a crowded place etc. We had apprehensions. So we went for a middle ground. We decided that we'd shave his hairs at Green Trends saloon, AECS layout and offer the hairs at Tirumala.

Ekagra's started going to play-school just three days back on June 10th. I had a doubt if he would feel awkward in the school with his shaved head. I asked the head of the school. She said it was perfectly alright and now Ekagra won't feel anything.

On the sunday morning, June 13th, we went to Green Trends. Ohhhhh...what a scene it was! Ekagra resisted a lot while his hairs were shaved. He cried so much. I was holding him on my lap and it was difficult for me too. The actual shaving process hardly took five minutes.

Then we went to Tirupati the very same day and offered his hairs there. Well, it was not the perfect tonsure at Tirupati. We choose a middle ground thinking about Ekagra's possible discomfiture at Tirupati.

We bought two caps for him from Toys-n-Toys. He liked one of these. He was always wearing the red-cap for many days.

Play school at Eurokids

There are many play-schools in this AECS/Brookefield/Whitefield area - Eurokids, KidZee, PupilTree, Neev, WeCare etc. These are more of well-known play-schools. Apart from there, there are lots of other play-schools in the AECS layout area. We were interested in EuroKids and PupilTree. Both of these are about 3km from our residence. One of my friends son (Rup) was attending Erokids and another friends' daugther (Phool) were attending PupilTree.

Usually these schools admit kids from 1 year 10 month onwards. Ekagra was to turn two in the month of December 2009. We called up both Eurokids and PupilTree in the month of November 2009. PupilTree told me to contact them in January. For play-group, their annual fee was approximately Rs 50,000. The lady at Eurokids told me that I should contact them in November. Eurokids annual fee is about Rs 32,000.

We visited Eurokids in the month of November and met Tara Sharma, the head of this Eurokids. We asked her if we could send Ekagra to play-group from December 2009 onwards. Ekagra is December-born. So he would be 2.5 year in June 2010. So Tara told us that even if we send him to the play-group in December, he would continue in the same class in June as he won't go to Nursery. Again, Tara told us that when the classes would start after Christmas vacations, they would spend time in revising what was taught in the first half from June and then again they'd start preparing for the annual day. So she advised us to send Ekagra to play-group from June 2010 session.

There are two timing for the playschool - one starts at 8:45AM and the second one starts at 11:45AM. We booked a morning slot for Ekagra.

In the month of December, Gitika went to Eurokids again with my father. (I was recuperating from a surgery and couldn't drive). Ekagra's grand-father was interested in paying the first installment of the annual fee. Deuta didn't allow Gitika to pay it. Thus Ekagra got admitted to Eurokids.


Ekagra's play-group class started on June 10th, 2010. All the kids were crying for the first few days. Mothers also were present in the classes for first three or four days.

Now Ekagra don't cry when he goes to the school. Both Gitika and I go to drop him in the morning. (We've not availed of the transportation. Personally, we feel that Maruti vans are unsafe for kids to travel to school). Then Gitika again goes to pick him from the school at 11AM. I've not seen this scene yet; but Gitika told me that every day Ekagra comes out of the school smiling, running and saying mamma-mamma to Gitika. Of course, Gitika enjoys that.