Ok, so if you have been wondering where are we and what is Gauri up to these days here is a little update on Gauri (Neel's to follow shortly). This summer has probably been the most wonderful summer for me. I am having a blast with Gauri and Neel (of course sometimes they both do drive me crazy and I do feel that my IQ level, my vocab, my music repertoire are now that of a 2 year old, but still I don't remember having this much fun ever).

Gauri is a very energetic little girl and she does keep me on my toes. I need to keep her busy with challenging stuff otherwise she get very weepy and irritated. She has a never quenching thirst for books, and so we do visit the library VERY often. She loves to pick up new books from there and meet her friends from the "story time" program. I have to say, she loves to play with most of them but she prefers to play with older kids and read with them rather than the younger or even same age as her (I think that's the trait she picked from her dad, at least that's what Mani tells me).

Another interesting thing right now is the "pretend games" we play these days. Gauri is super super imaginative and is always coming up with new pretend games, her most favorite one is to play "Amma-dadu" (Grandma-Grandpa). She will mostly put a scarf around her neck just like her Amma (Amma wearing Salwar-Kameez) and pretend being amma and I will have to paint a mustache on my face and pretend to be dadu and she can play this game for hours all together.... another one of her favorite pretend games is playing Doctor-patient and I am always the patient and she is always the Doctor, She loves being the Dr. (ah, how I wish that she actually becomes one.....and yes I do remember that my Favorite toy as a little girl was always a stethoscope - hah what a coincidence)!!

Apart from that she has been dancing dancing and dancing on all sorts of songs since she was only about 20 months and this summer she showed great interest in ballet, so I finally did find a ballet school for her. She was super excited when she heard that we would be going for ballet class, we bought her ballet attire and she couldn't keep her hands, rather feet off those Ballet shoes....
She loves it there and keeps asking every day "do we have ballet class today?". She is probably the youngest of all in that class but definitely not least intimidated, fluttering around like a butterfly and chatting nonstop like a lil' monkey and looking so so so graceful, super cute I mean.

Here is a sneak-peek of her class.

We plan to continue ballet into fall and if possible Gauri might be able to perform next summer. I am super excited that she is learning dance (as some of you already know, I learned classing Indian dance growing up and was always performing as a little girl and I still love dance, oh and I still remember my first dance teacher's name - Ms. Krapa, and boy she was so strict and such disciplinarian that I almost hated her at that time) and I so wish that Gauri does embrace this form of art, it is very relaxing, uplifting, graceful and teaches self-discipline.

Apart from this we are also taking ice-skating for several weeks, and although Gauri can walk with those skates on, she still has days when she would not skate atall, but she loves being on the ice when it is scorching 90 degrees outside. I dont have any pictures from that but I'll soon post some.

And the most wonderful thing of all - Both Gauri and Neel are playing together very nicely. I have to give credit to Gauri for being super nice with Neel and although she has her moments of not wanting to share "her" toys with him but she will soon find something that she is willing to let Neel have. And they do have a blast whenever they are in the water together. I am so proud of her, being a baby herself yet acting such a nice big sister. May their love continue to grow like this forever.

All this and much more keeps Ms. curious somewhat busy otherwise, I was beginning to believe that "terrible twos" is truly terrible, now I think its "terrific"!!