Dance, Songs and Music

Ishaan really loves to dance, we have noticed it several times, he would try to dance on few of his familiar songs or will just watch TV and try to copy. We tried teaching him few steps on "Dance pe Chance" last winters and he really picked up fast, later he learned steps on "Sheela" and "Dum Maro Dum" just by watching them on TV. I never see him sitting on the couch if there is a loud music with dance playing on the TV, he will step down and will start moving his feet. He will dress up wear his pants and put on a belt, just to dance on "Dabang Dabang" song. Most important part of his dance as of now is jumping and he will try to jump with the beats and will move his hands and sometimes feet.

More than dance Ishaan likes singing, he has been listening to songs in car since last few years and we don't change our CDs in car very frequently, so he has mugged up all the songs. He would identify a song withing few seconds of listening to its music. His first song that he really liked and demanded to play again and again was "Jai Ho", he will wait for the lyrics and will shout "Jai Ho" along with the song. He hardly understands much of Hindi but remembers all new songs, because he remembers the music, sometimes I will whistle a song and he will identify it.

His favorite songs are:
Jai Ho, Tere Mast mast do naine, Aahun Aahun, Sheela, Dum maro Dum, Bum Bum Bole, Jee Karda, All is well etc. He would even sing and remember a lot of advertizes on TV. He will call everyone when he sees his favorite advertize and will ask us "Wait, now watch this ..." as if he was the director of that advertize :-). He usually remembers the catchy songs very easily and prefers the one with English words like recently I was singing "My name is Anthony Gonzalves" and he liked it, he asked me to repeat it few times and now knows the song, he waits till the end to say "Excuse me please .." One of my favorite songs that we sing is "Tu mera dil, Tu meri Jaan" and he fills in between "Oh I love you Daddy".

We also made couple of our own songs which he really loves to sing and proudly says Daddy and I made this song like "I am gone to say, I am gone to say, I love you" and "If you want ice-cream, you got to ask your Mamma, if Mamma says, u can eat then u can eat but then you got to ask your daddy" that way we would cover all our family members and friends before the song ends.
One of the pending things that we need to do is teach him steps on song "Zubby Zubby", he has promised his Chachu that he is going to dance on this song with mamma at Chachu's marriage, so we need to work on that.

4th July Weekend

On July 4th as it was a long weekend, we decided to go to Block Island. Ishaan was super excited to go on an island in a ferry, he asked me if there will be pirates on the ferry and I told him lets go and check. We decided to spend one day at New London Beach Park and another day at Block Island.

Ishaan enjoys playing in sand at the beach, he rarely goes near the water unless me or Neha takes him there. He is currently learning to swim and has become more comfortable with water so we were expecting he might go to water by himself and thats what happened. He and Rishab were very comfortable going in the waves, jumping on them and kicking them back to Ocean. Ocean park beach did not have big lengthy waves so it was easy for me to take him in the ocean.

On second day Ishaan enjoyed the ferry ride, he was very excited to sit in there, when I took him to the deck he was little scared as it was very windy but soon he started enjoying. After reaching the island we had to walk for abt 2 miles which Ishaan was able to complete successfully by his own. When we reached the beach he was so happy and full of energy, he stayed in the water for about 3-4 hrs, the waves were really big, I took him in the water to surf with the waves few times and he liked it, in-spite of salty water going in his mouth and eyes he was shouting Daddy lets do it one more time. I feel happy to see the adrenaline rush that he gets when he does any such activity, sometimes his initial reaction is -ve because he is scared but then he starts enjoying it.

Star Party

Ishaan really likes talking about stars and planets and when I tell him something new he really catches it fast. We tried to explain him about directions and he did not remember them, but recently when I told him about the pole star and showed it to him a couple of times, now he remembers where the pole star is and says thats the north direction, he then turns around and says thats south.
He talks a lot about planets, remember all 9 planets and his favorite is Saturn because it has beautiful rings. He was surprise to know that "Pluto" is a planet too because he always thought Pluto is Mickey mouse's dog but now he understands that there could be 2 pluto's in this world just like there are 2 James in his school.

Last weekend we got a chance to visit French creek national park for hiking which is about 25 miles from our house, and fortunately on that night one of the astronomer's associations organized an open event to show celestial objects. Ishaan always talks about telescopes, so we thought to take him to the event to show few stars and planets. Ishaan was very happy to see all the scientist with their telescopes and red light headlamps. He patiently waited for them to setup there telescope and then moved up to have a peep in the eye piece, he use to describe what he saw in each telescope. He was very excited to see his favorite planet Saturn in the telescope and saw 2 more stars around it, one of which was Saturn's moon Titan. He also saw a couple of clusters like M13 which were very far and were not very clear and a nebula. We were told that in north direction there is a supernova but they did not focus on that.

Just before watching stars Ishaan also participated in an activity where he made a planetosphere which can be used to determine position of a star at any given point of time in year 2011(not sure why they call it planetosphere). He also learned about few constellations which he would probably forget but he wont forget the big telescope and beautiful Saturn rings that he saw tonight.

Camping June 2011

Ishaan had his 3rd camping this year, and it was first time when he actually understood what camping means, although all he cares about is if his friends are around him. One of his favorite activity during any outdoor activity is throwing stones in water with his friends and he got a lot of opportunities to do that. We also got a chance to spend a little time at river bank and Ishaan enjoyed that, he was so excited to go in water all by himself.

Few things that Ishaan really enjoyed during the camping were
1. Playing with Rishab, Anshi, Nihal (as usual)
2. Watching the campfire
3. Sitting and swinging on the Hammock
At camping we all were little concerned about Dear ticks, and Neha found a tick on Ishaan's neck but because it was not there for 24 hrs, it wouldn't have caused any harm. Later when we were back home after 2 days we found yet another tick on Ishaan and that was very scary. We took him and the tick to the doctor and got a confirmation that it was a dear tick. Still not every dear tick is harmful so doctor asked us to observe him for 7-15 days and if he gets fever only then he will be given a dose of antibiotics. So far we haven't seen any symptoms of an infection so we are guessing he is fine. Ishaan keeps says, Daddy I want to go back for camping with my friends Rishab, Anshi, Nihal and Baby Mahika.

May Long Weekend Vacation

For May long weekend we decided to go to Pocono mountain for vacation. The plan was to go Hiking and Biking and enjoying at vacation rental. We along with 3 other families made a plan to do a hike of 5 miles around Tobyhanna Lake in Poconos area, it was a flat hike around the lake.

I was interested in giving Ishaan exposure to hiking and check if he enjoys it. We started the hike in the morning, for the first 1 mile, Ishaan was very comfortable and was running with Anshi. But there were a lot bugs around, so in-spite of using bug spray he got several bites which were bothering him. At about 1.5 miles, he started asking to come in backpack (we had a shoulder backpack to carry kids during Hiking) but I asked him to find a water creek, if he wants to come in backpack, just to keep him involved in something else. At a point around 2 miles he was very tired and was insisting to sit in backpack again and I thought he might not be able go further. I took him on the backpack and while we were singing songs on the way he slept. He had a nice 20-30 mins nap in the backpack and when he got up, he was fresh and we were about 1 mile away from our destination. He came down again and started hiking for the last 1 mile.
He had a lot of fun, he saw bridge, trees, creeks, birds and flowers on his way. Most of the time during the hike he was holding Anshi's hand and both of them were moving together. He was careful while walking and covered about 3 miles on his own, that was much more than what I expected from him on his first hike.
Next day we went for biking but because it being a long weekend, we were unable to get the child seat for the bikes. Although after a lot of hassle we were able to manage a caboose to give a nice ride to Ishaan.