Life with Simone.....

Simone is almost 3 years old now. Everyone comments on how smart she is, and how fast she learns. All I know is that she thinks the Mac is hers and she carts it around the home, asking for starfall to be loaded on it. She has found out new parts of starfall, and she sings along to songs that she has heard only by herself. There are several books that she 'reads'-by remembering the lines from memory. My big challenge is to figure out how to teach her to read. I think I will get some notecards with simple words on them, like 'dog' and 'cat' and see if she can pick up some simple words.

The whole school mess is about to start and I have been tasked with figuring out LA's byzantine school system. We can always send her to the neighboring school but then we can also feed her nachos and cheese and plop her in front of a TV for ten hours a day.

My native tongue is Gujrati and I would like for Simone to speak it. Trying to get Simone to speak Gujrati has been a chore and sometimes I wonder if it is really worth it. This language is spoken by only 5% of Indians and very few people in the USA. Most people who speak Gujrati also speak another language anyway. Am I teaching her a useless language? Should I concentrate on improving her English or trying to teach her Spanish? These are the questions I wrestle with sometimes.

Everyday with Simone is a total, wonderful gift. When I come home, she comes running, screaming Daddy Daddy Daddy. She then helps me take my shoes off, and then puts my shoes on and shuffles around, pretending that they fit her. Then we play horsie (guess who the horse is), and we go into her room and play whatever toys she has set out. I try to take her out to ride her tricycle, which she has mastered. We then eat, which can be a big to-do depending on her fatigue. Then comes the bath, which is a lot of fun except for the hairwashing, which is when Simone really and truly starts to bawl her brains out. Then comes milk and three books and two stories or as many as Simone can get us to read-I mean how can you say no to reading? And then she eventually falls asleep. Ten minutes after she falls asleep you want to wake her up so you can play with her again. But I just sit there and gaze at her innocent face and wonder how I got so lucky to have a daughter like her.

Such is the simple, wonderful joy of life with little Simone-bunny.