Monday, September 14, 2015

It's all about acknowledgment - the wonder of my kids

So we have been having some scorching days here in the Bay Area, California. The temps are hovering constantly in the high 90s touching and crossing 100s even in the afternoons.
Yesterday we stepped out for our weekly Parkdate and boy was it hot! There were hardly any families  in the park. It was scorching and felt very dry too. As I was standing there my mind started to race to last year when we had just moved in from India and had literally jumped into the Hsing scene within 4 weeks or so.
As soon as I had got my drivers license , we are off exploring parkdates, co-ops and classes and what not. One of the things that has started right around this time was the sports co-op every Wednesday at 2.30 pm right after the weekly Parkdate.
The sport co-op happens in the grounds of Ortega Park where it is SCORCHING hot at that time of the day. And we have done it every single Wednesday , jumping right into it. For the girls it was all Brenda new - the people, the children, the sports and to top it all, the scorching heat.
I couldn't help but acknowledge the fact that the girls have been so adjusting and enthusiastic about everything. It's one thing to be out in the heat and another totally different thing to be playing in the scorching heat especially in a completely new setting.
The transition was so smooth, so quick. Shruthkirti had also auditioned for the Roberta Jones Junior Theater right around this time and her practices had started ...so on Wednesdays we would hop from Parkdate to sports cop and then to her practice. It was tiring enough for me but how much efforts on their part! I remember kissing Chellu everytime I would drop her off for the theater class on a busy Wednesday !! I couldn't help but feel so proud of their strength and their determination and passion , zest for everything that life has to offer. To come straight from India and to seamlessly flow
 into the American Hsing setting, to come from a largely Hindi background to auditioning and practicing for a large theater production in American English, to come from playing with friends you know in and out to playing with absolute strangers, to come from playing no sports whatsoever
to trying out a newsport every 3 months !!
HOW MUCH growth , learning, transition, travel, new connections, new relationships, new community has this past year seen. I have frozen a lot of it in my photos but a lot of it just stays in my memories...some of it I have even forgotten but between all the stuff that happens at home & outside whether role play, cooking, Art & design, swimming, biking, playing outside, cleaning , chores, some academics, speaking to learn in 100% Tamil , travelling, classes, audio books, talking, and what NOT!!, every endeavor has been greeted with so much enthusiasm and zest. The best part being that most of it has been driven by the children.
All that we have done last year has FAR superseded my expectations of what we could have done ....I wouldn't have imagined that as a Hsing family we would have had so many , previous experiences. SO MANY!! And in this moment of what feels like abundance , I would also like to acknowledge my ownself for all the efforts I have taken to bring these learning experiences into my children's lives even if it means stepping out their way and letting them be. We have done so much as a trio. And I've
enjoyed it all so much. And so thankful for it too.


We can often get caught up in this " Are we doing enuff?", " Are the kids doing ok ?", " Are they learning?" And blah blah blah...there is no end to these Qs and this self doubt. All I have to do during such moments is to step back, take a deep breath and just look at all our photos. Or even look at the ones not in the camera but in my mind. Cause so many learning moments go undocumented too.
And I know that my kids are doing fine. We are all at the right place, in the right moment , doing the right thing.
And it took an extremely hot afternoon for me to deeply acknowledge it for myself and be filled with so much joy. And I've also started to realize that to expect someone else to acknowledge it as much is not possible as no one else is experiencing it the same way I do. Everyone else might question it, might doubt it. But that's their journeys. Not mine. Just because someone feels that it's not good
enough or that I'm not working " hard" enough, dosent make it true. It's their own expectations and their own lack of experiencing what I do with my kids that makes them question it in the first place.
Being with my kids  as taught  me the fine art of measuring the unmeasurables. How have they grown over the past year? Their sense of understanding, enthusiasm, their fine abilities, their sense of comprehension , how much they can push themselves, their clarity , their trust in their own selves, how confident they feel and most importantly how much we have bonded...so much more beyond just reading and writing and knowing and remembering facts.
Yes ....SO MUCH MORE.
As I reflect t on last year, the thought of having  experienced this beautiful country with my children..every nuance of it and thus to have bonded yet again very intimately in itself is the biggest mark of accomishment for me. Nothing else comes closer w.r.t achievements. Thats why I HS in the first place. To be with my kids and I'm in total awe of them. PERIOD.