Kavya can ride a bike without training wheels

Kavya has been riding bike for almost 3 years now with training wheels. We had made few unsuccessful attempts in the past few months to teach her to ride without training wheels. Finally, our attempt recently was successful. The motivation for us as well as Kavya came from our community kids who would gather in one of the alleys in the evening and have fun either playing something or riding their bikes/scooters and most of the kids there (some even younger than Kavya) rode without the training wheels.

So, almost a month back, we took off one of her training wheels. Then she started leaning heavily on the other side. So, we took off the other training wheel as well. She got little frustrated since she didn't know how to balance yet and gave up that day. Few days later, she tried again and she did a better job this time. Finally, on June 8th, she was able to ride in our alley on her own. She still needed help to get started. However, once she started to paddle, she could continue till she put down her feet. With some more practice later that day, it seemed like she got the hang of it.

We did not get a chance to practice for almost 10 days in between. Finally, when she tried again yesterday (June 19th), she had regressed a little and did not have confidence to ride on her own. We did not force her then. Today, we went for a walk and asked her to ride her bike along. She was ready. Initial few minutes were little difficult, but once she got to ride on relatively straight patch few times, she got her confidence back. She biked really well today and was also able to get started on her own. She also learnt how to use her brakes. Really awesome job by Kavya today. We were so proud of her and she was very happy too !!

She now needs to learn to slow down at each turn and use her brakes more than her legs to stop.

Finally, Ishaan calls out Kavya's name correctly

We never intended Ishaan to address Kavya as 'didi'. We always wanted him to call her by name. However, somehow he started calling her 'didi'. When asked what is didi's name, he would respond 'Kayva' (notice y and v are reversed). We always tried to correct him and hoped that he would get her name right one day.

One of Kavya's friend's name is Divya and I noticed that Ishaan would say that name properly. So, I tried to use that to teach him to say Kavya - I would tell him to say "Divya", "Davya", "Navya", "Kavya" - But someone he would say all names except Kavya correctly. May be he was doing it intentionally :)

But finally today, he magically got it right. He started calling her Kavya and enjoys it when we acknowledge the correction.

Ishaan's first day at school

Since Jyotsna masi is leaving for London/India on June 27th, we had to find a good/near by school for Ishaan. After visiting few schools and reading some reviews, we decided to go for Montessori Way. Priyank-Shilpi's son, Rishaan, has been going there for few months now and I got good reviews from Shilpi too. I also liked the teacher, the classroom and the fees were also reasonable. AND best of all, it was less than a mile from our place.

Ishaan will start full time school on Monday, June 27th, but just to get him used to the idea of school, I decided to put him for an hour today (June 16th) and couple of days next week when I will be working from home. We all had been mentally prepping him for school by telling him about the school and teacher and all the fun stuff. Also, I had taken with him with me to see his school when I went to turn in the enrollment paperwork - he really liked the school and the different toys there and didn't want to leave then. So, I was hoping that the one hour on first day of school won't be too bad.


He got ready early because we told him he had to go to school. When I reached his class, one of the helper teachers (Armeena) came over and took him away. She then gave him a toy and he happily started playing with it. I called him to say bye-bye and he merrily waved. I was very relieved.

Little over an hour later, when I went to pick him up, he was on the playground riding in a car. He saw me, but didn't want to leave :) He went around in his car for some more time and then he was ready to leave. He waived good-bye to everyone and came home with me.


I asked him if he had fun at school.. and he said yes! So, I asked him if he had little fun or lot of fun (gujarati version) and he said lot of fun :)

I am a happy mom. Will see how he does next week and the week after when he actually starts full time. Keeping my fingers crossed.