Weekly Stills: Weeks 14 & 15 (19th May-1st June 2014)

I grew up being a lover of words, finding magic in the art of storytelling - poetry, fiction, music, pictures, anything.

Among some of the forms of storytelling, I have always found joy in reading aloud to children, sometimes using props or pre-activities to amuse them. I used to do it to other children. To have my own now to entertain and teach the beauty of literature is truly just all sorts of wonderful. And I am simply beyond grateful for that. I am not sure how amused Orked has been, but she has been read to each day now, sometimes with singing finger puppets flashed across her face. When I'm not reading from our brightly coloured storybooks, I use these finger puppets to create my own stories and slightly-out-of-tune songs. Orked doesn't have to grow up becoming a poet as well (though that'd also be great) but I do hope she'll grow up loving the beauty of language and literature.

There's this book called "What To Read When" by Pam Allyn I have been reading. It has some pretty great suggestions of stories to read aloud to our children according to themes and their different ages starting from birth. It really is never too early to start reading aloud to them, and I believe there is only so much that they can gain from it.

The past week truly has been a start of some enjoyable routine between Orked and us. There's storytelling. And then there are the wanders we go for together, each time reveling in the sweet scent of the evening skies. Apart from growing a love for literature, my greatest hope is also for Orked to love and appreciate nature. I'd love to see Orked showing kindness to animals and then realize how much kindness that nature has to offer us. I'd love to see Orked finding beauty in the way the sun lights up so gracefully over the trees on any ordinary day. Or the way the after-rain air smiles back at us with the sweetest scent. Or the way the flowers dance so joyously amidst the grandest hues of green, and the way she can join in that dance just as well. Because Orked is, after all, a flower herself too.

And we have been doing just that. Dancing through each day and finding beauty across sunlit fields.

To top that all off, Orked gave us more reasons to celebrate our days as she rolled over for the first time last week. At about 3pm on the 23rd of May (these dates are really important to me), I witnessed my baby girl rolling over for the very first time. She was at the age of 10 weeks and 4 days then, and somehow her first rollover was a back-to-tummy one. Her tummy-to-back rollovers though have mostly been halfway attempts, but regardless, just like our storytelling sessions and nature wanders, they are all simply reasons to celebrate.

As much as we have included storytelling, nature wanders and tummy time as part of our daily routine, they really aren't exactly just routines. They are our little celebrations.

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