Karachi spring

One lazy afternoon, Uzair was complaining of nothing to do. So Mom decided to send him on a secret mission. She gave him a camera and told to go outside in our lane to take photos of all the spring flowers he manages to find. Here you can see what he came up with.

The solar system model

We really enjoyed reading "Space Explorers" book from "The Magic School Bus" series and learned a lot about the planets of the solar system. We made a project of our own solar system, as close in size and color to the actual planets as we could. This one in made by Hafsa.

The project: recyclable A4 paper mashed into balls and painted by water colours, cover of a pizza box.

The shoes age

Yep, Asma has reached "the shoes age" - that bugging curiosity of fitting her little feet into any shoes she spots around the home.

Little gardener

As Asma's getting more and more mobile, she's also becoming increasingly interested in plants and all other things out there behind the door of the home. Hafsa was spraying the leaves of plants in our car-porch - Asma insisted she needed to have a try of it.

Plague doctor project

As we were reading about the plague of the Middle Ages, which killed nearly a third of population in Europe, we did an art project. Medieval plague doctors used to wear these type of masks, believing that the masks would protect them from getting sick - how about that? At that time, they didn't know that the disease was being carried around by rats and transferred to humans by flees.

A Day in the Life of George

George came to us very unexpectedly - by accident actually - and we did not have a clue that he will share a day of his life with us.

We were sitting at the dining table and cutting bhindi (ladyfingers) with our Mom, when suddenly a strange looking bhindi turned up. It had a good-sized hole in the middle and right from that hole, a big green worm with black eyes was staring at us. It was so big that we thought it is filling up the entire bhindi! On seeing the worm, Hafsa asked, if she could keep it as a pet. And mom said: "Why not?"

Next, of course, we had to find a name for Hafsa's worm. Since it was green in colour, it was agreed that the name should start with "G". "Greenie" would be silly, "Georgina" sounded too long - so we finally arrived at "George", which became the name our worm got. 

Now Hafsa had to decide, where to keep George and its bhindi. The best option she thought of was to put it in a plant's pot in our carporch. So she did, and we forgot about George for a while, happy that it didn't get fried along with bhindi but found a nice new home instead.

Later the same day, Mom heard Uzair yelling from the carporch, where he was playing cricket with his friend Misbah: "Mamma, Hafsa, come, come quiclkly - George is on my wicket!!!" And indeed he was. George had climed out of the plant's pot, where Hafsa had placed him, and was on a run. But why? Hafsa looked at the cosy bhindi-home George had left behind and was shocked to discover that it was all covered with ants! So that's why George was on the run. This brought back to our mind the "Insect Invaders" book of "Magic School Bus" series, which we read a couple weeks ago - ants can and do eat worms, if they get a chance at it. Many of them pile over the worm and inject into it their venom, which paralizes the worm. Hence, our George was fortunate enough to escape a sure death.

Hafsa once again picked up George and this time put it outside the gate - in the soil of motia bush. And that's the last we saw of George. We wish all the best for George, thank it for the lessons it taught us and hope it is still alive today.  

Asma is walking

After quite a few months spent on all four, Asma finally has decided to start on two. We've been enjoying her crawling around the home a lot, as Uzair and Hafsa did not crawl at all. Here we see, what difference a walker makes for a child: Uzair and Hafsa were using a walker, did not crawl at all and learned to walk just before they turned one year. Asma has never been in walker. She crawled for good five months and now, at her 14 months of age, is making her first independent attempts at walking. Well, I guess the natural way of doing things is good for the child, as s/he can get started on every new task whenver s/he is ready for it, Alhamdulillah.