Being a kid

Last week news and the latest update..
Well,what's with me is what's with everybody else..normal routine where minutes melt into hours and then days and weeks and months and so time keeps slipping past,fast.There are some moments when you stop and try to hold on,get a grip and actually try to find out what is going on and there are others too,when you just let go and let yourself be drawn into the inevitable grand stream that is life.
I am trying to keep track of time and events,may be as such in a month or so.I intend this to become a habit,so that when I am finally 50 or so I can look back and remember tiny events,a smile here,a tear there,a warm moment of friendship here and an absolutely stunning revelation of love there,and so on.
So..
I spent a day,actually three hours at my daughter's preschool.As cliche' it was wonderful as I tried to think as the twenty-odd kids that assembled for three days a week at a common place called the preschool and did things generally.Which specifically mean playtime,activity time which means the same,snack time,outside play time,lunch time,activity time,story time and there goes the bell.I compared each moment of this allocation of periods with the ones back in India-Maths,English,Social Studies,Tamil,Moral studies,Science,PT,etc.The same age but what a difference it makes to the final shaping of the child's ability to develop individuality and confidence rather than fierce unhealthy competitions to be first always and memorising huge data without really understanding why.
Example-my kid was learning arithmetic.Starting from 1+2=3,she asked me what the plus is for.When told it is for addition,she wanted to know why we had to add.To learn numbers and counting and so on,I said and then she asked as to why we had to learn all this at all.Seems a kind of free spirit.I had no answers and try as I might,I really don't find the purpose of it all.
Well,back to my time as a preschooler,I sat on a tiny chair and just generally observed as the kids did what they wanted but with a regulation.Some painted,some built castles.Some played at picnics,some were pasting cut pictures of healthy food on their activity books.After a lesson on our digestion process in which the teacher tore up bits of toast,poured down some jusice and some mashed fruit into a pair of tied socks to show how the food goes down the foodpipe into the stomach and thrrough the intestines till the time when you want to go to the toilet.This actually started off a series of going to toilet and talks about what happenned when they ate something and had tummy ache and had to go to the toilet.Funny how kids see it.
There was a special smile and an extra skip in my child's pace that day.This,I would treasure for life.
Now,as I plan her fifth birthday party and as she tells me what to make and how to decorate and what cake she wants and also about the theatre visit to see Shrek3 on the following day to celebrate her birthday,she asked me a profound question-Why do her dad and I celebrate her birthday? I explain that she is God's gift to us and we are so happy to have her in our lives that we want to share this happiness with others on her special day.She sat quiet for a few seconds,thinking God knows what but then ran away after giving me a kiss.This,too I would value more than any riches I may yet have.