This is blog is dedicated to both Nilaa and Oviyaa and from both Leela and I. The below write up was kind of our first on Nilaa who was the star of the week in her school. And while we were drafting this, I realized that these kids are the inspiration behind the wild run that am making along with Leela. In today's world, when there is a sacrifice made, we expect that to be recognized. But our kids make a lot of sacrifices without even realizing that they do and yet do not complain on the short of recognition. Without dragging too much below was our account on Nilaa as much as possible. This stems my view on what we leave in our child is more important that what we leave for them!
- Raj.
Nilaa, the Moon!
Thanks for this
opportunity to write about Nilaa, which we have not had it before in our lives!
Right from the birth,
she has always been very active and can’t stay idle in a place for more than 2
minutes. To get her to be tired used to be our daily goal at one point in time!
It used to be really funny to bathe her, tough to feed her and getting her to
bed to make her sleep as always been a tiresome exercise for her mom. However,
over the years, she has transformed herself into an independent lady and now
does these things all by herself, though sometimes slow. But, rewards and
recognition works well with her to get a job done!
She loves to get to her
school always. The only complaint that she had about schools was that she
misses schools during our transition phases. She probably has a uniqueness in
having attended many schools at Chennai and Erode in India, Derby in the UK and
now here in Plano, the US!
She just loves being
outside of the house wherever it was. Be it in India, in the UK or now in the
US, she just wants to head out to the park to ride a bicycle or play with her
friends that she had made all by herself in a very short duration. We have seen
that she gets into a leadership role quickly and the team responds to her
positively! In sports, she wants to be a basketball player.
She loves her family
pretty much and are fond of her aunts and cousins. She absolutely adores and
takes care of her little sister Oviyaa. Both these girls now have a separate
room for themselves and Nilaa takes care of the younger one during the nights!
Oviyaa is yet to get to a play school, but Nilaa ensures that she does not miss
that. We often get to visualize her class teachers in her mono acts as teaches her
little sister, teaching good things in life.
Nilaa is a very good
listener, but often pays attention only to things that matters or interests
her. She likes to be surprised every now and then. Last summer, exactly during
the same week, we made a trip to India from the UK and we kept it as a surprise!
She did not realize that she is in India, until we got out of the airport and
met with her uncles and aunts awaiting to receive us. She simply loved it.
As with every child and
every respective parents, Nilaa being our first child is the meaning of our
lives. There are a lot of things and emotions that she gave us for the first
time and continues to give us every single day.
More than anything,
what we adore about her is the way she has inspired us to embrace changes in
life. In the name of opportunity to us, we have challenged her by putting her
in different schools, across cities, countries and continents! Yet, she neither
complained nor was she bogged down. She had adapted to every environment very
seamlessly without ever needing us to help her in transitions. In fact, she had
shown us, the parents, that all these challenges are opportunities to explore
and learn new things in life. An Inspiration!
True to the meaning of
her name, she guides us as a light in our lives! Nilaa is a star to your class
and a moon to us. Nilaa literally means moon
in our mother tongue Thamizh!
Just to end it on a
lighter note, we chose her name over a carom board game!
We love her as our life
and are sure Gulledge will take good care of her. Thanks for having her part of
this institution and all the best to everyone at Gulledge!
- Leela and Raj
