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At Oakland Zoo

They let you touch, feel, scrub and brush animals - goats and cows.
This goat at the zoo is a big hit among children, who queue up to pat him.

The zoo management has thoughtfully provided visitors with brush to scrub the animal,with a message asking you to be gentle.Not many visitors to the enclosure are old enough to read the writing. Presumably, the message is meant for adults escorting the children.


Here is another message that says chimps are sensitive to noise. I suppose this chimp is licensed to make noise,rolling a trash can around, utterly unmindful of the visitors who might be sensitive to noise.

The Oakland Zoo is nothing, if it isn't child-friendly



Besides these play-spots that punctuate various animal enclosures within the zoo there is a an amusement park with merry-go-rounds adjacent to the zoo ...




...and a train ride that takes you around the zoo.

At the Boomers

On a weekend when his mom was at work dad took Siddarth to the Boomers at Livermore. It is a place where adults become kids - playing video games, feasting on ice candy, racing those noisy baby cars - and children play golf.
Siddarth prefers racing cars on a video screen to driving one of those baby cars on the Boomers track - 'they make too much noise'.

Death of my laptop

Haven’t posted anything these last few days because my laptop conked out. On a fine morning, even as I was working on it,the monitor went blank. My ageing machine, creaking at the hinges for some weeks, couldn’t take any longer the pulls & bangs, and the battering by nine-month old Nikhil.
Panasonic people, marketing ToughBook laptop, have the likes of Nikhil in mind. Siddarth, in sobering contrast, is seen here focused on the keyboard of his daddy’s computer.
He appears fully absorbed, as if he is reading an engaging case study; Siddarth picked this up, presumably, watching his mommy going through case diary of the patients in her nursing home.

Milestone: Aug.2008

Nikhil completes nine months this Saturday. Big bro’ Siddarth is 32 months old. The day’s highlight was their bath. It is not as if they don’t bathe everyday. It was that the brothers took to the tub together.This was mom’s idea, making a mundane chore like giving the children a bath a family fun thing.

This was a day of entertainment. Nikhil who has learnt to stand on his feet with support takes delight in showing off his newly acquired skill. He is always on the lookout for a hand-hold – the edge of living-room sofa or coffee table, or this toy in his play-room.His parents feel more comfortable when Nikhil puts on his stand-up show in the cushioned comfort of his crib.The young fellow, unmindful of his unsteady feet, often lets go his hold, only to collapse on his backside to the floor.Our in-house stand-up comedian at the end of a show.

Meanwhile, Siddarth getting hold of a laptop mike imitates Sa-re-ga-ma singers on Zee channel.
Trying to be in his mom's shoes

Helping grandma at the puja. The puja room,attached to the front-room, is little more than a hole in the wall. The house builder had designed it as a wine-celler.

This was all in a day's work/play for Nikhil & Siddarth

See July Milestone

Train ride at Danville

They had the train at the park, all to themselves – Nikhil and Siddarth. And they played the driver, guard and passenger by turns. How many of us in our childhood days had dreams of becoming a locomotive driver? Today’s children are more into race-cars, airplanes and spacecraft. But then Siddarth’s familiarity with trains is limited to BART, which isn’t half as romantic as the good old smoke-belching iron-horse. Which are to be found mainly in museums nowadays.
Nikhil at the helms and Siddarth plays passenger.

Kompan is derived from the Danish word kumpan, meaning companion. It is now known widely as a brand of playground equipment designed by a Danish multinational. The company, founded by a Danish sculptural artist over three decades back, initially supplied outdoor sculptures for children’s playgrounds. It soon adopted them into play equipment when it was discovered that children found playing on the landscaped sculptures lot more fun.
The company’s focus is on innovative play equipment, because, they say, many parents find it a real challenge to get their kids away from TV and computer and have them go out to play.

Barnes & Noble bha-baa

From our place in San Ramon it is nearly half-hour drive to B & N Story time, which doesn’t last half this time. But it is a bba-baa (outing) Nikhil & Siddarth wouldn’t miss. In fact, any outing is fun for them. And the Thursday Story Time at the Dublin Barnes & Noble has come to be a fixture in their calendar.
It is not as if our young friends find the stories engaging, though the story-teller does her narrative best, in a bid to bring alive the animals in the book by making appropriate noises – vvooo, wow-wow, wachk-wachk or whatever noises the ducks and dogs in story-books make.

Our story-teller sounded more excited than her toddler-audience. Nikhil (nearly nine months)in stroller couldn’t get the hang of the story, which had to do with a couple birdies building their nest over the head of an elephant. Siddarth didn’t care. If he hung on to his bench without stirring for the full 15 minutes of the story-time, it was, presumably, because the grandma by his side had a firm hold on Siddarth’s hand.

The best thing about the proceedings was the cookies handed out to the kids that marked the end of story-time. Following which the kids make a beeline to the play area to fool around with the toy-train.
When it gets a bit crowded around the toy train we persuade our young friends to have a dekho at the pictures in a book. After all, we were at a book-store.


Siddarth, with a mind of his own, picks up from the shelf any book he fancies, and asks you to read it out for him. Some play music at the press of a tab on the book.


Next stop before exit is the Starbucks corner of the store for cookie. And we usually end up buying a book or two. With such kids-friendly trappings Barnes & Noble could make you feel guilty, if you leave the store without buying a book.

This photo is from an earlier post - Story time at Barnes & Noble