Apra's current favourite Activity: Dancing

It has been a long time since I last gave you an update about how our baby girl is doing. She is not so much a baby anymore – she is growing physically and mentally so quickly that we often wonder where this little bundle is that we held in our arms two years ago.

These days, Apra enjoys dancing so much that she is practically dancing the whole day long. She has her small music system which she holds in one hand while she turns, makes Indian dance moves with her free hand, spins around, waves her hips and sings along. She can hear three or four songs again and again for hours and we just have to take care to charge the battery of her music system in between.

Children are all happy dancers and love music but I think what made this love in her even greater was two events in the past weeks: the time with our musical friend Thomas here who daily took out the guitar and sang children songs with the kids and the visit of another friend, a facebook-friend, who performed a semi-traditional dance on a nice evening together. Watching this gracious dance made Apra ask us to put on those same songs in the next days and had her watch dance clips online with much interest. She now imitates all those movements in a very cute way!

Oh yes, and she learned jumping a few days ago! She had been doing much effort to get both feet off the ground and one day she was so happy: it suddenly really worked!

This all came in handy when we prepared for our Holi celebrations! It was the kids who enjoyed the preparations the most! Whenever there was colour, they had their hands in it. Whenever there was water, you could be sure that their clothes would be wet the next minute!

In the big party however, Apra first started playing with the mud which we rub on our bodies to protect them from the colour but then it became too much. She felt dirty and asked us to shower her, to get it all off.

So she showered and then watched all of us from a safe distance how we threw the colours on each other. She danced where it was dry and clean and only when the madness had subsided a bit and we sat down to clean ourselves with another round of mud and a mixture of chickpea flour and yoghurt that she entered the coloured garden. There she sat down, started rubbing the mud on Ramona’s arms and face to help her clean and finally put both hands into the bowl of yoghurt, throwing it on us. This was her very own Holi party!

Now she is already in anticipation of the next party: tomorrow is Ramonas birthday. Of course we have told her and this is how she now talks nearly only about this: we will cut a cake, we will eat it, she will wear her new dress – one of the beautiful clothes she got on her own birthday as a present – and of course we will all dance to her favourite songs!

It is so wonderful, if we could just all be more like her and live our lives like children!