"When are we playing again?"

Aditya's amazing social strides from a weekend ago.  (Not the weekend that ended yesterday. The one before.)

1. There was some police activity going on.  Helicopters roaming around making announcements such as "Stay inside because we are trying to look for a man who is on the run".   Our family of four had just begun going for a bicycle ride at this time.  We decided to turn around, come home, and look on the Internet for what was happening around us.  (We have NO TV:-)

No tantrums from Aditya.  Complete willingness to turn around without knowing much about "why exactly are we going back home so soon"... but knowing enough from our looks and our body language that something was wrong!

Wow!

While Baba looked up the news on the Internet, Aai explained what was going on to the twins. 

Usually anxious about anything related to "police",  Aditya decided not to hide inside the house but stay outside on the porch and even announce that he would be guarding the bikes!

2. After confirming nothing untoward was happening,  we did go bicycling to the nearby park,  but there was a huge crowd over there, and possibly some family re-union happening too.  We asked the twins if they wanted to stay there or they were okay with a change of venue- another park half a mile away.  Both were totally okay to stop what they had begun doing and instead come along with us!

3. At the other park... the biggest and sweetest surprise was waiting to happen!  There was a couple of little girls playing there.  Aditya told us he was going to go there and join the ongoing game because "that was a cool thing to do in stage 5".

So we decided to stay where we were... but watch him.  Shreya was (luckily) playing with something else.  Aditya began by going close to the girls and looking at one of the girls full-on, and asking a direct question.  However the question "felt" like "small-talk" from the looks of it.  Pretty soon he had learned the name of the girl and that the other girl was her younger sister. Shreya joined them soon, and the four were soon playing a totally newly spun game of some sort.  They also told us happily that they were all going to different grades.  The younger sister to kindergarten, Aditya was going to first grade, Shreya second grade, and the older sister was in third grade!

4. Then as we said it was time to leave... Aditya practically set up his own play date with the older girl.  Actually, this girl was really interested in knowing when we will come again.  She was going to be there the next morning.  Aditya replied, "That is too early for us but we will see you SOME OTHER TIME" (He knew that he would be with his grown up SON-RISE friends the next morning.)

4. Back home.  We were making a smoothie (milk shake).   Aditya showed up and announced, "I am first in line... no cutting!"


And we can no longer rub our eyes and say, "Is this a dream?"