Pari : The second year

Prologue: This post was written 10 days back, on the eve of my daughter, Pari's 2nd birthday. Though I had asked everybody to call us before 10.30, way before midnight which is the common thing done since I wanted to sleep early, this post kept me up well past midnight. And yet, I could not post it in time.. There were 2 things that I wanted to do before posting: 1. Break this up in 3 parts to keep the length reasonable, I hate long posts. 2. Go over it in leisure, and edit it to make sense, at the same time, remove parts that make me sound a mushy, carried-away mom.
So here is the first part. I'll schedule the posting of the following parts for tomorrow and day after.

Pari turns 2 tomorrow... and I intend to do a picture post for this birthday too on the lines of the first one. But that shall be later, so that we get some nice budday pics too. For now, I would just list down the progress through the year, more for my remembrance sake than to share. The year began with my brother-in-law's wedding, and Pari, just a-month-over-an-year old enjoyed it lots. My mother joined us a couple of days before the wedding, and thereafter the baby was all hers. She slept with nani, ate with nani, played with nani and was generally an angel. This is in stark contrast with my brother's wedding last month where Pari was literally as attached to me as she was 2 years back, only it wasn't the umblical cord this time. It was the baby's strong will! I must admit, her behaviour did not make me particularly proud. But then this is how most kids her age are. The extremes being marked by this paradigm shift in attitude, there has been so much progress in all spheres. I would try to put things in chronological order, as far as I can remember. Pari took her first wobbly steps shortly after her first birthday, but after a nasty fall the same day, she just gave up. She did not as much as attempt to walk for the next two months. People back home grew concerned, she was labled a slow starter and umpteen suggestions flowed in including that to buy a walker. We were not too concerned though. Firstly we had seen her walk for 15 short minutes before the fall that had her so discouraged. And then I saw no reason to hurry this up.. I mean, I just thought that later or sooner she would start walking and will continue to do so for the rest of her life, but the cute cute crawling would be gone for ever. I love the way Pari crawled, she would at times do it so vigourously that she actually resembled a frolicking puppy and then there were variations, the most special being crawling backwards. I have it recorded on a DVD and if ever I am able to rip it, shall definitely share it here. It is truly precious. And mind you, it is not easy. Just get on your fours and try crawling backwards, you'll know why. Finally at 14 months, Pari started walking and she walked well. Probably since she started late, she picked it really soon and there was hardly any tumbling. Again, a blessing in disguise. I hate it so much when my baby gets hurt.

To be continued.