Pictures : Pari through the second year.

Better late than never.. So here we have Pari's pics taken during the last year, in reverse chronological order.

Pari: The second year: III

Continued from the previous posts here and here.

This year has been a roller coaster ride with my little fairy, and we have had lots of fun with some troubles. Pari fell sick a little too much in the last 6 months, has lost oodles of weight and most of her chubbiness. The worst was the chest infection she caught around 3 months back, and she took 15 days to just get rid of the bug, the recovery took much longer. And then the stomach infection which started the day following my brother's wedding, and got cured only after we returned to Bangalore 2 weeks later. Compared to last year, she is much thinner, lighter and just a little taller. I guess she is falling in line with her parents, both me and husband are slightly built and have been underweight all our lives. Again, I shall not dwell on unpleasant subjects tonight. We shall talk happy. And Pari is by all standards, a healthy, active and happy toddler. I use the word for the first time ever in her context, it was very recently that I realised that calling her a baby might be misleading. I mentioned her to a new colleague who replied that she also has a child. Then, she proceeded to add, that her daughter is not 'so small', since she is 2 yrs old. Well.. so is mine, but I still call her a baby. Sorry, I digress again.. Lemme recall some things that Pari did/still does. One of my favourites is the way she had trouble combining syllables. She could say Papa, Mama but not 'Nani'.. that will be either 'Nana' or 'Nini'. In the same vein, she was reading her rhymes, when I heard her say 'Humpta Dumpta wall'. Or the time when she wished somebody a happy birthday with 'Happaa to you'! Now that she has started saying 'Happy', I miss that 'Happaa' sooo much.. Btw, my mom just called up to wish her an early Birthday, and she just replied with 'Happy Happy'. Probably she wants to wish happiness to all on her birthday.
Pari loves dogs, from the time she was 3 months old. Her favourite toy is still Paltu, who she carries along every where all the time. On top of that, our neighbours have 4 dogs, 2 Great Danes, and 2 Pomeranians. She calls out to them all the time through the window and even talks to them by woofing. No wonder 'Bho-Bho' was one of the first words she uttered. Btw, the first was 'Papa', sigh! And Pari is crazy about children. She calls them all babies, and some kids take it really personally. Like this little girl, around 4 yrs of age that we met at a party, she got so hurt at being called a 'baby' by a 1.5 yrs old. She retorted in a haughty manner: 'Why don't you look at yourself first'.. Off course Pari couldn't get it, she just got a little scared and retracted, but we including the girl's parents had a nice laugh. And then, this concept of temperature that is developing by the hour. I seriously regret the times I said 'hot' before her. And now she knows 'very hot' too.. I give her milk, she says 'thanda', I look curiously at her, she says 'heat'. I go and put it in the microwave for some 15 seconds, and come back with the bottle. She takes the bottle, and says 'very hot'. Can somebody please tell me what is the ideal temperature for milk? And what calamity to expect if it is one degree below or above that?? It is not just milk, but everything, bath-water included. She tests the water before getting into the tub, and invariably finds it hot. Offcourse it is hot, that is precisely why we've got the geyser, but it is what we need to take a nice bath. Probably we need to introduce 'warm' to her as well. She usually goes on with this 'hot' business till I really get hot in the head and dunk her in the tub. Once inside, she forgets all about the temperature and starts enjoying it. Bath times are Pari's favourite. Even in her worst temper, you mention 'nai nai' and she romps to the bathroom. But the endings are always teary.. she never wants to come out of the tub and screams when I pull her out. At times, she wakes up early in the morning, and while we are still sleeping, quietly slips out of the bed and goes straight to the bathroom. We often wake up to the noise of running water. The love of water doesn't end here. The water from her sipper is also used for a mini bath, she drops it all over her little body, with clothes still on. And this leads me to another of her oddities. She hates dressing up. I have heard so many people complaining about their kids being choosy about their dresses, but here I have a baby who chooses "no clothes". The little nudist likes her undergarments though, and doesn't want to take off her vest at any point of time. Apart from that just a diaper does her fine, or more recently shorts. Oh yes, there is this one thing about Pari for which I can't praise her enough. She has been practically diaper-free for the last 6 months or so, except off course at nights. I must have done something really good to have her develop this sense at such an early age.
I don't think I am done, but 3 parts was what I promised and so be it :)

Pari : The second year: II

Continued from the previous post..

When Pari was around fifteen months old, my husband left for a month long office trip. I was all settled with had a comfortable job which payed less, but allowed me to maintain a healthy work-life balance. Also, in January, we got lucky and got a trust-worthy live-in maid who did all the household chores, including excellent cooking and also looked after the baby. This effectively meant that I had absolutely nothing to do apart from my office work, and with the husband gone, all my time and attention post work belonged to my little girl. Now, this led to a major turn in events. It might interest you to know how it all began. The night he left, I sat with the baby and probably because I felt so low, for the first time talked to Pari like a person and not just a baby. And boy, was I in for a surprise! To my astonishment, I realised that she had developed a reasonably good understanding of things around her and was so eager to grasp all that she got exposed to. She already knew so many things that I never thought she could.. That 45 minutes of talk with her was my moment of revelation. She was no longer just a baby, a pretty pink thing who just had to be fed, cleaned, entertained and taken care of, she actually had so much more to offer. I feel compelled to admit that I had not been a good mom all along. How could I be, if I knew so little of my own baby.. and the bonding was seriously lacking. There were many reasons, no not excuses, but actual reasons for this, but I shall not recount those on the eve of her birthday. The only reason I would care to give now is that I could not relate to her. There wasn't sufficient communication and all I knew her to be was a doll, unaware, unintelligent.. I loved her, I played with her, I had breast-fed her for almost 10 months, but it was only her charm, her cuteness, her innocence that attracted me to her. Now, I saw a personality and a very beautiful one at that. Within no time, I fell head over heels in love with her... Those 5 weeks just flew off with her. I bought her small books and would read the names of the objects in those. My heart would burst with pride when 2 days later she would recite them back. I would sing and dance with her, talk to her. The husband came home to find a smarter kid and a wiser mom. She learnt the body parts as well, and could tell her forehead, elbow, knees, palm and feet too. This process of educating her bought us so much closer. English and Hindi alphabets, numbers and rhymes followed. She did not talk in full words, she just said the first syllable, but that was enough encouragement for me. And then her 'game' came into picture. My husband got it from the USA but I am sure it would be available here as well, and in all likelyness at a lower cost. I am elaborating on it a bit because I found it so useful and nice. It is marketed by Fisher Price under the name Laugh and Learn, it has this keyboard, one which fits over the desktop keyboard and then all you need to do is install a software. It has 3 levels to keep 1 yr to 3 yr olds engaged and learn in the process. I would recommend it to everybody who has a child in this age group. It is worth every penny spent, and better than most other learning toys and kid laptops put together. Coming back to Pari, she is completely hooked to it. Our little scholar has already spent many productive hours on it.
To be continued..

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.

Rambling at midnight...

I have slept through the day. Firstly, I was not feeling too well, and secondly, I have been slogging this whole week and was super tired. So there was a bit of role reversal today with the husband taking care of the baby, ordering food and watching over the maid while I snored snuggled in my mink blanket. Yes, I use one and enjoy it in an afternoon when the outside temperature is 24 degree Celsius, and the husband and his daughter sweat under the fan. Either there is an issue with my body thermostat or I am married to a weird man whose oddities have passed on to the baby as well. And it is not just them, there is this office of mine which is nothing short of a cold storage. They run the ac on full throttle in this pleasant weather, wasting energy during these uncertain times of recession in an effort to freeze the employees. What do they think we are, cut-chickens, who will rot if the temperature is raised to a slightly bearable level??? Anyways, I am really pissed off with this, and it is a topic which warrants a full post, so I shall not dwell on it further and come back to the current issue. I am now fully awake, its been only around 4 hrs since I woke up after some 8 hours of sound sleep, with 2 half-an-hour breaks for lunch and tea. The baby is already asleep and the husband is drowsy, his curly Minnie Mouse lashes looking even longer as his eyes grow smaller, indicating that he may drop any moment. Why does he have to sleep?? I don't watch TV, and have no true, sympathetic friends who would entertain a casual call at this hour. A high risk of getting bored, hmmm.. I get down to what I do the best, irritate him in an effort to keep him up. That again is a role reversal, it is him who does it most of the time, though he lacks the required persistance. One rude stare and he lets me alone. But I am more determined. I tickle his feet, he tells me he wants to sleep. I mutter sweet nothings in his ears, he says he is already half-asleep. I try thinking of something that might interest him, and go on to discuss Pari's birthday plans. He starts breathing heavily. In sheer desperation, I put on the radio. The music gets drowned in his snoring. The man is really serious about his sleep, I guess... Well, what do I do? I write a post on my midnight misdemeanors!

Bubye..

Don't get jumpy yet, I am not closing down the blog. And in any case, I update it so sparingly that even if it gets closed, I would need time to notice it myself. This 'bye' is from my daughter. We are just back from a month long vacation beginning with a family wedding and my little girl is bewildered by the sheer number of people she has met during this period. Pari was off course a real special guest, with many people meeting her almost after an year, and most seeing her for the first time. She has been terribly busy greeting so many people and then waving them good bye. Now, she is missing the limelight sorely. Poor thing, she is so starved for company with just us and the maid around that she has started greeting inanimate objects. Not just her stuffed toys and dolls, she even says 'hello' and 'bye' to the eggs in the fridge. The high point came in the afternoon today. I was going through some website which had a picture of a horse. Pari was sitting next to me, she immediately pointed out, "Hos, mumma hos" to which I casually replied, "Yes baby, thats a horse". Next minute, as I scrolled down the web page, the horse got scrolled over, and I heard Pari say, "Bubye Hos".