Tid-bits from the past month

Anirudh has been after my case for losing weight since the past few months. And now he even cracks jokes on me relating to my weight and my paunch. Here are two anecdotes as a proof -

There were two cars parked next to each other in front of the relatives house we were visiting. I looked at both sides of the cars trying to see which side should I use to go inside the house as Nishka was in my arms.

Looking at my dilemma Anirudh says "Aap to kahin se bhi fit nahi aayogi!" (You will not fit from either of the sides) and ran away laughing leaving me fuming.

Another incident was when one day I was lying in a posture that was making my tummy/belly protrude quite a bit. So he comes and starts caressing and talking to it as if there is a baby inside still. I actually spanked him for that :)

He is becoming such a tease these days..uff!!

Coming to Nishka, she has been walking quite comfortably since a few days past her birthday. And she is loving it so much that if she is awake, you will see her walking around the whole house all the time. It does get a bit tiring keeping an eye on her lest she gets herself in trouble.

One funny thing is that when she has to get in or get out of the kitchen, she crawls out instead of walking. And this is because the kitchen floor is about half an inch lower than the rest of the floor outside it. And we all laugh as if she is climbing down/up a big step :)

She is also completely comfortable drinking milk from glass. Its been more than a month since we weaned off the bottle and minus the initial hiccups in the first week, it has been a smooth sailing.

Its really fun watching her talk. The expressions on her face, the movement of hands, the intonations...everything is just so precious. Both me and hubby feel that she is going to be a big chatterbox.

Recently I started singing few nursery rhymes with her and she has picked up some words and actions for each of them. So when I sing the "Johhny Johnny! Yes Papa!" rhyme, she will say "Ha! hah!" after the lines "Open your mouth..."

She makes twinkling action using her fingers when we sing "Twinkle twinkle little star..." and even says "Up" after we've sung the line "How I wonder what you are..".

She loves to sing "Eeya eeya o" from the rhyme "Old McDonald's had a farm.."

But for all this she has to be in the mood. Coz if she isn't, how much you coax her she just won't say all these stuff.

Some of the other stuff she has learnt is kissing. Or shall I call it licking? :D The reason being whenever I ask her to give puchha or pyari kar do, she licks us :D

She has also learnt to do flying kiss. But its a little messy flying kiss because she kind of blows out her drool along with the kiss. Anirudh especially runs away whenever she does that as he finds it really 'ewww'.

I'm trying to introduce her to veggies in her food these days. I had been making her khichdi with carrot, lauki and green beans for sometime now. Also introduced her to palak and methi paranthas besides the aloo ones now that its the season for fresh methi and palak. One day made her taste soya nuggets and she ate that too with interest.

Cheerios has been her favourite snack for a long time now but recently I gave her wheat coconut cookies from a bakery nearby and she enjoys eating those too on her own.

But despite adding more of home-cooked fresh and nutritious stuff, she still is loosing the baby chubbiness that she used to have. I guess its because of her being too active and walking around a lot. There are times I wonder if she ever gets tired with the amount of walking she does.

A picture post

Sep 8: Bhaiyyu saath masti

Sep 8: "Mujhse panga mat lena!"

 

Sep 8: Bhaiyyu saath piggy back ride

Sep 9: Counting fingers

Sep 9: "Aise count karte hain!" 

 

Sep 9: Wrestling in progress

She has to have whatever you are drinking/eating.

Sep 16: "My happy babies!"

Sep 23: Pouting and crying because Bhaiyyu scolded her.

Sep 24: Sweetie pie

Sep 29: Enjoying sitting on the terrace at 6 AM.

Sep 30: Birthday girl

Sep 30: Nishku-Nanu

Growing up really fast

There are so many different things that I have to write down here about Nishka and Anirudh since the last time I wrote. Nishka continues to amaze us with the new things she is learning. She is super active and wants to do everything that any of us is doing.

Her talking has improved a lot lately. Some of the words she says clearly are - Dadi, Daddy, Mumma, Chiya,  Nana and Daada. She tries to imitate the words we say and some words she is able to say exactly. But after saying them for a couple of times, she just refuses to repeat them again however much we try. For e.g. she said "good girl" for two whole days but however hard I tried later she ust wouldn't even utter it. Same happened with "Chalo", "Betu" and few other words. Some of the words she says sound similar to the original word. For e.g. diaper she says as 'dapa'.

I had been playing a game with her where I count her fingers and say one-two-three-four-five. And now whenever I start counting, the moment I have said the word "two" she says "thee" or "tee" and feels so happy after saying it. When we earlier used to ask her "Nishka kitnee badi?" she would just raise her hands over her head. But these days whenever we ask her the same question, she raises her hands and simultaneously says "ittee". Its just too adorable to watch her do that.

She walks more confidently now even though she falls down after 7-8 steps. I think she tries to walk too fast and that is why she falls. If she tries to walk a little slowly am sure she will be able to walk longer distance and not fall down.

She conveys what she wants to by making different sounds, whining or by other actions. For e.g. she is playing with Anirudh and I pick her up she would immediately push me back and start whining and I can understand she wants to go back to Anirudh and the moment I put her back, she is happy and playful again.

Other day she was making a lot of noise when I was trying to get Betu finish his homework. Since Anirudh was not able to focus, Anurag called out to Nishka and then put his fingers on his lips to shush her up. She looked at Anurag, immediately put her finger on her lips and shushed Anurag back. Me and Anirudh both just rolled over laughing looking at this. And I told Anurag that he has a tough road ahead :)

At the same time since about a month she has developed greater affinity with Anurag. She calls out to him, wants to go to him and showers him with her hugs and her trademark sunshine smiles. Its so precious to see both of them together playing and laughing and just being together.

But nothing beats the love/fondness she has for Anirudh. He wrestles with her, twists her, hangs her from her feet and she loves it while I get so damn scared lest she gets hurt. And when I get very uncomfortable with this wild play of theirs' I ask Anirudh to stop. But she immediately comes back to Anirudh and starts jumping over him to start it again.

She is very fond of flipping pages in a book. Be it her books or Anirudhs or for that matter any magazine. Her hair after mundan have grown but we feel they are growing at a very slow rate. I like to put those cloth hairbands but she just doesn't let us put any. She just pulls them out within seconds. We really have to distract her to some other things so that we can at least click a picture.

Nishka turned one on Sep 30th and we had organised a party. She was clinging to me most of the times but was not cranky or fussy and was giving her sunshine smile to all as long as she was in my lap. She enjoyed walking all over holding my hand and playing with the balloons. For the first time she even enjoyed the bits of chocolate cake that Anirudh fed her after cutting her cake. She was so excited during the birthday celebrations that even though she was sleepy she wouldn't sleep. Seems like she also wanted to fully enjoy her birthday celebrations :)

I've been wanting to get her off the bottle since about two months. But after trying about 1.5 months back I just stopped trying. But a day before her birthday i.e. on Sep 29, I again tried giving her milk using a small silver tumbler. She did fuss a bit but eventually drank it. I did a silent victory dance as it was too soon and I didn't want to jinx it. Later in the day also she did fuss looking at the milk in the glass but drank it. And since then there has been no milk bottle for her but only glass. Its been 5 days today and she still continues to fuss the moment she sees the glass of milk in my hand but I say "Nishka is such a good girl." and start singing her favourite rhymes and she starts drinking the milk. She doesn't finish the milk in one go and we need to give her a break of 10 min for her to finish the milk completely. But I'm glad the way it is progressing and glad that she is off bottle now.

Yesterday was Nishka's first day at daycare all by herself as her home nanny, who used to accompany Nishka to the daycare, is not well. In the morning Anirudh was so very worried as to how will Nishka be all alone. He tried really hard requesting me to take off from work but as I was not agreeing he started crying. I had a tough time consoling him and telling him that it will be fine (even though I knew it may not go fine and was a little apprehensive myself). I told him that even he went on his own and it takes a few days and it will be just fine. But as expected Nishka cried a lot in the first half. Was slightly better in the later half and was clinging to the head of the daycare in charge. And once Anirudh reached there after school she was better. Today her papa will drop her there at noon and I'm hoping things will be better today than they were yesterday.

Things have been improving with Anirudh with respect to his behaviour/attitude. He has also been doing better at school and there have been lesser spelling mistakes be it in Hindi or in English. His scores in tests have also improved even though me and Anurag both know that he can do much better if he is given better attention. And we tell him so too.

Although he doesn't say it but there are days when he feels I'm not giving attention to him as much as he wants. It shows in his behaviour. Sometimes I feel he also doesn't know why he is behaving irritated but I've observed many times that the moment I try and spend time with him, he gets fine.

Earlier packing lunch for Anirudh was never difficult. I used to have so many options. But now whenever I give him options of what I can pack for him, he will just say no or wrinkle his nose. Oh God...he makes me go crazy!! He will always demand stuff which is not possible. He used to love uttapam and now he hates it. He used to love omelets, now he abhors it. He used to love palak paranthas and now they are yuck. Uff!! I hope its a phase. I really really hope.



 

Story Telling

Last Friday (Aug 31) Anirudh told me about another story telling competition in his school, this time in English, scheduled for Sep 3. Unlike last time he hadn't thought of a story. With him having school on Saturday also and with loads of homework and project work to do on Sunday, we pushed preparing for the story to late night yesterday. He tried coming up with many stories but I told him about the logical flaws with those when he told me some of them. After that he got dejected. I asked him if he wants to tell a made from scratch story only or maybe this time he can tell some known story. But he wanted only fresh story.

So now I had to pitch in with the story outline. I told him the summary of my story and when he agreed we detailed it further. So the story was thus finalised. However what was remaining was making the props. Sine Nishka was not just sleeping yesterday night and was super clingy to me, I couldn't make them. I promised Betu that I will make them today early morning if I get a chance or else he may say it without using props. But he really wanted the props so he asked me to wake him up at 4:30 AM so that we can make them.

Looking at his keenness for the props, how could I not make them. So morning was spent making the props. Although these were much easier to make than the previous ones but with only 10 minutes in hand there were not neat. Just doable. This time I didn't even have the time to draw the outlines using pencil first. So straightaway I drew with black sketch pens. Anyways, while cutting and coloring them, I asked him to tell me the story so that I an hear it from him. But since it was my story and not his, I could see he was having trouble remembering it when we practiced it today morning.

I had to correct him at many places and repeatedly he made the same mistakes again and again. I was getting irritated and I realised he was faltering more looking at my irritation. So I told him the story in gist again and told him to tell it in his own words at the school. I told him he need not tell it to me again. Here is the picture taken after the props were done.

So in the prop you can see the fat boy, and the same fat boy who lost weight and turned thin and the bakery was used as the lure for getting out of the house and helped him get thin.

There is one interesting remark from Anirudh which I would like to write own here. When I was telling him the gist of the story, Anirudh looked at me questioningly and said, "Kahin yeh story aap mere upar to nahi bana rahe ho?" as we had been telling him off and on that he needs to lose weight.
:D

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The story:

There was a boy named Varun (name suggested by Anirudh). He was very lazy and he would just eat and sleep. He had become so fat that his parents had started worrying about him. So they made a plan. They placed and advertisement of a bakery which said there will be free cakes for those who can reach the bakery before 12 noon everyday for one month.

That made Varun excited and he decided to get free cakes everyday. When he left the house, he realised the bakery was 5 KMs away. But a free cake lured him to still go to the bakery. Sine he was so fat, he walked very slowly and by the time he reached there he was so tired and thirsty that he forgot about the cake and asked the baker for water. By the time he felt fine and asked the baker for the free cake, Baker told him that it was past noon and that Varun may come again tomorrow.

Varun went back home tired and sad but decided he will come earlier tomorrow. He reached home and was so tired that he just went to sleep. Next day again he went there and the same scene from previous day repeated and he had to come back home empty handed. The third day he started much early than the previous days but found a big queue there in front of the bakery. By the time his turn came, it was again past 12 noon and thus he did not get any free cake.

This went on for 5-6 days. However in these 5-6 days his parents could see that Varun has started losing weight. And so his mother decided to wake him up really early the next day so that he can get the free cake and doesn't stop feeling dejected. And that day Varun did get his free cake. It was so delicious and yummy that Varun was super happy. So for the whole month he would everyday walk 10 KMs to the bakery and back home and lost a lot of weight. Varun himself was happy at losing weight and he used to enjoy going out and playing with his friends too.

So the moral of the story is that we may eat rich food but if we keep exercising, we can still be healthy.

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The competition never happened on the day it was scheduled for and today when it happened, he was not called out to perform. When I asked him why, he told me that they selected some children and for others they will have a story telling session in the class.

I'm not sure I'm okay with this. I will speak with the teacher this Saturday when I have to go for the parent-teacher meeting. As this is a bit demoralising for the child. They should tell the rules of random participant upfront so that child's expectations are set beforehand.

 

A picture post

This is how I make Bhaiyyu mad! Whenever he sits down to study, I HAVE to sit on his study table :)

Nishka kitnee badi? - Itnee badi!

Sleeping with a pout..cutie pie!

Peek-A-Boo!

All dressed to go for an outing.

I love my Peek-A-Boo Book!

I love watching Dadu play Freecell.

Hamari Chhammak Challo!

Keeping us on our toes

It really feels time is flying when I realise how soon she will turn 1. This tiny little munchkin who was not even a foot long when born is growing nice and good *touch wood* and becoming so bratty and difficult to hold her at one place. But the moment she flashes that beautiful smile of hers, we all forget about her badmashi's and how much she keeps us on our toes.

She has learnt how to climb off the bed now and that makes us keeps our antennas up all the time. She can walk but prefers to walk on the bed rather than the floor. My calculations say that she understands bums get hurt less when falling on the bed compared to falling on the floor and thus inclination to walk on floor has reduced.

We used to play a game with Anirudh when he was about 9-10 months and ask him "Anirudh kitna bada?" and he would raise his hands over his head. I started playing this game with Nishka also and since about a month she also has understood it and when we say "Nishka Kintee badi?" she gets a big smile on her face and then raises her hands above her head and we say "Itnee badee".

There are three fishes hanging from the crib mobile on her bed. I would take out one fish and give it to her saying "Fishy!" whenever it was diaper changing time to distract her. Its becoming next to impossible keeping her from wriggling out whenever we need to change her diapers or clothes. She now recognises the word "Fishy" and now when I ask her "Fishy kahan ha?" she will immediately turn her head towards the crib and give out a big smile the moment she spots them. Once I asked her the question when we were in another room. She looked around the room and when couldn't find the Fishy, gave me such a bewildered look that I had a hearty laugh.

After I told Anirudh that Aryan now sleeps in his own room in his bunk bed, he got really inspired I guess and has now moved to the other room and sleeps there. So its been 8 days and its going all well. So far only twice he has come to our room in the middle of the night as he had a nightmare. Also, another drastic change that has happened is that he doesn't even want any cuddling before going to bed like he used to. He eats his dinner and if there is time, we all sit and chat and the moment he realises its his bed time (around 8:30 PM) he says "Good Night!" to us and retires in his bedroom. He feels very happy about sleeping on his own in his room and wants us to commend this big achievement.

One new thing that I've started noticing is that he has become over sensitive. You try explaining him something and he gets irritated and offended. Most of the times he behaves in a "I-know-it-all!" manner. It gets to me sometimes and there are times when i just hold myself back and let him be.

On Sunday, while playing with Nishka he growled so loudly that Nishka got scared and started crying. So I scolded him for that and pretended to give him spanking. He didn't like that at all and for the first time he was angry at Nishka and me because of Nishka. He was so angry that he said I will not play with her or do anything with her any more. He told me that he gets scolded because of Nishka all the time and he hates that! And he said a lot of other stuff also which was totally unreasonable. But I let him be unreasonable for once. Later when he had cooled down and I teased him about what all he had said, he asked me to forget all that and that he was just angry. So things have resumed to normalcy now :)

Nishka also got her first big injury on Sunday. She was standing holding on to a side table and god knows how she slipped and hit her head on it. Since I was right there I picked her up immediately and started rubbing her forehead assuming she must have hurt herself there. If you have noticed how babies cry..with no sound coming, no breathing..just a teary soundless wailing expression on their face for couple of seconds ..that's how it was for initial 5-7 seconds. Which is longer than the usual 2-3 seconds that happens making me realise that she had hurt herself bad and then I notice the red mark near her right eyebrow and realised that she had nicked herself there. I got scared initially too and immediately gave her Arnica and applied Ferrum Phos at the wound. We could see few drops of blood had come out making me even more worried. But in about 5 minutes she dozed off after crying her heart out. She was anyways sleepy and I had been trying to put her to bed for long. She was her usual playful self when she woke up. And nb next day morning, when the medicine rubbed off from the wound, I saw that the nick was not as bad as I had initially thought it was. So that gave me and hubby  a big relief.

But that doesn't stop her from continuing her badmashis. She always seems to be on the prowl for finding new ways to get hurt. And keeping Mumma-Papa on their toes.

 

Prospective Olympic winner at our home

At dinner table yesterday we all were discussing India's performance in the Olympics and the medals won by our athletes. All this while Anirudh was quietly eating and I assumed that he was not listening. But then looks like he was and that too quiet intently.

He chipped in - "Agar naughtiness ka koi event hota to Nishka usme teeno medals jeet kar aati!" :D

And she walked!

Ohh yes she did! It was around 9:15 PM on the night of Aug 9. I was facebooking while ANirudh was playing with Nishka. And then Anirudh called out to me saying that Nishka is walking. I didn't pay much attention and without looking up said "hmm.." and then he told me in a stronger tone "Usne abhi abhi apne aap ek step liya!" That made me look up. Anriudh kept calling Nishka to come to him and then I saw it. One faltering step and another and another and yet another step! And then she reached Anirudh and he scooped her up in his arms giving her a hug. I was looking at all this with my gaping mouth growing wider and wider, totally astonished, super happy and overwhelmed.

I knew she would walk soon but I was taken by surprise that night. Its been 4 days since and she takes those 3-4 steps gingerly and then sits down. She doesn't feel confident about it yet is what I can see. I tried capturing these precious moments in my camera but the moment she sees the camera in my hand, she immediately sits down and crawls at super fast speed to grab the camera.

I guess it will take about another week or two and then she would be walking with more confidence. As long as we walk with holding her one hand, she is perfectly fine and she really enjoys walking like that. But the moment we leave her hand, you cna see the confusion on her face :)

She is her usual chulbula badmashu bachha. You can't leave her alone for a single minute. She loves to crawl on our terrace and more than that she loves to pluck the leaves/flowers from the pots on the terrace. And the latest attraction is to to dig her hands in the mud in the pots.

A new game that she has started playing is she will roll over Anirudh when he is lying down. And if we sit her up on Anirudh or for that matter on anyone else's tummy too she just loves to jump on him.

She still wants to eat everything we are eating. So I put a handful of cheerios in my plate and give it to her which gives her the satisfaction that she is being given what we are eating.

She is my personal dentist. She pries my mouth open and puts her fingers inside checking my teeth inside out. if I close my mouth, she will pull apart my lips and then I've to open my mouth for her to keep fingering my teeth.

We modified her play gym into a rocker couple of weeks ago and she just loves to jump on it and make it rock. And in these 2-3 weeks she has even figured out how to climb out of it. But I fear that she will fall flat on her face if no one is around to help her out.

Some pictures to feast on :)

Enjoying the rocker

 Oh no!! Mumma caught me trying to climb stairs!

And I reached the top!

Story telling

Anirudh participated in story telling competition in his school and came back super happy after coming in the 2nd position.

He had told me a week before about the competition and the story he plans to narrate. He then asked me to help him out in making the props of the characters in the story. After deciding that we shall get to it sometime later in the day, we both totally forgot about it until the evening before the competition.

So after finishing the dinner and putting Nishka to bed we got down to it. Thankfully Nishka was so co-operative that she went to sleep without a fuss that day.

So out came the white sheets, after some searching though. Out came the crayons, the pencil, the scissors. I drew out the outlines of the chracaters using pencil - A king and his three princes.

I then emphasized the outlines using a black sketch pen. As I kept completing one character I would pass it on to Anirudh for coloring them up.

We also needed to draw a dragon but I wasn't confident to draw it freehand. So I asked hubby to trace it on an A4 sheet using his laptop which we then pasted on the thicker sheet and then carried on to repeat the steps of outlining and coloring.

After all the coloring was done, we got down to cutting them to their shapes and then pasted ice cream sticks for holding the props during the story narration. I was surprised that we finished the whole of the activities in just about 40-45 minutes. That's a feat in itself!

I forgot to take pictures after we had done making the props and when Betu returned he had lost the props for one prince and the dragon. So here is the pic of what he brought back -

Since these were all drawn freehand, the shapes of face/eyes etc. may please be ignored.
I also want to capture here the story which he narrated  -

एक राजा था| उसके तीन बेटे थे - तरुण, वरुण और अरुण | तीनो बेटे बहुत आलसी थे| वो कुछ काम नही करते थे| सारा दिन बस सोते रहते थे| राजा ने एक दिन तीनो बेटो को बुलाया और कहा "कल मेरा ज्न्म दिन है| मैं तुम तीनो को रू100 देता हूँ और तुम लोग जाकर मेरे लिए एक तोहफ़ा लायो| तुम्हारे पास 1 दिन का समय हॅ|

तीनो बेटे चल दिए राजा के लिए तोहफ़ा लाने | तरुण जगह जगह घूमा. यहाँ गया. वहाँ गया | बहुत घूमने के बाद उसको एक कलाकार मिला | उसने बहुत सुंदर चित्र बनाए हुए थे | तरुण ने सोचा की राजा को यह खूबसूरत चित्र बहुत पसंद आएँगे | उसने सारे चित्र खरीद लिए और वापस महल की ओर चल दिया |

वरुण भी खूब इधर उधर घूमा पर उसको कुच्छ समझ नही आया. घूमते घूमते वो जंगल पहुँच गया. उसने वहाँ एक गुफा देखी. उसने देखा गुफा में कुछ चमक रहा है. वो गुफा के अंदर गया तो उसने देखा एक बहुत बड़ा ड्रॅगन बैठा है जिसके सिर पर एक बहुत बड़ा चमकदार मोती है. वरुण ने ड्रॅगन से पूछा "क्या तुम मुझे अपना यह मोती दोगे? मैं यह अपने पापा तो तोहफ़े में देना चाहता हूँ." तो ड्रॅगन बोला "अगर तुम यह वादा करो की तुम मुझे रोज़ मछली ला कर दोगे तो मैं यह मोती तुम्हे दे दूँगा." वरुण ने वादा करा और उसे मछली ला कर दे दी और ड्रॅगन ने अपना मोती उसको दे दिया. वरुण खुशी खुशी महल की ओर चल दिया.

अरुण भी अपने भाईयों की तरह इधर उधर खूब भटका पर उसे कुछ भी पसंद नही आया जिसे वो अपने पापा को जन्मदिन पर दे सके. घूमते घूमते वो इतना थाक गया की एक पेड़ के नीचे जा कर सो गया. जब वो सो कर उठा तो उसने देखा पास में कुच्छ ग़रीब बच्चे बैठे थे. वोह बहुत भूखे थे. अरुण ने अपने पैसो से उनके लिए खाना और कपड़े खरीद दिए. बच्चे बहुत खुश हुए. और अरुण वापस महल की ओर जाने लगा.

यह सब राजा के सिपाहियों ने देखा लिया और महल पहुँच कर राजा को सब बता दिया |

अगले दिन जब तीनो बेटे राजा के सामने आए | तरुण ने अपने खरीदे हुए चित्र राजा को दिए और राजा ने बहुत खुश हो कर वोह महल में लगवा दिए | वरुण ने अपना बड़ा चमकदार मोती राजा को दिया और बताया की वो कैसे उसने एक बड़े ड्रॅगन से लिया है | राजा बोला की वो उस मोटी को अपने मुकुट में लगवाएगा | जब अरुण की बारी आई तो उसने उदास हो कर बोला की मैं आपके लिए कोई तोहफा नही ला सका | तो राजा ने उससे पूछा की उसने दिए हुए पैसों का क्या करा तो उसने बताया की उसने गारीडब बच्चों के लिए खाना और कपड़े खरीदने में वो पैसे खर्च कर दिए | राजा यह सुन कर बहुत खुश हुया और बोला "यह मेरे लिए सबसे अच्छा तोहफा है" और फिर राजन ने अरुण को इनाम दिया |"

ह्में इस कहानी से यह शिक्षा मिलती है की तोहफा हमेशा पैसों से नही खरीदा जाता. और हम किसी के लिए अच्छा करते हैं तो उसमे हमारा भी अच्छा होता है |

I've no idea if he had read this story somewhere or was it a mix of his imagination and a previously read story. But I really liked the way he showed enthusiasm and participated.

P.S. Don't know why but hindi text is not legible in Chrome but appears fine in IE.

The daycare to begin soon

We have to start the daycare for Nishka in the next 15 days. Its giving me jitters. She is 10 months young now and Anirudh was only 9 months when we started a daycare for him. But I'm still nervous.

I wonder about so many things. About her, about me.

How will she adjust? How much time will she take to adjust to the new environs? How it will change her schedules? How will it impact her emotionally? ..There are millions of questions/ thoughts going in my mind. Yes. So many questions even after having done it one time already. Despite the big difference this time that initially I will be sending Nishka's personal nanny (who takes care of her currently at home) to the daycare along with Nishka. So it wont be all strangers for Nishka. This will help Nishka gradually gel with other nannies at the daycare and then I will let go of her personal nanny. Also, Anirudh would be there with her in the same daycare after school.

Even then I'm getting cold feet thinking about this new phase in her life. Yeah..even then :(

Some things that I've to be prepared for

1. Big bawling sessions when she is dropped at the daycare. :( :(
2. Increased clingyness with me when she sees me around.
3. With the increased interactions with external environs, increase in the risk of various infections.
4. Increased stress at home as lot of things are being taken care of by the nanny when I'm at work currently. All that will fall back on me to handle now.

The logistics of drop and pick-up from the daycare is the most complicated. Since I go to work by my office transport, I will need to get the pick-up and drop points changed to the daycare. I will need to leave the house by 6:45 AM to the daycare, park my car there and leave for office in the cab,

Anurag will drop Nishka and Nanny to the daycare by 8:15AM. Anirudh will reach daycare in the afternoon by his school cab.

I will get dropped back at the daycare by 6 PM in the evening by my office transport. I will then pickup Nishka and Anirudh and drive back home using the car I had parked at the daycare early morning.

We will reach home around 6:45PM and then home tasks and attending to the kids will take all my time.

Gawd!! All this is making me so dizzy!! Will I be able to manage all this? And its not just about managing but managing good. Will I? I really wonder...

I'm desperately trying to look for a change in job where I've proximity/accessibility to the daycare but so far I've had no luck. I've been desperately looking for good work from home options as well but again no luck in this aspect. Keeping my fingers crossed for something good to turn up.

What do you say to that?

Yesterday  I was making Nishka poop making "shhh" sound and Anirudh starts singing "Dum maaro dum..." :D

So what are the kids upto?

Everyday is new with Nishka these days. Almost everyday there is something new that she does.

She has learnt to climb stairs now. Although we have only 3 steps inside the house that go to the terrace, she easily climbs them and then crawls outside on to the terrace.

She had been able to stand for 5-10 seconds since long but only on hard surface. But now she is able to balance even on soft mattresses. And its just not that. She stands and starts clapping her hands and looks around for appreciation from all who are sitting in the room. The best part is the big smile that is plastered on her face all the time. It just lights up your mood and makes you feel so happy inside.

Earlier she could not sit from standing position. She would bend a little and unsure of herself would stand straight again. She would try that a couple of times and then would cry as if calling for help. But now, she keeps bending her body and will sit with a big dhammu. Initially it would hurt her bums I guess and would have an almost crying face as the hosue has stone floors. And she would look at us for sympathy. But we would clap and smile and say "Very good Nishku!" and she would immediately start smiling. Now she is a pro at sitting down from standing position.

Due to rains we had some ants coming inside the house. And one day we saw her crawling away rapidly from one position to another. And that's when I saw that she was trying to grab ants and had managed to actually grab one in her hand. I had to quickly release the ant from her palms and moved her to an ant-less area. She does that with both big ants and small ants.

When I'm teaching Anirudh, she always wants to grab the books/notebooks/pencil that Anirudh is working on even if I giver her another one. The ones I give her interest her the least. And few days back she climbed over the chowki (bed table) that Anirudh uses to study while Anirudh was using it and sat on it. Me and Anirudh were laughing away looking at her antic and looking at us laughing she was happily clapping away.

She has a certain affliction towards eraser. The moment she finds one she grabs it and always puts in her mouth. We have to be so careful and watchful because of this habit of hers.

When I try and pull her away from Anirudh when he is working on his homework, he will ask me not to do that and that he can handle her. And then he proceeds to talk to her in such a soft yet firm tone. He would say "Nikku, bhaiyya abhi home work kar le? Fir 5 min mein aapke saath khelega. Aapko jo chahiye de dega."

As for her speech progress, I would now use the word "talk" rather than "babble". The reason being the expressions on her face when she babbles makes it appear as if she is actually conversing. I especially feel that she has learnt the word "chali gayee" as so many times she says something and it sounds exactly like that. She understands "aa ja" and will immediately crawl/lurch towards me when I say that.

She hates being diapered and will cry and wail as if we are torturing her.

Anirudh has a lot of syllabus in this year. So far he is doing good. His Hindi writing has improved a lot but he still makes lot of mistakes when it comes to half letter and maatras (मात्रा). His maths has been pretty good ever since I can remember. But its getting tough now but with little explanation/logic he grasps quickly.

His spellings have also improved drastically and I don't get really worried whenever he has dictation tests.

What I'm worrying about most is his behaviour/attitude. He doesn't tell me the things as they are. He twists them as per his convenience. He lost his maths practice sheet at school so he took one of his classmates without the classmate knowing about it. He then erased the classmates name and wrote his own. I caught it immediately as the handwriting wasn't his. He confessed to what he had done and the worst was we found his original sheet right in his bag itself.

I've tried to talk to him to make him understand the implications and why he needs to convey the things truthfully without being scared of being pulled up for his wrong doings. He seems to have understood but only time will tell how much he implements what I've told him. He is a great guy as such and I guess I should give him the leeway of behaving like a child his age when he does such things.

One has to listen to him converse to other elders. The way he reasons with them, the way he explains his view on various topics, its simply amazing. There is so much maturity in his tone an thoughts.

There are days when I feel he is still a 8 year old child and there are days when I feel he is 8 but going on 18 when he gets so adamant and stubborn about certain things.

Life as a mommy of two is full of lots of ups and downs and so far I'm sailing fine. And I hope for smooth sailing in the future too.

Mundan

We got Nishka's mundan done on July 14, 2012 at Sheetla Mata Mandir, Gurgaon. This is the same place where we had gotten Anirudh's done as well.

Luckily there was no one but us when we reached. So we managed to get it done peacefully.

Nishka took it really well initially and played with her toys. She did cry in between but would get distracted with the toys and her favourite games on my phone. She would also calm down whenever I would sing her favourite songs or rhymes such as Lakdi ki kathi, Ichak dana bichak dana, Wheels on the bus, Chhun chhun karti aayee chidiya etc. But in the end she was least interested in the songs or the toys. So the last 5 min were a bit tough emotionally.

She would also stop crying when Anirudh would start talking to her. But Anirudh himself was getting uneasy and upset seeing her head being shaved and he also couldn't stand her crying. So when I called out to him towards the end to talk to Nishka to distract her, he did come but covered his eyes with his hands saying he cant see it. I could see he was trying to stop his tears as his voice was breaking when he was talking to her. But thankfully all was over quickly and we didn't get a single cut or abrasion.

She clung to me tightly for few seconds post the mundan but was calm and back to her playful self within a minute.

I hugged Anirudh also later and told him that you are the sweetest and the best brother Nishka could have ever asked for.

Here is a before and after pic of her:

You are one brave girl Nishka. Be like that...always!

Best place to play is...

...under the bed

I love basketball

We have a basketball basket on our terrace which we got affixed when Anirudh started playing it last year and really started to enjoy it. And when he plays regularly it shows in his game.

I usually sit with Nishka on the terrace when he is playing and she loves to see Anirudh dribble the ball and also when he throws it in the basket. She squeals with delight. So once Anirudh is done playing he will sit with Nishka and play "roll the ball" with her.

Here are a few pics of her playing with a ball of her size :)



Trying to roll the ball towards Anirudh

And yay! We succeed!

Crocheted love

A blog friend - Suma posted some of her crocheted stuff on FB. They  were so beautiful and everyone just loved them. I asked her if she could crochet a headband for Nishka and sent her some samples from the net. She immediately got down to make them and in less than a week made 3 headbands. All of them were beautiful. I selected one and she couriered it across. I was super excited when the packet arrived and quickly opened it. The packing itself was so beautiful. Inside it lay a beautiful surprise. She had sent across a pair of clips with crocheted red butterflies. I was so touched and obviously super duper happy.

When I reached home, I immediately tried these on Nishka and she looked so cute in them. Here are some pictures showing the headband and the clip. Its really difficult to click Nishka as the moment she sees my phone or the camera, she just has to grab it. So please excuse the picture quality.

The packet and the headband plus the clips.

The butterfly clip

Wearing the headband

Thanks a ton Suma. Everyone at home loved these. And please be prepared for more orders coming in your way :)

A picture post

Today I just wanted to do a picture post so here we go :)

"Hey mom! Let me help you with the laundry"

Morning masti with bhaiyyu! He is so much fun!!

"I love to cruise along the bed!"

"And I love to stand on my own..even though for 10-15 seconds only!"

(When she leaves the support and stands on her own, the expressions on her face are priceless. As if she understands its a feat. She will look towards the person around as if looking for compliments)

She just loves grabbing and pulling the buttons on Dadu's kurta. And Dadu lets her, without a murmur.

Its so sunny

Need to be properly attired for a day out in scorching sun :)

Ponytail on the head :-)

Badmashi ram

Nishka has been showing a lot of changes in her personaility and doing a lot of things since I last wrote.

She was able to sit up herself, but only sometimes, by early June 2012. But since mid of mid of June she can do it quite easily. And now we just cannot leave her on the bed on her own even for 10 seconds.

She still loves to stand and now can stand on the bed for a few seconds without holding onto anything. Till two days back we were guessing that she will start walking by the time she turns 10 months. But since yesterday she has suddenly started crawling. Frankly crawling would not be an apt name. She does it so fast as if she is simply running on her knees.

She has become such a halla-ram. She just can't sit still at all...always trying to lurch, grab, stand and making loud noises. A new game that we have started is we will show her our palm and say "Taali...taali" (Clap..clap) and she will start clapping her hand on our hand. The smile on her face at such times is super precious.

She still doesn't have any teeth yet but looks like we may see some soon as she has suddenly started chewing her fingers all the time and drools so much.

A big change in her is that she has started throwing tantrums lately.  She throws her legs in anger. For e.g. I lay her down when she wants me to be in my godi, the "pair patakna" starts. If she wants my mobile and I do not give it to her, again the pair patakna starts. So you get the drift? I really wonder what's in store for me when she grows up more. Anirudh was such a sweet and calm baby compared to Nishka who is such a chulbuli badmashi ram.

She cries in such a heartbroken manner and with BIG tears if I pass by her and dont pick her up. So much so that there are times when her Dadu comes running to see if she has got hurt to be crying in such a manner and then he laughs when he figures out the reason.

Anirudh plays with her by making funny sounds and faces. He dances and sings for her and she laughs so much. He plays 'roll the ball' using his big basket ball with her and she loves it.

After meeting Avani in Bangalore a fortnight ago, Anirudh keeps saying "Avani kitni pyaree hai..kitni shaant hai. Nishka kitni badmash hai!"

Anirudh has suddenly matured a lot in these few months. The way he talks, the way he demands justification to whatever we are saying...its amazing but also gets a bit annoying especially when we can't reason with him...hehehehe...

He wanted us to buy an iPad for him. So after some discussions on why we cannot buy it, we both agreed that he will save his pocket money (Rs 500 every month) for 20K and the rest we will contribute. And now he calculates and adds up the money at the beginning of every month and also whenever he gets any money from relatives.

We also started another rule where any unreasonable demand for anything has to be paid from his pocket money. For e.g. he wants 2-3 things. We buy him one and the rest has to be bought using his pocket money. So since the money will go from his savings, he doesn't get stubborn about asking for them. Some concept of value of money is getting imbibed this way even though its limited to 'his' money :D

He has figured out how to browse for his toys and games and keeps telling me how much a Wii game CD is costing or how much a toy is available for. And if there is a discount advertised.

Its interesting to talk to him on an adult-to-adult level at times. And then it makes me realise this is my little bachha who has grown up so much.

First air trip

Nishka went for her first air trip on June 9, 2012. We went to Bangalore to celebrate the housewarming puja hosted by her Chachi-Chachu.

On the way she was a perfect angel sleeping throughout and waking up only in the last 15 min of the flight. 

She met her cousin Avani after 8 months and it was very interesting to see them together. They both looked at each other for long, maybe a little amused to see someone of their own size. And sometimes they would try and grab each other. They even fought over the mobile phone as both wanted to play with the same one :) Overall it was really cute to see them playing together.

We dressed them both in identical dresses on the housewarming puja day. They both looked really adorable. While Avani has a very sweet, gentle and soft appearance, Nishka on the other hand is totally chulbuli and badmash. It was so difficult to click them because of Nishka. When I sat them both on the couch to click, Avani sat calmly while Nishka kept leaping forward or turning sideways. So I had to further recline her down lest she sits up and that I can click a pic of them together.

She was very clingy to me all the time in Bangalore. And wouldn't go to anyone. On the flight back she was in a super active mode and was trying to hold and pull everything and anything she could lay her hands on. The below pictures are a mini snapshot of what badmashi-ram she was.

Anirudh started running fever the night before our travel. We had to continuously do sponging to bring his fever down. Anurag had returned from his Myanmar trip just a few hours back and was really tired. But neither he nor I could sleep. We anyways had to get up at 4 AM to catch our morning flight. His first two days there were spent mostly in bed and its on the third day that he was finally fine.

So on the whole a short but good trip.

She is growing and so is Anirudh

Its been sometime since I blogged about the activities of Nishka. And lest I forget I decided to write today.

Nishka turned 8 months on May 30. She is a very active baby *touch wood*. She loves to snatch/grab any book that Anirudh is reading. There are times when it gets tough to help out Anirudh in his homework when Nishka is awake and nearby. She will lurch forward and grab whatever she can lay her hands on.

She can sit quite properly now although at the beginning of 7th month, whenever she would look up or turn around she would go *dhammu* and wail with big beady tears. And with her pouty style of crying she would look even more cute. She is still not showing any inclination to crawl and me and hubby and for that matter everyone else also thinks that she will proceed to walking straightway. She will hold onto anything that she can find and will stand up. She loves to stand holding the foot of our bed and can cruise couple of steps to the right and back.

She is still to sprout any teeth. Her Dadi-Dadu are a little apprehensive as her 4 days younger cousin Avani has already sprouted 2 lower teeth. Although we keep telling them every kid has their own time lines and they seem to accept but I feel that they are still not at peace inside about it.

I still get those sloppy wet kisses when I get back home. She will initially hug me tight the moment I hold her. And then she pulls herself back, as if to check its mumma only, and then will give a big grin and again hug me tight. This goes on for couple of times and then the kissing starts. She will just eat my jaw, my cheek or my chin. And this is exactly how Anirudh used to do too. This whole showing-love act lasts for good 5-7 min. And I just cannot lay her down on the bed even to go to the loo or drink a glass of water.

If she is in my lap and am drinking water or the plain salted nimbu paani, she will want to drink it too. And I do give it to her. Can you imagine she likes to drink the salted nimbu paani which is fairly khatta? I was surprised when after giving her a sip she wanted more. And in fact finished almost 1/5th of the nimbu paani the first time and continues to do so.

Lately I've noticed that if I want her to eat the salty stuff it has to be nicely warm else she spits it out. So feeding her khichdi is not as painful affair as it was earlier. We had introduced Cerelac for her but she took it only for a month and then has stopped eating it completely. We can't even feed her two spoons of that and there are days when not even one spoon goes in her mouth. So these days I've stopped giving her Cerelac but am thinking of trying again as its been about a fortnight since we tried feeding her that.

She really enjoys throwing toys from her high chair and then looking down at them. I wonder what goes on in her mind at that moment. She still loves to play the bouncing games where she will sit on my leg and keep jumping up and down making different sounds. We play peek-a-boo games where I cover her eyes with a small cloth napkin and she will take it away and give a big smile.

If she is lying in my lap she will push her feet and lean backwards. She can do that continuously for 10-15 min. And that's when I say "Haan nonu. Duniya ulti hai..to usko seedha dekhne ke liye tumhe bhi ulta hona padta hai!" (Yes the word is upside down..so to see it straight you also have to turn upside down).

She has started making a lot many more sounds. These sounds are "De..de..de.", "taay...taay..taay..", "aye-te...aye-te". She makes another sound which sounds almost like gargling sound. And we all just love it.

She loves to climb over Anirudh and seeing them play is just so heart warming. He will let her pull his hair, pinch his cheeks as long as she doesn't wet him with her drool. The moment he can feel any drool he will just run away saying "yuck" :D

We sometimes play "Catch me if you can" with me holding Nishka and trying to catch Anirudh while running softly. Nishka simply LOVES it. She will giggle and laugh so much when we play this game.

Anirudh keeps giving those full-of-love glances at Nishka and telling me "Yeh kitni cute hai na!" and will go and give her a tight kichhi (kiss) if she is awake and she will also try to hug him back by trying to wrap her arms around whatever body part she can hold on to :)

Betu also comes running to give me a hug and a kiss when I come back home but then its more of a 'task' that gets done :P reason I'm saying that is he will come running, give me a hug and a kiss and then run back to doing whatever he was doing.

He still likes me to snuggle with him when its his bed time and wants me to tell him a story. He will specifically ask me "Apni waali kahani sunayo...book waali nahi". I usually make my own stories right there and then after asking him 1-2 characters around whom the story should revolve. He loves hearing me weaving new stories every time. And these are the moments that make me realise he is still a 8 yr old and not a 18 yr old which he usually behaves as.

We introduced Anirudh to "Diary of a Wimpy Kid" by Jeff Kinney since approx 3-4 months and he loves reading them. So much so that he finishes a book in 3-4 days max. and then he starts demanding for another one. I'm trying to introduce him to Famous Five series by Enid Blyton which we loved as kids. But so far he hasn't liked it much. But I'm still trying to get him to read that. Let's see how much I succeed.

We have to travel to Bangalore this weekend. First air trip for Nishka and I'm hoping she is fine through the flight. She will also get to meet her cousin Avani. I am so curious to see her reaction to see someone her own size :D

At her 7.5 month appointment she weighted 7.5KG. Doc wants us to increase more nutrients in her diet by way of improved diet. We are trying to do that. Lets see how her 9th month appointment at the end of the month goes.

Got Nishka's ear pierced

I have been thinking of when to get her ear pierced for long. I had figured out that post tetanus shot its fine to get the ears pierced. However after a lot of deliberation we decided we will get them pierced as soon as possible. She turned 8 months on May 30 and on Saturday June 2, we went and got them pierced. We got them pierced at GK1 at the shop Silofer. He used a gold thread which had a gold bead head which is basically an earring too.

She cried for only 4-5mins and was ok later on. She is looking really cute with those earrings. Haven't clicked a picture yet so that would be another post.

The first tantrum...

I reached home about 15 min ago. The usual hugging with both the kids happened. Anirudh then took the mobile from me and started to walk off. And the sudden wailing from Nishka started leaving me a little surprised as to what had happened. And then I realised that it was a meltdown for my mobile phone. The moment I took it back from betu and showed it to her, the crying just stopped. Yes. She was crying with tears. And I was so surprised at the tantrum.

I had noticed that she loves playing with my phone when I play the apps I had downloaded for her. But the fascination for the phone was this strong, I realised only today.

Not even 7 months yet...and the first tantrum has already happened. These are the kids of 21st century.

Some tidbits about Nishka

Nishka loves it when I or her papa sing to her. When she was a just a few weeks young, she would hate massages and would start fussing and crying. The moment I would start singing the song "Ichak dana beechak dana" she would stop crying and lay quietly. Till date she loves that song and shows off her big smile the moment I start singing it.

And the song "Chun chun karti aayee chidiya" makes her giggle. She loves it the most. So much so that if she is cranky and whiny I just need to start singing this song and she is super happy.

I used to sing "Nanhi pari sone chalee..." and "Palkon par chalte chalte jab oonghne lagti hain.." at her sleep times. But now if she is sleepy and the moment I start singing these songs, she opens her eyes really wide and starts smiling. So I've to keep reminding myself not to sing these songs when she is sleepy. Else she is wide awake.

Talking about her sleep times, whenever Anurag is putting her to bed, he sings "Aaa..." lori to her. And she cutely sings along with him by making "aaaa...." sound herself too. The cutest part is if I'm putting her to bed and not singing this lori she will start singing it herself. :)

She has started babbling a lot these days. Other day she saw a lizard scuttling away on the ceiling and started calling out to the lizard. It was way too cute.

Its been 2 weeks since I started going to work full time and she has started realizing Mumma's absence. The moment I enter home, she gives the biggest smile, starts jumping in the arms of whoever is holding her and  leaps towards me. And in case I don't pick her up immediately she cries in such a heart broken manner..wailing away loudly. And I just cannot hand over her to anyone in case I've to go to the washroom.

Her habit of grabbing everything that she can lay her hand on continues. She gets so excited looking at food or cups in the hands of anyone around her. Other day, while I was talking to betu and passing him chapati, she grabbed my plate and smashed her hands in my khichdi. And quickly started to put her hand in her mouth lest Mumma stops her. And to top it, this was the same khichdi I had tried to feed her couple of minutes ago and she just didn't eat it.

In the past month I've noticed that she has a sweet tooth.. She prefers mashed banana, cerelac or aata seera (thin runny halwa) over khichdi or upma. Looks like she has inherited her sweet tooth from me :)

She weighed 6.8Kgs and measured 66cm in height in her last checkup. If I look at the percentiles she is between 25-50 percentile in both the categories. But then I'm not worried as she is a happy and active child.

These days one has to be very careful when holding her in the lap or in the arms. As sometimes she applies sudden force to lurch forward and if we are not holding her tight, there are very good chances she will slip out of the hands. Bahut naughty bachha hoti ja rahi hai. Par utni hi paaru bhi.

And its back again

The mood swings of Anirudh is what I'm talking about. Remember this post - http://anirudh-nishka.blogspot.in/2007/06/crying-stubborn-and-defiant-child.html and this - http://anirudh-nishka.blogspot.in/2009/11/who-wants-to-be-boy.html and ? Almost everything with some addition and some subtraction is back. Everything I tell him to do or not do is responded with a big smirk. Or with an irritated "Achha theek hai na...!!!" He blatantly walks away, completely ignoring what me or hubby are telling him. It has been going on for a little more than a week. So after I had had enough yesterday I told him if whatever Mumma says or does irritates him so much I will not say anything to him. And even at that he got so angry and emotional saying "You don't want to be my mumma....theek hai...jayo..mat bano meri mumma!" And I'm left totally flabbergasted and confused at his reaction.

Kuch karo to problem...kuch nahi karo to bhi problem. I let it go at that moment. And rather for the entire day. I broached it again at night time when he was in bed and I slipped next to him and cuddled with him. And then I asked why is he so irritated and angry all the time? Is something bothering him? Something at school? Or otherwise? But he said he doesn't know himself. I  asked him to think over again and again he said he really doesn't know. I just hugged him tight and said he should talk to mumma if anything is bothering him or to share anything that he would like to. And at that he just snuggled in further closer to me and dozed off within seconds. And today morning the first thing he told me was "Aapse cuddle karke sone mein bahut mazaa aaya." And I just smiled.

I know he is adjusting a lot with me being busy with Nishka when I'm home. I also know he needs me to spend time with him but he doesn't say so because he himself wants me to take care of Nishka..his adorable, cutie sister. He just loves her to bits. I did try to spend more time with him over the weekend. We did go for our morning walk on Saturday but in Sunday he just didn't budge. I tried to reason with him and make him understand about him watching too much TV or playing games on Wii or on the laptop. He simply tells me "I know ..." and continues with it.

But seeing him in a happy mood today morning, I'm hoping for better days ahead.

Coming to Nishka and him, yesterday when he was reading his book and Nishka was lying close to him, she started to grab the book from his hands. And when I was trying to stop her, Betu tells me "Karne do na usko. Main usko mana kar doonga agar zyaada pareshaan karegi." I just smiled and started to click a few pictures. Here is one

And I left them together to make breakfast feeling happy and so contented.

I'm loving it!

Its been more than a month since I started going to work again. Earlier I would come back 2 hours earlier and since April I leave by 7am and reach home by 6pm. Nishka has adjusted well to this new routine. Although she clings to me when I reach back home in the evenings. Going to the loo becomes next to impossible if she sees me. And since a week she has started this new habit of sucking my cheek as if kissing me when I come back home. The first day it happened I hadn't even washed my face. Second day I washed my face also and again she did that. And now it has become a routine. I just love the way she emotes her love towards me.

With the evening hours being divided between Anirudh and Nishka and not in equal ratio as Nishka is taking away the bigger chunk of it, I feel bad about the little time I'm getting to spend with Betu. I'm trying to think of ways for more bonding time with him over the weekend at least. One thought is to go for morning walks together. Another thought is  to bake something together. He really loves to be there and help me out when I'm preparing something for baking. We haven't painted together in a long time too. As I'm writing this so many thoughts are coming to my mind. So this weekend definitely is going to be good :)

Anirudh is as usual very loving towards Nishka. Other day she was trying to lean backwards when lying in my lap to the point that she would have fallen off if I wouldnt have held her tightly. So I said "Nishku...pitti khani hai?" And Betu immediately said "Usko pitti nahi karna. Uske naam ki pitti bhi mujhe de dena." I felt so overwhelmed looking at his love for her and also thought that this girl is going to be spoilt rotten by such a loving brother.

Nishka has started moving a lot lately..turning sides, flipping over, showing her excitement by moving her legs and hands in excitement. And since a week so many times I have found her at the edge of the bed at night. The first day it happened I felt something touching me near my calf. I woke up startled. And I saw her there, fully awake and touching my legs. I was so surprised as to how she reached there and pulled her up. And put an extra pillow towards the foot of the bed.

And since that day so many times I have found her completely rotated, or again found her near my legs and I've to pull her up number of times during night. And today morning when I woke up at 5:30am I didn't find her next to me and when I looked towards the foot of the bed she wasn't there also. This startled me and as I was about to get up I saw her sitting in hubby's lap. And I asked a little bewildered "What happened?" And hubby replied "Nothing..she was up and playing so I took her in my lap". Then about 15-20 min later when Betu was up too, I saw them lying next to each other with Nishka cuddling with him and babbling away. And these are the moments when I feel such bliss and thank God for giving me such lovely children.

Another new thing that Nishka does lately is trying to grab whatever I'm eating. She wants to eat it too. Funniest part is when the look on her face when she sees me picking something up and instead of putting in her mouth, eating it myself. She will follow my hand with her eyes and after I would have eaten it she would look up at me and start smacking her lips. As if conveying that she expected  I would give her something to eat too. If I'm having water, juice or tea...she wants to hold the glass or mug. If she is in my lap when I'm having my dinner, she tries to grab the plate.

Its so much fun to see her growing up. I'm simply loving the motherhood...once again.

And we started to have khichdi

I started daliya-daal khichdi for Nishka from April 2nd. That's her evening meal addition. She enjoys eating it so far. *Touch wood*
She gets really excited when she sees the bowl in my hand and its so difficult not to spill while feeding her.

You are 6 months young!

As I write the post title, I actually calculated again using my fingers if its really been 6 months. It seems too soon. Really really soon. You were just born my darling. Where did the time fly?

You have been a really easy baby so far. *Touch wood*. And a happy one at that too. It just brightens up my morning to see you giving me your bug happy smiles the moment you wake up. And then I forgive you for not letting me sleep well through the night :D Although mostly you sleep for good 5 hours at a stretch but there are days when you toss and turn and are fussy every 1.5-2 hours.

You had started rolling both ways since a month now. But there was a big pause until a few days ago. If we would lay you down on your tummy, you would instantly roll over to your back. Now you have again started to roll on your tummy. And now you even try to scoot a bit forward but start whining as you are not able to.

I made rice kheer for you in the evening and you relished it sitting in Dadu's lap with Dadu feeding you. You liked it but we gave only two spoonfuls as we felt the milk might be too heavy for you to digest especially after the severe dysentery that you had suffered from a week back. That was one horrifying episode for me which I would rather forget.

You had been quite fussy at milk times and were generally cranky. You were running slight fever since March 22 night. Next day on March 23 we took you to the doc and he said most likely it seems its viral but he still wanted us to keep a watch and take a urine sample. In the afternoon when you pooped and I opened your diaper to change, I saw red. Not little bit but huge amounts. My head started to spin. I was not sure what I was seeing is true. I switched on the lights and again saw. I still didn't want to believe what was in front of my eyes. I called your Dadu. And I asked him if he also thinks its blood. I so wanted someone to tell me that no it isn't blood. Your whole diaper was red.

I was crying while cleaning you up. I immediately called the doc and he gave me a medicine name and asked us to start it immediately and to bring you over in the evening. Your Dadu immediately went down and brought the medicine. You were so cranky and fussy and I kept holding you in my arms. It took one day before blood stopped coming in your poop. And till today your motion isn't back to what it used to be. But seeing you happy and back to your normal mood I'm not worrying much.

Some things that I would like to note down are:

 - When we make you sit, you are able to sit for about 20-30 seconds before you start to topple over. With back support you can sit for longer.

 - You have a few of your favourite toys. One pink teddy bear is actually from the time when your Bhaiyyu was as young as you are now. And the other two have been gifted to you by Preeti Mausi.

 - You have been teething since about 2 weeks now and we bought a teether for your yesterday which you really enjoy chewing on to.

 - You love it when we sit you in a stroller and take you around in the house itself.

 - You have been playing a game since you were about 4 months. I would make you sit on my thigh with your leg touching the bed. And you would start swaying yourself by pressing your legs on the bed. You just love this game till date. And now you sometimes keep bouncing sitting on my leg. Its so cute to see you making games for yourself.

Grow up well my jaan.