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