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.