One small step for mankind, one giant leap for infant.
Did I tell you folks? Infant took her first step, all by herself, without holding on to anything last Wednesday (May 30, 2007). She is discovering that she can scale new heights and I am realizing that I can’t keep calling her infant as is pitter pattering to toddler-dom with those little feet.

I am daddy’s girl.
She seems to prefer her dad to me. You must look at her when hubby is in the house. She just trails behind him wherever he goes. I am noticing this preference only in the past two months. Before that both infant and toddler used to compete for my attention. But of late, looks like infant has given up and switched loyalties to hubby. 🙁 This is so not fair.

Keyword activated….
She has been waving goodbye and has been clapping for quite some time now. But it is all keyword activated. I would be on the phone talking to some one and I would say ‘bye’ and hang up. Infant would be around me sitting and playing by herself, her radar will pick up the word ‘bye’ and automatically she would start waving her hands. She did the same for clapping. Whenever she heard some one clapping or the word clap uttered anywhere in her vicinity she would start clapping. Now the recent action is for kissing. When she sees/hears smooching, she takes her right palm to her mouth, sucks a big gulp of air and pulls her hand away from her mouth and smiles a big smile.

Five teeth and counting
I can see four in the upper jaw and one in the lower jaw, all this is in 2-3 weeks. I think there is more coming because she is itching to chew on something all the time.
And the drool….oh. May be I will rename her bubbles or bubbli from now on!

Books
She loves them, can’t get enough of them. Don’t jump to conclusions that she is a huge reader, she like the way books taste. In tamil, they have a term, “Karachu kudikaradhu” (literal translation – to dissolve and drink, meaning with refernce to context – to master something), that’s what this one is doing! If at all she reads books, she insists that the book is upside down. If we turn it the right way for her, she gets mad. She waves her hands wildly, utters a loud ‘mmmmmmmmm’ an turns it back upside down.

Good thinking amma.

All my stories start with, “Three weeks back”, so does this one. Three weeks back we went to a friend’s house for dinner. They have a baby girl, about a year older than toddler. Toddler was pretty kicked on seeing new toys and wanted to play with everything. Predictably there was the issue of establishing territory. In the middle of one heated fight where hands and legs were about to be used to make a point, I pulled toddler away and lectured her on the lines of how nice it will be if they take turns. She listened to me intently, shook her head up and down and with a straight face she tells me, “Good thinking amma”. What?!!!! Girl, enough of the appreciation, step on the implementaion part!

Amma, you go make pasta.
Toddler is in the “I want to do everything by myself” phase. It takes her 20 minutes to wear her shoes and at the end of 20 minutes, she discovers that the shoes are in the wrong legs, so another 20 min to wear them the right way. Add another 20 min to stop and smell the roses while walking to the car. And 20 more minutes to sit in her car seat and wear her seat belts. I usually stand next to her to make sure that she wears her seat belt properly. She hates it. (May be she does not like begin watched when she is intently doing something. Just like her mother!). She keeps telling me, “Amma you go that way. You go sit in your car seat and do round and round”(Meaning: Move away from me, you go sit in your seat and start driving). Anyways…she was trying to do her puzzle and was struck at some place and was getting impatient. I tried helping her and she tells me, “No amma, no. You go to the kitchen and make pasta.”. Talk about gender typing!!!

Appa you are making a big mistake.
We have a vague division of labor at home. In the mornings, I feed the kids and hubby gives them a bath. Last week he was trying to drag toddler, who had her eyes glued to the TV, to give her a bath. She protested quit a bit. When she found that hubby was not yielding, this 30 month old, mischievous, naked child standing in the bath tub, tells him in a very menacing tone, “Appa, no appa, you are making a big mistake”. The next thing we know, she will be making us an offer that we cannot refuse!

The master story teller
Her vocabulary is increasing by the second. An average 2.5 year old is supposed to know 1000 words on the average. But this one knows at least 10,000 words, I suspect. Okay enough blowing my trumpet, the point I am trying to make is, her expanded vocabulary combined with her photographic memory, she can now repeat a whole story. Yesterday she said the story of the Lion and the mouse(the lion getting caught in the hunter’s net and the mice chews through the net to free him) verbatim.

There is a flip side to this. Sometimes she blurts out things. Even though thats what children do, it is pretty embarrassing to us as parents. The other day we were standing in a store. A cyclist walked in. He was wearing biking tights, a hip pack, a back pack, thick sunscreen and had bronze red colored hair. Our little chatter box looked at him and screamed at the top of her voice, “Amma, look clown”. I just went all red, as red as our man’s hair!

Lispick on toes
She saw that I have nail polish painted on my toes and told me,
“Amma, pretty toes. I want lispick(lipstick) on my toes.”

And many more to come…..

I was going through my toddler-log from my pre-blogging times and this particular log caught my attention. I had made this log last year, a month before toddler turned two.

ACTION:

I was teaching toddler how to be nice, sweet and polite. “Baby, always say please when you want something. Say thanks when you get something from someone or when some one helps you. You have to say sorry if you hurt someone. It is nice to say welcome if someone says thanks to you”.

REACTION:

Toddler gets up every morning and says ‘Thenths(Thanks) pillow, thenths bantheth(blanket)’. I thought that she might be over doing it a little bit, but hey, being too polite is not going to hurt. But….if I hand her something that she had asked for she says, ‘Thenths spoon’ or ‘Thenths book’ instead of ‘Thanks Amma’. I tried correcting her, ‘Say thanks amma’, she looked at me and said ‘Veltham(Welcome)’ and walked away!

Same way if she knocks something on me she says sorry to the inanimate object, but not ‘Sorry amma’. If I correct her, ‘Say sorry amma’, she thinks I am telling sorry to her for some reason and says, ‘Uh-oh, thats othay(okay)’ and walks away!

So far ‘please’ is not being abused. She does say please when she wants something!

I read this post by Tharini and was surprised that it sounded very similar to what is happening on home turf. I started on a comment, but as the comment was getting as big as a post, I decided to do a copycat and a little more post.

Infant used to wake up at 3.00AM, which was the time she picked out to poop. The room was so full of stink and I used to get up and change her fearing that I might suffocate to death by inhaling the vapour! This trend continued till she was 6 months. Now a days she has decide to poop at 5.30AM and when ever I am in a hurry to go out. The more pressed I am for time, the messier and bigger the poop. Couple of times I had to postpone my appointment to give her a bath.

Toddler and infant sleep together, infant in her crib and toddler on the bed. I lay them down and kiss them good night. They discuss world issues and parent torture techniques for some time and fall asleep. They both want the hall way light on when they sleep. Infant sings herself to sleep only in the afternoon.

Infant crawls to hubby, clutches his legs and as soon as he lifts her, she opens her mouth and bites his cheeks with her toothless mouth. Her way of kissing him. Hubby must start watching out for those four sharp teeth coming out. The two of the four are on her upper canine, she looks like countess dracula.

I stared infant on solids at four months. With toddler I waited till she was 5 months and struck to Gerber. Same way, once in a while I didn’t mind infant tasting regular milk(before the 12 month deadline) and candy. With toddler I was very very strict with what I put in to her tummy!

Infant was very fussy about sitting in car seat. My parents used to sit next to her and entertain her. My biggest fear was driving around town with a screaming child, but magically she decided to behave once my parents left. She clutches her feet and talk to her toes and keeps herself busy the whole time she is in the car seat. A week back, for some reason I put her in toddler’s front facing carseat instead of her rear facing carseat. She was quite thrilled by the change. Ever since she has been looking at toddler’s front facing carseat with lust.

Whenever I switch on upbeat music, infant bites her lower lips and starts shaking her head to the rhythm. Stage two is moving the whole upper body from side to side like a pendulum. It looks just like one of those Chettiar bommais you see in golu.

I make the kids say good morning Ganesha and few other Goddess’s names as soon as they wake up in the morning. Since toddler is named after a Goddess, she thinks there is a God/Goddess after every single person on earth. She asks me to show her, for example Goddess Rita or Goddess Molly. I am running out o Gods and Goddesses.

Toddler makes up lots of songs to the tune of her favorite nursery rhymes. Even simple statements like can we go sit in the car seat gets made up in to a song, “Can we sit in car seat? Can we sit in car seat? My dear amma, my dear amma. Can we go home now, can we go home now, my dear amma, my dear amma” (Tune: Are you thumbkin song/Are you sleeping song?) Sometimes I am speechless by her ability to fill a tune with words. Both self and her day care provider make up silly songs all the time. I really don’t know if she makes it all by herself or if she picked it up from me/ day care.

Toddler calls herself “Toddler shortcake” (after Strawberry shortcake) and infant “infant dumpling”(after Apple Dumpling, Strawberry shortcake’s sister). I am amma baby and hubby is appa dumpling.

When I read toddler a book, if she sees two of the same kind, say two elephants, she immediately says, “Amma this is toddler elephant, this is infant elephant”.

Toddler knows the days of the week in Tamil and English. Along came her birthday, since then it was Sun, Mon, Tues, Wed, Thurs, Fri, Sat and birthday. Then Valentine’s Day was added to it. Last Friday she heard about Mother’s Day and it has been promptly added to the list. So now there are 10 days in a week!

Her day care provider had taught her to wish me happy Mother’s Day. When I went to pick her up, her day care provider prompted her to wish me. Toddler gave a silly smile and ran away. After she came home she hugged her little sister and wished her Happy Mother’s Day. She went on and on for almost an hour!

I read this and thought “Aww, this is so cute”.

Well, couple of days back toddler was playing with infant. Toddler sneezed and as I turn my head she pointed to her little sister’s head and said, “Amma I am blessing infant”. I was shocked. Do they have some kind of secret club that we parents don’t know about?! May be they also have a secret handshake, password, meet periodically in the blog-o-sphere or in a chat room to share their funny stories of how they drove their parents up the wall and plan on their next ‘move’. This explains why all babies fuss to eat, why they all decide to act up just that moment we parents think, “Okay finally I have gotten a grip of how things work”, why they always sleep when we want them to be awake and why they are awake when we desperately wish that they go to sleep.

PS: On a totally unrelated note, I am just adding it because of the cuteness factor. Infant likes to ring the doorbell when Iam entering the house. I have her perched on my hip and I am fumbling with the keys and she would lean over and press the doorbell with her wee little index finger and let out a squeal of laughter hearing the bell ring. Toddler looked at it and said, “Amma, infant is belling”

One of the things motherhood has given me is poor memory. There seems to be no definitive scientific data that says that pregnancy causes memory loss. People just say that a pregnant mother is tired and her mind is full of other things and it is okay to forget a few things.

For the past three years I have been waiting for my memory to return to its usual glory, but looks like my forgetfulness has nothing to do with pregnancy or kids!

I forget people’s names. I forget what I am saying in the middle of the sentence. Sometimes I dial a phone number and forget whose number I dialed and then I hold the phone trying to guess the person’s name from the voice I hear. Considering how bad I am at recognizing voices over the phone, that is always a sham. I have forgotten diapers, forgotten wipes, few times I have forgotten to carry toddler’s milk (when she was drinking milk and I had the strength and time force her to drink milk), few weeks back I forgot to take infant’s oatmeal cereal and had to do some quick fix to save the situation. I make a trip to grocery store and forget what I am supposed to buy. So I make a list of things I need and forget to take the list. In our recent trip India I forgot so many things so many times that I had “memory police” all around me. Anywhere I am supposed to leave, my MIL will update me what exactly needs to be done and what I am supposed to carry. Either MIL or SILs will call me every now and them to make sure that I haven’t forgotten what ever I was supposed to remember.

Yesterday was the tops. We called friends home for tea. They came, we talked for couple of hours and they left. Few minutes after they left I remember that I forgot give them tea 🙁

We have a battery operated doggie toy. When switched on, it barks and does flips. It is a gift from my friend’s MIL to my infant. Both infant and toddler like playing with it. Toddler likes the toy, but is scared of real dogs. Our neighbor across the street has a Daschund named Padget. Padget hangs out a lot in their front porch. So toddler peeps out of the house, checks if Padget is within eye sight before she ventures out. Though Padget is leashed all times, she is scared. If she sees Padget, she thinks Padget is also looking at her and is out to get her, that her logic.

For the past two days toddler was abusing the toy dog, generally pushing the dog, kicking it like a foot ball, pulling it by the ear and throwing the toy half way across the room..etc.
When ever she abuses her toys I tell her that she has to treat her toys well. Otherwise the toy will break and when she really needs it she can’t play with it. I keep repeating it but she acts as if she has never heard me.

Today, when she threw the dog, I started my usual advice, but stopped and said, “Do you know who this dog is? Its Padget’s friend. If you don’t treat her well, she will tell Padget and Padget will come to our house and ask you why you did this? So be nice to the toy dog”. She immediately stopped what she was doing, picked up the toy, kissed it and said, “Sorry tog*, hele** Amma, put it in my toy box”. It was pretty funny. 👿

Who all thinks me is mean?!!? Come on, I have to some how get back for this folks.

*tog – Dog
** hele – here

It was a tiring day yesterday. Infant is down with chicken pox. Though toddler was cleared by the doctor, I decided to have her at home and not send her to day care for a week. So for the past 4 days it has been crazy, I haven’t even peeped out of the window to see how the world looks. Yesterday was extra stressful. Scrubbing the house, 7 loads of laundry, cooking, infant is throwing up water/snack/food/anything/everything, fought with hubby(what’s new?!!), was carrying around infant like a mama kangaroo, dealing with toddler’s jealousy(“I want Amma carry. Amma carry baby, amma carry me”). I was looking forward to sitting down and putting my feet up for a minute, just a minute. At last infant had gone to sleep and I had convinced toddler to go out with her father. After lots of fuss toddler agreed, (she was still skeptical that I am sending her out of the house so that I was going to do some special bonding with the infant), so this was my window, my few minutes of peace and quite…yippe yippee yeah yeah. Toddler wore her shoes, before I realized ran in to the room where infant was sleeping and yelled, “Bye, I will see ya later. Have fun”, woke up the baby and stormed out of the house. Baby started screaming, extra special screaming because she was woken up abruptly. Now God, should I laugh at your sense of humor or start crying. What the heck, I did both. Did I tell you?, it was a tiring day yesterday. Infant is down with chicken pox. Though toddler was cleared by the doctor……….. 🙁