Ever since the last mishap Mieja has been doing really good. She has picked up a lot of new words. We understand only a hand full of them, but she is expanding her vocabulary.

After a while we decoded a few difficult ones

Hichi – High chair.
When we didn’t get it, she just pointed to the high chair.

Uppun – Up
Want to go up, like climb on a chair or couch. One fine day she got tired of saying UPPUN and the idiot mother trying to OPEN everything in her vicinity, she simply climbed up the dining table chair, turned facing the mother and said UPPUN. Well, another milestone here – climbed on something all by herself.

Thakadil – Crocodile
She watches national geographic videos with her sister. Last Saturday, in the mall, she pointed to the La Coste showroom and kept repeating THAKADHIL again and again and again. Simply too cute.

Aaachich – Ostrich, Cheecha – Cheeta, Sheepuaa – ZebraCourtesy – National Geographic.

She points to elephant, hippo, rhino, buffalo…all heavy set animals and goes ‘Maammi maammi maammi maammi…..’ I don’t know if this is an insult hurled at me!

Fly – Butterfly.
There was this phase after Halloween she wanted me to sing the butterfly song 24X7. She would dance and smile to this song.

Aaat – Heart, Ovee – Oval
She can recognize some shapes.

Thuthi – Cookie.
Following her big sister’s foot steps, she is now in to imaginary cooking. So after getting tired of scratching the ever silver utensils on the stone tile floor and making every hair in my body stand up, she picks up a plate and walks around the house offering THUTHI to every one.

Thoothi – Thooki (Meaning: Lift me up)
She says THOOTHI and extends both her arms. When I lift her, she swings her legs, adjusts her tush and settles well on my hip. If I had obliged her request without any delay, she flashes a wide smile at me and throws her hands around my neck. If for some reason there was considerate time delay between the request and the lifting, she purses her lips and pulls my hair.

Eat – Eat
When she wants some dry cereal in a bowl, she first says EAT. If my response time is slow, she picks up a plastic bowl, drags me to the place where we keep cereal, points to the cereal box, then says ‘AAAA’ points almost to the back of her throat, then to the bowl and says EAT. Any thing I give her to eat at this point, I end up collecting from various parts of the house, through out the rest of the day.

Akka – Akka (meaning: Big sister)
She calls her big sister Akka.

Shayiee – Sorry
Mostly to inanimate objects just like her sister used to do. But sometimes she uses it in context to Chula, like when she has accidentally(??) knocked down Chula’s Lego blocks or accidentally(???) grabbed Chula’s hair or accidentally(????) pinched Chula. That too the sorry comes with an expression that says, ‘OMG, did that pinch hurt? I never realized that it would. I am so sorry and will never ever do something like that in my life again’.

Name
She can tell her name and screams her name whenever she sees her picture or her reflection.

Numbers
She goes ONE, TOO, THEE……and starts singing the song ‘Thee, thee, thee’ from Shivaji wildly shaking her tush. She can count up to twelve. This rare feat I have witnessed only a handful of times, but her day care provider says that Mieja counts to twelve in English and Spanish with ease. The first time she said 1-10, I nearly fell down from my chair. She was hardly speaking, just out of the screaming phase and she starts counting?!

Pepi – Baby
She points to kids younger than her and says PEPI. My friend was staying with us for 10 days and Mieja wouldn’t let her 6 months old son in peace. She sat next to him trying to poke his eyes, put her finger in to his nose or mouth, rocking his car seat trying to make him sleep all the time yelling PEPI, PEPI, PEPI…

Peepul – Paper

A Bheembo – ??
Well this sounds a lot like ‘Bheemboy bheemboy, andha aaru lakshathai yeduthu yindha Avinasi naai moonjil viteri…’ Bheemboy from Michael Madana Kama Rajan. Still trying to debug by trial/error/elimination. Yesterday she pointed to the dustpan and said BHEEMBO. I was about to shout hurray, but she also pointed to random, in no way related to dust pan objects and said BHEEMBO. So I am trying to figure out if BHEEMBO is a verb/adverb/adjective/noun.

How can I forget ‘A’?
A as in the article ‘a’. Everything in her world is a pepi, a peepul, a bheemboo. Very rarely a word is uttered with the article. I could say she is very articulate!