Sweet 16!

Prince Aarush turns sweet 16 months today! And in these month, he has become the apple of my eye and the clown of the household!

My first born was as docile and sweet as they come at sixteen months, happy among her toys, with a cheerful smiling face always. She was happy to sit in mama’s lap in the car or in her pram whilst we go out. Infact, I don’t remember her trying to climb onto our coffee table even. She was an absolute angel with a halo around her. But my second born seems to have the halo replaced with two tiny sharp horns! And I adore him because of those tiny two!

He loves climbing over all the furniture be it chairs, stools, bed, tables and has infact scared all our chairs up the dining table!!
He has 8 big pearlies which he flashes unabashedly at all!
He has a clear preference for his dad and call him atha, acha and when overwhelmed by love achachi! He says his name as aaris / aas / aath depending on his mood. His vocabulary is otherwise limited to amoomma, amma and aayi (bye).
He is familiar with parts of the body too and has developed his own style of pointing out to the parts. He squints to show his eyes, inserts a finger into his ear, sniffs to show his nose and grins to show his teeth.
He is a little finicky about cleanliness and gets upset when he spills his milk onto himself or gets his hand dirty.
He still drinks milk from bottle only though he is fine with the sippy cup for water and juices. He has a sweet tooth and biscuits are his vice!
He does all his job nappies still but makes a yucky expression after having done his potty and looks down after peeing. Can I take this as a first sign of readiness for potty training?
He hits and bites!  And kisses to make up immediately after that! 
He loves pencils and colur pencils and scriblled a few times on the floor which I was luckily able to wipe away. He has (ouch) made a few scribbling on the wall as well which, alas, I am unable to wipe away! Can’t believe that I let him do this as well whereas I was so strict with the girl on this!
He has even managed to learn a couple of bharatanatyam mudras! He copies his sis and poses in “mandi” with his hands stretched out in “pataka” and does a few steps singing theyya they!! He even folds his hands and does the Namaste prior to starting the steps! It is absolutely hilarious to see him do this.

Here’s a happy 16th month birthday to you my little rowdy!

Tantrums and vacations!

As if to mark the graduation from babyhood to toddler hood, my now-not-so-little-one threw his first tantrum yesterday. The cause for the meltdown – being forbidden the pleasure of heaving himself up the stairs at a clinic where we had taken Appu. No way was he going to allow mamma’s able hands to help in accomplishing this feat.

I allowed him the fun for a couple of steps and would put him back on the lowest one. This set him off and he started screaming and hitting me and just squatted stubbornly on the floor! There were almost 20 pairs of eyes staring at me with contempt and judging me as a highly irresponsible mother who allows her one year old to climb the stairs without any support and worse still, not being able to pacify him when he threw a fit. I was so relieved when our token number blinked on the screen that I threw the crying, screaming bundle into mom’s arms and rushed to the doctor’s room with Appu. While with the doctor, I could hear the loud wails and my mom’s unsuccessful attempts at calming him!

Appu’s school has reopened today. She was fresh as a lark in the morning all set to go to school and show off the two new gaps in her mouth where once her teeth had been! The past 77 days, she used to get up at 5.00 in the morning and accompany mom on her morning walks religiously. As a token of appreciation, the grandma gifted a pretty orange colored watch which she proudly wore to school today. She has completed the first level at Brainobrain with flying colours. She has brushed up on the swimming strokes and mastered the breathing technique. She has also made a lot of new friends and developed a lot of social skills which is so good. I don’t know if I am imagining this, but she is now more confident and outgoing than she was at the start of the vacation. A vacation well spent, I should say!!

See for yourself, have I not grown?

This tiny bundle we brought home last year is now a self propelled high powered engine.

                                                                Aarush on 26/07/2010

To each its own!

Yet another milestone in Aarushland. He is now able to correlate things to their use. Here are a few cute examples in his words:

1) Don’t leave any hair brushes leaving around.. I will use it to comb my hair ---- so what if I use the side without bristles!

2) Wonder why amma is finding it such a task change my diapers? Poor thing ..she has to sing, coo, shout , snarl…what not to keep me from wriggling…Cant she understand that I have better no time to waste and need to rush off to my next adventure…come on …just give it to me and I know where it has to be kept!

3) First off all at grandma’s insistence they put this (girlie) tinkling silver (girlie) anklets on my legs…doesn’t she know I am a man and this thing feels so girle! On top of that it keeps coming off even when I take a nice stretch on bed…! Umpteen number of times I have to sit and struggle with it unsuccessfully trying to get in back on my leg. U cannot blame me for not trying enough!

4) All the tidbits of paper left around by my messy sis…I go around cleaning up the place singing
Bits of paper,
Bits of paper;
Lying on the floor,
Lying on the floor;
Make the place untidy,
Make the place untidy;
Pick them up,
Pick them up.
Shove it into your mouth,
Shove it into your mouth!

Review - Mummy and me

I am all bleary eyed today. Reached home at 1.30 am after having watched Mummy and Me, the movie starring Urvashi, Archana Kavi, Mukesh, Kunchako Boban etc. The director Jeethu Joseph attempts to capture a very common and increasing issue which arises due to the differences in outlook and values that exist between generations. Clara, the character portrayed by Urvasi, has regular clashes with her rebellious teenaged daughter Jewel (Archana Kavi). The father Jo (Mukesh) dons the cap of the mediator and settles the issues.

Dejected by the poor state of affairs at home, Jewel turns to internet and chat rooms for solace and finds Ameer, an orphan and fashion designer, who is able to transform Jewel by his gentle support and guidance. However, the film falls flat with the entrance of Ameer. I would have preferred it if the film projected the efforts made by the mother and the daughter in improving their relation rather than bringing in an invisible third person that too chosen from a chat room. This may give the thousands of teenagers facing oppression at home the impression that the net and chat rooms are the solutions to end their misery where they may come across a guardian angel. A better option would have been to use the services and advice of the psychologist Saleem (Anoop Menon). To sum it up, though the persistent problem was well portrayed, the solution was not convincing.

Urvasi as usual was excellent and Clara as the over protective, possessive, and control hungry mother was safe on her shoulder. Archana Kavi was a huge disappointment – be it in looks, acting, dress sense, whatever. Mukesh was passable and Kunchako too did a fair job though he is not very convincing as an MBA student with his paunch and sagging body. All my votes go to the little boy (Jokuttan - I don’t know his real name) who threw in a few refreshing and light moments and the very lovable Lalu Alex who is luvvvable as the all understanding and jovial father of Kunchako.

All in all, a so-so movie with a theme that has good potential for hitting the family crowd especially considering that youth of Kerala are slowly emerging from the conservative attitudes and daring to be rebellious and experimental causing many moms the agony and pain experienced by Clara. But the script messed it up beyond repair.

This is Aarush’s third movie after Ghost House and Ravanan. With Appu, we did not dare to step into a movie until she was all of 3 yrs. The boy, I tell you, is a darling and enjoyed the first part even sitting up in his pram and watching without batting an eyelid until sleep came over.

The young fans...

Been to Madras Light Vegetarian Restaurant in Abu Shagara. A small not so fancy place. But excellent food. The Madras filter coffee was just right..strong, sweet and hot….They serve excellent fried idlis as well but since we were early we did not get to enjoy it.

Watched the super duper hit, Shobana / Mohanlal starrer Manichitrathazhu for the nth time last evening. It was telecast for the nth time again on Asianet in honour of Late M G Radhakrishnan who passed away last week. Shobana never fails to impress me with her grace and expressive gestures. It’s a movie that will never bore you and deals with the relatively lesser ventured subject of dual personality. One of the few female-oriented films in recent times and Shobana has done complete justice to the role. The movie also has excellent music with my and B’s favourite being Palavattom Pookalam.

Appu enjoyed it thoroughly especially Shobana’s dance. It warmed my heart to see the little girl concentrating on the mudras and trying to identify them. Think it gave her a sense of pride to realize how the relatively simple steps and mudras she is currently learning gets interwoven to create beautiful a dance sequence. I was bombarded with questions about Shobana after the movie…who was her dance guru, how many years she learnt, did she learn the steps as well, when she did her arangetram etc etc. Shobana…u have got a die hard fan!

Talking of fans..Aarush is besotted by Waka Waka and more so by Shakira. He loved the score since he heard it the first time and invariably shakes his little bums back and forth. But ever since he watched the video, he is not willing to settle for anything less than the compete audio visual experience. Shakira’s energy and charm seems to have bowled him over!

Magic No. 6

Yet another milestone that we have reached! Aarush has completed 6 months today. He has turned into a noisy attention seeking little brat.

The last month witnessed a huge change in Aarush's diet. As I mentioned in an earlier post, Aarush was introduced to solids by the month beginning and has by now had a taste of wheat,oats,ragi, vegetables such as pureed carrots, mashed potatoes and fruits such as cooked and pureed apple and mashed banana. So far the going is great and he has been enjoying the new meals. I still breastfeed him though it is mostly restricted to night and early morning feeds. Due to the work pressure, expressing has been cut down to just once a day and I am able to express just enough for one feed. So I have had no choice but to put him on follow on formula. Accompanied by the change in the input pattern, there is a major (and not so pleasant!) change in the output patterns as well. Gone is the sweet smelling, tumeric / mustard yellow, easily washable poo and is now replaced by more bulkier stuff that makes me want to put a peg on my nose!

Aarush has now become adept at rolling back and forth and loves to roll across the available space during his floor times. He has also been attempting to raise his body up on all fours. He has become very mobile now and somedays I wake up to see my little baby sleeping perpendicular to me on the bed. B has been pushed off and now sleeps on the day bed; the little man and I have the whole bed for ourselves now!

His social life is also developing at a great pace. He loves attention and demands it with ready smiles and friendly purrs. He has a clear preference for the fairer sex as well! From coos he has graduated to babbling; so much so that he can maintain a steady babbling conversation if someone responds back in his current vocabulary.

My little baby has outgrown most of his clothes (some of them barely used) and we are in the process of getting a whole new wardrobe for him. Now we are looking forward to his "choroonu" which will be held when we visit India in Feb.

Meal time for Aarush

We introduced solids to Aarush 2 days back. We started off with ragi. He seemd to like the taste of it. He was hoping for me after 2 spoonfulls. However, we kept the quantity to bare minimum since it was the first time. All was Ok except that his daily quota of poo ( 4-5 times) was absent.

Treasured traditions

Almost all the ancestral houses in Kerala would undoubtedly have one thing in common…walls adorned with photos of most of the members. The common ones are portraits taken of newly wed couple and of the new additions. The babies are more often than not in a much loved pose..that is on their tummy, with a lovely smiles or drools. My grandmother has saved photos of me and all my cousins in this posture. My father in law has similar photos of B and all his grandchildren. We had got one such photo of Appu’s taken in her 4th month and the photo now adorns the shelf in the living room back home. So keep up with the tradition, we got the Aarush also to pose. Mind you … the photos have to be taken in studio to keep the spirit fully alive. So here the photographer has gone click…click…click…

Day 5 & 6 - 02.12.2009 / 03.12.2009 - Nuwara Eliya / Colombo/Sharjah

The highlight of this day had nothing to do with our tour. Appu woke up with a vveeeerry wobbly tooth and she barely had to touch it before it was out in her hands!!! The tooth fairy has visited us finally and that too here in Sri Lanka!!! Appu was super excited about it and was thrilled that she managed to wringe out the tooth without any assistance. She was more happier about the fact that it was so painless unlike her expectation. The new tooth had already started to peek out!

Nuwara Eliya was quite boring. It could possibly be due to the fact that by this time we were extremely tired. But we did not do much there except buying some tea, visiting a tea factory (unfortunately since it was the day after full moon day, there was no production).

The drive back from Nuwara Eliya was via a very scenic road with lots of beautiful waterfalls. We spent the night at Cinnamon Grand in Colombo once again. The next afternoon we boarded the flight back toSharjah from Colombo winding up our first overseas trip!

4 months old

Aarush has turned 4 month yesterday. Appu woke up early in the morning to wish him 4th month birthday. At 4 months, Aarush is a active little happy baby who is developing well. He can now roll from back to front and vice versa like a pro. Each time he accomplishes the task, he loves being cheered. Then its a series of rolling over and waiting for the cheer, rolling over and waiting for the cheer and so on. Little show off he is! At times, he puts his head down and tries to pull himself up on his knees as if about to sit up and crawl.

At 4 moths, these are few of the things that he very clearly loves:

1) Appu - Oh..he loves his big sis! The moment he hears her voice he keeps twisting and turning to catch a glimpse of her. Put him in a room full of people and he will have eyes for her only. He loves the way he reads fro him, sings nursery rhymes for him, performs some Bollywood item numbers for him etc. She too is a thoroughly doting sis. I am amazed by the way she gets him to sleep. The other day I was tired and aksed her if she could cuddle baby for sometime. She started singing a beautiful old malayalam song "Aayiram Kannumai" and within a few minutes he was fast asleep. it is then that I learnt that this is his current favorite and mom sings this song while putting him to sleep. Now I have started using this melodious tool as well.

2) Ammoomma - Just like Appu, he too loves Ammoomma and breaks into peals of laughter on seeing her. He loves the way Ammoomma talks non stop to him throughout the morning when they are alone.

3) TV - Ooohhhh. If the TV is on and he is anywhere in the room, you can witness two tiny pairs of eyes glued to the screen.

4) Cooing - He loves cooing along with his dad. Its supposed to be some boyish game between them and they have a mini competition trying to see who can coo the loudest. One day I decided to joing the game and gave out a long loud coo. The little one had a clear look of appreciation on his face and was looking at his dad as if to say " Not bad Acha....she took can do it!"

5) Evening bath - he loves his evening bath soaking and splashingin his little tub. However, he is not too fond of the 2 little blue ducks who share the tub with him!

Catch them young...

This is an adage I believe in with regards to reading. Therefore, I decided to waste no time with Aarush and got him, yes you guessed it, his first books!

He thorughly enjoyed going through the books and his favorite seems to be the Hello Bee Hello Me book that has a lot of mirrors in it. He loves looking at himself and cooing! The colours and the pictures captivated the little one.

Here are the books and a dekho at the little one settling for a cosy read!

Its tummy time…

Appu had once flipped over when she was barely 21/2 months and I had gone around bragging to all and sundry that my super daughter is going to go great lenghts as she had reached her first major milestone so early. The experienced mothers gave me a knowing smile. It took me a few days to realise that this flipping act was only an “accident’. She started actually rolling over when she was four months (13.02.2004 to be precise).

Once bitten twince shy…so when Aarush rolled over a few days short of his 3rd month birthday, I decided to keep quiet about it thinking this too might be just an accident. He repeated the act many more times in the coming days as if to convince me that he was in the process of mastering the trick. But doubtful mama was still not too sure. I however managed to get a video made on my cellphone during one of the attempts so that I could prove myself to others if I later realised that he was indeed turning over. Finally, a few days after his 3rd month, mom called me to office excitedly saying that he has rolled over. Hurray! (psstt…. I did not want to dampen mommy’s spirit by saying that I have caught him “red tummied” many times earlier. Atta boy…congrats!!!!! You are mamma’s super hero ! mmmwwwaahhh!)

Now, Aarush has mastered rolling over from back to front but cant get himself to roll back. He enjoys holding his head up and looking at things from a different perspective. When it gets boring for him, he keeps banging his little nose tip for the floor. If none around pays heed to this cue and rolls him back over, this is what he does in sequence:

a) he signals with a short squeak (no response still)
b) he tries with 2 more squeaks (no response still)
c) he lets out what he believes is a roar but in reality its only a louder squeak (no response still)
d) he tries banging his nose and forehead continuosly

We have not yet let it go beyond this so far.. in a short while, when mom and B are not around, I plan to see what his next course of action would be and will update ;). But at the rate he is going he will soon be handling things on his own and would not require our help to flip him back!

Appu visits the dentist

I have always been so particular about Appu’s dental hygiene that I was in for a surprise when the doctor detected small cavities in her 2nd molars during a routine check. The doctor recommended filling immediately inorder to prevent any further damage.

Now, a visit to the dentist is not something that any of us really enjoy. Who likes other prodding and drilling and grinding in their mouth? Appu has always been quiet resilient as far as injections etc are concerned. But I was not too sure about how she would react to this as it was new for her. I could have taken solace from the fact that she had sat through a suturing on her tongue with minimal fuss at the age of 3 and that too without any anesthesia. I thought it would be best to prepare her and take for the procedure at a later date. We took an appointment for a week later.

I started preparing herself telling her about the 2 worms that had made holes in her teeth and are residing there. Made a story about how the worms got inside and started eating the leftovers lodged in her teeth since she wasn’t brushing her teeth properly and how they became so fat that they could not come out of the hole. The doctor would now have to make the holes bigger so that the worms could come out (Yyyyyuuuuuucccckkkkk!!!). The tooth fairy who would be visiting her shortly (One of her milk tooth has become loose) also would not be too happy to see the worms and might leave without any gifts. I am not too sure that Appu believed any of these but she atleast pretended to and kept telling all about the worms that are going to be pulled out from her mouth (Double yyyuuuuuuccccckkkkk!!!). She was infact looking forward to it. It also helped that her doctor was rather beautiful and “stylish”.

So on D-day, that was last Thursday, mom and daughter set out armed with a lot of guts to the dentist. I admit I was a bit nervous but she was cooollll! She sat through the whole procedure with a lovely enchanting smile on her face. The doctor also was a real darling and made sure she got her involved in the process as well. Each procedure was explained to her in a cute way and she was bowled over by the doctor. So all in all it was a great success but I still hope that we do not have the requirement of such visits apart from the routine checks!

7 week old Aarush

Aarush now has much better control of his arms and loves swinging them, batting with them and stuffing the entire fist into his little mouth. The last one is usually done to demonstrate displeausre over delay in feeding.

He has also started cooing and gurgling a lot more and now can look at people directly into their eyes and coo and melt hearts! He loves the mobile gifted to him by Reeja Aunty which we have fixed on the head rest of our bed. He cheers the circling dinglings on the mobile with warm hearted coos.

However, the feather in the cap is that Aarush baby has started to smile. Last evening, I handed over Aarush to B after feeding and changing him. While B was cuddling him, to his most pleasant surprise, he was greeted by a lovely smile from the little one. Come to think of it, I do the changing, feeding, burping, bathing etc and the smile goes to his dad :(

This morning, I took Aarush to Appu's bed while she was still fast asleep. He managed to wake her up with his coos and then as if to make up for it, rewarded her a cute smile. Must have surely made her day.

We are also having a few concerns about him. He has started vomitting a lot lately. Not the usual posetting after feeds. This is actual forceful vomitting of a curdy, smelly kind. His weight gain seems to be fine at 4.8 kg now.

6 weeks

Aarush is 6 weeks young and oh my god..he has suddenly turned into a insatiably hungry little worm. He has been such a good boy all this while taking his feed without any fuss and all of a sudden since last 2 days he has been screaming, groaning and grunting at my breast after about 10 min of sucking. I checked on the internet and got to know that babies go thro' a growth spurt at 6 weeks and they can be quite fussy and hungry all the time and that it should thankfully pass in a few days. I had just bought the formula as suggested by the doctor as I would be starting office in 3 weeks (shucks....I hate to think of it), and wanted to introduce him to the bottle slowly. I have decided to delay it for a while.

Aarush's lastest discovery are his hands and he loves playing with them. He has also started cooing once in a while. He has unhappily decided to accomodate being laid down to play on his own on his activity mat too. There are also a huge load of varied cute expressions which I hope to capture shortly - puckered lips, raised questioning eyebrows, wide opened eyes. He has also started following me around wih his eyes. I love the expression (dont know if my imagination has cooked this up) when he sees me enter the room he is in. He is really adorable darling and I love him more eah moment.

The little big sis also has been acting up pretty well these days and by the way things are now it looks like Aarush is going to have 2 women doting over him at home (Touch wood!)