Back from a Hiatus and the Big update

My darling sweetpea! sorry sorry sorry...Such a long break from writing. Promise i shall do several catch up posts so you don't miss even a tiny bit of updates from the last from my writinh hiatus of the last few months. So, the BIG BIG BIG update is that you are suddenly a chatter box now...just like your Mamma! I would need to invent new words/adjectives to descrive happiness to describe how i feel about this. And suddenly you are a 'know-it-all' toddler- who would attempt everyword he hears. No words too big now for you!!!! Starting from Apppa (Abba), Mamma, Ha-hee (Sunny) to Man-ty (Monkey) to Popol (purple) color to Opa-pas (Octopus)...to Papatu (Paw Petrol, your favourite cartoon) and not to forget Not-Ty (naughty). You are making wonderful little phrases with the words you know "Juice Over".."tiger bo-bo".. "its broken"...I am smiling all over remembering all this cuteness. Here is chatterbox and mamma from a couple of months back. I think we have both become better at taking selfies since...

Water baby!

cant take a picture in the pool, so here is u rocking the bath

Hiya! Since we moved to the new house, the highlight of our sunday has been our visits to the pool at the leisure center. Mostly of the time we go with Sofia and Aunty Sonia. Today though it was just you and me. Baring the first 5-10 mins of our first day in the pool, you have loved every minute of it. You are a lil water-baby aren't you. Your Abba and i both don't swim ....so we are having to learn now to catch up with out water baby.

And you know what, i had been trying to teach you how to jump into the pool from several days. But last week you just followed a few older kids jumping and were elated when you land in the water with big splash. What fun ! Today you carried on jumping to the pool, and being thrown around in the water....It just such fun watching you having a blast in the pool. I am hoping to take some lessons from next month, i hope your Abba and Ammi learn swimming before you are pro and order us around in the water...muwhhhhh!!!!

Lil music buff!!

My rock star baby, you seem to be developing a wonderful sense of music and tunes as you grow. I frequently find you humming a-bc-d..., twinkle twinkle, hickory hickory. And at the nursery you love to wheels-on-the-bus..song with all the actions. It amazes me , how with such few words you still pick up the tunes of these songs. And you dance in joy when the FRIENDS title track plays or the henry-hugglemonster title song. How i love dance-jumping or jump-dancing with you.

We were in Bath day before, and you were the first one who pointed us to a street musician playing quietly in one of the corners. So we took your pram near him, so you could listen to him playing on his guitar and singing. You loved it all....in fact you were spell bound when he sang a Bob Dylan classic..Here are some pictures. And when the kind singer offered the lil rockstar his guitar to 'touch' you pounced on it like it belong to you. That was followed by dramatic crying session of about 5mins....I hope the grown up you is as passionate about music as the two year old you is!

The musician !

All of us enjoying some music

"i got a guitar"

"...and i would love to play"

"...but they won't let me"

Mumma!

The CEO of big corporation called PepsiCo, and one of the most powerful women of our time in a recent article says "you can't have it all". Made me think, why not? Off course i am no CEO, so i wont claim to have the CEO's perspective, i don't even work at the moment. Doing a PhD isn't quite like working 9-5, it like working working 24X7X365. There is no 'free' time because your 'ideas' go with you wherever you go. Yet i can say i feel supremely fulfilled. And dare i say, i feel like i have it all. Sure i struggle sometimes, errr...always...to be a good mother to you, and then i struggle hard to do justice to my own work and then to everything else life demands, and to live in a way that is enjoyable.  But is the mommy me separate from the student me? No, both my roles reinforce each other. For instance when i am reading something ridiculously good, especially about living ethically, incorporating values of justice and respect in children, it influences the mommy-me. It makes me think how in our daily lives we could incorporate those values.  And again being with you has taught me (and is teaching everyday) the virtue of me patience, of communication, of 'thinking outside the box'...Being your mommy has made so much better also at my job. That's amazing to feel so 'whole'...so together!

Someone asked me about 'sacrifices you make as a mother'. If years later i become a Bollywood-style 'Ma' and tell you how much i have sacrificed for you, plz call that a bluff. My motherhood experience so far has all been about choices- easy choices like the choice to become a mommy, to breastfeed you, to spend time with you. And difficult choices like having to put you at a day nursery when you were hardly 6 months old, or move my fieldwork from Delhi to Assam so you could stay with your grans and i so could i or to let you go watch TV a bit longer that you meant to just so i can finish this blog post ;-) Never have i 'not thought about myself'. I always have, because if i am not happy with my choices i will be an unhappy person and an not a mommy you will like to be around. And the fact that you are dangling on my shoulder watching me types and muttering in gibberish tells me we we are ok.

PS This post is dedicated to your Nasreen Mami who is bringing into this world your first cousin brother or sister....Yey !! May she have all the fun you and I have together. Wink-wink*

(B)ookworm!

Hi lil  Mr ookworm!! How you love your ook. Don't u? It is just amazing to see a lil person could be so smitten by Books. It just makes me so happy to think about all the books we can read to each other, and all stories we can tell each other. Can wait!!  You have got at least 10 books by now. And i can tell you love want to know everything that is in there...You put my finger on various things and get me to say what it is. Sometime you say ...o-car or a-p-p-a (apple) or k-a-k (cake) or ba-ba (banana) when you see those pictures.

We don't like moving house !

Hi baby! It has been a long break since my last post. We were moving houses. And we did moved from 10 Littleton Court. The house had so many wonderful memories for us-including you coming home to us, learning to move around in the big lounge. We will miss that house. Wont we. And on our first 2-3 days in the new house you were quite upset to be in a strange new place. You constant kept pulling me towards the door to 'go home'. But now after a few weeks, you love the new house too. You love playing in the garden on your rocking caterpillar. You love picking up lil pieces of stone lying in the garden and stuffing them in any holes you can find. You still love your 'powa'..'fowa' (aka flower) !! And it has been sunny in the last few days, so we have enjoyed the outdoors, a lot !

And the other exciting thing you in the new house is the stairs leading up to the two bedrooms. You just love climbing up and down the the stairs. You also manage to have a fall on our first day in the house. Following that your Abba has decided to install Zayed proof gates on both end of the stairs...And if you must no Zayed proofing is basically gate X2...I didn't understand the logic initially. But as you throw yourself at the gates, with all you baby-might- i am appreciating his foresightedness. Sometimes Abba is right, believe it or not !!

Now coming to new things you have been upto in the last month. Basically you are suddenly this studious lil guy these days, pulling out books and making me read to you. You also gave me such a wonderful surprise day before yesterday when you said and pointed to apple, cake, car and dog to me in you book. I was Euphoric. I think i am going to cry the day you say your first sentence...

In addition to books, you are also coloring a lot too....eerrr, making me color a lot rather. But you love it. You call it 'ca-la'

Love you my lil pumpkin. ....Pictures coming soon !!

Being 2 !

You are now 2 years and 2 weeks old...! If you ask me what kind of a two year old was I? I would say you are two year old 'full of beans'. You a rockstar! And if anyone says anything different to you ever...don't believe them. I hope that when you are a grown up...complaining about your life, you should remember you were a pretty awesome 2 year old.  You are feisty, emotional, funny, happy curious and just about the most energetic thing i know. No reason why the older you cant be all those things.

You express your love for Ammi in the cutest ways...and you make me laugh endlessly. You are my joy !

You are still not talking much though, but you communicate with me in so many ways that i forget sometimes about the talking part. I used to worry a lot about this, but i know the important thing is to communicate/emote and to understand which you do a plenty. So i am not complaining....But you did say ma-ma-maam to me the other day and you said ba when Emma at the nursery showed you a banana. You are getting there...Slow n steady ! And here is a picture of you doing what you do best....running around...!