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...!

The lil drama queen!

If you ask me what is the single biggest theatrics of yours that i remember from the last two years...i would have to say many:

Most recently yesterday you decided diapers ain't cool...so why not just take it off. And the what followed was my biggest diaper related nightmare...you can imagine !! Yuckkk...and to top it the Cleaner par Excellence... your Abba wasn't home. I don't remember missing him so much in many years like i missed him yesterday. And the whn after cleaning the house, then cleaning you  i went for a bath myself...leaving the bathroom door slightly ajar so i could hear you. You were watching TV, so i was pretty confident of getting a quick bath......Als,you pulled my shower curtain and kept playing peek-a-boo, till i just found my towel  ...You Little naughty monkey ! Lesson learned- Lock the door while getting into the shower...or don't shower!

And then there was the stair the toilet episode with a serving spoon from the kitchen...which was instantly disposed by the way. I cant forget the giggle i got from you when caught red-handed ;-)

And then the rolling on the floor episodes on practically every airport you have been so far starting from Jorhat, Guwahati, Mumbai, Kolkata, London....and wait Bristol and Edinburgh ;-) It must be some sort of a world record. I promise...i will get a picture the next time you roll.

Talking of airport dramas how can i forget you simply smashing my new phone at Mumbai airport. And since then i have been smart phone less...I wonder..when your are reading this, if smart phones will still exist. 

The hearing test and the sundry !

Last Thursday we were down at the audiologist at St Michael's Hospital to check out your hearing. You would ask 'why'? Though i am pretty sure your hearing is perfect, it is one of the things that the doctors need to do to figure our why you aren't talking yet. You did say 'de' and 'Ma-ma' today, and someday you say 'juice' or 'kak' aka cake, or 'oot' aka hot...even 'car' and 'cat-toon'...and 'catch'...But its different things on different days and never consistently. I wonder if you would think 'mom is over-reacting', but i just want to be sure that if you need any support with getting your words together, i am able to give you that. That might sound like a good explanation to a 20 year old you. But 2 year old you are clearly not impressed with my attempts and impositions. In other words, the hearing test was non-starter. At 30 i cant stand at a spot for more than a few minutes, that is a lot to expect of you, especially in room full of toys. End result, we have to reschedule your test for the 15th of May...!! lets see how that works out.

When i say you aren't talking yet, don't assume you aren't communicating. You are communication a lot. Just a few minutes back you told me to carry you and to put you to sleep by first pulling out me shawl, then pull my my finger so much that i would have to stand and then you openned your arms to me with cutest lil grin and a background sound that sounded more like uh-uh-uhhhh-uh :-) :-) And in 2 mins you were fast asleep with your head on my shoulder. You just know how to get the job done !!! When you are older that would be a pretty handy trait to have....especially if it works your Dad.

PS you have just gone to sleep on your cot-which has been our everyday tag of war for the last month...You hate it. But we have been trying to have you sleep on your own. Truth be told, i hate it too. And i miss my lil cuddly bunny right next to me. Muwahhhh!  

Your first year!

Darling ! After the lil U turn into our present thanks your B'day on Monday, here we are back to the story of my memories of you from your first year.

You started giving us the sunniest of smiles by the time you were about 5 months old. It used to make my day...it still does !!!!  Awwww...i miss the 5 month old Zayed-who wouldn't run away.

And you also got pretty noisy and super duper curious by this time. You were trying very very hard to sit up on your own. Not being able to sit up used to annoy you a lot. Here, is my lil angry bird trying very hard to sit up.

We also started solid food one of those days in preparation for sending you to the nursery. And i was getting more an more anxious as the date of my joining the university drew closer and your date for joining the nursery. The first day i went to Uni you stayed at home with Abba. It was the longest we have been away from each other. Something i just couldn't take. I remember calling your Abba every few minutes to see how you were doing. Apparently, you wanted to be carried all day. On the up side your Abba realized that 'you are a handful'.

You started nursery in the first week of Oct. We started with short sessions of an hour then half a day and so on. You were quite a trooper, my little star getting used to the other children and your carers Debbie & Megan. You started settling into the nursery soon, but not without falling sick very frequently in the first couple of months. I can't tell you how many guilt trips i took for having to let you go to the nursery so young. But i guess, i had to do what i had to do. You first cold was so scary for us. You were little and i was constantly scared if you were breathing well with the lil blocked nose. So many sleepless nights!!! But you kept coming out of every bout of illness more strong and more spunky! And managing to sit on your own too.. Look what i snapped when you sat up on your own for the first time!

 I also remember, an episode from your 2nd or 3rd week at the nursery when Debbie called me  at the University to say, you wouldn't stop crying. That must have been the most helpless i had felt in a long long time. I was over 2.5 hrs away from my crying baby. But your Abba saved the day for us. He came to the nursery and cuddled you to sleep. And just like that when he called me say 'Zayed is sleeping to me don't worry' was the most relieved I had been in ages. Yet i had taken a taxi and was already on the platform waiting for the train back.

And then came the winter, and your cutest bear overall. I am so sad you don't fit into it anymore. It was your first winter after and how well we did being the cutest bear in town. I love your expression in picture below-starring at the camera !

With the winter came your Abba's frequent colds and flues. It was pretty much on and off all through the winter, until he fell really sick in March of 2013. He had to be in the hospital for about 10 days. You & I were at home alone. Uncle Ryan & Aunty Sonia often looked after you when i went to visit Abba at hospital. So did Aunty Manizah, who came over from London to babysit you. I had so much help, from our friends. But most of all it was you with your lil funny antiques who kept me in good spirits. By this time you were crawling all over the house, and trying quite hard to walk. When your Abba came back from the hospital we took a vacation to Devon- where you took your first steps with Uncle Raman. I don't think we have a picture of you talking your first steps...there i a video i am sure. But here is my favourite picture from that vacation!

And after that pretty soon in 21st April 2013 was your first B'day. We had a joint party with your frien Sophia at their house. It was lovely day and uncle Ryan set up the bareque ! And you my dear were already running around all over. 

Goofing around !

Hi Jaan ! Look what we have been up to yesterday. Goofing around was fun....but you were after the life of my lappy. Hitting my keyboard hard got you giggling and smiling mischievously. My cute lil brat !

Happy second birthday my darling !

Ta-da ! Look at my B'day gift :-)

And the cake

First month !

Your first month with us had so many firsts--the first smile, the first walk in the park, the first shopping trip and so much so. And my first serious anxiety about you, when you stopped feeding for a brief period. But after a hospital trip, several phone calls to the health visitors and pep talk from your Nani, i realized heartache is the bitter-sweet truth of parenting.

It was however only after Nani, mahi & mama left in June, that i started learning to be with you alone. It helped that the day they left your Titia Nikki came to stay with us for a weekend, followed my Robin mama. So it wasn't until August 2012 that we actually lived alone in the house-which was actually a lot of fun as i got to make dozens of home videos, took loads of pictures...got a lot of cuddles.

I had also started getting out and about by that time. Our first day of 'separation' since you were born happened sometime towards end of July when i went for my first swimming lesson. And what followed was...chaos to say the least. I remember leaving you and your Abba in the car, and the next thing i remember seeing your Abba waving frantically by the pool-side. You were crying like a really powerful crying-machine. Awww...i panicked so much that that i just dressed on top of my wet bathing suit. What followed was, you stopping your crying in no time the moment i picked you up, dowsing off to sleep even before we got home and me getting a bad cold ! haha...Sleeping peacefully tucked inside Abba's jacket when we reached home from the swimming lesson that day.

And on my b'day in August aged 4 months you had your first day trip with Aunty Manizah & uncle Waquar.  Look how cutely you were napping on our drive to Cardiff! During those days you were not very keen about getting on your pram, so for quite a bit of the day we had to carry you on our laps.

The day we met!

21st of April 2012 ! A really lovely sunny day i remember thinking between contractions at the Southmead Hospital. The first thing that the midwife said when she saw you was " get ready to buy a comb, the lil guy has a lot of hair". And then right after you were born, you had me and your Abba in splits by trying to lick him. That was making him ticklish and he kept giggling like a lil kid.Never though lying down in a hospital bed could get this interesting.

That is when the midwife asked me for your cloths and cap.  My oops moment, when i realised that my seemingly impeccable packing wasn't quite as impeccable, and it never crossed my mind that babies need caps. The midwife very kindly found us the blue cap you are wearing in this picture.

And after everyone left, in the ward i held you for several minutes and kept looking at you, half believing that my lil miracle was here and half imagining all the things we are going to be doing together. For the next 12 hours we both slept quite well waking up for snacks every now and then. Plus not to forget the first poopy diaper. Your Abba always promised to me that he would be the one in-charge of all the yucky stuff. And yet here i was staring blankly at you while you were clearly uncomfortable in your dirty diaper. One of the nurses then came to my rescue showing me how to clean your bottom. While i hated the fact that my designated diaper disposal man wasn't around,  but it didn't take us both very long to get back to snooze.

The next day we were meant to go home after all your check ups. But strangely enough we couldn't figure out if you were peeing on the diaper or not. This is meant to indicate that your kidney is functioning well. So sadly at 8 in the evening, we stopped waiting for you to pee and your Abba went back home. And you being you decided too pee (decisively this time) just a few minutes later. But in no avail, we were spending our second day night at the hospital. So we actually went home on  Monday the 23rd April, which was a super duper rainy day. And mind you it took us a good one hour or so to get you to sit in  the car seat. Every time we put you there, you would start screaming and crying. Until finally.....

And at home....

And on our first night at home....Well lets just say it was very little sleeping for me and your Abba, it was a lot of crying for you. And then in the morning...

In those early days, you only wanted to be cuddled my Ammi....a lot. And how so very cuddly you were!!!! And there came our next challenge to get you to sleep without me sleeping with you. We tried the bed, the cot, the pram, and everyone's laps....but you little mister just wanted to be cuddled to sleep by Ammi. 

Hi Zayed, Ammi here ! ;-)

My darling boy ! 

Depending on which stage of life you are reading this, this may seem anything ranging from 'cool' to 'creative' to 'spooky'. Well!! Eh... that's your problem to sort. I have already been working quite hard starting from the labour to the million diaper changes. 

You turn two in the next few days. Even though I have been wanting to write to you/about you since the day you were born, you see things have been pretty crazy, as you probably know already. When your Sabreena Mahi asks me about her baby and toddler days- i hardly remember anything. You have to concede that it was a long time back and i was quite young myself then. I realize from her questions that there is no way for us to know about your early childhood days unless our memory keepers do their job well. So, here i am trying to keep some of your memories accessible to you and to me. I guess leaving these precious memories to fade away from my mind isn't a great idea.

Our mothers are our memory keepers, so are our fathers, our grandparents and or uncles and aunts. You have a whole bunch of memory keepers holding so many lovely memories, anecdotes and stories about you.

Love love love....and as you have been doing these days kissi!!

Ammi