Apa

If anyone had any doubt that Anjali loves water, here is definite proof

progress with Doman

For the last couple of dayd I have been completely stoned. Tired and with a bad sore throat. Just got my voice back today, and now husband says that he hhas a cold and wants me to make tea in the morning before going to work. By the way, huusband got me this wonderful tea making filter kind of thing. SO I can just put the plants in the filter and chuck the filter in water, and fifteen minutes later take the filter out. No worries about tea and flowers in the container and refilling to another container and washing three pots.

 

Anyway, back to what I was saying, have been so stoned and its so hot these days that by the time I stumble into granma's house in the morning, i have no energy to get up and blutack the sentences on the wall. i wish I did though, because Anjali really is getting interested in the sentences.

 

"I am jumping", I read to her yesterday evening, and the bag of tricks jumped a couple of times obiligingly.

 

I do have five number cards stuck to the kitchen cupboard, which I change every couple of days. We dont do them so intensively as Doman suggests, we dont have time to do it thrice a day at a space of 1.5 hours. so we just keep the cards stuck to the wall and whenever Anjali passes them, we point a couple of numbers to her and tell them what each number is.

 

Husband's using playing cards, large size to teach Anjali how to sort. We are just starting but will probably do it more actively.

 

This morning Anjali did something very creative. She has a shopping bag (nice paper bag) in which husband had put some blocks. This morning, she sat at the bag, looked at the blocks. Then she took another paper bag which was lying nearby, took the blocks one by one out of the first bag and started putting them into the second bag. I was so impressed. Anjali was learning to organize and reorganize stuff. I should take out her stacking ring set and let her try with it.

 

Anjali was also very proud with what she was doing. She proudly showed her father her handiwork when he came along.

 

Pity I had to interrupt her when it was time to go to granma's house.  

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Sultry summer days

It is hard in December to believe that May can be this hot. It is almost impossible to sleep at night without the airconditioner. Poor idly baby (she's idly baby when she's sleeping and not up to mischief) wakes up multiple times at night, and not understanding that its water she needs, cries quite loudly, for comfort.

If I finish the comforting and put her back to bed with husband right beside her, and go for a drink or something, she calls "amma" and cries when amma is not there, so its back to square 1.

Husband has to file 2 and fro during these crying spells, getting milk/ water for Anjali, turning on enough light, turning the fan/ aircon such that it snot too hot or too cold, getting water for me, so that I dont have to leave the bag of tricks.

We even have to forefeit our morning walks/ cycles to granma's house because of the heat and end up leaving early and taking the bus.

All is all, we'll be glad when May rolls by and June brings rainy or cloudy weather.

Amma and Ammamma

To Anjali mummy is Amma. She usually chases all through the house after me and keeps calling amma, in different tones that reflect her mood. The funny thing was that whhen in the presence of granma, both of us were amma. Actually it is not so funny when you think about it, just natural as granma is the one taking care of Anjali.

 

But yesterday I noticed something strange and fantastic. It is also natural, but no one really taught Anjali this formally, so I cant help but wonder at her at getting it.

 

Yesterday, we were at the hospital for granma's ultrasound. Anjali and I had to wait outside the scan room while granma went in. Anjali saw granma go and strarted making frantic attempts to call her "ammamma" "Ammamma", she said, running to the door and banging on it, crying piteously.

 

I was busy consoling her that it wasnt much later that I realized that she had said ammamma, and not amma. So i began to notice. When I left my mom in the taxi, she also began to cry, this time for me, And she cried "Amma, Amma"

 

So the kid made a connection, all by herself, that granma is amma's amma and so it became ammamma. We never taught her that. Always Patti. But its cool.

 

Anjali's naptimes are down to something like 2 hours a day in the day time and about 9 hours at night. By god, i need as much sleep as she does. If it goes on like this, she is going to sit up till 2am playing runescape with her dad.

 

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What the little bag of tricks and the big bag of tricks did at Bintan

The backward baby wearing walking along the beach

At Yasin Bungalows, a very unique place, where we will stay the next time we go. Here's we had two huge coconuts and Anjali had her first taste of sweet coconut water nad tender coconut. She liked it.

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We contrived to enjoy ourselves very well last weekend. It was a unique trip to Bintan, and we chose not to stay at the resort but to stay near Tanjung Pinang near a place called Trikora beach, which according to Wikitravel was one of the most beautiful beaches around.

Well, the verdict: The beach was beautiful. One of the cleanest beaches I have ever seen (I could count with my fingers in one hand the amount of litter in the beach), the water pristine and clear, teeming with fauna, crabs, little and big, colorful and plain, in troves and single, Forests of seaweed, mudskippers and millions of small sea snails with shells of every color. It was a pleasure to walk the intertidal zone that afternoon and exclaim over every little discovery.

And what was Anjali doing at that time? Well, initially she was quite annoyed by the sand under her feet. It was prickly and it stuck to her toes. But as time went by, she discovered that sand went with apa and apa was fun. So she explored, always taking care that she would hold one or the other of our hands. Tugging at seaweed, looking after crabs as they scuttled about, trying to eat a especially pretty shell that I passes to her, swallowing sea water and grimacing as she tasted its saltness, and then stripping off ther swim suit and using it to discover the floatation properties of water.

The other bag of tricks, (the one I married, not the one I gave birth to), was very disgruntled that there were hundreds of meters of sand teeming with wildlife, but no water, in the beach. He refused to believe it when I told him that the tide would come in, ridiculed at the kayaks in the bank, sayind that they were there was show and that it would go aground in no time.

Well, three hours after we had reached, and finished the exploration of the low tide, we went back to our room for a quick snack. When we came out, the tide had risen enough to support a kayak. It was a wonderful feeling, skimming the surface of the water (husband was rowing), with Anjali in my arms, playing with the water as it rose and fell through the holes in the kayak. We passed over forests of sea weed, now shaking and swirling as if they were live snakes reaching out to catch us. Clearly visible were some pockets of coral, though, due to Anjali being very small, we didnt venture far enough to watch for more coral (though according to some guests staying at Bintan, the snorkelling there is excellent)

There husband's head turned around and he began to like the sea, with its clarity and its fauna (all through the low tide walk, he kept grumbling how we were accumulating bad karma by stepping on snails and crushing crab holes with our feet as we stepped)

And the little bag of tricks, she was chewing on my life jacket thread, her eyes closing gradually until she fell asleep on my arms, lulled to sleep by the rocking of the kayak. Was it any surprise that, as we put her on the bed after a quick wipe down, and she drifted off to solid sleep, that she babbled in her sleep, and the word she babbled was "Apa"! Husband thinks that that may have been induced by the rocking of the bed, and Anjali believed that she was on a kayak on the water.

When we came back to Singapore, Anjali kept pointing at everything and saying Apa (cups of water, the swimming pool at Redhill). It took her a while before she realized that there was no apa here and she said Apa, put on a piteous expression and raised her palms upwards to show that it was not there.

Never mind baby, we'll take you to the pool on Saturday.

Here are some pictures from the trip, with captions.

In the bus at 6.30 in the morning. Bag of tricks woke up just before we put her in the stroller and refused to go back to sleep

At the ferry terminal, still wide awake

In front of the ferry terminal, first with daddy and then, after doing the "amma" thing, with mummy

In the ferry, the last bit of play before dozing off.

She slept on the ferry and played in the car (husband will tell long tales of the nightmares he endures of his wife and kid's antics in the car) and is still in action in the room

The pristine beach at low tide

She climbed up the chair herself. I gave birth to a goat.

She likes getting kissed, but likes to act blase about them too

Anjali's May day celebrations

Three changes of clothes??? And the only thing left in the bag was the bottom of the jumper.

 

Next time I bring Anjali for a day outing, I am going to put an undetectable extension charm on my handbag and stuff her wardrobe into it.

 

I guess this is what happens when you encourage your daughter to play with water. Afterall, all the websites claim that water play is very educational for kids. And all the montessori schools are full of water play activities (just how many sets of clothes does a parent send with a montessori kid's backpack?) And ofcourse, the little imp happens to like water.

So lets start form the beginning. Yesterday was Patel uncle's birthday and we took the imp to the center. So what does she do? Make her own show in one corner of the room. And when she gets bored of that corner, she goes to another corner, and behind the table, and pulls flowers from the altar, and tries to climb the altar table. Ofcourse, she does all these stuff during IEP, but there are not 50 other people in the room, and you are allowed to talk more loudly to distract her. So we let her play, for the most part, but had to stop when she discovered, to her delight and our amusement that if she tilted her head as far back as possible, she would lose heer balance and fall on the carpet, either on her bottom or on her head, and both were so delightful to her that she began to laugh.

 

really loudly

 

in the middle of the closing meditation.

 

So I picked her up and took her out to take a nap.

 

Out of which she woke up in half an hour and demanded out.

 

So we took her to the Istana. Where she walked on the grass, refused to wear a hat (we showed her the hat and she showed us the stroller basket. We put the hat on her and she took it off and stuffed it in the stroller basket. Can you believe the cheek!!)

 

Then she wanted to go into the pond, saying "apa, apa", but there was a yellow cable saying "No entry". Of course, the people who came up with the cable didnt reckon that 2 foot tall imps would try to squeeze through.

 

Then there was the swing in the playground. She got on, daddy swang her back and forth, At first she was smiling, then she stopped smiling, then she started looking dizzy, but still she shook her head when we tried to take her out and began to cry when we did take her out.

 

But quietened when we took her to the fountain. The shoes got wet, the front of the dress got wet, although I suspect that wouldnt have happened if she hadnt tried to dunk her head in the fountain to drink water from it.

 

Husband's pretty proud of her water dunking abbilities, and even more proud of her catching water from the tap in her bathing mug and drinking it up. "She wont need a sippy very soon, she can just drink by herself!!" "Maybe I should take a cup to the swimming pool". Well, the water in the pool is too chlorinated to drink by the mugfull, so better not.

 

She was quiet in the palace, although I made up for it, by going ouch, everytime she bit me. And then it was time to go back and she fell asleep on my shoulder.

 

Not for long. Half an hour later, she was up and eating biscuits, going with us to Komalas and eating something like half my yogurt rice (is it too early to give a kid restaurant food? Anyway, the deed's done and there is no point worrying about it now), back home and playing till 9.30 before finally getting to sleep.

 

Total sleep of 1.15 hours in the day and about 9 hours at night. I suppose she will sleep for atleast 4 hours during the day today. Well, granma will be relaxed.

 

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Bag of Big tricks

On Sunday daddy was sick and stayed in a cooking room with a T-shirt and socks and pants. then we went out and daddy wore the same T-shirt to go out.

 

The result was predictably stinky. So daddy decided to buy a T-shhirt from the shop and get changed.

 

Before the transactions were complete we asked Anjali

 

"Baby, how does Daddy's T-shhirt smell?"

 

And the baby points to the T-shirt, wrinkles her nose and says "humph!!"

 

 

Now how did she understand that?

 

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Structural collapse

Anjali loves playing hide and seek around her tent.



We have to be wary of structural collapse though.

These are more stuff from the queen of the rock kingdom

Child labour

Factor in the cuteness and effeciency we should be able to charge pretty high, on a minute by minute basis.



Guess we need to put a disclaimer though.
Anjali inc takes no responsibility for repeated work should the need arise. Further, we also offer no guarantees as to the actual cleanliness of the place when we are finished. We operate on strict WYSWYG principle. Inferences and extrapolations on services delivered are made at the customer's sole responsibility.

jumping off bed and more doman

If any of our parents sees this, says husband, they will ground us for about three years.

More Doman

I've changed my Doman tactic. Couple of days ago I came across a website called www.domaninspiredparenting.blogspot.com, a journal of a mom doing Doman stuff with her kid. I learnt a bit from there and got a ffew inspirations. So what followed was phrase and number cards blutacked to the walls for Anjali to read and look at.

This is my work bench, the dining table. It is so messy with glue, blu tack, correction pen, markers etc that its hard to see the marble underneath sometimes

Somehow Anjali has more fun with the numbers than with the sentences. The sentences she just looks at and points. But the numbers go rounds. First we would play hide and seek to find the numbers and then we would take each number and give to Daddy, or give to mummy. Some times we would get a bit too interested in BluTack, but that cant be helped.

I want to take it easy and let her set the pace. But so far I notice a lot of things Anjali does that I can attribute to her reading program, but of course I will never know if that's the real reason.

Firstly, Anjali shows a good bit of interest in writing. Mostly posters, signs advertisements, and she points and gets me to read them to her.

She shows, and has always showed a good bit of interest in numbers, especially as they change in the lift.

Now, she wants to know her colors, does the matching (I have done some color cards with her, names in front, color paints at the back)

She is crazy about her books. Last Friday granma reported that she spent a good 30 mintues flipping through her books and showing the words and pictures to grannma's visitors.

So I want to list out the list of books that we have done so far

1. What is Anjali doing, with photos of her doing stuff like eating, standing, smiling etc

2. Who is Anjali with, with photos of her with patti, thattha, bunica, etc

3. Anjali's book of cats and dogs (by far her favorite)

4. The wonders of the world

5. Anjali's book of birds

6. Anjali's book of shapes and colors

7. Beautiful places in nature

8. Anjali's book of butterflies

9. What is in nature?

10. The story of my day

Half of them are in patti's house and half at ours. And I am making more very fast. Already there are plans in my head and materials at the printer for four more

1. Paintings by MichaelAnjelo

2. Monet's paintings

3. Paintings by Rapheal

4. Flowers around you

5. Anjali's outings

I try to get anywhere between 5 and 12 pictures per book. I am also planning some kind of puzzle book, but am not sure how I will pull it off.

Something cool. I gave a talk to a bunch of students last week at work and needed some nice pictures for my presentation. Since there were so many high quality nature images in Anjali's bits of intelligence folder, I used a few images from her cats and dogs book for the talk.

Now, they took a video of the talk and gave me a copy and we played it at granma's house. Anjali got extremely excited when the pictures of German shepherd and persian cat flashed across. When the screen stopped at cocker spaniel for me to say a few words, she kept pointing at the spaniel and babbling excitedly.

This is Anjali's hunt for the abynissian cat. Now how many kids at one year old know Abynissian cats? I didnt know one till I was 27 and was searching for material for Anjali.

Anjali with her cat and dog book

I really had to post this. I also have to post the queen of the rock kingdom, but all in good time.

You are very naughty

So, Since Anjali was small, granma has been playing to her Neethan Mechikolla vendum and wagging her finger at Anjali when the line "seiyum thustathanathukku yellaye illai" comes along. So it was no surprise to us (though extremely amusing) that Anjali picked up on it almost immediately. Couple of days ago, she started wagging her finger to seiyum thustathanathukku.

 

So we tell her "Anjali, tell mummy she is very naughty" and she would wag her finger at me. "Tell granma" and she would wag her finger at granma. "Tell the fan" and off the finger would wag at the fan.

 

Very amusing.

 

Yesterday Anjali broke granpa's alarm clock. Its just significant enough to count as a milestone. The battery case came apart, the glass cover came apart, and the two hands called pulled up.

 

What was even more funny was that I had given a talk at work and for it they gave me an alarm clock as a souvenir. I came back to show granma the clock and granma says that it will nicely replace the one the gremlin broke.

 

Another cool thing is that Anjali responds to me in Tamil but when I tell her anything in Tamil with relation to husband, she doesnt respond. I have to say the same thing in English for her to associate it with Daddy. Its funny and I jsut realized it.

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Touch your toes

Why granma got a blood pressure

And this is a tame version. There are times when she drinks too much water and chokes on it.

what Anjali thinks of a rockmelon and how she says cat

Anjali got tired of playing the rockmelon game by the time the camera came out, thats one of the problems. We are so excited by the game she plays that by the time we get out the video she is tired of the game, and moves to another. of course, the other is just as cute, but still...

So FYI, Anjali at NTUC was very intrigues by rockmelons. Kept fingering them and then touching her head. i leave you to draw your own conclusions on this.



If you listen carefully, you will hear her say "cat". Its the latest in her budding vocabulary. Another one is baber (for flower). She said it about three times all within the proximity of a flower and in reference to one, so it cant be random babbling.

How to scandalize the world

I guess that my excuse could be that unusual events get documented in the blog. But that would not be entirely truthful. Sometimes everyday events get posted up too, for their cuteness factor and their scandalizing factor.

This is usually not an everyday event, but tends to get more and more often these days.

ofcourse, we usually dress her up, but lets face it, less laundry is always better, and it is not very easy to get mashed potato and yogurt out of clothes :P

she played a joke!!

When I saw this happening, I was strongly reminded of a similar event nearly three years ago, involving a long car trip in Sri Lanka, a two year old Ammu and Dhana. Ammu kept saying "lockalat" and giving her hand to Dhana, only there was no chocolate in it, and then grinning that she had played a joke on Dhana. It was the kind of event that made a mark in her milestone chart and for many months Dhana was called lockalate aunty.

Last Saturday, on the bus trip, Anjali played a similar joke on the lady sitting next to me on the bus. I was so glad that I was taking a video of Anjali at that moment.

Look at the self satisfied smile on Anjali's face when the joke is complete =)

Before and during

Every one is surprised that we cut Anjali's hair at Toys R Us.

Well, the cut was good, Anjali didnt cry, and she looks like Kojak (apparently thats a TV serial where the lead character, a detective, is a bald guy)

I call Anjali Mottai Boss, and she likes to shake her head very rapidly when i call her that, and grin.

The complete and unabridged (and ever developing) guide to communicating with little gremlins

Apa: water

Papa: photo

Apple: apple

mum mum: food

amma: mummy

appa: daddy

thattha: thattha

um (short, brisk): what is this?

uuummmm (long, musical): Quick, you are not doing it fast enough

ummmmmmm (long, annoyed): I am annoyed and bored, get me out of here soon

umm (holding your hand): sing, I want to dance

ummmm (forceful, still holding your hand): wrong song, dont you even know which song to sing

gmmm (contented, smiling): ok, right song.

umm (pointing to clock/ nursery book and dancing): sing hickory dickory

umm (pointing to granma's pants and waving): i want to go tata

umm (pointing to bathroom, sippy cup): I want to spill water all over the place, get a change of clothes ready.

 

 

smart bits of intelligence

For the past few weeks, much to husband's annoyance, I have been living, talking, walking and breathing Glenn Doman. I first read his teaching a baby to read, and then promptly went to the shop and bought drawing paper and markers, litered the dining table with cut cardboard and sat with Anjali every morning teaching her how to read mummy, daddy and Anjali. Mr Doman doesnt believe in testing, and just says flash, so in three weeks, we have gone through an amazing plethora of words, from about 5 or six domains, food, furniture, actions, etc.

 

I dont know if Anjali can read yet, but she has shown a good increase in vocabulary. If you tell her Anjali is dancing, she will dance, and if you tell her Anjali is jumping, she jumps. Couple of times I said Anjali is sleeping and she leaned back against me.

 

She also understands a lot of other stuff, like door and window, shoes, table etc, pretty much everything under the sun.

 

Husband was quite tolerant about the reading program. Then I got hold of how to teach your baby Math. The next day, I went to the shop and bought a load of red stickers. The shop only had about 1500 red stickers. I needed 5000.

 

Get the blue ones, Husband said.

 

No. Doman says red.

 

Why do you need 5000?

 

I need to make cards from 1 to 100.

 

Excuse me, How is Anjali going to could 100 dots?

 

Dont ask me. Doman says that its possible.

 

I dont believe it.

 

I dont believe it either, but people have tried it and it works. And the kit sells for 300 dollars. Why would anyone buy something for 300 dollars if it doesnt work?

 

Thats a lousy reason, that something is good because it is expensive.

 

Well. I am doing it. So there.

 

I didnt speak to husband for about two days over this.

 

That evening, when I came home, husband had made flash cards with red marker dots, from 1 to 10. So i guess he beleived in me, even though he didnt quite believe in Doman.

 

So we have done number from 1 to  30.

 

Two days ago, I sat with Anjali and did 7-5=2 and 20-15=5 with her.

 

Husband watched and said

 

Teacher Teacher?

 

Yes?

 

How about starting with Additions?

 

We finished that last week.

 

(Husband hits his head in shock and frustration.)

 

 So, next week is multiplication?

 

(In my most serious tone) Yup.

 

And then division?

 

Hmm hmm

 

And then powers?

 

Thats right.

 

And then arithmetic progressions?

 

You are getting the hand of it.

 

Then logarithms, differentiation and integrations?

 

yup.

 

And then Laplace transforms?

 

No, I want to do fast fourier transforms first.

 

Of course, fourier is more basic than Laplace.

 

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Much later, in toys r us, husband brought to me a set of flash cards for doing Math. Little cards for addition and subtractions. How much is three rainbows + two rainbows kind of thing.

 

Look at the age

 

4+, it said.

 

So?

 

Should I ask the assistant if they have something for Laplacian transforms?

 

Sure.

 

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But even husband's most cynical nature is quite impressed by my adaptation to the encyclopedic knowledge program.  Doman's book, "How to give your baby encyclopedic knowledge", says that the way to do it is by making flash cards or "bits of intelligence", which is a beautiful picture of a subject, with the correct description attached to it.

 

I am a bit reluctant to make flash cards. Cards tend to get scattered and lost. So I got out my drawing block again and made books. It was quite smart really. The first book was a set of Anjali actions, with photos of her eating, sleeping, smiling, standing etc, with the corresponding captions. It was designed as a follow up to the reading program, to teach phrases. The next book had photos of her with mummy, daddy, granma etc, to teach her the concept of "with".

 

The I thought to myself, "photo printing is cheap, and to find the right books in the shop, you have to look hard". Anjali already has about 4 books with animals, different versions of cats, dogs, rabbits and elephants. Surely iwe need to tell her that the world is made up of other things besides these. I went to the neighborhood bookstore and all the fascinating books about science, geography and maths were for much bigger kids.

 

So I went to wikipedia. Pretty much each article has a picture and the pictures are good ones. So why not save the pictures as Jpegs and print them. The first batch of pictures was for three books - cats and dogs, birds and wonders of the world. 27 pictures, $6.25, three books that Anjali enjoys very much.

 

Husband likes the books too. To be sure, when I was making the cat and dog book, I aked him

 

Should I make one cat book, and one dog book, or one for cats and dogs?

 

Just write cat and dog at the bottom.

 

Well, I am not writing cat and dog, I am writing Persian cat, Japanese bobtail etc.

 

Why for?

 

It is important to give her as precise an information as you can and Mr Doman says...

 

You know, I watched a very critical review of this encyclopedic knowledge thingy on tv. They tested the encyclopedic kids with others and found that there was no such thing.

 

Its not a point of encyclopedic knowledge. Its just making your kid aware that there are more things in the world besides cats and dogs, and there are even so many cats and dogs.

 

You know, I would be happier if she sees two different cats and says they are both cats, than saying one is a japanese bobtail and the other is a persian cat.

 

I kept making the book.

 

Ten minutes later husband strolled over to take a look.

 

"Thats a furry brown cat"

 

"Thats a romanian stray cat"

 

"What??" I gasped.

 

"Yes, I see then all the time in Romania"

 

"This is also a Romanian stray cat"

 

"Its a Japanese bobtail", I said stiffly.

 

"Well, it looks like a stray cat".

 

then he flipped through and got to the dogs.

 

"thats a german sheperd, and this is a golden retreiver"

 

"This one's a cocker spaniel, thats a bulldog"

 

"Excuse me," I interrupted indignantly "Arent they all dogs?"

 

"Sorry, my excyclopedia does not extend to cats, just dogs"

 

"Do you think it is important to give Anjali the correct taxonomic description of different species?"

 

"Kithu", said husband, highly amused "did you just say "taxonomic description""