With mummy and daddy

Gosh!! I do look like a watermelon.

Rocking Rolling Riding

A pretty beach

Piha

pretty with daddy

Jurassic Park
Geyser and Blue pool
Pohutu (I think thats what its called geyser)
Baa baa
Two smiles and a pretty background
Walking along the beach
A nice scenery
Uphill
Ponsonby


The fact that she has more pictures with daddy is because daddy carried her more than mummy (that is daddy's claim :P)

Pretty with mummy

Overlooking
A pretty scenery
Kiss on a hill
And on the way up
Under the bridge
Against the sails
A boat on Ponsonby

Pretty as a picture (some photos removed accordiing to thattha's request)

Pretty in a new ammamma dress

Pretty girl
All dressed up
Admiring the water

patti matta

Yesterday I asked Anjali

"Anjali, who will do circus till 12 midnight?"

"Annie, Amma, Adi'

"Will patti do or no?" (patti kooothu adipaala maatala?)

"maata!"

"Thatha?"

"maata!"

After a while, she got very amused by how excied we were about her saying maata that she went around saying  "patti maata"

She understand what it means too, after a while we asked her

"Anjali, who will do circus till 12 midnight?"

"Annie, Amma, Adi, Patti, thattha"

"Will patti do koothu?"

"Yesh"

And thattha?

"yesh!"

(this is one of the few yeshes that we get out of her. )

more developmental updates

What is nice to see is Anjali's ability to string words together. Before, when I used to tell her

"Come here"

she would say

"Here"

So imagine my surprise and delight when i told Anjali yesterday

"Come here"

and she repeated

"come"

and a millisecond later

"here"

Its the ability to string two words together. I guess she will be talking sentences really soon.

I am also really excited when she changes a sound for a word, like meow meow becoming cat, woof woof becoming dog or puppy and o ac ac becoming butter (its butterfly)

I have more or less lost my alone time with Anjali... Of course, a watermelon cant keep up with a duracell bunny, but husband is starting to walk me to patti's house in the morning, and patti and thattha walk us back half way home where husband picks us up to walk the rest of the way home. I am not saying that I am complaining, but I do miss the few minutes that we have alone on the road, when i get to do things with her that are mommy baby secrets.

For now Anjali has a big red tub that she bathes in, and she has designated a tiny blue bucket for ho hia to bathe in.

She also has this very annoying habit of pretenting that there are ants in her shoe and taking them off, on the way back home. And whats more, once she has convinced us to let her take her shoes off (we mostly do due to the mixture of tantrums and sheer muleheadedness), she asks all of us in turn to take off our shoes. Then we become a set of barefooted people walking on the streets, stopping at puddles and splashing in them.

And yesterday she had this funny idea that is would be fun to dunk her shoes into a big puddle of water. And then she asked for mine and husband's. We gave them to her.

She amused herself for ten minutes.

"You know, i think this is just the beginning", said husband, forewarningly.

True enough, she next wated to take off her shirt and dunk it in water.

But there I drew a line.

And luckily, both for us and for her, she didnt insist.

Duracell bunny

Looks familiar??

A bit like a photo of Anjali??

This looks a bit like a maniratnam movie (after all it was shot in the dark), but tutu really enjoys herself on this bridge.

How many people climb bridges like this?

Surely the engineer has not designed it for this purpose...

Cooking 101 with Anjali

Recipe 1: How to spread jam on bread

why i need to throw all my pattern recognition algorithms into the garbage bin

This was husband's advice when he pointed to Anjali the moon in one off the chinese paintings at the temple. Anjali pointed to the moon in all the subsequent paintings.

We were looking through a newzealand travel guide and there was a logo with a small pastel engine on it. Anjali pointed to it and said "coo". Husband tossed the page to me and asked "Can you find the train there in three seconds?"

I couldnt. Not in three seconds. But could in five seconds.

tantrums and behaviors

Anjali's tantrum level is going up (Does she have my temper by any chance? If so, watch out world.)

Last evening:

Anjali eats thair, spills a bit on the floor.

Thattha asks her to get a cloth from patti to wipe the floor.

Anjali gets wet cloth to wipe floor.

On the way to the floor, Anjali spots Chitra doll on the floor. She puts cloth on the floor, picks Chitra doll to put her away

Patti comes in, sees cloth on the floor, instinctively picks it up, wipes the floor and takes cloth away.

Anjali finishes whatever she was doing with Chitra doll, turnjs around to clean the floor and finds cloth missing.

"Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa"

What on earth? No one understands what the crying is for, and when we finally figure it out, patti brings a cloth out for Anjali to wipe floor with.

The new cloth is dry and is different from the old one. Imp takes one look at the cloth

"Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa"

Patti brings back the old wiping cloth. Imp takes it, cleans the floor, smiles, babbles and all is beautiful in the world again.
====

This morning Anjali wakes up a bit early. i give her her milk.

She drinks it and leaves 20 ml in the bottom.

"Who will finish the milk?"

"Adi!"

Daddy is busy in the other room. I dont think twice about it, but open the bottle and drink up the milk that remains. Suddenly, the floodgates open.

(Pointing to bottle) "Aaadi.... *sniff sniff* waaaaaaaaaaaaaa"

Adi comes in to see what the trouble is about, sizes up the situation, takes imp to the kitchen to show her his own bowl of milk that he has warmed foor cereal. imp is satisfied and alll is beautiful again.

=========

Baby ho hia's scan just got over yesterday. She weighs a couple hundred grams less than what her sister weighed at that age. Doctor pointed it out and said not to worry, babies pick up weight towards the end, and could be because I run after little imps far too much. I am not too worried either. Besides baby ho hia's scan is at 31 weeks and Anjali's was not until 33 weeks or so. Seven more weeks to go. Gosh!!!

Meanwhile the kick counting stuff has begun and the whole thing is starting to seem pretty real. Husband said when we found out that Anjali was a girl that finding out that she is a girl makes it all the more real. I guess baby ho hia was real much sooner in that sense, but getting the kick counting chart makes it closer.

Anjali is still not willing patti to call the baby Aditi, and christened her Shree maa. She wants Aditi for herself.

And she still insists that Adi carry ho hia and mummy carry Annie, but has agreed to mummy carrying the baby *pucin*
=========

Meanwhile , the baby is showing a lot of characteristics different from Anjali. Anjali, in the thoppai, used to kick actively whenever husband talked to her. Ho hia, on the other hand goes all still, and when he stops talking kicks a couple of extra kicks. Maybe they will complement each other.

counting till twenty?

I am not sure if I should be astounded. Anjali, last week was able to count till ten very nicely.

She still cant articulate eleven and twel but if you ask her thir... she goes

teeteen

hoteen

hiteen

sheteen

seteeen

eighteen

nineteen and

toty

I am impressed and yesterday, for the fun of it, I tried going up from twenty one. She stopped what she was doing, watched me very carefully articulating my words, looking for patterns, and what was interesting was that she stopped paying attention when the game reached around 50, I think she has already gotten the pattern. Hope to report more on this soon.

More developmental updates

1. Anjali can say most colors: boo, gee, pink, yeow etc. But sometimes, she picks the wrong colors, especially orange for yellow etc. But she always gets the blue right and sometimes the green

2. She insists that she goes to sleep at tooo (god save us!). And that the old man in puss in boots had tooo sons and tooo cats.

3. The dress that I am currently crocheting is supposedly for ho hia, even though I have told her that it is for Anjali.
==============
4. Sibling rivalry takes a very interesting twist. Patti wanted to nickname Anjali Shree Ma, but somehow the name never caught on. Only patti used it off and on. Patti wants to name baby so aa Aditi. But Anjali wants patti to call her Aditi and baby to be called Shree ma. She is very clear on it.

Anjali, what patti should call you?

Aditi

I thought patti should call you shree ma?

baby!!!
=================
5. She doesnot like me to carry babies. We went to visit a tiny baby last weekend and Anjali started crying when i picked up the baby. I gave the baby to patti and she stopped crying immediately. later patti asked her if we could take the baby home and she said "Yesh" (she is very selective about for what she responds Yesh). So we asked her who should carry the baby and her reply was "Patti, Adi". Who should mummy carry? "Anniya!"

Can mummy carry ho hia?

"No. Adi"

Anjali, let mummy carry Ho hia pucin?

"pu" (after much consideration)

and Anjali?

"mu!!"
==========
Anjali has started eating her toes again. i told her not to eat them

"Ho Hia"

Yes. Ho Hia will eat them. and Anjali? can Anjali eat her legs?

No.

Why? because Anjali is

"big!!"

Correct.

"Annie!!" (Lifitng her legs into some totally contorted position such that her toes touched her head)

Yeah yeah, Annie can touch her toes to her head.

Annie shows off by lifting one leg and then the other to her head in some express train sequence.

Very good.

"Ho hia?"

"What Ho hia must do?"

"mum mum"
==========
Husband says that if no one from CPS is around, we should give Anjali a1ll the clothes that needs to be handwashed. This was after she decided to dunk her towel in the bathwater last night and wash it. then she asked for "other!" I scouted around the house and found one of Anjali's frocks and a small hand towel, both of which also got dunked in water.

Anjali likes to give her toys a bath. And cry when she washes them, so that we can tell the toys not to cry and that they will become ceen when they are washed.

Anjali at the IEP walk

At the start of the walk...
Thatha caie up hillGo by self


Standing for photos

Cute girlie

I enjoy the walk, but "no dhess peese"
Pretty wavesWith mummy at the debrief

the du bunny

After spending five hours walking torugh some of the more rugged paths in singapore and blabbing her way while running through the tree tops, Anjali came back home on saturday evening. But not before bossing around a little puppy and telling it not to go home.

Once she reached home, she went straight to the bathroom to take her evening bath. We thought that with such a short afternoon nap and so much of exercise we would sleep by ten.

After so many months, I should have known better. And that Anjali would want to play.

And play she did.

First, she got the milk bottle and took two sips. Then she ran into the laundry room and decided that throwing the go stones that husband had washed and dried because of a previous pee incident would be amusing. At the end of the story, we had go stones all around the laundry room.

At that point, I was too tired and asked husband to help me to keep an eye on her while I rested a little.

"Ok", he said, stepping into the laundry room.

I lay on bed and closed my eyes.

"buck mop, buck mop"

Husband was chortling.

"What's happening?"

"Come and see!"

I was supposed to be resting, so I rolled over in bed just so that i could see the laundry room door.

And stared.

"I thought it was hidden?"

"I thought so too, but guess I didnt hide it well enough."

The imp had gotten out the mop and the bucket, which after the last round, husband had hidden behind the laundry room door. She was now mopping the floor.

ofcourse, mopping was hard work and Anjali got tired. And me, in a futile attempt to get her to bed

"Anjali, would you like to drink more paal"

"mop".

And after a few seconds, we went tearing into the kitchen saying "ammamma ammamma"

Husband tore after her while I lay back on bed, puzzled. She knows that ammamma is not in the kitchen. Afterall, a watermelon in the middle of the bed that waddles and talks is not hard to miss.

Thirty seconds later, I heard a bang, followed by a louder chortle from husband.

"boom boom boom", the imp said.

i craned my neck out of the bedroom again. The imp had somehow opened the broom cupboard (causing the bang when she closed it), and taken out the dustpan. She was brooming the living room.

But not for long. She came careening into the bedroom.

"Ammamma... up!"

Ok...

"Boom"

I took the boom.

"Anniya!"

"What anniya wants?"

"mop"

And she took the mop and walked the house, while I broomed ahead of her.

Totally exhausted by then, I sat on a chair and tried to sweep. But no, she was too clever for me.

"Up! Boom!"

Ok fine.

How is the house Anjali?

"deety!"

"And after you mop, how it will be?"

"ceen!!!"

She slept at 12.15am.

The next day, I asked Anjali "Are you a duracell bunny or an energizer bunny?"

"Du"

About real mothers and a recipe for real mother quiche

I got a mail from Swati about real mothers. Pretty uplifting, considering that we have playdough all over the coffee table and floor and bedspread

MOTHERS

Real Mothers don't eat quiche; they don't have time to make it.
Real Mothers know that their kitchen utensils are probably in the sandbox.
Real Mothers often have sticky floors, filthy ovens and happy kids.
Real Mothers know that dried play dough doesn't come out of shag carpets.
Real Mothers don't want to know what the vacuum just sucked up.
Real Mothers sometimes ask 'Why me?' and get their answer when a little voice says, 'Because I love you best.'
Real Mothers know that a child's growth is not measured by height or years or grade...It is marked by the progression of Mama to Mom to Mother...

So for real mothers who want to make quiche, here's the recipe.

What you need:
2 eggs, 1.5 cups milk, quiche vegetables (spinach/ mushroom/ onion etc), salt, pepper, 3 spoons of flour

saute the vege until its fairly cooked, spinach and mushroom must lose their water.

In a seperate bowl, mix eggs, milk, salt, pepper and flour. Add the saute vege.

Put the whole thing in a baking tray and bake for 30 minutes or until the thing jiggles in the center.

eat.

Why a hugely pregnant watermelon and a hopelessly tired software engineer hhave to sweep the floor in the middle of the night

Anjali has gotten a new fixation. It is probably all my fault for triggering it.

Two days ago, Anjali was taking a bath and decided it was fun to dump bathwater on the kitchen floor. After switching off the water, I took the mop and mopped up the water on the floor.

Now the imp wanted to try mopping. First she took the mop and twirled it across the floor. It was fine, except that the mop, now wet, is about three times as heavy as Anjali is.

Not that it bothers her in the least.

Then she decided that twirling the mop is not very fun, nor is it very productive. So what are we supposed to do?

Strolling across the kitchen, with the mop in tow, she comes across a bucket. Not just any bucket, but the bucket that is actually used for mopping.

Then began the process of touring the house. Room by room she went, exclaiming that the house was dirty (excuse me!!) dipping the mop in the bucket (there was no water inside), fussing when the mop was too heavy for her to put in the bucket, shaking the mop a couple of times to rinse it (where did she learn that?) taking the mop out, fussing again when it was too heavy, refusing any help from amma or daddy.

I let her at it for a while until she got distracted and then put the mop back. She came back to it at 11pm when she had finished her milk and it was past her bed time.

I took the mop down. She grabbed it.

As I said, the fact that it was heavy didnt bother her.

But it bothered me. So I opened the broom cupboard and tried to exchange the mop for the broom. But no go. She wanted to mop, and mop she would.

I made to shut the broom cupboard.

"No!"

"Ammamma"

"boom"

So I had to broom all around the house ahead of Anjali, after which she came along, mop in one hand, bucket in the other.
=====

Yesterday, I had dishes to do, and so husband had to take the broom instead.

"You know, I am actually sweeping the house. Anjali, what gave you the idea that i sweep? Have you seen thatha sweep the house?", he said, emptying the dustpan.

"Can you persuade her to exchange the broom for the mop?" the broom, after all, weighed much less

"I doubt it, not unless you want a tantrum"

I didnt.

"Lets buy her a lighter mophead and a sitck thats half as short" (After the mop handle came dangerously close to the tv)

"You know, I'll have to complain to Child protection, you make this girl do more work than you do "

Well well. At least the house is clean.

But Anjali must have gotten this "deety" syndrome from Bunica, who is pretty big on cleanliness.

Bunica's kitchen is spotless

Mine usually has large blobs on the stove and dishes all around the counter.

Bunica's sink is clean (husband thinks its depressing)

I go by the policy that if the sink is not full, its empty

Bunica folds her clothes regularly.

Hey, we have a three bedroom house for three people, and that means that unfolded clothes can go in two bedrooms until we get time to fold them

Bunica's stuff is organized

Excuse me? What does that mean?

All in all, a bit of deety syndrome around the house will do us good.

Talking: Anjali style

Counting: She gets the order right. That surprises Husband the most.

One...tioo tee hor hie sish she at nine te!

===
Maheshwari, mahakali, Mahalakshmi, mahasaraswati

"Aditi"

"Aditi, the divine..."

"cocuscous" (thats consciousness)
==

Who mummy loves:

Annnie, Adi, Pattiya, thattha, ho hia, car, cuk, tee,
======

What is acasa

Aadi, Amma, Annie, ho hia, book, car, mio mio

======
favorite manipulating phrase:

no no no no
=======

How Anjali calls the baby?

Ho hia

What Anjali will give the baby?

kiss

What the baby will call Anjali?

Akka

What patti calls the baby?

Aditi!

What Anjali will tell the baby?

I loo u
===

an energizer bunny visits the playground

straight in the apu cross fire

Video of Anjali at bird park

This is with the birds. The playground one will be up soon

Anjali at the bird park: photos

11 hours straight out without a single speck of sleep. This is what I can best describe about Anjali’s trip to the bird park. She woke up on Sunday morning at 9.30 played around with husband and a cup of milk and playdough. I am not going to describe the fate of the milk or the fate of the playdough, I went to the bedroom and refused to think about either, preferring husband to clean up the mess.

Then I thought of giving her some soup, which she drank about half a bowlful before refusing another spoon. She knows it when husband wants to go out, and she knows that she will go out regardless, so she strikes on food and keeps saying “out”.

So we packed up, and I thankfully discovered that I had left the babywear at patti’s house. Thankfully because I would need to babywear her at the bird park, and that would mean that we would need to detour by patti’s and there was a chance that she would eat at patti’s? So we went by and I browbeat husband into staying half an hour while patti tried to give Anjali thair rice. It worked, kind of, and she ate about four to five spoons before calling it quits.

So it was time to go to the bird park, and when we reached there, we saw a lot of parrots. On a branch. Anjali got all excited. And that was nothing to how excited she was to see the ducks (o ac ac) and the swans in the water, and the owl. At first she didn’t want to leave the parrots, but soon realized that the place was full of birds.

So off we went, looking at the birds – walking like the penguins, saying that the owl was in the dark, marveling at the storks and ostriches and kokkabarras and crown pigeons, trying to browbeat the lories into eating more mum mum.




I tried to give Anjali a bottle and make her sleep at around 3pm. But no go. She finished her milk and went straight back to bossing the lories.


We rounded off the bird sightings by watching the eagle show, which Anjali really enjoyed. The bird show finished at 4.30 after which we went down to see the owl. However, as we walked out of the theatre, what did we see but a huge playground, complete with a water play area? And what did Anjali do? Doesn’t take much guessing – she went straight to the playground, climbed up, slid down, before running to the water area and playing there, foor an hour, bossing the babies who didn’t want to go in the water to go in with her.

And then she returned to the playground and played there for another hour. Was really pretty fun to watch.

We went for pizza in the evening, and she was asleep in the babywear sometime between the time we left the pizzeria and the time we reached the train station, around 8.30pm, and slept through the night.

Here are more pictures

Bright red ibis!
Making friends
Storks!


Thats a Rhea!
At the lory loft

Shaky bridge
We are not scared and walk across like a duck

At the playground
Family picture: two adults and two kids!
The beautiful flamingo

The climber of temple walls

Does it make me a lousy mom?

"You are still drinking coffee?", asked a colleague, glancing pointedly at the watermelon masquerading as a stomach.

"Yup. Once a day, helps keep the energy up."

"Does the doctor say it is ok?" (still with a very pointed glance)

"Should be fine. I use a lot of milk and its just a cup a day"

"As long as its just a cup"

Well. i didnt ask the doctor and I am sure that I dont need to drink decaff. But I cant help remembering that I was turned off from coffee for ten months when i was pregnant with Anjali and didnt like the coffee that i had to drink after I gave birth. Husband thinks that I am just blase since I dont take so much care. He thinks that the first pregnancy stressed me out too much, as I was worried about all sorts of wierd things. And now I have been there, done that, and so I am not worried, and so indulge myself with coffee and pepsi.

Maybe he will have that long talk with the baby yet.

the kind of things

First Anjali was sweeping the floor with the broom, saying that patti's spotless floors were dirty. Now she is sweeping with both the broom and the dustpan. From the living room, to the store room, to the thresholds of each room.

Yesterday, I dunked a whole load of playdough into the dustbin because some imp decided to put all the playdough in water. Now I have to buy a new box of playdough. Thankfully its not expensive.

I notice that Anjali's play had changed. Before she was following the activities we designed for her. Now, along wth the stuff that we design for her, she designs her own activities. Like the big show we did with her dolls yesterday when she brought pillows for the dolls to sleep. She had two dolls - Gita and Sita, and so she made two trips to the bedroom and brought back two pillows, one for each doll. Then she put them to bed on the pillows, and covered them with two nappies for blankets.

Seriously!

Which bit is true?

Anjali, what did you see in the chinese garden?

Bu

What did you do with the bulldozer?

Bruuu bruu vroom vroom

Who helped you to drive the bulldozer?

Aaaaaaadi!!!

Did you drive the big bulldozer or the kutty bulldozer?

Ku!

who drove the big bulldozer?

Thatha!

What color was the big bulldozer?

geen!

what color was the kutthy bulldozer?

geen!

How many bulldozers were there?

thee!!!

(Hint! All the number are three and all the colors are green, unless they are blue. I have heard off daddy's and thattha's hair being green in color. anyone who knows thatha knows better than to suggest that he drives a bulldozer.)

Does she know what it means

Anjali likes to say I love you

it usually goes along the lines of "I o you" or "I loo loo"

And if you say I love you too. she gets all excited and says

"Too!!"

And yesterday night she spent ten minutes on bed turning between me and daddy daying "I o u too" and "I too" and "I u too" which are all, i presume, variations of the same thing. But does she know what it means?

Sure enough, when i told Anjali "te iubesc" this morning, she gave me a hug and said "I o u"

franngipani pi

After a long walk yesterday, we found ourselves at the foot of the frangipani tree. Husband went to pick a frangipani for Anjali.

"Adi?"

"Appa is picking a frangipani for you."

"Ear!"

"Here you are Anjali."

Anjali puts the frangipani in her ear.

"Apu!"

"Yup. The frangipani has Apa inside it, because it was raining."

"Let me put it on your ear."

Anjali is happy with the frangipani. Then.

"Amma"

"What amma needs?"

"foer"

"Can amma have a frangipani also?"

Appa goes and picks a nice frangipani for amma.

"Ear"

"Ok. Amma will put the flower in her ear."

Contented smiles. Then...

"Adi! Foer!"

There were no more flowers on the floor.

"Amma will give appa her frangipani."

So appa puts the frangipani in his ear.

"The two of you look quite ridiculous. I should take a picture."

Imp stops dead on her tracks.

"Lets go Anjali"

"Pi!"

"What?"

"Annie, Pi!"

Ok. But it is dark here. go under the block and I will take a picture.

Imp walks along the park muttering "dark!" at regular intervals and then reached the block.

"Pi!"

And this is what we got!