The photographer uncle likes cheese … he took our photo too !!

Vira had her class photograph taken in her Montessori school today. Understandably it’s a big occasion . 

Multiple reminders were sent to us parents

“Dear Parents

The class photo will be taken at 9:30 am tomorrow. …. Please send the children suitably dressed, preferably in bright colours”

Vira was dressed up in her awesome fairy frock which has a string of pearls around the neckline. She looked so very pretty !! touch wood!

She came back and reported - The photograph uncle was very nice. He made us stand and smile …. He liked cheese !! He kept saying cheese.. cheese … cheese …

J

Evolution of words … string them up ..

A for EHH

B for BEH

C for KEH ….

 Its been more than a year now since I wrote about Vira … Its been a hurricane of a year though. She is 3 years old.  She joined a Montessori school in the neighbourhood . And has made some progress on learning to be more ‘civilised’ – in words and deeds .

One particularly interesting activity is to teach her the alphabets .. and the sounds associated with them .  I read up about this and the following pieces on Wikipedia helped

1.      Linguistics :-  Linguistics as a study endeavours to describe and explain the human faculty of language.

2.      Phonetics :- Phonetics is a branch of linguistics that comprises the study of the sounds of human speech. It is concerned with the physical properties of speech sounds.

      It’s amazing that kids at 3 will learn anything so complicated.. or so I thought. But I then realised that the kid is actually enjoying the process. She like saying A for Aah … B for Bah .. C for Keh .Phonetics is enabling her to speak much clearer . And to understand things easily. She is making attempts to identify 2 letter sounds together – SH for Shhh.. ST for sttttah . It has also shown me that the 26 letters in the alphabet does not represent all the sounds in English . 15 vowels and semi vowels and 23 consonants play a very important role in the sound and spelling maze . Takes me straight back to school !! J

Look up this utube video if you found this interesting  :- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MPsz6QVZeVE  

The Way to Blackmail Parents !! Come party with the bhootnath ..

I am hugely amused to see the way kids are swayed by music in fact anyone who thinks that Indian film music has limited utility is the wrong.

In my house I have observed that Veera (who’s all of 17 months), seems to have developed a way to ensure that we keep her favourite music playing ESPECIALLY when she knows that you’re trying to feed her .

 BLACKMAIL !!!

What happens is that she’s figured out that we want her to eat and , as soon as we get the food in a plate ,  she will run to the television .If she can find the remote she’ll take that and wave it around and just will not open her little mouth until you have a HINDI music channel blaring .

I thought let me not only expose her to the Hindi music channels let me try and expose her to the English music channels. But my lady just does not want any other music other than popular Hindi film songs off today’s date. So all attempts to play music which belongs to the Golden era of Indian cinema is all very wasted too.

NO old Hindi music… it has to be today’s music… today’s POPULAR Hindi music. Which are the two favorite and songs that she is following currently?

One is “party with the bhoothnath … “ ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W7kdKf_aqX4  )And the other one is “beshaarmi ki height”  (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1vUDeO801Dk)

I wonder what this new generation is coming to …. J

From Infant to Baby … The GIANT leap

Wikipedia reads : An infant (from the Latin word infans, meaning "unable to speak" or "speechless") is the very young offspring of a human or animal.  Vira is now ‘able to speak’ and so , technically, is no longer an infant . Aren’t we proud … You may THINK -  how come only speech is the differentiator ? Isn’t that a very small thing ?  But if you have kids around you will KNOW – that speech is a huge HUGE indicator of progress . I do think Facial Expression should also be considered …

So the story of evolution of Vira is that she has started experimenting and enjoying the sound of her own voice .

Along with the multiple repetitions of 2 lettered words … da da da daaa ddaa da daaa da dada … pa pa ppaa papa paaa aa aaaaa, there is this fierce enthusiasm to be heard. So the volume of rendering this ‘alap’ is very loud. And the pace differs too . This extempore delivery is often punctuated by random screeching .

So the activity cycle of Vira’s world now consist of

1.      Eat

2.      Sleep

3.      Run

4.      Bump (into furniture)

5.      Scatter (toys , newspapers)

6.      Blabber (the ‘alap’ mentioned above)

7.      Screech

Wow … a formidable list for a 12 month old .

The other good news is that the hair on her head has started growing . All of a sudden , there no of hair follicles per sq cm on her head seems to have multiplied. What a relief !! I was quite worried that she was practically bald till now .

This month has been good , with so many agreeable surprises .

Baby to me - 'I don’t like socks …'

Bangalore has that ‘chill’ in the air again . And my mom’s go the baby these fabulous socks of a couple of varieties –

·        the thick , furry kinds,

·        the pure cotton with cute embellishment kinds

·        the ‘ready to party’ kinds

As Vira jets about the house, it is important to keep her feet warm . This is slated to being down the incidence of cold AND to reduce the frequency of ‘su-su’ (errr , pee pee to the uninitiated)

With these noble objectives we put on a couple of them .. and were very pleased to see the Vira move around with growing confidence (initially she slipped about a bit ) .

Wow !! wonder grandmom and mom were soooo proud of our achievements. I bragged about this success to all my friends and foes with infants .. 

A month later the tables turned . Miss Vira learnt that if she tugged sufficiently hard or long at the toe of a sock, it came off !! She decided that this was a great game .. tug off a sock and mum or grand-mum , or Lakshmi aunty (the maid) would come running after her . What a great way to grab some attention!!

Since then this has become an often played game . The sequence of events is

1. Baby takes a bath
2. Dry her up , sprinkle lots of Johnson’s baby powder all over, including on her toes
3.  Person 1 - distract the wriggling baby
4.  Person 2 - put socks on the baby’s feet
5. Baby is happy to play .. for a while
6. Baby tugs at a sock on one foot
7.  Sock comes loose
8. Baby waves the sock around till someone (mum, grand-mum, Lakshmi Aunty) notices
9.  Baby squeals and runs
10.  We shout and run
11.  Catch the baby
12. Repeat activity no. 3 onwards

Phew!! The evening finds three exhausted women and 1 ecstatic baby .. Dihka diya na !!

Combat techniques from the art of war –

a.      Love thy enemy (here – the baby)… once she is asleep . Till then , prepare to chase !!

Evolution - wriggle ... roll ... crawl ... walk

A couple of days back Vira started rolling over onto her tummy and wriggling her hands and feet .  It seemed like she is doing some of the yoga asanas quite effortlessly . Bhujang asana is her favourite . 

And today in the morning, when all of us were rushing around in the ‘morning rush’ , she started crawling . I missed that moment when this ‘gyan uday’ happened. All I know is that one fine moment I saw the child on her fours and , with full concentration, making her way to an unknown destination. Wow!!

A couple of coordinated movements and she managed to reach the sofa for support. A few tugs and pulls and she managed to stand (albeit briefly) . Oh my !! talk of the pace of change :-).

This was too good to be kept to myself.. and as I called out , all the members of the household came out to ‘check this out’ . And promptly Vira refused to ‘do it again ‘ !! Haha

Do I believe in miracles? Yes . The ability to learn , unaided , is a miracle in so small a child. God sure has built in miracles into life .

Baby's first words , 'Maaaaa'. Homo Sapiens baby or a goat's kid ?

Maaaaa

Every hindi film buff will know these lines from Deewar (Amitabh Bachchan and Shahi Kapoor) :-

·        Vijay (AB): Aaj mere paas bangla hai, gadi hai, paisa hai.......tumhare paas kya hai?

·        Ravi (SK) : Mere paas Maa hai!

(Tacky interpretation in English :-

Vijay:Today I have a bungalow, car, lots of money.. what do you have?

Ravi: I have my mother!(and even after having everything you have lost her))

Why am I quoting this dialogue?  Because Vira now tries out a few variations of Ma now .

1.      Mamamamammmm

2.      Maaaaaaa

3.      Mehhhh mehh (like a goat)

4.      MAMMMMaAAAA

Yes, this is the first word she has spoken . I cannot tell you the immense sense of pride I feel . Incidentally, my elder daughter Reet started off with ‘DaDA da da da ‘  which clearly was an attempt at ‘Dad’ . I remember how thrilled Vikram (her pop) was !! These days I cannot help smiling grinning at the sounds that seem to be Vira’s version of ‘mother’ . J

PS :- The most interesting variant is the mehhh which is so much like a goat bleating that we can’t stop laughing when she starts off .