Diary...

Jan 7 2013

I have read about the stereotyping of the toys, while being given to kids - Barbies to girls and Gi-joes to the boys. Determined to not to fall a prey to that, I got a kitchen set for Manu. It was a beautiful miniature set, it included life like models of cooker, fridge and even a multi-jar mixer-grinder. Spent quite some time in selecting it and then purchased without minding the higher cost. When I gave it to him, he eagerly took it from me. I was smug. The stereotyping is not going to happen, no, not with my kid.

After a while, I saw him busy, with his kitchen set around him and he was trying to dismantle those models with a real screw-driver "borrowed" from Papa's tool kit.

hmm...Boys?!

Dec 11 2012

Some people live to eat - Prusty Janaki Ballav
Some people eat to (barely) live - Manu

The trouble starts when Mamma (me, myself and who else) wants it the other way around...
 

Dec 9 2012 

Manu:
I will not get up in the morning, not even after 9AM
I will not brush.
I will not drink milk.
I will not eat the breakfast - idly/upma/dosa/adai/poori/poha/toast/whatever-else-you-make.
I will not remove the dress neither will i take bath.
I will not come out of the tub and the water.
I will not wear dress after bathing.
I WILL NOT LET YOU GO TO OFFICE. NO. NO. NO.
....
I will not let you sit down for even 30 seconds on coming back.
I will not let you make dinner, neither will i eat that.
I will not let you clean me up.
I will not go to bed, not at least until 11:00 PM
I will not sleep.

Me, at >12:00 (that is AM or PM?) :
Thank God, a normal day.

 Oct 27 2012

I was feeling pickish, so put some mixture in a bowl, to satisfy Manu, put a little in his bowl also, gave him and went about to eat from mine. But he wanted both the bowls and took them.

Ah, another real life scenario, a practical situation, a chance to teach my baby the concept of numbers....

So... I told him: "one baby, one bowl...one mamma, one bowl...ONE...no TWO Bowls". He looked at me for a second, looked at the bowls...then...dumped the mixture from my bowl into his own and handed me back my, the now empty, bowl...he Said "Von Baby Von Bow(l), no two"

clean BOWLed :-)

Oct 9 2012

I was down with fever and was resting as if I am sleeping. Normally I put Manu in similar position and used to tell him some random, self developed story. Today the roles were reversed.
As I was lying down, he came and sat near me and started a story all by himself with his limited vocabulary and actions to make up for the rest. Here it goes...

Bow Bow appu... meow hom appu peel...bow bow, meow, appu baby home pie pie...bow bow, meow baby "mum mum mum" appu...

The translation: Dog had apple....dog went to cat's house and peeled the apple...dog, cat took apple to baby's home and cut it into pieces... dog, cat and baby ate the apple together.

He then told "over" and ran his hands over my eyes...

the most soothing feeling ever... but by that time i was bursting with laughter...fever, forgotten....

  Sep 17 2012

Sometimes when i try to hug Manu, he runs and hides himself, generally doesnt fancy hugs or kisses. Today we - myself, manu and his papa were in terrace, there was one chair to sit and I was competing with my husband to sit in that. We became playfully violent, didnt notice manu, he suddenly shouted and there he was staring with tension in his face. I rushed to comfort him, tell him that we werent being serious, tell him that we were just playing, but he just hugged me, the tightest ever till date, remained so for a couple of min. After convincing himself that I was alright, he then turned... and....ATTACKED his papa... tiny fists and roars....

No prizes for guessing who sat on the chair finally :-) 

April 5 2012

Happiest day of my life.... "maaaa"

he has been calling out "maa" "paa" and "daa" for quite some days, but in the nights, he never acknowledged anyone, would find me by smell and touch only, sterday, he woke up in night, finding himself alone in the room called out loudly "maaaaaa"...
   

Some more Story time....

There were two bow-bow-s who were friends. On dog was white and the other dog was black. The white dog had two chocolates with him and the black dog asked for one. The white dog refused to give saying that they were his chocolates and he wont share it with anyone. The black dog was sad but didnt tell anything. They were walking by. Suddenly a big lion came and started chasing the dogs. Both the dogs were frightened and started running away but the Lion kept chasing. The black dog was running quickly and it suddenly realized that the white dog was not running along with him. He turned back. There he saw that the white dog had fallen down, sprained his leg and so wasnt able to run. The Lion was coming nearer and was about to bite the white dog. The black dog could continued running and escaped from the lion. But it did not do that. It saw that its friend was in danger and so ran back, forgot his fear and without minding the danger, he started barking at the lion fiercely. Seeing the black dog barking so fiercely, the lion hesitated and then decided that its better to avoid the trouble and went away. The black dog came back to check on the white dog and found him in tears. The white dog told, "My friend, am very sorry, I wasnt ready to share one simple chocolate with you, but you are so brave that you shared the danger and saved me. I cant thank you enough. I have realized my mistake and that we should share with our friends". Saying so, he handed out the chocolate to the black dog. They remained true friends for ever.....

To stimulate him to take nutritious food I tried this one....

There was once a small puppy. It would not eat dal(lentils) and keeping running away whenever its mother tried to give him Dal. One day, the puppy was walking on the road and there it saw a big lion and it hit the puppy without any reason. The puppy couldnt do anything and so came back home crying and told his mother all that happened. The Mother dog told the puppy that the Lion was hitting him because he considered himself to be strong and to face such a lion, the puppy has to become stronger. The puppy asked how can it become stronger than the lion. The mother then told him that the puppy can grow bigger and become stronger if he eats nutritious food like Dal and vegetables. The Puppy agreed now and it ate all the dal and the vegetables and became strong just like what the mother told him. Then he went outside, the lion was still there and it again tried to hit the puppy. But the puppy was not a weakling anymore, it was strong and it was able to resist the lion's attack and also to hit him back instead. Seeing the puppy so strong the lion became afraid and it ran away. The puppy was very happy and it decided to have dal and vegetables everyday....

One that Papa told him...

There was once a hen in the village and she used to wake everyone in the morning. Cuck-doo-coo she would do and everyone would understand that its morning and would get up. Now the hen was very lonely in the village and it got bored. So it tried to play some games, it started coo-ing in the middle of the night. The villagers got up as usual and were amused to see that it was not yet morning. They went back to sleep. But the Hen kept doing the same continuously. Now the villagers who couldnt sleep properly got angry, they went told the Big bow-bow (ah...here comes the awaited hero...) to help them. The Big bow-bow tried to catch the Hen but it couldnt. The Hen kept running away and hiding herself. The dog then decided on a plan, it told everyone that he was searching the Hen to actually give him a nice reward for troubling the people. He too didnt like the people and so he wanted to reward the Hen who was causing trouble to them. Hearing this, the Hen became very happy, it came to the dog's house to take the reward. But this was the trap that the Dog had laid, it caught the Hen and scolded her for causing trouble. The Hen told that it was doing because it didnt have any friends and so it was bored. So the dog sent the Hen to the nearby village where there are more hens so that this Hen can have friends and be happy. It then got a big alarm clock for the villagers to wake them up in the mornings. Everyone became very happy and praised the Dog....

Stories that i tell him...

Manu, my now 20 month old son, likes stories that revolve around grandma and bow-bow(dog) and wants to hear them when he drinks milk or dozes off to sleep. But he wants a neww story everytime, if we repeat the story that was told earlier, he stops drinking and tells ma, no, new bow-bow. So i try to "invent" new stories with some learnings and moral while keeping the main characters in.
Here is one such story....

Once there was a grandma and she had red blue and green sarees. She didnt have a saree in yellow color, so she wanted to go out and buy an yellow colored saree. She opened the door and stepped out to go to the shop, but there was a big dog which barked at her and she got scared. Seeing that the grandma is getting scared by the barks, the dog decided to scare her further, it barked even more fiercely. Grandma was very frightened and she came back to the house and closed the door. The dog didnt spare her even then, it followed her and stayed just near her door and whenever she tried to open the door the dog barked and kept scaring the grandma. The grandma then started thinking how to make the dog go away. She realized that while she is afraid of the dog, the dog is afraid of the lion. So she came to her door and roared like a lion....grrrrrrr.....grrrrrrrr. The dog which was waiting on the doorsteps for the grandma, jumped. It thought, Oh, my God, it looks like a lion in staying in this house with the grandma and if grandma is not afraid even of the lion, she must be even stronger and fiercer and she must have just humored me by acting scared. Meanwhile he lion roared again, grrrrrrr behind the doors. The dog decided to go away before having to face the lion and so it ran away quickly. Grandma saw the dog running away on hearing the lion's roars and she started laughing.
Thus grandma was able to chase away the dog that was troubling her and she was able to go and buy her yellow saree.

Here is another....

Once there was a very small dog, it was called puppy and it was walking on the road. It was having an apple. A big lion came and snatched the apple from the puppy. The puppy told the lion to return the apple and it was his apple. The lion roared with laughter and refused to give it back. It said "I am a big lion, why should I give your apple back, you are so small" and ate the apple. The puppy walked away crying. It met a cat, meaw-meaw on the way. The cat asked the puppy why he was crying. The puppy told the whole story, how the lion snatched the apple and how it made fun of him. The cat consoled the puppy, it said, "Size doesnt matter. Being big doesnt mean that one can do wrong, Lets teach that lion a lesson it would remember". The puppy was bewildered. "How can I, a small puppy, teach the Big lion a lesson? " The cat told just one word, "Intelligence.". The puppy began to smile, it understood what the cat was trying to tell him and then thought of a plan. It took a plain idly(an indian delicacy, similar to pancake) and kept a green chillie inside that. It then walked towards the lion with the idly. The Lion saw the puppy coming back and this time with an idly. It smacked his lips and thought "Ah, the same puppy is coming with an idly now, I shall have that also, as I took the apple". When the puppy came near by, the lion snatched the idly and ate it hurriedly. But then, it was not just a idly, it had a hot green chillie inside it and the lion bit right into it. "Ooooooooooooooooooooooo" shouted the lion and realized that it has been bettered by the small puppy and ran off, promising that it wont trouble the puppy every after.

And more...

This one is actually an adaptation from the very famous "paati-vadai-sutta-kathai" :-)

There was once a dog, which was very hungry but didnt have anything to eat. So it prayed to God to show him some way to appease his hunger. Then it was walking on the road, it saw a grandma crying. The dog went nearby and asked her what had happened that she was crying so hard. The grandma told, "I made yellow, green and red colored poori (another indian delicacy, made of wheat, similar to a pancake that has been deep fried) and was about to eat them. Just then a crow came and took away my red colored poori and flew off. It is sitting on the green tree now.I cant get it back". The Dog consoled the grandma and told it would get the poori back from the stealing crow. So it went to the green tree where the bad crow was sitting with the poori in its beak and asked it to return the poori back to grandma as it was a bad thing to steal. The crow simply shook its head to indicate that it wont return. Then the dog thought and decided on a plan. It started flattering the crow. It said, "Oh Crow, how beautiful you are, it would be very nice if you sing a song". The foolish crow was very happy and opened its mouth to sing...kaaaa...kaaaa it went. But then the poori which was being held in the beak, fell down once the crow opened its mouth, just near the dog. The dog immediately picked it up. It was very hungry by now but it took the poori back to the grandma and gave it to her. The grandma was very happy and ate the poori. She then praised the dog and gave it one red apple as a reward. Thus the dog was able to help the grandma, earn the apple and satisfy its hunger also, by honest means. The stealing crow was left with nothing. 

Grandma's remote

Yesterday, manu switched off the TV, snatched the remote from his grandmother and remained oblivious to all our requests to switch it back on. He just pretended as if nobody else was there around him, busied himself with his play while carefully sitting on the remote, away from our reachable distance. His grandmother gave up pleading and started moving upstairs to her room. On seeing this, he got upset, thought that grandma is leaving because of his action, of snatching away the remote, so called to his Dada and ran behind her to hand over the remote back and asked her to come back, "aaa"(come in hindi)...my duddu...