Nidhi

After a long day spent playing in a park, as we r going home,
Nidhi : Amma, if i go home and ask for the computer, what will u do?
Amma : i'll give u one on ur bum!
Nidhi : Violence is not the answer to everything!
:-))
**************************************************************************************
Nidhi, Aditi and i were at home tracking Santosh's plane when he was returning home after a business-trip. Nidhi had reached the end of her patience waiting for him, as is evident from the 'plane announcement' she made,
in a sweet voice : 'pu...pu....pu... (the pinging sound u hear before every announcement being made on a flight) we r happy to inform u your plane has just landed.
harshly : Now, get out of the Exit. RIGHT NOW!!!'
:-))
****************************************************************************************
After updating a profile pic on fb,
Amma : Yay, i got (xyz) likes in an hour.
Nidhi : wow! now what? u get some reward?

**************************************************************************************
Nidhi : Amma, how old r u?
Amma : *mumbling insignificant number*
Nidhi : Which year you were born?
Amma : y do u want to know?
Nidhi : Did u take part in the Indian Freedom Struggle?
Amma (shaking head) : No.
Nidhi : At least a World War?
Amma (shocked) : No!
Nidhi : You never wanted to join the army?
Amma : No, no. why? u want to join?
Nidhi : No, i don't want to join. i can't join, boz i can't kill people.
And with that, she walks away. Just like that. And that in one line, is my first daughter Nidhi - all of 8 years. Kind, gentle, thoughtful...
 

Saami Rashikaname! (rekshikaname)

Santosh handed over the bell('mani') to Aditi when he was doing his puja. (Generally nidhi is the one who gets to ring it). Aditi immediately ran to the drawing-room, where i was sitting, and started doing puja to the TV! She would ring the bell, fold her hands in a namaste and say 'saami rashikaname' multiple times in whisper. i was puzzled for a second as to why the TV is being worshipped when i understood that it's becoz Vishnu Sahasranamam was playing on the home-theatre. Although the TV was off(no pictures of God being seen on TV), Aditi knew a God's song was being played.

i have noticed this before also that (only audio, no video being played) a bollywood number would make her dance while a devotional song would make her fold her hands and pray. Reminds us that children know/understand more than what we give them credit for!

Wordly Wise

Many writers have said that unless u sit and write everyday, ur writing will not improve. Practice makes writing better. i find that's very true. When i come back to my blog after a hiatus i find it difficult to write. Although the mind brims with ideas, words don't flow easily. it will take some time before i like what i write, but until then no other way but to plow on until i find a rhythm.

Ever since summer holidays started, Aditi has been following Nidhika arnd everywhere, doing exactly everything she does. Nidhi was pleased initially but after a point she got irritated - why is she doing everything i do? when i told her that she is a hero in aditi's eyes and wants to learn everything from nidhika, she felt better and even started teaching her a few things. the first thing she taught her was to say 'awesome'. so now we have two voices, one tiny another a little bigger, both saying awesome at random times, each in their own inimitable style.

i dunno when but a whole lot of words have entered our house. what i noticed was there would be a week or two of quietness(or older words) and then a week bursting with new-new words, each one spoken perfectly at the first attempt and taking up permanent residence in our house. Another thing i noticed was when nidhi started speaking she would hurry to say a word and many words would take up their own pronunciation and slowly evolve into the officially correct form. Like baikkut. Took some time before it turned to what is actually is - rabbit. Baikkut was infinitesimally cute and is still a part of our family. But not so with Aditi. She likes to say each word perfectly, starting with her some of her very first words, 'bear', 'turtle' and 'fox'. right from the very first time she spoke, u could hear even the 'r' in turtle.

somehow button, bubble, cycle, shark, apple, tree, leaf, hello - all have appeared and all of them soft, but clear. tree is 'chee', but let's assume that's american style. the easy ones like shoe, car, cheese, shell, book took no time, others like fofer(flower), pepper, lion, tiger, pider(spider) (last three spoken spookily for max effect) amaze me in their proximity to the actual words. thundu(towel), porum(enuf), paal(milk), pattu (patudu - got hurt), paatu(songs) take care of our tamilian roots.

The most dangerous word in our house is - wait for it - Bath! Anyone saying this word is at their own peril, coz the min Aditi hears this word she starts saying 'bath, bath, bath....' in an infinite loop, simultaneously trying to wriggle out of her clothes, grabbing a 'thundu' and running to the bathroom trying to drag u along. these days aditi has her bath first thing in the morning, then have another one with nidhika, douse herself with as much water as possible when i take a bath and then insist on an evening bath when appa comes home from office. in between if anyone said the word bath, she would insist on having one at that time too! Slowly bath is becoming a bad word in my dictionary.

Last month we went on (yet another) shopping-spree for aditi and she ended up with 7 new frocks and 1 pair of shiny shoes. This kick-started the dress-free-spree. Meaning Aditi would refuse to wear a dress after bath. Major tantrums happened and the child would act as if i am trying to kill her when i approached her with a dress after her morning bath. i had no option but to let her roam arnd nangu until noon, when i would insist she has to wear something if she wanted to take her lunch on the stairs outside our home where she loves to sit with me. it took 2-3 weeks for me to crack this one - turns out Aditi wanted to wear 2-3 of her fav ones among her new dresses. once i understood what she wanted i gave in happily, i had reached that stage where i just wanted to see my child fully-clothed at least, and then slowly we progressed to making her understand 'house-dresses' r not our enemies and she started wearing all her dresses once again. even now once in a while we have a 'dress-free day', but i don't mind coz it's only for a short part of the day thankfully.

Each one of us has to remember that Aditi is picking up very fast now. Once Aditi hurt her hand a bit badly, and nidhi and i were at home and we freaked out a little for a minute or so, both of us saying 'shit, shit, shit!'. And this leads to what else but Aditi explainig to Appa when he came home from office, pointing to her finger saying 'shit, shit, shit!' :-)

i dunno how she learned this but when she wanted something she would grab it or ask for it saying 'mine, mine, mine!'. alarmed that any child of mine could turn into such a rude brat i nipped it in the bud teaching her to say 'please, please, please'. Now we hear 'peesh, peesh' regularly and feel very happy with ourselves.

The latest starting this week has been the unexpected receiving of a heartfelt 'thanks' when handed food/water/toy/anything. it appears spontaneusly with the act of taking something from us accompanied by a grateful look towrds the person's face, who is handing over the said object. Well, as i always believe, it's never too early to start being polite, nor will it ever go out of fashion. i hope the 'thanks' is here to stay forver and ever too!

Name Game

Something very nice happened two days back. i heard a litle voice call me 'sangee' :o) i hate it when someone mangles my name, but at this instance i was more than ready to tolerate being called 'Shanky' especially since the little person was calling my name for the first time and that is something we have never taught her before. i immediately went back to my old blog and relived the memories of Nidhi calling me by name for the first time. Now after being corrected gently (one can tolerate only so much after all) i can hear 'shun-gee', 'shun-gee'.

And yesterday, we stepped out of an ice cream store, walked a bit and enjoyed our ice-creams sitting on a bench. Nidhi went back to the store to fetch some water to drink. Little Aditi wanted to go with her but i held her back. She kept waiting for her sister and as soon as she spotted her she shouted out 'Akka!' and ran towards her. Then i heard a lot of nidhikka, nidhikka and lot of gibberish passing for conversation. ever since aditi was born nidhi turned to nidhika and when we talk to aditi nidhi is referred to always as Nidhika, with the stress on akka. i am happy to note it has the intended effect and aditi calls her only akka or nidhika. Lesson 1 accomplished : Respect ur akka! (Not just becoz she is elder to u, but bcoz she's the one loves u the most and is always on ur side).

when aditi was born we all stood around her and introduced ourselves 'appa', 'amma', 'nidhika'. We did it for a year patting ourselves referring to our 'name' and then pointing back to aditi and telling her she's 'aadu' or 'aditi'. a year later aditi took over and she would touch each of us and say 'appa', 'amma', 'akka', turning back to herself with 'aadu' and later 'aditi'. 'what's ur name?' (or the equivalent in tamil) would fetch an answer of 'aadu' or 'aditi' depeneding on her mood.

Ever since Appa heard 'shun-gee', he is trying his best "what's appa's name?" - pat comes the reply 'Appa!' :o)