The Rapid-fire Round

Nidhi and her father are playing a game. It's some kind of a 'World game' where you have to ask each other questions and guess the answers abt countries, continents, capitals, monuments, mountains, seas.. that sort of thing.

It's Appa's turn to ask questions and he wants an answer to do with the Middle East. So the first thing he asks is which country we were staying in before and Nidhi answers without hesitation 'Oman'. He then explains it is part of Middle East and tries to get her to arrive at the answer he is looking for(what is the thing that is most exported from the ME?). What follows is a rapid-fire...

Appa : What does Oman sell most to the world?

Nidhi : swords!

Appa : No!

Nidhi : Gold!

Appa : No! This is something that's there in all cars...

Nidhi : A.C.

Appa : No!

Nidhi : i know, i know, engine...

Appa : No, re! something for it to run on...

Nidhi : Oh, ok... Petrol.

Phew... i heard the above when i was in the kitchen and had to walk into it in between to see where this was going. Ended with me and Santosh ROFLing.

DISCLAIMER : Oman is one of the most peace-loving countries in the Middle East. Khanjar, a short sword/knife, is a national symbol and can be spotted everywhere. Which is y a child like Nidhi responded so quickly with the answer sword.

The rampage called Aditi

When we named her ADITI, we wanted it to signify someone who's blessed with as much patience and prosperity as Mother Earth. I think there is also a hidden meaning in her name for the word - NAUGHTY. how else can u explain the non-stop mischief she carries on with all the time.

Ever since our samaan has arrived i realised one thing. Aditi has grown quite tall. i find that all the things that were unreachable to her two months ago(when we were packing in Muscat) are now available to her with ease. anything higher than that she climbs up the sofa and tries to reach out for. Somewhere in the earlier posts on this blog i had noted down than Aditi opened the draw on the lowermost level of our TV-stand. Now she is standing up and happily reaching out for the objects placed on top of the TV stand - a beautiful Ganesh and a few knick-knacks. Most of the breakable things i had r still packed or sent back to India. And whatever little remains, Aditi seems determined to destroy. She gnawed off the glittery things surrounding the Ganesh before we spotted her and rescued the idol. Now Ganesh is hiding behind the TV - I have to peep behind the TV to get His darshan in the morning.

To keep her occupied, i rush thru my household work and try spend as much time as possible with her. Nidhi comes from school and after lunch goes straight to play with her. whenever Santosh arrives from office he tries to spend all his time with Aditi while nidhi and i get bz tackling schoolwork. All this interaction with us has left her in no doubt that she is as grown up as us. u can see it in the nonchalance with which she imitates us - be it talking on the phone or combing her hair or trying out her Nidhika's hairband. she even places Nidhi's lunch bag around her neck and walks off towards the front door saying 'daai, daai' (bye, bye) waving her hands enthusiastically. sometimes when enthusiasam reaches the peak, she waves both her hands, looking very much like a little bird flapping its wings.

when we go out we put her in the stroller. as long as the stroller keeps moving she's fine but the minute we stop at an aisle inside the shop to look for something she wriggles out. we have tried every possible way to strap her in, but she out maneouvres us. as one shopkeeper exclaimed to her 'r u an escape artist!' :-( if we put her back in the stroller she will try to stand inside. i don't think one has to see this in order to understand how dangerous this is. so the person pushing the stroller(me or santosh, nidhi can't manage) has to keep out a hand and hold her while we move the stroller. the minute we stop she'll jump out again and go straight for the place where she can find a bottle or something breakable. she will then take two of such items, one in each hand and proceed on a wobbly walk down the aisle. Our heart misses a few beats until we can catch up with her and take away the things she is holding. the remarkable thing is that she will hand over her things with a smile and when u turn arnd to replace them in the shelves, she would have already moved on to finding the next breakable or tear-able item she can reach. Nidhi had only her father wrapped arnd her little finger, Aditi has all three of us. this is the only explanation i have for why we continue to take her out whenever she go shopping, rather than the more sensible option of one of us watching over her in the car or at home while the other buys stuff.

When Aditi first learned to smile(when she was a little less than 45 days old), i didn't have a blog. so i couldn't capture the moment in words, but i find that those magical minutes have survived in my heart. To put it in simple words, everytime Aditi looked at me and smiled, it lit up my very soul. There was no guarantee when or why she would oblige us and this made her smiles all the more precious. The same applies to being called Amma. You r in the kitchen either cooking or cleaning and Aditi is in the bedroom having a power-nap after having seen her sister and father off to school/office. suddenly u hear a soft voice calling out 'Amma'. you wait a minute although ur heart is fluttering coz u know it will happen again. And soon enuf, 'Amma' in a slightly louder and more insistent voice. You rush to the bedroom and find a little form looking a bit rumpled and tousled, tangled slightly in the blankets, but sitting up nonetheless, looking towards the door waiting for you. Ah.... what wouldn't i do for this little baby of mine. :-)

if santosh/nidhi were writing this blog i am sure they will also have some such thing to share abt how Aditi has captivated them. Why else do we tolerate all her naughtiness i dunno.

Just today Santosh was telling me he loves the way she goes on reverse gear. Soon enuf i had an opportunity to observe. Aditi would pick up a bottle or a toy and if she feels she needs a lap to park her bum, she will walk towards the person (me or santosh or nidhi) sitting on the floor. When she is two steps away from us she will turn away from us and then walk backwards until she reaches us and happily plonk herself on us, trusting the one she has bestowed herself upon to cradle her/comfort her/fuss over her.

When she drinks water from her bottle lying in my lap, sometimes she chokes up a bit. i immediately blow over her head or pat her a bit on the back or 'thadavufy' her chest until she settles down. Aditi is so fond of this action of mine that many a times she does such a thing wantedly. u can easily catch her at her false, forced coughing up and then her naughty little smile when she finds me fussing over her. i let her get away with it only for that naugty smile that pops out n the end. such a nautanki she is.

when i was unpacking things in Nidhi's room, i came across all her dolls. immediately i gave them all the Aditi who was hovering nearby(Nidhi was at school). Aditi squealed with such excitement, she started hugging all the dolls and carrying them arnd and playing with them. now from past two days she has learned to pat them to sleep and today we found her saying 'o,o,o' while patting them and making them sleep. some of the dolls r as big as her and it's so endearing to watch her carry a doll and sway to and fro patting it affectionately to sleep.

One of the first few things Nidhi learned was to 'show' her tongue, teeth, eyes, nose, etc. Now it's Aditi's turn and she has learned to show her tongue and her hair. She has also learned to identify lights and if u ask her 'where is the light?'/'light enge?' you will be lead to the nearest bulb/lightsource and little fingers will then point upwards to guide u in case u happen to miss the bulb by any chance. if u r carrying the said baby then the little one will lean towards the light switch and try to flip it back and forth to demonstrate the flow of light. Lesson learned? Then move on to the next one, where Aditi will sit facing u holding ur hands in her little palms facing each other. She will then push them together and teach u to clap your hands. she seems to think her mom is a weak student and i find her helping me the most with this lesson. i am happy to be a weak student as long as the teacher teaching me derives such an enormous pleasure in training me. Thank you, Aditi.

And if all the above she does is not enuf i have often caught her in tip-toes, and by that i mean the tippest of toes exactly like a ballerina, trying to open the front door handle. The lock is just above the handle (and unreachable as of now) but i am dreading the day when she grows taller, or worse, the door is left unlocked by chance. God help us!

Aditi at one

Aditi turned one last month.

Her date-of-birth came before her star-birthday. We tied some balloons and cut a cake. And, played some games. i devised a game where i would leave Aditi in the bedroom and run to join Santosh and Nidhi seated on the ground in the living room. All three of us would then call out to Aditi, urging her to come to us. The one she ran to would win. Three times Aditi ran to Santosh. Then Nidh and i cried major foul and asked him to leave Aditi in the bedroom. No use, she still ran to him. Hell, we even excluded Santosh from the game and asked him to remain in the bedroom urging Aditi outside. She turned in the opposite direction and ran back to the bedroom to her father. At this point Nidhi and i gave up and stopped the game. Needless to say, Appa was grinning as if his b'day had come early!

Star-b'day fell on a Friday. We performed a simple ganapathi-homam and aayush-homam at the local temple. Aditi was not willing to sit still and at last i gave her a bottle and made her lie down in my lap. Scenes from Nidhi's first b'day kept replaying in my mind - how she was clinging to me, got irritated with the garland and how the vaadhyar rang the 'mani'(bell) to distract her when she started crying. Incidently, Aditi and Nidhi have the same pavadai for their first b'day. The pavadai we bought for nidhi had extra cloth and my mom had saved it in chennai all these years - we quickly got it stitched for aditi. she also wore a 'juttu'/'peeli-kondai'(banana-plant-on-the-head hairstyle) with flowers. She even got the very first mehendi of her life done.

one of my cousins who lives here explained to me kindly 'one thing u have to understand, nothing happens on weekdays'. so when none of the people here could attend the celebrations we went ahead with just the four of us rather postpone the puja to the weekend. and we did have a jolly good time. her first wish was from her grandparents - the festivities started when my parents called up on Thur night(Friday morning for them) and wished Aditi. She loves to listen to the b'day song and watches in delight when santosh, nidhi and i sing it for her. Which we have been doing every month since she was born. :-)

For a long time i haven't written abt Aditi, the reason being i couldn't find words to write abt the magic she brings to our home. Be it waving 'haai'(bye) to her Appa and Nidhikka in the morning when they leave for office/school, following me arnd the whole day like a little kitten saying not meow, meow, but amma, amma, listening to music and trying to dance - each and everything she does brings a smile on our face. she has this style of walking when she knows u r looking - she will bend fwd slightly, raise her head, make sure we r looking at us and walk a few steps before crumbling in laughter - she thinks she is doing a catwalk for us. And, when she wants to impress us she does tiny push ups and gives us a smile and a look which says 'see what i can do'. After Nidhi's back from school and had her lunch, she spends some time playing with her sister. an hour or so. the best game is hide and seek. i think santosh started it and nidhi continued it, it's become Aditi's fav game. she would run arnd seeking her Akka and giving high-pitched cries in her excitement. she caught on fast and when Nidhi hides behind a door she spots her in the gap between the hinges. another fav game is when nidhi vanishes into a blanket and aditi has to find her out. nidhi sits on the ground and aditi climbs all over her trying to find some part of her akka. both r screaming with laughter and having such a lot of fun.

aditi has learned to point out her teeth, tongue and nose. when i tell her 'chudum'(hot), she blows with her mouth and makes hissing noises. also, 'brush ur teeth' brings abt an energetic rubbing of the front teeth with her fingers. the appearance of the first tooth was soon followed by us buying a toothbrush for her, when she takes her bath she chews on it and before i finish her bath i help her brush her teeth properly.

aditi loves to go out and the minute someone opens the shoe-closet she starts following them saying 'haai', 'haai', meaning 'bye, let's go out'. when we take her to the park, she runs arnd, plays in the swing and follows other children looking at what they r upto. initially nidhi would slide down with her sister in her lap. then we found small slides where santosh or i would place her on top and help her slide down. now she has learned to slide herself. we have to just make her sit on the top, she pushes herself fwd and slides down in joy.

serving as a reminder to us that she is looking at us and learning, she catches hold of a comb and immediately proceeds to comb her hair. similarly when she manages to get a mobile she holds it to her ear and listens with great attention and then walks arnd mumbling words in her own language.
we discovered the amazing Public Library here - 50 books for three weeks and renewals for another 3 weeks. Free, Free, Free. so after dinner everyday you will find santosh. nidhi and me in three corners of the living room each of us lost in the world inside our book. aditi runs from person to person trying to snatch the books, play with us, lie in our laps, etc. luckily we had bought her a picture-book just the week before we joined the library. so we take turns in showing her the pictures and reading aloud the words. santosh even abandons his book and plays running arnd after aditi(nidhi and i r too much of bookworms to do that much). Past two days Aditi has come to the conclusion that as a family, where books r concerned, we r a gone-case. so she has taken to sitting down with her book and flipping the pages and looking at the pictures herself. atta-girl!
 

Aditi's Pass-time

Every mom knows this rule that if ur baby (a toddler) is not to be seen arnd for sometime and it is unusually quiet, then definitely ur baby is upto something. The sooner u find him/her, the lesser a mess u have to clean up later.

In light of the above, i have been pleasantly surprised to find that when Aditi goes missing for a short while and no noise from her, she is engaged thus :

This has happened many times and though i still check on her to see what she is upto, she continues to gaze in admiration at the road and the cars whizzing by. Initially she was speechless with wonder, but now that she is used to the scene she talks/shouts out something in her own language or sometimes just chuckles loudly. I can see she is enjoying herself thoroughly in gazing out of the window. i love the fact that she has discovered at least one activity which amuses her, that does NOT involve me/her sister/her father!

Doubt No. 23847536290930379

Context : Our first halloween is approaching and many of the houses/malls have spooky things put up. One had a propped up skeleton with snickers all arnd it. All of us looked at it, including Nidhi. But, it was next morning until she voiced her doubt. apparently she had been pondering over it in her mind before asking us.

"Did they bring, like you know, a real dead person and put his skeleton there and fill it with chocolates?"

:-))

The things no one tells u abt America before u land here.

a) U will receive mail. Mail as in actual mail... snail-mail if u will. Most of it will be bills (to be paid) and advertisement pamphlets/booklets. But it is an excitement to open the post-box and retrieve the mail. (In the days when we were house-hunting, we found a lot of houses(all of them) having cute little post-boxes and wondered who on earth still uses them. Now we know - everyone does.)

b) The courier-wallah drives arnd in a truck. Contrast to Chennai - courier-wallah drives a bike, and Muscat - never seen a courier-wallah - All important mails appear in the office post-box by magic.

c) The dryer(of the washer-dryer fame - what we call a washing-machine) actually dries the clothes. so much so that u can just fold them up/hang them in ur cubboards directly from the machine. No 'onathal-business'(putting out clothes to dry in the clothes-line). no wonder the leasing agents looked at us curiously when we asked each of them if it was ok to dry clothes in the balcony. And, what's more, in most cases, the clothes look ironed. Hurray...

d) America is a forest.(Just like Oman is a desert and India is like.. well a country.) You can step out of a town and walk into wilderness in minutes. Looking at the place u can see people have just cut down forests and built houses in between. In many cases, trees r preserved and houses/roads built arnd them. No wonder there are so many birds and animals everywhere. We even found an apartment with a long line of trees, each housing a flock(?) of vultures. i found a couple of apt-reviews mentioning raccoons.

e) Strangers will smile at you or nod their head politely, on the road. but u can be sure ur fellow-indians will ignore u. Or stare rudely if u happen to wear indian clothes.

f) Buses ply. In a 45 min - one hour interval. But a 20 min drive by car can take 2 hrs by bus. Too many stops and too many red-lights. But what is most impressive is the arrangement for differently-abled. The bus-driver will stop, tilt the bus and place a ramp-walk connecting the bus and the platform. When the person the wheel chair maneouvres inside(using a self-operated wheel-chair, more like a wheel-car), a couple of seats will be folded up by the driver. he will then secure the wheel-chair using 4 or more belts. all this while the bus is stopped and others are waiting patiently outside to board. similar procedure in reverse when the person in the wheel-chair wants to get off the bus. hats off...

g) U don't need to put on an American accent for them to understand u. Speaking clearly and not very fast is enuf. But, some words can be confusing. If u've worked in an MNC u will find it easier to adapt. One of the first things we were taught when we joined work as wide-eyed campus-recruits is Xerox is photocopy and bathroom is a restroom. Some more words that i found in the past one month that we r here - lift - elevator, drawinghall - living room, balcony - patio. Most importantly, the first floor is on the ground and the second floor is what we is first for us(in India and elsewhere).

h) Most houses are carpetted. If not, they will have beautiful wooden flooring. If ur house has is completely carpetted and u have a, let's say active, baby at home, u could do what we did. Mind you, it shd be the very first thing u do after u enter the house. Just sing a 'mangalam' for the carpet. And for good measure, collect ur family arnd u and together in a loud voice say 'Govinda.... gooovinda'. Especially since in our case the leasing-agent pointed out that the carpetting was brand-new. And, within two days Aditi left kajal-marks all over the drawing-hall. This will also be an opportune moment to do what Santosh did. quietly keep aside the money they r gong to charge for a new carpet when u leave the house. i have since then hidden the kajal-dabba so well that even i can't find it anymore.

Anyway, the above list is not exhaustive and i may add more here as and when i find time...

Disclaimer : The word America in the above post must be subsituted with South California, coz that's the only part i have seen in this past one month. Which brings me to yet another point to add to the above list - America is soooooooooooooooooooooooooo huge.

Literally speaking

Nidhi was abt to take a bath and i noticed that the combination of 'Sunny California' and 'weekends in the pool' had given her a deep tan. Hands and legs were almost black.

Me, cheerfully : Nidhi, u have become black. Nanna kulli.. sheriya erumai-maade?
Nidhi, attempts to cough tentatively : ohu, ohu...
Me : what happened?
Nidhi : nee thaane chonnai.... erumai maadu. erumu - cough. Coughing cow...

:-))