The past one year is one of the fastest years of my life, where the rest of the fastest years came only after you were born. You set an example right in front of our eyes about how fast a person can evolve. At the same time, the fact that you are reaching 3 is putting more pressure on me. First 3 years in a person’s life is supposed to be the most important. This is when your brain is supposed to grow most and your learning is at it’s peak. And I don’t mean learning alphabets, numbers, poems, mathematical and chemical formulae. In fact I didn’t consciously teach you any alphabets and numbers. Whatever you know, you learnt from your daily 1 hour of TV time and the songs that I sang to keep your attention.

What I’m really thinking about is what kind of mother I have been in the past couple of years? Have I taught you basic life skills? Have I taught you how to think? how to respect people? how to understand time and money? how not to waste food and resources? and to make the best out of it?

It may not be realistic to teach you everything that I know in my age, but I believe the foundation is supposed to be set right now. I think I have done a pretty good job and I believe in improving and to give you the best experiences in the coming months.

Even though I see you all the time, sometimes you really surprise me. The other day you came to me saying “Let me see what’s in the fridge. Oh, I want cheese. I’m a mouse”. Another day we were looking at a picture of a boy doing something and you were making your own story about what the boy was doing. The truth is, you were right. Out of pride I exclaimed “Is there something that you don’t know?” You promptly replied “I don’t know this boy”.

You seem to be a little choosy about things. Of course all kids are choosy but you seem to be little too choosy about people. Most of the time, you behave like a normal child being shy with some people but at times, you surprise everyone with your outspoken-ness and ‘public speaking’ so to say. You don’t even mind ‘performing’ in front of strangers if need be.

One of these days you went to the library with grandma and demanded an elephant book. Your grandma didn’t know where it was so she asked you to wait. You didn’t want to wait, so you approached the librarian and after making sure you had her attention, said “I want ‘eleshant’ book. Where’s ‘eleshant‘ book?” Obviously the librarian didn’t understand ‘eleshant‘ (That’s how you say elephant, you still pronounce ‘f ‘ as ‘sh‘). Knowing that she didn’t understand, you showed her a wall hanging picture with lots of animals, pointed to the elephant and said “That is Eleshant. I want eleshant book”. The lady was a little taken aback, she laughed and spent a good amount of time going through the colored picture books to find one for you.

About 3 months back, when you were at a book stall, you started browsing some of the books there. You finally chose one and walked to the shop keeper. Your grandpa was watching you converse with her. You walked back to your grandpa and said “I want 1 dollar”. He handed you a dollar, just out of curiosity to see what you were planning to do. You took it and walked back to the shop keeper,handing her the dollar. She promptly wrapped the book and placed it in your hand. Well, being a little 2.5 year old I should say, you surprised us.

And did I tell you that this book was a story about a little elephant named Ellie. That brings me to your craze about elephants. To say that you love elephants would be an understatement. It started more than an year back when you favored elephants over other animals in the zoo. But the craze set it’s own stage when your grand parents came here for a long visit. Your favorite game turned out to be playing elephant, not just riding on their back pretending to be the mahout (an impact of the elephant show at zoo), but then changing yourself into a little elephant having a blast with the bigger ones. At times I really thank God for having my parents here with me because it ain’t always fun to be on all fours pretending to be an elephant, at least so in my age. May be when I’m past 50, it will become fun. You spend atleast an hour every day playing ‘elephants’.

During the rest of your waking hours, you pretend play other things. You include your 2 good friends in your imaginary play buying them ice creams and acting out every little detail of the incidents that you make up. You don’t even forget to put the imaginary change that you got from the imaginary ice cream vendor after paying the imaginary money inside your imaginary ‘pant pocket’ before you attend to your imaginary ice cream. Sometimes the whole family is involved imagining a story like the jungle book, a movie that you love to watch and also a book you love to read. You assign a character to everyone at home and ask us to play our part. You observe things that we do and often reenact the show at the most unexpected time.

Sometimes you play tricks on us. When you want a favor, you make up a series of questions which would eventually bring us to answer the way you wanted. Sometimes you think too much.

You love to sing and to perform. You got that quality from me. By singing one of your favorite songs, I can really change your mood and get you to behave like an angel.

And you are so flexible. You got that quality from your dad. You almost know the value for your tears. Almost. Sometimes you do throw worse fits, but that’s when you know that what you want is so reachable and it didn’t harm anyone, like watching your favorite video, or putting on your favorite shirt again or even wearing that uncomfortable pair of shoes anyway. But you perfectly understand when things are different, things that were not going to come even if you cry, things that are dangerous or inappropriate. It always breaks my heart to see you swallow your tears trying to act like a big guy and announcing “I big boy. I very happy’ on the way to school after 2 months holiday or when your dad and I leave for another business appointment without you.

One of my favorite words in the dictionary and in life is change. Looking at you, I recognize that you are the word itself. Change. I’m amazed at how much a person of your size can learn everyday. Come on, how much memory is there in your little brain? And how much processing it does everyday? every minute?

You surprise me every waking moment of your day. Sometimes I ask you questions to which you wouldn’t know the answer. But you think for some time and start guessing the answers. Most of the time, you are right. Even today morning I asked you who my parents are and you immediately identified it as your grand parents. You have a great memory for people. You precisely remember people and incidents from at least 6 months ago. I know that you didn’t get your memory genes from me. It must be from your father. He is the one who even recognizes his school mate from kindergarten after 20 years in a city that doesn’t belong to either of them. As I always keep saying, your father is intellectual. And so are you.

Actually you think a lot. When I talk with you in big people style, you absolutely understand it. I can see you trying to digest any new information I pass to you and you ask your doubts and even reaffirm what I had just told you, all in terms of single words. Your most recent book is “Being fair”. You love the book and I love it too, for it contains sentences that I keep repeating to you when you are among others. Now you have more reason to believe me!

You also know genders. You can identify whether a person (even most babies) is boy or girl and you are right all the time. And of course, if you called those tomboyish girls as boys, it’s not at all your fault.

You know all your shapes, colors and numbers. Okay, you know numbers from 1 to 10 and then lots of 2 digit numbers. One of our favorite games when we are waiting for something or someone in public (and when you are impatient) is to identify shapes in the rest of the world. When I tell you to find out a specific shape around you, you really go out of the way to find it even if it’s a tough one to crack. You have learnt to identify numbers too, you recognize many numbers when you find them even in different locations and different sequences.

Our singing and dancing is going on really well and you have started singing. You love to perform in front of known people and sometimes strangers too. You take a good place to stand and sing some of your favorite (and easy) rhymes. Your words are not clear but your keep to the exact tune of the original song. You talk quite a lot of words even though you don’t seem to be talkative. Your father’s genes, I bet. You talk when it is required. But you say it clearly and fluently. You still haven’t learnt to speak in sentences but you say words together. You communicate everything this way and these days, even outsiders are able to understand what you say, most of it.

It’s so funny to watch common words becoming a tongue twister for you. Chicken soup would become “kackan soup” and then “chinken choup” while you try to say it. And you realize it if you say it wrong and you keep trying. The cutest part is, you have to spit some saliva out while saying your tongue twisters. Don’t worry, I’ll try to keep this part a secret from your teenage friends to be. Triangle, rectangle, water melon are some of the other tongue twisters. You still don’t pronounce ‘f’. You say ‘sh’ instead. Whenever you see a McDonalds restaurant, you point out to the big M and ask for ‘shench shies’ (french fries).

You love to eat. You have favorites even though you enjoy most fruits and vegetables. It helps that I avoided biscuits and chips (even baby versions) almost completely from your diet during the initial months. (I had to do it to make sure you were eating enough fruits and veggies for snacks because you didn’t start out as a good eater. I replaced whatever little amount you ate with the healthiest options) You still take fruits for your snacks, vegetables during lunch, fish and chicken whenever they are served. I had been thinking you were a fussy eater during the first year but now your have totally changed into someone else. You even eat whole boiled eggs now and a little milk too.

Quite often you say something called ‘see-ma-pop’, as I hear it. This is the only thing in your vocabulary that I do not understand. You say it when you are happy, when you are jumping and having fun. I hope I’d find it out soon.

You understand cause and effect. Everyday I tell my mom on phone about you and one day when I was probing you with questions (like I always do) you smiled and said that I had told your grandma about it on phone. Of course, I did talk about that on phone but I thought you were playing and had not listened. That gives me an early alarm about talking about you to others, good or bad.

You love Barney. And you love to watch TV. I love the former too, but not the TV factor. Your screen time is around 1.5 hours a day even though I try to cut it short. Not that I’m a strict mom but I just don’t want to spoil your precious physical play time. I truly believe and I do see that you tend to sit idly in front of the TV for longer periods. But I appreciate that you learn a lot from TV, why I do too. In fact many times, I use Barney’s name to get things done from you. Recently, I also discovered that singing the “clean up” Barney song will make you really really clean up the place and put your toys away with very little help. Sometimes you even claim that I sing the song and you start tidying up by yourself.

You are so confident about your common sense that you do not even need my advice. Today you were helping me putting away folded clothes and I handed you a old towel (that I wanted to use for kitchen cleaning here after) and asked you to keep it in the kitchen. When I saw you carrying  it towards the bed room, I reminded that that cloth would go to the kitchen. You looked at me with disbelief and said “towel. there!” and you proceeded to the bed room. Oh yeah, towels are supposed to be kept there and who am I thinking I should recycle old clothes. Common sense, you see? Is it time for you to learn the 3Rs of saving the environment?

You are getting increasingly friendly with strangers, and are wary with them at the same time. It depends purely on the strangers themselves. There are times when you totally get playful with one person in the train and all of a sudden you find someone else noticing you and if you don’t like them, you try to hide yourself. You either hide behind me or you tell me you want to sleep. As if, closing your eyes would make this person disappear.

You have reached a stage of independence where you are slowly moving out of the protective nest within your parents’ arms which kept out any kind of negative energy and was always feeding your mind with positive thoughts. I know this is being hard on you when a much bigger boy pushes you out of the play car and I had to take you away from there saying that you should wait for your turn and that the boy will soon try to be nice. It must be hard on you when you get smacked by another kid in the play ground. I also realize that soon you will go through similar situations in my absence and I wouldn’t even know it.

I’m not sure if you fully understand this when I say, but I say it anyway. People are sometimes unfair, why, we all are. It is forgivable. But be kind for as much as possible, because nobody likes to be bad, and nobody is. There’s good everywhere in the world, it’s only up to us to dig and find the good. And I’m sure that the sensible person that you are, you will be able to identify it!

I love you,

Mom.

Dear self,

Yesterday I understood how it feels to be a badly behaved mother. Yeah, it was absolutely and truly myself when I was forcefully carrying a wailing and crying 2 year old as I was walking inside the food court and I had a gait that would suggest “I don’t care how much you scream, I’m going in to gobble that da** food anyway” attitude. In my defense, I was really really hungry!

I was seriously considering to suggest the meaning of the word ‘unreasonable’ to be changed as ‘toddler’. I felt that he was giving me the hardest time of his life and I’m pretty sure he must be thinking the same too, only with a switch of responsibility for the hard time mentioned.

All because he saw a barney play train outside of the food court and I ignored when he wanted to play. And he had to forget that he was just playing in another barney play car and before that in elmo play car and before that in bob play car and before that in an endless number of play cars after we entered the mall 2 hours back to buy something for 5 bucks. By the way, I do not understand why they have to keep these huge coin operated play equipments every 10 feet apart in shopping malls. But that’s totally out of my hands. And what does matter is, these equipments are spotted only by kids of age 10 and below. We, adults are totally ignorant of it’s presence unless the little one spots it and take a flight to reach there not caring if the parent is following or not.

Surprisingly, I heard myself saying this screaming toddler “Have I ever stopped you from having fun? Don’t you think there should be some reason if I’m doing it now?”. Even more surprisingly, I had to give up after 10 minutes of angry fighting to leave the food on the table and join him as he played happily in the barney train, all the while thinking that I should have done it earlier!

Yours not-angelic-anymore,

Myself

Dear baby,

Our past 2 months have been totally busy. The first month was all about shopping and packing for our India trip and the second was spent in India. I’m surprised what a difference one month can make in a person’s life.

The first thing you learnt while we were in India was aggression. Really, and more surprisingly, your father and I were happy about that…. Earlier we used to notice that you were one of the most soft spoken and gentle kids that we had ever seen. Yet you were one of the most active and smart too. But there was this brief time before our trip that we started getting worried that you were becoming rather too soft when we doubted that other kids of your age and older were easily manipulating you.

But you proved us wrong on the very third day of our trip that you learnt to be more aggressive and started defending yourself perfectly. I’m just happy that you can survive any situations that might call for.

We had a great time travelling and enjoying with the whole family. You enjoyed the bonds among the family, understood a whole lot and were perfectly amused by visitors and guests. Sometimes I feel that I should have chosen a lifestyle that would allow you to have more family bonds but what we have now if equally important too.

One lazy morning, you were trying to wake me up. You were actually very playful and when you saw that I was not going to get up that easily, you fished out a couple of words from your vocabulary that immediately popped me up in the bed. It was not easy to understand when you said ‘good morning sun shine’, just the way I have said for many mornings in the past when you were waking up.

I carried a few CDs for you while travelling because watching about 30 – 45 minutes of CD every day had almost become a habit for you. That one month helped creating your first real obsession, Barney the dinosaur. By the time we got back home after the month, I had become so cautious about using the name of Barney and friends because you would immediately want to watch it. I had been determined to let you watch only an hour of TV a day and any mentions of Barney after that and I’d have to take you out of the house to avoid watching more TV. But luckily we found Barney goodies from the store that softened the video craze a bit. In fact, things are much smoother now after your father and I have learnt to use Barney’s name to make you do things. Oh yeah, “let’s feed barney” and “let’s make barney sit down safely” would have you do the same too.

For the first time, we stayed for a whole week in India after your father returned to Singapore. Initial 2 days was very hard. You understood that your father had gone somewhere but you seemed to want him during bed time. During the day you were enjoying yourself and singing merrily but by bed time you missed him so much. But you were pretty matured enough for your age and you soon understood that your father had returned to Singapore where you were soon to reach. You seemed rather happy when we reached the airport and immediately waved good bye to your grandparents.

I sense a preschooler growing up in my house now that you have learnt to answer very schoolish questions like “what’s there in the sky”, “what do you see on the road”, “what’s there in the shop”. You have learned these by yourself. You have mastered identifying and naming shapes (except that you still say gangang for triangle and rangang for rectangle). You even attempt to draw and paint shapes. You use a paint brush, chalk piece, crayon or pencil to draw. You make round movements with your tool and call it a circle or oval and you name straight line movements as square (soiy), triangle, diamond or rectangle.

You are learning to read alone without me. Sometimes I don’t hear you for a long time and when I come in to check, I find you sitting with a book and quietly turning the pages and going through the pictures. But that doesn’t mean that you wouldn’t bug me to come read with you just when I’m doing something urgent at the computer. It’s just that you are learning to enjoy your independence.

Your passion for dance and music is growing. You love to dance everyday to some music which includes my funny singing. You try to sing real songs now. Most of the times, your attempt at your favourites rhymes is successful. You get the tune right even though you still can’t say all the words right. You can play harmonica with such continuity and grace like an expert, even though I know nothing about harmonica expertise. What I do know is, you play it at least as good as me or your father.

You are beyond the stage of learning the ‘first words’ and I believe you have entered the world of ‘secondary words’ as I choose call it. Like, you now know that every ball is different. You can say when you see a foot ball (shoot ball) and you know that you kick a foot ball. You know that you play throw and catch with a bouncy ball but I have a hard time teaching you that not every ball can be hit with a bat. You can say the difference between spoon and fork. You are learning opposites, like mom’s hair is long and your hair is short after a haircut.

Cooking has become another obsession for you. You want real vessels and the proper accessories that go with the dish that you pretend-cook just the way I use in the kitchen. Now you know how to make tea, dosa, omelette and more if I’m not wrong.

You know a great deal about gender. You say boy for male and girl for female. And if I ask you whether a person is boy or girl, you get just about everyone right.

You have recently learnt the joy of covering yourself in bed. You surprised me on the first night you told me to help me cover you with a blanket while in the past, all you had done was to kick the blanket out right from you first couple of days. You have also learnt to sleep on your own without much carrying around or singing. Sometimes you do ask me to sing ‘by-a-bye’ (lullaby) and you choose what I should sing and what not to. And you prefer to lie down on your warm and cosy bed for some time after waking up (as if you are taking rest from sleeping) before you gain lots of energy and jump out of bed.

And not to mention the day when you first let me know that your tooth hurt when you ate something sweet. We had noticed the cavities in your teeth for sometime but you surprised me by expressing clearly how it hurt. Every now and then, something gets stuck in your teeth and you ask me to clear it up. When I do, you say “bye bye” to mean that which was stuck had gone. Anything that is ‘gone’, has gone ‘bye bye’.

There are these times that you remind me that you aren’t a baby anymore. You behave so big-boyish that I have to pause and think who I am dealing with and then decide on my action.

You turned 20 months old. Wherever we go, people keep asking me your age; complete strangers and also people who we know every well. I started saying ‘almost 20′ a couple of days back. I get a feeling of nostalgia remembering your teen months. Somehow 20 months sounds like a big thing. As big as when you would turn 20 years of age.

The change that has happened during your 20th month is amazing. I bet I don’t remember most of the things that happened in the past month, but I try to say a few here.

Your dance video has become a local entertainment program here. Especially our immediate friends and family have been watching it repeatedly enjoying every action of yours. I wish I had shot the video during the day so we could see you better but when I can see you better, I’d rather put the camera down and enjoy looking at you. You have been getting better at your dance, picking up new steps from our dance program. How you remember the steps even now, I don’t know.

You have learnt to play in the play ground all by yourself. You are very strong and careful when it comes to climbing big kids’ ladders. I find it hard to relax and watch you fighting your way up the ladder, but you want to do it all by yourself and I want that too. Other than the sliding and climbing, your other favorite outdoor activity is hanging in a bar. You not only hang but also swing in a to and fro motion that reminds me of the way kids (and adults too) play holding the hanging roots of a banyan tree.

You walk for longer distances now. We don’t take the stroller while going out unless we go to the nearby market and buy lots of things for which I use the pram as shopping cart. You are very understanding and even though you run around everywhere we go, one loud “this way please” gets you in front of me, moving in the direction that we need to go.

Your talking has caught everyone’s attention now. I can’t really find out what you can’t talk anymore. If you are in the mood to, then you talk everything. You have mastered one and two syllable words but when it comes to three or more, you either omit a syllable or two or add your comfort zone letters (like baba) in the place of the syllable. It’s so cute when you put a stress on word endings especially when they end with s, x or ck. Some of the fancy words you speak this month are “gaabox” (garbage box), “mabox” (mail box), “babex” (the multivitamin that we take here), “koths” (clothes), “tatsh” (catch), “kosh” cross, “pesh” press and really a lot lot lot more. When asked where you want to go for vacation, you say “hawii” (Hawaii).

Edited: (How could I have forgotten this?) You seem to prefer x, s or ck only in the end of the word. You say “tetix” for taxi, “titush” for tissue and “bibis” for busy.

I’m still waiting for you to speak in sentences but as of now, you can relate to a story or incident or just about anything else by putting together upto 4 words at a time. For example, when you say “appa shoe buh-bye kaka”, you actually mean “appa is wearing his shoes to go out so I want to go too”.

Kaka is how you say your name. You absolutely answer when people ask you what your name is. It’s good to see you answering even when strangers talk with you. You respond to most questions and you keep on talking when somebody engages in a conversation with you. But now a days, I turnout to be the only person who can understand what you really mean. Even your dad turns to me for help in decoding your language. This is probably the only thing in your life which your dad can’t do himself!

You know who is uncle and who is aunty but when it comes to mentioning somebody, you use their names. You even address everybody by their names which makes our friends and relatives feel happy and for some reason, I think they feel important when you call them by name.

Books are serious business. You fix your own time for reading everyday. When you are ready, you call me to come help you with reading (studying?). When I enter the room, I find you sitting in your tiny baby chair in from of the table and you point to the book shelf waiting for the books. You go through all the eleven books in the series of baby’s big book in one sitting and if you are still interested, you continue reading your first book of the world. After every word has been said, every page has been grazed, you feel a bit content about the reading session. This takes a minimum of half an hour everyday at one stretch. All of your other books are scattered around the house which you spend separate time in reading.

We go out a lot so when we do stay home during the course of the day, it’s mostly filled with your chores, nap time, reading time and limited play and painting time. If we do stay home longer during some days, you demand to watch TV. I’m okay to let you watch TV for 30 minutes a day after which I start regretting my decision of not going out that day.

You have learnt to sleep on your own. I still carry you and walk during the day until you fall asleep but your night time schedule is very clear. You take a small cup of milk after dinner, we all get to bed and read a few pages of your prayer book and say a few short prayers. Then I switch off the light and you lay down and fall asleep. Well, that last sentence was too fast. In between ‘laying down’ and ‘falling asleep’ there are a few more steps that can’t be clearly defined. In short, it includes tossing here and there, climbing in top of dad or mom and jumping, laughing, singing and much more.

But falling asleep on your own also means that we have to be home by bed time. You claim the comfort of your own bed. We gathered with our friends on new year’s even in a beach and when it was your bed time, you started showing the exit and insisting that we go back to lay you down on bed.

The biggest change that I went through in the past month is that we are both free of nursing for the past 2 weeks. You still remember breastfeeding and sometimes wish that I feed you but you are perfectly okay when I don’t. I’m happy not seeing the disappointed look you used to have in the beginning when we stopped nursing completely.

I love you monkey boy!

Mom.

Dear baby,

We are in this time of your life where we start to say your age in years rather than months. One and a half years. Oh dear, when did time run so fast? I look at other babies who are learning to walk and think that my child is almost that age. I turn towards you and see a big boy twice as tall as those babies.

You like to socialise with other babies and adults. You love babies but you are also learning to get possessive about your toys you have become very possessive and over protective all your things. The best thing about you is you are so understanding for your age. Whatever situation we might be in, calmly telling you what decision you need to take helps. You listen and even if it’s hard, you accept it.

You talk almost everything. I don’t even try to count the words you speak. There are so many, even though, most of the time, only your father and I understand you. I’m so thankful that there are no negative words in your vocabulary and all of your actions are totally positive.

You know everyone in our immediate family and friends who you have met or talked with often. You mention our friends by name and delight and say their names when we approach their homes. You even mention their child’s name if we ask which baby is in this person’s home.

I am amazed by how you relate things. I almost always comes as a surprise when you relate things that I never would have thought of. I now perfectly understand what other mothers mean when they say “who would have thought of that except for my child”. Why, even I say that now.

During the past week, you had been saying your little cousin’s name whenever you saw your animal book and asking me where she was. I couldn’t understand why you would relate her to your book, we didn’t even use that book when your cousin (my sister’s family) visited us last week. It took some time for me to find out that whenever you saw a picture of an elephant you said her name. It was not until today morning, when your dad and I found out that your little cousin had an elephant soft toy in almost the same color as that in your animal book. Well, who would have thought of that???

Last month I discovered a playground in our neighborhood that’s just right for your height. That gave me the confidence to allow you to climb things in the play area without me breathing over your shoulders. It also means that I can sit and relax or probably read a book while you play, giving you a sweat without tiring myself out.

It even gave me the confidence to leave you alone in big play grounds and you have even learnt to climb tall ladders meant for big kids. I don’t even put my arms on you while you climb. I just watch. You wouldn’t understand why this is a big thing. Only my mother will understand how painful it would have been to me to let you climb scary places and keep my calm. I tell you, it takes a lot of effort from me to let you do that.

Last month you also ventured into the zoo for the first time. My observations are, you love all animals, you are scared of big birds and your favorite was the zebra. You tried to imitate all the actions the animals did and you can relate your body parts with that of other animals, birds and even toys, whatever shape and size they might be. It’s almost a month now, but you still show in action how zebra moved it’s tail.

Until a week back, you were eating so well and my strategies worked perfectly well (giving you a sweat and bathing you before lunch so you get very hungry and tired that all you want to do is to eat and sleep). This past week, you have started insisting that you feed yourself. In fact, you want to do everything by yourself without help. This new change has reduced the amount of food intake during meals. My only sigh of relief is that you are learning a new skill and you will be feeding yourself so well in a few days. But you still love fruits and nuts and thye make their way to your tummy in an effective and effortless way.

You still breastfeed during night. I have stopped making it a big issue. What’s so troublesome for me if you want to keep suckling while we sleep?

You are a darling. You can behave like an angel this minute and become a tyrant the next. And then you become an angel again. It puts pressure on me in public and while with other babies,especially because sharing has become an issue, but all I know is this too shall pass. I am patient and calm. Take your time, baby.

Love, Mom.

Yeah, that’s what you are. Things have changed so much that I have even stopped searching for my little baby. Not only am I convinced that the little baby is not going to return, but I have been enjoying the present so much, and I have absolutely no time to think about the past. I’m not sure if life can become any more exciting than now. We both have lots of fun, fun and more fun while handling all the challenges motherhood and toddler-hood present to both of us. As much as I would like to record each and every moment of our present, I find it more and more difficult to do. There are too many things to write. One of these days, I called my mother and said that since I was telling her almost everything that you do everyday, she should start writing a blog about you because I do not have time to.

About a month back, you started answering questions. Every question would have an answer. If the subject of discussion involved any word that you can speak, you would say that, otherwise you just answer some way, in your own language. You speak far too many words than I can count, but to list a few, here’s what you speak.

“Ba/Baa” for Bus, Banana, Ball, Balloon, Sheep, Bird, Book.

“Thaidha” for Bicycle and “Baaba” for Motor bike.

“Bubba” for Diaper, Biscuit, Hungry, Bread, Bottle.

“Ka” for Car and key, “Kaa” for Card, “Kaaka for clock”.

“Ma/Maa” for Cat (Meow), Rain (in tamil), Fish (in tamil), Nose (in tamil)

“Bow bow bow” for Dog

“Thein” for Train.

“Kauu” for both Rice and Curd (in tamil they are called choru and thayir. I understand that’s what you want to say)

“Shoe” (It actually started as the sound ‘s’ followed by ‘hu’ and after a few days you mastered saying shoe.

“Phoa” for phone.

“T-su” for tissue.

“Cheesh” for shirt.

“Amma” for Mom (in tamil) and for some reason, you say ‘amma’ for dad, baby, apple and sometimes all fruits.

“Toma” for tomato, “Petha” for potato and “Bava” for guava.

“Dum” for throwing or falling or the noise made by banging things.

Kengka (sengkang), ba (bakau), kaa (compassvale), bubia (rumbia), kangkaa (kangkar) are all train stations in our area.

“Enna” for “what” in tamil. ”Vaa” for “come” in tamil. ”Kaa (tha)” for “give me” in tamil. “Nana” for “I don’t want” in tamil.

“Kaka” for crow and thatha (grandpa) both in tamil. “Ka ka ka” is how you imitate a parrot. “Ka ka” also means ‘quack quack’.

This is all I remember right now. And you speak much more in actions. You ‘hush’ when you see someone asleep and you whisper to me just because you can. You show phone, finished, come, fly (the way birds fly), ball, balloon, eat in signs that we invented ourselves. You love to knock at the door when we tell you too, or whenever somebody mentions ‘door’. You roar to denote lion and tiger. You have mastered animal sounds. And you recognize most words from your word book and point to everyday objects in the house like table and window.

You know ‘amount’. You can measure. When I serve you biscuits, you ask for more. If I give them in your hands, you want in both hands. You want them in whole, not broken or cut in half. If there were a size difference, you want the bigger one.

When you want something, that I don’t seem to give within 1, 2 or 3 requests, you get angry, cry and run away. You don’t come back nor do you take what you asked for until I come down and comfort you. But I do owe an apology to you. Many a times, you look so cute while crying or throwing light tantrums that I just look at you and enjoy rather than stopping you. And not to mention the photo taking.

You can easily go from this….

to this…..

and again this….

in less than 1 minute.

You can play on your own for a really long time, which means that I can leave you in your playpen and have a good shower without having to stick my face out of the door every 5 seconds. It also means that I use your sleeping time for myself, only doing things that I want to do like using the computer because I can manage everything else while you are awake. Our new schedule works great. For the first time in your life, you have learnt to sleep for more than 1 hour during the day, in the same nap. You sleep for almost 2 hours every afternoon. Also you eat very well these days making me a proud mother.

You have learnt to put tissue papers to proper use. When your hands get dirty and when the floor gets wet, you ask for the tissue paper and wipe clean. One day you took the tissue and blew your nose, and got a good amount of booger in the tissue paper and your hands. Instead of worrying about why you should get booger when you are perfectly healthy, your father and I rolled on the floor laughing at what you did. We thought it was funny. You still try to do it often, except that the tissue is usually clean.

We pray together as a family every night before you go to bed using your prayer book. I’m so happy that you have helped your father and mother follow a regular prayer routine. Even though we started it only for you, we do it whole heartedly now. Since we taught you to put your hands together while praying, now you do it every time you see something related to religion. I don’t understand how to identify even chinese religious things but you put your hands together whenever you see one. Even though I want you to understand the difference between religion and God, it is perfectly okay for me if you relate them to each other now. You have all your life to understand God.

You love older kids. As soon as you spot one of them, you immediately switch to playing mood and run behind them, not knowing whether they want to play with you or not. You are very big boy like with younger babies. You pat and cuddle them and you are very gentle with them even though their little toes and sparkling eyes still hold your curiosity. And you entertain them. This last part is so funny, interesting and heartwarming at the same time. You play peek-a-boo with them and do funny actions to make them laugh. And then you pretend to laugh so that they would laugh more. More often, I feel like saying “Do you remember that you are a baby yourself?”. Except that you aren’t.

As for breastfeeding, we swing back and forth, and back and forth again. I manage to keep you with only night time feeding one day and the next day, all you want to do is to nurse. 2 days later I find myself more in control only to lose it again next day. But it’s okay baby. Things have settled down now and I’m in no hurry. Take your own time but please make sure you are free of nursies before you learn to say “amma, please…..” and “thank you for feeding me, amma”. That’s not going to look attractive.

You understand quite a lot. When you want the CD from the shelf and I say only big people use these CDs, when you want to play in the public toy car and I ask you to wait for your turn, when you want to sit in your friend’s pram and I tell you to wait until the other baby finishes using it and wants to share it, when you want to touch things from the shop  shelf and I tell you that we touch things only when we buy it, you perfectly understand even though you feel sorry for that. I feel sorry too, honey, for not being able to give you whatever you want, but this is reality and I want you to understand it now, so that it would help you be a happy human being when you grow up and face realities in the world, realities that are hard to digest, but you would have to, anyway!

Love,

Mom

You sit in your bed and cry for me. I put my computer down and run towards you, like I always do when you wake up from sleep. I took you into my arms and you lay down on my shoulder. I start rubbing your back and you start meddling with my earring. For a brief moment I realize how big you are. I know that if I stop you from doing it, you would get up from my shoulder and probably leave me.

My eyes glance at a random photo framed on the wall. It is from your 6 months, all 3 of us pose for the photo. I see the innocence in your face back then, which is completely missing from you now. Like a roller coaster, my mind quickly wanders everywhere. Within my mind, I leave this house, I leave you, I leave everything around me and travel to the past.

You are less than 2 weeks old. I nurse you and then sit you up in my lap for a burp. You are still asleep but you can’t sleep comfortably. You move your face here and there and twitch your facial muscles as if to suggest that you are doing some really tiresome work combined with a sigh. I laugh. You do it everyday and I laugh every time. And then I remark that I should take a photo of this expression of yours. After a few days, I keep the photo camera ready in my hands while burping you, but to my surprise, you stop doing it.

I wander from that stage of your life and I don’t see it again. My heart aches and I realize that I actually miss it.

And then my whole world is filled with spit up. Yes, white, curd-like spit up. My clothes always have white stains and I don’t care. My body and my hair smell of spit up and I don’t care. My breasts are wet with spit up and I don’t care. I wash it and within 1 hour I get more spit up. One day you spit up in your father’s face. Another day it was your grandmother’s mouth when she tried to delight you by holding you high. I don’t care. I look at flowers, rain, trees, nature and I smell spit up. No, I don’t care.

I wander away to a later stage of your life and I don’t see any spit up. I don’t smell it any more. Nobody knows when you stopped spitting up. May be it changed slowly, 20 times a day reduced to 10 times and then 5, 3, 1 and then no more. It happened gradually that I didn’t realize. I don’t carry a towel with me anymore to put on people’s shoulders when they want to carry you. You are clean. But now my heart aches again and I miss the spit-ups.

Then I remember your real baby smell, which is neither spit up nor baby powder. It is your smell. I miss it.

I remember your delicate skin which is not at all similar to the skin that got it’s first bruise this morning in the playground. I miss it.

I remember your coos and I miss it.

You laugh out loud looking at the air conditioner and you just stare at people’s faces. I miss it.

You cry when I bath you. I miss even that.

I miss all of our past together. All of those memories make my heart ache and when I am about to burst……

….your fingers holding my earrings start to feel ticklish. I come back to this world and hold you finger tight to stop you from doing it. You raise up your still sleepy head and smile at me. And then you hold my other earring. I hold that finger too and you laugh. You slowly drift away from your sleepy self to your active normal self. I can’t resist any longer and I start kissing your cheeks hard. You give in and enjoy the cuddling. I hold you tight and before my mind drifts away to think about how I would miss this moment one day, I get into the mode of enjoying the present. I lay you down on the sofa and start tickling you. The house fills up with your laughter.

Love,

Mom