Monday, December 20, 2010

Verticality - Getting there

A lot of things, thoughts, have been running around in my head and yet I am unable to reign any one thought in enough to dwell over it and put it down into coherent words. In truth I am yet to break free  of the hibernation mode. Hence the long days of silence. Anyhow, I decided to try and resume writing by taking the easy way out - journalling Sid's latest developments.

Onto Two Little Feet: Its really amazing how we take for granted acts like standing, walking and running, considering how difficult it is to actually just get off our bums and onto two very unstable little feet. To get a hold someplace (mostly very wrong places like ends of a bed sheet) then attempt to pull oneself up, keep falling back onto your bum till finally you manage to get up; And all for what, just as things start looking interesting on the new surface and you excitedly extend your hands to grab something, you are back on your bum, and this time the fall is very hard too (from all that height). Wow! watching this cycle gives one a new appreciation of the things we do with ease, without thinking twice. More importantly it teaches us what determination is. Just to keep on and on at something that is so painful and difficult till one gets it so right one doesn't have to think twice about it. You gotta learn it from these little ones. Anyhow, Sid is currently (as of late November) at this painful stage.


 


What has now become a "can do with no effort" activity is sitting up and playing. all the see-sawing and falling off has finally, thankfully ended. (though of course, it was less painful to fall while sitting compared to while standing)

 



serious speech

 Talkie Talk: Communication has progressed to a lot of single syllable sounds like ta-ta, tha tha,  and so on. He looks at the respective thing when asked where the light is, fan is, where Danny is, or the Christmas star. He knows where to look for flowers ("poo" in Malayalam) in the garden and has learned to say poo as well. He has started saying "atha" and only calls for "amma" (mom) when he is crying or wants something. All the baby sounds he makes has finally made communication a 2-way process of speaking if not hearing and understanding.


Food, The New Struggle: I do realise that I have written an entire article about the difficulties of feeding but however much I write, it seems I haven't even begun to cover the difficulties. How I wish babies, who otherwise are really intelligent you know, had been born with the basic understanding that food can assuage hunger. its a really vicious circle. Hunger makes him cranky - cranky makes him difficult to sit at a place or open his mouth - thus becoming more hungry!

The Games We Play:
Break the Glass - Course, the ultimate favorite thing right now, as soon as he is left on the ground, is to hold on to the centre table, climb up and bang on the glass top as hard as possible. really scary game.


pushing the chair round

Mover Boy: Another latest fad is to sit at the leg of any furniture and try to drag it back and forth. The hospital provided plastic chair are real fun cos they actually move and make a lot of noise. However, Sid tries this on everything, from suitcases under the bed to the bed itself.

Pick and Drop: Nah! this isn't about techie travel tails. Sid's latest game is to throw everything onto the ground and then have them picked up by others, repeatedly. Also, as soon as he sees anything on the surface of the table it all goes down in a single swish. That's rather more convenient to bang the table top.

Tabla Boy: So right after he sees something new and before it goes into his mouth his latest interest is to hit it again and again with his hands to see if it makes any interesting noise, oh uh I mean sound. 

That and a million other wonderful instances as well as not so wonderful eating (read not eating) and sleeping (read sleepless) and falling (read head bumps) instances have made the last month fun for mama and Sid.

biting away at mama's hand


Tuesday, December 14, 2010

Hibernation


I have been in one of those modes the last few weeks where I find myself unwilling to do anything. Its like the winter has actually put me in hibernation. Of course, in kerala there is no winter, its unbearably hot even now and well, I can hardly hope to hibernate (i don't even get to sleep folks) with an 8 month old fella crawling and climbing all around.

But still, whatever little time I get for myself I have been spending slumping around in front of the idiot box (no, not this one, the other one) watching dumb shows and wondering why people make such shows and why others (like me) sit and watch them.

It didn't help matters when I finally fell ill on top of all this last couple of days, with terrible viral fever. It took its toll on my tired body so bad that I couldn't even raise my head enough to gulp down water for 2 days. But, maybe in a way it did help matters. Because falling ill and not being able to even move broke me out of my reverie and made me realise the thousands of things I could have been doing during my "free time". Oh! the biggest shock was when I realised I actually finished a book a couple of weeks back and hadn't even started a new one yet. (Anyone who knows me, knows what an anomaly that is). So I finally recovered from the viral fever and the hibernation/sloth stage and here I am.

I have this habit of starting new hobbies but never heading anywhere with them. There are umpteen things I have started training/practicing/learning during my lifetime that have hardly lasted a few days or weeks, just some (un)lucky few lasting a few years. (When I say unlucky I am hinting at things like music classes which the whole house had to suffer because of my (lack of) talent).A few of these are classical music, classical dance, violin classes,cinematic dance and so on.

The only thing I have started at very young age and still continue with ardor is reading. There has hardly been a continuous week in my life when I have not had a "currently reading" book. I can in full earnesty say that I have not been in between books for longer than a week, if I had an option. But, I guess that still describes how lazy I am as thats the one activity that needs the least labor.

Very recently (read, since Sid) after the first couple of months of 'mothering' I hit the stage where I felt I had forgotten there was life outside motherhood and was getting too embroiled (if that is possible) in each nitty gritty of it. So much so that I stopped to exist as"me" but only as "Sid's mother". I eventually realised the abyss this was pulling me into and also that if this state of things continued I would be the one suffering separation anxiety* (instead of Sid) and empty nest syndrome** as soon as Sid joins playschool! So to get myself out of that I started further more 'hobbies'.

For one, we bought a lot of plants - roses and other flowering variety - and I got busy in planting and caring for these. The best part about gardening is that the fruit (flower) of one's labor is so beautiful and needs so much constant attention that one doesn't get an opportunity to 'grow out of' so to speak, this particular hobby. It really has been fulfilling to see this bare weeded stretch (the new house we shifted into a few months back) now having so many colours.


 from our garden

very early oil pastel lessons

I also went and bought myself a set of pastels and drawing book and began a self taught (online, of course) lesson on oil pastel coloring. Made some mediocre copies of some great works seen online. Unfortunately, this one wasn't as lucky as the gardening and has been collecting dust for some time now.

Most important and interestingly I started this blog to record Sid's growing up years and well, it has had its up and down days as well. Lets hope it sees some more up days now than it has recently been seeing.

In all honesty I wasn't sure where i was heading when I started with this post (Still not sure). But by the end of it I have at least achieved a post and hopefully this shall mark my return to updating the blog more regularly.

*Separation anxiety is a phenomenon that 5-6 months old infants and younger children are known to experience when there mom's are not around. (Ofcourse it has more serious forms as well, but we are referring to the most harmless and common form)
**usually occurs in parents when kids finally leave home.