Been a long time since I updated anything new about Sid's growth. And sadly when I did come back it was an impulsive and quick write up about a movie that moved the mother in me to the very core.

To try and turn things into a little more pleasanter note, I am trying to write another little update on my Hero and his mom. The reason that mama has not been able to write more is that here we are, Sid and me living with Chitrammai (CA) in Trivandrum.

 Mama has started working and has started leaving Sid at home with a maid and CA to take care of him.

There was nothing that has worried and scared mama more than the weeks preceding the shift and the thought of leaving Sid with CA and a stranger. Luckily, the whole joining process was so quick that mama didn't get enough time to worry herself sick. The way things normally tend to happen, all this has settled itself. Sid is fine with CA and the maid.

Other than the usual - maid issues, small hiccups of not living in your home but with a relative, practically being a single mom (even temporarily) AND not having either set of grandparents with us to help, ohh! and being a working single mom at that - everything else has been going on in a pattern the last 2 months.

The biggest change in Sid has been all emotional and communications. Wow! Does my son have a temper or what. I am hoping against hope that this is just a phase and not a reflection of things to come, the temper! We scream and cry and hit and bite and hit the floor/bed with both our hands and throw every possible tantrum till we get what we need. And whats worst, we cannot yet tell people what we need!

And whats more, if we are not really sad or angry, we know how to act as well!

As for telling, we are in a "count the syllable phase right now. So whatever you point and name to Sid in a particular intonation, Sid repeats the number of syllables and the intonations all in the same sound. So, "Ball' is "Ba", "Ba-lloon" is "Ba Ba". Clock is "Ka", Car is "Ka" and Ca-Len-Der is "Ka Ka Ka". And so on. All animals, even reptiles, aer "Bow Bow".

But, the good thing is when asked to point out something like the clock or ball or car or head etc. we can promptly point and direct the ignorant.

Further, we love the mobile phone. we take it to our ears and ask for "ammumma" in it always cos ammumma is the only person who talks to us on phone.

We love to feed and give water. So when mama gives me water to drink in our sipper we drink our fill and then push the bottle to mama's lips. and if she doesn't drink we "slurp slurp slurp" trying to teach poor ignorant mama how to drink from the sipper. we also push food into mama's mouth when she is trying to feed us.

And though we have a very bad temper, we have also become more expressive of our love. We love to hug and kiss a lot these days, though all that is limited to a very happy mama. And everything said the Joy we feel that reflects on our face when we see mom come back from office is UNMATCHED.

Also, we love to play on mama's office laptop.

I don't know why I wrote all that in first person "plural" from Sid!!!

Unnamed........

Haven't been this moved by a movie in a long long....long time. watched the Malayalam movie traffic, today. I know this post doesnt seem to fit in a stagnant baby blog. But maybe it was the pain of two mothers in the movie that I could relate the most with in the movie. Before I were a mother it may have been the sacrifice of the young man, even if in ignorance, or the strength of the decision of his friends and girlfriend that I may have associated with most. Or, it may have been another unnamed hero, the friend/navigator who would have been my main charater in the movie, after the protagonist driver/cop of course. But, the first time I watched a movie with tears in my eyes, a HUGE lump in my throat and a lot of pain in my heart. And, more importantly the first time in my life where I had to skip whole portions of a movie becasue I couldnt stand to watch the pain of watching parents, especially the mother who...............can't even complete the statement). There are times when I watch this happen in a movie or hear about it in everyday life and think that i can empathise with the mother and have my heart go out to her. But, who was  fooling. Not before today, and never before being a mother myself could I ever even start imagining the depths of that pain. Even as I write this post at the end of the movie I have unshed tears in my heart. Never Ever Before I have known there exists a pain so deep that it makes it even difficult to cry. Even that little relied in shedding tears is denied in that pain.

Heard somewhere - there are widows, widowers. There are orphans and what not. But one loss in this world is so unimaginably BIG that there is no word to define the survivor.

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



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.

Joys of Semi-Verticality

As on 06th Nov, 2010 around 1500 hours (almost exactly the moment Sid turned 7 months old) he decided he needed a new perspective on things and pulled himself up from his stomach to a sitting position. Of course this is a moment of great joy and pride but what it also brought along with it a lot of falling and banging of head which isn't the easiest of things to be standing around watching.
From then on to today he has been practicing the art and polishing it bit by bit pretty much all the time. Now the entire process of pushing himself up has become much smoother and faster but staying up is still dicey and results in at least one head banging per day, how much ever careful the people around him maybe! (The sight of this pains mama more than Sid from the looks of despair on the two faces).
 
The best part about sitting up however is the freedom it gives. Being able to explore all around and pick up things as and when one likes. (and put them in his mouth too).
But despite all the head bumps and tummy upsets (and palpitations for mommy), Oh! its so worth it to watch kiddo sit up and wave his arms around in joy and laugh about just so he can...

P.S mamma is too scared to pick up the cam and click pics when Sid is sitting up, and hence no sitting-up-and-playing-snaps, yet.

Saturday Songs: Jack and Jill

Before I write my thoughts as well as my findings on this rhyme, I shall first like to note the verses that are known to follow the most common first stanza. According to the most modern version, the rhyme goes as:

Jack and Jill went up the hill

To fetch a pail of water.

Jack fell down and broke his crown,

And Jill came tumbling after.

Up Jack got, and home did trot,

As fast as he could caper,

To old Dame Dob, who patched his nob (OR And went to bed to mend his head)

With vinegar and brown paper

 

There are several versions of the rhyme and following verses are among options that have been seen in various versions and various reproductions of the rhyme through history, but not formally document as the complete rhyme anywhere.

 

Jill came in and she did grin               

To see his paper plaster;

Mother vexed did whip her next

For laughing at Jack's disaster.

 

Now Jack did laugh and Jill did cry

But her tears did soon abate;

Then Jill did say that they should play

At see-saw across the gate.

 

This single unified rhyme was extracted from wikipedia where further alternatives of each of the verses are available. Wikipedia also provides many many theories and narrations for the origin of these lines varying from abduction of kids from earth to the moon, failure of kings to negotiate peace, taxes on liquor (Jack refers to 1/2 pint and Jill to 1/4), deposing of kings ("lost his crown") and so on. To read these theories in detail, you may http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_and_Jill_(nursery_rhyme) 

follow the link:

Again, almost all the rhymes I chose here were those that were discussed with dad during that conversation I referred to in the initial meme and the question we had raised then with regards to Jack and Jill was, why would someone go "up an hill" to fetch water? Logic prevails one comes down a hill for that right?Hmmm.....all the research and discoveries about the rhyme, and that question is still unanswered.

Meal Time!

Around 5 month's age we started Sid on some supplementary food (or at least we tried). These included mashed and sweetened ragi paste, dried, sweetened raw banana paste etc. all traditional malayali initiation food. I'm not very sure what is followed in other parts of the country and I decided to go the safest route as this is what the rest of everyone else I know has grown up on and has fed their next generation too.

One thing I can guarantee, trying to feed a baby anything other than milk is not for the faint hearted, the impatient or the short tempered. Or rather, I should say it is a good lesson for everyone of the kind I just described (ahem...like me).

In this context, my mom was talking about a senior paediatrician colleague of hers who has written books on infants and toddler care and her most important advice to all parents who complain about the difficulty of feeding their babies is to let them be, that kids don't stay hungry and they shall eat without much coaxing when they are sufficiently hungry. Until...she had her grandchild. After that, during a conversation, she happened to tell my mom how she thinks she might as well rewrite her book cos she has realised that however hungry, if babies don't like the business of opening their mouth and swallowing their food, THEY WILL NOT! Oh No they won't. And for all the coaxing, goading, distracting and everything one might invest in, one might as well learn, a NO means just that.

It is amazing how, before learning to chew and swallow, these tinies learn to spit and even more importantly to clamp their mouth shut with such force as soon as they spot a spoon in the horizon. How quickly they understand tricks and distractions and will not even open their mouths to giggle, instead settling for a tightly closed lip smile, even at their favourite tricks!

gooey redefined

So, as this struggle progresses, we have started Sid on almost everything a little by little except tough animal proteins and eggs. (All paediatricians strictly advice against feeding babies eggs before 10 months.) Over and above the aforementioned gooey stuff, he has a little rice, lentils some steamed fish, potato, apple juice, oranges and so on oh! and of course cerelac too. Only thing is by the time he has about 4 spoons of anything, my breakfast, lunch and dinner gets digested.

The irony is how they put anything and everything else into their mouths, especially dirt, shoes, floor mats and stuff that are normally kept out of reach with good reason, while they shut their mouth like a mouse trap the moment there is food in the vicinity.

WOW! to imagine what it will be like once he begins to run!



initial feeding days with grandma n grandpa



grandma grandpa gave after these first few attempts!