Wednesday, October 28, 2009

Party Animal!


Tara attended her first birthday party yesterday! It went as one would expect. She spent a lot of time watching other kids being silly, was a little silly herself for a while, and then fell asleep just when the cake was being cut. Vir also behaved pretty much as expected. He grabbed a car from the birthday girl's collection of toys, stood with it in a corner and watched all the other kids being silly, managed to convince the birthday girl's grandmother to give him some icing from the birthday cake before it was cut, and spent the rest of his time protecting Tara from potential claimants. He thinks everyone wants to take her home and is always wary of strangers and friends when it comes to her. Poor girl - she has a few fights ahead of her in this regard. And poor boy, all he wants to do is make sure only he is allowed to annoy her. For now though, it's a totally love-love relationship with only worshipping looks on either side despite the occasional pinching and toy snatching from the big brother who, I'm often guilty of forgetting, is only a baby himself.
Honestly, anyone reading this and contemplating having a second child. Go for it. You'll only regret it once in a while but you'll be constantly in awe of the relationship your little ones will share.

Tuesday, October 13, 2009

My little rocket!

She's learnt how to do push ups and she uses every minute she can find to practice this new skill. It just never gets old. I think the next step will be bending her knee forward and pushing ahead, aka crawling! But how can this be? She's only 5 months. Here I was thinking we have a few more months of sitting around calmly with a rattle in one hand and the laptop in the other.

"No such luck, mom! Watch out, I'm on my way!"

Tuesday, October 6, 2009

Already?!

Tara is constantly amazing me with the stuff she's up to! I don't really remember the timing of Vir's early milestones and have to keep referring back to this blog for that, but I'm pretty sure that Tara is doing some of this stuff sooner than he did. She's already being able to make her way across the bed in a really random combination of crawling and creeping and frog jumping and rolling accompanied by lots of noise and has been doing this for almost a month now! In fact, I'm not proud to report that she has already fallen off the bed once. I just didn't see it coming. I left her on the bed for a minute thinking she's my little infant who is still totally safe on the bed and when I came back, she was on the floor. It was horrible, but brave little girl that she is, she was smiling almost the second I picked her up!

She has also recently started reaching out for things that are held out in front of her. Which, of course, opens up a world of options for her to put in her mouth. Because in Tara's world, things have only one purpose - to be tasted! I'm looking forward to when I can give her real food and also really hoping she actually eats what I give her and saves me round II of the torture that Vir is putting me through these days.
I'll report that when it happens. For now, I just watch her with wonder as she troops along, learning new and wonderful things everyday and overwhelming us with gratitude that she can and that we're lucky enough to be witness to her miracles.

Wednesday, September 23, 2009

New Age Ram

This week's theme at Vir's school is the Ramayan and theatre or some sort of the mix of the two. So, for show and tell today, I gave Vir a mask of Ram and a gadda. This is our conversation about the stuff I gave him:

Me: Vir, ye dekh....Bhagwan Ram.
Vir: Bhagwan Ram kya karte hain?
Me: Bhagwan Ram bahut achche hain aur logon ki help karte hain
Vir: Bhagwan Ram kaunsi car mein aate hain? (oh the mental image!)

And...

Me: Yeh dekh Vir...gadda...
Vir: Ye kiska hai?
Me: Bhagwan Hanuman ka...isse woh gande logon ko marte hai (I really didn't know what else to say)
Vir: Main unko bolooonga...."aise thodi hota hai, hanu bhagwan....isko mat maro...yeh meri friend hai." (all his learning getting mixed up!)

Show and tell should be interesting today!!

Monday, September 21, 2009

You know how I said that Tara can get a degree in making noise? She's managed to gurgle so loudly over the last couple of days that she has actually lost her voice!! It's so funny...she's making this thick, grown up gurgling sound now, because of course, a minor thing like a lost voice isn't actually going to stop her from speaking her mind. That's my girl!

Friday, September 18, 2009

If Tara could read this blog, she'd think she doesn't exist, for all that I've written of her! Or maybe she did read this blog and has stopped sleeping at night just to get back at me. Seriously though, I had great intentions of writing monthly updates for her, just as I did for Vir. That was before I knew what happens to your life when you have two kids. I had well meaning friends try to warn me before she came that I should brace myself and that life with two is a lot crazier than life with one. I heard them out but didn't really know what to do with that information. She was coming and that's what I wanted and that's all there was to it. Then she arrived, and as I posted earlier, she was a total angel doing amazing things like putting herself to sleep and taking four hour naps making me think my well meaning friends were quite wrong and that my baby was really easy and very considerate. Notice how I use the past tense in this last sentence? That's because THIS HAS ALL ENDED. SUDDENLY. She no longer sleeps. She simply doesn't sleep. All day. And I'm still to get used to this new situation.

I really can't complain though, because though the sleeping little angel is a thing of the past, what has replaced her is even more lovable. She wakes up in the morning and greets me with a huge grin that lights up everything. She stretches and turns and rolls and curls herself as if she's so tired from her multiple duties. She rolls over and looks up so surprised that the world has suddenly changed its direction and everything is new all over again. Then she decides she likes this new way and grins again. Of course, this soon gets old and she starts making a noise to be turned back, which she hasn't figured out how to do herself yet. She knows how to make noise. In fact, she can get a degree in making noise. Happy noise...that's the noise you make when you're happy and you want everyone to know it. That's what she does for the most part, but she's also getting really really good at making the unhappy noise...that's the noise you make when you want mommy. She may be getting noisy but she still has the knack for knowing just when I'm having a tough time and supports me fully by falling asleep and staying out of my hair. She's also super brave and doesn't make a fuss over little things. Not even over big things unless you really cross the line.

It's a miracle to watch her unfold a little bit at a time. I can't wait! I'm so impatient that even though I can't wait for her to fall asleep because I have things to do, I also can't wait for her to wake up the next time so I can see what she'll be up to. Of course, it doesn't take much for her to wake up at any time because we have our helpful little waker upper in the form of little Vir - always ready to go up to her sleeping little body, shake it, and say, "Tara....tu so rahi hai?" She'll figure out a way to get back at him for this eventually, I'm sure. In the meanwhile, my sympathies are with you little one...I know how it is to be woken up when you want to sleep:-)

Wednesday, September 16, 2009

Me: What's your name?
Vir: Vir Gogoi
Me: And what's papa's name?
Vir: Papa Gogoi
Me: And mamma's name?
Vir: Mamma Gogoi
Me: No, it's not Mamma Gogoi!
Vir: Mummy Gogoi?

Seriously, where do they learn to be so cute?!