Activity time

In my constant attempts to steer Sid away from the train videos, one day I came up with the idea of Activity Time! While I’m remotely not connected with anything that has the letters A.R.T in it, I can be a decent copy cat. So, activity time involves googling for some interesting (and importantly very very very simple.. ) craft stuff to do. On my way home from work, I bought a few charts, paints, brushes and paper plates and Sid was enthralled by this.

I am a puppeteer

Here are snippets from the experience..

- Sid likes to dip his brush into the paint bottle and almost empty the bottle with 1 dip ..and being the cheapo that I am, I keep telling him to dip very little so it’ll last for the rest of my lifetime. Not that he listens or cares!

- I was okay when he called my caterpillar as snail, but was not impressed when he called my lion as a monkey!

- Somehow any activity with the paper plate interests him more than others.. so now I have to maintain a stock of paper plates at home.. (..called as cascading effect.. or thollai yaara vittudhu)

Paint animals

- At some point, I run out of stuff to do ..or there are times when Sid declares that its activity time at 11:30pm when I am already just pretending to be awake.. these are the times when what I learnt in my biology class comes to rescue..

- I am now wondering what to do with the stuff once you create them, I have this huge folder filled with arty things he did at school and now a few at home, and I dont feel like throwing them but I realize I have to do this at some point to avoid the clutter at home.

 

Baton handover

After a long time at the top spot, the baton for Sid’s most obsessed object, is passed on from the COW to the TRAIN.

It started when FIL took Sid on a couple of metro rides and Sid was haunted with the metro train since then. Adding to that, we have been travelling frequently on trains to Coimbatore. Sid spends most of his free time watching various sort of trains on Youtube these days. While it was amusing and interesting initially, it has become frustrating for the dad and mom these days. The dad, wearing spectacles, is paranoid about the possibility of Sid having to wear one early on, and is preaching a lot these days about how Sid should abstain from laptop or TV. And the mom is tearing her hair trying to implement this rule.

And when you do not want Sid to do something, you can be assured he would absolutely end up doing that. So, for hours, he just stares at the laptop watching the videos.. I tried hiding the laptop but he explores through every inch of every room looking for the laptop and urging me to search as well. And when he does not find it, he gives the LOUD SCREAM treatment that completely unnerves me and I end up screaming at him or giving up my resolve! And since my screaming results in more LOUD SCREAMs from him, I finally give up and just play the videos so he leaves me in peace.

Once, when the search proved futile, he brought the ipod to me and asked me to play on it! And when I said there is no charge, he brought the charger and asked me to charge the ipod! So yes, there is no escape.

After two hours of this struggle, when I finally give up, is when dad walks in, and lectures the poor mom on why this is bad for the kid’s eyes! Phew! Sid, meanwhile, is very busy and not sensing the tension between mom and dad, is excitedly looking at the rajdhanis and shatabdis and the express and metro trains!

 

What we love to do..

Sid’s latest penchant is for puzzles.. he loves to watch me put the pieces together and then the next second he scatters them around asking me to repeat the process, heartless boy! I tried getting him to do it a bit, but for now he is content just watching me do it. One of the nights Sid was coughing badly whenever he lied down. To make him stay awake for sometime and have the medicines we started doing the puzzles and this was at 4am!! Weird when writing about it, but at that moment somehow seemed the logical thing to do, trust me! His periamma also got him a new Animals puzzle with zebra, elephant, tiger, etc. Animals & puzzles are a deadly combination for Sid and every waking moment he drives us mad asking us to keep doing this.

Another favorite pastime of his is to get me read books to him. Remember sometime back when I cribbed about it, well, we have moved on since then and love the story time. One book, which is high on our preference list is called “Elmo says Achoo!” Its such a lovely book to read in which Elmo keeps sneezing and makes things tumble down. The book’s story has a lovely sense of humor and its easy to dramatize it and everytime I say..”Elmo says….” its so cute to hear Sid say “..Achoo..”

The Pepper series is another favorite with us and Sid has torn many pages and I’ve been trying to hold on to the books by using as much glue as I can! God save the books! I’m one who cannot stand a dog-eared book, so seeing my son tear a page into two and smile gives me a shudder. But now I can say I’m better used to it and my heart is not skipping a beat everytime he does it.

Since I’m listing down our favorite books, this Barney book cannot be missed – Its again very useful to teach about the setting in a restaurant and the good manners one should follow there. I don’t think Sid really paid attention when I was reading about the good manners bit, but he has caught the word – restaurant – and uses it so many times now. He also now fancies a pizza and a chocolate cake for dessert. The book is full of colors and it’s so easy to get your kid’s attention to it. It’s also fun to get them to identify the colors as you read the story.

The other day I visited my usual library and this time I decided to pick up a couple of books for Sid too. This proved a HUGE success. So far, I have just been buying books for him, but I completely forgot that I can borrow from the library and they actually have a great collection. So I picked 2 books, one of it was a touch-and-feel book and it has pictures of different animals and when you touch them on the book, it gives a feel of the animal. For e.g. there is fur for a bunny, dog and there are cat whiskers that one can feel. I loved it more than Sid did, he was excited for a couple of days about it and then he was done with it.

The other one was a book titled “GOOD NIGHT Little One” I dont know if a book can get better at visual presentation than this. As you turn every page it introduces you to animals’ homes and where they sleep. There is a question and as you lift the flap, you get the answer. The colors are very striking and the only problem I had with the book was to make sure Sid doesnt tear the flaps especially considering this was a library book. I find that I keep gaping into the pages even when Sid is not around!! It’s one of the most beautiful books I have seen! What a wonderful way to introduce a concept!

Having fun, we are!

 

Plurals

Sid is a bit obssessed with plurals these days. Anything in multiples is 2 for him. So he’d see 4 pigeons and he’d go..amma inga paaru..2 pigeons.
When we went on the Kabini vacation, he was getting really carried away with so much around to see..the whole day he was on this mode.
‘inga oru butterfly…anga oru butterfly…rendu butterfly’ he’d say! (Here’s one and there’s one making it two!)
He said the same for the elephants and deers and the birds..and the ants..towards the end of the day he just applied this to everything around him. The day ended with something like this..
‘inga oru amma, anga oru amma, rendu amma’ (2 mommies!)

Don’t get carried away, dude! I’m going to keep a close eye on your dad now!

 

The jungle vacation

Just been lazing around in a nice vacation. It started with the big bang world cup victory. The grandparents got to meet Sid and I got to do more shopping. (time to upgrade to summer collections!) Was not excited enough about any movie, otherwise there could have been some theater time too. When I planned this vacation I told myself that I’m going nowhere, and will only be relaxing at home and spending time with Sid. But as the days approached, we decided to drive to my parents’ place so we can meet my grandma as well. That was abt 13 hrs of drive summing to & fro. So much for a relaxed vacation! That was done, and then we went to Kabini on a jungle safari! That was another 10 hrs of drive totally. So there, never ever plan, I told myself.

The Kabini trip was one of the unique trips I’ve done, the first jungle safari trip we went to. We stayed in the Jungle lodges and it was beautiful. In a way the resort reminded me of the BITS campus, maybe because it was huge and there was a lot of greenery around. The room we stayed in, opened to a lawn and Sid was busy catching butterflies and ants. At his 8 months when we went to wayanad, he screamed his heart out as we entered the room we stayed in. But, he is now grown up a lot since then, and was able to enjoy in a new place completely. Ofcourse, that we were visiting animals helped. We reached on Day 1 around 1 pm and had a decent lunch ( the food is ok-ok ), took some rest and then set off for the jungle safari. We spoted a herd of elephants and deers and then an occasional bison, gaur, mongoose, birds like peacocks. It looked like all the elephants and deers from all over the country decided to meet here. There was a tiger that was spotted by a few people in another jeep, but by the time we reached, there was nothing to be seen. The same thing happened with the leopard as well. First time not-so-lucky.

Day 2 we did a boating ride-cum-safari that started at 6:30am and we did spot a crocodile. Thankfully the boat went nowhere near that. We also could observe a few storks & the elephants and the deers from a distance. I definitely enjoyed the jeep safari the previous day much better than the boat safari. One gets a much closer view of the animals from the open jeep. The highlight was when we spotted a mommy and a baby elephant in such close quarters. The baby was disturbed by the jeep movement it seemed and trumpeted so loud that most of us got taken aback for a moment. Sid, on the other hand, was truly excited and started singing his elephant song from his favorite animals CD — ‘ Dham dham dha dham — he sang loud amidst the deafening silence much to my amusement and embarassment.

Choosing this spot for the vacation seemed like a perfect choice!! And now we’re back in the grind..!

 

Reading out stories..

Ok guys, this is a ‘Pls help me’ post. How do I get Sid to listen to the stories I read out from books?

He has always been very keen and attentive with the board books having pictures of animals, birds, fruits, veggies, etc. So much now that he has literally mastered most of those objects, some of those I should admit I learnt along with him! (I know I’d definitely fail on ‘Are you better than a 5th grader?‘ ) So I decided to take it to the next level , and just while I was thinking about this, someone gifted on his b’day a bunch of story books. I was elated and made him sit down and start reading out one of those.. It was a very cute 10-pager book called “Pepper goes to school“. Now, there was a picture of an airplane in the second page, and we really didnt get past that. (Oh! Didn’t I mention he has been obssessed with planes and helicopters these days, he has countless numer of toy planes in different sizes, thanks to his thatha!) After each sentence that I read out, he simple repeated…‘meopane, mecopter.‘

nanum chumma viduvena?! I wanted to complete the story so I kept reading every sentence and dramatizing the story, while he stubbornly repeated…‘meopane, mecopter.’
When I was done, he was relieved, grabbed the book off my hand and just kept staring at the plane for an eternal amount of time.

So, Pls help! All creative, not-so-creative, lovely, silly ideas welcome, never know which one will work!

 

Baby *

This whole weekend I’ve been trying to get Sid to spot baby animals. And also teach him what they’re called.
So, we saw a herd of cows in a street corner, and I was telling him… kutti cow, baby cow…peru..calf.
And so we went on learning about kitten, puppies and Joey
Yesterday night, we were driving around in the car, and he spotted the moon.. he was really thrilled..and went on saying.. moon, moon, white, white.. After some time, he spotted a star next to the moon, and he goes.. Baby star..
Aha! Kids!

 

And the floodgates open!

Lets start with a side story: Apparently when I was a kid I didnt talk for sometime and my paranoid mom took me to Vaitheeswaran koil. There is a tradition there to drop a silver imitation of body parts like eyes, tongue, etc.. if there are any problems. So as you may have guessed my mom dropped a ‘velli nakku’ in the undiyal. And then lo! I started talking until I was nicknamed vaayadi in my school.
It so happens that history actually repeats itself it seems.

I didnt buy any SILVER TONGUE but since the temple visit a month back exactly, words have started tumbling like a roll of coins out of Sid and its been so much fun! Now is when I know that I’m no longer going to be able to track words that he speaks. He has started picking words that we speak so casually, that I know that we now have to be very careful what we talk! There is such a beauty in the mazhalai talk, I need to record that in video sometime soon before he moves on!

Another side story: I got married and in the process understood that a conversation means me talking with hubby never listening. Still one day, he surprises me with some statement that actually proves that he has listened!

So, everyday I sit with Sid and read out from the Animals board book and call them out one by one. So, even though I’ve been trying to teach Sid the wide variety of animals, and he has been listening with avid interest, I never thought it was actually sinking in, until.. a couple of weeks back, when he just rattled off most of the names from book…maybe he has been planning it as a surprise or else how can he not know any of them the previous day, and the very next day, he goes.. Woof (Wolf!) Pox (Fox!) Bear, Nion (Lion) etc..I think he got most of them right..except the complex ones like Rhino, Hippo..I could not come out of the shock for a REALLY long time, not sure if I still have.

Totally inspired by this, I went and got a BIRDS book. Now, when I came home and went through it, I realized my birds basics are not really good. Except the really well-known ones like parrot, pigeon, I was having a tough time identifying them without looking at the labels below. C’mon, crane, ostrick, stork, swan all seem to look a lot alike..and what about sparrow, nightingale, cuckoo..uhh!! And who needs to know..hornbill and tailorbird.. unless you’re doing a Ph.D on the said species. So under the excuse of teaching Sid, I learnt a few of them myself.. and he picked these up in just a couple of days!! I’m going to have to do book shopping this weekend again!!

Its exciting to see how he has now started communicating what he thinks.. like ..
when he comes home and doesnt find his dad..he goes.. appa.. car..baayee..
when he is going out with someone, he goes..babayyeee.. tata..
as soon as I give him a bath in the morning.. he goes.. paatti.. since he knows that I’m going to take him to his paatti’s place.

Has also started his own crisp version of rhymes..
baa..baa……
haav u …..wooool
yech char….

thether thether thunkin eather..
haadh a…gibberish..

The color coding has also improved beyong buuee..and parpel to green, red & yellow.

My tiny little boy is suddenly growing up toooo fast for me!!

 

Padichu kizhichachu!

 

My Ooty trip

Amma and appa have been going on a trip spree for sometime now. Not that I mind, but I hope that they would show some level of planning that they should as responsible parents. Amma wakes up one day in Coimbatore and starts cribbing to appa about not having gone on a trip for sometime now! She is shameless, she just came from London and she is in coimbatore, and she now wants a trip within a trip! Appa being himself, just agreed and in a couple of hours they were driving along with me to Ooty. The drive was terrible, I had to cope with a lot of nausea. To make it worse there was no music system in the car, I mean, which generation are these people in! I kept turning the knobs I could find, but turned out these did something to the cooling inside the car, and no music whatsoever came out! Finally we reached the hotel and I found that the weather in Ooty was terribly cold! What a great weather to take a one year old along! In the evening though they took me to the botanical garden and only then did I flash my smile at them.. there were so much greenery and open space all over that I just ran around like crazy making them run after me.. good they deserve this much atleast! The worst was in the middle of the night at the hotel, the power went off and it was pitch dark, how did they find this place with no backup power I wonder, I think they just fell for the scenic view from the hotel. I woke up in the middle of the night and it was totally dark but I could feel amma next to me, and also I was trying to be really brave, so I didnt cry at all. I think amma was very proud of me since she kept mentioning it to appa all the time! I think they were really scared that I was going to cry and raise hell. In this blackness of the night, amma was making some milk for me with the cellphone light and she was frustrated to find that the flask was not working, so gave me some really cold milk.. !! Uh!! I mean, how long can a kid hold his patience.. but they were in for some luck .. I just decided to gobble all the milk and doze off! I’m telling you, the next time around if these people are any close to being as irresponsible as this, they are going to discover the monster Sid!

In just 2 weeks, they again took me to a temple trip, 12 hours to and fro on train. I was excited to be in a train and kept saying ....train.. I wanted to grab some food from the family next to us, but amma’s temper was rising badly and appa did a good job of distracting me. I also saw a huge elephant in the temple, I think it winked its eyes at me I also saw an aquarium with a lot of fish inside.. amma and I counted to find 10 beautiful golden fish..I loved the thish.. I dont think amma is going to ever let me have one at home. She is more worried about the smell and maintenance than my happiness Over the years I’ll find some way to convince her. Baayyyeee. Its time for me to go to sleep, next time amma, appa behave badly I’ll snatch amma’s laptop and start typing as I did today!