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!

 

First time in the water!

Off we went, 21 of us on a one-day trip! If anyone from my office is reading this, please let it be recorded that I’m working really hard on my projects lest you guys think that I’ve been taking too many vacations
Anyways, so we started at 7 am and we set off to the Balmuri falls. Its about 3 hours from Bangalore, closer to Srirangapatna, but with 6 kids tagging along and the group split into 4 cars, we took 5 hours to reach there. This included some stops we took in the middle and also a 1 hour breakfast break in Kadambam. (Nice change from the Kamat Lokaruchi I should say! I’m tired and let me say again, TIRED, of eating there!) The good thing about being enroute to Mysore is that there is quite a few eating options on the way! I think there are 3 CCDs, and a Barista, and an Adigas and 2 Kamats, and Kadambam, plus a few more! I realized how precious this is when we drove to Coimbatore a few weeks back and only found a few Iyengar bakeries on the way!!

Balmuri falls

So this is a very very small falls, apt for kids. For a few minutes I was searching for where the falls is. Its really low and not very deep so you can take kids along and drop them in water. I was really weary of taking Sid inside the water but seeing some courageous souls around taking their kids, I decided to do the same. Hubby and Sid had a gala time in the water, and Sid was inseparable from the water. Finally had to drag him off the place with the aid of the muscles I developed in a gym 4 years back. We did a min-picnic in the place eating some idlis and chapathis and some other snacks that we had packed in case of emergency. After the water play and the food time, it was time to pack off.

Playing with water

We then set off to the Ranganthittu bird sanctuary, I was very exhausted when we reached here and was praying to all the Gods that let there not be a long walk, and for once he answered to my prayers. There was greenery all over, and a nice lake where we can do a coracle ride and can get to see the birds perched on top of the trees. It was utterly refreshing and we had a really nice time with nature, except when I found the boat just a few yards from a crocodile and the boatman announced that there are about 60-70 crocodiles in this lake.

Birds perched atop the tree

We heard some peculiar names of birds being thrown at us, which I sincerely cannot recollect, except one that sounded like a Norwegian stork. One of the moms made it really simple for her kids ..saying white bird and black bird, and to be honest, I didnt understand much better either. The rain gods threatened us with a mild drizzle but soon decided to show us some mercy. After the nice & quick (20 mins) boat ride, we hurried to the small cafe and ate some bajjis and tea, hubby wanted to swear that this was the best time of his day!! We all did some colloquy here for an hour or so, and then we let the kids play in the lawns for sometime. Most kids were around 2 years old and they were colliding on each other or falling off, so after some time we had to pack up! If someonce forces me to return, I may not to the falls, but I’d to this sanctuary just to see the greenery. Water alongside green grass is one of the most pleasant sights in the world.

Ranganatha swamy temple

Hopping back into our cars and now it was close to 6 pm, we set back home and I was almost going to doze off when some divine interventions led us to the Ranganatha swamy temple. By now, I was sleep walking, but I remember seeing the deity and Sid having fun sitting on the stone elephants. We did another stopover in Adigas where we were greeted by some decent food, and not-so-decent toilets and a I’m-on-the-edge-so-you-better-dont-order-much waiter. When we reached home at midnight, I just remember falling off on the bed and I think I was sleepwalking most of the next day too! Exhausted but AWESOME!

 

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!

 

Repetition time!

This is the time to be extra careful with Sid. The other day.. he was incessantly irritating me on something, and i told him.. ‘poda.vennai..’ ..and he kept saying…vennai, vennai.. to my embarassment.
Another day, hubby tried to get something from his hand in vain, after some time in frustration he exclaimed,‘dei gunda’… and Sid repeated.. ‘gunda…gunda..’ obediently.
Its funny how he starts using a word without any effort and avers it as though he has been using the word his whole lifetime. His aunt made some paav bhaji, and I fed him some of it.. since then he has been saying..‘bhaji..bhaji..’ I realize I have stopped listing the words he is using now since over the past 2 months, he has been speaking so many new words that I have lost count of them. He tries to identify every object around him.. but does not speak a lot of sentences yet..
One of his very first sentences is.. ‘idha pathiya…?’ And he uses it with everything he loves spotting.. ‘pigeon pathiya..?’ everytime he watches them flutter over our balcony.
Another one is .. ‘Appa, CD podu’.. insisting appa to play rhymes for him, sure knows how to get a job done!!

 

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!!