Tag: childhood

Nitara Turns 2 !

Nitara Turns 2 !

They say that time flies when you’re having fun. It feels like it was only yesterday that Nitara came into our lives, and she is 2 years old already.

Time really does fly and children grow up fast but that happens at the level of weeks, months and years. At the same time, hours of a day slow down considerably. It is a tedious routine to bring up a child. Day after day, night after night, it can be a constant struggle to get things right. Wake up, change her diapers, give her milk, then breakfast, lunch and dinner. Take her out for walks whenever she desires, whatever the weather might be. Keep an eye on the child all the time and make sure she is not doing anything dangerous. Right now she is sitting under the glass coffee table, the very next she has climbed onto the changing table and looks ready to jump. One moment she is scribbling with colors in her book, the next she is headed for decorating the walls. Forget about watching TV because she will want to see her cartoons instead. Spend hours making her eat her meal, hoping she doesn’t land a blow on her plate sending everything flying around. And when it’s finally time for you to eat, she wants a bite too. Or try putting her off to sleep because you’re really tired and she would turn around in the bed for hours narrating where her head, shoulders, knees and toes are.

Between her first birthday and the second, she has obviously learnt to do so much more. On her first birthday, Nitara was attemping to walk but now, she is already running around, kicking football all around our house, jumping and stomping her feet just like in Peppa Pig.

And yes, Peppa Pig is the newest member in our lives. So is her little brother George, Suzy Sheep, Miss Babbit (Rabbit), Danny Dog and Mr. Bull (If you have no idea what I am saying, watch Peppa Pig cartoons). And thanks to this cartoon, Nitara knows the sounds various animals make. Just ask her

Sometimes I wonder how much does a child really understand at a certain age and the answer always surprises me: They barely understand anything, but a bit more than we realize. She goes to a Swedish language day care whereas we speak Hindi at home. But she hasn’t started to talk in either yet. But just the other day, the door bell rang and she turned towards it and spoke in English: “What’s that noise?”

So yes, kids don’t really learn things the way we expect them to, but in their little brains the wheels keep turning and they keep learning stuff and show us their talents when we least expect them to. Such as when she first saw a gift wrapped in fancy paper and without any instigation, tore into it shouting:

“APPY BUDAY! APPY BUDAY! APPY BUDAY!”

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And She Walks

Just as I boarded the bus to the airport in order to catch the flight to India to be with my daughter for her first birthday, I checked my phone to find a video from my wife from earlier in the day. It was a video of my little girl chasing her granddad and walking twenty tiny steps without support. A big milestone has been achieved.

Before they left me behind in Stockholm and went to India a month ago, my wife estimated that our daughter was about to walk soon, but I told her that she would start walking when I joined them in a month’s time. We were also watching keenly to see if she would start walking by her first birthday (13th January) or not. I have to say I’ve been dreading missing her first steps and they happened just before I was about to travel. But to find out that she has started walking today, it doesn’t feel like I am missing anything since I will see her tomorrow anyway. My mom just told me that even I had starting walking right on my first birthday. So, it feels more like a return gift from her to me in advance for her birthday in 3 days. What more could I ask her for before I start my trip?

Time to buy some Nike soon?

Our Little Agent of Chaos

Our Little Agent of Chaos

At around 8 months, our daughter underwent a new kind of development, and it happened when we least expected it to. Over the past few days, she had started to crawl around the home, touching everything, pulling on wires, trying to grab our Apple TV but then dropping it to the floor. While we half enjoyed this development, we thought that we would soon need to arrange “stuff” around our home so that it is out of her reach and she does not accidentally drop anything. But we didn’t anticipate that dropping stuff was only the first step in her real motives.

Back home from work one evening as I entered our apartment, I was stunned to find our living room in a mess with all the stuff stored under Nitara’s changing table scattered all over the place. Her toys box was lying on one side while the toys were spread all over the room.

“What the hell happened here?” I wondered aloud.

It turns out that just a short while back, my wife had left Nitara on her playmat just like every other day, and gone into the kitchen just for a couple of minutes, and upon returning, she found the whole room to be a mess with our little (little?) Nitara standing holding one leg of the changing table for support while all of its contents were lying strewn around. She did not feel she had the energy to clean up right away, so she left the room as it was.

Before I began cleaning up the stuff, I took a while to take in the scene.

“How did the washcloth pack get there? How could she even lift it? Maybe it just fell out of her tiny hands onto the floor and bounced that far away.”

“Why was her brush under the couch and how did her pack of plasters get halfway across the living room?”

Of course, I wasn’t angry. I was delighted that my baby girl had progressed further on her journey of discovering the world she had come into eight months back. She was doing what her curiosity what driving her to do.

I looked at my girl and tried to imagine what she must feel like. She still had no concept of language. She doesn’t say anything and probably doesn’t even know what she is feeling. She just looks innocently back at me and passes her cutest smiles. I smile back at her and picked her up in my arms and give her the kisses on her cheeks that I always do. It occurs to me that making a mess of things was something kids would do all their lives, while I, as a dad, have to take care of the situations every time. It was an important lesson and a reminder that I am a parent – a Dad.

Chasing The Phone

Chasing The Phone

A few times a day, we do a video call with our family back in India so that they can see Nitara and what she is up to. During one such video call recently, while she was sitting and playing on her play-mat, I got an idea. Nitara had recently started to crawl a bit better so in order to show my mom that, I placed the phone in a standing position on the floor, but a few feet away from her. The phone, with my mom on its screen, immediately caught Nitara’s attention. She quickly leaned towards the phone, got onto her tummy and started crawling. As soon as she was in touching distance of the phone, her one hand made an arc in the air, landed on it and lifted it up. She sat up, brought the phone close to her face and started inspecting the screen with my mom on it. Naturally, the inspection proceeded with one corner of the phone now in her mouth, so I snatched it from her, moved to another end of the living room and place the phone down on the floor again with its screen facing Nitara. She was on the move quickly again and headed for the phone, but the distance being a bit far, she stopped in the middle, rested for a few moments and then resumed crawling towards the phone. As soon as she reached it, a familiar look of curiosity came on her face and just as she was about the grab the phone again, I snatched it out of her reach and went and placed back it in the previous corner of the room. This whole cat and mouse went on for some more time after which it was clear that Nitara had exhausted all her patience and energy for the day and gave up and started crying. We had to end the show right there. As it was also dinner time by then, a bottle of milk was produced before her which contributed greatly to calming her down and eventually preparing her for sleep.

Needless to say, Nitara chasing my phone has become a regular feature of our video calls back home.

Rhymes On My Mind

Rhymes On My Mind

Remember how some days you wake up, get ready, step out of the home for work/school and realize that you’ve had a particular song playing in your mind, even on your lips, the whole time without you knowing or even being able to make it go away? I know its happened to me quite a lot and most times I’ve been surprized to learn that it could be the worst song I’d ever heard, or it could be one that I last heard years ago, but which had suddenly made home in my mind and just wouldn’t go away. Sometimes, this would last an entire day and I would not be able to get rid of it. Yes, I know it has happened to you too.

But, of late, things have changed a little. Last week, I woke up, got ready, was off to work and the whole day, there was a nursery rhyme stuck in my head and I just couldn’t shake it off. And the reason was simple. We were playing nursery rhyme videos on our TV, while our 7 m.o. darling daughter sat on her high chair across the room with a bib around her neck, having her meal. She finds these videos quite interesting and so they were the best way to make her eat. Imagine the look on your face if something utterly unbelievable happened at the most unexpected time. Can you imagine how your expression would be in that first instant? Now freeze that look for about half and hour and that is how my daughter keeps staring at the TV the whole time these are playing.

So, we get an overdose of nursery rhymes for a good amount of time everyday. And that is why, on some days, upon waking up, I find one of those stuck in my mind. And everytime I managed to clear my head of it, it would start over automatically. There would be an involuntary clicking of the toungue (click–click-click–click-click—-click-click) to set the base and then, the rhyme would begin:

Baa Baa Black Sheep, Have you any wool..
Yes Sir! Yes, Sir! Three bags full..
One for the master, One for the dame..
And one for the little boy Who lies down the lane…

Which is your favourite Nursery Rhyme? Share with me by commenting on this post.