18 June 2013 - Mischief is in the Air!

               Today we had your 9th month check up and I have a LOT to tell you on what you have been doing since I last updated the diary. I now eat for three people - for myself, for your brother who is in my womb and for you since you have just began eating solid food and only once a day. My house work has doubled and cleanliness at home is a dream. I have made up my mind to keep the house clean and tidy only after you and your brother start going to school. Till then I don't know that word!

               You are becoming very troublesome these days, but these are not the serious troubles anyway. And after pulling some objects, you give that mischievous smile and all my anger fades away. So you know all the tricks to avoid shouting. That reminds me how much you shout and scream these days. You have got quite a loud voice. The other day, our next door neighbours shifted their house to the next block and I wonder if the reason behind it is you! The lady had once even asked me after a week end we spent out, whether we were not at home the previous day because she had not heard Aadya! And that was true!

               One day in May, I told you "I will bite you if you keep troubling me" and you put your tongue out in a teasing manner and said "Ppprrrrrrrr......!!!" as if you know that your mom is not capable of doing that.

You started talking "mama", "baba", "papa" in the beginning. Next was "ya ya", "ka ka", "ja ja" and "tha tha". But now at 9 months of age, you pronounce almost all the consonants and you have started mixing them and matching in your own way with the combination of all the vowel sounds. Some of the words you keep repeating are "baby", idaa", "yeyi", "baava" and the most favourite ones are "ammathi" and "appathi".

               At 6th month, you started doing "jai jai" and clap your hands. You now even know to do "thaarammayya" and  "di di di dikki", but you give dikki only to Sunita aunty and that too with a song! You sing "eeeeeee" in high pitch as you hit her head with your head. Now you do "aane aane" only when you sit on your dad's stomach and you have forgotten "thaiya thaiya" dance completely.

               Till 6 months of age, you used to sleep thrice a day. And at night, by 7.30 or 8 p.m, you were fast asleep and used to wake up between 4.30 and 5.30 in the morning. Then it started getting little difficult to make you get the third nap and you started with only two naps. So I had at least some time for my works if I was able to do it with absolutely no sound. And you started sleeping only after 8.30 or 9 p.m. But after 8th month, now it is hard to make you get the second nap. Sometimes I rock you for one hour, you look like you are falling asleep and then all of a sudden you seem all fresh, start smiling, then laughing, then talking, then kicking and then get up yourself! All my one hour's effort goes in vain. At night, we feel sleepy and you refuse to sleep sometimes till 11 p.m. In the morning you wake up at 7. On week ends, if we continue to sleep after you wake up, you pork our eyes, sit on us and slap our faces talking as loud as possible and call us "daaa... daaaa".

               At 6th month, you had stranger anxiety, you would not go to others easily, even to your dad at times. That lasted till 8th month and then you started going to others. 7th month on wards you had started smiling at random strangers, even when we were out shopping! You could roll on both the directions by 6th month. After completing 5th month you had complete head control. After 6th month completion, you could grab things, play with them, shake the objects and bear some weight on your legs, lean forward into my hands and had started eating solid food once a day. At the end of 6th month you got your first tooth, that was the lower left tooth (I got to know it after getting bitten and seeing blood while feeding you), after 2 days you got the lower right tooth as well.

               After 7th month, you could pass objects from one hand to the other, you were able to arch your back for me to pick you up, you started communicating with strangers, started waving "ta ta", could play peek-a-boo, imitate sounds, flip the pages of your books, you knew how to get my attention, talk a lot and started crawling very fast, almost like running towards the toys! You started getting attracted to colorful pictures and objects. It looks like you are trying to learn a million things at a time especially when you give that curious look through out the day.

               After completing 8th month, on June 7th I heard "krrrrr, krrrr" biting sound you made in your mouth and checked to find out that you got your left upper tooth. After a week, you got the right upper tooth with a gap in between those 2 front teeth. On 25th May, you had your first flight journey, you slept through out and while returning on June 1st, you got ear pain at the time of landing and cried your lungs out. I introduced rice to you on June 11th. You started pulling yourself to stand on June 2nd. Started sitting without help on June 17th. If you are on the floor, you are constantly moving and never stop even for a minute unless you're in sleep. I put you in cradle and you immediately turn to your stomach, sit, then try to stand up and fall along with the cradle. You try to carry heavy objects like utensils and every time you are left alone for a minute, the first thing you do is either go and grab the shoes or pull some wires or press the laptop buttons. I had even found the 'Ctrl' key on the floor one day. You talk to every object and sing for them!

               You have a different voice for singing than the usual talking voice. Singing is always in high pitch. If you hear music, you shake your head like a rock star! I was listening to a "bhaava geethe" one day "amma... hacchindondu hanathe..." You were listening to it as well. After the song got over you remained silent for a minute and from nowhere I heard you singing "ammaaaaa... havee veee..."! You made my day with your song! You have your own dances for certain songs, both are made by you, like for example, turning your fist around with the song "le le le le..."!

               You imitate cough and sneeze every time either your own or ours and then laugh at it. You have learnt to say "ta ta" while waving bye. And you continue to do that for several minutes even after the person goes away from the sight! From the very beginning of solid food, it had been easy for us to find out if you are hungry. If we ask "ma ma maadthya?", you repeat "ma ma" only if you are hungry. You even remind us that you are hungry by coming close to us saying "ma ma maathe" some times without us asking you. You used to continue crawling even after reaching the edge of the bed and end up falling your face down on the floor. But now when you reach the edge, you turn and keep your legs on the ground first and then slowly the body and then continue crawling on the floor. 

               When you take away my things like wire or tablet, I say in warning tone "Adaaa....! illi thaa!" Today you were playing with a courier box and pulling out its sticker. Near your feet, there were 8 to 10 very small paper pieces you had pulled out. You must have thought of keeping them all for later to play with, after your mom takes away the box from you. But I gathered all the bits of paper and was about to throw them. You immediately said in warning tone, "Adaaa....! thaaa!" Opened my fist, took all those paper pieces and spread it near your feet again like earlier giving me a look that said 'you better not come close to it again'!

               The pediatrician had told me in the last visit that now you can understand the word "no" if we practice. So in the evening when you tried to play with papers I said in firm voice "no no no no!" You stared at my face and continued playing with your song.. And the lyrics went like this "no no no no.....!" There are times you go crazy and laugh aloud for no reason and there are also times you cry for no reason without tears. Especially when you are awake for a long time or if you have skipped a nap, you act too fussy or giggle a lot. That's when you try to bang the laptop buttons or bite the wires and if I don't let you do that, you scream aloud and wriggle from my hands and I can't control you then. Even the gentle words don't work! You have quite a bad temper at times too. If you are in a good mood, your dad chases you saying "I caught you" and you run giggling loudly as though someone has put ice cubes in your pants!

               Your hair was long coming on your eyes from last few days and you squint your eyes a little. So I was worried about it, your dad and I thought of trimming your hair instead of taking you to the saloon. So we tried your first hair cut. You shook your head so much that I ended up cutting your hair too much on one side that I could see your skin underneath and your dad cut the other side and gave another funny cut there. I regretted so much for not taking you to a professional barber. But we could not control our laughter every time we saw you, we ended up bursting out with laughter though we felt bad for your funny face! You were clueless and you too smiled so innocently. We soon got used to your new look, but the week end when we went to Chaithra atthe's house, both your Chaithratthe and granny laughed so much looking at you and they asked us how we even managed to give you such a funny haircut.
               You are totally becoming one mischievous creature. I checked if you were getting a new tooth yesterday and ended up having blood clots on my fingers! You close the cup board door with your fingers in between and cry. And you go back to do that again the next day! 2 days ago I was cooking and you were playing on the kitchen floor. After a minute I looked at you and you had a long iron rod from the fridge on your lap. God knows where you removed it from! We have no other option than covering all the electric plug holes, you put your fingers wherever you see a hole. That's how you have already learnt to dig your nose at the age of 9 months! I can't afford to take my eyes off you even for a minute unless you are sleeping. Can't keep anything at your reach. I have learnt to swallow my lunch in 2 minutes and when I come back after the lunch, I find you either stamping the laptop or I see my shoes on your head! Once you start walking, I will have to somehow make myself time to breathe! When your stomach is full, the last mouthful of food is always sprayed on my face! Right now you are sleeping like such an innocent, adorable, calm baby. I feel like gently kissing you. But once you wake up, the world goes upside down!