On the 16th of September 2013 we had your one year's doctor visit. You had 2 vaccinations and a flu shot. The nurse had told in advance that you might cry for the last shot as it burns. You did exactly the same and the nurse was fine after regularly seeing the kids cry. But your dad and I were looking at each others' face and we had forgotten what is smile for that moment.
With the one year check-up, doctor had told me that you need to feel the texture of different objects and that I must let you do that. The next day, I had prepared "sauthekayi kottige" for breakfast and you wanted to touch a piece from my plate. I let you do that and you immediately grabbed a big piece of it and rubbed it on the sofa and on your clothes like a bar soap! Again the next time, you managed somehow to get a big tube of diaper rash cream, grabbed a handful of cream and played with it in a minute's absence of mine. And the next time when I was busy video chatting with your grand parents, you reached for the formula box, pulled the powder on the floor and played till your dad shouted at me.
I was feeding you your lunch and you were full. I still tried to feed the last 2 spoonfuls to empty the bowl. You shook your head and said "be" (short form for beda), I acted as though I didn't understand and asked you again "beka?" and tried to feed you again. You said "be be" a few times and when I still didn't stop trying to feed you, you thought for a while and then said "no no no!" I was amazed to see you change the language for my better understanding!
Doctor asked me this time if you wave bye, and you immediately waved at the doctor and we all had a good laugh. Doctor doubts your head size every time and checks it by herself once again to confirm that the nurse has measured it correct. It is because your head it quite big to your age.
On September 23rd your ajji has reached USA. We were waiting to see your reaction as she is the first family member you will be meeting after you started recognizing people. You only stared at her for some time without any smile, nor did you cry seeing her. Later you started passing your toys to her one after the other and then liked her glasses. After some time you slowly climbed her lap and sat. The next day onwards you both became buddies. You didn't go even to Sunita aunty the next day. Also, cried when ajji carried Anika baby, and for the very first time you refused to come to me!:(
On September 30th your Sunita aunty and Prasanna uncle left to India. We had gone to the airport to say bye to them. They had been with us as our only Kannada friends ever since we came to the USA. They have seen you since you were a newborn.
On the 28th September 2013, you took your first steps in our absence, only your granny saw it. I was disappointed that I could not see your first steps. But on the 29th (On your dad's birthday as a gift for him), you took your steps without support in front of all of us. We were very happy to see your new milestone! On the day your brother was born, you kept walking throughout the day in the hospital holding your granny's hands. It became a new game for you and soon after your brother reached home, you started walking 8-10 steps at a time and within a week you totally forgot to crawl! You love to walk and later on it was fun to see you experiment and learn new things with walking. You had started walking in the straight line and later started to take a turn as you were walking. Then you started walking very fast. Later you tried to slow down the speed as you took a turn. Your steps became more steady and and for a long time you had that beautiful smile of achievement every time you walked. In the beginning you always kept your arms up for balance as you walked. Sometimes you held some toys and walked for balance. And within 2 - 3 weeks you became a good walker!
You love to watch nursery rhymes on TV and your dad has downloaded many colorful video songs for you. We have made it a habit to watch tv sitting on your chair as you eat your food. And you swallow the food without much effort. This is the first fall you got to experience and it looks like you love the colors!
On October 15th, you didn't want to eat your food and I kept trying as you played with a deep transparent lid of a round cake box. You immediately found a new trick, put on that deep transparent lid on your head like a helmet to protect every time I brought the spoon close to your mouth!
I always made you sit on my lap and we read your books together as I pointed at the pictures on the book and read it aloud for you. On October 16th, you held a book, read it in your own language with a finger on the book and after every sentence, you looked up at your ajji and explained it to her. She was extremely pleased and later she decided to learn English from you once you grow up.
You love to play peek-a-boo and everyday you grab your granny's dupatta and walk around dragging it on the floor and keep playing peek-a-boo with it. You also love to watch giving bath to your brother and imitate him when he cries. I can clearly see your empathy for your brother because if you are holding my finger when he cries, you press it so much that I get marks. You don't like to miss seeing him dress up and apply moisturizer on him. And even you get all that done for yourself everyday. When granny applies moisturizer and baby powder to your brother, your mom does all that for you and you love it.
You pick up everything very soon. Your granny said "tikka" as she clicked your brother's shirt button once and there after the buttons are called "tikka tikka" in your language for the sound they make. Mixer grinder is called "gurrrrrrra". You repeat the words after us and say things like "offf" if dad goes to office; "doooooonda" for bath; "daaaaaadi" for sleep; "mum mum" for food; you say "ajji", "appa", "amma", "ajja" correct; you scream "thaaaaaa" if you want something; you scream "baaaaaa" if you want us to carry you; the funny thing is that you tell "baaa" to non-living objects as well and expect them to come to you; and of course "tata" is still your favorite word.
You want your shoes to go for walks, want to walk on your own even on the stairs. After your little brother arrived you are trying to be all independent. You want to walk by yourself, eat by yourself, drink by yourself. It has reached to such an extent that your granny was trying to put you to sleep the other day singing lullaby and patting your chest; and you - the little miss independent pushed her hand aside, started patting your own chest and sang your own lullaby for yourself!
You are now slowly getting used to your brother and it looks like you have forgotten that there was a time without him earlier. There are times you get angry on him and try to push him from my lap and there are times that you want to hurt him. You also sometimes take his pacifier, pull off his mittens, grab his sheets. But there are also times you want to touch him, give him your toys, feel sad when he cries, let us rub his cheeks on your cheeks and the cutest thing is to watch you talk to him in your language. If he cries, you even ask him "mum mum maathe?!"
At night, you roll and roll and end up sleeping on the pillow and you like it. Your granny now gets hundreds of your kicks at night. When we are travelling together, you try to kick Aniket's car seat and you use it as a stand to keep your leg near his head. I can imagine the funny-bossy big sister in you when you grow up and fight with your brother.
The next second after I cut your nails, you snatch the nail cutter from my hand and hit it to your toes; immediately after I use the bulb syringe to suck the mucous from your nose, you take it from my hand and insert it to your nose; as soon as I make you wear a head band, you pull it off and try to keep it back on the top of your head; when your dad pours water on your head giving you a bath, you take your play mug and pour water on yourself; after washing your mouth, you immediately pull any cloth you see (even my top if you don't see any other) and wipe your mouth; you observe everything we do for you and the next second we see you imitating it.
Since the day you started walking you have forgotten how to crawl. You keep walking through out the day. If you are awake and if you are not eating your food and if you are not in the car, that means that you are walking. We don't to get see you stand in one place even for a minute. And now-a-days, we can not keep things on the table nor can we forget to keep the chair pulled out, because you immediately climb the chair and then the table and pull things down. You want to eat whatever we eat and refuse to eat your food. Whenever you see us eat our food, even if you are full, you come to the dining table, open your mouth and jump holding our legs asking us to carry you and make you sit on our lap and feed you what we eat. You love pomegranate, you chew it with your front teeth, drink the juice and keep those little seeds stored in your mouth for a long time and then spit it somewhere. That's how we keep finding pomegranate seeds under our feet on the carpet! You have got the taste of snacks like chips and biscuits and you love them.
You now know to give flying kisses. You like to stand bare-foot on the cold floor and you hate to wear cap when it is cold outside. We went on a few one day trips to near by places on the Thanks Giving holidays. This time it was hard to manage you because you wanted to run everywhere without holding our hands. What I don't like is that you don't let us hold your hand when you walk and the other day you went walking behind some kids and never looked back to check if your parents are there behind you. You like running freely outside so much that you keep giggling aloud as you run.
The only animal that you have got to see a lot is dog and you call them "bow bow". You like them and also get scared of them when they bark. When we went to an aquarium a few days ago, you called all the types of fishes and other animals as "bow bow"s. Though we constantly kept telling you that they are not "bow bow" and that they are fish, you refused to call them anything other than "bow bow". That made us realize that we need to show you more animals and take you to a zoo soon. The love for "bow bow" is so much that the other day when we went to HEB for shopping, you saw a lady with Reindeer hairband and called her "bow bow"!
In India, all are so eagerly waiting to see you and Aniket. We are planning to go to India on the 31st of December 2013. If everything works, we will be celebrating the new year 2014 on the sky! After the 4th attempt to get your PIO card became a failure, we applied for an Entry VISA to go to India. Finally there was no problem this time and we are now waiting to get the VISA via courier soon. Hopefully we get to visit India soon and this is going to be your very first India visit. I still can't believe that you are not a citizen of India and it somehow hurts to know that you really are not!
You hate brushing your teeth, you swallow the gel and bite our fingers hard each and every day. When we scream with pain, you laugh aloud. You love to look at your own reflection in the mirror and you give the naughty (sele-sele) smile at yourself. Your granny loves that "sele-sele" smile of yours with the shrunk nose. Here is that smile-
Every now and then you put a cloth on the floor and lie down on that saying "daaaaadi". You do that even if you get a piece of tissue paper. After every meal, we give you the sippy cup with water and you like it a lot. When you are angry, you lie down on the floor on your stomach and get that artificial cry with no tears. You get such anger every now and then especially when you see your brother on my lap and end up lying on the floor at least 50 times a day. When we went to NASA, there was a little kid of your age and he did the same when he got angry. His parents immediately clapped and laughed saying "yaaayyy" and that made him get up from the floor. We liked that method and tried it with you at home and it worked! You wanted to see what is making us laugh and you got up with a curiosity every time and forgot the anger!
You have your funny reasons to get angry and here are a few. You get angry and cry aloud that your toy ring doesn't get inserted through the keyhole, cry that a hanger should be kept in your brother's cradle, cry that your brother's extra pacifier should be kept in your mouth, cry that the ball doesn't reach your expected destination when you throw it, cry that a big steel vessel doesn't fit in your toy box, cry that you can't open the door, cried after locking yourself in the bedroom alone (it happened after you saw me go to bedroom to feed your brother and close the door behind me), you cry that your dad doesn't let you pull his hair, cry that you can not open the lid of a bottle, cry that you can't climb the chair, cry that your round toys don't stay the way you want, cry that you cannot switch on the TV with mobile phone, cry that your "old mc.donald" song stops when you switch the TV button off, cry that you cannot lift the fridge, cry that you cannot lift your car with a plastic spoon, cry that the wall comes on the way of your walking track, cry that you can't comb your hair holding the comb the other side, and cry for hundreds of other things the entire day. You laugh for hundreds of your own jokes as well.
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