22 October 2014 - A Blink of my Eyes and You are ONE!

So, you are one year old!!!

               People should always be there around you and you cry when I leave the room. You also love banging toys and drop those sound making toys over and over again until we get fed up picking it up for you, and you never get bored of it! There are your preferable toys now, not all are your favorite and you don't get bored of those music toys. You loudly protest if someone takes something away from you, especially your sister.

               You are quite playful these days and you clasp your hands together with excitement when you are really happy. You like to play with food, feel its texture. So now a days you purposely spit food on the floor and squeeze it. You drool when you are busy playing and you have started sleeping less during the day. Bumps and falls are the most common thing these days and it happens over 100 times a day. You have also started cruising along the furniture and I am waiting to see you walk independently.

               On July 28th, you pulled yourself up to stand for the first time. And on August 2nd, you pointed at a lizard and said "adaaaa..." You love lizards a lot and the minute we point at the wall and say "halli", you cheer up from your sleepy mood. You can now look at the things we point at and at the direction we show. Especially at the lizards. Within seconds you can find a lizard from any corner of the wall.

               You now make clicking noise in your mouth and give a proud smile of achievement when you hear that sound. You observe our mouth when we talk and try to imitate it to make sounds. On August 20th, you started saying "ta ta" correctly.

               On October first, after the long wait, you got your first tooth. Your Jogibettu ajja started calling you "Ekadantha" for having a single tooth and also because you are Ganapathy's grandson, supposed to get named after him. But on October 6th, you got your 2nd tooth, so got your name is back as Aniket.

               October 15th turned to be my day, because you called me "ammaaa" for the first time, that too you said it holding my hand with your tiny fingers and looking at me. Then you gave me a sloppy kiss and I was on cloud 9.

               On October 2nd, your appa came to India and you saw him after 10 long months. We already knew that you will not recognize him, but we were curious to see your reaction. Though we all wanted you to go to him without crying, you cried aloud seeing him and refused to go to his hands. On 4th you went to his hands without crying for the first time. And your dad constantly kept trying to make friendship with you all through the day. With the excitement of playing with his kids, your dad had completely forgotten his jet-lag. We kept telling your dad that you might voluntarily go to him within a week. After exactly one week after arriving here, your dad said it's been a week and he still cries. Dad was worried that it might continue forever. But finally on October 14th, you went to appa and lifted your hands for him to carry you. Made your dad's day!

               If your head bangs into the wall or sofa while you are scooting, you hit it over and over again to check what happens and then cry. When you cough, your granny pats your head and in her absence, you pat it yourself and laugh. "Di di dikki" is your fun game, you hit people with your forehead and then rub the back of your head pretending that you got hurt. If akka does the same to you, you cry and look at my face to complain wanting me to scold her and comfort you.

               You have started asking for your food clearly saying "mum mum aaaam". But you eat everything dry like plain rice without adding anything to it, plain chapathi, plain dosa. When you are full, you spit the last bite "prrrrr" and play with food. 

               You like playing with doors, open-close it and try to push-pull it and hide behind it. Lock and key are two things yo never get bored of. Spoon and tumbler are another favorite combination. Smallest of small toys, mashing flowers, moving vehicles, drag and push toy vehicles on the floor - these are some more favorites. Your ajji gives you 'theertha' if you go to the pooja room and you call that room 'theetha'. Everytime someone opens the door of pooja room, you hear it immediately from the tiny bells on the door and you run inside for 'theetha'.

               You are skinny compared to your sister except for your cheeks. So your Vijayajji has started giving you dates and milk every day to make you fat, she had read that tip somewhere.

               You are very talkative and your sentences are longer now (though it is an unknown language) and most of them end with a question tone. You had bad cold and fever for a few days and lost your voice. We really missed your continuous talk for some time and then you were back to chattering.

               Yesterday, that is on October 21^st , there were homa-s at home on your sister’s behalf . So we had many guests yesterday and we couldn’t ask them to come home again today for your first birthday. But we had our close ones, like your bavas and atthe-mava along with your grandparents to celebrate your day. We were all so tired from yesterday’s function, but had a relaxed and beautiful family time for your birthday. You received gifts from bavas and started playing immediately with your new toys. We even went to beach in the evening especially for you to enjoy your day!

               So by the time you turned one year old, you had quite a lot of words (way more than kids of your age talk) in your vocabulary.

You say – amma, appa, Aadya, attha (akka), ajji, ajja, atthe, maama, anna, adaa, hopa (let’s go), haathe (butterfly), jeeji (water), jaayi (milk), daadi (sleep), ta ta, aggi (angi).

You also know the vehicles and call their names – peep (jeep), thaal (car), beeku (bike), chichya (rikshaw).

The animals you say and know are – mem (cat), bo bo / naaaai (dog), abbe (umbe), kaaka (crow).

You point at these things when we ask you by names – eyes, nose, head, mouth, teeth, bottu, angi, leg, hand, fan, cycle, tv, chinki (akka’s doll), halli, appa, amma, akka, doddajji, ajji, ajja, Aadya.

               When we ask you to do ‘aane aane’, you rock your body back and forth saying ‘aage aage’, when we say ‘boodi boodi’, you kick the floor in a rhythm, when we say ‘jai jai’, you clap your hands, when we say ‘thaarammayya’, you repeat after us ‘thaa thaa’ and twist your fingers and you say ‘adaaaaa’ when you point at things. You also love hide and seek game and call it ‘kooo’. It is also so cute to see your tiny hand when you show things pointing with your index finger.

               Somewhere it hurts to think that you are not a few days old or a few weeks old or a few months old baby any longer. Along with the extreme joy of seeing you grow, I already miss that one year which is already spent! That day you were born, the joy of holding that tiny newborn, the day when you flipped over, the day you sat on your own, the day you had your first food, the day you started crawling, the day you pulled yourself to stand…..all have turned to be memories with a blink of my eye. And that makes me not want to blink my eyes again, stay this small and cute forever my baby!