Please Thankyou Appa

This morning Kulli got up and came to me half sleepy (have you noticed their eyes when they walk after sleep, half closed soooooo cute :)) and asks me "Amma phone". I told her Kulli first wish me good morning and then you can ask for the phone and she goes Ammagudamingphone all in one breadth. By then Shonapa wakes up and takes his phone from the table. Seeing this Kulli runs to him and goes Appa giveeeeeeeeeeee...Appa give ittome....Appa giveeeeeeeeeee phone.....I ask her to say "Appa please give phone". She knows the only way she can get is to do as I say and she goes Appa please give. Shonapa melts at this and gives it to her. I then asked Kulli to say Appa Thankyou, she looks at us for a while and goes Appa Please Thankyou (all together so we dont bombard her with more knowledge etiquette while she is browsing youtube :))

Life of Pi

No no..dont go away..this isnt a movie review,relax.

Shonapa and I love to watch movies together..he likes good movies (read it as intelligent movies that tortures your brains for no reason) and I love the mushy, romantic always happy ending movies. Nevertherless we love to go see movies together. I still remember seeing Inception together and discussing (arguing, fighting) about the movie and what it meant and how many levels of dreams etc etc all night long, and we love doing this.

However since Kulli arrived this wish of ours had taken a back seat. And no, we did not stop seeing movies, but we stopped seeing it together so that babysitting becomes easy.
Last sunday I really wanted to see Life of Pi and that too with Shonapa so that we can have one such intellectual discussions/fights regarding God, philosophy etc etc. So we made a plan to put Kulli to sleep and go watch the movie. Kulli naps for exactly 2 hours and so we had to time her nap so that she falls asleep 10 minutes before the movie starts to watch it uninterrupted. Kulli falls asleep when we drive long distance and so the plan was to head out driving till madam falls asleep and then buy tickets for the movie.

Once in the car madam wanted us to play her rhymes CD, we obliged and she goes "stop Kukkaburra stop..." shaking her head, legs enjoying the songs. Whenever I tried patting her, she started singing louder. Did she know our plot? Murphy's law we thought and kept driving praying all the while that she falls asleep. The movie was to start at 3:40pm and we were still on the roads at 3:30pm driving for more than 40 minutes for kulli to go into the zzzzzzzland and give us our movie time. Finally madam went to sleep at 3:40, we run to check if the tickets were available and didnt I say I love happy endings :), we got the tickets watched the movie un-interrupted for 2 full hours all the while Kulli sleeping on my lap.

We come out and discuss the movie, pat our backs at the successful planning, laugh about it.

And yes like the old lady waiting for the car said "we saved on baby sitting too" ;)

Loved the movie (had a happy ending you see :))

Blessed to have a daughter

Yesterday Shonapa and I had a fight. Yours truly is known to lose temper and is the monster/witch in the family. A worse one when really tired and has lots of household chores to be done. So you get the point right, we did have one such fights last night when Kulli was playing some game on the iPad.

She left the iPad, came running to me cos I was screaming and said Amma, Amma.. I did not look at her and was upset at the fight. She climbed up the couch, hugged me (call me a mean mom, but I still didnt calm down). She realised I was still upset and my lil angel kissed me on my cheeks, gave me butterfly kisses, started making cute faces and eventually made the hard rock of a heart in me melt.

Now tell me am I not blessed :)

When does it strike you that your kid has grown..

--> When on forcing to finish the milk she looks at you in your eyes and with a stern, firm voice says "Enough".

--> When she starts helping you in the kitchen like putting milk cans in the trash, getting you onions from where its stored

--> When she hates you for scolding her in front of others

--> When she goes to a corner, makes a long face and stays there making sure you are looking at her to prove that she is upset

--> When she addresses you by your name

-->When she wants to eat on her own with a spoon and does not want you to feed her

-->When she starts humming the songs along with you (not the rhymes but the bollywood songs!)

--> When she pats you to sleep and sings a lullaby too

And all this at 2 years !!

Terrific ....oh wait Terrible Twos

Its amazing to see Kulli grow so fast...the memory of holding her in just my palm is etched in my mind and is still so fresh that my mind is reluctant to believe that she is 2. Sigh. Kids do grow very fast.

On her birthday Kulli was sick with severe cough and cold. I had an important task to finish up at work and hence with a really heavy heart left Kulli in the daycare. I quickly finished work took the rest of the day off and reached Kulli as fast as I could. On reaching the school I realised she doesnt even know or understand that its her birthday and madam was all happy to be with her friends playing. I took her home and made pop corns for her (her favourite these days!). In an hour I felt her body go warm and she was heading for a fever. Thus, our plans of celebratng her birthday(just her, me and Shonapa) was cancelled. The only thing possible was going to the temple and doing an Archanai on her name.

Her birthday was on a weekday and so Shonapa and I planned to have her birthday party in the weekend. Kulli loves outdoors, she loves to run, slide, pull the grass, collect woodchips etc and hence we planned to have the party in a nearby park (also we had invited around 30 guests and couldnt have accomadated all of them at home). The party was to start at noon, I got up that day praying that Kulli feels better and that she enjoys the party (whats the fun if the kiddo isnt doing well and we have the party for the heck of it, uh?). Kulli was all happy and gay to see a lot of our friends at home and quite a lot of activities happening around. It got her all pumped up and excited. The day however started with rains and it was way too cold. That oneday I wished that it should stop raining and that the sun should shine nice and bright (you see I dont like it when its too hot and always keep wishing that it rains and pours.).

At noon, the sun was shining bright and it was an amazing weather. Wow, for once my wish had come true (may be it was because of Kulli's lucky stars :) ) and the day was just perfect. I did lose my temper a little when the brat didnt want to wear a beautiful dress(before you judge, the fabric was made of a very comfortable material mind you!) that my friend had got her for the occasion. She is more comfortable with a tee and a cotton pant. I took her to the park and she forgot all about the dress and was all glee when everyone around started giving her the attention. The party was an awesome fun, the kids had great fun running around in the open park, playing with the balloons, breaking the pinata, collecting the choclates. Kulli was having her own gala time going wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee on the slide. She must have played on the slide for like 60-80 times and without getting tired.

We cut the cake which was ordered to be made in the form of alphabet A, since Kulli loves the alphabets and that her name starts with this letter. She danced (visualise a tiny tot shaking her hips beating Kat's hip movement in Sheela ki Jawani ;)) and sang abcdefg...twinkle twinkle, she looked so cute. For me this was the highlight of the party and I was very glad all my friends attended the party to wish and bless the child.

There was one card that Kulli received from a friend of mine which I am sure to save had the below message:

"
Hi A,

When you are old enough to read this message, just remember that the day started with rains and it was all gloomy but when it was time the sun came out and it was warm and bright.

"

It was an amazing message with loads of meaning for Kulli.

Updates so far....

I know its been so long since I updated anything about Kulli. Call it a mom's laziness or a busy mom or a mom trying to be a supermom (i personally choose this one)...

Anyways the updates so far are:

-> Went on a road trip to Montreal, Canada in May with Kulli. Doesnt that sound like an achievement in itself? I was super skeptic about this trip but one that couldn't be avoided. I was paranoid as usual and started planning for the trip 3 weeks in advance. As a mom, the only planning was around Kulli, her food, her clothes, her diapers etc etc. Booked hotels with kitchen, stuffed the luggage with rice, moong dal. curd, goldfish crackers, 2 big cartons of bottled water, toys, books, loads of clothes for Kulli. I kept wondering if Kulli will do fine sitting tied to a car seat for 6-8 hours continuously. The trip started, we kept playing Kulli's favorite songs/rhymes and madam was all the more happy in her seat and went off to snooze-land for more than half the journey(I am so used to her rhymes that when I open my mouth to sing all I can think of is twinkle twinkle or now i know my ABCs or do you know the muffin man). She was amazing during the trip, loved the new places kept observing all the new people. The trip was awesome fun.

-> Started a proper daycare for Kulli in June, if you have read my previous experience about Kulli and daycare you should know that the over obsessive, over possessive mom in me appears from nowhere and creates havoc in the household. Well it sure was getting there before Kulli realized that daycare is a saner place to stay and play, than the mad mom in the house. She cried on and off the first day, loved her daycare and loved the teachers from the second day.  With that I bid farewell to the possessive mama in me and the saner/wiser mom appeared and I guess is still there around. This daycare i awesome, even though Kulli does not eat much there, she has loads of fun with quite a lot of activities. Her teachers tell me she is very smart (dancing on the cloud, common guys this is my first one don't I deserve a dance on the cloud for just a few seconds :)) and I very politely tell them that kids these days sure are.

->Kulli has grown taller and thinner (isnt it weird when she is given all the fat food and yet she grows thinner while all I eat is fat free food and run around her all the time and yet my waistline just keeps increasing.?.sigh...). she is obsessed with ipad, iphone to the extent where I think she dreams of these electronics and wakes up screaming at 2 in the night asking for a phone or an ipad...(I love steve jobs...but didnt really think that my love for him will be transferred to an obsession in my child ).

-> Her vocab is growing everyday and she now forms 2-3 word sentences.
to record a few here:
Take a look
What is this?
Amma poduma (Amma thats enough for milk)

-> Kulli loves to mock-fight with Shonapa. This is their everynight routine. I put her to sleep and when she is half way there, shonapa comes running and pulls her leg, she immediately runs back to me, hugs me tightly and hides under the comforter. He pulls her back and she hits him...the effort in putting her to sleep goes down the drain here..although I must admit its great fun to see the two fight :)

Marriage Proposal Gone wild in youtube

Wow..I loved it

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=5_v7QrIW0zY

Look at the support he got from all his family and friends...amazing

Random things about Kulli

Kulli is a big talkative...she loves to keep blabbering all the time. She has started forming  2-word sentences like

Amma yengi (wheres amma?)

cipp yengi, cipp edu (wheres the clip? take out the clip)

appa killi (appa pinched me)

amma saavi kuduuuuuu (amma give me the key)

amma phone

amma emote(amma remote)

amma saacket (for chocolate)

Amma eyeceam (for icecream)

Amma keeyons tha (Amma give Crayons)

Amma kannu (if something goes into her eyes)

She says:

A for aapi

B for Baaalu

C for Cat

D for Dog

E for Elephant

F for Fisss

G for Gollellaa (Gorilla) my fav

H for hat

I for Iggaloo (Igloo)

J for juich (Juice)

K for kannanu (Kangaroo) my fav

L for ayan (Lion)

M for monkey

N for Nose

O for Octtaapuss (Octapus) 

P for Pig

Q for qwason (Question) my fav

R for aabbit (Rabbit)

S for Sun

T for Umbella (if I say thats not right she immediately says tain for train)

U for Umbella

V for Van

W for Watch

X for Box

Y for ello (yellow)

Z for Zeeby (Zebra)

She can recognize alphabets thanks to her dad for getting the Mellisa & Doug Wooden Alphabet toy

She can say 1 to 20 and recognize the number 1 to 10 due to the same toy as above for numbers

she looks at her panda (that she calls deddy (for teddy)) and goes "I michchu  schoo massh" and "no cying (for no crying) or dont cy (dont cry)"

In the playground madam, loves to slide, swing but above all she loves to play with the mud, sand, stones. Loves to pick sand in her hands and drop it in someplace safe.

She loves to dance for all the songs with beats (do I see Vidya Balan in the making :)).

She loves to read and loves more when being read to.

She loves Straberries, Apples, Grapes, Pears for fruits and Biscuits, Chips, Cherios, Roasted Channa dal (Putani) for snacks.

She stands in front of the fan and goes "issa haa issu haa"

Finally she says amma aayi (stools), I say appo mukka (force it out) and she goes mmmmmmmmmmmm :)

Drrrrrrrrrrrrr Drrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

This morning I was in a hurry and hence made Kulli stand in the Car below the car seat instead of putting her on her car seat and buckling her while dropping her at the home daycare (ok before you judge me, the homedaycare is 4 buildings away from mine and within the community, also i was driving at maybe 2mph).

Kulli climbs up on the carseat, hits me on the shoulder, holds the steering wheel and goes Drrrrrrrrrrrrrr Drrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr. Should I start driving lessons for her?

I can sing too...

This morning in our household.....

Amma sings : You are my chamak challo oho...

Appa sings: Chikani Chameli....

Kulli Sings: A B C D E F G.....

19 months and already independent

I remember my sister working really hard to teach my nephew when he was 19 months old to do quite a lot of stuff on his own like
--> eating on his own from his plate
-->potty training
-->playing on his own with the toys and give her some time off.

I kept thinking for a long time that I should start training Kulli too now that she is old enough. But guess what? Kulli has started doing almost everything on her own (except the potty training part)

--> she loves to eat on her own (ofcourse with more than half the food on the floor)
--> loves to play on her own with the toys
-->loves to play games on the phone
--> loves to run alone when we are outside and she continues to run even if she does not find me anywhere near her

As much as am glad that she is trying to be independent am also sad that she is growing up too soon, its true that girls grow up really fast. But hey she still holds my shawl or shirts when I am not around or she keeps saying "amma office". She hasnt grown that big and independent afterall :)

Blessing is when ...

-.> I pretend to cry and kulli runs up to me, gives me a tight hug and starts crying herself if I dont stop.
-> Shonapa pretends to hit me and Kulli stares at him and says "Chup' (meaning shutup)
-> Kulli wakes me up in the morning with a beautiful smile
-> Kulli for no reason comes to me and gives me a peck on my cheek
-> Kulli wakes up in the middle of the night crawls out of her crib climbs over shonapa to find me and snuggles
    next me.
->Kulli holds me tight when something startles her
->Kulli brings a book, climbs up the sofa, sits on my lap, opens the book and points at the book to let me know
    that I need to read to her.

HomeDayCare

Homedaycare is turning out to be a good decision for Kulli....she likes the new place....she likes her new friend who is a year older than her....

there are quite a few postiives I have observed with this setting...here goes

-> Kulli gets another child to play with and she is learning to share stuff

->the other child G, wouldnt eat Ragi before..but seeing Kulli eat hers, he has started it too

->G loves to keep snacking and Kulli has picked it up...she now eats fruits, nuts, biscuits etc

->they keep running around the house the whole day and are tired by 9 in the night...that is a win win for both me and S (who takes care of Kulli now) cos both the kids are off to bed by 10 (you may say this is still very late for kids bedtime...but wait Kulli's standard bedtime before this was 12:30 a.m.)

-->Kulli gets to eat homemade food and is fed well before I pick her up in the evening

I guess the only negative so far has been Kulli gets to watch a lot of television. But S and I are fine with it till the time Kulli gets settled and gets used to the new environment.

On the whole am glad.. I ve found a good place for her for now.

DayCare part 2

I know its been a while since I updated anything about the lead actor "Kulli" :)...since my last update regarding Kulli going to the daycare things have not been pleasant the updates are below:

 Day 1: Kulli was fine in the daycare the first day...with my mom sitting in a corner and watching her...she kept checking on my mom but continued to play with other kids all the while making sure my mother was still in the vicinity...
Day 2:  We felt Kulli should be left alone and check if she will be fine by herself...now that was the mistake we made...Kulli got scared not seeing any known faces around her and started screaming and crying....we left her there for an hour and then I joined her... she hugged me real tight and wouldn't look at me (her way of letting me know she wasnt happy)...you see we are all insanely emotional (except the father of course) and we cry at the drop of a hat....so seeing the leading lady wail was more than a reason for my mother and I to join her...now the teachers in the daycare were puzzled and didn't know whom to console...and we came back home....
Day 3: The father takes Kulli to the daycare knowing that the grand mom and mom are utterly useless in this task.... that's when Kulli realises that her wailing and such tantrums will not work on the father and that she should certainly do something more to get the attention....she plays and cries and cries...when all of a sudden the teacher felt her hand and found that she was running a temperature...the father immediately gives her the Tylenol and takes her home... madam is all happy...but poor thing had developed a mild ear infection...for those who know about kulli and her paranoid mom...you shud know that kulli getting fever is equivalent to hell breaking in the household...
Day 4: kulli is given Tylenol and ibuprofen every 3 hours day-in and day-out until she feels better...No Daycare today
Day 5: She feels better..again No DayCare
Day 6: Kulli is fine and taken to the daycare with grandmom...she starts crying and wouldn't stop for 2 continuous hours...the teachers follow CIO and we Indians well most of them are against this method...so mom and grandmom feel guilty again and bring the child back home...
Day 7: Mom starts hunting for a home daycare...where there is TV and people speaking in tamil (the language that kulli understands) and food that she can eat and lots of toys....luckily the mom finds one such nice lady who has a 2 year old and was willing to take Kulli (ofcourse mom has not told the lady the tantrums Kulli is capable of ;))...so Kulli is happy in a home daycare so far with granmom by her side though :)...and happily grabbing al the toys from the poor lil guy (remember somewhere my genes in Kulli too...)

So right now getting Kulli used to the nice lady and her son and making sure Kulli behaves and likes place...will update soon, hopefully with good news...until then wishes and prayers for the household please :)...

P.S. Sure you can go ahead and call me names...I know kids shouldn't be allowed TV time....I know sometimes kids should be allowed to cry...I know kids should be taught to share stuff....well I know them theoretically ...par kya kare Dil hai ki maantha nahi :(

Day Care

I am starting daycare for kulli today. My heart has been pounding since last night..its been long since I had this feeling. I guess the last time my heart beat so fast was when I had to give my exams...no matter what I did to divert my mind back then my heart would continue to beat faster..
this stopped only when i was half way through the exam...but the good thing was everytime this happened the results of the exam was extraordinary...going by this i really hope kulli also does extraordinarily well at daycare..

i guess she will since the first thing she did after reaching the place was to pull a cracker from another kid's hand :) and chase the kid till she gets one (you see she has my genes too :))

starbucks caaafffeee....

Shonapa loves starbucks coffee and its become a ritual to visit this place every weekend for a nice hot red eye ...
nowadays we are introducing kulli to this ritual of ours...and she has taken it pretty well... now by this what i mean is everytime she sees a nice hot tall coffee cups in both amma and appa's hands she goes caaaaaaaffeeeee...everytime I nod at her and say "very good you are right it is indeed coffee..." and kulli raises her voice and screams caaffeeee...and the voice gets louder with every nod of mine....thats when i receive stares from people around me who have come to this place to relax and njoi every sip of starbucks.....
it took me a while to understand that kulli wanted starbucks too...(wonder how even dis detail gets into the gene..ughh)...so we get her a kiddy cup with hot choclate and kulli is all happy to have her version of starbucks caaaffeee....

ubli.....saani..

ok i come from a place called hubli thats located in north karnataka..i was born here and so i keep introducing myself as tamil by birth and kannada by heart (or choice)....i love my place even though some frens of mine think that there are only 2 traffic signals or 2 schools.....

so yeah i was teaching kulli to say hubli and she picked it up immediately....

now you see shonapa was born and brought up in chennai and he obviously wanted her to know chennai before she could learn anything about hubli.....so he asked her to say chennai and my baby immediately says SAANI(for those who do not know tamil, Saani is cowdung :))....ha ha clearly somewhere deep inside my gal also belongs to hubli...me jumping up in the air....

Chrithamath...

The night before Christmas is what kulli and I are reading nowadays...

she loves it when I imitate santa's laughs ho ho ho and does it herself..

everyday after am back from work.. she runs to her toy box, pulls out the book and says Chrithamath... meaning read me this book :)

fatso..

my betterhalf lets call him shonapa...taught kulli to call me "FATSO"....(i know!!)

but being my darling daughter.... she waited the next day till shonapa arrived and yelled FATSOOOOO with fingers pointed at him....ha ha ha (evil laugh)....no no i didnt teach her anything....

isnt she a darling mommy's gal? (baby lets see for how long though :)) cos i was always daddy's gal and if she has lil bit of my genes in her am sure d day is not very far wen she turns out to be one too :(

jubby dubby...

If you are wondering what the title is....

its the song kulli has caught on to for a couple of days... its her version of zoobie doobie from 3 idiots :)

she loves kovvai ...(her version of kolaveri ) and immediately starts dancing...

makes my day to see my baby enjoy music...muahhhhh

Introducing Kulli

I had posted long back my delivery story and havnt really updated anything after that here.

I have now decided that this place will be saved for all the updates of my lil one...lets call her kulli.. so that i can read this space later and re-live the sweet memories...

Kulli is a very active child for her age and has picked up quite afew words... right now she is in the parroting mode and parrots all that I say (including I am pattot..)

i want to save some of the words that she says ...and thats so cute... that i never wanna forget them...

here goes:

Apple--> aapppi

soap--->sup

octapus-->auctaapuss

dosai-->dochai

clock-->kawk

i love you--> aavuvu

strawberry-->thawbeyyi

cherios-->cheechees

kolaveri->koveyyii

here are some of her verions of the rhymes

after i sing the line hickory dickory dock

she goes mouse kawk kawk

kawk hmm unnn

mouse hmmm dunnn

after i sing chubby cheeks, dimple chin

she goes mommy's hmmm is daa

pats her stomach and runs away from me..

she loves kolaveri di so much that she brings my iphone and requests me to play deee deee

and dances to the full song....muahhhhhhh

Dear Blog am Sorry

I keep sending my blog to its deathbed after every post. lazy me....or lack of good language skills.

I will not let my dear blog die and give in to my laziness or my vocab(or the lack of it)...

dear blog you are now in safe hands and I promise I will revive and keep you alive hereafter... Amen