Butt of course!

I'll make this quick. Vishnu and I play with balloons a lot. We attach colorful strings to them and sing "Myyy (insert color) balloooon". As soon as one goes 'pop' Vishnu asks me to get another one from the kitchen cabinet. I have a stash of toys and toy-repair-material hidden there, so whenever anything gets broken, that's where we rush to.

There was nothing remarkable about last evening. Vishnu was playing with his toys on the living room floor and I was standing by the kitchen counter. He ran towards me and ended up planting his butt on the floor. It must've hurt because without batting a eye he said "Mommy, bring anoo* butt"!!

* anoo = another

Of sloppy kisses and Euclidean geometry...

I wrote this post a few weeks before Vishnu's 2nd birthday in late January. It's incomplete but I decided to post it anyway...



A few weeks ago I was in the kitchen banging pots and pans around (cooking) when Vishnu stopped by. He said something but I tried my best to ignore. It's past dinner time and I'd had a long day at work. But he just stood there, clutching a small red car, and looking up expectantly.

Me, no longer able to ignore him: "What is it, Vishnu?"

Vishnu: "Mommy thi-thi"
Me: "What?"
Vishnu, extending his arms: "Mommy thi-thi"

Clueless, I bend down to hug him when he throws his tiny arms around my neck with all his might and gives me many sloppy kisses on my forehead, eyes, and nose!

After a few seconds, he smiles triumphantly and says "Mommy thi-thi"

Yes, he meant to say "Mommy kissie" and give me a hug and kiss!

That was the first time. And he couldn't have a chosen a better moment. Blinded by drool, with my glasses on the floor, I felt like I'd hit the jackpot. I guess this is how St.Bernard-owners feel.

Vishnu will be two soon and his vocabulary has skyrocketed. Now he says things like "Unni drive mommy car" [His grandparents call him Unni fondly and now he refers to himself as Unni]

That reminds me about his other great love these days - driving a car. Relax, I don't actually let him drive. We've worked out a deal. I drive on the streets and he drives in our parking lot. I kill the engine and then let him touch the steering wheel in our parking lot. To my horror, he's figured out how to turn the headlights and blinkers on, sound the horn, shift gears, and more, in a few minutes. I'm
worried about this a lot because I've heard of four-year-olds taking their family sedan for a spin.

When he's older I'll tell him about the dangers. For now, I'll just hide the keys.

On the academic front, he's quite the master of Euclidean geometry. Just kidding. He knows all the basic shapes, plus several quadrilaterals and polygons. But geometry is his favorite topic at present. It's actually quite funny to see him seriously
utter "octhagon, hesagon" while arranging his blocks. Upper and lowercase letters, basic colors, numbers upto twenty are all done too. He's beginning to read small words such as bus (his favorite thing). I feel quite ill-equipped here. I've no idea how to teach him to read and I don't want to do it wrong.

But he's figured out the letter sounds from the phonics songs on Youtube.

I feel like I should do more to help him learn...

I love yous are for all people

Last weekend we went to the local mall. Nothing particularly noteworthy about that except that just as I was unstrapping Vishnu from his car seat, I absent-mindedly said "I love you". "Aaav uu" he piped back and smiled. I must have looked stunned because he said it again and grinned. I did my crazy grin and hug routine and we happily hugged and aaav uu-ed all the way to Sears.

He's been saying small words ever since he was eight months old. He started off with "ice". Well, it's not the ice you'd imagine. His nanny used to refer to his stuffed monkey as nice monkey and he was trying to say "nice" but it just came out as "ice". So technically I don't know if his first word is "ice" or "nice". His vocabulary has since expanded dramatically and we're busy rewriting the Oxford English dictionary. Anyway, here are some Vishnu-isms: (He speaks/understands three languages and knows a few words in some others too)

Spoo (said very forcefully) = sparrow
cai = car
aayi = daddy
apoo = apple
babboo = balloon
baww = ball
bee-bee = baby
chee = cheese
chee = shoes
kwi = stick
mumm-mee = mommy
hang-aa = hanger
abigo = amigo (friend in Spanish)
aappa = alpha (greek letter)
gamma = gamma (greek letter)
enya = enna (oil in Malayalam)
anya = ana (elephant in Malayalam)
uvvi = ulli (onion in Malayalam)
ojji = athu or athi ('that' in Malayalam/Telugu)
ee = water (I have no idea where he got that from)

I taught him the English alphabet (uppercase letters only) and not to be outdone Muru started teaching him greek letters, so that's why he knows 'aappa' and gamma :|

And there are a few things he describes by the sounds they make:

auoooOOOOOOOOOoooau = fire engine/ambulance

pudjum = dump truck, his favorite thing in the world at present. On the days that we don't have trash pickup, I have to endlessly describe how the dump truck pulls in to our parking lot, picks up the trash bin, and goes up, up, up and pudjum (empties the bin).


And the best:

Me: where are you from ?
Vishnu: ABECA (America)

This, after he overheard Muru and me talking about getting a visa for Vishnu to visit India because he's from America.

Well, he just turned one and a half, imitates mommy walking in high heels, and doles out aaav-uus happily.

Sometimes I look back at the struggles of raising him practically alone, the mind-numbing amount of work packed into 24 hours, and the constant worry about my abilities (or lack thereof) as a mom. Yet, somehow on that fine Sunday morning with one cheery aav-uu, he turbocharged spirits. Dare I hope everything'd be OK?

You know you are a dad when...

You have a Ph.D in rocket science and yet you put the diaper on backwards. And not just once.

The kid wills himself to sleep because he can't take your singing anymore.

Your best snapshots of the kid feature half his face

You feed the kid cookies and cream instead of apples and peaches because they're so "bleaaaaah".

Your idea of watching the kid is to be a kid yourself and wreak havoc in the house

You take the kid to the park on demand, even if it's six in the morning. And snowing.

You drive in a snowstorm for 10 hours straight...
to be home in time for your baby's first birthday.

Happy father's day.
(And don't sulk because it's a couple of days late.)

Vishnu: 0-365 in a heartbeat

I read a lot of mommy blogs and always wonder how they manage to get a blog post out every other day, have a spotless home, manage bosses from hell, soothe a sleepless infant, and climb Mt. Everest--all at once. Well, the Mt.Everest part I made up but the rest is there for all to see on their blogs.

Never one to shy away from a challenge, I started this blog with the noble intention of recording everything our little wonder decides to grace us with--including the occasional colorful poop.

Well, as I've lately realized, superwomandom is not an affliction I suffer from, so I must console myself with one blogpost a year (no kidding!), a house that looks like a disaster zone, and a rumbunctious toddler with six super sharp teeth.
Yes, our boy wonder is now officially a toddler. The months came and went in a speedy blur and he went from tentatively tasting baby cereal to chewing on cables and eating paper.

Oh, what have I missed to record (only everything). Well, here's my valiant attempt to atleast capture some of the cool stuff.
At exactly three weeks old, Vishnu decided to sleep through the night, yes through the entire night for 12 hours (woke up twice to quietly nurse but since we co-sleep it was no hassle at all). He's continued the pattern ever since, now not even waking to nurse, and drags me to bed by 8 pm everyday. So now I sleep for 11 hours too. For someone who'd never go to bed before 1:00 am this took some getting used to. Anyway, I've begun to read with a vengeance.

The Daytona 500 moved and landed in our living room when he was 5 months old. Well, we bought him a walker and he would cruise along at breakneck speed in his Totrider 2 and smile at us as if to say "I bet you can't do that, now can ya"

Mommy wanted to pass her love of literature to the boy and so took him to the bookstore when he was six months old. All my hopes of reading Wordsworth to him were dashed when he picked Pirate Mack instead. So every evening we religiously learnt how Pirate Mack found his treasure under a rock in some dark cave.

Fast forward to 8 months and grandma and grandpa had to go back to India. And daddy as usual was away at work about 500 miles away. And mommy turned into a maniac.

The cold and bleary Illinois winter was upon us. My day would go something like this. Get out of bed, puree fruit, express milk, feed Vishnu his fruit/cereal concontion and then get him ready for daycare. Haul him and his gear to the daycare, drop him off there and run back to the car blinded by tears. I couldn't bear to look at his tear stained little face, his large eyes uncomprehending, trying desperately to get to mommy. Darkest days of my life.

I couldn't take it for long (about six weeks), so I switched our childcare arrangement and hired a nanny to stay at home with him. Peggy was her name. It worked out well pretty well. He liked her instantly. She had been an ER nurse for over 30 years and was very knowledgeable about a lot of things.

Christmas rolled around and Muru was home for the holidays. Life got better. We celebrated Vishnu's first christmas by getting a little tree. A couple of friends stopped by to decorate it. Food and friends, yes it was a good time. But Muru had to leave and I was back to essentially being a single mom.

The new year brought grandma back. Her joints hurt and she had vowed to never endure another 22 hours of inflight entertainment. But I guess the pain of seeing both her babies struggle was too much. With grandma back, we were back to having fun.

We celebrated Vishnu's first birthday on January 28. Muru drove for about 10 hours straight and then got right to decorating. It was more of a we-survived-the-first-year party than anything else. Vishnu got a lot of toys and books.

This whole executive summary of the first year would be incomplete without me explaining the picture below--the defining trait of his first year--the "mean face". It was something to scare me away so I'd stop stuffing food down his throat. He'd inhale and exhale noisily for added effect. But mommy isn't easily scared child. So here's more food!



He hasn't patented it yet so feel free to try it. It probably is some type of yoga. :)

Vishnu gets his Ph.D.

Well..., not really. His dad did. Vishnu just confiscated the cap! He gave it a quick look-over and decided it was fun to yank the tassel.

It was a bright and sunny day, beautiful grounds,colorful gowns, funny caps, flying tassels, hordes of excited people... you get the picture. But we (mom, dad, myself and Visnhu) were tucked away in the family-friendly zone watching the proceedings on a giant screen. The ceremony was definitely designed to be as memorable as a graduation can get. But guess what Vishnu thought of the whole dog-and-pony show?



Ho hum, time to catch some Zzzs!

Vishnu Starts Solids

Vishnu hit a lot of milestones on Friday. He turned four months, started solids, and uttered his first two-syllable word. Here's a picture of him tasting his first spoonful of rice cereal.




He was cautiously-accepting at first, but soon realized he was on to something good. He grabbed the spoon from grandma and thrust it in his mouth. Unfortunately, camerawoman mommy wasn't fast enough to get a shot!

And ofcourse, he was sitting in his car seat. It's almost like he's determined to prove daddy right. Bad strategy, but he's too young to know any better.:) Long story short, a couple of months before Vishnu was born, Muru and I argued endlessly about which car seat to buy. You see, Muru had these weird notions about car seat ergonomics. So in addition to safety features, Muru was checking the angle of incline of every single car seat we looked at. I was huge and uncomfortable, and all he could think of was the angle of incline! We eventually found one that lived up to his standards; at almost twice the price of regular car seats. But now he feels vindicated because Vishnu loves it. He likes it better than his bassinet, cradle swing, bed, mat, etc. And grandma made it even better with soft,cushy blankets.

So everytime we do something horrible, like feed him rice cereal, he gets to lie in his car seat for a little while.

Vishnu is very talkative. The fact that his repertoire only consists of oohs, aahs and inguus doesn't stop him at all. Friday morning, he was lying on his diaper station and was especially talkative. His gummy smiles were a dime a dozen that morning. He suddenly turns sideways and blurts out ai-ya (dad in tamil) and then quickly turns to me and follows it up with mum-mee. Smart kid.