I know when I go.

It happened once,it happened twice,it happened again and now I think ,my almost 16 month old can say 'kakha' when she goes khakha.I am so very proud of that fact.First few times,I thought it was just a coincidence that she said that word and soon after I would have to change her diaper.But she says it as soon as she goes,so it ain't no coincidence,my baby knows :-)I consider this as a step in potty training.

I am making her sit on her potty everyday for a few minutes,but nothing has happened after that one time when she went.I am not breaking my head over it,its not going to happen any time soon,I know.She loves to sit there,for her its 'book' time when she's on the potty,she reaches to the book in the basket as soon as she sits down!

On an other note-yesterday we had a barbeque at our house.There was a little girl,aged 7 or 8 and her favorite second cousin who is much older, but loves to play with her the whole time we meet.Miss D is so happy when there are other people around and loves to get entertained by them.There were 3 other families and I hardly saw Miss D for the whole evening,felt a little weired,but nice.We were in our backyard,enjoying the nice weather and good food being grilled by hubby dear.Then our neighbors sprinkler system went off and Miss D went running right in to the spraying water ! I ran and caught her ,of course she hated me for that.We tried to distract her for a few minutes,but she kept fighting us and running back to the water.So I decided to change her in to her swimsuit,but by the time I put her bottom on,she ran to the water and just before she could get wet,the sprinkler stopped !!! Gosh,she must have thought it was a big scheme that we planned:-)

We didnt want her to think of us as mean,scheming parents.......so we turned the water in the garden hose and she had the time of her life with water being sprayed by her dear cousin.The look on her face by being all wet and water dripping everywhere,was priceless!!!
Picture attached.

A smile is all it takes..............

There was a long silence in my blog world.I was reading other blogs and commenting,but never spent enough time to write my thoughts.While I was away in my own world,Miss D tries to repeat almost everything we try to teach her.She knows to say the word 'Horse' very well and any 4 legged animal is a horse in her eyes.She saw a dog at a friend's house and it became a horse.Any picture of a zebra,giraffe makes her say the word.Now if she hears the name of her cousin,who taught her that word,she has to say 'Horse'.So concluded-Horse is her favorite word of the month !!

Going back to the title:-),I think all parents will agree with me when I say "A smile is all it takes to melt our hearts".It is a little trick they learn from the early days to make us forget everything else in the world and smile back at them.We can be upset,angry,'not in the mood' ,depressed......and the only thing we need to see is those precious little lips move closer to the eye and all those feelings go away,at least momentarily.I can be wild,if she is doing something she is not supposed to and the very next second if I catch her smiling at me,I can not do anything but smile back and hug her.Like,this afternoon I was trying to make her sleep when she was sleepy,but didn't want to sleep.I was rocking her for a long time,she almost dozed off and then started moving around to get up.I was restless and got upset and forced her to sleep,she didn't like it and started crying.So I pacified her and put her on my shoulder,after a couple of minutes she looked at me & gave me the big smile.I felt so bad about what I did,but I know that she forgot in a few seconds and we just hugged and kissed.

So innocent and simple is the mind of a child,they are so upset and mad one minute and the next minute they get over it and move on.The world will be such a better place,if we adults behave in a similar way.There are so many reasons I want to freeze the age my darling daughter is in:
The innocence in everything she does.The sound of all the words she has been saying,so new and so unique.
The way she sucks her thumb and holds on to my shirt with the other hand or when I am in the kitchen doing work,she squats down sucking her thumb and holds on to the end of my pant/pajama.
When we wake up together and I pretend to be sleeping,the way she moves my hand from my face and smiles.
When I pick up her shoes to go out,the way she runs to the stairs to sit on the last stair,for me to put on her shoes.
Small things make her so happy,when I run fast towards her,she has this crazy laugh which sounds adorable.
One of my favorite is all the nice bear hugs and the cute kisses she gives me when I ask her to and when she wants to.
Oh oh,I almost forgot my other favorite,any music she hears and the immediate reaction is to start shaking her butt from left to right and lifting her hands up in the air and dancing.My babe has got her moves!She even came up with this new step of tapping her legs like a salsa:-)!

I know I missed a few points,but if I don't post it now,it will go in to the edit mode for a few more days:-)
The above picture was taken last month.

My life as a working mom

This post is by Poppins of http://babiesanon.blogspot.com

I see a few posts once in a while about working moms. People wonder how we do it all. The answer- we don't. We don't do it all, but we do all we can. We're just as busy and just as involved as a stay at home mom, only our routine looks different. Here's what mine looks like. I'm going to start from when I come back home from work - which is around 6 pm on most days.

6:00 pm: I land from work all eager to see poppin. She does a little war dance and makes all kinds of unintelligible noises
prancing around the room, refusing to let me touch her. It's worth working outside the home just to see this. 5 minutes later, I cannot bear it anymore, so I scoop her up and give her a huge kiss (or many huge kisses) everywhere and start asking her how her day was.

6:15 pm: Our welcome routine over, I listen with half a ear (I'm a bad daughter/DIL) to my mother/MIL. They are usually telling me about their day. I only perk up if they tell me something cute that poppin did, otherwise things like 'Oh the maidservant came late today' etc does not merit my full attention.

6:30 pm: I go into the kitchen and start moving pots and pans around, maybe munch some biscuits, all the time with poppin at my heels watching what I am doing and perhaps hoping for her Mummum. Then I sit down and give her mummum (dinner). She has an early dinner.

6:45 pm: Still eating her dinner, now that the edge has gone off her hunger, poppin starts squirming in her high chair. Out comes my stories of the Thatha who asked the bird to sing, the lion to roar etc. By the time I get through that story and a few of her favourite songs, dinner is done. I pull her down from the chair, wash her mouth and give her 'Akkam' (water)

7:00 pm: Start with dinner preps or help my mil with dinner preps. Poppin is usually spending time with DH at this time. He sometimes combines work with fun by placing her on his lap while they view Mickey/Elmo/barney/Dora etc on his laptop via Google images. Bad daddy :)

7:30 pm: Poppin is thinking that I am spending too much time in the kitchen, so she comes and hugs my legs or tugs at my dress all the time saying 'Mumm-any'. So I carry her, and cook singlehandedly. If MIL is at home, she comes to the rescue and shoos me away from the kitchen saying 'Go spend time with your daughter go !'. Sometimes DH comes to the rescue and takes her to the common area of our apartment where she's playing with the neighbor's kids.

8:00 pm: Dinner done, I sit down with poppin to spend some 'quality time' with her. For half hour we just play, or read. Sometimes I take her down to the lower level where there are some kids or maybe we just go for a walk. Or perhaps to practice climbing up and down the stairs. I also use this time to go to the neighborhood grocery store to pick something up. Poppin loves this me-time. DH is at the gym at this time.

8:30 pm: Time for our dinner now, and poppin loves eating a bit from our plate - adult food does taste more nice. We usually have music on (satellite radio) and we amp up the volume and watch poppin shake her booty. Who needs TV when you have live entertainment?

9:00 pm -10:30 pm: Quality time as family. DH and I let poppin play while we catch up on the day's happenings. Some story telling, some songs, some dancing, some reading. Poppin has a glass of warm milk.

10:30 pm: Time for sleepy land. Poppin goes to sleep, DH and I peep into our respective laptops and then call it a night. Some chatting at the bed before we nod off.

7:00 am : Wake up time for DH and me. I do the morning chores, boil milk, coffee decoction, make oatmeal for DH, fruits/toast for poppin and myself. DH is meanwhile getting ready to go for his long commute to office, has a hurred breakfast and leaves.

8:00 am : Poppin awakes. After some cuddling (it's lovely to cuddle a warm-from-sleep baby), we do the usual struggle of brushing her teeth with her Do-ah (Dora) toothbrush. Then it's her morning milk followed by big job in the potty.

8:30 am: We have breakfast together.

9:00 am: I get ready, go for my bath etc. When MIL is not there, I bathe with poppin. Maybe it will corrupt her to see me in the nude, but hey a girl's got to have her bath right?

9:30 am: Time to leave for office. Regretfully (Ha, who am I kidding?) I either drop her off at my mom's place or just say Bye (when MIL is here). She cheerfully waves bye. It's hard to believe but poppin has NEVER cried when I leave for office, I'm damn lucky so far.

9:30 am-5:30 pm : I'm at office, reading blogs in mini breaks, chatting with my colleagues, drinking yucky office coffee, calling a few times home. And I do some work in between:-)

Poppin meanwhile, has had her bath and food and sleeps for a good 2-2.5 hours in the afternoon. When she wakes up, and eats some snacks, she heads to the park and plays for an hour, before welcoming me home.

If I have to get nitpicky, here's a breakdown of the number of hours I spend with poppin (Not counting the night)

Time spent with me: 8:00-9:30 and 6:00-10:30. Total: 6 hours.

Time spent with her grandma (Not counting her afternoon nap): 9:30-1:00 and 3:30-6:00. Total: 6 hours.

Not bad huh? This not counting the days DH or I work from home.

Neighbors,Neighbors !

We are enjoying the pleasure of having neighbors only from the last 3 years after moving to our own house.In the apartment where we lived before,it was a rare moment to see someone,let alone have a conversation.Now,we got double lucky to have a neighborhood filled with kids of all ages.We realize how important it is for kids to have other kids to play with,only after seeing how much Miss D enjoys the company.

The neighbor who lives opposite to ours is a family with a 3 year old son and 16 month old daughter.We have become close friends,and have spent a few evenings at each others house.We chit chat when we meet outside(now that the weather is nice),and look at the kids having fun on their own.Next door,there are 3 kids -a girl and 2 boys.The kids have not got together yet,no one Miss D's age or closer,but am sure it will be fun anyways.Since we never had the opportunity to enjoy the 'friendly neighborhood' before in the apartment,it gives me a very happy and a satisfying feeling to see it happen now.The timing could not have been better,with our little girl enjoying all of it.

In India,while we grew up,it was taken for granted that we would always,round the clock have neighbor kids to play with.In the US,it is a privilege if your kids have friends living close by.Back home in India,our house was one of the 4 houses inside the same compound(common outdoor entrance and exit) and I had 2 close girl friends that I grew up with during my school days and part of my college life.One girl is 2 years older to me and the other, a year younger.We were best of friends and spent every part of the day together,other than when we 'had' to be away.We had tremendous fun and also competed with each other on the day of Deepavali(festival) every year,as to who would wake up first,get ready and burst crackers.Those were the most fun filled,guilt free,carefree days of my life.The saddest part was when both the girls had to move out to another town,far,far away since their dads had jobs that took them to those places.

Getting back to the present,I wish this closeness in the neighborhood continues and we find good friendly neighbors where ever we go,and our little Miss D has her own set of buddies.

8 Things You Don't Know About Me Either!

So MDM has tagged me to write 8 things about me people don't know... hmmm...

1. I am quite particular about punctuality - I don't know how I developed this habit, but I get very irritable if I arrive somewhere late. It just bothers me to no end - especially if I have been delayed due to other people. Aaargh.. makes me want to pull my hair out!

2. I am pretty lazy :) I could spend an entire day doing absolutely nothing and not feel bad about it either. But gone are the days when I could just sit around on my fat **** and bum around.

3. I am very bad at talking about my feelings - especially if I am upset or angry. I just internalize it and never speak up. I let it go or I let it fester for ages.

4. I would say I am generally a shy person - at least that's what I think - not sure if I come across as shy? I hope that my son doesn't pick up this trait from me - I hope he is like his dad who is definitely not shy!!

5. I LOVE to eat - I love everything there is to love about food (especially desserts) - eating out, cooking, watching food programes, buying stuff for the kitchn ... I guess that is why ever since I remember I have been battling with 'those last 10lbs' :) I only actually started to like cooking after I left home. Living at home with my parents.. well I had my mum to do the cooking (who is a fabulous cook) so I never took an interest. Now, I collect recipe books (mostly to look at the pictures :) but I love to try out new dishes whenever I can.

6. I am a Chartered Accountant (equivalent to a CPA). I spent 3.5 years slogging my guts out for this qualification and since then my career has had nothing to do with accountancy! (I don't even do our taxes at home - my husband, the engineer, does them).

7. I am very indecisive. I take forever to make a decision - big or small! (This includes ordering off a menu!!)

8. I hate shopping (for myself) - but I can browse for ages in kitchen stores and now baby shops. Maybe this has something to do with #7 above.

Wow - that was surprisingly difficult to come up with these 8 things :)

How much TV is too much TV?

Do you allow your kids to watch television?How long do they watch?Miss D's pediatrician suggested no TV until 2 years.I have been letting her watch some TV during early afternoon,and sometimes while eating her lunch.I get 'escape time' while see watches,which is a big help when I have to do other work around the house.But I dont feel good most of the times when I let her watch TV.It is one of the biggest addictions for the kids at a young age.Thankfully she loves to look at books and be read to,so we read her a lot of books.She also plays on her own with her toys,for sometime in the mornings and evenings.

She used to watch only when I turn on her channel,now,she takes the remote and hands it to one of us and kinda starts whining,for us to turn on her channel.Soon,she will start asking verbally to do it and before we realize she will figure out how to do it all by herself ! I am sure we will try all the tactics,like 'No TV,until you eat your food,no TV until you finish your work,no TV until I tell you to watch'.But the question is,how much should we restrict them from an early age,the age where they still can not understand if we tell them 'No TV'.......

The toddler shows that come on TV are educative and informative,so in one way it is a learning tool.Miss D loves 'Blues Clues' ,her other favorite is 'Dora The Explorer'.She has a selective liking even among those cartoon shows,the other shows dont hold her interest for too long.

We,as parents try to balance their lives in the best way that we can....but always wonder what is right and what is wrong....more so with the first child(I assume).