the potty book

TJOML is becoming aware of her bodily functions.

She can name most of the usual body parts - hands, feet, toes, eye, nose, mouth, ear, head, belly, hair etc - in welsh, tamil and english.

And over the last month or so, she is aware when she pees and poops. She lets us know she needs her diaper changed, saying, "Amma, cheej bapoo", "Amma, ditty bapoo". (Change Diaper, Dirty Diaper)

All this is a good sign for us - we are sort of trying to potty train her.

She knows when her Amma (c'est moi) uses the potty. She will even sit on her little potty, fully clothed. But she had not shown any interest in using the potty despite our cajoling...

So, D decided to get her a potty book for Christmas.

TJOML seems to love the book! We cannot read it just once every time we pick up that book. She wants us to read it to her, back to back, about a dozen times before we can even think of putting it away. So much so that in the few days since she got the book, we are so tired of it, we try to hide it lest TJOML spies it and one of us is trapped into reading it in repeat mode!

With the book in hand, "Moaa Say-aa", "Moaa Say-aa" (More Sara) is her plea to have us read the book to her. It is a simple, cute book. Little girl Sara sits on the potty, poops and pees, and washes her hands with soap and water afterwards. Good concepts. Nice book.

But, I don't think she needs a book to learn to potty. My mom does not remember anything much about how we kids got potty trained. We just did. But then, we were in India then, and we didn't use diapers...

However, I must admit, after seeing Sara in the book, TJOML has sat on her potty with her bare bottom when she needed to pee.

I should be overjoyed.

And I would be too, had she not removed the inner pan that is supposed to hold her droppings before she sat on it and did her job!

Go girl! Go!

 

moments such as these ... 2

The other day, TJOML was playing with her new playdoh salon set she got for Christmas.

It has a little doll with different detachable scalps; the scalps have different patterns on the head to grow playdoh hair when a lever is pushed... she loves this toy and has been playing with it more than anything else since she got it...

Well, anyway, the scalps are not easy to detach and attach. So, TJOML called me to where she was sitting and playing, handed me the toy and its scalp and indicated she wanted the new scalp fixed on.

Easy enough. So, I did it for her without much thought and handed it back to her.

She looks at me straight, holds my attention with a sweet smile and a sincere expression and says, "Thank You, Amma"! (Except it sounded more like "taa-key-oo, amma")

I just melted.

That was the first time she said it to me and in correct context!

And she is all of 1¾ years old!

I mean, she demands a cookie, gets it from her dad, but doesn't say Thank You. She asks us to read a book to her but doesn't really say Thank You. But, this time, she wanted help with her toy and when she got it, she automatically said Thank You, it seemed like...

I just could not let this moment out of my mind... it was incredibly rewarding to hear that.
When she does what we ask, like 'please give back the remote control, it is not a toy', or, 'please put back the phone, it is not a toy', we usually look at her directly and say Thank You. But, am pretty sure she did not make the connection easily.

I think her daycare care-givers have been working hard too, trying to get my baby to grow up with good manners. Am not sure I could have taught her half the stuff she now knows without the help of her daycare professionals - and possibly the other kids in her class room. I mean, I know I could have if I was a SAHM, but, alas, I am not, and I will always doubt this decision...

ffi-ffi ai ffriendiau and smot

Santa stopped by! He thought TJOML was really good.

I think TJOML got a good set of Christmas surprises. She doesn't quite understand Christmas yet, but, recognizes Santa and likes a few Christmas songs.

Two of the Santa's surprises for TJOML are Ffi-Ffi and Smot DVDs.

I just started watching them, so, am not quite sure if I like them as much as I like Nodi. TJOML seems to like them a lot already. She has only watched them for about 20 minutes so far.

Smot is basically Spot. In Welsh. A cute dog. Sings and has adventures with his friends. The DVD we got has a sing-along feature - words to the song are included in the DVD. I like it as it helps me learn a bit more of Welsh than I had intended. That's always good.

Ffi-Ffi is a little girl and has some friends and has fun. Well, Ffi-Ffi is a Forget-Me-Not, one of her friends is a Violet and another is a Primrose. There's a Bumble Bee and a Slug too. The usual kids stuff. In Welsh. This is sort of a girly version of Nodi - different setting, different approach, but, sort of cute and nice to watch.

A while back I was worrying myself quite a bit about letting TJOML watch TV/Video/DVD. I was quite convinced it would do her harm if we let her get into the habit. After all, I grew up watching no TV.

But, D on the other hand, took it easy, and kept saying, "I watched a lot of TV when I was growing up, and I turned out all right". Well, to be honest, he turned out more than all right. He is very smart, very creative etc. But, maybe he is the one exception. Who knows?

A few days a week, D likes to turn on the TV after dinner and relax - maybe watch The Simpsons or something. That sort of grates on my nerves a bit. Just a tad bit. I surely enjoy a show or two - like The Office, and maybe Nova on PBS and such, but, I prefer not to have the TV programming on when TJOML is around.

Anyway, I stopped overthinking this. I let TJOML watch her videos for about 20 mins or so, once or twice a day, only when she asks for it. And then we say "Bye Bye Nodi". So, TJOML understands (sort of) that Nodi has gone Bye-Bye and won't be seen for a while. If she wants to watch more the same day, I put my foot down, and try to play with her and read to her, as long as it takes to get her mind off Nodi or Wil or Ffi-Ffi or Smot. And, as long as I have enough control over what she watches, I think I am OK with it for now.

security ba-theth

"Mainn! Ba-theth! Amma, ba-theth" is a new song TJOML has been singing to me since last week.

ba-theth = blanket

TJOML recently started getting attached to one of the fleece blankets I had made for her when she was barely 2 months old.

It was the "car blanket" for all these months - the one we leave in the car, just in case... and since she spends quite a chunk of her time commuting, she got to use this blanket quite a lot.

But, of late, she seems to have a renewed liking for it.

When we went out shopping the other day, she insisted on holding it and walking everywhere with it! She was literally mopping the Barnes & Noble floor with it, and didn't let me fold it neatly and let her hold it daintily so it won't gather all the gross things I imagine thriving on the floor and such...

As long as she is getting attached to a blanket, I am secretly glad that it is one I made for her - if you can really call it that - i mean, it was bright cheery fleece print to which I added some binding, and made a matching hat as well, which she loves. Anyway, this sort of served as an inspiration for me to reach my teensy goal to be a blanketeer for project linus.

I don't remember having a security blanket, I am not particularly attached to anything from my childhood that I could not give up with little persuasion.

But D still hangs on to his almost thread-bare teen-size fleece blanket from childhood. I offered to prolong its life by using it as a batting in a quilt, along with another layer of warm unbleached cotton batting. This way, we can give it to TJOML when she is a little older. But he would hear none of it...

She doesn't seem to want the blanket all the time or anything - plus, she has her cow and mouse - two tiny stuffed toys - which seem to fill in for the blanket when we are at home.

I am sure this is just a phase, and she might just as easily get attached to something else pretty soon down the road... but, just thought I must record it here so I can remember when I first noticed her attachment to a security blanket of sorts.

moaa kickee

TJOML rarely gets cookies at home, although she does seem to get them at daycare several times a week, as a snack.

D made some christmas cookies over the weekend. And these weren't traditional cookies: they were a tad bit spicy with nutmeg, cinnamon and ginger, and not terribly sweet, and not yet topped with powdered sugar or frosting or anything special. Very tasty, if you ask me, but, we wanted to see what TJOML thought of it.

So we gave her a teensy one, shaped like a sort of a gingerbread man. Silence for a while, but for the munching. So, we thought it just didn't make an impression on her. That's OK, we said to ourselves, a little too soon...

Just a few minutes later, she walks up to her chair at the dining table, pointing and repeating 'moaa kickee, moaa kickee' ("more cookie,more cookie"), makes me pick her up and seat her, instructs me to put her bib on, and impatiently gives D a "what part of moaa kickee don't you understand, Pa?" look!

It was so darned unexpected that both D and I couldn't help laughing. So far, most evenings when we want to seat her for a meal at the table, she runs away screaming, "No", until we find ways to distract her and entice her suitably. Apparently, a meal of D's special cookies does the trick :-)

aa thaa thow

TJOML seems to love Ringa-Ring-o-Roses:

Ring Around The Rosies
Pocketful of Posies
Ashes, Ashes
We All Fall Down.

I learnt it as:

Ring Around The Rosies
Pocketful of Posies
A-tishoo, A-tishoo
We All Fall Down.

Anyway, most evenings, TJOML invites her dad with arms outstretched and a cute, "Appa, wayo-wayo, aa thaa thow" and when dad and daughter hold hands and do a few rounds of falling down, TJOML turns to me and invites, "Amma, wayo-wayo...".

Absolutely precious.

Then all 3 of us hold hands and do a few rounds of falling down, with TJOML singing along in her own sweet way.

The "aa thaa thow" ("all fall down") part seems to have made an impression on her lately.

She picks up her spoon/fork while having dinner, flings it as far as she can with a gleeful "aa thaa thow"!

She sits on the bed with her little menagerie of stuffed toys - a cow, a mouse, a pink bear, a yellow bear, plus her doll Enid, of course. Picks up the cow, throws it off the bed declaring, "aa thaa thow". And then looks at us with the most irresistable smile and twinkle and asks us to pick it up and give it to her, only to repeat the process over!

It would be so cute if I weren't the one picking up after her experiments with Gravity :-)

shirt crazy

TJOML is into dressing herself nowadays. What little she can manage, that is.

And she has very specific tastes (fixations?), seems like...

Last week, I dressed her as usual, one early morning, to get her ready for school (i.e., daycare). It was just a pair of durable corduroy pants and a red t-shirt I made for her a while back. Nothing fancy.

All went well until it came time for bath that evening. She was very reluctant to remove the red t-shirt. Only her love for bath helped her overcome this obsession with the t-shirt and that too only when I put the shirt in her view right beside the bath tub.

After the bath, when it came time to get her in her jammies, she screamed her lungs out asking for that t-shirt. I simply had to hide it in her hamper so I could wash it: she had had a messy lunch at school that day and it showed.

Some distraction, tickling, playing and reading to her took care of that night.

Next morning, when I had brought out fresh clothes to dress her in, she spied the same red t-shirt i had hid (carelessly) in the hamper and indicated in no uncertain terms that she had to wear those exact same t-shirt right then.

No harm. I figured, I need to pick my battles. If she wants the same shirt, she can wear the same shirt 2 days in a row... so what if her daycare care-givers think I am a sloppy mom? Right?!

Now, loop back to the fourth paragraph from the top in this post :-)

Yep, she wanted to wear it again for the 3rd day in a row. It took some brilliant misdirection and creativity to get her mind off the red t-shirt and pack her off to daycare in a fresh set of clothes the next morning. (It's a good thing toddlers her age have short attention span and short memories...)

Anyway, this week again, she found another tops of hers given to her by her Pattee (my mom, TJOML's maternal grandma) from india. She put it on last night, wouldn't take it off to put her jammies on, so, I had to put her jammies over her tops. And this morning, again, she would not let me put her in a different t-shirt... well, you get the picture.

It must be more of a control thing, as they say... so, I do try to give her choice. But when faced with a vehement, "No Amma. No. Maiine. Shirt", I end up backing off and smiling inwardly at the strong-headed mini-me that TJOML is becoming these days.

Trip to the Zoo

Usually, I am quite uncomfortable about Zoos. I am not too fond of the concept of confining wild animals. Well, there are pros and cons and am sure each of us has our own opinions on this.

But, D and I decided to set our adult prejudices and biases aside, and take TJOML to the Oregon Zoo last month. After all, we cannot afford a Safari in the Serengeti now... Plus, she knows about 2 dozen animals and their sounds (as close as we can imitate it) from just looking at her picture books and sitting with us to "talk" about them on and off.

TJOML had a blast.

A sizeable group of us visitors were assembled to see Rama do his painting and other playful things he has learnt to do. While the handler was trying to set things up for us and was talking quite passionately about Rama, all TJOML could do was give her full-throated elephant trumpeting sounds, pointing at Rama. We were fervently trying to keep her quiet, but, had to leave as she was too excited to see an elephant right in front of her almost within arm's reach!

She recognized pretty much most of the animals on her own, pointing and making their sounds and saying their names in her own way. She seemed pretty excited the whole time - after almost 3 hours of wandering around in the zoo and it being close to her nap time.

Her enthusiasm kept me going. To be honest, I was looking for an excuse to head home, and any slight whining or discontent shown on TJOML's part would have been reason enough for me, but, she didn't give me an excuse that day.

I am really glad we took her to the Zoo. Maybe we'll do it again in a few years when she is a little older and knows a little more about animals and let her form her own opinions about Zoos.

did it look good today?

"Oh, you're gonna like the way it looked:" declared D, "it wasn't dry pellets and it wasn't too runny; was sort of pasty."

All you readers with infants in diapers, you know what I am talking about, right?!

Well, I always try to keep a close watch on TJOML's diaper contents. Since I change her 90% of the time at home, it sort of happens naturally for me.

But on days like today, being sort of busy in the kitchen when I detect the familiar stench, it is D's duty to take care of it.

Usually, D doesn't even cast a cursory glance at the contents. He simply rolls up the diaper, gets the bottom clean as fast as he can and is done with it.

Today, however, I specifically reminded D to take a look and describe it to me. I am quite keen on keeping track of her poo as it is quite an indicator for me about how she is doing in general, whether I need to add more fruit and fiber to her diet, or, sometimes, whether I need to stop fruits and add more breads... plus, she has been grunting and straining more than normal and it sort of worries me when she does that.

Anyway, so, it apparently looked good today. Phew!

ma petite taskmaitresse

I was standing by the dining table browsing through my new craft book the other evening when I felt a rather sweet tug on my pants accompanied by "Amma, sit". TJOML was pointing at the sofa.

So I pick up my book and walk over and sit on the sofa just to indulge the little princess, with my book open on my lap, still continuing to read.

The next thing I know, she is right beside me, snapping my book shut, daintily declaring, "Amma, all done!"

OK, so she does not want me to continue reading the book. Fine.

Next, she points to the coffee table beside my seat and commands, "Put!" touching and looking at my book.

Alright. I put my book away.

Then, she walks over to pick up her favorite board book, comes and stands right in front of me with her back towards me, lifts up her arms and directs, "Up! Up!"

OK, so I pick her up and park her on my lap.

She settles herself comfortably on my lap, opens her book to the first page instructing, "up aa thuth! up aa thuth! moaaa... amma, moaa"

up aa thuth = up on top
moaa = more

Her book happens to be Dr.Seuss' Ten Apples Up On Top which is her current favorite.

She makes me read it back to back, over and over, while she holds the book and flips the pages correctly as needed so i can read till the end each time!

I couldn't help wonder how well she is able to communicate her needs and wants these days, including her likes and dislikes, at such a tender age of 19.5 months. It shouldn't amaze me so much, I mean, after all, we have all done it - made sense of all the noise around us from birth, but, still, to watch her confidently express herself these days is such a treat!

Hwre! Dyma Nodi

Pretty much every evening these days, as soon as we get home, D and I are treated to an imploring TJOML standing next to the TV and in a plaintive tone repeating, "dak-dak¹", "doddee²", "baaa³","ooh-ooh, doddee", "Amma, doddeeeee", "Appa, dak-dak"... hoping we would respond to her request soon.

Absolutely cute and maddening at the same time!

D bought Hwre! Dyma Nodi and Wil Cwac Cwac for TJOML a while back. And of course, we already have a 2-disc set of Mother Goose Nursery Rhymes, Vol 1., a gift from my parents.

¹ Wil Cwac Cwac
² Nodi
³ Nursery Rhymes (Baa Baa Black Sheep is the first one on disc 1 here)

Now, both TJOML and I don't quite understand or speak Welsh fluently. However, I believe she speaks and understands Welsh a little better than I do sometimes. She, of course, has an advantage: she is only 19 months old.

TJOML adores Nodi and Wil.

I have come to adore Nodi as much or more than TJOML does these days. Partly because it is a bit challenging but very rewarding when I pick up a few words here and there and put them together to improve my Welsh - the characters speak quite clearly; and partly because the animation is well done and appealing.

I have also begun to appreciate Wil Cwac Cwac a bit more nowadays, after watching closely and trying to make sense, because: in quite a few episodes, Wil's parents play pranks on poor little Wil!

If it wasn't obvious by now, Wil is a duck who goes to school, lives in an idyllic hamlet with his mom and dad, has fun with his friends - a turkey, a rooster and such. But, my frustration sometimes stems out of the fact that the characters speak Welsh like a duck or a turkey would speak Welsh and that complicates things for me.

Noddy is a character created by Enid Blyton. I grew up reading The Famous Five when I was little - I was particularly curious about Georgina who prefers to be called George. But that's another story for another day. Nodi is the Welsh version of Noddy, a boy who lives in ToyTown and drives a red and yellow car.

It must be quite a sight: TJOML cuddling in my lap, with a nice blanket around us, staring intently at the TV while our brain cogs can be heard for miles cranking away vigorously trying to process it all!

Hwre to Educational Entertainment!

whither shall i follow, follow thee?

"ballo, ballo, ballo, ballo, ballo, ballo, ballo, ballo, ballo...".

Over the Thanksgiving break, TJOML has been saying this over and over, on and off, throughout the day while (un)dressing her doll Enid or while walking her tricycle or just while walking back and forth being a busy toddler.

Well, her Nana gave her a tape of some children's songs and we have been playing it selectively for TJOML as she doesn't have patience for the whole tape. Some are quite popular songs like "Three Blind Mice", "Are you sleeping", "Clementine" and such, and some are songs i haven't heard at all in my life and probably don't want to, for a good reason :-)

Anyway, one of the songs there goes something like this: "Come follow follow follow follow... follow follow follow me; whither shall i follow follow thee? to the greenwood, to the greenwood, to the greenwood, greenwood tree".

TJOML latched on to it and has been practising the song in her own way for the last several days. I hope she feels she has mastered it enough and decides to move on to another song - there is only so much of the cute "ballo ballo....." i can handle at a time :-)

cantores bach

What amazes me the most is TJOML's liking for music: she sings 'Twinkle Twinkle', 'Row Row Row your boat', 'Old MacDonald' in her own way - no clear discernible words really, but, the tune is close enough that in her tiny nasal sing-song it is easy to make out.

And she loves to sit on my lap or her daddy's lap, hold our hands and start moving back and forth singing 'Woe Woe Woe..';

The only words we can make out in 'Old MacDonald' is of course 'ee yaa ee yaa ooo'.

Her favorite since she was about 11 months old is 'Hokey Pokey' song - she loves to turn around when the song says 'turn around', and has to burst with a 'Yay!' at the end of each verse. It is absolutely adorable.

Too bad I don't have a working video camera to capture all this - it is incredibly precious and I am sure her grandparents will appreciate some edited down 10 min DVDs of TJOML in her element.

p.s: "cantores bach" (can-too-ress baakh) is what D calls TJOML sometimes, i think it means "little singer" in Welsh:-)

canine buds are showing, finally

The upper two canines have cut through and I can see the tiny buds along with the red sore-looking gums around the two new teeth.

That's the good news.

The not-so-good news is that either the arrival of the caninies, or something unconnected, has made her moods rather pronounced - when she is happy, she jumps around, laughs, plays well, but, when she is upset, nothing seems good enough.

Maybe that's part of being a toddler. Maybe this is where tantrums start...

In any case, she seems to not wake up so many times and scream as much at nights for the last 2 days.

She does wake up early, calling out for me from her crib, and when I bring her over to my bed, she points to her diaper and in an anguished voice says, 'cheej bapoo, cheej bapoo' (change diaper) till I change her, and then she wants to get down from the bed and run around and play. At 5 or so in the morning, most days!

the talking clock

The sleepless nights are continuing unabated.

Meanwhile, TJOML simply refuses to go to bed without a fight these days.

Which in itself would be alright to handle because she still responds well to my rocking her and singing to her.

What is not easy to handle is her tendency to wake up at 3 in the morning, every morning for the last 10 days, after about 6 hours of nap, with a loud piercing scream. Patting and singing temporarily stops the screams, but, the minute I walk away from her crib thinking she is drifting off to sleep again, they start with renewed vigor.

Unwilling to bend over the crib in my half-asleep state, singing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star while rubbing her back, I reluctantly pick her up and settle her back in bed next to me every night (or rather, early morning).

Which in itself is not the issue, again. I love to snuggle next to my baby, no doubt.

But, she does not want to snuggle. She wants to sit up and talk. She wants to change her baby doll Enid's diaper right then. She wants to play with the kitties who happen to be snuggling with us, peacefully purring away. She wants to get going... no more lying in bed. Time's a-wasting...

I stay perfectly still, afraid to breathe hard, eyes closed, pretending to be totally asleep and unaware of Ms.Chatty, ignoring the impulse to scream out in pain when she endearingly twirls my tangled hair and pulls them by the tiny handful... but only for a few brief minutes.

Why only for a few brief minutes? Well, because, she leans over me, points at the digital clock on my nightstand and starts reading off the displayed numbers: 'sees', pause, 'aeth', 'naa'. And, her pauses drive me to open my eyes, look at the display and gushingly say, 'seven, that's a seven. suh-ven. can you say seven?'

could it be canines?

Looks like it, so far...

Ana had her first tooth out on new year's day - at least the tiny white bud that we could see - after months of cutting teeth and sleepless nights. It happened to be her upper incisor on the right side.

Then in quick succession came the two lower incisors and other three upper incisors.

Gone was the cutest toothless smile I ever saw!

And, gone were the sleepless nights as well. She sort of breezed through her two other lower incisors, I barely saw them coming - one fine morning she seemed to have woken up with two extra bottom front teeth.

I was ecstatic. So much so that, I was beginning to worry something was wrong: why is she sleeping through the night? Is something wrong? I kept checking on her a few times a night just to be sure - but, there she was, apparently all the teeth that were cutting through for months came out pretty much back-to-back and she seemed to snore away happily through the nights for about 3 months.

Until the molars wanted to come out, that is. It just took a week or so, that's it - a tough sleepless week - but, her first set of molars were out and she seemed to take it in her stride and carry on being a busy toddler.

Well, now that she is 19-months old, (note to self: stop using months as Ana's age indicator), the sleepless nights are back with a vengeance.

From what little investigation she allows us while brushing her teeth, it appears that the canines might be making an appearance, hopefully shortly.

It is a good thing memory is short-term at that age. If I can remember all the pain I endured while cutting my first set of baby teeth, I would probably be a nervous wreck worrying about what Ana is going through.