For the record...

Prekshu has started addressing me as amma and doesnt get tired calling me amma atleast a hundred times a day. She started it around a week ago and from then there has been no stopping her ;-)

She can comfortably walk 10-12 steps now and i dare say her swaying gait looks cuter than the best catwalk any "Miss Universe/Miss World" could do!!!!

She recognises different rhymes and also has her own choices. She prefers "Jack and Jill" to "Mary had a little lamb". But then "Baa baa black sheep" is any time better than "Jack and Jill" because she can sing it in her own way......."Baa baa baa sheeeee" she says. And she loves "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" and can do the twinkling with her hands ;-) She likes "The Itsy Bitsy spider" only if it is accompanied by actions from mummy. And "Over in the meadow" is another favorite of hers but my most favorite rhyme now. Gone are the days when I was busy trying to learn new programming languages. The "software engineer- turned -stay at home mommy" is busy learning rhymes these days and trust me its not easy!!!

She talks a lot these days, pointing to various objects. But the sounds that come out from her sweet little throat are "Annaa,Pipi, Pachi, Tappi, Puyi". Me and my hubby have a gala time trying to deciper what she is saying by spinning our own stories. She says "Avide" and "Evide" meaning "Over there" and "Where" with a lot of effort and a lot of stress on each letter as "Aa-Vi-Dee" and "Ee-Vi-Dee".

She is the sole authority on cleaning the house for she finds the tiniest peck that I or the vaccuum cleaner would have missed. But she is clever enough to hand it over to me saying "Itha" with an expression on her face which says "I have to take care of every tiny thing here. Mummy, what would you do without me?"

How true, what would me and my hubby do without our darling angel. Our lives have changed forever and our existence itself seems so much more meaningful!!

Amma..Amma..Amma..........Finally!!

25th January 2007 was a remarkable day for me........Prekshu called me "amma". First when she called me amma, I did not show the joy I felt because it might stop her from repeating it ;-) So I took it as it came............. for I was not sure of it. But within a few minutes there it was again ........ "amma"!! Wow..........it was sheer ecstasy for me.

I had never thought that a simple word like that would make me so happy ever. Until Prekshu was born, the true meaning of happiness had evaded me, I guess. Now I wonder how could I ever term what I felt when - I won an essay competition in school, got the first rank in my class, watched Indian cricketer Ajay Jadeja live on the field, cleared my engineering with good results, got a job in one of India's top IT companies - as happy. Also when I called my mother "mummy" a hundred times a day, I never realised the punch in that word, or the feelings it would have instilled in my mom when I first called her so.

Prekshu now says amma continuously in a string when she is upset, wants to be picked up or when I am not around and she is looking for me. She hasnt started calling me "amma" just to get my attention. And when I ask her "whos this" pointing to myself, she can only manage a "baba". How cute ;-)
Later in life, when she grows up and keeps calling me and if it irritates me, I have a blog to answer to--How much I had waited to hear that word from her!!

Promoted.....

Yes, my daughter has been promoted from a baby to a child and a toddler as she turned ONE year old on 23^rd Jan 2007. We had a simple party at home with the decorations and balloons that I arranged and with Prekshu cutting the strawberry topped cake her dad got. Both her maternal and paternal grandparents watched the cake cutting live through the webcam and blessed her. Prekshu enjoyed the so called party, enjoyed licking the cream from the cake…………enjoyed playing with the cream by rubbing it on the floor.


She did look like a princess in her lacy lemon yellow frock. After the cake cutting ceremony was over, she decided to grant her grandparents with the sight of her walk and walked a few faltering steps which her grandparents thoroughly enjoyed. Then she enjoyed seeing all the birthday cards she had received from her aunt and cousins in the US of A and some from my friends. She was very well behaved throughout the day and I kept wondering if she realised she had crossed a major milestone and hence showing more maturity ;-) I kept praying that she should be so well behaved on the party day too which was to be on 28^th. But she put all my doubts to rest the very next day, by being a little misbehaving at times. My daughter is growing up fast.......I am happy to see her develop as an individual but am sad too to lose my baby to the child she is soon becoming.

The countdown has begun........

Its already 18th of January here in Japan. Just 5 more days before my daughter would turn ONE. We are busy arranging for her birthday party which would be on the 28th. Its not a huge party, just around 15 people, 3 babies and a toddler ;-) And inspite of that, I am busy arranging for it from almost 2 weeks now......... Back home we could have outsourced the entire arrangement and just been there at the hall at the time of the party all decked up to received our guests. But here, we have to hand pick every thing and even do the cooking. Its been fun until now and I hope it all ends well. I am so excited that I cant sleep.................I lie wide awake long after my daughter and my husband are fast asleep, planning. How should I arrange the 250 and odd balloons we bought paying a fortune. What time should I start my cooking on the day. What would be the best way to transport every item to the venue which is at a 10 min walking distance from our home. How am I going to dress up my daughter. How cute she will look on that day in her birthday frock. Will she be the nice baby on the B-day or will she be cranky and irritant. Should I wear my blue saree or the maroon one? Trust me, the thoughts traverse through my mind at jet speed. Now I am thinking this and the next moment I have something else.

Far more than the excitement of the party, is the excitement of the fact that my darling is turning ONE.........and I have come through it. Cant say in flying colours but not very bad after all. There was a time when I thought, I wouldnt go very far with it, that I would have a breakdown sometime soon. The angst and worries of a first time mother hasnt vanished completely yet. They are right here, raising their heads everytime something goes wrong and spoiling my sleep and probably raising my blood pressure too............. but I would still give myself a 5 out of 10 for the year that has gone by.

And while all this is happening with me, my daughter is unaware of any such preparations around her. She is in a different world which consists of her, me and her dad........where the language is her own..........the time as she sets.........the rules that suit her..........the important activities being crawling, walking in faltering steps, pulling, banging and flinging objects, her friends being her teddy bear, her winnie the pooh and the numerous dog toys that she has..................a world which is pure and free of any tricks of the adult world. While on activities, today before hitting her bed, she was busy trying to turn to different directions while walking and it was such joy to watch her. She would walk a few steps, fall but raise herself up even before she falls completely and continue her walking practice. I was wishing she would rest a little for she was panting but she wanted no rest.........it was like she was obssessed about walking at that instant. She spent all her energy trying to walk before she went into deep slumber. That reminds me, I need to get some sleep before she wakes up again...................

Her first step........

Prekshu took her first steps on saturday night. It was such an amazing thing to see..........and what I felt cannot be put into words. Every night before going to sleep, her walking practice session starts. The clever one practises any new skill on the bed until she is confident to try it out on the bare wooden floor. She has been trying to walk from past some days and finally on saturday night she managed to take four steps without falling. Its a different story that after that day, she hasnt been able to repeat it though she has been trying hard!! All she can manage now is one step ;-) , good enough, I would say !!

Time has flown so fast. The past year, the most eventful for me and my hubby went by at a rapid pace. In a few days, my darling daughter would be called a toddler officially. Is it almost a year since I used to be scared of holding her for she looked so delicate and helpless? Was it almost a year ago, that all she did was sleep, sleep and sleep? Seems just like yesterday and everything is still crystal clear in my mind. That was the time, when I wanted her to grow soon. But later when she was almost 6 months old I realised the importance of the first year and wanted time to move slowly. But as my husband says, time is the only constant thing, it would not change according to a first time mother's whims and fancies. Reminds me of something I read in some baby book...... "Relish the time while it lasts with your BABIES, because very soon they will be CHILDREN". How true!! My apologies to the original quoter since these were not his/her exact words but meant the same nevertheless.

Its been a long long time

I know its been a long time I posted anything here and that I havent been doing justice to this blog. Well, its not because there have been no developments in Prekshu, but in fact, the developments are so many and so rapid that I hardly have the time for anything. And these days I am busy planning out Prekshu's birthday party. Yes yes, my daughter is turning ONE and I still cant believe it!!!
Prekshu hasnt started calling me "amma" yet. I know for a fact that its not difficult for her to pronounce the word, but I dont know the actual reason why she doesnt say it. She says "mama", "ammam" when she is referring to food........ my mistake that I am used to baby talking to her and say "mammam veno" meaning "do you want food". Surprising that she has picked that up, but doesnt repeat "amma" when I teach her to call me so. But I have no choice than to wait....sob sob :((

Finally today, I posted the long Part-I of my long pending post "The story so far".........the long Part- II will follow soon.

Prekshu is up from her afternoon siesta and I hear her from the bedroom babbling something in her own language which sounds to me like "Mom, your free time is up. Come here and open the bedroom door"!!!

Hello.......

Prekshu today recognised the word "mobile" and surprised me. It happened today afternoon when I was searching for my mobile to call her "dada". I was asking loudly "where is mummy's mobile?".......... and she suddenly kept her hands to her ear and said "itha". I followed my usual technique of asking the same thing a couple more times to make sure it was not by coincidence. Earlier she used to learn a new thing once in a week, now its almost two or three things a day. Just yesterday, she learnt to put her hand or her toy mobile to her ear like we do. And the day before yesterday, she recognised mine and her shadows. It was so funny to see her doing actions sitting close to the wall and enjoying the fact that the shadow does the same. When she saw my long shadow beside hers, she stood up and was trying to reach it. Hmmm, she is really growing fast. Not long before I will have to watch my words in front of her, I guess. With Prekshu around, theres no getting bored. Theres always something new and exciting around the corner.Trust me, motherhood is real bliss and I can imagine my hubby commenting that "So is fatherhood"!!