My baby is growing up

Since I have become so random in recording N's milestones after she turned 2, I thought I should atleast capture some of the really cute things going on in her world these days:

1). Baby Language

She has been singing nursery rhymes since she was almost 2 years of age. Those were the times when she had some really cute 'baby' pronunciations when she sang. For example:

'Twinkle Twinkle Little Star' was sung as

'Chinkau Chinkau Little Chtar'

Now that she is 2yrs 7 months, I can see so much of that baby language fading away. Part of me feels good that she is growing but a bigger part of me really feels sad that my little baby is growing into a big girl now. She will no longer be only mommy's little baby anymore :( Infact, now a days when I sing Chinkau Chinkau, she corrects me to say 'No mamma - Tinkual Tinkual Little Star'! Feel so good that she is still not there yet and still has such cute ways to pronounce certain words. Like when she was a little younger, crocodile was pronounced as cocokiiiile. But now when I say cocokile, she corrects me to say 'No No - cocodile'. Also when she had just learnt her colors (which I don't honestly remember was how long ago), when asked which color a certain object was, she used to say 'blue colors' pronouncing 'colors' as 'colorchh'. Every color ended with 'colors'. Now no more :( When asked which color is this, all she says is 'blue', or 'red' or whatever color. Lost the cute chubby way of saying 'colorchh'.

2). Artist in the Growing?

The little girl has developed a sudden love towards drawing. Give her a pen and a paper or even better - a DoodlePro and she is seen all settled happily on the floor for a long time drawing away either narrating stories while drawing or constantly trying to perfect something she is learning to draw. So far she had been doodling away mostly drawing circles of different sizes and scribbling in general. But the other day, I actually saw her attempting to draw what looked like a fish. So me and hubby got interested and encouraged her, even drew one up to show her how to draw it and immediately she copied our strokes and managed drawing her first fish! We got sooooo excited that she is now trying to intentionally imitate strokes and actually draw something by either copying our strokes or using her imagination! I even got up and clicked a few pics from my phone to record the moment. Since then she has gone on to learn drawing what she calls 'Dora's eyes' (which is really a pair of eyes), a smiley face and today when she drew up a smiley face on the DoodlePro and I asked her where is smiley's hair, she actually drew up his hair on the head!!! She does know how to translate her visuals into sketches now coz later I saw her draw a dot on the smiley's forehead and say 'this is his kumkum ok?' (she refers to bindi as kumkum).

3). Picking up a new language

Hindi. So far even though we spoke Hindi, English and Konkani at home, she had picked up only English and used only that language in all her communication with everyone. Lately though, thanks to our new maid who spends most of her day with N and talks to her in Hindi, N has started conversing in Hindi pretty well. I had been singing Hindi and English rhymes to her but she had not really picked up the Hindi ones as much. But now she sings 'Machhli Jal ki Rani Hai' to perfection and with actions!

4). Clothes and accessories

The saga about being determined to pick her own clothes continues as I had already talked about previously here. And not just once or twice, there are days when she wants to change what she is wearing almost 4 times a day. Oh and she has her favorites that she can live in day after day after day. One of them (her orange shirt and orange chhota (i.e. half) pant) is so battered that I actually hid it away and the poor thing has been asking for it every single day. I have tried different ways of convincing her that I gave it away to a small baby or a pigeon took it away but my heart breaks when she says 'I am very sad...I want my orange shirt and orange chhota pant' :( I am still trying to convince her that remember mommy gave it away to the baby? We will ask your nani to bring a new orange shirt and orange pant for you. Jeez! And the demand for bangles and shoes is also never ending. The thing that she should be into, but is not, is doing up her hair. She refuses anything in her hair - no clips or rubber-bands or hair bands or any hair accessories for her.

5). Office ka kaam (Meaning: Office Work)

She is finally getting used to seeing mommy going to office now or doing 'office ka kaam' from home. So when I don't work on my laptop at the home office and am doing it from the couch at times, she comes and asks me why I am not doing it from the office ka table. Or why am I not talking on the phone using the headset! She even pretends at times to work away on my laptop and says 'shh..don't disturb me. I am in a meeting' or 'I am doing office ka kaam like mamma'.

6). Sudden love for her soft toys and Dora - the doll

As long as her tummy is full, she is not really longing for or clinging to mamma these days. If she is not doodling or drawing on her DoodlePro, I see her spending a long time doing pretend play with her soft toys and Dora the doll. She talks to them just as I talk to her, puts them to sleep, does oil massage to them, takes them to the park and what not. Infact tonight was the first night ever that she actually took her Krishna soft toy to bed! Now you have to remember that she has never been into any kind of a lovey toy and prefers sucking her thumb or holding my hair while going to sleep. But today she actually hugged her friend Krishna tightly and even took my hand away from her waist. After a while she probably felt bad for me and said 'Are you falling down? Come' and hugged me with one hand and Krishna with the other and just fell asleep like that. My sweet sweet little angel - knock on wood! Oh and prior to all this, she had put her Dora doll to sleep by asking her 'Are you feeling cold? Come I will give you a blanket' and she nicely wrapped up the little doll in one of her blankets and put her to sleep on the living room floor. Oh and please note - she has played with her doll so much lately that the legs have been seperated and now it is just the upper part of her body that she carries around town these days :-) She carries Dora the doll to the park in the evenings so that when a friend of hers asks her whether she can share the swing, our smart little N has an answer ready - that she is already sharing the swing with Dora!!!

7). Blocks and her imagination

She has suddenly started taking interest in blocks and builds things based on what she sees around her or what she imagines. Making a tower or a house is become a pretty common sight but today she actually used a white, red and blue block, covered it with another blue block, topped it with a red block for the light and called it her ambulance! She somehow recollects (god knows from where) that an ambulance has only red, white and blue colors and a red light on top. Interesting stuff ain't it? :-)

Girls will be girls!

My little baby girl is not even 2.5 years old and she has already started demonstrating such girliness that I just had to write about it. Adorable girly stuff she has started doing lately:

• Picking her own clothes from her cupboard. She insists we carry her to raise her up to the top shelf in her cupboard so that she can look at all her clothes and decide what she wants to wear today! Gosh - she even knows the difference between her 'ghar ka shirt' and 'bahar ka shirt', 'ghar ka pant' and 'bahar ka pant' (clothes to be worn at home v/s clothes to be worn when you go out). I was shocked the first time she started doing this but now she does it consistently - does not wear anything unless she has picked it out herself. Sometimes goes through 2 or 3 changes until she is satisfied with what she has worn :-)))

• She has always loved dancing when there is music but these days observes every song on TV while she is busy moving to the music AND IMITATES each step she sees in the song!!! I am sure she has taken after me here...I used to dance to my heart's content in front of the radio when I was around 2 holding my frock or a particular red color maxi I remember I had. So her dancing is not something I'm surprised with...it is her imitating the steps that amazes me. I have seen 7 or 8 year old girls do it but one who is barely 2.5? BTW you do know what this means right...that we struggle to find the remote to change channels every time there is an item number going on!!! And sure enough she hates it if you change the song she was so busy dancing on :-)

• She is so much into shoes and more than shoes, chappals that it is amazing. We bought her first pair of blue flip-flops in Dec. when she was 2 yrs and 4 months and she did not want to take them off 24/7. Since then we have opened another pretty pair of pink flip flops that my friend G had sent from the US and oh how she adores them. She refuses to step out of her bed without them...refuses to keep them back in the shoe rack...wakes up and the first thing she asks us is "where is my pink color chappal with pretty pretty stone?" And due to this, she has now learnt the difference between shoes, sandals and chappals. And also has her own 'ghar ka chappal' and 'bahar ka sandal'. She even notices what every other child her age wears and if she likes their flip-flops - she insists she wants them NOW! Even in winter, she refuses to wear socks anymore so that she can walk around in her pretty pretty pink color chappal ! Thanks G :-) if you are reading this! (Am posting a pic of hers posing in the pink chappal she loves)

• She compliments us on what we wear and even picks out our clothes and shoes sometimes. I have noticed sometimes when I change clothes, she goes "wow mama you wore a pink color dress. You are looking so nice in the new new pink color dress!" Or when we are going out she will bring my shoes and say "mama wear your bahar ka shoes like me". And god only save me if I decide to wear a chappal while she is wearing shoes! Or if I decide to wear shoes if she is wearing chappal! Same goes for Papa too! When papa is done with his morning shower, sometimes she stands in front of his cupboard and tells him what color shirt he should wear. If he wears something she picks, she compliments him with a "Nice". Oh and when I change out of my night clothes to drop her to school, she insists she wants to wear the exact same color dress as mama! Oh god - dressing her up is a huge project these days - and she is not even into jewelery or makeup yet. I have not even pierced the little child's ears yet...don't even want to think what will happen then :-)

Whatever it is...I find all of this sooooo cute and endearing. It is amazing to see how much they observe and absorb at such a young age. I can tell her stories about how her friends tie a rubber band and convince her to tie her hair at times too. That is also how she started wearing the only piece of ornament she wears - her two silver bangles. Only coz a few of her friends and a cousin wears them :-)