Like Duck To Water: The adventures of snoogli bear :-D.

I have been wanting to write a post on Snugli for quite some time now. Well, better late than never right? Sadly, I can't put up photos for this one - I am yet to filter the 100s of photos I have of the India trip. But there are so many things happening with her that I can't wait for the snaps anymore :-p. So those will come later :).

Lets start off, shall we?

Snugli enjoyed the India trip more than Sri and me put together :-D. She was carried even when she didn't ask ask to be and pampered to infinity :). The best part was there was no saying no to anything she asked, courtesy of her grandparents. Another round on escalators? Yes my dear. Lift? Yes my dear. Tata on the scooter? Yes my dear. Play with water outside? Yes my dear. You get the gist :-p. In fact, we got scoldings for daring to scold her in front of them ;-).

We got to visit a lot of kids in India thanks to cousins and friends who have kids. Snugli played Ringa-ringa-rosies (or maybe its ring-around-the-roses :-p) with every single one of them :-D. Hey, I have the videos to prove it :-p.

Well, the pampering actually became quite a problem when we were returning. I was ill and Snugli wanted to be carried and whenever she saw an escalator, she wanted to ride them multiple times. Oh God, I still don't know how we got through the travel :-p.

I told you last time that her spirit of independence made an appearance. Now its continuing to grow. I told you how I let her put about 3 mugs of water on herself every time I bathe her. Well, she wanted to soap herself - so I came up with an idea. I have 2 soaps for her now - 1 I hand to her to do what she wants with it and I wash her with the other. Saves a lot of frustration, believe me :-D. She also wants to brush her teeth on her own, so I made another deal - Saturday and Sunday I let her brush her teeth herself. Rest of the days are mine :-D. There are similar deals in the matter of food - she wants to eat on her own (and she usually eats breakfast on her own), so for her lunch she gets to eat 1 course (the uppu-thuppa anna one) on her own and the rest, we feed her :-D. The only exception to those rules has been drinking milk - she still wants to be fed by spoon, but I insist on her drinking directly from a tumbler (she does it, but fusses over it :-D). The deals are working for now, but I'm not sure how long they'll last ;-).

Her grasping power and language are growing leaps and bounds. I know I have said this many many times, but I'm just amazed at how her brain processes new things and learns them. For instance, whenever we ask her to do anything for us, say switch on the lights, we say "Thank you" to her. The day we forget to say that, she comes running and prompts "Thanku" "Thanku" :-D. Not only that, the other day she asked Sri to get her something and she actually thanked him!

On the same note, she knows how lights can be switched off and on. We usually have sunlight falling directly into our living room early morning and usually have the blinds up. One day the sunlight was especially hot and she came and told us "Kitaki off" (Windows off, please) :-D. Her questioning instincts are also budding. just a few days back, Sri had the blinds since its summer and the heat was a bit too much and she asked him "Naana, yaake kitaki off maadi?" (dad, why did you close the window?). Oh God, the "Whys" are starting!

Her memory power is rising exponentially too :-D. I told you how it snowed and got pretty bad when we came back from India. There was pretty bad ice on the roads of our building, so there was a snow machine trying to scrape the ice off. Snugli watched the entire thing with much curiosity. After more than a fortnight, she took out one of her toy trucks and displayed to us the scraping and removing of ice with it. I hadn't realized until then that the toy was actually a snow machine!

She talks, talks and talks. These days she's literally a little suththi master (goes after her mom :-D). As soon as Sri comes home, she narrates the entire day's story to him (not really "day" since he comes home for lunch - so half a day + half a day in the evening). One day she threw a book and I gave her a time out and when he comes home, she tells him "Snigdha book bisadi, Amma timeout kottu, aamele iLi-digu maadi" (Snigdha threw the book, amma gave timeout and then I got down from the chair). These days, whenever we talk to my parents, they are very fond of asking what she did since morning 'cause she says the entire story with an "aaa" (thinking raaga) inbetween :-p. For example - "Beligge eddu, brush maadi..aa.., snaana maadi..aa.., chapathi tindu..aa.., dudhu kudi..aa.., neeru kudi, iLi-digu maaDi, Mickey mouse noDide" (Got up, brushed my teeth, took bath, ate chapathi, drank milk, drank water, got down and saw mickey mouse). Phew!

She not only talks, but she has started singing too. Now a days she doesn't really say rhymes when we ask her to. Instead she keeps singing them while playing on her own. Plus it was Sri's birthday in Feb (yeah I couldn't even write a post for that :( :-\), so since then she absolutely loves the "happy birthday" song and keeps singing it, minimum 4 times a day (yeah I have to buy some ear muffs soon :-p). Since she loves it so much, we make it a point to tell her whose birthday is coming up next, so that she sings the song with their name and later make her sing to that person on their birthday. So our relatives are getting to hear her sing for their birthdays, hehehe :-D.

Her imagination is growing. She does a lot of pretend play - everything from putting her teddy bears to sleep and scolding them for not behaving to making food and serving it to us on plates (she even asks whether we want more :-D).

This one is a bit embarrassing, but here goes. Whenever Sri and I hug/kiss, she comes running from any corner she has been playing quietly in, chanting "Lovvu Lovvu" :-D (she never comes to us when we call her otherwise these days :-p). And yeah then we have to have a group hug and group kiss session, hehehee. I am already dreading the time when she'll start telling everyone "Dad hugged mom today" etc :-\.

This amazes me the most. She has started to recognize brands! Darsh pointed it out to us while we were in India. We were ordering pizza through the Dominos site - Indian counterpart and she said "Pizza" just seeing the logo (its probably due to the fact that we order dominos here too). After we came back, one days she saw the Intel logo in one of our magazines and said "Idu TV alli baruththe" (this comes on TV). Now she even sings the Intel-jingle (Pum-pumpumpumpum) whenever she sees the logo. Other logos she recognizes are JCPenney, Dell (she sings "lollipop lollipop" which is their jingle in an ad), Walmart, Sams Club and Kroger (on magazines, TV and the actual store). She wants to learn more and keeps asking "Idu enu?" (whats this?) for everything and anything.

Whenever she asks "Whats this?", she only expects a one-word answer, she doesn't really want to know details for now, thank God! Whenever she pesters me too much, I say "Ella beku, muduki" (You want to know everything like an old lady :-D). One day got irritated and told her "Ella beku badmaash" (you want to know everything, naughty child) and she corrects me "Badmaash alla muduki" (I am not naughty, I am old lady) :-D. As you can see, she is also growing more naughty :).

Now about the library. As I told you, we started going to the classes about 1.5 months ago. The story time is just for half an hour, but we go there a bit early and leave a bit late so the trip is more than 1 hour. The first time we went there, she was so excited. The children's librarian sings songs, rhymes, reads 1 or 2 books and then have some activities for the kids. Most of the kids sit and listen, but not Snugli. She is so excited that she jumps around, sings with the teacher and does whatever she wants to. I was a bit worried about that, but the teacher said that its fine for her age. They slowly learn how to compose themselves :-D. Anyways, she looks forward to it all the time and now even knows that we pass Sri's office on the way and what turns we need to take to get there and knows when we land at the library :-D.

The latest news is that I have started to take her to swimming lessons - her first class was last Wednesday :). They are not actual lessons at her age, but more of a help-kids-adjust-to-water-and-get-over-their-fear if any. Snugli has always loved water and I knew there wouldn't be any problems there. The problem is getting her out of the pool :-D. Its a parent and baby class, so both Sri and I went with her. The teacher sings songs and tells us to make them kick legs, splash hands, blow bubbles and dip their ears in water (all of which she did on her own in her first class). Man, you should have seen her face the first time she got into the pool :-D. She had so much fun and we had a wonderful time just watching her and playing with her, but threw a tantrum when it was time to get out :-D. Looking forward to the second class :).

What else? She knows and recognizes some of the colours (especially red, orange, pink, purple, black and white, the others - blue, green and yellow, she gets right often, but not every time) and all of the basic shapes (circle, square, rectangle, triangle, diamond and heart). One day when we were going to the library and she saw a heart on a billboard and she shouts - "Amma amma, nodu, alli heart shape" (Mom see, there's a heart shape) :). She has also started to recognize some of the English alphabet letters. I have been trying to make a daily habit of making her write alphabets A to Z and Kannada varnamaale (ಅ to ಅ:) - trying is the key word, with the library timings we try and do the aksharabhyasa atleast thrice per week.