Arya's walking!

Arya started walking. On 19th April, 2012, the day he turned 15 month old, he took his first steps from the sofa chair to the wooden table – a distance of 3 baby steps. We kept smiling and encouraging him all the time. He knew he was doing something special and loved the attention he was getting.

Actually his self-training began by holding the rear bar of his bike and walking. We also held his hand so that he could get his confidence up.

But the sofa to table was his first independent adventure. I loved it. After that there was no stopping. The distance kept on increasing with a few more baby steps, every time he did it. The first week was an unbalanced, tilted to one side, sometimes leaning behind walk, resulting in his falling down. If he saw anything he liked, he'd let go of walking to simply crawl to it faster. He kept losing his balance when he saw something exciting.

Yesterday he learned to rise up from the floor and walk. (Oh, the earlier walk was when he was already standing holding on to some furniture.) The same evening, he learnt to hold an object in one hand and lift himself up with the other. Now he can turn directions, talk and carry objects while walking!

His latest try was to hold a big ball in both his hands and get up from the floor, something he couldn’t do yesterday. But judging by the rate that he is going now, he will learn that quickly too. I think he is trying to compensate for the time lost in the last few months!

And yes, I am congratulating myself too for not bringing the pressure on my child to walk sooner, although I was so eager!

Quick, cross your fingers, it’s the mail van!

Childhood. I wish I could go back to those days, or at least see them as a movie on a projector screen. I want to remember small things I did back then.

My mom still remembers her childhood. She had 7 siblings and they stayed in a joint family of another 4 siblings with their parents. Some days were good, some were bad. In a good phase they got to cook what they want, got clothes stitched during Diwali, got chappals to wear, etc. The other days they were not so lucky. Yet, whenever she recollects her childhood, there is a spark in her eyes, saying, “Amcha lahanpana sarkha anandi lahanpan konacha nasel. Asa vatata ki parat lahan vhava, Akka swayampak karat disavi ani amhi khelat rahavot!” (“No one might have had a happy childhood like ours. I feel like becoming a kid again, to see my mother cooking in the kitchen, and to play with my sisters.”). She called her mom ‘Akka’.

 She once told me that whenever they saw a mail van (Red van by Indian Postal Office) or a Fire engine, they crossed their fingers. It meant that they would get “Khau (Sweets)” when they got back home in the evening. Actually even I and my friends believed this during our school days. We crossed our fingers when we saw the red van, however we rarely thought of looking for sweets when we got back home. It was different back then for my mom, as her parents barely made ends meet. Some days she did get a surprise and felt good for remembering to cross her fingers.

Come to think of it, what does that van have to do with sweets? It brought letters from relatives and loved ones far off – carrying good news and updates. People might be distributing sweets on hearing from them. And so the custom.

Nowadays we don’t crave for sweets so much, as we keep buying them whenever we want to. Also, these Red Post Office vans have become so rare, with the surge of internet, emails, phones, etc. that we have forgotten that they ever existed!

But then today, while coming to the office, I happened to see this red van going merrily on its way. I crossed my fingers on a sudden reflex, without thinking what I was doing. After a few minutes I told Yogesh that we are going to get sweets today evening, because we saw the van! He might have assumed that it was yet another whimsical thought of mine, and kept driving ahead.


So, will I get sweets today?

Tears? Why?

I was always an emotional person. There’s always some reason for me to feel terribly happy or terribly sad.

One source of the sad feelings is the news. I try, but I can’t keep myself away from TV news or online news sites. I do not log into news sites per se, but Yahoo, Gmail or Rediff give latest happenings on their home pages / personalized pages.

The most recent reason for my grieving is reading about Baby Falak’s demise.

I initially read about this on TOI website. After that I could not help but read about the baby’s condition every morning when I came to office. If I knew she was about to have yet another major surgery I would also check on the site how it went and how she was coping up. I have felt so much sympathy for her – I almost felt connected to her. I couldn’t believe what she went through - suffering and enduring so much pain when she should be smiling and playing, getting adored for her small baby antics. Falak’s story had gripped the entire world. Many wanted to adopt her post release from hospital, despite her medical condition later.

Be it motherhood or the fact that I am a woman; I cannot bear to see any child in pain, missing from home, or physically abused. Luckily, I didn’t have to do moral policing to other parents ‘cause I have a very good friends and family circle around me who treat their kids like angels.

When I heard that Falak has passed away, I couldn’t keep the tears away. I feeling sorry for her, or wanting punishment for the culprits does not erase what she might have gone through when she was being treated like that. I don’t want to hope for her go to heaven, because heaven should be experienced when you are alive.

And now there is another similar story about Baby Afreen. Again I haven’t yet logged in to new sites to read about her. It is on email home pages. Media sensationalizes such news to get more hits on their web pages.

Such baby-battering cases are social issues that I hope we overcome in years to come.

Meanwhile I am trying to keep myself away from tragic stories.

Arya at 15 months old

Long time since I have posted something about Arya and his progress. I want to write it somewhere to remember it in a few years...

Walking:

Enough!!! He is testing my patience! It’s a big wait for me to see him start walking. I have heard from other mommies that once he starts it, I would get no rest. Ideally I should be happy to wait.

Teething:

He has sprouted 4 teeth now and can bite. Whenever he wants to show love, he bangs his head on mine, scratch my face with nails that I had cut yesterday, or bite me on hands, legs and face. I have read that I should not encourage this behavior, and I don’t, yet he is not showing signs of slowing down!

Talking:

He talks a lot in a baby language saying, “Mum mum mum” very clearly although not to me. He says it to the person he wants work done from, like hoisting him up so he could see what’s cooking in the kitchen.

He can say AAI (again not to me). But he knows who’s-who now. He looks at the right person when we say – “Pappa kuthe aahet (Where is your dad?)” Or “Go to your mom.”

He understands simple sentences like “Paani pii” and searches for his sipper and to drink water from it.

These days he is doing babb babb babb babb with his lips and ‘Ha Ha Ha’ at the end of Johnny Johnny.

Mangal has taught him to do boova ala, making an ‘O’ with his lips pulled inside his mouth!

Peekaboo!:

He loves peekaboo! Okay - all babies do. But it is real fun to play it with your own baby. And they seem to take it so seriously. (Did I write about this before?). To start the game I just need to say “Arya kuuuuthe??” OR “Mee kuuthe” (Where’s Arya?/Where am I?)

When I say the former, he knows that he is supposed to hide. He takes only 2 spots to hide, either behind our kitchen half-wall or between the curtains.

He crawls and sits behind the kitchen wall at the same spot each time, eagerly looking over the corner with eyes wide and alert, smiling all the time. The moment you say “Sapadla” (Caught), he laughs so much, sometimes touching his head to the ground or rolling on the floor (ROFL – only babies can do it).

The other spot is the curtains. He cannot really move them and go behind yet. He just goes and sits in between the folds, clearly visible to everyone in the house. Me or Yogesh have to still say “Arya kuthe, Arya kuthe (Where’s Arya)”, looking in all directions but one. And then shout “Sapadla”, starting the giggles all over again.

There is yet another way he has devised all by himself! He just goes and sits right behind you, either leaning his back on yours, or sitting facing it, for you to search him. You have to look around and pretend to search him for a while until he slowly pokes his head and shows himself, laughing all the while. This is a sweet trap though… he repeats this as long as he has your back accessible and you can’t say no.

He also looks for us throughout the house and loves when we jump out of hiding.

Cricket:

He has a plastic bat and different balls to play Cricket with. He pretty much smashes the ball with all his force using the bat. This is a single person play. He hits the ball and crawls speedily with the bat in hand behind it to hit it again. Sometimes we help by throwing the ball to him.

At times we find him lying facing down on the floor and his bat extended below the sofa or the table trying to nudge the ball out (Who taught him this?). BTW Cricket can also be played with brooms and onions too, if you do not have bat and ball. Who knew?

Chicken:

Arya has a toy chicken. Actually it is a cock. It flaps it wings and runs ahead when we pull its string. We’ve had many laughs at the expense of this toy. Sometimes it runs in the kitchen and we say that it wants us to it. Arya beats it up a lot, tries to remove its wings, and sometimes pushes it very hard for it to run ahead. The cock just lies there ‘cause it was lying sidewise in the first place. Arya beats it up all over again.

I hope all these sweet memories never fail me in future. I also know that I will collect more and more such sweet things to remember each day.