If you don’t see the video, click here


Credit – *Mark Giesbers *

First of all, 3rd day in a row, Dlittle ate without crying. In a record time of 1 hour and 10 minutes. Yipee!!! I see hope! [Lifting the Anti-jinx logo from Dotmom's.. Thanks DM]


Moving on to the milestone(s)…

The much awaited pearly[borrowing the term from squiggles mom] is here. Yes, just one, the top left. Though it has been playing hide and seek for a while, the official date of its visible presence is declared as the 31st of January. This one pearly is about 3 mm long already and the other adjacent to it shows no signs of emerging any time soon. I just hope one of the 2 lower jaw pearls don’t show up before the second on the upper jaw !!!

The second milestone… She can sit up comfortably all by herself and move anywhere she wants in few seconds. She is still not crawling, but rolls to the point of interest, sits up and gets to business. Business as of now is to taste as many things as she can. The more colorful the object, the better the taste? No wait, the more electronic the object the better it tastes. Yes, iphone, the blackberry with the twinkling light tastes the best I think, remote comes pretty close.

She hit the third milestone yesterday. For the longest time.. ok not really, but this past week she has been trying to stand up by holding on to objects to get that extra push. She did it yesterday. Sitting on the carpet by the couch, she held on to it strongly, kept trying to prop herself up. In about a minute, she stood up. The expression on her face was priceless. She squealed louder than ever on her accomplishment and this newly discovered height is giving her ideas.

The newest fascination? See for yourself. Happened sometime mid January when I went into the kitchen for less than a minute to fetch water. Whats up with kids and remote/phone/wires/laptop? They seem to be born new age compatible.

Mumma, said my 3 year old yesterday evening.
I was telling her that she needs to eat well in order to be strong and healthy. She asks – Then I can have big strong muscles?[Thanks to the gym class in her school. That's material for a whole new post] Sure, yes. Yes beta, muskles[I said it the way some of us pronounce sk(c)hedule. She started laughing and said - You saying it wrong wrong mumma, its not muskle, its muscle. A little later, I was feeding Dlittle her evening meal. As always, she was fussy refusing to open her mouth. I said, Dlittle, you want muscles like Ddidi or not? c'mon open your mouth now. Right then I turned to D and said, hey, see mumma said it correct this time. Muscle, not muskle. She gives a mature smile and says -You are interesting, mumma. INTERESTING? huh!
Late in the night D was busy playing with some stuff. I was telling LH about the interesting conversation we had in the evening. This elephant ear multi tasker, amidst her playing says - papa, you are interesting too!!
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One evening I was planning on making stir fry tofu for dinner. D was playing in the kitchen and was curious to know what we were going to eat for dinner. I showed her the tofu pack, opened it in front of her and said. I am going to cut this into pieces, put a little bit of oil in the pan. When the oil is hot, will put tofu pieces in it and do dar dar.[dar dar is the slang for stirring...] A little bit of salt, pepper and lemon, count 100 and it will be all done, ready to eat.. She asks – can you put some shiken in it? Shiken? chicken???? Mumma does not know how to cook that betu. Did you eat it in school? Do you like chicken? Do your school friends bring chicken to school? I asked.
Yes, mumma she says. I told her we are going to eat tofu today. Next time we eat out, she can eat chicken with papa. She grabs the tofu packet from my hands and says – mumma, read it. See it says. Put tofu in pan. Then put shiken. Then do dar dar. Then only it will be yummy. I am dreading the day she is going to say – mumma, can you put some taste in this..
I felt bad that I don’t cook chicken at home. I used to eat meat, long long ago. I think it was 1995, not very sure. I was staying as a paying guest at my friends place. We went to a nearby store to buy meat, they ran out of it. Thats when I saw the butcher catch hold of a chicken that was running around, and you know what happens next. That was the last day I ate meat. I just couldn’t. During the first few years of marriage, I cooked once in a while. But as time went by I couldn’t handle even the smell and sight of raw meat. I am totally ok with seeing it in cooked format. And have no qualms of accidentally using the spoon that touched the vessel containing chicken Or anything of that sort. But the sight of raw meat just makes me uneasy.
There sure lies a challenge ahead of me. Since the LH eats meat, I am sure D will ask for it sooner or later. And I have absolutely no issues with her eating. The fuss is to cook at home. At the same time, I don’t want to deprive her of home cooked food. A friend had suggested to get pre-cooked nuggets. Will see, will rethink when she shows more genuine interest.

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On a whole different and un-related note, anyone following the primary elections here? Its just getting more and more interesting. Mitt Romney suspending his campaign with the claim of uniting the party, Hillary clinton pulling money out of her own pocket to fund the campaign. Its getting better and betterer.

Hello! and thanks to everyone who has been wondering where I got lost, yet again I am very much here, alive and doing well. Enjoying overdose of sleeping and taking 2008 with a deliberate slow start. Trying to live a slightly more organized [I hear the LH laughing his heart out at the mention of that word..] lifestyle, leading to more time spending on the family front.

Nevertheless, I admit my addiction to blogging, reading more than writing[You see, I am working on the patience quo.. the number one ingredient for writing.. ]. This addiction doesn’t suit my age, but hey thats a perception game. For some, blogs have become the virtual equivalent of chai time talks Tea time talks loaded with intellect on day to day parenting in turn making me wiser[!*?@?] and more aware by the day. What more to ask? So, here I am! Back!

On a different note, this blog is now read by my family members, something I should have done long long back. Just that they never asked for the url and I never gave. It never once hit. This also means that I will update the blog more often, lest my mom calling me at 5:00 in the morning to check if everything was alright as I did not update the blog

Am itching to hop on to your blogs and catch up. Just writing this puts a smiley on my face.