The Joy of Giving

(P.S. I have a couple of long due posts and this is one of them.) 

For about 2-3 months now, Manya has learnt to "give". So if you stretch out your hands towards her and say, "please" or simply just "give", she will most likely give whatever she has in her hand or what is available within her reach (unless she really doesn't like you or is in a very bad mood :). She might expect you to promptly return the possession if it is very prized for her, though ;).

She gives quite happily and readily, and that really warms my heart. And you want to know just how gracious she is? If she has nothing to give and has chewed food in her mouth, she'll just pull out the gooey mess from her mouth and hand it over to you. Yucky, yes! But, I swear it's sooo funny (and cute - yes, I am the biased mom :D). 

Then there are those irritating times, when even if you don't want anything, she wants to "give". So, she will continue shoving things in your hand, on your body, on your face, and waiting for a sing-song "thank you" every single time. Such crazy drives sometimes can last upto 30 minutes. Guess, my next task would be to teach her to STOP giving, until then let's enjoy this season of sharing.

The beginning of anxiety...

For the last couple of days, we have seen a marked change in M's behavior - the earlier babe who would play for 20-30 minutes on her own has now become a wee bit clingy and needs mommy or daddy to be constantly around - in her immediate line of sight. She will either bawl or crawl upto wherever we are. It's kind of cute most times, but sometime ofcourse when things get to whiny, we are flustered. Separation anxiety is a social development milestone and I am not really complaining, but let's see how long this lasts.

Close on the heels of separation anxiety comes stranger anxiety - which has also become increasingly obvious in M's case. If she is approached by someone for the first time, her face shows signing of tearing up - she takes a while to warm up, which was again not the case till a couple of weeks back. The strange part of this is that she smiles at random strangers when on her walks or in stores, but when somebody directly approaches her or talks to her, then she gets all clingy and bothered.

Like they say, this too shall pass.