Officially a "tween"!

Or that's what M proclaimed quite proudly this morning. The hurricane is 11 and continuing to turn our lives upside down!

I can begin to distinctly see mood changes or moody behavior. I used to think your kids always smell sweet to you till our pediatrician amusingly told me oh, you'll know! And oh yes, I do know now. :)

But the quintessential mature Manya - the one I can bank on to have my back in an emergency or an urgency, the one who makes the best travel companion, the one who is quick to compromise for the best in the situation, the one who just knows how to make you feel better - that quintessential daughter of mine just continues to shine thru the tantrums and the tween angst - fingers crossed! We have the trial by fire (teenage) awaiting us!

Manya and I are almost the same length, breadth and width now so it is part fun and part annoying stealing each other's shoes, clothes, accessories - as she wears my denims and i try to pull off her high waisted cargoes with cropped sweat shirts - shopping has gotten much more exciting for sure - the one time we are all buddy buddy with no fighting!

She continues to be a champ at school as always. For after school activities, we have closed doors to horse riding and gymnastics. It's piano (she's onto her 5th year now!), coding, and swimming for now.

Love you to bits Manya, continue rocking!

We are 10!

 Hello double digits. 

- We are 10 and we know it all. 

- Mom and Dad are no longer cool. 

- Friendships run strong.

- Other things not cool: Pink, Glitter, Frills

- What is very cool: Anime, Black - all shades of black :D, and all things Kawaii!

- Dream destination: Japan - because anime, duh!

- Roblox is the new Minecraft. 

- We stand tall and can't wait to surpass mom's height.

- Best co-traveller ever. Loves new experiences.

- A bit of that teenage whiny noise finds it's way and mom shuts it down immediately. 

- Overwhelming emotions sometimes - mostly when asked to clean the room.

- Horseriding, coding, gymnastics, swimming, piano - we do it all. Slave driver. Mom's the slave :D.

- We are still cuddly and snuggly but mostly at bedtime and in the morning. Any other time love yous or kisses are exchanged, mom's just sappy.

- We love writing fiction! Oh I am so proud of her writing. The genre is usually horror or something but the vocabulary and the plot complexities promise to keep you hooked!

- Fits into mom's shoes, steals mom's clothing even. 

Can't wait to see what the decade brings. Actually, scratch that, can wait :)

Last of the single digit birthdays!

 She is nine!

At home celebrations again this year - as everybody continues to mask.

- She is growing and every now and then I observe the baby face fading away. Tall but very huggable still :).

- Lot of missing teeth - finally!

- She's doing very well in school - Has joined the high capability - Discovery program at school and is acing it. Loves to read and write. Her writing has just flourished - her vocabulary, complexity of thought and emotion portrayed just blows me away! So very proud of her.

- Wanted a black bike with gears for her birthday - Though she still loves the occassional dresses, I can see the pink and glittler moving into oblivion on most days. Has her own sense of style - for some reason she loves sunglasses :). Still kinda likes jewellery and accessories.

- Minecraft has been big this year. Lot of online gaming with friends. It can be very educational mom, she tells me. Oh well, we know how that goes!

- Restarted swim after the pandemic break, piano doing great. Two big new additions this year - horseback riding and gymnastics!

- I see the obsession with politics easing off as the election madness has died down.

- Guess who is the new selfie queen in the house? My phone and ipad are filled with tonnes of selfies she's been taking! It's very very amusing.

Can't believe we are at the end of the single digits already!

Milestone Update - 8

 At 8, M is impossible :). But more here:

- She is tallish for her age - no longer tiny weight wise - she matches up at her height percentile and that is huge!

- She has lost 2 more baby teeth this year (totalling 4 till date).

- She no longer believes in magic, fairies, santa etc etc. She's, at most times, a ruthless pragmatic typhoon on steroids - go figure!

- She's going thru an intense politics phase! 

- Loves her piano - we are onto our second year of lessons!

- Thanks to COVID we have stopped swimming - physical games and exercising is something Manya does only because she must ;) She blames lack of comapny - I blame lack of will!

- She is strong willed and opinionated - we have our more than fair share of tiffs but makeup is mosly quick with snuggles and cuddles and kisses - While I keep hoping the first part becomes better- I pray the latter never changes!

- She loves travelling and like her parents has a never ending list of places she simply must visit.

- She continues to be a reader! Reads a wide variety too! We still continue our bedtime mom and daughte reading and it is one of the more special moments of our day - I really wish we both continue this forever :)

- She loves her gadgets - though thanks to online schooling - she is not as much into electronics over the weekends - she has developed interests in coding, pencil sketching, sewing.

- Earlier this year, she gave her room a complete makeover - the barbie dream house, the kitchen, 90% of her soft toys, her doll closets, barbies, LOLs, play dressers etc etc all were thrown out - I am too old for this stuff mom! Her room now has mainly a four poster bed with a delicate blue canopy, a huge L shaped desk, her piano, a small bunk bed for her American Girl dolls , a few toys and some paraphernalia around all this. Much much easier to clean but I miss the stuffies that I had curated over the years! Sigh! She is also into puzzles, LEGOs, board games, card games etc.  

- The other big change has been clothing - she tries to copy my wardrobe many a times - has ordered two pair of jeans that are exactly like what I have. Has a cable knit sweater dress like mom. Likes more chic clothing compared to the pinks, purples, glitter and frills of the earlier years! 

She can't wait to grow up and I can wait a lot longer :)

Milestone update - 7

I don't know how many times a parent must say and wonder how time flies. Well it does, and it seems to get ahead of itself, if that was possible.

So what is our little 7 year old upto...

- Social, pragmatic, diplomatic - M is a joy to have. She is feisty, rebellious, and extremely sassy too especially at home - she is no goody two shoes all the time - but she is genuinely warm and kind. So go figure who she is - she is a hurricane with the right intentions mostly - haa!

- She started a new hobby this year - piano! She judiciously practices and seems to be enjoying it for the last couple of months and let's see where this musical journey takes her.

- Lost her two baby teeth! and gained a couple of inches - she does stand tall and threaten my position as number 2 tallest in our family of 3. ;)

- I think we have a reader here and quite a decent writer too (when she feels inspired enough that is). Horror as a genre fascinates her to no end.

- I feel the princess phase is kind of mellowing down and we might be on the pharaoh stage now - she wants to rule! But on a serious note - i think her mind is wandering beyond glitter and pink - literally and figuratively. She loves all her girlie accessories still but is embracing mustards and auburns and denims again, which is a welcome relief.

- She loves being out and about and busy - we have activities 2 days a week, another day she stays back at school for after school clubs (currently - Robotics), 2 other days she has recurring play dates most weeks - and she still thinks has has time for gymnastics, spanish, and what not. I had heard of overscheduling parents - ever heard of overscheduling kids?

- BabyCenter sent me an email this mornign congratulating me that I have now entered the most rewarding phase as a parent - well I am not celebrating yet - Agreed Manya is a great companion for most things - travel, car rides, conversations, activities, etc etc - but does she has an opinion or what. And she is defiant. My ears seldom hear, "Yes mom" at the first go. So many times anything that i say is replied by something that begins with But or However or No or How about. The sass, and sarcasm, and attitude all combined with this beautiful heart and intelligence is a deadly combination!

The third year milestone!

Manya is three, and here are some highlights:

• She talks, and she talks, and she talks :D. You get the drift. With quite an extensive vocabulary, M manages to impress most people with her conversation skills (not sure where that comes from? umm, think again...:p)

• Manya loves drawing, painting - her weekly art classes help her channel that enthusiasm. Almost every day, you can see her engaged with her crayons, markers and even pencils. I have been particular about encouraging free hand - I don't give her drawing books to draw within lines or trace patterns or connect dots. And am glad with this approach, she draws and paints a lot of abstract - dark stormy nights, spooky voices, sunsets. She draws monster faces, dinosaurs (stegosaurus is her favorite), and all by herself she has started drawing rectangles, circles, ovals and triangles and the letters - A, m, N, Z, b, O, P, Q, q, T, I, U, V, X, and the numbers 0, 1, 2, 3, 7.  She loves doing little projects like wrapping boxes, making cards, cutting (which she has still not mastered) and gluing stuff etc.

• Eating is a dicey topic still - she loves her standard breakfast of milk, egg, and fruit on most days. Red sauce pasta, spaghetti, peas and rice, tofu, bread butter, yogurt smoothies, blue berries, apples, bananas, strawberries, spinach and yellow daal are her favorites. White lindt chocolate truffles and gold wrapped chocolate coins along with orange ice bars are her favorite junk!

• Manya loves books, and we are a regular feature at the library - she likes all kinds - stories, non fiction - especially if they are about animals, reptiles, sea creatures etc.

• She has eclectic (;)) taste in clothes (we are thankfully still not in the princess phase - and am so not looking forward to it!) and toys - she loves her stuffed toys, dollies, legos, puzzles, fire engine etc all equally.

• She loves the swing, slide, monkey climber at the park. She also mastered cycling her tricycle towards the latter half of this year.

• We are fully potty trained (finger crossed) and are hoping no relapses happen.

• We still have only 16 pearly whites - 4 more baby teeth are eagerly awaited (but show no sign of arrival). That's exactly where we were on her second birthday, by the way!

• Tall and thin seems to be the mantra still - Mommy is just learning to fret less about the thin aspect.

• Emerging personality traits: Cheerful, social, happy to be around people, smart enough to manipulate people and their reactions (;)); can and will use emotions to alter situations in her favor, total drama queen (I love you, M); tantrums are usually because of lack of sleep or hunger or too much boring stuff going around - they don't last long if attended to efficiently; chirpy with almost everyone, displays love and affection openly and very often; can hold her own in an argument/discussion, very very observant and inquisitive.

So, we herald the tiring threes :D.

M at 27 months

I did miss posting updates at the 2 year mark - better late than never, huh?

We are quite comfortably settled in our Terrible Twos, and it is well, terrible, and ofcourse a lot of other things too!

• I cannot not mention that M is a great talker - she copies what we say - most of the times she gives us back, quite literally, in the right context. Her vocabulary is growing at lightening speed - her sentences are well formed, grammatically complete (and often grammatically correct) - and you know most of it, if you read the latest posts - looks like her conversations are going to to overshadow most of our posts on this blog.

• M has 16 teeth - a big achievement, considering she cut her first tooth somewhere after the 14th month. Four more to go for our cub.

• M's taste in food - varieties, textures etc. keeps changing. She doesn't eat much, as has always been the case, but I must give her her due - she doesn't shy away from trying new stuff. At present, her favorites are peas-rice, fruit loops with milk, chickpeas, blueberries, bread-butter, and bananas - and apple juice! She has been offered junk but doesn't seem to care much for it - she once in a while does ask for chips, chocolates, MnMs and the likes, I don't resist and let her have - I have seen she barely has a few bites of anything - so long so good, eh?

• She has finally taken a liking to her tricycle - she tries to pedal but is not able to complete one rotation of the pedal - I have not made any effort to teach her either - that has been parked for the summer (and for daddy, perhaps!). She plays catch with a ball, quite well. Loves hide-n-seek (though refuses to hide - she only want to "seek"). Loves the slides at the park (a big no to the swings). She has recently shown inclination for long walks while she's in the stroller - this after all these months and months of refusing to sit on it! Also, her highness likes the wind in her hair - she runs in the park with the cold breeze swirling her hair, and then she says, so delightfully, "Mommy, see how Manya is running with the wind."

• M is into a lot of pretend-and-play. I must do a separate post on this. She cooks, cleans, is even a doctor! (I think she needs the right tools now ;)) She also pretends to be characters from her favorite cartoon shows and books. She has quite a huge collection of soft toys and loves playing with them too - she talks to them mostly as I do to her. M also sings a lot of nursery rhymes and introduces a twist every now and then - this too in another post.

• While still on the playing topic, we are looking to upgrade her puzzles - she aces the simple wooden puzzles that require shapes, animals etc to be fit in - she does the shape sorter very well - except the heart shape - which "just does not go in", apparently! The stacking rings are also almost in order, and only yesterday she remarked, "I need more puzzles." :o:O

• Play dough, crayons, sidewalk chalks are the top favorite activities right now - we did some paints too but very messy!

• We have begun potty training with zero luck so far. She loves her Dora pot and stool but refuses to do anything at all. In her words, "it all gets stuck inside." Looks like this is going to be another summer project!

• She continues to be tall for her age and much lower than average for her weight but I have finally stopped fretting - her pediatrician quite encouragingly tells me, "she looks thin, because everybody else is obese!" Oh well, if you put it that way...

• Personality traits right now: mostly outgoing, yet selective when it comes to warming up (with children her age, she refuses to engage in any kind of talk or activity), loves talking, expresses well, quick to love, hug and kiss (I have a post coming up on that for sure), has a bad temper - I mean a really bad one - accompanied with a tantrum and lot of mean spoken stuff (I don't love mommy - I don't want to be with you, I don't want to behave properly - you get the picture!), adamant and stubborn - be it deciding what she wants for her meals or when she wants them, what she want to play, when she wants to nap, sleep, what she wants to watch/read, and so on - she clearly knows what she wants and often does not settle for alternatives easily.

God bless us.

(P.S. One thing that this motherhood has surely changed in me is that I tend to seek God a lot more than in those footloose days :p.)

Mommy is not being lazy!

I am sure if M could read, she'd nod her head in disapproval at the lack of posts on this blog and she'd definitely reiterate what she keeps egging me on with these days - get up, lazy - please, lazy - she suffixes lazy when telling me something to do so many times that I actually shout back saying I am not lazy!

So, if mommy is not being lazy - what has she been busy doing - well we just moved - bag and baggage - to the west coast all the way from the east. It has been a crazy month and we are yet to settle down - as they say! You can read more about the first impressions in my blog post here. 

I have like a trillion updates pending - some from before our move - and some from the move (I am sure you are dying to know all about the nightmare Madame's first flight experience was) - and a few from our brief stay here in Portland! I will have all of these coming in the next few days, I promise!

M at 18 months!

We are well into the path that leads us to the Terrible Twos! Our chipmunk is a volcano of activities and has new tricks and words up her sleeve almost every single day - It is actually getting tough to keep account of all these sweet nothings and terrifying naughtiness!!

Let's see what all I can remember!

• I have to start with M's vocabulary - It is growing by leaps and bounds - she picks up new words all the time - like a little sponge absorbing everything, She has started applying the words in context and can hold a conversation with one word and two-word phrases. I must do a post on the kind of conversations we have. Up next!

• She runs all over the place, climbs over chairs and tables, threatens to dive down and then jumps up and down as onlookers suffer panic attacks. She makes Vish or me lie down on our backs and then mauls us like no tomorrow - gosh - I wonder where all the energy comes from.

• As always our skinny and leggy baby is very conscious of what she eats - greens, fruits being her favorites. Apart from cheese anything remotely fattening does not suit her taste buds! I am done getting worried now - there's only so much one can worry!

• We have started going for walks and to the park very regularly now _ I must do another post on all the fun we have! Our very social diva stops to wave hi at every single person and vehicle. Dogs get a hug too!

• M has started playing independently a lot more. She does various pretend-and-play sessions with her soft toys and doll. Loves the shape sorter activity and her wooden puzzles too. I think she just might be read for more dolls, kitchen sets and the likes! Which reminds me she does have an airplane but needs cars - she has been showing a growing fondness for them!

• Generally a happy and affectionate kid, she has still not gotten over her stranger anxiety - some days she is great - some days there's downright bawling. The latter happens more often when we visit peoples' houses. However, after the first 15 minutes or so, she warms up pretty well.

• Now the tantrums  - Madame does have quite the temper. She walks away in anger if she doesn't like what I am telling her. She sometimes throws herself on the floor crying - though this has reduced quite a bit because she knows that way she is not getting anything that way (fingers crossed now). Most times, she is very persistent with what she wants and does not get distracted easily. Also, since she has the language advantage, it is very difficult for me to pretend as if I don't get what she's saying :D. I mean if someone's screaming "water - play" - anybody would put 2 and 2 together ;)!

• We need to now get some non-toxic paints and crayons to engage her more constructively - she has done enough of sorting potatoes and onions, arranging diapers, unloading dishes, laundry, and "cooking" :). 

Phew - I think that's about it. I just realized I need to write up a couple of posts else I'll lose lot of the small details to memory. Soon. Soon.

Everything's a Chase Game!

That Manya is the epitome of naughtiness would be an understatement. The mischievous twinkle in her eyes 24/7 and the squeals of delight when she has accomplished what she is not supposed to give her away. 

I have so many updates to make that one post wouldn't just be enough. So, will stick to her chase games in this one.

Everything, I repeat, everything is a chase game. There is not a single activity that I can do without having to chase her around the house. It starts the minute she wakes up. The moment her highness opens her eyes (which is usually at about 5:30/6 AM), she wants me to be up and about - asap. No snooze time at all - she is ruthless. Any resistance from me is met with a high decibel scream, followed by her exit from the bed and out of the bedroom door. I have to run after her, bring her back to bed, place her with daddy - bring her some toys and then finish my morning routine first. 

After that, at the first and every diaper change, the same game follows. I plonk her on her changing pad, put the straps on - she wiggles, and wriggles, and in the nano second that I turn around to either pull out a new diaper, wipe or her cream, she is off!!! Her joyful screams are met with Vish's paranoid ones as he is scared about what if she does something on the carpet!

We go to the kitchen and dining area for the morning milk. She will snuggle and cuddle till I fix the lid of her sipper. That's her clue - she knows I am ready - so she takes off. After a chase around the living room, we settle down for milk. This is again repeated religiously at all meal times.

Cut to nap times. "Manya, let's go to sleep." And there she goes running to the other end. I am telling you if I do not shed all my extra weight because of this, it would only be due to the fact that I am a certified glutton!

Wondering if the game is never reversed? If M doesn't chase us. She does. When Vish and I are changing our clothes, or if we are just out of a bath, or if she spots some bare parts when we are sleeping or lazying on the couch - she rushes to us to pinch all the bare skin she can lay her hands on - she claws at it and giggles till no end. Oh how it hurts. We have tried to say no in a hundred ways but somehow she doesn't get it. (And please, don't you dare say children do what they see because I swear Vish and I don't go around pinching each other!!!) 

Oh god, the games these children play :(!