Birthday bonanzas

Raghav's various birthday parties have certainly left an indelible mark on him. Yesterday he was in a terribly good mood, and despite the fact that we didn't do much all day he was jumping and skipping and dancing at home all evening. While I was cooking and Nalin was working, Raghav busied himself with this and that and would only come to me to show me something clever that he had done.

He put a chopstick in his football (in that indentation where the air is filled) and sat and sang "Happy Birthday" to himself. As soon as I saw him do that I remembered that he had a football shaped cake on his birthday, and that we had put candles on it and sang Happy Birthday to him.

Another invention of the chopstick was when I gave him a piece of apple to eat, he put his chopstick through it and ate it like that ! I don't think he's ever seen anyone eat fruit like that.

The Boy and the Whistle

On the birthday that was celebrated in his class, Nalin and Nitin had carried some whistles for the kids. Throughout the party, Raghav was stuck with obsessively trying to blow that whistle. There was another kid who was able to do it, and Raghav seemed obsessed with trying to do it as well. He was able to unfurl it by blowing into it, but he couldn't get it to produce any noise. Even while the birthday song is being sung, all he's doing is blowing the whistle. Even when it was time to blow the candles, he's trying to blow the candles while the whistle is still in his mouth. The video then shows either Nalin or Nitin taking out the whistle from his mouth, and when he's finished with blowing out the candles and clapping for his birthday song, he goes right back to demanding the whistle back.

Jabber jabber

Raghav has started talking a lot since we got back from India. Not only does he repeat what we say to him, he also repeats what we say to each other. Some of the things he has repeated off us were... “Don’t worry, dadi !”, “Forget it”, “Bangalore.. theek nahi” and then “Bangalore achcha hai”. Not only does he just repeat things, he’s often actually understanding them. It’s possible now to explain things to him and give him a reason why, for instance, we cannot go to the pool today, or that his dinosaur t-shirt is dirty and that he cannot wear it today.

He has also become far more opinionated. For the past two days he has become more interested in the clothes he wears and always asks for clothes he recognises – his dinosaur t-shirt, dog t-shirt, B shorts, boat t-shirt, “wheel bus” t-shirt. He doesn’t like simple clothes with just stripes etc. Even when you’re trying to put him to bed, he will demand a certain t-shirt that he has just remembered. But sometimes when he’s making a demand in the morning for a certain t-shirt, you can explain to him that he needs to wear his uniform and he will not argue.

He has also become loud and opinionated in what he wants us to do. When he’s trying to sleep, he will order us “Daddy, lie down !”, pointing to the single bed in his room. After coming back from India, he had got used to sleeping with us in our bed, but now he has to sleep in his cot. In Singapore, for the first few weeks, he wanted to either sleep on the bed in his room alongwith Nalin, or he wanted either Nalin or me to sleep on the bed, while he slept in his cot. But now, he gets upset when we leave him in his cot and come out and he starts crying, but I can now explain to him that mamma’s cooking or that daddy is having his dinner, or that mamma-daddy are going to sleep in their own room, and that Raghav everyday sleeps in his bed, he seems to get it and lies down quietly.

He also went through a major Daddy phase, where he wanted daddy to do everything for him. He wasn’t well for a little while, and he wanted only daddy to pat him or pick him up or change him etc etc.

Such fun jumping with didi !

The cutest thing he does now is when he sings his nursery rhymes. He can sing full sentences now, even though he doesn’t talk full sentences as a habit yet. He can sing the whole Twinkle Twinkle, if only repeating “like a diamond in the sky” twice instead of singing ‘up above the world so high”. But when you sing with him, he seems to know all the words and tries to sing the whole song. He knows “Baba black sheep” and the ABC song. Every other day he also tells me to sing a song that I haven’t actually taught him, and that I know he has picked up from school, like “Ringa ringa”, or “This is way we brush our teeth”, or “Row row” which I used to sing for him very long back, but he certainly can’t remember it from them. His current favourite is “Wheels on the Bus”. He has watched it enough times on the computer at dadaji’s place, and then on the iPad a few times. He also has it on his song CD at home. He tells you which line he wants you to sing. He says “swish swish” for the line “wipers on the bus”, or “wah wah” for “baby on the bus” and so on.

He has become more agile in the playground, climbing quite a bit of the monkey ladder and hanging from bars here and there. He also loves to sit on the wheel there or make me sit on it, while he sits behind me, saying “mamma drive”. And then he makes me sing “wheels on the bus”. Going to the playground is an everyday feature now after school, and he gets very upset if you don’t let him go. The only way you can drive him away from it is if you say the other magic words “biscuit” “cake” “Robinji” or “pool”.

Loves his umbrella. Carries it everywhere !

We have bought him a “boy doll” from Ikea. He liked the little black boy with curly hair and we now call him Baby Raka. He seems to quite enjoy it. He shares his toys with it, indulges me when I feed it apples and then tries to do the same, he makes it “sit” (propped against the sofa) while he plays with his train – like they’re really playing together. I can even get him to brush his teeth if I pretend to brush Baby Raka’s teethe first. He also puts Baby Raka on the pot and then asks me get the wipes to wipe its bum. He asked me to put the reducer the other day on the big pot and then make Baby Raka sit on that. Thanks to all this, he has started sitting on the big pot before he goes to sleep. He doesn’t do anything yet, but it’s still a start. But we were shocked that he knows exactly what needs to be done when one does pee-pee and poo-poo (sit on the pot, wipe with the toilet paper, flush) but he won’t do it himself. In fact, I always thought that he thinks sitting on the big pot is only for adults, but the other day he got Baby Raka to sit on the big pot as well, so he does know it’s something he should be doing also (but is probably too busy to do just yet). He was getting Baby Raka to do exercises with daddy this morning, “baby shoulders !” when daddy did stretching exercised for his shoulders, and “baby push-up !” when daddy did push-ups.

At school, his teacher tells us that he’s a very enthusiastic, happy child, always willing to participate in class. Even in the Chinese lessons he’s eager to learn, even though he doesn’t know any Chinese at all, while the other kids in class speak it. He might not eat his food happily, but drinks his milk like a fish. He also loves the afternoon snack, maybe because it’s usually cake.

Was too scared to feed the elephant
himself, but squealed in delight
every time daddy did.

There was a complaint about him from school the other day. A little girl (we later came to know it was a boy), called Eee-e (or something), came whining and clutching her ear which was red. Raghav was in her vicinity, so the teacher assumed that Raghav was involving in some sort of pinching or pulling. She asked Raghav to say sorry, and he didn’t, and when she insisted he started crying. But he came and told us about it later when we asked him, and kept saying “Eee-e sorry”. And now the teacher says that every time someone does something wrong in class, Raghav jumps in and starts saying sorry !

He has started telling me a lot more about school now. He tells me the names of his friends, and that he “shared” with them – I think it’s also something they learn at school, because while earlier sharing only meant that when he wanted something he would shout “share share”, and when I would ask him to share something with someone else he’d say “no !”, whereas now he willingly shares his toys with other kids and even tries to involve Baby Raka in his games; of course only to change his mind seconds later and want his toys back. Usually, his conversation about school is about “milk finish” and about who fell and got hurt where (“Ankita gir, Ankita chot knees”).

He's convinced the monkeys were eating mishri,
because of the way they were eating their nuts from the
palms of their hands.

He met his friend from class yesterday just as we were leaving the pool, and they both stopped and started laughing at seeing each other. Raghav kept pointing to him and telling me his name “daiche” (Dongje?) or something, and the other kid kept laughing at having met Raghav, like “hey, what’re you doing here!”.

At school they do a lot of activities like making bubbles, cutting out various shapes, identifying body parts... and he comes and tries to tell me over the week what they did. I only understand a bit of what he says when I look at his school worksheet and what they’ve been doing the past week.

He is great at remembering things. Shreya’s mum Manjeri had left for us a bag of Shreya’s toys before they left for New York, and as soon as he saw Shreya’s ball, Raghav said “Shreya ball”, even though he had only played with it once in her house, over a month ago.

Every time he sees daddy wear a belt, he says “formal belt” because when we were going to Jaipur, Nalin had asked Nitin to buy him a formal belt from CP, and Papa and Nitin had taken Raghav to buy the formal belt for daddy. So he tells you the whole story, “formal belt, chacha, dadaji drive”.

Also, every time I put powder on his back, he says “nani powder” because he saw the same powder bottle at Nani’s place in Fatehpur, and even though I have never told him that nani gave this powder for Raghav.

He had a fun time at the zoo when we went recently, and still remembers things from there, like when he fed banana to the elephant, and carrots to the giraffe, and that the rhino (he says the full word "rhino ceros", like that, with a space in between) was sleeping, and that the leopard was having a bath (there was a little stream in his cage), and that he sat in the pram and we went to Robinji. We bought him an umbrella there, which he has badly wanted ever since he saw one at Nihal's place in Delhi. He now takes it everywhere with him -- to school and even tries to take it to the mall -- and his small orange backpack that was a birthday gift.

Raghav is Two

Blowing the candles with didi

Little Raghav turned Two a few days ago. He has already celebrated his birthday twice, with two massive birthday cakes, and will be celebrating it a third time today at playschool.

We were in India with family and friends during the time, and Raghav was too busy and excited all month to eat anything or sleep on time.

In Fatehpur, he first tried to grow familiar with his Nana, much to Nani's disappointment. First, he was very impressed with Nana's scooter and wanted to ride it all the time, then whenever Nana came home from the clinic he followed him round the house while Nana took off his shoes and changed his clothes etc. and told him all that he had done during the day.

His no. 2 cake. It also had a bee on it.

His monosyllabic dialogue mostly comprised "chot" and "gir"... when and how Raghav fell and how he was hurt, and his potty concerns, among others. (For some reason he is obsessed with the two phenomenon; his first full sentence also was "I fall down" at the emergency room while we were waiting one Sunday afternoon for someone to come and dress the slight injury which he had sustained quite innocently at a mall earlier.) He's also very repetitive, carrying on with the same thing again and again, perhaps not sure yet whether people understand him clearly or not. But even though he doesn't speak full sentences yet, there's never a moment when we don't understand what he wants. Since we've come back from the India trip, he's been going on chanting "i-pad i-pad", which I'm conveniently hearing as "apple". (Robin and Leslie have given him a baby i-pad for his birthday, but after observing it for a good two minutes and trying to move the icons like he knows how to do on a real i-pad, he realised it was "for babies" and he abandoned it and has not returned to it since.)

The famous cow that came to eat "patatha"

His Nani thinks he has a fantastic memory and it's remarkable how he can connect things. Even now when we speak to Nani on the phone, he remembers all the things they did in Fatehpur -- "Nani teeka", "Nani pooja", "mishi" (Nani used to give him mishri), "Nana office", "Nana scooter" and then of course the cow coming for a snack incident. It has perhaps left such a lasting impression on his mind that very often he remembers it and says "cow patatha", "cow brkfast" and "cow blessyou" (when the cow had sneezed in his face and I had encouraged him to say "bless you!").

Throughout the vacation he also asked about his school friends -- Fefe?, Shreya?, Teacher? and sometimes even Kaku (Shreya's dad)-- and only when I assured him that everyone was asleep and had sent messages for Raghav to sleep, too, was he satisfied. After the Fatehpur trip, while in Delhi, he asked about his friends in Fatehpur -- Madhu? Mohii? (Mohini) and Changu, and sometimes Sanoni (Saloni). When he first saw Changu with his two ponytails he thought it was Fefe and started calling him Fefe and going and hugging him etc. Changu never played with him, but continued to be Raghav's favourite, and when I told him "he never plays with you, still you keep going Changu Changu", he started calling him Changu Changu, thinking that was his name.

Delhi was so insanely exciting for him that he actually had no time to sleep or eat, and so he only ate what he just could not refuse (cake, apple, juice, biscuit) and slept only when everyone else had fallen asleep, creating a very upset Mamma. I once smacked him on his head when he had just refused to sleep after some four vain attempts from me, and he went out to the living room where everyone was sitting and said "mamma chot" and did the being smacked-on-the-head action for everyone to understand, much to my embarrassment.

A make-up kiss after an afternoon of fighting.

He knows all about birthdays, even before he had his. I was lighting the gas one day, and it lit only half when I stepped in to blow on it and light it all the way; and he saw me and said "Happy Birthday", and then when I asked him more, he finally told me about what appeared to have been Fefe's birthday and that the teacher sang "Happy Birthday To You, Dear Fefe", and Fefe blew on the candles ("very hot") and everyone clapped and the cake was cut. On his own birthday he was very excited to see his "2" shaped cake, and knew that you had blow the candles and cut the cake and clap and then sing Happy Birthday. He also excitedly pointed to the bees on his cake. At the second party, after I'd taken the cake away (because he and Tanvi were busy licking the frosting) I gave them one piece to share before lunch, and he was busy planting plastic spoons on it the way that I had planted the candles on it earlier.

There was even a fight at the second party when Raghav and Sanjeev's daughter Shyambhavi went tug-of-war over the same car. Hair were pulled, tears streamed down and mothers were called for solace, and even when Shyambhavi had moved on to crayons, Raghav kept coming back to snatch a crayon from her, not because he wanted it, but because he did not want her to play with it. Once he even came and gave her a couple of colour pencils before snatching the crayon from her, as if he could have her play with anything except those very crayons (the ones he actually never played with)!

Opening the presents.

When I gave all the kids their return gifts, Raghav asked for one for himself, too, and when finally given one of the presents he had received that day, he sat on the floor and proceeded to unwrap it for several intensely attentive minutes. He was asleep within seconds in the car when we left the party.

He had the best time with Tanvi and Nihal at the party, and all toys that we had put together for the kids to be busy with, were a waste for the three. They held hands and jumped, climbed onto Nihal and made him into a horse, climbed on the sofas and generally did a lot of horsing-around.

He has started becoming extremely attached to people, and I always dread that he's going to throw a fit when he's leaving his Dadaji behind, or when Chacha goes away, but he always manages to get distracted and it's not necessarily a mess. Although for the past couple of days he has been only demanding Daddy. He had fever two nights ago, would not be quiet in my arms, kept saying "daddy paas" or "daddy godi" and then was immediately calmed when daddy picked him up and then proceeded to sleep on daddy's chest all night.

At other times, he's too busy too to even spare a kiss, and you have to work it into a routine -- for instance, when you say goodnight or when I make him wear his shoes and demand a kiss, he seems ok with it.

He smiled through his haircut with chacha and dadaji.
And when you ask him where is hair went, he says
"monkey head" - monkey took his hair - I taught him.

I left him for the first time for all day and all night when Nalin and I went to Jaipur for the day. He managed pretty well, although without eating much and skipping his afternoon nap, and then Nitin called in the evening to say he was just ready to cry and was saying "mamma paas", but when I called back and wanted to speak to him, he'd been distracted by then and was demanding for the TV to be switched on. He had a bad night when we reached back, though, with severe constipation that he'd been trying unsuccessfully to clear for 2-3 days. He slept on my chest all night, and whined as soon as I tried to move him onto the bed; but was brilliantly bright and cheerful when he woke up the next morning.

Nursery rhymes at school

His teacher keeps putting up their pictures from school, and it's so interesting to see the various things they do. He's currenly obsessed with bicycles and cars, but of course his first love remains balls. But he has recently developed a soft and caring side, too, perhaps from something he's seen at school. He hugs and kisses the little sherrif hand puppet he has and even sometimes takes him to sleep with him in his cot while patting and caressing it (he mostly hates to be patted or caressed to sleep, though, because he's always trying to fight us putting him to sleep; but from weeks of co-sleeping in India, towards the end of our trip he had starting almost snuggling into me till he was finally ready to sleep, which is when he would go and find the most comfortable spot on the bed for himself -- mostly one that let him dangle a leg, hand or head from the edge of the bed). Leslie has given him Poo Bear, which he again sometimes hugs and kisses and even took to Vivo City with him yesterday, even though he refused to hold it once we got there. But seeing his school pictures I feel I miss out on so much that goes on in his life.

Six quiet dogs

Swimming still his favourite activity

Whenever Raghav is upset and crying, he goes on this random call of pointing to the computer and saying "didi, dadaji, chacha, niti, nani"... the list is quite endless. It's like he will only be calmed when he speaks to any of these people whom he will complain to about us, and who will entertain him in return. He doesn't even speak so often to "didi" (Tanvi), yet she's one of the prominent influences on him when he's upset. I think he truly had a great time with her when we were in Delhi.

He sits perfectly "gentleman"-like on the dining table now, and behaves very well when we go out for meals. Most of the time some food item catches his fancy and he busies himself with it throughout the time that we eat. He can also entertain himself for quite a while with dumping, scooping and counting (in his own language) sugar sachets (at least till the time he starts throwing them about, and then that becomes the game).


Since he joined school he has had a renewed interest in his toys. I had kept them all away because he had stopped playing with them, and would only like to climb tables and sofas and chairs and do monkeyness; but now again he can sit and entertain himself for several minutes, playing with Lego blocks and reading his books.

Eats like a gentleman

He identifies many things in his books; like in this doggie book that he has, every time I say "One dog", he goes "woof!" because that's how he's heard me read it for months to him. Also, at "six quiet dogs" he puts his finger on his lips and says "shhhh" (although currently that finger rests more at the side of his mouth and near his nose.)

New love

He also brings his tiger book (Tiger Who Came To Tea) saying "teya", and the Goldilocks book saying "fin" because he knows that Goldilocks eats all the porridge and that it's finished. He brings the Cave Baby book saying "baby", and finds it hilarious when I read to him the lines "a cracken in the bracken, a hyena's laughing there" in my loudest and most threatening voice.

He likes his Teacher Nana at playschool, and gets worried when he doesn't find her when I leave him. He also goes and puts his head on her knee while sucking his thumb -- which is his way of showing that he likes that person.

He now rushes into his class when I go to drop him, and doesn't look back as I leave. I go in to say bye, and sometimes get a kiss from him when I ask. (He's adjusted well to playschool.)

I took him to Ikea the other day (just on my own) and he started a chant of "icy" as soon as we got out of the cashier section. I had bought him a hotdog, which he did not touch. All the while that I ate my hotdog and cold drink, he continued his chant of "icy", and then uttered squeals of excitement when he finally saw me getting the ice-cream. He holds it and eats it on his own and screams every time we try to take a lick.

Learning new things at school

He likes to sit in the sink and take a little bath, which he calls "nahne". I think in his head when he sits in the tub and has a bath it's called "bath", and when he sits in the sink and has a bath it's called "nahne". So every time I tell him let's go nahne, he's expecting to be put in the sink, and gets very upset if I start filling the tub. (I think this has happened because I used to always say "bath" for bath, and only recently did I start saying it in Hindi for him.)

He has started saying a lot many words, like "wash" for when his hands are dirty and he wants them to be washed. He knows quite a few body parts -- eyes, ears, nose, teeth, cheeks (although he doesn't point this one out every time), feet, hands (these he learnt at school) and belly button. He also makes several animal noises -- bow wow for dog, meaow for cat, raises his hand like an elephant's trunk for elephant, hoo hoo for owl, sometimes mooo for cow.

In Singapore

Helping out with the shopping

Ever since Raghav stepped into our new apartment in Singapore he has been dancing and running around, swinging his arms and generally being excited at all the space available for him to do all these things.

He likes Singapore, I think. Because it's warm and there are lots of people around, no matter what time of day.

He starts getting excited even as we're nearing the playground, and then runs towards it. The first time, he wasn't sure how to climb the steps leading to the slide, and we weren't sure either, and Nalin had to climb up to make sure he was safe; but now he not only climbs on his own, he even slides down on his own and I don't have to stand below to catch him. He turns around on his stomach and then slides down so that he's safer. (I think he's learned it from his school.)

In the first month at school, he used to panic every time we handed him over to the teacher. But then I realised he just didn't like being pick up by someone else while I was around. So I told his teacher to just distract him with a toy as I slipped away. I used to always hate slipping away and not saying bye to him when I left. But now the past couple of times I have said bye to him, and he's said bye back and then continued to play. A couple of times, he's also refused to go home after school, and I've had to give him all sorts of incentives like "where are your shoes", or "let's get the bus".

When we reach his school, he starts saying "shoes shoes", and I take off his shoes after which he immediately grabs them and puts them in the shoe rack. Going back home also he gets his shoes from the rack and hands them over to me. Sometimes when he can't find them, and I ask him where they are, he makes a hand gesture (similar to the one I make) of "I don't know".

Such fun in India!

He has mostly been saying words in Hindi, because he interacts most with me and I talk to him in Hindi. So he says "du-du" for milk and "kha" for khana (food) and "nahne" for nahana (bath), and "pa" for paani and "ba" for bahar (outside). But he's also says both the English and Hindi for many words, like he says "woter" and "ba" for bath. Other than these words, at 20 months, he's been saying sit, car, t (tv), peese (please), so (sorry), patatha (paratha), woofle (waffle), bread, tho (throw), juice, ce-ka (cake), bun, book, baby, more, bottle, rice, nice, potty, susu, monty (monkey), cow, dog, fish, ti (tiger), fla (flower) etc.

At least once a day he demands to talk to didi or dedeji or dedi, or chacha or nani. The demand usually comes when he's crying about something else. When he does talk to them, sometimes he goes crazy with excitement and starts dancing and jumping and showing them the various things that he can do (like attempting a front roll), other times he just sits infront of the computer and "talks", sometimes punctuating every few words with a point towards something else.

He now copies us in everything we do. He sees you doing something once, and that's enough for it to be lodged in his memory. He sees me putting serum in my hair, and now every cream that he gets his hands on first gets rubbed into his palms and then put into his hair (just like mamma does).

He sometimes calls Nalin "nanni", after I've called him Nalin.

Morning exercise

He does know that I'm mamma, but he's often calling many people mamma. Basically, every one in the other side of the door becomes mamma. But when I bring him back from school, he passes the swimming pool and points and says "shim" and "daddy", and I tell him daddy will take him swimming later. Once home, I help him rings the doorbell and he bangs on the door saying "daddy". When we get inside, he looks around for daddy for at least a minute every day, before then asking me to take off his shoes. (He doesn't wear shoes at home, and hates wearing slippers because of the strap that comes between his big toe and the second toe.)

But he understands almost everything now. You tell him to go and wipe himself with his towel after his bath, and he does. He comes and asks you for more, and you tell him it's there on the table, and he goes and sees if it's there on the table. You tell him to go and give something to daddy and he does. You tell him let's get you to wear a diaper and he goes and gets the diaper for you. (It's another story that he refuses to lie down for diaper changes, and wants to wear his clothes himself.)

Tantrums come easily now, as when he wants something he really wants it right now. I have learned to either ignore them, in which case sometimes he gets over them pretty quickly when he realises no one's paying attention, or I try to prevent them in the first place by offering him a distraction before something turns into a tantrum. Usually singing to him puts him in a cheery mood, and he loves the songs "If you're happy and you know it" and "Incy-wincy spider". This usually works after he's had a long time in the water (either swimming or in one of those waterplay areas at the mall) and I want him out, but I know he's going to throw a giant big tantrum and lie down on the floor and kick his legs (something that he's picked up since 2-3 months), I usually start singing to him and he forgets that he's upset and starts doing the hand actions that I've taught him for "Incy-wincy spider".

Trying out Daddy's sunnies

But usually I've noticed the tantrum comes when he's tired or sleepy or has just woken up in the afternoon.
He knows the difference between when he's being taken to school, and when we're just going out, because he wants to be picked up every time I take him to school, whereas when he's just going out with Nalin and me, he simply bounds towards the lift and says "two" (because we live on the second floor and he always thinks that's where the lift is going).

His eating skills have greatly improved since school, and he's often able to feed himself with a spoon without spilling anything. Of course, yogurt still remains an item he loves to mess around with. He tries to "drink" it from the bowl (again, something he's probably seen others do with their soups in school) but it all ends up on his forehead and on his chin. It ends with him mushing his hands together to see how the yogurt feels.

Talking of spills, he's very particular about him and his surroundings being cleaned as soon as something gets spilled. Now he says oh-o every time he spills something, and wants me to clean it immediately before he eats/drinks any further. He also says oh-o when he presses a wrong button on the remote, or when something strange pops up on the phone.

Busy little Raghav

Didn't like the backpack at first, but when he
discovered he got a bird's eye view of things
and that he could jump in it and pull daddy's
hair from behind, he loved it! 

Raghav is growing so fast, I already miss when he was lighter, quieter, and slept anywhere we put him. Travelling with him has gone from a very bad idea to something much much more manageable. Both on our way to Egypt this December, and from, we found that if Raghav gets a seat all to himself, he's more likely to entertain himself with discovering, for instance, the tray table or the window shade, the seat belt or the various buttons on his arm rest. He hates sitting on your lap all the time, squeezed in between mum and the front seat, and being forced to stay still. Give him some freedom and he mostly cooperates with you, as long as you don't cramp his style.

It's the same at home while changing him. The more you try to hold him still to change his diaper, or make him wear his pants, the more he wriggles and screams to get out of your grip. So now I just let him stand on the bed, looking out of the window or give him a toy to play with, while I even attempt cleaning his poop like that.

The toughest thing to feed him now at 16.5 months is yogurt. He tries to eat everything himself, and even manages to do it most of the time; with his hand or even somewhat with a spoon, but when it comes to yogurt, you don't want to put a bowl full of it in front of him because most of it will just end up on his clothes (especially since he hates bibs). It's even possible to do it at home, and I do encourage him to eat by himself at home, mess or no mess, but when we're travelling or at someone else's house, you don't exactly want to change his full set of clothes every time he eats.

I now leave his food on a plate in front of him, and he usually eats by himself, with just a few extra spoonfuls from me if it's something like rice or cous-cous that he can't hold in his hands too well. He loves spaghetti, and the way it feels in his hands, and always tries to put big handfuls in his mouth at once.

His defiance for us is increasing every day, as his eye catches the attention of the very same thing that he's been told not to touch every single day. He then directly looks at you while touching it (like the computer) to challenge you as well as to make sure that you're seeing that he will do what he wants to do; let's see if you can stop me. There's nothing really now that you can make him do if he doesn't want to do it. Most of the time his first instinct is to shake his head to a "no" if you ask him anything, even if you're asking him to eat his favourite food.

Playing peek-a-boo

We try to put him on his baby pot every morning, and he used to hate sitting on it at first, so much so that when I would go to fetch him from his cot in the morning, he would shake his head and refuse to come out because he knew I'd put him again on the cold plastic of the pot, wanting him to do something he didn't understand yet. He's more amiable to it now though, and sits on it quite easily, but wants to be picked up soon. We tried to keep him entertained while sitting on the pot at first, but it ended up entertaining him too much to do anything. Then I tried giving him his toothbrush (which he loves) while he sat there, but soon he was rubbing his bum with it and that had to be thrown away. All toys, food and drinks are not allowed either because they just end up inside the pot, usually after he has peed in it. So a few minutes of sitting on it and looking at himself in the mirror next to him and generally keeping himself entertained, and he's asking to be picked up.

He understands more than he lets on, but, almost like a teenager, will not do what you ask him to do. You can go on and on asking him where his nose is, and he will go on and on pointing to his ear and saying "ear", but then one day he will slip and absently point to his nose when you ask him that question again.

Nalin was making breakfast once and he wanted to be in Nalin's arms only, and shook his head vigorously to a no when I tried to take him. But when I said to Nalin, let's just put him in his chair, he immediately bent towards the chair and indicated that he'd be willing to do that.

His favourite game right now is to jump about. He sits on his car, and jumps on it, hoping that it will spring up and down. He sits on our tummies and face, and lifts his hands up and jumps, laughing with delight.

Shuffles about on his knees. Thinks it's his
version of walking, since he's not crawling
around like babies

He now remembers things from weeks and months ago, and tries to, for instance, play a game like we showed him to then. He used to love it when I showed him soap bubbles, but as he started growing he wanted to do the bubbles himself. He wanted to hold the bottle, and eat the stick (because he can't figure out that I don't actually eat it, I just blow into it). So I finally decided to keep it away from him because every time I took it out, the play would end in tears. After months of it being out of his sight, he spotted it once and pointed to it and demanded that I blow them again. He was the same with them this time too -- delighted at first, but then wanting to hold the bottle and pour all the soap water into the bed.

He also loves only a few particular books that we've been reading to him since he was born. He is obsessed with the book Pants, and no matter where you keep/hide it, he will find it and bring it to you and ask you to read it. He comes and sits on my lap on his own while I prepare to read him the book, because that's where I always sit him down. He also likes this book that shows other kids and names their body parts and what they're doing, like eating and drinking and sleeping. I think he likes looking at other kids. He also like this book called This Little Baby, and when it says in the first page "this little baby says hello", he always waves his hand and says "hi". (He says emphatic "bye" now, in the tram every time someone gets off, or at home when he sees daddy get dressed. He understands the difference though between getting dressed for going out, and undressing for having a bath, and says the appropriate "bye" and "ba" at the appropriate time. He also says "ba" for ball and lies down to look under the sofa for his ball. In fact, he thinks anything that's found under the sofa is called "ba".) He brings me the Goldilocks book to read to him, but gets impatient with the long sentences and the non-rhyme format. (It's the sing-song rhyme format that he loves in the Pants book, and he sways from side to side clapping his hands when I come to "pants to pick a daisy, pants for being lazy".)

Loves to point and gets things, but thinks
everything he points to should be given to him
(that doesn't always end well)

He started getting a bit bored of his bath routine, because his toys were the same, and his tub was still the same, and we thought maybe he was getting too big for the baby tub, but recently he discovered that he could bathe himself using a mug, and he's screaming again at being taken out of the bath.

When I change him for the night, he starts whispering "ba-ba"; that is cue for us to start singing "baba black sheep", and he whispers it because we sing it quietly since it's sleep time. Recently he has also started whispering "baba" now every time I change him; he thinks that's what we say every time his clothes are changed.

He is also obsessed with climbing steps and can keep himself entertained for hours on end climbing up and down stairs.

He's got a keen ear for music, and does a little jig every time I, for instance, mix the sugar in my cup of tea or whisk the eggs. He claps every time someone claps on TV, and again does a jig every time he hears music coming out of the TV.

He has become much more aware of his skype callers, and plays peek-a-boo with them, or laughs when they whistle; once when he saw my brother eat something on the camera, he pointed to him and gestured he wanted what he was eating, too. Every time I sit on the study table or the dining table with him on my lap, he starts saying "nani!" (He also says "dudu" every time the microwave beeps [because that's where his milk gets warmed] or every time he sees food.) He takes out all his toys and shows off to the people watching through the computer. He even took his first steps just to get accolades from his dada-dadi on skype. (He doesn't walk still, but goes about shuffling on his knees, holding his toys/food in his hands. I think he thinks of walking more a show now, holding his hands up as he walks and then collapsing in our arms at the end, clapping afterwards. He loves walking on the sofa, where he knows he will not hurt if he falls, and also tries to do front rolls that his daddy has been teaching him. But the dangerous bit is when he loves to sit on the sofa's arm rest and then jump on it or bend backwards to tease you and see the panic in your reaction.) But he tends to get bored now of skype conversations and doesn't stop play now for them. Often he leaves the room even while a call is on and goes off to do his own thing.

Can spend all day climbing up and down steps.

Even though he knows that sitting in the pram will take him out into the open which he loves, it is still a battle to make him sit on it. He also hates wearing sweaters and jackets, and already starts throwing a fit when you do that and then sometimes completely stiffens his body when you try to sit him in the pram. He hated his mittens first, and handed them over to Nalin and soon and Nalin had put them on him, but soon he probably realised that it was damn cold outside without them and now mostly keeps them on.

He loves being kissed and offers his cheeks for me to kiss him, often at times when I'm playing dead and trying to put him to sleep. Nalin and I were kissing once in the living room, and he saw us and came from the other end of the room, shuffling on his knees, to give me a kiss on my knee!