California Trains!

Dearest Danicha,

Your current obsession is to watch an  hour long video of trains from California in you-tube. The other day we were trying to fix a Thomas train construction set that was gifted for your birthday and you asked us for a train video. Appa  randomly chose a video named 'California Trains for Kids' from youtube and ever  since then you have been hooked to it. You are glued to the sofa and watch the video with  great enthusiasm, periodically telling me quick facts like ' That is a black steam engine!!" ' or 'Orange tank car!!" Honestly the sound of the trains is getting on my nerves and has been given me a headache lately. I hope your obsession with the video would end soon. The only good side is that you ate a full 'mutta dosha'  for breakfast  yesterdaywithout running around :). Also you love playing 'train' with me where we form an imaginary two-compartment train that runs from the 'Fridge station' to the 'Window station'. Based on the colors of the clothes we have on,  you would state ' Dani is a black and orange caboose car' and Amma is a red and blue cattle car" or something along those lines.  You occasionally want the train to march, hop jump and sway. And periodically Dani train would take a break and  fill fuel at the gas station located next to the stairs.However, you want Amma train to keep moving without a break ;)

Love,
Amma

Time for bed, Danikutta!

Dearest Danicha,

As a toddler I would expect you to go to bed around nine o'clock or so and wake up  around seven to eight o'clock.  That would give me atleast two hours of 'me-time' after your bedtime when I can read something or get my pending stuff done. And I understand that all kids are not the same and can have their own sleep schedule. However, your sleep center is  structured entirely different from other toddlers.You go to sleep around 1130 to 1230 and for the last couple of weeks since Mummy left for India you have been up until 1230 every single night.By this time you would  have tested my patience beyond its tolerable limits and I would have experienced a whole spectrum of emotions from exhaustion, anger,and madness. However, all these emotions evaporate into thin air when I see the peaceful and angelic Danikuttan warmly sleeping next to me holding my ear ( your stress-buster and pacifier). And then you would wake up anywhere between eight and nine. Ideally, I should keep and alarm at seven and try waking you up at the same time so you take an early afternoon nap and go to bed early. But so far I haven't been motivated enough to wake up that early after your past-bedtime antics. I have tried cutting down on your afternoon nap, but then you would doze off at five or six in the evening and then it is more dangerous because you would stay awake at night even longer.  You are a light sleeper just like your Appa who would wake up even if a light feather falls on him. I am exactly the opposite, sleepaholic who deeply values her restful sleep and can sleep like a sloth all day. I wouldn't be surprised if I slept through an earthquake.

So to maintain my sanity,  I have told myself that I would keep zero expectations on when you go to sleep. It is because I keep expecting you to go to sleep around nine or ten that I become angry and mad. I will try doing my stuff even when you are up and running around  fully charged up. And we'll do our bedtime routine only after eleven. And I will read books to you until you are brain-fatigued and falls asleep. In the meantime I will keep motivating myself to wake up at seven so you can wake up early and we craft a toddler and mom-friendly daily routine.

Love,
Amma

Say 'Please' please

Dearest Danicha,

You have finally learned how to say 'please' when you want something. Although, I have been telling you to add 'please' before your requests for a very long time, for some unknown reason you were too adamant to say it. You would mostly say " Dani wants the lights to be turned on" or  " Dani wants to paint a rainbow". But for the last couple of weeks, you have been using please consistently for all of your requests. Also, we have reinforced the habit with lots of  "good job" and other words of appreciation.We have also been making sure that if it something reasonable that it gets done swiftly when requested with a 'please'. I hope before it is too late you would come and tell me " Can Dani go potty now please?" and thus we will bid 'goodbye' to diapers for ever:)

Your innocent and heartwarming smile brightens all my days however dull  they might otherwise be. You are my biggest blessing!

Love,
Amma

Sliding puzzles

When Danichan was around two I bought him a set of jigsaw puzzles so we could do them together and enhance his neuronal synapses. But he showed absolutely no interest in solving them other than storing the pieces in batches at his favorite hiding spots ( inside his car trunk, under the sofa). Other than losing a few pieces and stepping on a random piece occasionally they haven't been put to much use. So, one day I had this great idea that I should get a set of sliding puzzles for him. My thought process was simple, he just needs to slide them to the correct spots and can't be making a mess even if he doesn't like them. And who knows, maybe that will get him hooked to jigsaw puzzles.

I had seen sliding puzzles only once in my life. At school, we used to have Secret Santa every year for Christmas. When I was in fourth grade, Drishya who was my Secret Santa forgot that it was the day of gift exchange. She was so flustered and embarrassed that she didn't have a gift for me, so  she gave part of her gift to me and also a sliding jigsaw puzzle that belonged to her. Honestly, I was so happy and excited for my gift and could have never asked for anything better.  It was a 4x3 sliding puzzle on a cream plastic board with a Jurassic park theme.We drove to our homestead  in Kottayam the same day after school and I remember the little me sitting on the backseat of our white ambassador car clinging on to it with so much excitement. I don't know if I ever solved it completely. I lost it in  a couple of days, I think I accidentally left it behind at Amma's home when we were staying there. Even months later, when we visited her home, I kept looking for it in the dark corners of my Ammachi's room and in the  little room up the cow's shed that was used storing hay. I lost hope and gave up eventually.

Now for Danichan I bought this set of 4x4 animal sliding puzzles.  I thought it would be simple easy to do these puzzles, just slide them into the right places you know!! So I eagerly picked up one of them, a baby blue elephant relaxing on a beach side. I  jumbled the pieces to solve before I teach him the technique. Surprisingly, it was not as easy as I thought!! So now I need to google and find how to do it before I coach Dani. As for Dani, he loves  randomly sliding the pieces and keeps asking " Amma, where is the piece in the empty slot?" 

Google please!

When Danichan asks me a random question that I don't know the answer to ( like what color do we get when we mix blue and green), I  simply tell him that we will google and find out.  Yesterday I was showing him a picture of Solar System from National Geographic Kids book that we recently picked up from the library. I told him how the Sun has eight kids running around her all day. And then we had this funny conversation today.

Dani: How many kids does Dani have?

Me: I don't know.. you tell me!

Dani: Eight.. Dani has eight kids.

Me:  Ok..!

Dani: What are Dani's kids' names?

Me: I don't know Dani, you get to name them!

Dani: Ok, why don't you google and find out?!

Google for all answers.. Even toddlers know that :)

Natural anti-ageing therapy

Dearest Danicha,

Mummy went to India for a one month vacation a week after babysitting you for  almost three  months. She was telling me the other day how everyone commented on how young she looked compared to the last time she was there. She attributes it to you.. spending time exclusively with you and  always seeing your happy smiling face. Danichan is mummy’s natural anti-ageing therapy. You are my precious sweetheart, always 

Love,

Amma

Fire alarms and Sprinklers- Danichan’s favorite toys

Dearest Danicha,

You are a very picky eater and we have a very hard time to get something inside your tummy.   These days we carry you around and show you the smoke alarms and sprinklers in our apartment. As you look up your mouth automatically turns wide open and we quickly shove something into your mouth. This has been the routine in the last couple of days. I never realized that there were so many smoke alarms and sprinklers in our apartment. And I still don’t  get what you find so interesting about them that keeps you looking at them so intently. Anyways I am not complaining.  I am pretty sure you can spent an entire day looking at the beauty of a  fire alarm. As long as the interest lasts we can get you to eat something. And don’t get me started on how hard  it is to get you to drink from a bottle.

Love,

Amma

Danichan, Danichayo , Daniboy , Daniponne and Danikutta ;)

Dearest Danicha,

Your official name is Daniel Mathew Paul. But I rarely call you Daniel. You were always Danichan to me even when you were a tiny bean growing in my  baby tummy.  After you came out to the world, I started calling you other names that I spontaneously craft seeing your sweet and adorable  little face. People tell me that once you are a school going kid you will hate to be called Danican and demand to be called Dan or Daniel. Dearest Danikutta, there is so much love and affection in each letter of Danichan more than you could fathom. So Amma is gonna always call you Danicha  . When I am really pissed off, you  will be called  just the first two letters of your name.- “Daa”

Your Joepaa was fondly called ‘kuttaapi’ as a baby. Of course, he hated to be called that when he was a teenager. He somehow trained everyone to call him his actual name and totally erased kuttapi out of their brains.

I was telling Shilpa the other day that your pet name is  Danichan. It seems in Japan girls are often called with – ‘chaa’ at the end. So her  Amma fondly calls her Shipachaa when her motherly love peaks.

So until that day in future when you start complaining  about the weird ‘chaa’ tagged to your name enjoy the  umpteen nicknames that Amma has for you.

Goodnight, Danichan Mathaikunje Poulose kuttan!

Love,

Amma

New generation lullabies

Dearest Danicha,

Amamma  now makes her own lyrics for your lullabies which Chikku aunty describes as ‘new gen songs’. It goes like

” Pool kaannum kuttanaane,

Exit kaanum kuttanaane,

bird kaanum kuttanaane

Danicham kuttanaane”

Little Danikutan doesn’t  seem to mind these new gen lullabies and listens intently. 

Love,

Amma.

Danichan speaks Hindi :)

Dearest Daniel,

You say ‘kyaa’ quite often now whenever you are surprised or you need something. I remember that Yohanbhai used to say ‘aaraa’ when he was your age. I do talk to you in my broken Hindi at times but I don’t know from where you picked up  the ‘kyyaa’. If you are really surprised you say ‘ayyooo’ . The other day you were on the flight to Philly and you couldn’t help saying ayyoo a lot seeing a lot of new faces and the overhead lights in the plane . I can’t believe you are 8 months already.

Love,

Amma