Super singer winner does not charm chikoo!

D goes for walk in the evenings and chikoo and me have a good one on one session. He was generally contented and flaying his arms and legs and at peace with the world. I was talking to him and generally engaging in conversation.

After a while I thought I will play some of my favourite songs. Right now it happened to be 'enakkoru kaadali irukindral' an old tamil movie song. It has been made quite popular in a super singer reality show round .Satyanarayana sings it with a lot of elan and panache. The audience and the judges are just bowled over.Standing ovation and non stop clapping mark the end of the song.

I started playing this song and within a second, chikoo let out such a wail that thatha who had just come in was startled and ran to see what was troubling the junior. I was quite taken aback and wondered what had caused his cheerful to mood to sour. I quickly muted the song and immediately the sobs stopped and he was back to normal.

Thatha laughed and laughed and laughed. This is my favourite song of the season now, so I guess I have been playing it a few times. Thatha did not much fancy this song saying it has a very sad tune but kept his views to himself. Chikoo saying such a decisive veto to this song made him very very happy.He kept saying 'he is showing his disapproval where I could not bring myself to, Attabhoy chikoo, You have very good taste in music. Takes after his thatha!"

And that is the story of fall from grace of super singer top singer's favourite song in 16 subra!

 

Milestones

A friend who visited us recently was talking about the milestones she monitored for her grandchild. We found it quite interesting and decided to look for such cues from chikoo.The quest led us into some very interesting observations.

For the last few weeks chikoo has been trying to coordinate his hands.It soon became clear that his ultimate aim was to put his  fingers into his mouth.It used to be hilarious to see him making funny actions.His hand will come near his mouth, but the fingers will overshoot and he will hit his eyes.Yes, he does have long hands and long fingers.We were anxious that he should not hurt his eyes, but nature being so cautious, makes him shut his eyes with a start just before the fingers reach.He would be looking forward to putting the entire fist in his mouth and tasting it and when it is thwarted will let out a big yell. But he will immediately start the next round of hand movements.It used to be fascinating seeing the slow progress he will make every time and finally a few days back he was able to land his fist exactly into his mouth.We turned and saw him happily tasting his fist and then his fingers. It did happen that one long finger went almost near his throat and made him cough. Slowly by regular practice he has perfected the technique and whenever he is free(!) this is his favourite pasttime. 

Milestone: hand coordination to achieve goal of finger tasting complete.Fingers as tasty as AVM milk.

D has been very proud of the fact that his leg movement are very vigorous and well coordinated. He keeps kicking and making regular aerobic exercises with his legs for quite some time. She would go for dance class when she was pregnant with him. No, not to dance, but to watch a class in progress and learn to do nattuvangam from her teacher. She believes that the regular sound of nattuvangam is what makes him kick his legs with such rthym and grace and vigour. Yes, she did say that his leg movements were like changing gear in a truck but that was long long ago. 

Milestone: Almost bharatnatyam style leg movements.

Chikoo has been perfecting the technique of kicking his legs and going backwards while lying on his back. He kicks with such force that if he is on your lap, he very nearly lands on the floor, head first. He is put on a mat on the floor, he usually does four or five laps backstroke. Very little hand coordination is used. Perfect swimming backstroke technique.

Milestone: Ready for swimming training.

Chikoo is creating new sounds every day. It was not so long ago that we waited with bated breadth for his "cooing". Now that is passe. He is actively following all that we talk to him and tries to take part in adult conversation. Every now and then he will do a 'agum' with such a peaceful look, that you are sure he is understanding what is being said. His most common sound is 'kku'. He says it when he is slightly excited with the surroundings, like seeing some moving and colourful objects.Suddenly he lets out a shriek which is quite easy to imitate(which D does to the T) but difficult to put in words.The closest I can manage is  'akilikile'. It is usually very sudden and without any warning whatsover and hence gives us a start and we burst out laughing, asking chikoo what does he want to tell us.And all the while, there is a steady stream of saliva bubbling in his lips that makes everyone who sees him say that he will start talking early and not only that will be a big chatter box.

Milestone: He is getting ready to be a linguist(his appa's wish list)

We put him on his tummy and he is able to raise his head almost fully and have a different world view. His head is not so wobbly and getting almost fully steady, well not quite, but getting there.The first time a few days back that he was able to lift his head, he became so excited that he wanted to try it again and again. We madcaps also got excited and allowed him to do it repeatedly. It tired him out and made him cranky for the later part of the day. Slowly does it is the mantra now.

MIlestone: He is on the way to having a steady head on his shoulders.

His motto seems to be 'something attempted, something done, that earns a good night's repose' 

New gym at 16 subra

Baby at home is throwing up new ideas and vocations for all of us. I have found that I can totally skip the gym routine. I walk with him back and forth in the bedroom to put him to sleep.Of course he takes his time about it, so the treadmill action goes on, changing my walking  speed in the hope that it will aid the process. No, I do only moderate adjustments, no elevation and fast running. It usually takes about half an hour of intense action for the baby to go to sleep(he continues in that state for exactly 15 minutes, by the way), so my treadmill workout is over.

I carry him on my shoulder, or cradle him in my arms, this is weight training. Earlier I used to restrict myself to the barest minimum of 1kg wts..But now it is heavy duty weight lifting, swinging the weight slightly and holding the weight in different positions. All arm and shoulder muscles are getting a nice workout.And the whole exercise is pleasurable because the weight is a very very soft and cuddly infant. He bawls a lot and occasionally gives out a fleeting smile and you feel the baby is become suddenly lighter.You grin back and coo at the baby and the whole process does not appear as a workout at all.

You come to floor exercises next. The baby holds a darbar in  between feeds and sleep routine. He expects everyone at home to sit around him and talk to him. Like  a typical apartment resident,we had  given up sitting on the floor. Now it has become an integral part of our daily life. I sit crosslegged for a good length of time, much to my surprise. And there are stretching exercises too. When you want that particular toy to amuse the baby, it always is on the other side of the bed. You keep the baby on your lap and after a while stretch your leg. You are surprised that just like that you do  simple movementss to keep the baby rocking on your legs which actually are a good workout for the legs.

The baby's father did pushups keeping the baby on his tummy, to simulate a swinging motion to help the baby go to sleep, and it did!

Every gym instructor will tell you, that you should continuously keep changing your gym routine; the sequence of doing the various exercise routines for one. The speed of treadmill or the elevation or the time you spend on each of these routines should be varied. The reason being, the muscles have a memory and get used to a set pattern, the benefits that flow are not proportional.

And with a baby at home fixed pattern is definitely conspicious by its absence.The toy would not be i the same distance the next time around, you would not be sitting on the floor for the same time, you would not be rocking the baby on your leg after sitting cross legged on the floor and not in the same number of identical leg movements. The baby wont be the same weight either, and it wont sleep exactly at the 30th minute of your 300th step.

And more than all this, there is no music at the background to lighten the boredom that hits you in a gym.What you have instead is a live, wriggly, sometimes giggly package where there is so much variety that one minute is not like another!

Two feet nothing

And four kilos something!

The pint size arrival in 16 subra is becoming a bigger and elongated pint size! Today he is ensconced in a light orange onesie with a tilted cape covering three fourth of his face.As I look at him cosily curled up on his mother's lap, looking like junior vivekananda in that colour top to bottom outfit, he give s picture of peace and quiet and all is well with the world.
But just wait for a while more when he wakes up. He is very demanding for attention and instant service. His hunger needs are immediately catered to, zero preparation time and zero cooking time! After the feed he is such a fuss pot, that he wont allow us to help him burp. Now amma tells me he needs to burp not once, but twice. That is really a big assignment as the baby is handed over to me for the honours of making him burp to me! He will draw in his knees and slide down my shoulder as I try to hold him upright and give gentle tap on his back. It is becoming more and more challenging, and I asked D today to refer if there is any tips on how to make this process easy. She says she has done research and not more than a cursory reference to burping is mentioned in any of the literature on the subject. Today morning D called out to me firs thing in the morning to say that the baby has fed and she was able to make him burp twice! Great beginning of the day for both of us
.Of course the hero of the whole event, gave a toothless smile not at his mother, not at me, but at the fan!
He gives wide yawn which covers his entire face and lulls us into believing that he is just going to drop off to sleep. But by now we know otherwise. He is sleepy, that does not mean he is going to sleep. He will do everything to see that he distracts himself to wake up and continue his non sleeping hours, till we both look at each other in desperation. He is a fit candidate for a Dhanush starrer titled , "toongadavan"!
Now the sun bath routine is shelved due to monsoon weather, morning times are thatha times. Thatha is actually talking nonsense gibberish and child talk to him. If somebody had told me that he would be able to pull this off  I would not have believed them. But then as I boil milk and get coffee ready, I hear him sweet talk to the baby in a sing song way.He also repeats the same thing he says n number of times! "Jil jil ramamani" is one such phrase.The baby does not recognise faces and it is especially surprising as thatha is able to carry on one sided conversation in gibberish tongue with a tiny fellow and happily at that. When he spots the baby coming into his room, he quickly makes room and tidies up the bed for the baby. Amma saw the new thatha a few days back and said that she has not seen such open smile on his face for sometime.

Quietly and loudly, cooing and screaming, yawning and burping, playing and bawling,chiku has worked his magic.


. .

chiku sahasranamam

Chiku takes a while to go to sleep. We try several options and one of them with a reasonable amount of success is to wrap him around in a soft fleece blanket which also covers his head and keep walking and reciting sahasranamam. No, not the god's thousand names, but the thousand and odd names that we call chiku. It comes out like a waterfall (madai thiranda vellam pol!) and each time it is different.
To give some idea it goes something like this;

"Kutty kutty paapu, chella chella pappu
Pattu pattu paapu, chinna chinna pappu"

This is usually standard and frozen.
The next part has some variations:

"Chinna kutty pappu, chella kutty pappu
pattu kutty pappu, kutty pattu pappu"

You will see that many permutations and combinations of these words are possible, so that many variations in the sahasranama recitation are chanted.

Then some more endearing name combinations come up

"Bablu bablu kutty, chinna bably pappu
Enga kutty kanna, chella kutty kanna"

Then all is let loose

"daglu daglu pappu, chiblu chiblu pappu
Tinkulu punkulu pappu, pattu pattu pappu"

Recently saw a movie review where the reviewer says there is actually a song in a movie which goes a b c d ... all the way to z and not stopping there keeps coming back for repeat after repeat of all the alphabets in a boring sing song way.

So I picked it up from there and it goes like

"abcd chikku, dfgh chikku, ijkl chikku"

Then there is the total original words and phrases like the lyrics in  harris jayaraj songs

"
Chinchinchu punchilu pappu, karuppu kuruppu pappu
Papputu jipputu pappu, kapu kutty pappu"

Then the baby is not showing any signs of obliging by having a shut eye, I get a little desperate and try this

"Aaaaa aaaa oooo eeee aiyi,  ammmammm meemee
Kuuuuu kaaaa keee kai , kooo kow kam kaha"

This has endless combinations and we go on and on in the sing song way up to easily a 900

Only the last  100 and odd  can be easily notched up. The baby is not sleeping anyway so I can complete the rest of the recitation quickly.

"Yaaru kutty, thol kutty, pattu kutty, pattamma kutty
Tel kutty, pammu kutty, rahala master , bablu master
Aa amma aa ammma, ee amma e amma, oo amma o amma"

We have a sahasranam variation everyday, like thought for the day, it flows nonstop!

No, the baby has not slept yet!