Tuesday, September 15, 2009

The peapod at 3 and a half

At 3 and a half almost, she has grown tall and reaches my waist. With my piddly height of 5'1, I am sure she is going to take over me before she even gets through secondary in school.

She is a happy, active, thinking and an aggressive child who challenges her limits everyday forcing both me & P to rethink if what she did or said is actually off-limits or can we consider taking it a little easy, after all she is just a little child. While her teachers at school have very good things to say about her, she is a total spoilt brat at home. This bad behaviour I am guessing is reserved mostly for just when we are around. I have never seen her or heard about her harming an another child or misbehaving with anyone except for family. We are still struggling with getting her to behave herself in church. A couple of times P had to twist her little ears to simmer down her tantrums in church. There are times I can see it in her eyes that she knows she will get into trouble but inspite of it she tries throwing whatever it is one more time or howling once more and wait for our reaction and if we ignored, she would try it once more unless one of us got off our butts to tell her we had enough.

My sis from bbay is home with baby Neil for a week and the peapod has been hovering around him like a fly. She lies down when he is sleeping, entertains him with her rhymes and songs and plays his silly games to get that toothless wet kiss. She bosses my mom around if the little one is crying and my mom is on the phone or busy else where. "Ammmachyyy... Can't you hear Chiku crying?". She absolutely loves and adores him and is always always around him. Wouldn't leave him alone for a minute. She goes around announcing that we have 2 babies, one is chiku and the other is in mumma's tummy.

I had taken her for my 6th month ultrasound last week. I wanted her to see the baby. Like a restless puppy she kept moving from behind the doctor to under his right arm and then under his left arm. The doctor was kind and obliged her by showing her the face, the hands and legs. Ofcourse we all know how clear ultrasound images are. Though I could fairly make out the face and hands and fingers, I am not sure what she saw or understood. When we were out, she told me the baby has very very long nails, we should cut them. There are times when she is doing random stuff like drawing or coloring or watching TV, she would suddenly turn to me and ask me what is the baby doing. She will laugh very lovingly over any story I tell her and get back to whatever it is she was doing. Everytime I and she are at cross-roads, she threatens to cut me and the baby up. She threatens to box my tummy at times, but she never really does. Just 2 days ago she even felt the baby move. She didn't seem very impressed or amazed like I expected but she was happy and kissed my tummy and continued with her stuff.

Every night before we sleep we pray and I encourage the peapod to pray 4 lines. She begins with bless me, mumma, dada, and naming everyone she can remember and then would innocently ask me if she should pray for the satan as well? We have this very adorable yet-to-be-2 baby girl staying right below us. She is a darling. The peapod calls out to her atleast twice a day and specially if the little lady is heard crying. But yesterday when the little girl and her mom came visiting, the peapod totally ignored them and acted as if she never knew them. The sweet little darling went up to the peapod and kept calling her by name but she wouldn't even look at her. Absolute arrogance was at display and when I asked her about it latter, she just changed topics. I am hoping she was acting shy or pricey which she does once in a while when she meets my sisters or cousins after a while but comes around pretty soon but here she just couldn't bring herself to come around I guess and got caught in her own web. This morning when the maid was leaving, she said "thank you for cleaning our house" pleasing the maid no end. Endless questions, sometimes the same thing but just asked differently like, how does it rain, why does it rain, did Jesus forget to close the taps, why do you water the plants, why will the plants die, how will they die, I cannot see the sun, is it night now? I can see the moon, is it night now? and such umpteen questions.

Innocent and wicked, loving & stubborn, adorable and arrogant... that is the peapod at 3+ and just before the arrival of the second one.

With the arrival of the baby, my equations with her will change in terms of time and attention and I do not know what else. While I realize I need to prepare her, I am just basking in the helplessness of being in love ONLY with her. I don't want to let go this mom-daughter physical bond before it really needs to. Peapod is a co-sleeper and is used to bed time reading and casual talks before either of us drift off to sleep and this time is more precious to me than I guess it is to her. I am not sure how I am going to sort all this out in the next 4 months. We moved into this new place with just a handful of basic necessities & must-haves and have managed pretty well so far. A good bed, a rocker, a good storage unit, a couple of rearrangements in the room and a whole lot of baby shopping is all on my list now. Also by year end there is the whole circus around the peapod's admission that is waiting to happen.

And while at it check out this cute cute nursery. Wants me to copy-paste it as is.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Awww ... Peapod sounds like a girl who knows her worth! I like her a lot!! :-)

Someone might be telling her things like "once baby comes, mommy ll spend more time with him/her than with you" or things of that sort. Or it maybe perfectly normal for lil girls to have their moments too .. Nonetheless, Peapod is adorable!! :)

Risha said...

'did jesus leave the taps on" he he he he sho cute.......

Just Like That said...

What a lovely post Sunita. One of those that you can read sometime into the future and smile...:-)
Hugs to both of you.

Poppins said...

Loved reading this - she is adorable your peapod

And that nursery - I have that same crib ! :)