Peapod stuff & Week 33 updates

I was really cool, infact excited all this while about the changes coming up but since last week, thinking about it makes me very very nervous. I am all the time reciting Psalms 121 and sometimes I just can't even get past the first line. I am not so much worried about the delivery as much about everything that will precede it. My health, the baby, the peapod's admissions, managing the whole family circus, pulling this whole thing off without loosing my nerves. Since I am so used to being in control of things, being in bed with restricted mobility is like pulling my life plug. I know, I should just trust others in the household to takeover and step back. Maybe I will(like I have a choice) but cant help getting paranoid.

There is this whole lot of things that I did love to do considering it would be Christmas time when the baby arrives and I want it to be special for all of us. Ofcourse blame the nesting instinct that has kicked in as well. I am arranging & re-arranging the house in my head. Also, considering the fact that I will be home for atleast 4-6 months, I want a beautiful house to live in. So far its been just necessities and a tidy & warm place to return to at the end of a day. Both my sisters dropped in tons of baby stuff that were not used or hardly used and I sorted all that I wanted and put away a whole lot as well. The hospital bag is ready. The peapod knows that the baby will arrive in December and seems as excited as me. The father seems to be in deep thoughts all the time, so I don't know if the thoughtfulness comes from the excitement or he is gearing himself for the avalanche that is to follow.

The Jellybean went back to Baroda. I did not see the Peapod enough over the 3 weeks, the Jellybean was here. Every evening when I landed at mom's place to pick her up at 7-7:30, she wasn't willing to come. The moment she hears me ring the bell, she was already yelling even before the door opened to let me know she wasn't coming and I can go. At about 8-8:30 my sister used to drop her but she wouldn't come alone, she would force the Jellybean to come along or the jellybean would tag along on the pretext that she has to drop her at our doorstep, and once she is here, the peapod wouldn't let the jellybean go. My sister would then go back and then come back around 9:30ish to pick her up. Thank God we just live 2 blocks apart from my Mom's place. After the jellybean leaves, finally we have time for one super tantrum, a little throw and mess the house or cry for no specific reason or some insanely impossible stuff like she needs 10 llamas (blame me for the books I read her) ...RIGHT NOW . Finally we used to get to bed by 10:30-11ish. The 2 weren't even all lovey-dovey all the time but they just had to be togather every waking moment possible.

Some weird things the peapod does, she reads her books upside down and she writes right to left. Like if she has to draw an 'H' the right most straight line comes first then the left one and then the sleeping line goes from right to left. She even writes her 'F' like its mirror image at times. I think she gets this from watching us read/write by sitting across her. I think we have comfortably managed to mess it all up. Off late, she questions everything and it doesn't end with an honest answer to the said question, the answer only leads to an another question and then an another untill I put up my hands and surrender to her on my knees untill she proclaims Mumma does not know anything with tightly closed eyes with additional emphasis on "does not know anything".(Mamma(ky) onnumm ariyethilla). The other hit thing around is asking me when something would happen and in peapod's world, she has to know how many times she needs to sleep and wake up before its saturday or how many times she needs to sleep and wakeup before the Jellybean comes or for any other peapod look-forwards. There are days when she gets all excited and starts me on when the baby is coming. Can you imagine my distress as she goes,
pp: When will the baby come?
Me: December
pp: so if I sleep and wake up then what happens?
Me: you go to school
pp: and if I sleep and wake up again then what happens?
Me: you go to school
pp: and if I sleep and wake up again then what happens?
Me: we all have a holiday
pp: and if I sleep and wake up again then what happens?
Me: Then we go to church
pp: and if I sleep and wake up again then what happens?

after we have covered about 2 weeks, I just say and then the baby will come. She gushes all excited and gets back to her stuff. She knows her numbers, weekdays and months but none of that is of any practical use to me when it comes to peapod's self-devised counting methodology.

Week 33 is on. My lower back is aching. Sitting, standing and lying down are all equally uncomfortable and the worse is when moving from one state to an another. I feel embarassed waddling around in office like a penguin on ice, dragging my feet and my whole self around. An another 45-50 days to go. Uff .... Its not even like I am all set to go into labor today or even a week down the line but still.

Who makes a family?

When the peapod sees 4 dogs, she goes on to explain the biggest one is the "Dada Dog", the second in size is the "Mumma Dog", the smaller one is the "baby Dog" and the other dog is "S aunty dog". And then in an another instance when she is narrating a story about snakes, there is a Dada snake, a Mumma snake, a baby snake and S aunty snake. That to her is a family unit.

Like I have mentioned before, my cousin S lives with my mom. She is a good 10-12 years younger to me and she pampers the peapod no end. The peapod obviously by now has understood and identified every family unit with a father, mom and kids but S aunty didn't seem to be fitting in, with no uncle and kids to associate with. So untill S aunty finds a suitable uncle and the kids follow, S aunty will continue to be duly identified in every animal kingdom family in every story.

Granny and the grand daughter

Dora the explorer is aired everyday on one of the mallu channels at 5, for half an hour. Most days, 60% of the time, the electricity in our area goes off exactly when the peapod has had her milk, plonked herself on the couch, ready to watch her favourite character Dora go on a new adventure. Sometimes she gets a 5-10 mins show at the beginning or end of it. The few days I was home, I realized how she looks forward to that 1/2 hr program. So when the electricity goes kaput and I see the disappointment on the peapod's face my heart sinks. I told P about it. We talked about how we have looked forward to stuff when we were kids and the disappointment that followed for whatever reasons, sometimes it would be because we have guests and so can not go anywhere near the TV or the electricity or some such thing. These little disappointments teach us valuable lessons about life. We learn to deal with it. We learn to still look forward and not give up hope. Yeah so us parents sat and discussed the philosophies of life and decided against buying a dvd or a cd. So as parents, we had made our peace with the situation.

Now ofcourse we do not see her bawl every day when the light goes off so we can write thesis on philosophies of life. But the grand mother sees this everyday. Sees the disappointment and the broken heart everyday and she can not bear to write it off as some philosophies of life though she would not restrain from giving hours of lectures on life to her daughters mind you. For the past month, she has been asking me to tell the watchman to switch on the generator if the light goes off anytime between 5-5:30. Ofcourse, that made no sense. The generator was only to be used after dark. Generator at 5pm was definitely not happening. Mom hounded me a thousand times, she did not understand why can't we make a special request. It took her a month to realize I wasn't going to go anywhere with her request. Both the granny and the grand daughter have tried asking the watchman to start the generator, which he would do thinking they needed to use the elevator and would turn it off in an another 5-10 mins. So that plan didn't quite work out. So a week back, again after the lights went off exactly at 5, my mom asked me to write to asianet or surya, whichever the channel, and ask them to change the show timings. I looked at her to check if she was serious. She explained that she had seen on one of the programs called "letters to the producer" or sort that they did change the timing of a program based on request from the people. I am not doing any of this crazy stuff, I yelled. It is just a little program after all. Yesterday it seems the lights went off again and she got as irritated as the peapod. This time the request was to call up MSEB and tell them to change load-shedding timings. I wanted to laugh, but realized she was damn serious.

I had reasons for not buying a CD or a DVD very specific to peapod. I wasn't thinking the granny angle at all. So I didn't see the effect it was having on my mom. She is getting crazier ideas by the day. I think I better get the Dora CD and put my mom's idea-generating machinaries to some rest. Lessons on life for the peapod we will take up at convenience latter.

Where is my milk?

I have this feeling that unknowingly maybe I am the one that has instilled the dislike for milk in peapod. So I work at it. I tell her the benefits of milk, show her how Jellybean swipes clean a class in 2 mins, classify random people on the road as milk-drinking healthy men and women and unhealthy kinds. You get the idea of the amount of hard work that goes into brain washing my child, right?.

Yesterday I was already running late like most days for work. I asked her if she will have milk and she said she will. I went "WOW", something is working but I still did not have the time to wait for her to have her milk so I just told her she can have it at Ammachy's place or have it in the evening. She nodded her head in agreement. I was so proud of my understanding child.

We ring my mom's door bell. As soon as she opens the door, peapod walks in and orders for a FULL glass of milk. I leave before my mom can get her the milk. I smile to myself as I hurry to get to office. I ring the door bell at 7 in the evening. My mom opens the door and I can hear the peapod ask, "Ammachy where did you keep my milk?". Mom gets her the glass of milk. Of course I am surprised. One glass of milk was fine. 2 glasses of milk in a day is getting a little too much. I look at mom who has a smirk on her face. She tells me other than this howling and ordering and looking for milk and then complaining it is cold it and then after re-heating, complaining it is too hot, she hasn't had more than 2 sips the entire day. The whole thing is totally staged. She isn't drinking any milk. She is just giving out feelers. In the past when she refused to have milk, we would pull out the stories of the dog, cat or lizard who might just come in or threaten her with a smack and in defense she would sip through her milk. Might take an hour but still. Now she has decided she has had enough of all the stories and threatening business and put us on the defense with her "Where is the milk?" line. Such fine strategies at 3 I tell you. Tired with the entire day's drama, mom urges me to drink the milk. Just the thought of it makes me want to puke. She looks at both of us disapprovingly. We leave immediately.

At about 10pm, I get an sms from my cousin who lives with mom. "Its high time you and your daughter pull your act togather and finish off your quotas of milk with out the drama, talking or puking. I can not drink 2 glasses of milk a day."

I am too old to mend ways now, the only hope is the peapod. And anyway I do not think an extra glass of milk would hurt the busy 22yr old :).

The resident Diplomat

In the past 2 weeks, we have seen some change in peapod in terms of her strategy in handling mumma and daddy. Untill 2 weeks back I was at my wits end with the endless whining for no particular reason, screaming for absolutely non-negotiable stuffs and tantrums at the most inappropriate moment. Our own reactions to these went from getting irritated, screaming back, time-outs, a couple of whacks and then just plain ignoring. And mom tells me she is this devilish self only with us, she has been pretty good with mom, my sister, my cousin & baby Neil.

This monstrous behaviour seems to have disappeared over night. She is in a mood to have a dialogue, she is ready to negotiate, she is ready to listen and ask more. Sometimes looks like she is just out of some training class about "How to handle your parents" and she is doing pretty well with it.

Here are a few examples

This one brings up Jesus and sharing in one sentence to just shut us up.
Mumma: Peapod have your milk
Peapod: Is it hot?
M: No, its just right, you can have it now
Peapod: If I drink milk, Will that give me strength?
M: yes baby
P: Keep it on the table, I will drink it
M: We have to leave, just finish it soon
P: Jesus will punish me if I finish it, I will share

This one was the diplomatic approach
Dada: Peapod, come here
Peapod(in a different room): Dada, peapod will come, okay?
D: ok, come fast
Peapod: peapod will come
While the Dada and mumma were getting amused, she never turned up. she probably realized this was so much better than yelling "No"

Here is how you can negotiate
She was seen standing on the balcony one morning and trying to fly and negotiate terms with a birdie.
Peapod: Birdie, come here and take me
(after waiting for a while)
P: Do you want chocolate?
(After no response for a while)
P: Do you want time out?

Here is an another way of losing an argument without making it look so and infact making it look like she is doing me a favour
Mumma: Wear your shoes fast, mumma has to go to office
Peapod: I want to watch cartoons
Mumma: we can do that in the evening, I am getting late.
Peapod: I want to watch now
Mumma: OK then, I am just going to go and you can stay here all alone. I will tell Ammachy you did not come
Peapod: Mumma, do you have to go to office?
Mumma: Yes
Peapod: Ammachy will cry if I don't go
Mumma: Yes
Peapod: Peapod just forgot, I will wear my shoes and come, ok


She speaks good malayalam with the perfect tense. Some of the words are not pronounced very clearly, but still perfect sentences. Her questions have gone up exponentially. I have already started kicking myself for not paying attention in school. She also has got my mom's mallu accent. There is a "Tondy" instead of Twenty, "Kai-sa laga", "ungle" for uncle and a "ellow" for yellow and sorts. We are ROTFL every time one of these gems come rolling. There is never a dull moment in the peapod-dom.

The Naughty Tricycle

The peapod is usually with me in the kitchen when I am preparing dinner. Watching me. Infact she is all over the place wanting to do everything I do, wash stuff, store, pick stuff from the fridge, add masalas so on and so forth. She uses her tricycle to come stand next to me to get a good view of the kitchen platform. The tricycle was gifted to her by my cousins on her first birthday. She uses her legs to waddle around the room. She still doesn't peddle it but she is found on it, in it almost all the time she is home. Anyway coming back to the point, the other day she stood on the cycle next to me to watch me do stuff and then the cycle rolled backwards when she tried to lean forward. She immediately went down and instructed the puppet on the tricycle which is the horn to "stand straight". She stood up again and leaned over me and again the cycle rolled. She went back down and smacked the puppet and said 'parazhille, stand straight' meaning, didn't I tell you to stand straight. The third time over she went back making little frustrated noises and said, "cycle naughty aa, time out venam?" meaning, are you naughty? do you need a time out? I couldn't help laughing and I told her peapod is very funny. Ofcourse my little mallu kutty had not heard the word "funny". She did not understand. She look at me puzzled "Mumma enda pazhajne(forgive me my manglish spellings), peapod ne pani illa, mumma marrannu poi?" meaning, Mumma what are you saying, did you forget peapod doesn't have fever(funny = pani)?
And then I had to explain how she was making me laugh and so she was funny :).

Sometimes I just want to kiss and freeze her innocence in a time capsule.

Peapod @ 2years-2months & Jellybean at 23 months

The Peapod's current favourites are her puzzles and books.

I bought her 2 wooden jigsaw puzzles, one which is a duck made of 8 blocks and then a couple of teddy bear puzzles. These are the only ones that appealed to my adult mind as jigsaw puzzles. I realized latter, it was difficult to get her started. I spent some time in the mornings doing the puzzle & showing it to her initially. She picked up and seemed quite interested latter on. She was quite busy for a few days untill she had mastered it all. It was fun to see her sit with it, turn the pieces around, trying to fit them in and many times she would be throwing the pieces and the wooden board around in frustration. My sister bought a couple of more puzzles of various shapes from local train vendors in Mumbai. The ABCD puzzle with 26pieces used to keep her occupied for a long time. I could actually flip through a magazine while she was at it. With every day, she is getting faster and I am wondering what to get next? Since I have never done or seen kids do jigsaw puzzles so young, I was very amused and am proud of my bacha.


Books. She loves her books. Whenever we buy books for the peapod, the grandparents are wondering if we are planning to get her to graduation directly. She has around a dozen books. To add to it when P returned from his onsite, he bought more books. I hid all of them and introduce one book at a time. Reading peapod a book during her bedtime was something I looked forward to when she did not seem to show much interest or around the time she had just begun to pay heed. These days I dread the bed time for the book reading. why you ask?

When I summon her for bed, she immediately starts pulling drawers, frantically searching for her books chanting "endiye..endiye"(where..where) and would tuck a book under each arm, then 2 in her hands and hug on to 1 or 2 and dump them all on the bed. I have to read each and set them aside. I yawn, pretend to sleep, try to skip pages, but none work. Sometimes I even switch off the lights but she would still make me read and enact ALL THOSE BOOKS. She has a color book, which she loves. After the lights are off, I just keep blindly mumbling stuff to get to the end of each book as fast as I can in between yawns and tears and blurred vision. So when the color book goes up in the dark, I flip through each page and she will say "black" each time. Let me see if I can click a snap of her going to bed with all those books balanced on her little frame.

The jelly bean on the other hand is not interested in puzzles or books. She knows to place a couple of pieces here and there but would never sit still to complete a full jigsaw. She watches the peapod though while she is building them. Books, she will just stay quiet the whole time the book reading is going on but would never want to SEE the contents of the book except for a few random glances. But she surprises us by pointing out to 'Abacus' in a word book and I am left wondering, how come?. She is more interested in holding on to small, tiny-weeny things in both her hands like buttons, crayons etc and keeps checking them every 10 mins interval. She knows how many she is carrying and no body can fool her with the number or color though she can not count in numbers or name the colors. The other thing about her is, you can ask her where is the toy she was playing in the morning and she can go and point to it under the bed or behind the sofa. The peapod has no such recollection. She will just act all innocent, as if she has no clue what am I talking about.


(They are selling potatoes. They roam around shouting "potatowala..potato")

The Jellybean, when she arrived was a clinger, would cry at the drop of a hat, and was a shy child. The peapod, in her bad moods would actually hit her, scratch her and all she would do was cry and yell back. Now, she hits back and because she retaliates the peapod is more careful. So overall the hit and scream have reduced a lot. Jellybean is still not very out-going but if you have met her twice and you encourage her, she would gladly come and join you in.


(There, raiding my dressing table)

They both start dancing around even to the music blaring in the streets. They can sit beside each other play their own stuff. They will exchange toys after a while. Both can say "pleashe" and "tanku" and charm you endlessly. They even imitate the other crying and make fun of each other.

The story of the Please and the Crow

Like I said earlier,ever since the peapod started walking and discovering new heights in the house, I was always pleading before I ran out of patience and would smack the little butt. I was tired of the pleading business and the smacks which got us no where. More effective measures were required for the little terror that did not understand "No" or ignored my sterns like I was the mouse in the house who had no business acting strict or stern. A variation of the "Time out" started getting me the desired effects. Since staying still in a confined space was not a concept that could be taught easily to these tods, I used to just lock her up in a room for a minute. She would cry, howl for a minute and come out and be a good girl. She would clean-up or the message of no hitting jellybean was drilled in. I don't remember when was it exactly I stopped using "Please". But these days the "Please" has come to haunt me.

Girls: Mumma choclate
Mumma: You just had 2, we will have after dinner now.
Girls: Mumma please (with the head tilt, just like how I used to do it)
Mumma: No Kuttu
Girls: Mumma please ..please ..please.

Girls: Mumma duck quack quack(for the 10th time)
Mumma: Three little ducks that I once knew...
Girls: Mumma duck quack quack
Mumma: No Kutta, Mumma is tired.
Girls: Please ....Please duck quack quack

Mumma: Kuttu please keep the spice dabba back
Girls: Please Mumma ...Please

I still have to figure out how to deal with the "please" and not refuse all their pleads, least tomorrow they turn the tables back on me.

My sister is very found of crows. Her solution to all problems are crows.

Kids: Mumma choc late
Sis: The crow took it away (with a lengthy description of how the crow flew in when they weren't looking and how it flew away.)

Kids: endiye...endiye (after the spice dabba went missing mysteriously when they had just looked away for a second.
Sis: Oh the crow came and took it away.

Now the crow haunts her

Sis: Where is the spice dabba you were playing with
kids: Kaka poi (the crow took it away)

Sis: Where is my Dupatta you were playing with
kids: Kaka poi

The crow story is always narrated only to my sister never to me and I am always countered with Please. They play really fair. Such brats I tell you.

Does that mean we are ok for now?

We spent the entire morning cleaning. I was rearranging and making a new space for the CDs. The peapod and the jellybean sat with me on the bed handing me a CD everytime it was their turn. I sorted them, categorized them and stacked them. Once done, I had a huge CD case full of just softwares and backups of stuff I did taken everytime I was travelling. The huge CD case went into one of the small lower cabinet in our room. Latter in the day, the peapod pulled open the cabinet and picked up the CD case. When my sister caught her in the act, she yelled out to me. Immediately the peapod, pulled open the cabinet and put the case back. When I entered the room, the peapod stood in front of the cabinet with a naughty dimpled smile.

The peapod turned over her toy basket while looking for something. The toys were scattered all over, some under the table, the sofa and the bed. In the typical mummy-style, I put my hands on my hips and told her firmly to put the toys back and clean up the room. She stood there, looking else where as if she did not hear me. I did not move. I carried the 'I-am-damn-serious' expression on my face. She tried to sneak away under the pretext of water. I repeated, she needed to cleanup first. She looked at me and then slowly picked up all her toys and put them away.

I have struggled to discipline the peapod and at some point I think its just too difficult to discipline somebody so tiny and who has a mind of her own. She is not totally there yet but we'll get there...slowly....togather.

In the Peapod language ......

Our Aunty upstairs has been singing 'ABCD..' to the kids from her window for the last week. I haven't paid much attention to ABCD yet, though she does a ABCD puzzle but that is just putting the pieces here and there. Today morning,
Aunty to the peapod - Say ABCDEFG (in that age old tune we generally sing it where "lmnop" happens twice)
Peapod sings - AB'Chi'D Ammachy
(EFG probably sounded to her like Ammachy)



I was singing "Rejoice in the Lord" to the peapod yesterday

Mumma: Rejoice in the Lord always ...... Rejoice, Rejoice and again I say Rejoice
Peapod: Mumma, Sharon Sharon
Mumma(guessing this was coming): Sharon in the Lord always..... Sharon, Sharon and again I say Sharon
Peapod: Mumma, Rejoice



The kids were watching the nursery rhymes for the umpteenth time. "Its the 3rd rhyme, BA BA Black sheep. Once that is done, the light goes kaput.

My mom starts singing: Ba Ba black sheep, have you any wool, yes sir yes sir, 3 bags full.
Peapod: One for Sharon, one for peapod
Mumma: and one for
Peapod: Ammachy
Peapod: Mumma Ba Ba
Mumma starts now: Ba Ba black sheep ....3 bags full
Peapod: One for Sharon, one for peapod
Mumma: and one for
Peapod: Mumma
...and I have to sing this till she is done with Dada, Appachi, Ammachy and everyone she remembers.



The current favourite rhymes are "Three little ducks that I once knew" and "I am a teapot". On a day I got up from the wrong side of the bed, I hoped around with actions to these rhymes to amuse them. And guess what now, everytime there is a demand to sing this I have to hop around silly else it is not acceptable and they will bawl till its unbearable. I dread they bringing up the "farmaish" when I am famished or trying to laze around with a book.

Conversations with the peapod

We can converse with the peapod now. She mostly responds by saying "OK" when she agrees and refuses outright by saying "No No No".
When P was onsite, I used to drive the peapod to church on sunday. During our 10 min drive, I would tell her she is not supposed to make noise within the church or play in the church, ok? and I asked her to repeat ok after me, which she did. She started responding to ok? with a "ok" and soon realized that she was agreeing and was not allowed to go back on her word once agreed. These days "ok" comes after she has thought over it. So now when we say "ok?", she takes her time to think and then agrees or completely ignores it.

We have a Tam Brahm family staying above us. A sweet old couple. They love the kids and often call after them from the window or the balcony. Y/d we were on the swing when aunty called out.
Aunty: peapod, I am going out. what do you want?
peapod: lower
Aunty: How many?
peapod: twooo
Aunty: which color?
peapod: ello
Aunty: what else do you want?
peapod: fissshhh
Aunty suddenly wriggled her nose as an instant reaction and continued what ele do you want
peapod sensing something is wrong: fisshhh with a smile
Aunty wriggled her nose once again and asked "do you want chocoloate?"
peapod with a dimply smile to tease aunty again" Fisssshhhhh"
Aunty: I dont like fish, do you want chocolate?
peapod: "No, fissshhh"

So there is a sense of humor somewhere in there. Thank God.

What have I been upto.

Thank you all for your concern. Blogs have been blocked at work now and I was also busy with work. Will get back to my blog-hopping soon. Work has lately begun to demand a lot of my time. My initial plans of 9-6 has gone flying out the window. It is now getting a little out of hand with meetings & trainings crowding my calendar all through the month. The day-light savings in the US & Canada has managed to stretch my days as well. I am trying to get a grip on the situation at the earliest. A couple of days this week I was back only to see the peapod & jellybean sleeping.
Though the last few weeks have been packed work-wise, we had fun when my sister-in-law was down with 2 kids in tow for a couple of days. We drove around the city, munching and shopping with 3 kids playing peekaboo everywhere we went. Around the seat, around us, around the chairs and tables in the cafe, around neatly arranged racks of toys and clothes. Peekaboo was also intercepted by hair-pulling, pushing, hugging, kissing and giggles and laughs. The 3 of them rolled on the floor like puppies in my in-laws house hugging each other, jumping over each other, almost threatening to bring the house down with all that noise.
We had also been to a house warming ceremony of a cousin, a Diwali party, a birthday party of a colleague's son, and to see almost half a dozen "babies" born in the neighbourhood. In a new place, in front of strangers, in about 15-20 mins she is all set to mingle.
A little music and a few balloons can have the peapod tapping her feet, shaking her head and swaying her hands enjoying every bit of the evening. She will crane her neck for a glimpse of her 'Dada' or 'Mama' once in a while, if she hasn't caught our attention she will yell out loud for everyone to take notice of the elite couple i.e the peapod's Mama and Dada(who would be standing all embarrassed). We enjoy just watching her.

Peapod at 18

I have been taking mental notes of things the peapod is doing regularly and a few one-offs and then a few antics that take me by total surprise and then when all my notes are done I have no clue if this was always there and not 17-18 month specific.

The peapod though seems like a very quite child from an outsider's view, she is a devil let loose in the house. We are tired of putting things away from her reach. We have slowly started classifying everything starting from the morning newspaper to the 'will' as v.v.important, just important, important, need based, OK kinds. Other than the v.v.important stuff we just let her mess around with the others. A good set of audio cassettes were found completely rampaged by the 2 of them with no scope of fixing them. Once I found both of them sitting around & staring at each other with a lot of papers in between them, it turned out to be my purse, with the money, cards, bills all pulled out and put on the square tile between them, as if admiring the loot before they part with their shares.

She understands almost everything we say. If my mom is narrating something that happened during the day, she will watch my mom for a few secs and then she will enact it out in case I had any doubts. With a full time maid now, she has begun picking up Hindi. Its a complete mallu household here and English words are mostly all instructional as in "No", "Close", "Open" and so on. I heard the 'Bai' pick up a few mallu words like "ba"(come), "po"(go) etc and now yesterday morning the peapod was heard calling out "Aaja Aaja" (come, come) .... So 'Hindi' here you come.

My sister is trying to settle down with a job in a new city and so has left her daughter, the jellybean, with us. With this starts a new chapter in both their lives. Both, the peapod and the jellybean have enjoyed being the sole receiver of attention, individually, for over a year and now they have to share a grandmom, toys, food, drinks, clothes, the occasional loots, bathing time, space with each other. After the initial good behaviour put-on by both, now they are both in their real skins. This includes hitting each other, kicking, waking the other from her sleep, pulling legs(literally) and shouting at each other(this is different from crying). They have their moments when they are playing some stuff or are trying to mimic "Twinkle twinkle..." but sadly very short lived. There are also times when they feed each other but again that ends up with one hurting the other.





The peapod can identify a handful of animals, a few birds, the head, eyes, ears, nose. She enjoys rhymes. I have often seen her drum her fingers on her thighs or the floor whenever a song is on. I love to see her do that. She has a concept of time. I mean she knows I am back at 7pm. She knows her father gets back at 8:30, she knows its the garbage man, she knows its the milk man. All these knocks happen at fixed timmings most days and she knows it and it amazes me. When she knows its her Dada, she runs like someones after her life to the door. I am told she starts pushing the maid towards the door and starts waving bye-byes by her regular time. She will insist on carrying the garbage when the bell rings at the designated time.

Any guest in our house now has a time-out. 10 mins is the time set for the best behaviour that the peapod and the jellybean can pull up togather, soon the cries and screams will have all of them excuse us soon.

At 15 months, now the jellybean can walk freely around the house with both her hands stretched out in front of her. She is very free with her kisses. She will kiss you even when she is crying. The peapod is a absolute miser in this case. The jellybean needs to be carried & cradled to-fro before she dozes off to sleep. The peapod used to sleep on her own if we just laid next to her. But now the peapod needs the same. She needs to be carried for 2 rounds atleast before letting her down on the bed, just for the heck of it and she will sniff and dig around for her comfort position on the bed before dozing off. During the day, when she feels sleepy, she will get a dupatta or a sheet, lie down, spread the cloth over her and will pat herself, which is actually telling us to sing and pat.If the jellybean is sleeping, she will find a piece of cloth to cover her all up and in the process will also end up waking her up.

One thing I have observed in the last 2 months is her anger. She actually grinds her teeth and clenches her fists when she is angry. Sometimes she can be easily distracted, other times she will beat the devil out of you by the time you manage to find sufficiently interesting stuff to distract. With her cousin around, I also have to drill the message in - "No hitting". I don't want to get paranoid about the 2 hurting each other. I did rather have the 2 express their love and learn what is acceptable and what is not, meanwhile everybody else is on their toes and very watchful.

Partners in crime

While the Peapod's cousin is in town, they are having a great time howling, trying to scare each other & saying stuff only the two can decipher. They pass stuff to each other, applaud , say 'good good' and then grab it back once the applause dies. They have huge competitions for a place in granny's lap or her hip. Many attempts at getting them to play their shapes sorter and stacking cups have failed miserably. Even if I managed to get them started, it would end up with one throwing it at the other and then screams or flying objects(get it from the grandfather I guess) fill the room.Their favourite game is for one to make some kind of noise and challenge the other to follow.

The Peapod is having fun showing stuff that surprises her cousin. We have a light switch very near to my mom's bed. The peapod had discovered this a couple of weeks back and was delighted when she could switch it on and off. A couple of days back, the peapod was seen showing off her magic skills to her cousin. She put the lights on only for her cousin to scream in delight and then turned it off to smile at her and tell her 'I have the power' and repeat the performance with screams of delight every time the lights came on and looks exchanged every time it was put off. A very successful attempt by the peapod to impress her cousin. We were literally rolling on the bed laughing.


Both found making farting sounds.

You know you are always on your knees when ....

... you leave home for office without a rain-coat on your 2-wheeler and suddenly it starts drizzling and you start "Please God ..not now ..please please ..please mole(daughter) ...please Kuttai (t to be pronounced as in tea...) ...sweetiepie ...please" ...only to realize in a few minutes your sweetiepie isn't responsible for the rains but the heavenly Father or the rain Gods(aren't they the same?). My mol(daughter) is responsible only for the mess in my house, only for checking what happens when a glass is dropped, only for pulling out the long traditional curd crusher (from God knows where) and hitting it around on tables, chairs, glass panes. She is only responsible for pouring water around the house in the name of gardening and have me slip on it. She is responsible for only emptying the talcum on the floor and then applying it on her face. She is responsible only for undoing all the cleaning the maid does even before she leaves. She is responsible for just letting me live with my heart in my mouth by standing on the edge of the table and beckoning me to come and catch her and she will start running off in the opposite direction on the dinning table. She is only responsible for plucking leaves and flowers off her granny's garden and throwing them in the house for the fragrance I believe.

"God, please ...give me some patience ..please ..please ..Kuttai please ...please mole" ... Oops not Kuttai's department again!!