Dear Thambi,

Today you complete 18 months.  A big one for you and a bliss for us. You have made our family complete. You are the most bubbly child I have ever seen. Always ready with a smile, you entice even strangers easily. No one can look away from you. Right from the kids and aunts and uncles you meet at the playground to the gardener, the security guards, the men working on the roadside and the teachers in Pappa’s school, everyone is your friend. Everyone looks forward to seeing you and your smile, that they have started asking if we go without you.

Don’t think you would remember the long train journey (1 hour) from Changi airport back home. You started grabbing everyone’s attention by smiling at them and batting eyes. You even pulled tired office goers into responding to your “Boo-peep game”.  Then, the other day when K aunty and R uncle had come home, you had your trade mark smile plastered onto your face everytime they turned in your direction. It was indeed a photographic moment.

You ape your sister.  You love to dance with her and can emulate her barathanatyam steps. You look so cute when you bend your hands in a pose and stamp your leg saying “thaiya thai”. The singing sessions are even more adorable. You would sit down and sing “pa, paaaaa”  while putting the thalam.

Your love for wheels has not abated. You fancy all vehicles with cars taking a special space. The words that you can clearly say now are car, car keys, taxi, trai (train), akka, anna, amma, baba (meaning yourself), nyna, daddy and tata. And in all these, its those related to car, that you can say spontaneously at all times without prompting. The others you would tell at times and refuse at other times.  You also love to play with the ball. You would bring the ball to us and say, “ba, kick”.  Which reminds me of your first syllabus words.  You say “Ho” for hot, “Co” for cot, “ba” for ball, and many more.

Do you know how you frustrate your sister? You make her repeat whatever she was playing with you over and over again. Sometimes the pour soul would have done it atleast 10 times and still you wouldn’t leave her.  You would go pull/push her, complain to us or simply cry until she does it again.

All in all, you have been a wonderful bundle of joy that makes each and every day special.

Have a fun filled day darling.

Yours besotted mom.

We had invited a few of our friends for Deepavali celebrations at our house. We had all enjoyed the crackers and were sitting around chatting. I was carrying Thambi and he suddenly started winking at one of the friends. He had recently learnt this and was doing it to randomly at anyone and then smiling. So this followed by more winking and then she asked him to show “bye bye” and he immediately shook his hand. Then my friend said hello and gave her hand. We were all waiting for him to shake her hand. But even repeated requests wouldn’t make him put his hand out. Then he suddenly lurched forward, took a phone and kept to his ear and looked and said “aiyo”.

We were all surprised as this was the first time he was putting  a phone to his ears and then had a hearty laugh at his intelligence.

So, hereafter, you say a ‘hello’ on the phone and a ‘how do you do?’ when you shake hands!!

This post is just for recording some milestones for Thambi.

Thambi’s upper teeth started to come out just a week before his birthday.  Funnily, the front tooth on the left and the one next to it, came out first. This was followed by the right front tooth a week later. So now he has three upper teeth and two in the bottom.

He knows to pray, clap, jump, wink and shake hands.

He is quite friendly with strangers and goes readily to some of them. 

He loves playing in the water. He gets excited when he sees water and makes a bee line to it.

We did his ayushhomam on 7th Oct.

Thambi turned one on 20th Sep – Saturday.  He woke up bright and sunny on that day. Pappa kissed him and wished him a “Happy Birthday”. Then she shook his hand and kissed it. She did it a couple of times as he laughed each time she did it. Then he started to put his hand out to her, thinking it was a game.

As it was the first saturday of ‘Puratasi ‘month, we were maintaining a fast.  We prayed to God and went to the Murugan Hill temple. After returning, we had lunch, and the kids went to bed. G & me sat down to prepare the letters in Thambi’s name to put up in the party hall. By the time I finished this and had prepared bagalabath for the party, thambi and pappa woke up. Bathed them and got them ready for the party.

The party was planned in the club house and R & the Daddy took care of all the decoration works.  The party was planned to start at 6:30pm and most of the guests followed the IST and hence we ended up cutting the cake at 7:30pm. Thambi was perfect during the whole party, having had his afternoon nap. He took a quick nap when the guests were having dinner and was back as fresh as ever to bid them adieu. Pappa enjoyed playing with her friends and was happy to distribute the return gifts. It was almost 10pm by the time all had left and we cleaned the hall and returned home.

A truly wonderful day in all sense.

Last friday, I had bathed pappa and was applying cream. Thambi ambled in and came near me and started pushing and shoving and making a big noise.  I didn’t make a big issue of it and just allowed him to come and stand near me. I then continued applying the cream and he immediately shoved pappa.  We were pretty surprised. He has never been possessive. He used to be quite happy to be around me. Need to wait and see if its truly a trait or a one off gesture.

Pappa has become a pro at making calls. She knows my number by heart and calls me for all and sundry. Yesterday she was alone at home with the maid as her athai had gone with thambi to a friend’s house. She called me and the first thing she told was “Why did someone else answer your phone?”. She had mis-dailled earlier After a while she causually tells me that she had spoken with her Daddy, mama and athai after her attempt to call me. This surprised me as she knew only my number.  The clever little girl had noted down the numbers of all the others in a little notebook before her athai left in the morning. I was simply amazed by this.

Thambi got his first set of pearly whites – two on the lower jaw on 8th Jul and he was raving to bite anything and everything in sight.

This is to establish that thambi is self sufficient now!!! He took his first independant step yesterday. But mummy was not around to witness this feet..boo hoo… He took two steps towards this aunt (athai).

Thambi has learnt to cry…yes, he used to be such a cheerful guy, not even crying when hurt. Now he seems to only cry. I am hoping that this might be because he has not recovered completely from his cold and fever. He still has his cough…ahh, painful to hear

He screeches when he doesn’t like something. Pappa just loves to kiss/hug him and see him screech. When she returns from school, she runs to him and pulls him or hugs him to see him scream. He gets angry quite often now. No one can offend the royal highness now. If he doesn’t get his wish, he cries. But the way he cries is funny. No loud bawling. Usually starts as a screech followed by crying with his mouth shut tight.

Oh, he has started playing a lot. He loves to play peek-a-boo, removing the bindi from me, doing something naughty so that I say “No,no,no” to him, catch me if you can and some more. He also loves to move his butt to music.  Even the “Sa, sa, pa” from his sister brings a dance from him.

Thambi woke up bright and early this morning. You would think he has an internal alarm when you notice how he wakes up exactly at 7am. He was his usually chirpy self and the moment he saw his father sleeping nearby, all hell broke loose. He was so happy. He started making funny sounds and went quickly towards his father. What then ensued was bliss.  A piece from heaven. The sound of father and son playing and the gurgles… I didn’t want to get up. They played peek-a-boo, catch me and games that don’t have a name. The week has started on a pleasant note.

This morning pappa got up at 4am and wanted to play. She called me (eh…eh) and then hid her face in the pillow. If I turn and see her, she is laughing!! Hubby and myself were sooo sleepy and so I tried to make her sleep, but she started crying everytime I patted her….finally managed to make her sleep by 5.30am and then I had to get up to get ready to come to office… Pappa then slept for more than 2 hrs….