The shadow play

Hi All, I am Tish.

In all these years (20 months to be precise), I didn't realize mum was writing about me. And going ga-ga over silly things... I mean,come on ...one would expect her to be more mature ..you can't even say grow up to a grown up !!

Anyway, so some days back I found mum busy having tete-a-tete with some hi-fi child learning educator  who was mostly putting mum down on how mum hasn't taken time out to introduce montessorri based structured play to me . Poor mum was trying to defend herself but the other lady was quite vocal about her displeasure .

I wish I could tell her to let mum be , but I was too busy playing .

You see, I have this new game I play . I have discovered that whenever the lights are switched on, a girl my size comes to play with me .Mum says her name is shadow.She stands by my side and is a true copycat .Sometimes she becomes tall ,sometimes very short ...but is by my side always,at least till the time lights are on .

Maybe she is afraid of the dark .

So I devise new activities and watch her copy me ...its so funny that I always end up laughing ...and my silly family laughs too(I am sure they don't get the joke)..yesterday i was playing football by looking at shadow and she got a bit confused ...i guess she works well only when i concentrate on my activity .

So I would like to tell that child educator lady to stop bothering mum. I don't need instructions on how to play ,thank you very much.That's my area of expertise...

Dining Manners

Having lunch or Dinner around Tish is an ordeal. She wants to dive into bowls and play tambourine with cooker and ladles. The typical Kashmiri dinner style of eating on the floor on batpalav( a long cloth) dosen't help either , considering the easy access that it provides to a toddler to all the wares.

So each day we first feed her , then put her to sleep then eat as clandestinely as possible.

Day before yesterday I decided I had had it . So I spread the batpalav, placed all the bowls and dishes, and gave her a bowl to eat from .

And boy the drama the followed.

The girl squealed with delight , started eating with hands, claws , feet , face ; all the while exclaiming "bappu " "bappu "( rice ) ...what was hilarious was the way she copied her father's style of putting a morsel in her mouth and forgetting to chew when the songs' channel was changed on tv to accomodate her favorite song .She really felt all important .

Not that this was to continue for long . Yesterday I was informed curtly by my MIL that we would again have to use stealth operation style eating  since the little lady decided to pour the bowl on her head at lunch .

Fancy that !

tiiiiii

Its strange how little we know about our babies even though we would like to think they are our allotrophes.
I like playing peek-a-boo with my daughter...I hide behind curtains and jump out exclaiming " tiiii. tiii"

Sometimes she gives a bored laugh (huh! seen this before , nextt!!!! ) or a bland face (maybe if I stare enough she would leave these histrionics ).

So today in wee hours of the morning our lady woke up ,looking for entertainment ..I signalled to my husband to pretend we are sleeping so that the lady does back to dozing .
Not her plans.

The lady crawled up to me hid behind my blanket , jumped out and exclaimed "tii tii ".

Who could pretend sleeping after that?

Take a stand

So last night we were having our dinner . Tish had already been fed her bowl of broccoli masala oats and her grandpa was trying to unsuccessfully keep her off our "batpalav" while she howled and tried to attack bowls of rice and aloo matar.

This will start making sense to you when you understand a kashmiri dinner setting . All kashmiris, the hi-fi and the not so hi-fi spread a cloth on the carpet /bed and then keep all utensils on it and eat . We abhor dining tables. So now you can see how its easy for a kid to crawl and jump into a bowl and do as she pleases .

So back to the story , the kid was trying to get hold of stuff or at least pots and pans when for a moment she stood up..all on her own ..and we were all like ...hey look , she is standing , she is standing ...for around 5 seconds and then she plopped down on her granny's back .

I didn't know such small moments could get imprinted on your brain , but apparently they do