Hello World! On 27-September-2007, I came into this world, to delight everyone around me. And here I am on the world wide web.
One of the advantages of having a tech-savvy papa, is that I get to have my own blog even before I am a week old. My papa will keep putting my pics and other stuff, here, regularly. So keep visiting.
Love,
-Shahana
Little Ms. Mischief is now exploring more and more, with each passing day! Her newest conquest is the family refrigerator. She has learnt how to open the door, and stand on the small platform. Once that is achieved, she just loves to explore the chilly environs of the fridge. Quite a novelty for her.. :) Here are some candid moments of the little inquisitive cat in the refrigerator!!
Little Shahana has become one big explosive bundle of activity lately! She is all over the place. Ever since she started responding in sentences, it has become a bit of a risk engaging her. You never know what you may have uttered in the past, that she has caught and will use against you. It is just super fun watching this little busy body at work - creating mess after mess after mess, while the harried mother (my darling wife, Anshu) is busy cleaning up after her.
"Time Flies"....and so the cliche goes. But when you come to think about it, it truly feels like it. Seems like just yesterday, when Anshu and I became proud parents of our little angel. Then one day it was her first birthday. WOW! That was nice and come Sunday, Shahana will be celebrating her 2nd birthday. 2 full years have passed and it has been a roller-coaster ride of both happiness as well as exasperation (especially when the little one drives us up the wall). So only a few days to go....and lots of stuff to do... Watch this space for moments captured on Sunday....
In case you wonder where I came up with that crazy metric, it is the approximate height of my little princess. And She loves YouTube even before here second birthday! Sometimes, as parents we do stuff with our kids, usually to get them off our backs for a while, and it backfires BIG-TIME. This one's a classic example of it. Here's my story: Whenever I used to open my laptop to check email or to catchup on my feed reader or some other stuff, my kiddo would come running up to me and start banging at random keys on the keyboard. More than once, she has pressed the power button, when I am right in the middle of doing something important. So I thought, let me just show her something interesting and then she can get back to play and I can get back to doing what I am doing. And that I think was BIG Mistake ;-)
I opened YouTube, and searched for nursery rhymes (never expected so many videos to show up) and showed her one. She was over herself with joy (in fact, that "moment" when my little one squeals with happiness, is what parenting is all about), and then she actually asked for another rhyme that she knows. I searched, found it played it. And then came another......
It has led to a situation where, this laptop is now 'hers' and I get to work on it once in a while, when the rest of the household is asleep (like right now). And she watches her playlist (yes I made her a play list of about 19 odd poems), two times a day, breakfast and dinner time.
You tube sure has a vast resource of fun education. But at the same time, as parents, both my wife and myself are cautious about not letting her watch it more than 3o minutes at a time. Initially we were unable to figure out how to get her OFF it. But now we simply tell her that the poems have gone to sleep, and the little darling happily lets go of the laptop :). Here's a little video of her antics with the laptop. If you are not able to see the video, then click here.
Our darling Mishti is now able to speak in sentences, but of course with the cute baby accent of hers. It is truly the ultimate feeling to hear her recite the little rhymes and poems that she has learnt at her day care. She loves to talk up a storm and we love to hear her doing that. One of the few moments, where one realizes that parenting is needed the truest of all joys! Several new pictures are there. Will post them soon.
Shahana was getting all here baby hairs tangled all the time. So a tonsure was definitely in order. About a month back, we got it done, without the brouhaha and here are some of the many moods of our little angel :)
Please email me for invitation to view the entire collection.
The day before, we were all dressed up and ready to roll in the morning. But for about 10 minutes, there was no noise from Mishti. And let me tell you, she has reached 'that' age, where silence for more than a couple of minutes from her means (a) she is sleeping. OR (b) she is up to some serious mischief! On that morning, it was the latter. I had gotten her all dressed up, ready to go to the playschool. The only oversight was that I forgot to close the talcum powder lid :( ......and here's what happened!
"Little Munchkin". That's what they call the 14-18 month old in her day care center (Your Kids 'R' Our Kids). Starting this Monday, Anshu and I bravely embraced one of the harshest truths of 21st Century parenting - The Day Care Center. A concept, which conveniently fits into your scheme of things, your job, your career and your baby is taken care of just the way you would like. Shahana started her long and arduous journey of institutionalization - with excited little baby steps. And she fit right in, among the other kids at the center. But ofcourse on day one, it was us parents who were loaded with a lot of guilt pangs. I for one, never expected this to be such a tough thing to do. And I realized it in good measure on the first day while leaving her alone. Although they take exceptionally good care of the child, catering to all her needs, but somehow, the parent in you never comes around to *completely* entrust the childs care to them. I guess we both grew a little more as parents, that day. But then in today's scenario of working parents and next to nil support and the disintegration of the joint family (a good thing in my case), this is the next best option available. In fact, when I saw the number of parents dropping off their kids and going off to work, It was quite re-assuring to say the least. As for Misthi, she has reached the stage, where she had begun craving for companionship. And we believe this is the right time to put her into a situation like this, where she will rapidly develop here social and interactive skills. We were actually very relieved to see her so happily engrossed with other kids her age. And then, I believe it is a matter of time when she will completely get used to this new arrangement.
