Happy New Year 2012~

Our Little Trible Princess

Here comes another surprise...Our Little baby changes transforms into a Tribal princess and wins Inter Apartments Fancy Dress Challenge.... This promotional event was organized by Candor International School

It was a frantic midnight preparation, with Mommy making all her bow, arrow and spear! But in the end it was all certainly worth the effort.

She stood 1st among 7 other kids in her age category....Here are some pics...

 

The Angel Turns 4

Yesterday was a  BIG day in little Shahana's life. After weeks and weeks of anticipation, it WAS finally her birthday. And funnily enough, the day started with an anticlimax LOL!!

For the past couple of weeks, Shahana would ask (almost every morning), "Is it my birthday today?" and we'd help her count the days left till her birthday. Yesterday, she woke up declaring that her birthday was tomorrow! It took a good 30 minutes to have the little darling believe that this morning was indeed her special day. Some fun, huh?

The day slowly began with a visit to the temple, seeking the Almighty's blessings after which we grabbed a quick lunch and back home so that baby could catch on some sleep. If she didn't then it was sure shot disaster because she'd be cranky and irritable in the evening and we all will have a hard time coddling her. Anyway, none of that happened and finally evening came. 

Suddenly, my little sweetheart, metamorphosed into a beautiful little fairy. And the gown that she wore was one that she picked for herself. I am indeed amazed at how clear today's kids are about what they want. Infact she was crystal clear about the whole look. Here's a quick look :)

Not only the clothes, she was also quite clear about the decorations. She wanted a fairy theme and here's a picture of how that looked :)

The evening was made memorable with a magic show and a tattoo artist, that was immensely enjoyed by all her friends. All the kids were extremely happy, but more importantly, our little princess was very happy to have such a wonderful party. 

One day she's a small bundle of joy; we blink and suddenly she is a 4 year old talkathon! 

Here is the link to the full album;
https://picasaweb.google.com/talk2anand/Shahana_Turns_4?authuser=0&authkey=Gv1sRgCI6SpPfn0_jsGQ&feat=directlink

Dance Classes

Shahana started attending dance classes at our apartment, and man she's loving it. For starters we put her into 'Bollywood freestyle' because anything else would be too formal for her tender age.

She really has fun and is certainly the class favorite :) Here's a little sampler of what our baby has learnt!

Mere Ghar Aaye Ek Nanhi Pari

Fancy Dress!!! A word which excites our little baby a lot. She starts asking questioning, what will I wear? Will you buy me matching clips/shoes/bands etc....And next moment she's planning for her dress to be like...

Her first experience of dressing up differently, in new school, but no competition(thats a Good thing). And she loved being "Pari". Don't dare to upset her, who knows she will turn you into a "Pumpkin" with her Magic Wand....LOL

For next 2 days, she as on with the wings while eating, playing and even sleeping....ha ha ha

Never mind thats our lovely baby.

Holi and the Baby!

Last Sunday, it was Holi. Much awaited by all of us at home. Shahana was particularly enthustiastic about participating in the festivities. In fact she was in full prep mode - her acquisitions included a water gun, some water baloons, two pichkari's .
Looking at her enthusiasm, we were actually very relived that this year, she will not cry herself crazy. Ok, a little background here: She has never liked Holis in the past so we were a bit apprehensive. All the crazy colors on everybody's faces, usually scares her.
Ultimately the big day came and much to our disappointment, it was pretty much the same story. She still doesn't like Holi and color play. So we had to leave little Shahana at another resident, who is friends and also doesn't like to play Holi. Once she was put in a safe place, Anshu and I had quite a blast.
It is Wednesday and I still have traces of color on my palms.

Looks like we will have to wait a couple of more years, before our baby becomes comfortable with this whole concept of holi and applying colors.

First Stage Performance of Shahana :)

Shahana is turned into a magnificent performer now. A day before yesterday was her (first experienced )Annual Day in Montessori school. She's only 2-3 weeks old in Little Feat Montessori now, but she has been managing to impress teachers and parents with her charming personality :).
Have a look at the videos taken on her Annual day. A small piece of info, she was not part of the performers' troupe actually, but her enthusiam left everyone bowled over with a surprise when she climbed on to the stage with full confidence.

The Many moods of the little princess..

Life gets more and more exciting as L'il Shahana adds more and more words to here rapidly increasing repertoire.
Soon she will be a little brat of 3 years. And is growing into an extremely lovable little person (well... most of the times yes).
Yes we do have our "bang-my-head-on-a-wall" moments with her but one smile and usually all is forgiven!

The Little bumble-bee :)

Rock Star Mishti..

Will someone adjust the speakers please???

Little Ms. Mischief

This is what happens when
baby & talcum powder are left
unchecked!

Happy Meal Parenting!

Any parent with a two year old, running amok, would know exactly what I am talking about. A recent development of Shahana is that she recognizes the golden arches (of Mc Donalds) extremely well. Add to the fact that Mc Donalds has managed to open a lot more outlets around Bangalore, in the last couple of years and the result is that you spot one on any of the main roads, that you travel!

The result???


Little Shahana points out and says, "Lets to Mc Donalds and eat 'fench fies'". So after much refusing and faux admonishments, we, the parents give in and take her there. Once in, our choices have been limited to the ubiquitous "happy meal" (and no points for guessing why! Of course the toy that comes with the box.) and we are now officially "happy meal parents". LOL!!
....And before the healthy eating bandwagon, beats us to pulp, it seems to be a good idea to mention that we limit the trips to the place and our kid is still too small to be able to finish more than a couple of sticks of french fries and a few bites off a McVeggie!
But whenever we do visit, it is real fun to watch her, enjoy her meal, completely oblivious to the chaos around her. Immersed in total bliss!!

Little Mishti at the park.

Mishti is now old enough to ask to be taken to parks. She is particularly fascinated by the merri-go-rounds. Here are a few moments....

Mishti is now old enough to ask to be taken to parks. She is particularly fascinated by the merri-go-rounds. Here are a few moments....

...And then there was a bean bag ;)

Recently little Shahana visited her cousin. And among all the other little things, the one thing that really caught her fancy was the 'bean bag'! She just loved to plonk herself onto it all the time. It was oh so comfy and she used to sink in it. It was fun to watch her fight over it with her cousin :)
Last weekend, we were back in Bangalore, and while we were out shopping at the mall, she spotted it....yeah you guessed it right!, the bean bag!
And she threw a fit right there (its amazing how the little ones know when to throw a tantrum!), so we took it.
Now, it is exclusively, "her" property. Everything from drinking her milk, to sitting down to simply relaxing is done on the BEAN BAG. No one else is allowed to sit on it. not more than 5 minutes!
It is, but fun to watch her completely enjoy herself on the bean bag!
And here are some moments!

Cat in the refrigerator :>)

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!!

We have an extremely naughty person on the house!!!

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.

2 years??? I thought I just blinked!

"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....

Youtube's fan following just grew by about 2feet

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.

Mishti Ki mithaas!

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.

The new Bald look!

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.

Little Ms Mischief, at it again!

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!

Our "Little Munchkin"

"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.

So will we.

Mishti's Pictures

Its been a while since we got a chance to update little Shahana's activities. Oh she has certainly kept us very busy and "on our toes". Now very soon, she is going to go to a playschool!
Here are some pictures of her in her varying moods :)

http://picasaweb.google.co.in/talk2anand/MishtiBaby#