I wish I could write to you everyday. But , I become very lazy ; sometimes , I brood on unnecessary thoughts and hence writing becomes a pain ; or at times , I just sleep when you sleep. Yesterday , we both slept 4 h in the afternoon. When someone is sleeping deeply nearby , we tend to sleep very happily and peacefully , too. I slept and made you sleep ; you slept and made me sleep , we slept 4 happy hours. When I woke up I felt I am in some other world . I had dreams - dreams , which felt too good ; dreams , which are like lullabies ; dreams , where you see people whom you can't see in reality - so , when I woke up it took a while to recollect myself. Thankfully , you were in a good mood and was smiling , talking and playing immediately after waking up. Seeing you happy always makes me happy and contended , always !
You are going to be 19 months old. You have grown up so much , so soon ! I remember the first day where you were lying on my chest after delivery. How time flies !
OK , let me continue :
Fear
You fear loud sounds. Occasionally , when a helicopter flies over our home , you will come running to me. Your eyes will be much smaller , your mouth a little open , I could clearly see the tension in your face. You will be saying , " amma , ammov " , when I see that cute expression , invariably a smile comes to my lips. I hold you tight for sometime until the noise subsides. Other than the fear for loud noise , I haven't seen any fear in you. Once , in a birthday party , many children were playing outside. One of our friend took a small stick and tried to scare the children by pretending to beat them. He was asking everyone to get inside the function hall. Everyone ran inside , it seems. I was not there. The only little one who stood there arguing with him is you. You were moving your hands and saying something in a language only you understood. Someone commented , " whose child are you trying to scare , don't you know that's Manju's daughter ". Everyone broke into laughter , and your dad was narrating this incident to me later. Yes , whose daughter are you :)
Food
You eat well. I try to give you as much variety as I can. I spend much of my day preparing food for you. I will always have two or three options - so that if you refuse to eat something , I could offer you something else. Your paternal grandma says , if I continue to breastfeed you , you wouldn't eat anything else. That unnecessary , irritating assumption had made me a little paranoid. So I make sure you eat well. You love fruits , you love sausages , you love fish , you love corn , you love chicken , you love dosa - you eat almost everything.
Talking
You now repeat many words we tell you. You now sing rhymes. You repeat particular words in the rhymes. You have now started to link two words together like " amma come " , " bye appa " , and so on. You understand the commands both in Tamil and Telugu. Once in the supermarket you said ' Tschüss ' instead of ' bye '. I was so surprised by the way you interchangeably used a German word for an English word - you must have observed that everyone are using ' Tschüss ' , so you said ' bye ' in German ! I was so happy and amazed that you understood a foreign word usage and the context in which it is used , perfectly ! Oh , my very intelligent darling daughter 😘 You now hear English , Tamil , Telugu and German. You watch Malayalam cartoons too. You were actually repeating the cartoon character's one word dialogues before they say. You say words in Tamil , Telugu , English and Malayalam :) Yesterday , I showed you the pumpkin growing in the plant - the pumpkin plant has started to fruit recently , and the tender fruit looked round and beautiful. I made you touch the pumpkin and told you that's pumpkin. When your dad came , you both went to the garden. You took him to pumpkin plant , touched the pumpkin and said ' pumpin , pumpin '. Your dad was overjoyed , he came and told me that you said so. I wish I am intelligent enough to teach you , Anisha. Sometimes I wonder how will I be able to meet your thirst for learning new things - am I really doing enough ?!
Anisha , I feel sleepy , too. You are sleeping happily. Let me also sleep. Will continue tomorrow , for sure :)
❤
Amma
