Hero Worship

Cute moment this morning I felt I should write about.

Puchku's really been into this Aveeno lotion we have in the living room. He always asks me to squirt a bit on both hands, and I've taught him to expand his realm of just smearing it on his hands to including his thighs (the kid never wears pants around the house - if I can get his underpants on him I feel like I've succeeded). There was a time when he started smearing it on his legs and he had his pajamas on... Anyway he's expanded to his cheeks and face, which is fine. Today he asked for the standard lotion, and then I see he's putting it on his forehead, into his hair. I start squealing, saying that's yucky! He goes over to the mirror and runs back over saying "Mumma! Puchku Withik!" He had styled his hair in a spiky hairstyle with the lotion, to what he thought was like Hrithik Roshan's hair.

His favorite Hindi movies have now expanded to the following:

• Dhoom 1 (Umesh Dhoom, bc the first time he watched it, Umesh was visiting. We have an action sequence that we enact regularly together - and he can identify Abhishek, Uday, Esha, and John)
• Dhoom 2 (Withik Dhoom - where he can identify Aishwarya & Bipasha, and Uday & Hrithik but hasn't made the connection that Abhishek from Dhoom 1 is the same Abhishek from Dhoom2 bc the guy put on 30+ lbs between the two films)
• Ek Tha Tiger (Salman & Pacheena - Katrina, his total fave actress)
• Om Shanti Om (ShahRukh Om Shanti - you should see his rendition of the OG 'Om Shanti Om' song with the growling 'aaaaaah!' in the end - oh, and he really likes Deepika too)
• Daawat-e-Ishq ('Daamne Ishq' which is a total different genre from the rest of his preferences. But he loves yelling 'Gullu' and 'Taruuuu!' dialogues, and dancing to the title song by making a frisbee a thali and using it as a dhapli the way Taru does in the opening of the song)
• Bang Bang (the O.G. that sparked his love for Withik, his favorite hero, and Pacheena, his favorite actress. I often find him and Delmi, his nanny, watching this film when I come home at night - I suspect Delmi enjoys Hrithik as much as the rest of us do!)

As I write this post, on a Saturday morning, my son is walking around only wearing a shirt (lost the battle of putting on his underwear after 2nd round of potty), spiked hair, blue finger nails (he's recently gotten into weekly nail polish, he chooses his color - and no mention of what his hands are busy playing with), singing 'Jana Gana Mana' - I think he knows more lyrics of the Indian National Anthem than I do. 

Why would anyone choose to sleep in on a Saturday morning when this is the alternative? :-)

Sticking to it

I have to admit, I had a moment of concern when I took Puchku to his first soccer class and saw how much more kids his age communicate verbally as compared to my son. Kids a whole year younger than him are speaking in full sentences, and my kid is still only sticking to nouns, and the occasional incorrectly conjugated verb. But then I have to remind myself -- he's hearing 4 languages, it's ok, he will catch up. Because I know he will. I've seen it first hand when my sister Vaishali was a baby. She didn't speak a word of English when she went to preschool at the age of 3. And within a couple of months, she was just fine. So I know this, but I had that pang of anxiety, self-doubt and questioning and the sad realization that I was comparing my kid to other kids - oh God, how I've never wanted to do that. But it's hard not to.

So I continue to speak to him in Hindi/Bangla in class. I've been told you're supposed to stick to speaking only 1 language with the kid - I'm probably at 70% Hindi, 20% Bengali and 10% English. I thought until now that he didn't know the difference between Hindi and Bangla, but had a surprising moment when yesterday I was trying to get him to respond to someone asking him 'Tumi kemon aacho?" I told Puchku, 'Bolo, ami bhalo aachi!" to which he responds. "No -- Thammi India airplane -- whoosh!!" To translate that for you -- it meant 'No, Thammi has left for India now, I don't have to speak in Bangla.' Oh my gosh, I'm one of those moms who understands everything her kid is saying! Yay for me!!

Oh, that's another interesting thing I've noticed - that understanding what your kid is so much more about knowing the psychology behind his thinking than understanding the actual pronunciation of the words. So between me and King, we both have some insight on what he's thinking in different areas of expertise (King's far more attuned w/what toys and youtube videos he likes -- me, everything else).

Anyway, it's a great, great phase. I can't believe he's almost three. I kept calling him 2.5 till I realized he'll be three next month! And we've been potty trained for nearly 2 months! This week we even seem to be nailing poo-poo potty training, yay!

I wonder if we'll ever get to the stage where he sleeps through the night ...

Farmaish

The other night he had song requests for his lullabies. I started with singing 'chanda hai tu' from Aradhana, and then he asked for Jumma Chumma. So we sang along to that song two or three times. Then he requested 'Oye.' In audio, he likes listening to Tirchi Topi Wale, but in video, he prefers the three hotties in 'Gajar ne kiya hai ishara.' So I sang that song and then he wanted to go back to Jumma Chumma. Finally we concluded with Sri Krishno Chaitonno, which is the song that always finally puts him to sleep. 

You dill it!

He says so many cute things these days- I wish I could have a recorder on for every moment! He mimics a lot, like the Elmo app that says "you did it!" To which he proudly yells "you dill it!" 

He sings "Jumma chumma de de" with such gusto! And of course BINGO and ABC's and twinkle twinkle. The pronunciation is all messed up but so cute. I need to catch it on recording one of these days. 

He's also reciting tatkar ki bandish's from tarana - attempts the ginti part. 

Croups virus

Poor baby has a virus that makes his breathing hard at night. We went to the drs and got him on a steroidal medicine that should help. I changed the bed sheets bc he had peed on them the other night and as we went to bed, he had some duddoo and subsequently threw up all over the new sheets. Poor baby was crying/whimpering as we changed his clothes n he waited for the bed sheets to be changed again. In effort to keep him upright and help w the breathing I put him to sleep in my godi. 

Last night was hard - I hope tonight is better. 

First movie in a theater

Today Puchku watched his first movie in a theater - UPAJ: Improvise. :) and he loved it, as one would expect. 

He's a huge fan of Guruji's, who he calls "Nanaji" and lately has become a fan of Jason's too. So he was really excited to see them on the big screen. He was shouting excitedly in the dance sequences and I was surprised at his sense of humor - how he would catch funny moments and laugh loudly. And he would try to copy all of Guru ji's gesticulations as he spoke. 

He let me do my Q&A w/the audience w/o troubling me. But when it was time to leave he kept crying "more Jason." For a really long time. To the point where I decided to call Jason to tell him this amusing story. Alas, Jason didn't answer but it was pretty funny. 

It took driving him to meet Baba for him to stop saying "more Jason" repeatedly. I was worries that now we'd have to put UPAJ on repeat at home - I don't think I can watch that movie anymore. I've already seen it 500 times - no exaggeration. 

Anyway, it was cute to see him enjoying the movie. 

Potty training?

This morning Puchku took off his own diapy and so I let him run around nannoo. And soon he told me "poo-poo" and successfully pooped in his potty! Am wondering if this means he's ready for potty training? He still has no clue abt when he's peeing but if I can get him to poop regularly in the potty, that will be a major goal for this year. 

And today when he wasn't wanting to nap, despite being tired after swimming, I did the longest "timeout" in his crib. He was fake crying and eventually put himself to sleep. We took a nearly 3 hr nap- even I got in 2 hrs. 

What a great Mumma - Baby day :)