Ballebaaz

Sid is walking now!!! Its the most happiest thing one can see, with his tiny legs trying to balance and his hands waving in the air. He walks like a penguin and that IS cute! And he blabbers utter nonsense while he is walking. Looks and sounds very funny!

Well, that's almost stale news now. He has forgotten that he was crawling before. Even if he falls while walking, he gets up and resumes walking, rarely giving in to crawling. It is loads of fun, but we also need to be very careful about where he is going and what he is pulling, lifting etc.

So as usual, now a days, he carries a cricket bat in 1 hand and starts walking and pushing the ball around. We need to pass the ball to him and he starts waving it on the ground and hits the ball. Josh is very impressed with his son's cricketting skills.
This one time, when Sid was happily pushing the ball around, Josh said, and i quote, 'Notice how he does not scavenge the ball, he makes contact with it'!!!!!!! Sheesh! And I think I also heard him comment something about Sid's stance! God save Sid if he is not interested in cricket while growing up.

savere savere

So I said 'good morning, you are 9 months now baby' to my kid today and Josh quickly added '9 months in, 9 months out!'

half a year

The kiddo turns 6 months old today! Phew! I am now a little relieved, a little stress-free (maybe 0.0001%) than before for having achieved this milestone with no major issues. (says a little prayer quickly)

Sid now scouts around the room, looking at his parents/grandparents/others who are present, and voluntarily calls them by 'hoon'ing, if they don't see him instantly. He repeats this until he achieves his goal - the person in question looks at him and talks to him. Immediately his face radiates with a big toothless smile.

He loves tapping objects or someone's hand/legs, his own legs. Its like, he first tests the sturdiness of the object by tapping on it. If it passes his test, he continues to do so until something else amuses him.

With light objects and toys, paper, small plates, he has learnt to flip it. He also moves them from one hand to the other. This also keeps him occupied for quite sometime.

He turns and crawls pretty fast now and has started going towards anyone who extends their hands and says 'baa' (come).

As always he absolutely loves talking to the maid! The conversation could go on for hours if the maid didn't have to work.

He has started noticing the changes, if any, in the house. If there is anything extra kept on the bed, he rolls over and goes towards it. If it is something out of his reach, he keeps staring at it. It is very amusing to see him do that!

2 months have passed since I started working from home. It is now time to go to office. I don't know how Sid will react (doubts arise whether he will miss me or will be too busy playing to even notice that I am gone for half a day?) or how I will manage without seeing him for nearly 4 hrs.

As Josh says, interesting times ahead! Notice the word - interesting. It can be anything - happy, sad, exciting, disappointing, pleasing...the list goes on.

This and that

Sid is close to 6 months now and has started identifying people and his surroundings. Anything which looks new on his radar excites him to no end and he either stares at the new thing/person constantly or he tries to reach out and grab it.

Now I know why mothers get only 2/3 months maternity leave at work! Its soooooo much easier to leave the kid at home and go to work when the kid is 2-3 months. Now, he smiles, talks, recognizes you and what not! Its going to be very tough leaving him and going to work. Working from home was better.

Deepawali was fun with family. Sid was the star attraction of course! He must have enjoyed it thoroughly, as he refused to be put to sleep 2 days in a row!

My experiments with the oven continues and the oat cookies I tried came out burnt. The temperature is to be further reduced and the heating coils need to be taken to task! :-|

Sid typed on the laptop for the first time. These were his exact words/lyrics..call it what you want to!

sa szh jk ,mwcxa,mnaZgv za b xmn;'p-mklpl-okm mds?/zas[k,asdcpj[ko,[x .'z  'eee /M,LM,mndz /     u ;l,'m

At 11.00pm, Josh nudges me and suddenly asks - 'Do you know what gives me immense satisfaction?'. A few things come to my mind. Maybe the fact that he put the kid to sleep and in spite of the cracker sounds in the neighborhood, he has not got up.. Or maybe the fact that he cleaned his beloved cycle and changed the tire's tube today?

Aloud, I ask, 'What?'

He says 'There is a whole stack of pigs and with 1 single yellow bird, you hit the wooden base and all the pigs fall and die'

A moment of silence and then I said 'This is so going on my blog!'

Bhoole bisre geet

While giving bath to Siddhu (yeah, that's one of his nicknames, sounds earthy na? :-D), Josh and I usually start singing any song/rhyme that pops up in our head. Now that he can lift his head and has started reaching out to grab things, oiling him and giving him bath has been challenging and fun. His fav is 'hickory-dickory doc..tic toc..the mouse ran up the clock..tic toc...) He usually gives a lovely toothless smile and stares at me when I start singing this. But this holds his attention for at most 3 renditions, so we start singing all kind of songs and in all languages (hindi, kannada, english that is).

Its amazing how suddenly we remember old, forgotten hindi tracks! Just yesterday I suddenly remembered this beautiful track of Sonu Nigam's - Kuch tum socho kuch hum soche. This is from his private album (Deewana I think). I still remember the video - Gul Panag and that Himanshu guy waltzing! I had forgotten the lyrics, and Josh quickly joined in and sang 1 whole antara!! (I was amazed that he remembered it!!)

Whether Sid is occupied or not with these songs, we sure have a great start of the day!!!

Dhund

There was a movie by that name, think in the 70s. It was a murder mystery and I remember my father telling that its a good movie. and I watched it, a long time ago! With wooden actors like Sanjya Khan, Zeenat Aman and Danny Denzongpa, I did not have much hopes, but it was a really good attempt at a thriller!

Well, am not blogging now to talk about this movie. I just remembered it while trying to find a title to this post. It suits it the best you see! You don't? Hmmm, then check out the pic below.


Taken a couple of weeks back at Gopalaswamy beTTa. We left Bangalore around 3.30 in the morning, which is kinda record for me! Reached the Bandipur forest area around 7.00 and the top of the hill around 7.30. I was greeted by the same weather that I had experienced a few years back, when I had come here with my friends. It never ceases to amaze me. We waited for an hr and a half, and the weather didn't clear. So we couldn't explore the surroundings and we came back to Bangalore after a brief stop at Mysore for lunch.

Ok, enough of the tippani, more pics,which mostly glorifies the mist, follow!


On the way to the hill



First look around the temple after we climbed the hill




Himavat Gopalaswamy temple


Freshness

Into the unknown!


Lonely tree



It must be a dream!



Around the hill, while coming down


Greenery



By the way, Dhund in Hindi means mist!

Khel khel mein

In the last 2 days I have realized how much fun it is to actually play games - whether it is cricket (my hand-eye coordination is very very poor, so you get the picture :-D) or Scrabble!

The last I played scrabble was when-i-was-a-lil-girl!! So when Josh bought the game board, I was thrilled!

Seeing the rules, seeing the board with its double letter, triple word scores, the cute milk-chocolaty square chunks of letters ;-) was very refreshing. The game was too!
Forming words with the letters that are available, trying to outdo the other with better scoring words, trying to block the opponent from forming better words - very engaging game this one. And oh! i.q. and quo are not valid, even though you get a high score! :-p

Here's the picture of the board after the game finished. Guess what, I won!! :-)

Mehendi tere naam ki

hehe.. :-D had to put up a pic like this right??? Can't disappoint people you see! Thanks B, for taking this snap...

and oh.. I managed to watch most part of the 53rd FilmFare Awards too!! :-)

A day to remember

A very pleasant evening etched in my memory forever....
      the gentle cool breeze, the glow of moon visible from a canopy of pink and orange bougainvillea, the sounds of the temple surrounding us... the light banter and the more serious assurances..

A friend's birthday celebrated with grandeur...
      lights and colors, chocolate cake, talking and playing the entire night without a wink of sleep..

the chill early morning weather, good morning wishes, drive back home with a bunch of sleepy-headed friends..

touchwood!