Nine Months

Nine months of Puttachi in my tummy - seemed like nine years.
Nine months of her out in the world - gone like nine seconds.

An (ahem) important side note: The kgs I gained in the nine months I was pregnant? I lost them all in these last nine months. Well, almost all of them. Just one more kg to go. No, I did nothing for this to happen, not even raise my little finger (Though I should have). It just happened.

What's new with Puttachi this month?

I'll start with saying that I had always wondered how parents can even think of sedating their kids for their own peace. I can now say that I understand why they do that. I am not saying I do it, nor am I advocating it - but I am just saying that now, I know why they do it.

Activities - Crawling all around the house. Pulling things, eating every little bit of rubbish in sight. Stands for 10-15 seconds on her own. A very wobbly 15 seconds, though, with the wobbliness diminishing with each day.

Bath time - Has finally discovered the delights of water. So bath time is now a breeze. Except if you dare to pour water over her head to shampoo her hair, which usually contains sticky remnants of her meals. She then squirms like a fish that has been taken out of water. You can't even sigh with relief after her hair is washed. Drying her hair is a nightmare.

Mamm-mamm - Ugi, or Agi? - "Mamm-mamm" is baby talk for food. And in Kannada, Ugi is Spit, and Agi is Chew. FOr a while, Puttachi did more of Ugi-ing than Agi-ing. She is in an on-off phase of rejecting solids. More here - Inputs welcome. The situation is slightly better now - touchwood.

The first morsel of every meal has to be spat out. Just has to be. No questions asked. It is only with the second morsel that her meal begins. And when she has had enough, she either turns on a sprinkler in her mouth, spray-painting our faces and clothes with food, or she spits the food out in such a projectile that she could be the President of the Paan Spitters' Association of India.

If we let her eat by herself, she dutifully picks up each bit of food with her fingers and feeds it to us.

Taachi - Baby talk for sleep. Her naps are very good now. But her night time sleep? A nightmare. Again, details here.

- When I am strapping/unstrapping her into her car seat/stroller/high chair, she looks at my fingers and the straps with such rapt concentration, that I am quite sure she is observing how it works. I am terrified she'll unstrap herself some day and hop out and hurt herself. I have now taken to hiding the strap mechanism behind my palm, and then working on it.

- She loves her Papa. She jumps up and down like a rubber ball the moment he gets back from work - and squeals and giggles with excitement. We go out for a lovely evening walk everyday after S~ gets back.

- She is a social animal. She talks to everybody on the road. She smiles, talks, offers her hand to strangers and bats her eyelashes at them. As long as they respond from afar, everything is fine. But the moment they try to carry her, or touch her, she screams like a banshee.

- How to recognize Puttachi when we are on our evening walk
- She is the kid with the big eyes and a mop of dark unruly hair, who is calling out to strangers, singing happily when she sees flowers, and laughing excitedly to herself at the sight of everything on the road.
- When in a stroller, she is the one sitting straight up, straining against the strap (the back rest in the stroller is absolutely of no use).
- When she is being carried in the sling, she is the one whose arms are waving like a windmill, and whose legs are pumping like the piston of a four stroke engine.
- With her are two adults. The female looks harassed, hair all awry. The male looks like he will burst with pride.

If you see such a group on your evening walk, please come by and say hello!