Monday, June 30, 2008

Quirks

I have observed that all kids have quirks of their own. What is more, they change from time to time.

Puttachi's latest quirks are:

-- Barking like a dog. When she wakes up from sleep/nap, she gives me a huge smile, says "Hi-ii" exactly like I say it, and then her eyes widen and she barks sincerely "Bow bow bow bow". She comes back from the park, she barks. She meets me after any period of time, she barks. She wakes up in the middle of the night, sits up and barks. I have no idea why she does that. But from time to time, she barks with great concentration.

-- Kids have "loveys", objects that they like to hold when they fall asleep, objects that comfort them. Some have teddy bears, some have dolls, some have other stuffed toys. Puttachi has.... the ring on my finger. Yes you heard it right. Her palm has to hold my ring finger, and her fingers have to grasp the ring, and then she is comforted and falls asleep. I have no idea when she picked up this habit, but even in the middle of the night, when I reach out to pat her, she gropes my hand for the ring. If I sleepily pat her with the other ring-less hand, she flings that hand away, and whimpers until I give her this hand, and then she clutches at the ring and promptly calms down.

Last week, I was laid up with a terrible catch in the shoulder, so S~ slept on that side of the bed closer to the crib so that he could be the one to pat Puttachi back to sleep. When Puttachi groped for the ring, he had to take my ring, and slip it on his little finger(the only finger it fit), and offer his hand to her. But our Little Miss Particular would have none of it. Finally, S~ had to put Puttachi on the bed next to me, where she held my finger and fell asleep. Phew!

-- She has this habbit of appending a "n" sound to most of her words. So, "Teddy" is "Teddn", "Tata" is "Tatn", "Taachi" is "Taachn", "Haaku" is "Haakn" and so on. Her favourite activity these days is hugging - and she goes around saying "Hugn" and hugging everything in sight. The "n" appendage is not pronounced as "Hug-en" it is a Hug, followed closely by the "n" sound. The "n" is the same sound as the nasal consonant that comes after "Ka Kha Ga Gha" in the Kannada/Devanagari alphabet. And S~ and I speak in her style - "Let's go for a walkn in the parkn", "Have you hadn your lunchn?"

****

Ok, this is not a quirk - but I just remembered, so added it. They say kids say it like it is, and I just got a taste of it. Puttachi was looking through a very bright Picture Dictionary that she has, and suddenly she pointed to one of the illustrations and went "Amma! Amma!" excitedly. I peered into it to see what she was pointing at. It was one of Cinderella's step-sisters, a caricature with thick black hair and a long nose, and it was an illustration to explain the meaning of the word - "ugly".
Sigh.

15 comments:

Wunderyearz said...

Sweety Pie Puttachi.....i'm truly dying to meet you.
My nephew would go to sleep only when he had his finger rubbing his moms lips!!!!!!
ROFL for the caricature thing..............

Mana said...

Hugn.. Give Puttachi a Jaado ki Jappi :)

My nephew would point to his tummy when he was hungry. When his knees would ache, he showed his both hands up signaling that we lift him and walk all the way :D

I want to meet and play with your Little Angel :)

Swati said...

LOL ! Kids are sweet and funny. Aryan starts all the words with A ..like Light is Aight and Banana is Anana :)

Anonymous said...

Gosh yes, kids get the weirdest quirks... my niece used to grab my earlobe if I was putting her to sleep; if it was my sister, she had to have a grip on her gold chain, and if it was my brother, he HAD to sing Rafi's "Main gaoon tum so jao" (cant remember the movie, but I thikn it was Shammi Kapoor). Over and over, until she fell asleep. It wouldnt do if I sang it, or my sister - it had to be my brother. And it had to be that song only. :) Puttachi sounds just as quirkily adorable, if not more! Barking? hahahaha :)

Anonymous said...

My son was quirky too when he was about a year or year and half, he would wail like an ambulance siren! Just like the sound of an ambulance siren rises and falls in pitch when going through the traffic in an emergency situation my son was just as good as a real ambulance, the only thing missing was a flashing red light over his head. He did not speak at that time but gradually as he picked up the speech and language he did outgrow that ambulance siren quirk and now that is little over 3 years we really miss those innocent and fun filled days. Sometime we wish he would wail again like an ambulance siren and make us laugh. So enjoy those barks from Puttachi, they won't last for a long time and once those barks are gone, they are gone for ever.

Now that my son talks, and boy he talks a lot, he can't yet say the word "R" but says "Wa or Wu" like "Wabbit" for "Rabbit" and "SaaWu" for "Saaru" (for sambar in Kannada) and we are enjoying every bit of his quirky accent. When he peppers his English sentences with Kannada words it adds a new twist to his quirky language!

Coming to his sleep quirks, he expects one of us to fold our arm with the palm of our hand under our head over the pillow so that the elbow is stretched out and he can reach it. He has to cup the stretched out elbow with the palm of his one hand while the other palm is under his head resting against his ears as he sleeps on one shoulder. My nephew had this quirk of reaching out for my sisters chin while sleeping.

Good post.

Vish.
NY

rajk said...

Hi, I was actually LOLing after the last para!!! Poor you!!
As for quirks...my son had this habit of tugging at people's ears...(Shyam, sound familiar?) ..even guests! It used to be so embarassing...Imagine, we have guests and they call my son over and say "Hi, how're you?" and he clenches his teeth and goes straight for their unsuspecting ears!!

praneshachar said...

all lovely things you have written
record them it will be nice to hear and play to her when she can not speak like that anymore. these things
change a lot from time to time. funn
justn funn

Bhupi said...

māma got emtional reading all the previous blogs...

god bless you puttachin :)

Anonymous said...

ayyyuuu....sho shweet....and the last one cracked me up hard!! :D:D

Shruthi said...

Wunderyearz: It's high time we met! :) ROFL at rubbing mom's lips!!

Manasa: Done - Jhappi given! Where do you live? :)

Swati: Ah yeah such a beautiful song.. I can understand that the kid would want to hear it in a male voice :D

Vish: ROFL at ambulance siren and at cupping elbow :D Yeah I am trying to capture the barking on video, but she never co-operates!

Rajk: ROFLing at that image :D Puttachi has just discovered my earrings, so I won't be surprised if she follows in your son's footsteps!

kadalabal: Fun indeedn!

Bhupi: Is that really you? Achaanak kidhar se tapak pade? But what a pleasant surprise :D Yeah Puttachn wants to meetn Bhupn maamn.

Snippets: grrrrr

Mama - Mia said...

she has the cutest quirks!!

Lord of the ring, indeed! :)

how old is puttachi??

cheers!

abha

Bhupi said...

I like giving surprises :). It just so happened that I'm not so busy in work so I thought I would spend some time reading good stuff. No better place then here :)

Mampi said...

Beautiful. I have been following Puttachi's growth for a few weeks now, and am enjoyin it. Sweetn description(n).
:)

Anonymous said...

OMG Rajk...my son does the same thing...clenches his teeth and goes for ears, it is his favourite part of the body....this is so funny..

-kon

Veena Shivanna said...

The ring quirk has just started here. He keeps starring at it for sometime and later pulls my finger towards him. and the latest is trying to pull my bindi, many a times he bring his face towards me and starts playing with the bindi.
I am loosing hair, not because of anything else.. Siddhanth has crazy habbit of pulling the strands of my hair! GOD knows what else is coming in future. What ever it is, after all this, its lot of enjoy and specailly share it with elders when they ask.. So what are the recent "chesTe" of Siddhanth antha :-)

- -