Monday, July 21, 2008

Teddy Bears

Puttachi has five Teddy Bears. The four smaller ones are gifts and hand-me-downs. We bought the big one for her because she saw it at a shop and hugged it and didn't let it go. This was about 3-4 months ago.

Shortly after the big Teddy Bear came home, she would pretend to pat it to sleep just like I pat her to sleep. Around this time, I introduced her to a book from the Disney Babies book series, "Baby Mickey's Toys". Basically, Baby Mickey has lots of toys and one of the toys is a Teddy Bear. So at the end of the little book, Baby Mickey hugs his Teddy Bear. Whenever I read this to Puttachi, I would hug her and show her how, and then give her one of her Teddy Bears to hug.

It must have started then. This craze for Teddy Bears. She has been particularly attached to her Teddy Bears, but from the past couple of weeks, her craze has reached dizzying heights. She dreams of Teddy Bears. She spots Teddy Bears everywhere. In shops, on roads. Even the car-driving bear in the Airwick ad... and videos of herself with teddy bears.... She even spotted a tiny Teddy Bear on a cracker packet in a supermarket, and she screamed "Teddy Teddy!" for the whole place to hear, and would have ripped the packet open if I hadn't physically carried her away.

A few mornings ago, she woke up early and was in a very sleepy state - too sleepy to wake up, but not sleepy enough to go back to sleep, so she was cranky and was crying. All I did was say, "Puttachi, where is Teddy?" And her eyes cleared up, her face brightened, and she was fully awake in five seconds.

When previously, she would look at pictures in books, now, all she does is look for Teddy Bears in books.

Sample this.

Me: Look, Puttachi, Zebra! Giraffe!
Puttachi: *looks, turns a few pages, spots a Teddy Bear*
Puttachi: Teddy! Teddy!
Me: Yes, Teddy. Now look at this... Park! What is this? A tree!
Puttachi: Teddy? Teddy?
Me: Yes Teddy is in the other page. Now look at this. So many flowers! Red flower, pink flower...
Puttachi: Teddy? Teddy?
Me: Ok, you finished seeing Teddy, now look at this...
Puttachi: Teddy! Teddy! Teddy?
Me: Ok ok, let's see Teddy one more time.. there you go..
Puttachi: TEDDDYYY!
Me: Yes, now look, what is this? A chimpanzee!
Puttachi: Teddy? Teddy?
... and so on.

And it so happens, that many, many of her books have Teddy Bears in them. So her favourite pastime now is to sit on the bed, ask me to take out one book after another, and then she opens the pages laboriously with her tiny fingers and looks for "Teddy". She now knows which book has Teddy Bears, and which doesn't, and she also knows which book has multiple instances of Teddy Bears. The other day, she took out a book saying, "Teddy Teddy!", and I tried to tell her that this book doesn't have a Teddy Bear, but she shouted and protested and took the book, and turned it around to show me. The back cover had small pictures of the other books in the series, and one of the books had on it - a miniscule 5 mm Teddy bear. Phew!

She also recently realized that the bear in her animal book is the same as a Teddy Bear. The moment she made that connection is worth remembering. She went still for a moment, then her eyes sparkled, and with tremendous excitement, she pointed to the bear and said, "Teddy!"

She drove me crazy yesterday. She placed all her books around me, sat on my lap, and said, "TeddyTeddyTeddyTeddyTeddy.." at the rate of about 70 times per minute, for about twenty minutes and looked at every Teddy in every book repeatdly until I actually cupped my hand on her mouth, dragged her away and distracted her with something completely different.

Don't be surprised if you shortly find me chanting "TeddyTeddyTeddyTeddy..." - there is a high probability that I might go completely insane.

13 comments:

Dhanya said...

Cute post as usual :)
I was in my hometown and my friend has a daughter just 1 week elder to Puttachi n I was telling her how much updated I am about Gayathri's(that's her name) growth stages :)

Anonymous said...

Just never, never, never, NEVER introduce Puttachi to Barbie! :)

Anonymous said...

hehehehhehe ;-))) cuuuute one!

Mama - Mia said...

hahahahaha!!

i had such a laugh reading this post!! god i missed meeting this little one at the blogmeet thanx to her mommy who didnt make it!

she is just too cute!!

teddy!

i mean cheers! :p

abha

chitra said...

When Akash was born, i thought I would buy all those stuffed toys especially the Tedy Bears.

Unfortunately, he was born asthmatic(it got cured on its own within a year). Doctor warned me to keep him away from stuffed toys and so I never got to have one.

By the time, he was cured of asthma, he was into cricket and teddy bears were a big NO for him.

chitra said...

I read about the Park and her friends. Yes, my son also used to make friends with everyone he meets .
But he had a fascination for truck drivers. So, it was at every red light, while sitting on my lap in the pillion of our scooter, he would converse with the drivers.

Mana said...

lol...

Has Puttachi seen Teddy on TV? You must show Puttachi the Teddy on NGC/Discovery :)

Anonymous said...

Talking about animals: our fav. Mysore Zoo is getting a makeover.

M S Raghunandan said...

i will not be surprised to hear teddy from your mouth. you have typed it about 4 dozen times .

Veena Shivanna said...

Too cute. She herself is a soft doll anyway! Enjoyed thoroughly this post Shruthi.

Rama Mohan said...

Nice post..good..will be back
from
http://lifestyle-india.blogspot.com

praneshachar said...

teddy for cute sweet angel and she loves them no doubt about it such a cuddling baby loving teddy and saying everthing teddy wants only teddy and master peice was noticing a small ad on last page and making u flat!!!! so it is teddy teddy teddy all the way a nice post and enjoyed it throughly
pranesh

Shark said...

>>The back cover had small pictures of the other books in the series, and one of the books had on it - a miniscule 5 mm Teddy bear.

WOW!!! I mean really WOW!!!!!

thoroughly enjoyed this post! lol!

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