Westward bound

Leaving Melbourne is kind of strange. It is home for all of us now, though this is only really true for N. But the rituals; letting neighbours know, unplugging the electrics, rushing home from work, dropping dvd's and books at the library, and then crawling along Kingsway. Ritualistic. N's been through it a while. Deepti and I have a routine, I drop her at the terminal she takes three suitcases, a pram, a baby, my backpack and her bag to check in and I park the car a mile away at long term parking. It works. We've done this too many times.

N was still alert, frustratingly, at 8pm, 830pm, 9pm, 930pm, 10pm, 1030pm. Read enough time for us to have to chase her around the airport when she got away from us. Over tired, over excited kids are generally NOT ideal passengers.

Anyway, despite my foiled attempt to get a spare seat (pre-select the aisle and middle seat of the last row of the plane), we sardined ourselves into our seats. N struggled, kicked, elmoed ( a new verb for treating elmo roughly) but finally passed out, about 20 mins into the flight and remarkably, we had a peaceful, albeit pinned to our seats by a spread out child flight (and pity the poor lady sitting in the window seat next to us). Being pinned to our seats is neither comfortable nor ideal but it was worth it. N got drink spilled on her, food and more drink, but did not awake. And she woke up as the plane landed.

So we're in Perth, it's 2 am Melbourne time and N is awake. And running. And bua and dadaji are at the airport. There's lights, there's tiredness, there's drifting to sleep, and then there's arriving home and there's more new people and places to run and things to touch like swings and wooden floors. A vase was broken within 20 minutes of arriving.

Finally in bed at 1am Perth time, 4am Melbourne time. I think all who have kids know what this means. Awake at normal Melbourne wake up time (8am, 5am Perth time) and off and running, jumping, singing and wondering why the parents aren't awake.

Falling like a house of cards

Naina doesn't get sick that often, for this I am glad. I don't think we'd last long with a sleepless baby. About once a year (so far) she picks up something, which she kindly passes on to me. Deepti has some sort of baby sickness antibodies so she seemingly never falls.

Last year her February flu was in India, involving vomiting and diarrhoea at opportune moments like driving long distances or outside temples. By the time N recovered, I got sick and was ill all through my last work conference in Singapore. Deepti was unaffected.

This year, we had the February flu - off the road. N sneezed a few times, vomited overnight, refused to sleep till panadol time (knocked her out in less than one minute) and generally resisted for all of 24 hours. She was fine. I was sick for four days. Thanks.

Deepti shrugged it off. I'm beginning to think there's something in that.

Baby on the GROW

Something's changed. I can't put my finger on why. Naina's suddenly, well, changed.

Example, running has always been fun. But now there's more exciting and dangerous ways to run.



Not clear in video but that is my german record player she is bouncing up and down on whilst gathering breath.

She's started jumping with both feet coordinated off the ground (as in straight up and down). Sometimes barefoot on the pavement. Jumping on the sofa is also FUN. I swear she approaches escape velocity.

She's watering the garden in a socially acceptable manner. She understands complicated instructions - like come on Naina, let's water the garden:


There's the odd tantrum about of course (no videos as such). The shouting and screaming are disappearing, she's learning to soothe herself, properly. It's amazing to watch.

Even going to sleep is easier. What used to take an hour of rolling, getting up, walking about, rolling, crying has now dropped into about 15 minutes. I usually count to 10 minutes and she's sleepy and before I get to 15 minutes she's asleep. And she's decided that cow's milk is the one for her.

But the fun is really in the morning. She's still not quite sure where I go in the mornings, but knows I go to the bathroom, into the shower, brush my teeth and go downstairs. I get a commentary from her. "Jaana-shopp-ping" (Going shopping) "By! See! Aaa-wah! (several times, meaning bye-bye, see you, kiss goodbye - then bows head down so I can kiss her goodbye on her head from over the gates at the top of the stairs). That's the decipherable part. Naina's ability to think is vastly greater than her ability to vocalise. So there's something in there about Isabelle, slowly, sorry, mumma! mumma! and then running between the bedroom and the bathroom and returning with various souvenirs - pillows, elmo (poor elmo) and Deepti's dupatta's (scarves).

N's still unsure of my ability to lift her up and instead she grabs my hand and drags me where I should take her. Wednesday, she patiently waited for me to finish my dinner and wash my plate and then grabbed my hand. I didn't know where she was taking me (usually its to play ring ring roses - though N says, instead of a-tishoo a-tishoo, we all fall down, she sings asha asha awfa downe), but she led me instead to the stairs where she wanted me to open the gate, count the stairs as we walked up them (she knows the numbers 1 to 10, but doesn't quite have the order right in her head) and to talk to dada (my father).

All this change seems to have coincided with Deepti becoming busy with other stuff - baby #2 on the way, driving lessons, shopping sales and lunches with the Mother's group and attending Gymbaroo. Maybe I should have stopped being deadbeat dad a bit earlier!

Prani bua visit

Prani came over the weekend before Australia day. A special visit for N. Friday night at our house was all a bit too exciting with Green and Prani and all the new toys.

First came Elmo. N loves Elmo. Elmo mightn't love N after some of the headlocks she put him into.

Arm pit lock

Headlock

I think this one is called the sleeper hold. Elmo's expression says it all. I might black and white this one, give it a more grittier look.

Violence in Melbourne

The plan was to go to the beach and spend time in the Bay, but Melbourne's fickle summer weather intervened again and we almost got washed away. So the plan became to go to the zoo, with a long drive in order, so we headed to Healesville Sanctuary.

Naina definitely enjoyed aspects of the Zoo. The larger animals like the birds and emus interested her and then scared her when they came too close. All the other animals were too small or too far away. Which was a pity, but interesting how things need to be big and close (but not necessarily noisy) to be noticed by a 21 month old. However just the ability to run and play unimpeded by city life seemed to be most of the fun.

About to fall off

And then onto the famous Healesville Hotel for lunch.

Terrorizing the locals

Beach time

Naina had some time at the beach. Here she is modelling her last season outfit. Very tight.

She's more into the sand than the water, but, that's still pretty cool. She likes the pool more than the bath, I can't work that out.

Note crocs at breaking point. Shoes, I reckon that'll get a blog soon. Why must they keep growing!

60th Birthday Party

We went to a sixtieth birthday party. We all got dressed up for the black and white theme.


I really didn't try that hard, vis a vis the theme.

Chasing a toddler around at a party at a house with lots of stairs is tiring. Everything hurt. Naina had fun though. Naina likes stairs and drinking from other peoples glasses.

I reckon that though the party was for the 60 year old, the most fun is for the kids who did a song and dance routine for their grandmother. Although 3 Idiots is a college age style film, the kids knew the songs, especially All Is Well.

As N can't talk clearly yet (she's getting to words like bus and "BAS" and catch and wake up) it feels like forever before she'll be up there dancing and singing away. At the moment she does the dancing very well.

Visitors - Green

Green dropped into Melbourne around the 23rd of January and dropped by for dinner and baby minding duties.

The results were highly successful. Green's going to be a natural. Or rather, he is a natural.


Nothing gets in the way of Elmo.