London Underground

While taking Anirud for a walk, I took him towards our local train station. Thanks to the 'Underground Ernie' programme in the telly, he is very familiar with London Underground's logo. Though my idea was to let him have a glimpse of the train from outside, the station staff was kind enough to let us inside the platform even though we were not travelling. As a train approached the platform, one could see a 1000-watt bulb glowing on Anirud's face. Thanks to the fact that the station being the last one on the network, Anirud got more time to watch the train in awe. As if that is not enough, the train driver let him inside his cabin for a couple of minutes and even let him make the train whistle. Wasn't that enough to make his day?

It is not Anirud's first train ride or anything like that. The last time we travelled in a tube, he wasn't even two. These days, he is able to appreciate things better and is able to relate to what he sees elsewhere. Someday, we are planning to take him to the train museum nearby, that has got lot of joy train rides.

Fun Fair

Anirud had some good fun in the rain marred fun fair that was held in our town. As that place is so close to his nursery, for more than a week he had been watching the place getting ready with equipment for various rides being set up on the location. The day before the fair started, they were doing the test rides and if he had had his way, he would have gatecrashed in to one of the rides. He especially like the ride on a lil' fire engine that had a 'ding dong bell' (that was exactly what he told).

Isn't it wrong?

One evening last week, Anirud stopped me and said in an authoritative voice: "Appa, ammava yen push panre? Adhu thapilla?" (Dad, why are you pushing mom? Isn't it wrong?). The sheer tone of his voice while saying this was something we enjoyed though we are not sure if he was trying to be extra smart in covering up what he did by pointing the blame on me or if he really observed me pushing his mom.

We used to pull up Anirud if he does something wrong and the above is the way that we normally talk. Seems that this brat has observed that a lot and used it at a right time. One another reminder about the choice of words that we should be using.

Letter Recognition

On the other day, we were at a restaurant when Anirud grabbed the menu card and went on like 'D potrukku, O potrukku, S potrukku, A potrukku' meaning 'Here is D - O - S - A'. We were in for a shock as we never expected him to recognise alphabets, that too from a word printed with a combination of upper and lower cases. On further prodding, we realised that he could recognise as many as a dozen different alphabets.

Craft work

Easter Greeting card done by Anirud.

Writing

In the recent times, Anirud's way of holding the pen has improved. Previously, he used to hold the pen in a clinched fist. These days he is trying to hold the pen using his three fingers (Thumb, Pointer and the Middle), although his grip needs to improve. We have got him quite a lot of books for writing practice and hoping that very soon, he will take to writing properly.

Mask

When we visited Frankie & Benny's restaurant, Anirud was given a paper mask of that of a tiger. He got so excited with the mask that all through the evening, he was wearing it and trying to 'frighten' us with tiger's roar. :-))

Tissue Boy

We wouldn't be surprised if Anirud ends up working for Kleenex. These days, he can even live without food or water, but can't do without a pack of tissues. Be it to wipe off the running nose or to get rid of the grain of rice that fell on his body while consuming food, he needs tissues. To differentiate the kitchen tissues and the facial tissues, he refers to the latter as 'tissue pack' and carries one most of the time, whether he needs it or not.

Habits & Timeout

Thanks to Anirud's time at school and nursery, he has picked up lots of habits - both good and bad in equal measure. Good ones include taking his food only at the table, wearing his jacket on his own without any help and few more. On the other hand, he is annoyingly seen spitting and at times kicks/beats us. Over the last few weeks, we have managed to contain (touchwood!) his spitting habit, thanks to the timeout technique. When one of our friend told us about the timeout technique, we were initially apprehensive. But it works amazingly well with Anirud. Hope the effectiveness continues.

Illness

We were a lot worried about the recent bout of Anirud's illness. We heaved a big sigh of relief when the doctor ruled out tuberclosis (TB) after analysing his blood tests. Upon meticulous observation of his coughing pattern for the past 10 days, we find that he coughs only when his nose is blocked due to cold. Further, there is cold on his chest. Earlier on, his vigorous coughing for few days led us to think that he might have some other complications. But that doesn't seem to be the case now. It is nothing but a regular cold and cough that dragged on for a bit too long.

Naked Pooh

While playing with 'Winnie the Pooh' soft toy, Anirud took out Winnie's red shirt. While he was proudly proclaiming his achievement, I mentioned that Winnie will take away his dresses just as he did when he was fast asleep. This happened in the evening and we all forgot about it. At night, in the bed, Anirud was seen taking away his duvet to check if his dresses are in place. He was telling us that Winnie might make him a 'Shame Shame Puppy Shame' boy by taking away his dresses. ;-))

Blood Test

Blood test turned out to be an anti-climax. There were two nurses at the hospital who went about the task of taking the blood sample, while the other - designated as 'Play Specialist' kept him busy with 'Thomas and Friends' engine. While coming out of the hospital, Anirud was asking why they hadn't given him injection implying that he didn't even realise that the blood was taken.

Photo Shoot

We booked up a photo shoot for Anirud over the weekend. A professional photographer clicked about 150 photographs in various outfits and backgrounds. We are yet to see the edited / touched upon output yet, but I guess it will happen soon where we need to choose one to be printed in big size. Anirud was cooperating well for a long time when he exactly did as the photographer wanted him to, but towards the end, it became a bit boring for him and he started running around. But the best part was that those photographs that were clicked when he was doing things on his own had come out really well.

Cough

Anirud has been coughing vigorously for the last few days. He has been suffering from cold and cough for the last few weeks and the doctors have been saying that it is some virus that will go away on its own. But this time around, our doc has asked him to go for a blood test next week. I guess that is going to be the next challenging task in front of us. Keeping our fingers crossed about the scene he is going to create while the blood is drawn.

Works of Art

Some painting and craft work done by Anirud at his playgroup.


On the day he came back from school with this painting, there was more paint on his dress than on the chart. :-)


This is supposedly some work of art meant to be done with a bit of colour on the fingers.


Oh yeah... It is very much a Valentine's Day card. Not sure if he knows what it is.


Assume this to be a monkey and you'll get it right. Made with paper plate and pieces of brown paper.

How about a cuppa?

While passing by a Starbucks Coffee shop, Anirud tapped on my shoulders and said: 'appa, oru coffee saapttu polama?' (How about a cup of coffee beforwe we proceed?). Wonder where from these buggers catch all this.

Digger & Fire Engine

On the way to Anirud's school, there is a shop that rents out industrial tools. That shop has prominently puts up their digger and other earth moving equipment on display at their forecourt. This coupled with the usage of digger in the nearby construction site has triggered Anirud's interest in that equipment that he watches it in awe whenever it is being operated somewhere. One fine day, he asked us whether he could buy one of those huge machines for ourselves. Apart from that, he would only want a Fire Engine (real one). :)

First Hit?

Seems that Anirud has got hit by his classmate at school. As he hasn't yet got the concept of a teacher who will be 'controlling' the class, he mentioned about that at home later on. He was very clear about what happened as he consistently demonstrated the incident several times along with the name of the boy who did that. Anirud was taught how to issue a stern warning and take it further if that happens again. Let us see how this turns out.

Viral Infection

Three weeks ago, Anirud caught the all common cold while at school. The doc said that it is a sort of viral infection and would only go away on its own. Unfortunately, that still continues and he has been finding it difficult to breathe during the night. In the recent days, he has been coughing vigorously as well. More than two different doctors have confirmed that all is well with him and there is nothing to worry. Just that it pains a bit when he suffers. Hopefully, this should build up his immune system well.

Online Ordering

Out of the blue, Anirud was asking us to buy him some sweets from the shop. On being told that it is Sunday and the shops will be closed, he threw us a bouncer with his response - "laptop-la order pannu pa" (Order it from the laptop). When we quizzed him further on what he meant by that, he had got the basics right. He was saying if we order the sweets from the laptop, the postman will cook and bring home some sweets. That funny bit apart, a 2.5 year old talking about online ordering was indeed a bit surprising. Think this generation's kids are way ahead than we could possibly assume. Guess we can't take things for granted any more.