Health

Anirud's health has been a cause of concern for us now. Since the dawn of 2008, he has been having some issue or other. First, it was the cold and cough that went on for more than 3 months. Now, he is suffering from fever for the last three days. We are aware that these are very much part of the growing-up phase for kids, but it hurts a lot to see an active kid confining himself to bed. His weight is also not satisfactory. Once he gets out of this feverishness, we will focus on his health a lot more than we do now and do whatever we can to make him a healthier kid. When he is down with fever, he will be confined to the sofa/bed. However, even if his battery gets charged a little bit, he is back to his own active naughty self grilling us with loads of questions, which is good.

Growing Big

Today morning, Anirud wore my shoes and proudly declared "Appa, naan big boy aayitten" (I have become a big boy!). hmmmm... that seems to be his idea of being a big boy.

Kids' Tree

Anirud likes the things that has got a 'kids' tag attached to it. Kids' Pizza, Kids' Dosa, Kids Bed, Kids' Cycle etc are his favourites. He is of the view (and rightly so) that they are being prepared with brats like him in mind and so, they are very special for him. Needless to say, whenever possible we do make use of this to push down our agenda. When he is in a playful mood and doesn't want to take food, any mention of 'Kids Meals' or 'Kids Dosa' will automatically bring him to the dining table. Apart from the above, sometimes he does assume that anything smaller in size are meant for kids. On the other day we were shopping at IKEA, Anirud suddenly pointed out to something and said 'Indha shop la kids tree irukku pa. Enakku onnu vaangi thariya?' (This shop sells Kids' Trees. Will you get one for me?). The thing that he was referring to was a Plant. :)

Bits and Pieces

Anirud seems to be getting better in playing back the happenings at his nursery. In the last few days, he has been telling us - how he played a monster inside the little house at the garden, how he frightened the little girl who happened to be his class mate, how he was made to sit alone as he did something naughty etc. In the recent weeks, we could very well see that Anirud's command over the language has improved a lot. He is responding nicely with a heavily accented 'yeah' or 'no' when thrown some questions. Most of the time, he is singing one nursery rhyme or other.

At the same time, he has become a bit moody of late. He feels shy when we have someone at home or meet them elsewhere. It takes a bit of time for him to warm up and start mumbling few words. He wasn't like that before. Hopefully, he will wither away this newly acquired trait.

We got a trike for Anirud last year. However, we are guilty of not giving him enough opportunity to practice it properly so that he could pedal all by himself. Perhaps, we should spend more time outdoors and let him pedal around with confidence. It is already time to get him a 12" bike.

Three Years

Anirud turns three today.
In the last few months, he has learnt to:

- Pronounce his name (including the surname) very clearly
- Initiate and continue multiple-sentence conversations
- Identify his and his mom's name where ever they are written (through pattern matching)
- Jump up and down
- Memorise quite a lot of nursery rhymes
- Identify few countries in the World Map
- Wear his costumes without any help
- Hold the pen / pencil properly
- Draw a circle, line etc
- Apologise when he does something wrong
- Use the pull-ups without that many accidents
- Converse with his teachers and mates in English

... and a lot more.

Many more happy returns of the day, love.

Unlike last year, Anirud's third birthday was a low key affair this time. We took him to the temple on Saturday and that was that.

In the bed, with the shoes :-)

Anirud is being read a moral / behavioural story every evening. There is one story where a little boy called 'Pepper' will come home from a party and refuse to change his costume or remove his shoes. He would want to sleep in the bed with his shoes. After a while and loads of advice from his mom, Pepper would turn a new leaf. The story end with Pepper's mom telling him that special costumes are meant only for special occasions and are not meant to be used at home, just like how one would not use tooth paste for polishing the shoes.

Whenever Anirud is in a mood to test our nerves, he will announce with a wink that he will be going to bed with his shoes on. Whenever he wears a party wear, he will say that he will be sleeping in that costume and look at our face for any reaction. The wicked smile on his face at that time will give away that he is kidding and the key here is to ignore him or smile away staying cool. If ever he thinks that we might admonish him, I guess he will try to test the limits by actually doing what he says.

Items on the Menu

Looking at a menu card from an Italian restaurant, Anirud appeared to be reading out something. When asked for what he was saying, he ran down the fingers over the individual items and went on like

Rasam Saadham
Thachchi mamm
Poondu podi saadham
Naarthangaai
..
..

Imitation

As Anirud's mom was lying on the bed immersed in a novel, this brat climbed on there lay next to her, picked up another novel and supposedly started 'reading 'it. :-)) It is a fact that Anirud loves books. Not a day passes without his time on books, but Jeffrey Archer does sound like a lot for his age. Don't you agree?

Favourite Underpants

One can expect to have a favourite dress, favourite food, favourite toy, favourite place.. but how about favourite underpants? Seems that Anirud has got one such. One day he was like 'ennoda favourite jetti nananju pochu pa' meaning 'my favourite underpants has got wet'. :)) Having said that, he is in the process of being toilet trained. He had had few successful accident-free days at the nursery (touchwood!) and we are hoping that the run will continue. At home as well, he is having nappy-free hours which are being gradually increased.

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. ;-))