Thursday, September 13, 2012

The warrior princess diaries - VIII

The bar may have been silent for a while, but Xena has not. She is now saying actual words, which is totally awesome, and I have been busier than usual because I'm trying to teach her life-altering words like "Shah Rukh". (I'm not kidding, scroll down to see video). Ok, so here are the latest updates on the warrior princess.

For once, I have no hospital updates. There have been no hospital visits recently (touchwood) and her heart scan is in October.

In my last post about her, I had talked about some of the difficulties I was facing with her feeding, a.k.a she does not want to eat. Anything. At all. Things are a little better now. For a baby who only started eating solids at 15 months, I must say it's a milestone that she is now able to eat tiny pieces of cheese. However, the actual mealtimes are still battles, and she needs a lot of distraction while I feed her. Not ideal, but at least I haven't resorted to turning on the TV yet. And the other day, I actually managed to feed her some spinach-infested porridge!!!!! Dhakki tiki! Dhakki tiki! (And yes, my choice of words does convey my own true feelings towards spinach. And its hara-bhara khandaan in general.)

If I ever bump into Shah Rukh Khan, I will thank him for being responsible for at least one of the three meals that I attempt to feed her every day. You see, while I feed her, I let her browse through this old issue of Filmfare that has him on the cover. The first time I showed it to her, I said, "Look, Shah Rukh Uncle!" She said "Tah Tuk!" I believe she probably knows he was Datuk'ed by Malaysia! Aakhir beti kiski hai!

And here she is, saying "Shah Rukh" (or her version of it)



I got my first ever gift from Xena -- a dried leaf she picked up during our evening walk. I almost choked. No, not on tears of joy or anything. I meant literally. Because she tried to feed it to me. :/

She finally has a favourite toy, and to my utter delight, it's a Dr. Atom puppet! Dr. Atom is a character in a series of science books, and a science magazine that I write for. She loves the toy so much, some mornings she wakes up and the first words she says are 'Dottoh dottoh?'

That's Dr. Atom!

Here's her looking high and low for him, and then gesturing to say that she can't find him.


Speaking of waking up in the mornings, there is no feeling more powerful than being woken up in the morning by your baby. Especially when she uses a roundhouse kick aimed at your face to do it. (She absolutely refuses to sleep in her cot anymore.)

Like all babies of this generation, Xena is extremely tech-savvy. I wonder if even Apple is aware of some of the iPhone features that she has discovered and demonstrated to us. Example: She zoomed Viv's wallpaper picture so much that all the icons were not visible anymore. Believe me, we had to turn to google to find out and undo what she had done (triple-tapped the main screen).

So she has started talking a lot more. She can say "Mama", "Papa", "ball", "bus", "bird", "book" (actually to an outsider they call sound like "buh", but only I know which one she means), "cracker" ("tater"), "wow", and many more. One of her favourite words to say is "cow", which she likes to randomly say, often leading to embarrassing situations (for me). Like yesterday, when we were strolling at the beach, and she pointed at this jogger and loudly said, "COW!" The jogger looked slightly offended and started running even faster before I had a chance to convince her that Xena had not called her fat.

She said her first three-syllable word this week, and it was "banana" (or rather "badada", because she has a cold).


The following pictures are of her acting all stylo:




It was Viv's bday on the 9th, and as usual, he was away in Amsterdam to have hashbrownies for an annual conference (on hashbrownies). So I did up this collage of her playing a birthday song for him.



Great mommy, huh? Well, not all the time. Last week, she fell headfirst into a hamper full of soft toys (phew!) with only her legs sticking out. I was actually tempted to take a picture of the comical sight before rescuing her. Hmmm. On the evil mommy scale of 1 to 10, I think I might be a 25.

I end this post with her newest video, where she identifies and passes to me 8 of her toys on demand. Yep, proud moment for mommy. :)




19 comments:

Anonymous said...

Amazing! The last video esp is awesome. :)

Bubblegum.... said...

Blogging is much more happening!!! :/ Xena is gonna love every letter of your blog :)

Thisisme said...

this was soo much fun :) and i love the last video..i have the same toys..thanks to my niece n nephew :D

Anonymous said...

Amazing. Xena is so smart! Got 100% in the last video!

Arun said...

Wow!
:)

Sowmya said...

awwwww!!! awesomely cute videos of her :)

Sandhya said...

Awesome videos! I watched them repeatedly. Cute Xena, hugs to you :)

Obscure Optimist said...

Wow...she's all grown up and intelligent! :) she's a smart kid! :) Loved the Tahtuk and last video the most...

Hugs! :)

~ Lopa said...

haha...i love reading your diary Xena baby. I wish i can be a bit consistent and write a dairy for my little one as well. Lately it has been on my mind atleast, let's see when i can actually do it.



Kavs said...

Love baby Xena's updates! :)Shah Rukh must be thrilled!

~ PragyaN ~ said...

I wish SRK somehow gets to read this post :) Cute Xena... wish to see her as one more fan of SRK :)

t said...

Wow such a brilliant kid! And she got all the toys right, smartie! Loved all the videos Sayesha :)

Unknown said...

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Varenya said...

You are so beautifully capturing xena's childhood through these blog's....i am sure she'll be thanking you once she's old enough to read and understand these blogs :) :)

Prithi Shetty said...

Hi Sayesha,

So looking forward to your post on Barfi ! Or atleast SSSK on it :) Or atleast on the music/ghazal.
Puleeeeszzz !

Vini said...

I love that little spunky girl! Awesome how you are keeping this diary and also you are doing such a fantastic job as a mommy :) #Inspiration

Sudeep said...

I loved her smile when you handed over the Dr. Atom toy to her :)

You should have a look at a video where a kid tries to identify apple and banana. Google 'apple or banana baby video' or something similar if you haven't seen it before.

Arun said...

Feeding strategy!
http://youtu.be/VgRDEBha8Yk

--Sunrise-- said...

Xena is so friggin cute!!!!!!!!!! And also, your voice is sweet too. (Not to sound stalkerish or anything, like...) :-)