A to Z Challenge: C is for Cuteness Overload

I've always maintained that Atman (my younger brother) is like my first child. When at the age of 10 I learnt that he was going to be born, I was not very thrilled. I took great pride in being an only child and loved all the attention. And I was in no mood to share it with anyone.

When Atman was born more than a month premature, he was all of 1700 grams (around 3.8 pounds) and looked like a shriveled little grey musk shrew or like the then prime minister of India, Mr. P.V. Narasimharao. I can best describe my feeling when I first saw him as yucky!

But then he grew up a little bit and got really cute. the wrinkles disappeared, his colour turned pink, and he learnt to make the most adorable baby faces. 

As the years passed by, his cuteness was visible through the sweet little stupid things that he did like once publicly averring that Akhil bhai wanted him taken away from home because he (Atman) had seen his (Akhil bhai's) bottom when he was sleeping, or blackmailing Nachiket and me when he caught us watching 'The Popoye Show' (if you know what I mean) on Nachiket's computer, or standing up to his class teacher when she tried to hit him for no reason.

Then puberty hit and Atman discovered the joys of playing music and becoming a wise ass (the other pleasures he refrains from discussing with me). His cuteness now shows in the music videos he makes and the hilarious punny jokes that he cracks round the clock.

Beckett's cuteness in stark contrast to Atman's is visual in nature. She has a captivating stare and a flair for being unbelievably photogenic. She charms her way to what she wants. I can't wait to see how her cuteness unfolds as the years roll by.

A to Z Challenge: B is for Beckett, Ba Ba, Baa, Baap, BAE, Baaiiee, Books, and Boobies

The letter B is like the 42 of Beckett's universe. Between all the words I mentioned above, all of her needs and wants are taken care of.

Maybe we can add Baby wipes to the list.

A to Z Challenge: A is for Aarvi

Did you guys know that around 17 years ago while I was studying engineering, I had decided to name my daughter Tapasya (vaguely means Penance but is one of those Sanskrit words that don't have an English synonym)? She was to be named after a delightfully enchanting girl from the Saboo Siddique engineering college who was setting the ramp on fire at the college cultural festival fashion show circuit.

I didn't know then that I would ever get married or have a daughter or agonize over what name she should have.

'Tapasya' the name fell out of favour when one of the unbearably interminable Hindi daily soaps named its principal antagonist Tapasya. Those were dark times; when thanks to Missus, I had to endure the daily nocturnal torture of watching the horror of horrors that was that daily soap.

Before Beckett was born, both Missus and I went through a rigorous exercise of searching for the perfect name. You can read about it here. But nothing that we got or found enthused us. 

By then I had made up my mind that if a boy my child were to be, Aragorn he would be called; and if a daughter were to bless our house, Arwen she would be.

There is no way Missus would have allowed me to name our son Aragorn, but Arwen seemed like something both of us could arrive at a consensus on. 

I also meandered between names like Aafreen (Beautiful in Urdu) and Kashish (Charm in Urdu), but both were summarily rejected by everyone else in the family for sounding too 'Not Hindu'. 

So I finally pitched Arwen with great hope that 'Noble Maiden', 'Beautiful', 'Friend of the People' would be acceptable to everyone. But Missus swept it aside with one stroke of her hand saying Arwen will get bastardised to Arvind (popular Indian male name meaning lotus). Also given that Arvind is the name of the current chief minister of Delhi, who I don't hold in too high an esteem, Arwen as my daughter's name was done and dusted once and for all.

That's when I started looking for names closest to Arwen. So there was Aarvis, Avril, Aarna, Aarshi and a few others till I stumbled upon Aarvi.

What immediately struck me about Aarvi the name was that it meant multiple things in Sanskrit (Peace, Melodious) and in one of the Nordic dialects it meant Fearless. It effortlessly met my three criteria of being uncommon, mellifluous, and meaningful. And more importantly won the heart of Missus with its simplicity.  

By the time Atman made use aware of the impending and inevitable 'Are we' and 'RV' jokes, the horse had already bolted, Missus and her father had already made up their mind, and I had had enough of struggling with name searching.

And that is how Beckett was christened Aarvi.        

Aarvi is now 10 months old and does a perfect split and can now go from sitting to crawling all by herself. 

The Baap of All Things

Beckett talks a lot. And these days she talks a lot of stuff that makes sense. Like she clearly identifies Missus as Mumma and my mother as Baa. Staying with the 'M' and 'B' words, Food is MmmMmm and Going out is BaBaa.

While she knows everyone else in the house including Panda, Caterpillar, Flower, Polar Bear, and the likes, the one person she still doesn't identify well is me. I'm like this Fun guy who appears from time to time to either take her out, or play some music, or make funny faces, or prevent her from chewing any of the numerous remote controls littered across the house. While Missus and Mummy are dead sure that she knows who I am, I still have my doubts.

The not so exciting thing for me is that while she is rapidly growing her vocabulary, the word Pappa is still not on it.

So I've taken it upon myself to nudge her to say the word. So our babbling sessions go something like this:

Pappa: 'Aarvi, Pappa kya che?' (Aarvi, Where's Pappa?). 

Beckett: 'WTF are you talking about dude?

Pappa: 'Pap Pa ! Pap Pa' (Trust me, that is a new low even for me)

Beckett: 'Still not ringing any bells, man! I'm not feeling it.'

Pappa (Now Desperate and in Stewie Griffin mode): 'Pa Pa Pa Pa Pa Pa. Pappa Pappa Pappa Pappa. Pop Pop Pop Pop. Papaa (in Italian accent) Papaa Papaa Papaa.'

Beckett (In Google auto correct mode): 'Did you mean Ba baa or Bubba?'

Pappa (Now Getting Creative):   Listen to This or to this.  

Beckett: 'Okay dude. I get it. You're desperate. But you've got to empathize with me. I can't belt out Ps yet. So I'm proposing a compromising. How about if I call you Baa...phhh...? Baa is a strong suit of mine and Phh.. I've learnt to do whenever you try to feed me something and I don't want to eat it. Go check your dictionary and let me know if this works for you.'

And as it turns out, Baap is the universal Indian (in almost every language), not so respectful, word for father. A Few Bollywood videos should help you figure this out better:

(When it comes to relations, I am your father. My name is Shahenshah (emperor))

(When will the Daddy of ManuRanjan come? (Manoranjan means entertainment in Hindi. And Manu and Ranjan are male Indian names))  

So as things stand now, I am Baa...phhh, father of Beckett, orderer of groceries, singer of hard to understand songs. and writer of hard to make sense of blogs.

Beckett learns Newton's Third Law of Motion

I'm sure everyone knows Newton's third law of motion. 

'To every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction'. 

What I am sure most of you don't know is the third law that I learnt from my friends at school. For a set of really dirty minds who had just discovered puberty and the wonderful joys it brings, the version went something like this 

'Forward and Backward motion causes a white lotion.' 

(I can't believe I wrote this on a public blog). 

This post however is about the former, and not the latter law. The latter is how Beckett came to be. The former is how the world moves.

Beckett has recently discovered that if she pushes against any surface, vertical or horizontal, it pushes her back, and in the process, helps her to change her position, alter her x-y co-ordinates, and get the feeling of gliding, or flying, or moon walking through her idyllic existence. So everything in the house (including my tummy and face) gets kicked whenever Beckett decides that she has spent enough time at one particular location. 

Crawling is so passe, so yesterday. Pushing your way around is the new in thing. 

Another new pastime she has discovered is finding difficult to get into places - nooks, corners, underside of tables and beds and chairs, - and then finding ways to fit into those spaces. This is a very feline trait and Pappa couldn't be more amused. 

Extremely Unreasonable Expectation Dad (EUED)

The EUED are a laboratory specimen species. They buy shape sorters for their kid way before she is old enough to play with such toys. And then they try to get her to play with it. And then they are not satisfied when she puts the round peg in the round hole (complete fluke, still some time before she fully comprehends the point of shape sorting). They want her to be more than that. 

They go something like this: 

 

This EUED is sure that Steve Jobs just rolled in his grave at the round peg square hole reference.

Of Potty and Pussies

Beckett has always been a kind child, especially to her hapless parents and amazing grandparents. 

So it should come as no surprise that she has been extremely co-operative during her grandmother's (and now her parents') attempts to get her to use the potty or pee in the bathroom. 

Timing, observation, and the right cues are the key here. 

Right after she wakes up from a nap or after a long walk is a good time to take her to the bathroom for a pee. A steady drizzle from the tap and / or a whistling parent are good cues. And once the deed is done, an encouraging 'good job' serves as a great reinforcement. 

It is the bigger #2 where the rubber actually meets the road. This is a game of observation and guess work. Facial expressions, or any time she goes really quiet is a good indicator of the dreaded impending inevitability.

As for Pussies, Beckett just loves cats. She yells in a register at least at least 5 notes higher than my vocal range when she sees one. Here's a photo of us mewing to our friendly neighbourhood cats. 

Kabaddi nights with Beckett

Beckett is now a little over 9 months. This when my FOMO is at its peak and when I desperately flounder to capture time in a bottle. Everyday she learns or does something new that evokes a potent and poignant concoction of joy, awe, wonder and simultaneous dread and wistfulness in me. This week she's learnt identifing a whole new bunch of things, ball throwing (she seems to be right handed much to my dismay), and answering questions like Aarvi Tu Kya Che? (Aarvi, where are you) with her trademark babbles (in this case, Aaaa aaiiii is the response and the grown up would be Aa Rhai! (Here I am)).

Thanks to Foi (Dad's sister), we are fortunate to stay really close to a public playground. Almost once a month, the playground plays host to either a cultural or a sporting event. This week it was the State Level Kabaddi tournament being hosted here. My fondness for Kabaddi goes way back to the year 2000. Fua (Foi's Husband) was visiting and took me to the ground for a walk. A Kabaddi tournament was on even then. Over a game of Kabaddi, he listened about a lot of things from me and he spoke of a few things. I don't remember all the details and I'm not sure if he remembers any of it, but it was a seminal, life changing conversation for me. That's from where life slowly started turning around for me.

So both Missus (she being an erstwhile national level athlete) and I took Beckett to watch the Kabaddi games in the evening this entire week. I don't think Beckett paid much attention to the game but she thoroughly enjoyed her walks and outings with Missus and Me. We did all sorts of things, right from shamelessly staring at Salman Khan's poster in front of the jewelry shop facade to mewing at cats to talking to each other in 3 different languages (I switch between Gujarati and English, and Beckett never shies from displaying her effortless mastery over Gibberish).

She's growing up fast; too fast for my liking. And I must find a way to slow down time so that I can savour these sumptuous moments, one at a time.