Let them be

Been two months since I last posted here! Was traveling yet again. San's holidays are on and we were on meet-the-grandparents mission. And that's how we spend the summer vacations in India! :-)

About San, she is just growing naughtier and more talkative, which is very natural. What else will they be like! She's been on a drawing spree these holidays and that reflects in the Mothers Day card that she gave me. :)

And here's something that she drew in an event at Papa's office:

And this reminds me of something that I wanted to talk about. About letting the kids be, and this is something that I did talk about earlier. At the event I just mentioned, we saw parents pushing their kids to draw the they way they wanted them to, correcting them at every stroke, trying to make their very natural and innocent sketches perfect. Even going to the extent of drawing for them. Why? So that they can win a certificate, which you can flaunt everywhere? So that you can tell the world how good they are at something that is more you than them?

I too find myself pushing San at times... nagging her, correcting her, perfecting her. And later, I feel bad about it. There's something inside us that pushes us to push them. We need to control that urge to perfect them all the time.

Kids are fine the way they are. We don't have to make them look good all the time. They are fine... just fine!

How often do you find yourselves doing this?

San draws Mommy

Mommy, I wanna make you.
Okay.
Stand here. Keep looking at me. *San adjusts her doodle and herself*
Okay.
Hmm, a big circle... *San draws a circle for my face*
San, this is a very big circle for my face. Make it smaller, please!
No, Mommy. You have a big face.
Oh, okay. *Mommy is embarrassed*
Big eyes... big eyebrows... and a smiley face!
*Mommy smiles at the first good thing about her face.*
And big sharp teeth! *San draws big hanging triangular teeth*
What? Do I have big sharp teeth, San? *Mommy pretends to cry* I look scary!
It's okay, Mommy. It's just a drawing. I can erase it. Don't cry! *San erases the drawing*
Why don't you draw something else?
A Giraffe?
Yes, just like the one in that picture. *Mommy points to a giraffe's picture on the wall*
Okay, Mommy!
He's so cute, San.
Yes! And it has a big neck, just like you!
*Mommy vanishes*

I wish I had the great Mommy picture to show you, but San erased it for my sake. :D

San's first dentist visit, haircut

Finally, after a lot of delay, we took San for her first appointment with the dentist. I had reached the heights of my anxiety (thanks to my dentist phobia) cuz' it was a family appointment. San did great for a first-timer, especially when she had to hold those weird films between her teeth to get the x-rays done! Thanks to the load of stickers that they gave her! :) Okay, why do I call those films weird? Cuz' I couldn't hold them even for a second, and thereby gave the worst performance of my life! *embarrassed*

So all went well (I'm not including myself here), until the doc started brushing her teeth. Yes, they do their job well, but the flossing part was scary! I was worried that San might get hurt. :-s It went fine though. And San happily came back home with her goody bag and two balloons. Phew!

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The first haircut, hmm, needed a lot of thought. How short? What style? We finally decided for a little trim, not more than an inch long. Papa dear likes long hair, and so does San. We took her to Snipits that specializes in kids' haircuts and is colorful enough to woo the kids! She happily sat through her haircut, enjoying the animal crackers and the bubbles.

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San's into paper-cutting these days, and keeps trying to cut sheets of paper into various shapes with her very blunt toy scissors! :D Her dedication makes us wanna buy paper scissors for her... but our only fear is that she might use it as a weapon in one of her bad moods! :P

Give her crayons and the first thing that she'd draw is a smiley face (and Papa, and Mummy, and a baby). :-)

Mommy and Baby

Daddy :D

A complete smiley

Of words and scribbles

I'm San's 'best friend' these days, and this tag comes with loads of hugs and kisses. I'm loving it! Papa dear also gets that tag, but only for a limited time (mostly when she gets a scolding from me :D ). Another great compliment that she's liberally uses is "pretty Mommy". You can imagine that I immediately rise to the cloud nine when I hear these words! :-)

She's getting better at forming sentences. The ones that include a 'no' give her some trouble but she always manages to get the message across. Here are a few samples (the ones I love to hear):

- "I no wanna no eat."

- "You my no best friend, Mommy."

- "It's not working." (the only sentence in which she uses 'not')

Lately, I've been trying to explain her that the 'forehead' is not a 'fourhead'. :)

Her scribbles and drawings are also getting better. She can almost draw a fish, at times a whale, and also a chicken! :)

The whale

The chicken

The beginning of Two

And finally, San is a two-year old baby! :-) So why do they call it the Terrible Twos? I'm kinda starting to know why, but I still wonder... were we terrible when we were two? What I see is more tantrums, more ROTFS, more dramas, more words, and a lot of pretend play! And not to forget, a big NO for everything! :)

San enjoyed her b'day party this time. In fact, she'd started happy birthday pretend play a couple of days before her birthday. She's say "Happy Birthday!', pretend to blow the candles, and then pretend to eat the cake. :)

I'm enjoying these pretend play days. She still pretends to feed me, now with an imaginary bowl and a glass... and at times, the food is hot, so she blows into it and then feeds me... I wish I could record that! :-)

She's scribbling more these days, can almost draw a circle, and loves to draw babies! So here's one that she drew. After she was done with the circle, I asked her to draw his eyes, nose, teeth, neck, shoes, etc. And she didn't forget the hair!

New words, some drawing, and more dolly tales

New words... hmm... Papa dear has taught her how and when to say Please. So now, she manages to get almost everything with the help of her sugary Please that she backs up with a cute head-tilt! Who would have a heart to refuse after hearing this version of Please! :-) The next word is Shower - courtesy Papa dear. San used to be afraid of getting into the shower earlier, and used to stick to the cozy bath tub with her Pooh bear toys and a green mug. And suddenly, all she wants now is stand in the shower. She enjoys it on her back, then turns around and takes it on her face, then hair... and I've to operate the shower till she's done with it (which never happens cuz' I've to pull her out of it). San's version of Shower - Shovo!

New girly stuff? She wants to choose her footwear now. Gone are the days when I used to choose her shoes. Yesterday, she surprisingly matched her pink dress with pink sandals. I wanted her to wear something else cuz' the pink ones are not her size anymore. But she insisted (fought and screamed) and didn't let the pink ones go. So finally, she walked out with the pink ones on, although, they gave her a hard time at the end of the day. :-)

Dolly tales are on - she now makes me change dolly's diaper, tells me to shower her, and brush her teeth as well! Oh and I forgot to mention the Giraffe baby that sleeps in her crib. He doesn't get much of San's time, but gets loads of kisses and hugs, and a sugar-coated Nay Nay (San's version of Night Night). :-)

Elmo is her new favorite now! Barney has slipped to position 2, Pocoyo keeps slipping in and out of the queue, and Pooh gets lucky at times.

Here's her latest scribble... drawing, I mean! :) she doesn't draw quite often cuz' that's our job. So here it is... a fish, a bird, and a baby... that's what she told me it is!

What else? Just a phew! :-)