Thursday, January 17, 2013

My devilish angel - Avani!!


Khushi had just started to go to school and I was enjoying her everyday stories revolving around school and her newly acquired logical thinking about her surroundings. We had a great time preparing for her first visit to Calcutta for a wedding in family. She and even I havent met all the Sarawagi family members till then, so we were super enthusiastic about it. 

In the wedding, I was too tired to dance, and that was something not like Dipti. I never get tired of dancing,so first indication that something is wrong with me. So as soon as I returned to Bangalore, I planned a visit to doctor. Not in my far dreams have I thought I would be expecting. I didnt know how to react! 

 Khushi is a sober child, she understood Mummy cannot pick her up and Mummy is not well quite easily. First four months were very difficult. I hate to tell khushi I cannot play with her or answer her innocent questions, but those days, I had no other option! 

The second pregnancy was nothing like my first. I had no time to watch what I am eating, what I am wearing. I didnt go for walks which I was so regular during the first. I drank tea ( People say tea makes the child dark in color, so in India we dont drink tea during pregnancy, which I followed thoroughly during my first pregnancy. I still have some Indian genes in me :P), I didnt have almonds, I was working late, I didnt listen to "Garbha Sanskar" (Music good for pregnant women to stimulate childs brain), no pregnancy yoga notng. On a lighter note, if Avani grows up and blames me for giving all the attention to her didi, I would be guilty  of this crime. Atleast during those 9 months when she was inside me!

But at the same time, Avani was listening to the stories I read out to Khushi. She was learning software design and customer communication skills in office with me :) :P. She was honing her negotiation skills inside when I was negotiating with clients. And believe me I see the results of all these sessions now, when I see her communicating with absolute strangers and negotiating her way out for everything even when she cannot utter a single sensible word. So teaching during pregnancy helps :P. Personal experience can never be wrong :P

So the 9 months of my pregnancy were almost like any other months of my life, owing to the attention Khushi seeked from me. Khushi was super excited about the baby coming home. We started telling her bit by bit about the new member of the family. We were quite confident she will adjust to the new member easily, rather quite over confident in a way!

So finally when the baby was 2.8 kgs (desirable weight for a C-section) we planned for bringing her to meet the outside world. Finally, it was decided that Santa was going to deliver the baby to the Sarawagi's on the Christmas day. 

People around me were not sure how to react, they were sympathetic about us since it was a second girl. Did I say sympathetic? Yes!! I didnt know why! And that was the time I decided, nobody on earth has the right to put down my daughter. Son's keep the family name alive, but daughters keep the family alive! So what on earth matters to me? The day I refuse to  take the sympathy's of people, people stopped sympathizing and they never dared to show me any negativity towards my little angel. 

The next 5 months of my Maternity leave was a bliss. But at the same time, very tough for me and Ashish. Though Khushi was a very sober child earlier reacted to  the situation very aggressively. She did not want me to hold Avani, she did not approve of me feeding her. She was scared to leave me alone with Avani. When I am not around, Avani was her best toy, but when I am around, she wanted to push her away from me. I had a tough time dealing with Khushi as I didnt want to be unfair to the little one also. Avani also deserves the warmth and love from her mother. 

Finally I had to consult my pediatrician regarding this and slowly and gradually we had to impose on her that Avani is her sister and she also needs mummy as you do. Even today, Khushi sometimes feel that I am attending Avani more than her. And that is the time I remember my conversation with my mother. Even when I grew up, I used to tell my mother that she favours my brother more. And she used to tell me that we both are equal for her. I am in those shoes today and can understand how difficult it is for a mother to favour one child over the other. 

Finally when Avani started reacting and smiling to Khushi's conversations, Khushi started accepting her. She is more open to her now. They are inseperable now. The time Khushi is in school is the most dull time for Avani and she prefers to sleep that time rather than missing her sister. For Khushi she misses her sister wherever she goes alone. They giggle together and nobody on earth can make Avani laugh when she is crying except for Khushi. When Khushi dances infornt of her, she is the happiest. Avani bullies her elder sister almost all the time and pulls her hair for attention. Khushi has become more confident in picking up her little doll without dropping her. When I see them so happy together, I too wish I had a sister. Sisters bond differently!!

Avani is a socialite. Nobody can pass by without talking to her. She interacts with everybody around with such ease that I feel someday I would be known by her name. She has regular visitors in park, who come every evening just to meet her. She is the stress buster for so many people in my society. That toothless smile of her makes life easy. Ashish has a very special bond for Khushi, he used to say nobody can take Khushi's place in his life. But today Avani has made her own place in his life. She follows him whereever he goes and would insist on being picked up. She sleeps in between me and Ashish and would hold our hands whenever she gets up in the night. She needs my hand as well as Ashish's hand in the night. When Ashish goes  out of station, she has a very disturbed sleep. Khushi calls Avani "Papa's chamchi" .. that means Papa's girl. 

Avani doesnt like anybody sleeping after she wakes up. She will wake up with a big smile and a loud announcement that says " Hey Morning, I have arrived you may start now". With her sound I am automatically up and till I smile she smiles at me. Then first target is her Dad. She will wake him up and till he hugs her, she doesnt budge. She will poke in his eyes, she will put her finger in his mouth, bang his tummy, pull his clothes, do everything to wake him up. After he is up and has greeted her as the ritual demands she will move on to the next target. And as you might have guessed the next target is Khushi Didi. Khushi didi is like her personal property, she will scold her in her gibberish language and then sit on her back till she gets up. Khushi would smile and get up when she wakes her up. These days, Avani is my alarm clock for waking up Khushi. 

Avani loves to play in a ball pool. She likes to play with Onions and potatoes kept in the kitchen. She loves to pull out all my clothes from my wardrobe and then play peekaboo with me. She has recently discovered the mirror and gets super excited speaking to the person she sees in the mirror. 

One funny incidence happened recently at a friends place. Khushi was dancing on the music of drums played by an artist and Avani was also trying to dance. Someone was taking photos of them from one corner. I suddenly noticed that whenever the guy clicks a picture, she would smile at him. She has related smiling to getting clicked :). We had a tough time taking her non-smiling photo for Thailand Visa when we took her to a photo studio. As soon as the poor guy points the camera towards her, she started smiling. Kids are so much fun!

A silly thing like pulling out your spectacles and putting it back can make herlaugh. And tearing newspaper is her favorite timepass. We cannot beat her in tearing  the paper in smaller bits. Avani loves choclates and she can eat your thumb  incase you are not giving her the choclate you are holding in your hands. 

 If you say a NO to something she is doing, she will repeat the same thing again. And this time, she will make sure you are watching her and then she gives you this sheepish smile indicating that I am doing it again. I cant even scold her after that priceless sheepish smile.

She is very fond of the ryhme "Twinkle Twinkle little star" and she loves it when I do it with actions. To keep her entertained for atleast 10 minutes I put on ryhmes on my mobile and she happily takes the mobile in hand and keeps dancing on the music. With mobile I remembered, my mobile is a banging toy for her. She will pick up the mobile from the bed and bend down towards the ground and start banging it. My poor iphone didnt even know that it can be used as a banging toy someday! He is obliged to Avani for discovering its hidden tallent :)

She loves to do somersaults which her Dad helps her do. She gurgles with each somersaults and wants more each time she finishes it. We play a tickle game with her, we start with 1,2,3,4 and on 5 tickle her in her stomach. After few repetitions, she started gurgling in anticipation of 5. She would try to move her body away even before 5 comes. The height of anticipation is that she starts giggling on phone when Ashish counts 1,2,3,4. 

She will pretend to speak on mobile in her own sweet language and even tries to change her voice modulation and pitch to make it sound real. Though her mobile is held behind her ears, which is forgivable for an 11 month old baby.

The first action she started finding funny was the sneezing sound "AAnnnchoo". She first giggled with the sound of Annchoo and those gurgly giggles would be cherrised forever and ever in my heart.I even have a video of the same! :) 

The first word she has started relating with is nose. When I say nose, she sniffs her nose and looks like a cute little piggy. Other things she identifies with names are light, fan, painting,Didi and CD. Yes, CD, she loves to throw away all the CDs from the CD rack and then bang it on the floor. Sometimes you can see Vidya Balan, Kareena Kapoor, Priyanka Chopra and few other hoties lying beneath her feet. Gurls dont feel bad, she wont compete you as of now. May be your kids some day :).

 She has a special fondness for our driver Raju as he picks her up and take her out loafing at times. Whenever we call Raju, she looks at the door and waits for Raju to come in.

She is a complete water baby, she loves being in water. She can play for hours in the bucket. She and Khushi sit in the bath tub almost every weekend and play with toys in water for God knows how much time. She refuses to get up and insists on being in the bucket every morning during her bath. Not only that she loved the sea. She was thrilled to be on the beach and was busy playing with waves and sand when we went to Goa. She crawled away from the beach when the waves came chasing her. It was a pleasure to see her interacting with waves in this fashion.Kids can so easily interact with everything around in their own unique ways! 

She hates eating her own food, we literally have to force food in her mouth and she refuses to close her mouth. Finally her mouth cannot be opened any longer so she has to close it. Every bite she takes, she knows what she is eating and removes all the unwanted tastes from her mouth as soon as you sneak anything unusual in her mouth. But on the contrary you have to give her whatever you are eating as she wants everything you are eating in your plate. I call it "TAX" which you have to pay  before you can eat your food. She loves eating fruits as her sister does.

Avani is a restless soul like me, she cannot sit at one place, so I cannot read out stories to her as I used to do for Khushi. She is more interested in tearing the pages than listening  to the stories.As a die hard optimist, I take it like - she is more interested in practicals than theory.

Her first fancy dress was in a friend's kids jungle theme birthday party. She was dressed up as a cute little Rabbit. So cute that I could have eaten up that little bunny rabbit. 

In the park, Avani can fight for herself and intimidate the toughest of competitors. She can shout and pull back her toys and sometimes even others toys(which ofcourse she thinks is her birth right) as and when required. Two kids, same environment, same genes but so much of difference in the basic nature. 

She has started saying few words like " Didi" "Mumma" and the most clear word she says is " Yeh Kya hai?". For everything she says " Yeh Kya hai?" which ofcourse does not mean literally. 

She is a very sharp child and she has a very strong mind of herself. You cannot make her forget things by diverting her attention, you need to fulfill her wish then only she will budge. 

I sometime wonder, the little girl who was not able to smile sometime back can stand, giggle at jokes, beat the dustbin as if she is beating the drums, open the toy and take out batteries from it, follow the sound and reach us in any room, shout when anything is happening against her wishes, play with water as if she was born in water, love the waves of sea, play peekaboo when she sees a peice of cloth around, throw a ball, pick a full size ball in one hand and sometimes even cuddle u when u need the most. 

God has not stopped making angels yet!! And we all have a little devil in us! So this devilish angel of mine would one day make us proud I am sure!! 

And with this I promise, you will soon get to read "Avani's dose of the day!!"

Thursday, January 3, 2013

FaceBook Gems - 2013

14th Feb 2013


"As a teenager I used to love to read those mushy mushy lines everyday which used to come in the "LOVE IS_____" cartoon strip. Never thought I would write it on my own one day!!
Love is when you dont need to say "Happy Valentine's day" on 14th Feb.
Love is when you call his relative before your relatives to wish on any occasion
Love is when you write Facebook updates for him, even when you know he would never check
Love is storing his "Miss you" sms for months together
Love is saying him "Have a nice day" every morning
Love is praying for him every day even when he doesnt believe in prayers
Love is pretending not to be possesive about him
Love is making him cake in the evening when you have reminded him of his blood pressure/cholestrol in the morning
Love is telling him that the world doesnt matter
Love is when he is awake at 3 am to give moral support when your baby is not well
Love is when he spoils the kids and u love it

There can be a full book of one liners I can write for you Ashish Sarawagi, but then
Love is to keep each other grounded forever and ever :)"


1st Jan 2013
2013 has started with very positive vibes n I m sure it will bring a lot of happiness and prosperity for all!! Wish u a very very happy new year and u have only one life so keep rocking!!!


9th Jan 2013
Your brain amazes you each time you think that you have reached your limit and you cannot excel anymore!!

11th Jan 2013
Khushi's dose of the day!!

Khushi: Mummy why dogs do Bhow bhow!!
Mummy: That is how they communicate! Like we use Hindi/English language, barking is dog's language!
Khushi: Why dont they talk as we do? Why cant we teach them our language?
Mummy: They cannot speak our language, God has not made birds and animals to speak like us.
Khushi: Then how can some parrots(Macau) repeat what we speak?

Now mummy has to google as to how Macau's can repeat/learn to speak like humans and not dogs !! Thank God we have Google!! Mom-Dad I salute you for answering our questions, even without the help of google!


14th Jan 2013
Khushi's dose of the day!! + Incredible Bharat!! 
Today morning, Khushi tells me, 
Khushi : "Mummy we are punjabi right?"
Mummy : "Why? Who told you we are Punjabi? We are all Indians, we are first Indians then because we have slightly different cultures, we call ourselves, Marwari, Punjabi, Marathi, etc. But who told you about Punjabi's?"
Khushi: "Mummy, we celebrated Lohri yesterday and you told Punjabi people celebrate Lohri!"
Mummy: "Yes, we did celebrate Lohri. But we also made Undhiya which is a dish made by Gujrati's during Sankranti and we also made Till Laddoo which is made by Maharashtrian's on Sankranti and we also made Sarsoon saag and makki roti made by Punjabi's.And we will also make Sweet pongal which is made by Tamil people.
Similar to the concept of doing a pookalam on the day of Onam and similar to the concept of making Bengali aloo dum and luchi on Durga pooja.
So the crux is, whether we are Marwari's or anybody else doesnt matter. Whatever is fun and whatever we like, we can do it as INDIANS! "
Our kids who are growing up in multi cultural environment are far more culturally aware than what we would have been at their age!! Thanks to the vastness of our Incredible Bharat!!


18th jan 2013
Khushi's dose of the day!!
It was dinner time. Khushi had already drank some 2 glasses of water and she wanted more and I refused!
She quietly went to grab Avani's water bottle. It wasnt too much of a fuss because even if she takes water from that, only few drops will come out, so I choose to ignore! She dropped few drops of water in her mouth, then she realized that its better to invert the bottle in her bottle, that ways she will get more water. Then further when the flow of water was less, she pressed the bottle and succeeded to get a consistent flow of water and finally fill half of her bottle from Avani's bottle of water. Mission accomplished!!
This is how our kids learn to do "Jugaad" in India :P
(Ofcourse she could have opened the bottle and put the whole water in her bottle, but since I was watching her, she choose to do it in wraps! :P )


22nd Jan 2013

Khushi's dose of the day!!

As a practise of teaching her one new thing everyday, I asked her to point out 20 square things in the house. 
She instantly started pointing out square things like square cushions, square coasters, square tiles and then after a 
while she started pointing rectangle objects.

Mummy: No, I have asked for square objects, these are rectangle objects, so they dont qualify
Khushi: Its ok Mamma
Mummy: No its not ok, I want only square objects, not rectangle
Khushi: Mumma if we cut the rectangle objects little bit they become square!


22nd Jan 2013
Avani's dose of the day!!

I gave Avani three table tennis size balls to play. 
She grabbed one ball in one hand and second ball in another hand.
She looked at the third ball for couple of seconds then with the decisive look kept the ball in right hand on the ground,
picked the third ball and put it in her mouth. Then again held the last ball in her right hand. 
So with the two balls in one hand each and the third in her mouth she walked gloriously in another room. Mission accomplished!!

30th Jan 2013

Khushi's dose of the day!!

My staff who looks after Khushi told me that Khushi and her friend had a fight in school and they are not talking to each other

Mummy: Khushi, what happened between you and your friend?
Khushi: Nothing
Mummy: Did you fight with each other? Why did you guys have a fight?
Khushi: No, I did not fight, nothing happened Mumma, there is nothing
Mummy: Ok no problem. Next time anything happens in school let me know
Khushi: Yes Mumma, dont worry. I will handle!

Wowwww,,when did my little baby who needed help in everything became so big that she can handle her own problems :)



Khushi's 2nd dose of the day!!

I was playing a game with khushi. She and her friend were suppose to tell me the names of colours one by one.
They played fair for sometimes and then this started

Arya : Green
Khushi : Light Green
Arya : Blue
Khushi : Light Blue
Arya : Purple
Khushi : Light Purple

Next time instead of teaching her Light green and dark green I need to teach her Sap green and Olive green and golden yellow and chrome yello to make sure she doesnt take such shortcuts!! Gen Z u see!!