Chinipie's Developments I

It's been a while that I gave updates on Chinipie's developments. There is lots to share as she has passed the quarter mark and is continuously up to something. It is fun watching her grow especially when she keeps my hands- full and me- busier than ever. Here I sum up her activities chart..

21 July- 28 July


All Flowery

Chinipie has been discovering that she can do many things with her
hands and she is continually amazed with every new discovery she makes; sometimes even surprising her momma. I almost laugh with wonder when I see her inspecting(!) her little hands. She would lift them, palms fist-ed in front of her eyes, and keep staring at them, turning them around clock-wise and then anti-clockwise before finally taking them to her mouth (read tasting them). In fact, this little discovery of hers has eased my pressure a bit and now, I can take my shower even when she is awake. What I used to do was either take my showers in the evenings so that DH could take care of her or wait for her to sleep
before going for for a quick one; this one was risky as most of the times, I would have to come out in haste to pacify the howling little angel. What I do now, is buckle her up in her stroller, tie little wrist-rattlers and give her a Baby Einstein aquarium toy(this one is designed for strollers with fish, turtle, sea-horse in the little aquarium and little rings, fish, and starfish dangle outside). She loves the dangling toys and tries to catch them, fist them or move them around; making my showers so much peaceful. I keep the stroller just outside the bathroom door for the just-in-case.

To her tiny hands, every thing within the sight is pick-able. One afternoon, I was playing with her on the bed and left her alone just for a while (it was safe as she was in the middle of the bed and has not yet started rolling over and she was still within my sight and reach range) to get a pair of socks for her from the other end of the room while keeping an eye on her. Though i kept talking to her, she started crying. I saw her lifting her tiny bumchis up and turning to her side and suddenly she stopped crying. I thought her fingers would have found their way to her mouth and that's what would have pacified her. I came back to the bed to find her tiny fingers busy indeed- trying to pick the flowers off the bed. I had this bed-sheet with a cream back-ground and pink and purple flowers printed all over. I couldn't suppress my smile on this cute act of hers!


I have got so much to say.......

Chinipie is one talkative baby. She now not only talks to her toys but to the lights and fans, too. She responds to us with her 'eki's' and 'eku's and in fact we have started talking back to her in her language(:)), at times, to encourage her talking. When she talks, her eyes do so too! They are filled with so much eager and delight that one would wish 'if only we knew what she is talking about!' For past few days, when Dad comes back home from the office, he is not only greeted with a smile but beaming eyes and enthusiastic "eki eki inga inga eki eki aye aye unga unga..... ekiiiii" all said in a single breath! The first time she had said this, both, DH and I, had looked at each other with wonder, asking each other,"o yaar! kya bol gai?" This has become a routine now. It looks as if dad's darling daughter tells him what all she did during the day and how happy she is to see him back home.


Chinipie's talks would not be limited only for her dad or only for the evenings, but keep her momma equally fascinated during the day. One morning, she woke us up with her enthusiastic blabber. Her non-stop chattering accompanied by twinkling eyes were so expressive that left dad wondering whether she just a beautiful dream!

In a casual conversation with one of my friends, I updated her with Chinipie's evening rituals. She narrated an incident when her then 10-month old daughter who still couldn't mouth words, had still showed daddy how mommy had hit her on the cheek in his absence. My friend, of course, hadn't hit hard and her only intention was to discipline the little one for something. On hearing this, I thought for myself, "So far, So good!". :))


A surprised nana

Chinipie loves to sit; her alert eyes exploring the surroundings. It is quite funny to see her sit up though as her head keeps nodding. If we try to lay her on her back when she doesn't want to she would show her discontent. So, she sits on her dad's lap when we are having dinner, or on mine, when I am sorting the mails or working on computer; in her car stroller or in the rocking chair. The other day, she was sitting on my lap, while I was talking to nana on the phone. When I got tired of holding her (she needs lots of support to sit) and thought of giving my arms a little rest, I put her down in her crib, and she started crying. My dad's question was, ' why are you making her cry?'. I, instantly, seated her in her crib itself propped with pillows(she needs all kinds of support) and she stopped crying and started looking around again. When I told this to naana, he was delightfully surprised, 'dhai mahine ki bacchi baithne lag gai!?!'

And the proud mom smiled.


Social skills

Chinipie has been very social ever since we started taking her out for the evening strolls. She loves getting attention and responds with a smile to everybody who oodles her.

On Friday, DH and I, decided to dine out. This was our very first dinner in a restaurant after Chinipie's birth. Very carefully, we chose to go out when Chinipie would have normally slept. So, I nursed her and put her in her car seat (she usually falls asleep in the car) and she fell off to sleep as soon as the car started. And was sleeping through our appetizer course. As we were waiting for our main course, she got up and refused to stay in the car seat any longer. So we picked her up and took turns in seating her on our lap while having dinner. This is the trick that usually works for us when we are having dinner at home. But this time it did not as she would sit for a while and then start fussing again. Finally, I perked her up on my shoulder and this seemed to work as I could feel her gnawing happily on my shoulder and cooing contently; while DH and I resumed our dinner and conversation. A while later, we realized that her voice is getting louder and more frequent. I tried to turn back and see her face to try to guess what she wants or what would have captured her attention. DH, sitting across the table, suggested that she is just enjoying herself and nothing else. As he said this, he saw the couple at the adjacent table look at her and smile. And I could see a smile on her face, too. For sure, she had wanted attention and knew exactly how to get what she wants!


Baby's Day Out!

On Saturday, all the desi colleagues at DH's office had kept a get-together at Pymatuning State Park. I was very excited as this was the first outing for Chinipie. Unless, I consider our visits to the malls and department stores which I do not count as the outings. For me the outings have to be outdoors. With her feeding and crying, how much hard I tried, we couldn't leave our house at the decided time (I made a note to myself to keep a margin of at least one hour before making an appointment in future). On our way to the park, she slept until the last 20 minutes and got up hungry. For such times, I keep the formula and bottle as a reserve, which most of the times is a risk because she hardly takes the formula, but this time luckily she took it. I said, 'luckily' because by the time we would have been able to find a place to stop, her cryings would have been so loud that Dad would not have been able to concentrate on his driving. She played for a while before wanting to be picked up. Meanwhile, we could not find the exact meeting spot in the park and were going in circles with her cryings growing louder. Finally, with the directions over the phone and a couple of more wrong turns, we got to the place. As DH was unloading the stuff from the car, Chinipie also un-loaded herself. I thought that changing her diaper in the car before joining everyone else would be comfortable for all of us and asked hubby to give me a hand while I fetched my diaper bag. And this is when the things got messier with the diaper leaking and dirtying Chinipie's and momma's dress! What was just a one-minute job of changing a diaper went on to a 15-minute one including a change of her clothes (here my habit of always keeping an extra pair with me proved worthwhile), cleaning her back and legs and cleaning momma's dress too.

The rest of the day went quite uneventful as far as Chinipie is concerned because as luck would have it, she again chose to just eat and sleep for most of the day. For the brief period when she was up, I had taken the activity play mat along in which she would have played for not more than 10 minutes. Here's a snap of Chinipie sleeping in the sling with DH, something which she has quite taken to recently. I have also added the snap when we first used the sling. She looks like a little kangaroo in there, doesn't she?



P.S. While trying to fish out an appropriate dress for the picnic, I tried some of my pre-pregnancy ones which didn't fit me (obviously!). DH on watching this remarked, "tumhe apne kapde bag se baahar nikaal lene chahiye. waha pade pade sab shrink ho gaye hain"(Seems you should take your dresses out from that bag. They all have shrunk being inside that bag)! love love love... fluttering eyes.. :)