Akhil has turned two on this June 5th. It was a small birthday celebration at our house. After attending a birthday party of our neighbour, akhil was actually facinated by the idea of birthdays - color papers, cakes, crowd, and most importantly birthday song. Birthday is a word that has been added to vocabulary without much difficulty. He has been saying "birthday, akhil birthday" and make us sing the song at least 10 times a day.

And then when it was his real birthday and we sang while he was still in the bed trying to get up, it did not make any difference, because we had been singing the same song for more than a month! And the party mood got set in the evening, when we were decorating the house with color papers, happy birthday hangings, cake, candles and new dress! We had invited our neighbours and collegues, whose presence did not trouble akhil at all. He was cool playing with his toys, saying his newly learnt words to people.

When the time came, we cut the cake, distributed it to people, and filled our bags with gifts, and every thing just went on perfect!! It was a good celebration time, and we had realize that two years had flew like two months.

Jaya.

Read an article some time back that, reading habit should be cultivated in children from first year itself, getting them exposed to books, showing them picture books, and slowly move on to higher levels. Me being a ardent book lover, would certainly want Akhil also to be so. With that strong intent, I bought a ABC Picture book for Akhil - it had big pictures of various objects he knows already.

I showed to him with due care thinking all about the article that i read, interpreted all the pictures in the book saying - Apple, it is a fruit, you like it, you had it yesterday blah blah... And I also instructed my mother, to show him the book often, and familiarize him with the books.

Today I just enquired her, as to how are the book sessions going on? She said, I have just put the book in the shelf where he cannot see it. I could not think of a reason for it and asked her, she replied - what ever object he sees in the book - he wants to be given to him then and there - sees apples, grapes, icecreams, dolls, wants it in his hand at the same moment, unable to convince him I have just kept the book away from his eyes!!

Tough times ahead!

Jaya.

Akhil is becoming naughty day by day is not the right way of putting it, rather hour by hour.  He normally enters the kitchen just to take some tappa from the shelve and do some mischief of spilling the contents what ever possible at the moment.

Recently he entered the kitchen, to find something interesting in the stove counter top. But he could not reach to it because of its height. He instantly looked down, saw a vessel, took it and put it upside down, and climbed on to it and reached to the apple that was there in the counter top. We could not actually believe that he did it by himself, but it was so natural that he knew the solution all years!

And next when he wants to see what is there on the shelves, he just pulls the plastic chair to that position, climbs over it, and easily accesses the items kept on the shelves. Since we donot have closed cupboards in our house, he is just enjoying peeping into all of them.

Jaya.

Akhil has started to say few words and the first in the list is "Ice". There is a ice cream vendor selling ice cream on the roads at the nights ringing his bell. Akhil first got used to the sound of bell, and where ever he is, the moment he hears the bells, he would on balcony calling oi, oi.

My father bought him an ice cream one day, and from then on it became a routine to buy icecreams every alternative days. And akhil learnt this word ice, and from then on, he has started to say "Aice". It is the first word he has learnt next to amma and appa!

I think Akhil has got music sense too. He knows to put thaalam if he hears any song, and also recognize songs at their first beat. The next word he has learnt is AAthayi.. For people who know Tamil song - he has learnt that word from the Ammadi Aathadi song. He just knows the second word, and keeps on saying aathaayi aathaayi. And we have asked him to say aathaayi so many times, that when ever he speaks over the phone with my sister, without even asking, he would just say Aathaayi, as we say hello!

The third word in his vocabulary is - Rose. Again this word is picked from the flower vendor who comes on the roads in the mornings. He sells roses and shouts rose in front of every house. And akhil says it as "Rosa".
And when anybody is coming to the house, he nods his head as a sign of welcome, and does vanakkam (holding his hands in worship posture).

Jaya.

Couple of days ago, akhil brought a can and asked me to open and give to him. I said no, and continued to do my work. He persisted on opening it, and i was also stubborn that i would not open it. Suddenly he jumped to my cheeks and gave me a sweet kiss and gave the bottle to open and give it to him. I was actually surprised by his action, not sure as to where he picked this gesture and burst out laughing at his instant response.

I must admit that children learn definetely more than what we teach!!

Jaya.

Earlier, when akhil wanted to open anything may it be tap to play in water or any container in the kitchen, he used to call us to open and give it to us. For the past one week, he is not troubling us, but instead opens it himself and does the trouble by playing with water when we are not there around or scatter everything before we reach the kitchen!

It is nice to know that he has learnt the rotating movement of his fingers and stepped into another milestone in his life...

Another surprising thing i noted yesterday was Akhil was playing with the tap and probably he should have felt thirsty to drink water. He cupped his small hands and tried to catch the water and take it to his mouth. He found that he could not even take a drop of it. Next, what he did was he kept both his hands cupped under the tap and tried to move his head close to the tap and started to drink the flowing water.

I was actually amazed at the natural intelligence of the children, nobody teaches that he can drink water in that way and yet he was able to find a solution to his need very naturally!

Jaya.

On day of our Children's day function, we had a program by the young drummer Siddharth - He mesmerized the crowd for 30 minutes by his splendid performance.

Here is one by Akhil rightly to be called as Inspired by Siddharth!

Jaya.

Akhil has started to play with shadows. At nights, in the feeble light of the night lamp, he moves his hands up and down and enjoy the movement of the shadows. During the day, he stands at the place where the sunshine enters the room through the window. He walks up and down and see the light being blocked by his shadow and vice versa.

God only knows as to what he thinks about shadows!

Jaya.

These days, akhil has developed a habbit to drag us to anywhere he wants to go, mostly to the kitchen shelf, fridge, or near the water filter and do all actions and sounds to lift him and take and give whatever he needs. And needless to tell that every thing he asks would be something that needs to kept out of his reach - chilli powder, coffee powder, face creams, mosquito repellent playing with water.. etc. When we take away any of these things that he has in his hands and give him some thing else, he just throws it away, starts to cry aloud and jumping!

And we are carrying him at that moment, he is trying to beat the us, spoil our hair, and also try to pinch! Though none of these are painful, it is really amazing as to see how he would have learnt all these as agitative measures. We never pinch each other, or throw things, so he has no chance of seeing such an activity. He would become allright after 5 minutes of crying and get back to normal state. (unless my father is there around. My father cannot see kids crying and would give away what ever he is asking)

Probably the kids have their own intelligence that makes them to behave the way they do at given situations...

Jaya.

We had celebrated children's day at our office couple of weeks back. There was fancy dress, talentshows and many other interesting events for children.

Akhil was ready to rock the show as Krishna. My mother had taken the pains to buy the dress and jewels and got him ready and came to our office. I was actually worried as to how akhil might react to the crowd, stage and loud music. To my surprise he was as casual as he can be! He was moving here and there in the auditorium, running behind balloons, unaffected by the gathering crowd.

He and another kutti girl were first to be on the stage, and i was the comperer and hence carried a mike. Akhil seeing mine, asked one for himself and was not ready to part with it even he was about to get down. I had to do all coaxing to get the mike from him!

He was enjoying the show actually, had popcorns, listened to all music, made friends there and came back to house tired after his first debut performance on stage!