Too many words on this page, so...

More kuttipa words

Aggu - Hug (followed with a hug)

Bananga - Banana

Kaagu - Kaalu (leg, in Kannada)

Itty - Hottai (stomach, in Kannada)

Words

Kuttipa has a few words now...

Huppu - Hippo

Boa - Boa

Di zzah - Zebra

Hoovu - Hoovu (flower in kannada)

Apple - Apple

Wow (said with great exclamation) - wow

Baab - Ball

Dodda - dodda (Big in Kannada)

Dodda (said in a different tone) - He actually means little

Athe - Ashtae ('The end' in kannada). He says it sometimes after we finish reading a book.

A random photo from over a year ago

He was at that stage when everything made him smile and laugh! He still is a happy child but is prone to quite the tantrum when things don't go his way...

It grows in bunches

Since this song is playing in my head all the time these days, I figured I might as well post a link to it.

And then he ate it!

So half an hour after my crazy rant about avocados being not just avocados, my son decides to eat it all. It's called hunger I guess.

Although it doesn't always work that way. I've had days where he is screaming with hunger but still won't eat whatever it is I'd like him to eat. Even if was the exact same thing he couldn't get enough of a few days ago. And by that I don't mean leftovers (just in case you were wondering).
I do have a friend who thinks I feed my son gross smelling and tasting stuff. And so when we visit her, she keeps trying to cook 'good stuff' for him. Until one day he spit perfectly good 'dosai' out. He didn't like it. Didn't want it. No way no how. Now I think she is more likely to sympathize with me.

I am in a better frame of mind today. Why? Kuttipa is napping. The weather outside is going to be nice. It's Friday which means a weekend of being with the husband. And I had a reasonably restful night last night. And...I don't know, sometimes it's just nice being alive, no?

Not just an avocado.

Why won't my son eat avocado? Why? He used to love it. And now he won't eat even one spoonful of it. I've tried all kinds of different ways to present it to him and he still won't eat it. And why am I getting so worked up about it? It's just an avocado!! No, it isn't. But I don't know how to explain it.

The avocado is good for him. It's not just that though. If he ate the avocado, it means one less thing for me to figure out what's for lunch for him. Now I've to think of other things for him to eat. Things he still may not like and spit all over the kitchen floor. Which means even more figuring out. It's exhausting! This business of trying to figure out multiple times a day what he'll like and actually eat. And if he ate reasonably well, he'll go down for a nap maybe. Just maybe. Because if he doesn't nap, he'll be cranky and whiny for hours. And then he won't eat his snack or dinner and then he'll keep waking through the night and cry in hunger. Arrggh!

It's not just the avocado. It's all that it represents.

Okay, maybe I need a break!

Nineteen minutes

More than a month has passed by since I blogged last. It's not for lack of things to write about. With Kuttipa in the house there can never a dearth of subjects. In this past month, he has learned to successfully climb up and down the stairs and loves to go down to the basement if he sees the gate open. He used to be able to clap his hands and wave bye-bye but seemed to forget it for the past few months. Now he is starting to remember again...

Actually the entire month of February has been a big blur. There were so many things on my to-do list for the month and they're all still not done yet. Work-related things and other things, such as getting rid of some of Kuttipa's old clothes and accessories. What did I do last month? I attended a book club meeting a week ago, but that's this month, not last month.

The book club meeting was good though. There were 10 of us and we've each picked a book to read and discuss at the meetings that will be held once a month. So I've got my reading list for the next 10 months. Next month's book is 'Nineteen minutes' by Jodi Picoult. I finished reading it last night after getting it from the library just a couple of days ago. I've got book-addiction issues and this book was particularly un-putdownable.

It deals with a high school shooting where 10 kids are killed and many more injured. The killer is a high school kid himself, one who has been bullied and pushed around and been the target of cruelty from other kids ever since he joined school. Pushed over the edge, he retaliates with a bloody massacre. The book is scary because you realize that any kid could be this kid.. perhaps yours (I hope not). Picoult challenges the notion that a kid who would do this must have terrible parents. Lacy, the mother of the shooter kid couldn't possibly be more caring or loving towards her son. And yet what happens, happens. In the aftermath she is left wondering about what she did wrong. Should she have been more loving, less loving, what? Her pain was described very well and I am thinking Picoult is probably a mother herself, else how could she possibly do this so well?

My instinctive response to this book was fear; Fear that Kuttipa might one day be the victim of bullying in school. But that's a while away and many things can happen between then and now. And I guess I can't protect him from every single thing life throws his way. I wish I could though!

Kuttipa climbed up on the sofa for the very first time yesterday. He had some help since he used my leg as a step stool. Still, it's a first and so it has been noted. He also spent an hour at a dayhome today - another first. It went reasonably well although I felt guilty and terrible as if I'd abandoned him. The poor lambkin! Not sure when I am going to do it again...

I think I need to organize my time more effectively and work around his schedule better. Of course he could be sleeping better but the reality is that he is not. Instead of perenially lamenting about it maybe I should just accept it and move on...and maybe then I'll actually get some work done.

Speaking of laments, I was listening to the radio recently and I heard some lady lament about how she was not told about the credit card policies when she signed up for it and now she was in deep debt. Excuse me? Is it really that difficult to understand that if you don't pay your credit card bills in full each month, you WILL be in deep doodoo? Hmm...

A few posts ago I'd wondered how so many people were able to afford big screen TVs and fancy vacations. I figured the answer was our high mortgage and single income. Maybe it is. But maybe it isn't. Maybe it's people who are living way beyond their means because they can't figure out their credit card bills. And maybe that's why Canadian bankruptcy rates are on the rise. Or mabye it's just the bad economy. There is never one clear reason for anything is there?