Here we go again!

Hello all,
This is baby girl - am back again! I was not pleased with mom for deleting the post about my dear brother - since she hardly posts any updates on him as it is. And even if she writes about him, it's hardly in positive light - always ranting about his "meal time battles"! As she was thinking about this while giving me my food this morning, I shouted one loud "Ahhhhn" and told her in no uncertain terms that she ought to just post it again. Like Poppin's mom said wisely, "the cold IS the anti-jinx". I am making sure that my post about my brother sees the light of the day and also I found out that anyway some people read it on google reader - so what's the problem mom!
Tata for now!
Oh, here's the post!
Love to my little friends from baby girl!
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My brother is now 2.5 yrs old!

Hello All! With all the encouragement and cheers I received the last time I spoke, I was inspired to do it again. Except this time, I want to give an update on my brother who turns 2.5 yrs old on Feb.3.08. My mom seems hopeless with posting regular updates about us and my brother – oh boy – he will run far away if I asked him to talk about himself. It looks to me like I am going to become the spokesperson for this family at the going rate! Also, please pardon, I can’t write about him without also writing about myself a little since we are always together.

So mom has already raved about how my brother has started eating better – hah hah, hats off to me since she thinks I had a role in this! But I honestly think my brother deserves more credit. He really is a very sensitive and sweet kid and he really knows when he has pushed mom to her limits and responds to it. You should see him when mom and dad are fighting – those two minutes when they are in the thick of their arguments – they are so loud – I feel like telling them to “sush” a little – but hey, I like to shout and cry loudly myself on occasion – so I just let it be. Anyway – when they are yelling at each other, my sweet, barely 2.5 yr old brother, intervenes and says “Daddy, Mamma’va kochi pannadhe…Mamma, Daddy’ve kochi pannadhe!” (Daddy, don’t get mad at mamma). And especially if my mom looks sad, he just runs to her and hugs her legs and says, “KB wants to hug mamma”! And that’s it, she immediately turns liquid! But mom won’t let it pass. In her irritated mood, she will turn to my dad and say, “See, your son is so sweet and loving” – read, you are not! Gosh, why do adults fight so much?! Especially when they have such, ahem, awesome kids like my brother and myself!

Oh speaking of loving etc – a lot of people, including dad, tell my mom that she has a bit of soft corner for my brother over me. I am not too bothered by this – hey, I am the daughter, I know for sure mom’s going to have a different kind of, but equally strong bond with me. Mom just feels bad for my brother because he is so nice overall. She is one of those – if someone is nice, she just melts and feels bad for them.

My brother will be joining preschool probably in July or Aug of this year. I will miss him those 3-4 hours he will not be home. The three of us – mom, my brother and myself are always together all the time pretty much until dad comes home – by when I am fast asleep anyway. But it may be fun to have mom to myself for sometime I think. My mom worries more about how he will cope with kids who are much bigger than him and are more aggressive than him. She recently went to meet a playgroup in the park and saw that the kids there were all quite aggressive in the slide and the see-saw. My brother loves people watching and when he sees a bunch of kids in a group moving fast and pushing etc, he just amuses himself by sitting back and watching. My mother, the worry worm that she is, thinks may be he is scared and that’s why he is sitting back and watching them. My brother is really one of those “thinking” types – he spaces out and opens his already big eyes wide and stares into space and thinks god knows about what. He just likes to sit, watch and drift off into his thoughts. Mom needn’t worry so much about all this! When kids come home, he is very friendly and shares his toys. Only on occasion if some kid grabs something he is playing with at that moment, he really insists that it be given back to him. He loves it when people visit us and is quite friendly – of course you all know that still doesn’t mean he will let them get too close to him too soon. A couple of days stay and then he is OK if they carry him a little or take him to the park behind our house.

Another change in my brother in the last couple of months – he never used to like story books. But these days he enjoys books like “Goodnight Moon”, “Goodnight Gorilla” and “Biscuit” books. He loves the “Wonder books” series from the public library. Mom makes up little stories from the pictures on each page. He loves fables and mom twists the old “kaka story” about the crow who drank water by talking about how the crow first sat in the tree in our back yard and then mentions all our friends and then goes on to tell him how the crow managed to get water to quench his thirst…and then suddenly it was night time and the “Stireet light” (as my brother says) turned on and so the kaka had to go home, eat “mum mum” and “thaachi” (sleep). My mother can’t help but weave in this whole mum mum thing whenever she gets a chance. She says to him, “Appram yenna pannithu kaka, chamatha mum mum saatutu, thachi panna poidthu” (Kaka ate his meal well and went to bed).

My brother also loves “Dasharatha story” – somehow it is established that only dad reads Amar chitra katha to him. Dad is really good at this – he is so dramatic and really brings it down to a level my brother can somewhat understand. My brother also loves “Calvin and Hobbes”. He makes mom read it to him every now and then during his meals. When dad gets home from work, he will get excited and will want to say something to him immediately. And just abruptly, as soon as dad enters the house, he will tell him “Suzie Calvin’a kochi pannithu. Snow ball thooki pottudhu Calvin”. (Calvin got mad at Suzie for throwing a snow ball at him).

Oh speaking of books, the other day my brother read this book called “Max goes to the barber” with my mom. (The lady who cut my brother’s hair decided to change profession after that – he just brought the roof down!). And the day she got the book from the library, they must have read it some 10 times. My brother knows all the alphabets in upper case and about 18 of them in lower case. He gets confused between “b”, “d”, “p” and also “g”, “h” and “q”. “q” he says is “small “p”. Anyway – mom really doesn’t worry about teaching him alphabets etc. She just casually reads these “Elmo’s favorite letter” type books to him but he now seems to enjoy pointing to all the different alphabets. Back to “Max the barber”. After mom read the book to him, he closed it and he pointed to the title and said “M, A, X - Max” and mom got all excited that he read it on his own and immediately called up dad and said “B, you know what, KB read “Max” on his own! My God, I thought that was a bit too much. First of all, it’s just one word! And secondly, she read it to him so many times, obviously he will know it is “Max”. Anyway – parents are a different breed altogether looks like! They just make a big deal of every thing we kids do!

Ok, I thought I was good at talking about myself. Looks like, I enjoy talking even more about my brother. I forgot to mention his obsessive streak. If he likes something, it is an obsession always. For example, my mom’s cousin got him this really annoying (but boys seem to love it) “weazel ball”.
Mom could not stand the sight of that rodent rolling all over the house, so she threw it out but kept the motorized ball, which is actually very cool toy. You won’t believe how many days it just went on and on in our house. He would wake up in the morning and ask for this ball! He would wake from his nap and ask for it! The ball was getting on my mom and dad’s nerves, but the delight on his face when they gave it to him – he used to chuckle with joy when the ball rolled under his bed and made noises and then came out on it’s own. He was mad about this ball.

For my brother, if something is broken, he will immediately throw it in the trash if it is not fixed. Perfect or else throw it out. For ex – he just loves this “Surya car” (he got it at Surya’s party). I mean he just loves** this car – always turning it’s wheels with his thumbs, opening and closing it’s doors etc. The other day, he noticed the tail light had fallen off - his sense of order was so disturbed, in an instant, he told mom “Trash’le podu”. She could not believe it – a car that he loved so much, how is he able to part with it so easily! Complete detachment! My parents are crazy – they felt so bad about him parting with that car – dad went and got “Super glue” from “Target” that same night and fixed the light back on this toy car! My brother needless to say was super thrilled!

His obsession with music – some music is always playing in the background at our place. Surely so, when we go in the car. And he decides what music. He picks CDs from my parent’s CD rack and asks mom to play things randomly. The other day, he brought to her a “Leonard Cohen” CD and asked her to play it. Mom thought he would surely ask her to turn it off soon after the first song. But when mom was recording our antics on video camera and the music was playing in the background, he told mom, “Uncle romba nanna padarar” (Uncle sings so well)! Wait till my uncle, who is a die hard carnatic music fan sees this video! He will ask my mom why she is playing such “random music” for her children!

Ok folks. I better stop here. I have gone on way too long here. I feel my mom rarely writes updates and this will be good for her to look at a few years from now. So tried to talk about all that came to my mind while writing this. I love my dear brother! Happy half year birthday, my sweet brother!