And so it begins...

... A different phase of parenthood. One that involves many heartaches for the mommies and daddies.

The first few months' worries were about Rian's feeding (milk). Then came the struggle with solids, then the teething wave hit, then toddlerhood, followed again by the molars and some more hunger strikes. Now a new wave of independence is sending my little one into fits of super energy. Some of it was witnessed by us at The Jungle while celebrating Shayona's second birthday.

Along with this super energy comes the hurt. Sigh, the hurt. It's getting worse and worse now as the falls are harder, and Rian is taking more risks.

Rian chipped one of his front tooth today morning. He leaned over asking for something from the bathtub, and he was leaning on a step stool. Suddenly he lost his balance and his mouth landed on the bathtub exterior which is tiled :-( It all happened so suddenly and in an instant, there was very little that could be done about it.

The next moment, all I knew was how hard I was crying, seeing that some part of tooth had been damaged, and blood oozed from the broken lips. I quickly called Daddy and quickly tried to cool the wound with some water, in the process washing away the cracked pieces of tooth (I think there were three). My mind dreamed up lots of scary thoughts as I handed him off to Dad, since I didn't see the extent of the damage. My first responses of panic were ... Oh My God, Rian lost BOTH his front tooth! How will he eat now? His speech will be affected! He's gonna look horrible in all his photos. God... this was the worst ever I must have cried.

Turns out 15 mins later, after a good cool down from Daddy and his favorite teething rings soothing his lips, Rian was a happy camper. Mom though was still in the ditches. Finally calmed myself down to get closer to Rian to see the damage. 1/4th of his front tooth - gone. A very sharp edge remains to the tooth - this is bothering Rian's tongue and causing him to wake frequently at night. Here are the before (3 weeks back) and after pictures.

The bird has left the nest

Sigh... Happiness and sadness, a hollow feeling takes over Dad and Mom as we moved Rian's crib today into his room. In pictures, the empty space in the master bed and the final place of the crib.

Word explosion

This is so cool, I have to jot it down for my own memories. So January 1 Rian opens his word bank with three words, and it's literally an explosion so far. Here are all the words my little one can speak (some are Rian-ized variants of course!):

1. Bappa
   
2. Bubba (for bubble)
3. Moon
   
4. Star
5. Fish
6. Dirty
7. Boov (for car... think vroom vroom)
8. Buvva (for bhoor jaa... wants go out)
9. Mumma
10. Deddy (for Daddy)
11. Tatya (for Aatya)
12. Ball
13. Tuttle
14. Guava
15. Nana (for banana)
16. Dudu (Marathi word for milk)

Rian had his 18 month appt with the doctor today, and Aal Izz Well.

TT ... and it's not an Audi

TT = Tantrum Time, and sadly it's not an Audi...

Since the past couple of days, Rian has started throwing tantrums. It's that time of the age, developmentally, I guess. He's able to communicate partially with his words, but I'm guessing gets so frustrated trying to piece together the rest, he bursts into tantrums. He gets really loud and shrilly, and waves his hands back n forth. His face is a sore sight and I can literally see the anger and frustration. Sigh. Poor thing.

Luckily we've been able to handle the first few fits with decent amount of patience and firmness. Affirm to him that - no, you cannot get to see the TV now, it is dinner time. It's okay if you refuse to eat. TV is after dinner, for 5 minutes.

It's not easy to distract him when he's in a tantrum, so we try to give him a few things he wants e.g. you want the belan, take it. But you won't get the knife. Let's go see the moon and maybe we can see a few birds flying, but no TV.

Wish us more power for continued patience :-) Toddlerhood is a whole different ballgame, we see now.

The 18 month mark

Unbelievable as it is to us, Rian is 18 months old today on 6 Jan '10. A quick recap of the last few weeks to record how Tuggy keeps us continuously amazed:

• Our Austin trip to the Dave home gave Rian loads of time to play with Aanya. I think Rian has picked up the nthu to talk from her, just like he seemed to have picked up the interest in eating from Shayona during our Florida trip.
• Rian started the New Year with a bang and lots of words: dirty, star, fish. He added to that till date: daddy, touch, ball. He had mastered Bappa, mumma, mum-mum long time back.
• On our 7th anniv yesterday Rian gave me the gift of calling me mumma :-) He had his vocabulary constantly growing and could say the word mumma for some time now but could not say the word to call me to get my attention. He would say it of I asked him to say it. Today though, 4-5 times he called out for me and looked for my response :-)
• Rian did the unthinkable today: he was able to climb out of his crib to a point where he can fall and hurt himself. Note that the crib is in it's lowest position and Rian did not use the bumper to get the extra height. Mummy and Daddy are wondering what to do now since we were thinking of moving his crib to his own room! Any suggestions?!
• When do these critters STTN???? Last night was better than most, slept in his crib from 9:30pm to 5am but refused to sleep from 5am to 7am :-( and that too in our bed. This is one of our roadblocks for moving Rian out to his own room. Lately Rian has taken to staying awake for an hr or so when he wakes up in the middle of the night. He loves playing with our fingers and unconsciously slapping dad and mom.
• Rian has started responding to the word 'smile'. When mumma says 'smile beta smile', Rian does this cute shy smile that is unbelievably sweet. I'll try to upload a few photos if I can find them. Many of our friends have told us that Rian's smile melts their hearts, and imagine this lava at your command for disposal :-)