Kaakaa Nari Kadhai

Adaptation....

Jillu : Paati, Paati, Nee romba azhagaa irukkiye! Mahabharatham lerundhu oru kadhai sollen !

(Grandma, you are looking so beautiful ! Pls tell me a story from Mahabharatham na )

Jillu Talkies -12

After a long gap, read how and what Jillu talks these days :)

She was unusually quiet for a while in the hall and came running to me in the kitchen suddenly. I got suspicious and asked her

Me: yenna pannittu vandhe? (What did you do ?)
Jillu : Onnum illa. Naan paavamaa summaa ukkandhuttu vandhen. (Nothing. I just simply sat like a paavam girl )

*************

Naan periyava aana udane, coffee pottu tharuven, dosai vaapen, naane mehendi vechupen
(After I become bigger, I shall make coffee, dosa etc. I will even keep Mehendi myself)

****************

She saw one half of the beautiful butterfly cup that she had broken last year. I was using it for some other purpose in the kitchen. She looked at it and asked

Jillu : andha cup naan udacha udane nee yenna panne yenna? (What did you do when I broke that cup?)
Me : naan timeout kuduthen ( I gave you time out)
Jillu : yen ? (Why?)
Me : pinna yenna paanuvaalaam? (Then what else should I have done?)
Jillu : inime panna maataanu chumaa vitturukanum! (You should have let me go free assuming I wont repeat again!)

Jillu Talkies - 11

Dinner Time

Jillu had completed her main course. As is the norm, I gave her her habitual cup of curd (which she lovvvess and usually insists on having it herself)

Me : Jillu, eat your curd.

Jillu: Amma, please, you feed me 

Me : No da. Can you please have it yourself? You usually do that, right ? And it is something that you love. Amma has some work. So, please go and have your curd.

Jillu : No, ma, you have to come.

(this goes on for a while and Amaa becomes slightly irritated)

Me : Jillu, Dont make trouble for having curd. If you want, you have it. Otherwise, its OK. you need not eat. OK ?

Jillu Talkies - 10

Dinner time and the little madam has had her share of food and is content.
Next is her Mom's turn and she is having hers amidst various distractions in between (What else but running behind this cute toddler?)


Kutti Madam gets restless  and


Jillu : Amma, nee yenna panre ?(what are you doing ?)
Me : Nee sollu (You tell me)
Jillu : Saapadariyaa ? Amma unakku pasikkudhaa ? (Are you eating ? Are you feeling very hungry?)
Me (ahaa ! OK, she is so understanding! Now I can have my dinner in peace!) : Yes, da chellam
Jillu : Amma, nee saaptadhu porum! Chaapdaadhe ! vaa ma! vandhu vilaiyaadu! (Mom, you have had enough! Dont eat! Come and play withe me!)

Jillu Talkies - 9

I Bedtime talk
Jillu : yennoda friend a irukkiyaa?? (Will u be my friend?)
Me : (silent)
Jillu : Ammaa
Me : hmmm?
Jillu : nee yennoda friend a irukkiyaa?? (Will u be my friend?)
Me : sure.. irukken da kannnaa. (After a pause..) Friend na, yeppidi da irukkanum ? yenna pannanum? (sure. What do friends do? what should i do to be your friend?)

Thank you, everyone !!!

for all those who called, mailed and left messages in the blog asking for more JilluYennaPan. It gives a very warm and nice feeling when people check up on you, na ? Thank you, again.

The break was unexpected and unplanned.

I will be back soon. My net connection will go down any time now and will be down for the next couple of days, just when I wanted to write a post :( . So just thought will say a quick hi to all :)

Take care and stay tuned in. Will  be back once the broad band connection is all set properly

And Jillu is doing absolutely fine... leaving you with one of her songs...

Krishna madi methaiyadi (Krishna's lap is like a bed)
Aadi vilaiyaadammaa (play along nicely in the lap)
Aadum vari aadi vittu (Play as long as you want)
Alli vizhi moodammmaa (and then drift off to a peaceful sleep in his lap)
Krishna madi Methaiyadi

Adaptation from an old Tamil song where the original version calls for the child to sleep in her Athai 's (Aunt, Bhuva) lap.

And Jillu does not stop there, she goes on with

"I" madi methaiyadi (remember I ? Her buddy friend?)
"Yasodha" madi methaiyadi (Krishna's mom)
"Arrakan" madi methaiyadi (All the raakshash'a in Krishna)
"Amma" madi methaiyadi (thats me of course)
"Appa" madi methaiyadi

and so on and so forth :)

Wah Re Wah !

"Wooowwwwwwww ! Beeauuuuuuutiful "
was the exclamation on sighting our little beauty dressed up so prettily (even if I say so myself :) )


Occasion : An important Family function
Attire :
Paatu Paavaadai, with pretty blouse
Pearl necklace adorning the small neck
Matching bangles jingling all the way
Matching Matching Pottu on the forehead
And Matching Matching slide to hold the hair back 

Of sweet and precious vocab !!!

She drinks "Clompan", not "Complan" :)

When we go to Pizza hut, we eat Chizza !

When we finish a meal or a drink, we say "Chinish pannitten"

The first in the list for bribe is always "Binky Bar" (Milky Bar)

She does everything so geautifully :)

The next in the line is a visit to "Engine" (its the "MGM" in the MGM Dizzie world amusement park)

The "Germs" box (The Gems box) is her current most treasured asset

She always asks me "Have you taken the "kas-vees"?" when we venture out.

Any guesses as to what is Kas-vees?

Dola, Dora and what not?

"Dola Dola Dola Dola - Dondi buckie Dola"

"Dola Dola Dola Dola - Dondi buckie Dola"

Our home has been resonating with this so called song these past 2 days. It starts slowly and reaches the crescendo with the last "Dola". I am still doubtful as to whether she says "Dola"or "Dora".  When I heard her sing this the first time, I asked her who had taught her and she told me her Aunty at school had taught her!

I was naturally curious and wanted to know which Dora song they had taught her !  She was singing with so much gusto and enthusiasm. I was also surprised because I thought the school wouldn't be teaching Dora songs and also, I didn't think there were any songs of Dora.

"Dola Dola Dola Dola - Dondi buckie Dola"

Nee Paadu (this is Jillu asking me to sing)

"Dola Dola Dola Dola - Dondi buckie Dola"

(this is me singing (trying) to sing just like her)

"Hey, appidi illa. Appidi paada koodaadhu. Ippidi Paadanum - Dola Dola Dola Dola - Dondi buckie Dola"

(this is Jillu lecturing me that my lyrics were wrong)

Me : "Adhe dhaana naanum paadinen"

(frustrated. Iva paadardhe, for sure thappu. Idhula yennna vera correction.- There is absolutely no doubt that she is completely incorrect in her lyrics, on top of that she is correcting me)

To add to the frustration, the Dad gains the upper hand

He sings "Dola Dola Dola Dola - Dondi buckie Dola : Adhu dhaane? correct dhaane? "

Jillu : Nodding heavily, Amaam, Yes.

So, naan "correct dhaane?" kaekaadhadhu thappaa?

So we all sang along with her "Dola Dola...Dora Dora"

And yesterday, when I picked her up from school, I asked her Aunty

Me : Did you teach her some Dora song?

Aunty : looks perplexed and looks weirdly at me.

Me : (brain working actively to avoid that one thing) Something that goes Dola, Dora.

Aunty : (Still thinking me crazy ) we sing so many songs....

Me : (Ahh.. there you go, you are making me to do it. Please dont make me). No. She says you taught her. Dola, Dora

Aunty : No. I didnt teach any Dora songs.

Me : (Grrr.. there's no other way now. A big Sigh....So, here, I go, making a fool of myself)

"Dola Dola Dola Dola - Dondi buckie Dola"

Aunty : zapped for a second. She stares at me, I stare right back at her unabashed and then I see something click in her. She laughs and sings....

Any guesses?

Come on...

5

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4

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3

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2

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1

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Of Bonding talkies and B meets

I was about to write about this in my other blog but,

 Me proposes,

Jillu disposes

and how did that happen ? When I went shopping today and called my mom to check on something from the shop, this transpired

Plugged On!

Jillu has always had the habit of sucking her thumb. Now, always may not be politically correct. To be exact, she started thumb sucking when she was 1 month old :). I am not sure what happened exactly 1 month after she was born, but my sweet baby started tasting all her thumbs of both hands after 30 days and from then on , practice, preference and perfection has made sure that her right thumb is always "plugged" (our way of calling it) on whenever she is idle!

She is okay as far as she is occupied !. But the moment her hands are free, bang goes back her thumb into her mouth! Needless to say, she cannot sleep without the plug ! But good girl that she is, once she is asleep she removes it on her own without being aware of it. Its the needed catalyst for her sleep!

There are several schools of thought about allowing this habit to continue and i think there are enough articles on the net about whether to discourage the habit or encourage it, when is the right time to stop, if you want to stop it at all and so on and so forth. There is no children forum without this question being popped up ! The greatest concern being that if left as is, it might continue for ever as there are still some adults who secretly suck their thumb in privacy ! However,some Drs  also seem to think that forcefully stopping the habit may also lead to serious concerns.

We have not made any serious attempts to discourage her till now! (We believe in the school of thought that its okay till permanent teeth comes up and if the habit continues post that, then it might become a problem ). But we have made sure that she knows very well that its not done and its not accepted at all. I am planning to see if the habit goes away after she goes to school and if not, then do something to address the problem. 'Coz sucking gives her a sense of security and I don't want to take that away from her very soon.

When she was a baby, we used to say, "Baaaaaaaaaaad" whenever she put on her plug :). She would cutely smile and take her thumb away. Then we would say "Goooodd". This became a ritual and a very common one at that! After some months, we used to say "Baaaaaaad" and then she would say "Gooooodd" after removing her thumb.

Now, for the past month, it has been

Me : Mudiyaadhu (Can't)

Jillu : Mudiyum (Can)

Me : Mudiyaadhu (Can't)

Jillu : Mudiyum (Can)

and the argument continues !

Back ground : ( I told her : "Jillu, nee plug pottundaa chocie, bikkiee, grapes yedhuvum saapida mudiyaadhu. Pallu munnadi vandhudum. appram yedhuvum saapida mudiyaadhu" - You cant eat chocie, biscuits if you suck yr thumb. Yr teeth will start protruding and you cannot eat all these stuff!)

I added another dimension to it

Me : Jillu, nee plug pottundaa yendha school leyum unnna sethukka maataa (No school will give u admission if u suck yr thumb)

Jillu : sethupaaa (they will)

Me : yeppidi sethuppaa? plug poda koodaadhu solluvaa. sethuka maataa (nope. They will say u shld not suck yr thumb and if u suck yr thumb, they will not)

Jillu : sethupaaa..(they will)

Me : sethuka maataa (they will not)

Jillu : sethupaa (they will)

Me : sethuka maataa (they will not)

and the argument continues!

And now  the latest shortened version is

Me : ( I just simply say they will not) sethuka mattaa

Jillu : taking her thumb away with a plopping sound, tilting her head to one side, giving me a very cute and acknowledging smile, says "Yedooothutten! ippo sethukkuvaalaa? " (i have take my thumb away! now will they? )

Me : with her making such a pretty sight, I just cant say no to her! can I ? But then I just say to her 

"Nee plug podaati kataayam sethupaa" (They surely will if u dont put on yr plug !)

Edited to Add : She follows her Mama in this, I believe :) But neither her Mama's Mama nor others remember exactly when her Mama left the habit. :) But one thing is for sure. Her Mama did get out of the habit. So hopefully, she should follow her Mama in this as well.

Yellaam 'Pattu' mayam !

Jillu has been fascinated with "pattu" (mardhaani/Mehendi) all along !

Right from when she was a baby, she has been able to identify it and now that she is growing up, she's associating all kinds of things to "pattu"

The other day, she had her Polio drops and the nurse marked her little finger with a dark ink. Soon after, Jillu said to everyone who would listen to her

" Yenakku kaila pattu ittu utturukaa paalu "

(or)

"Yenakku kaila pattu yezhudhirukkaa paalu"

Yesterday, she was watching Krishna and her observation was that

"krishna inga pattu ittundu irukkaa" pointing to his lips and it was left to my mom to correct her that it was indeed lipstick and not "pattu " !

Self Dabbaa

You should really hear Jillu praising herself ! Its not to be missed at all !

When she is playing with her puzzles and stuff

"Naan yevlo kkkasssshhhhhta pattttu vechuruken paar " (Look! I have kept it with such difficulty!). The emphasis on "kashta pattu" is to be definitely noted!

When she is having her food,

"Avo chamathaa chaapadraa paar" (See! she is eating like a good girl!)

When she has finished having her bath

"Avo azhaama jo kulichaa. Chamathaa kulichaa. sooooo-per a kulichaa" (She took bath without crying like a good girl! )

(And in the mean while, looks like I have to overlook it, even if her claims are perfectly false at times !)

And suddenly out of the blue she would say

Jillu : Avo chamathu

Me : yaaru ? (knowing well , who :) )

Jillu :  Jillu. Avo jillu pattu! Jillu kuttttti! chittu! (endearments we generally use to call her )

M e: ????

Idhu Podhumma ? Innum konjam venumaa ? (Do you need more ?)

ROTFL !!!

Back ground : Some Carnatic music (Keerthanai) was being telecast (combination of song and dance) in one of the Bakthi channels in TV.

Scene :

My mom and me were chatting about something and suddenly we hear Jillu singing "Bro che vaa " (another Carnatic song). We both turn to look at her and then at each other. She had her eyes squeezed shut tightly, was shaking her head both sides and singing a series of carnatic songs known to her with no pause. At first to me, she looked like she was imitating a blind person, but then realization dawned, i looked at my mom , she looked at me and both of us crumbled with laughter.

Jillu was simply trying to imitate the singers, the way she has seen them close their eyes, enjoy and sing (mey marandhu paadardhu :) )

And when we hadn't even recovered from the first bout of laughter, she again made us laugh so hard, almost to tears (probably encouraged by our first reaction) by singing "Baba black sheep, have you any wool" in the same way again, eyes squeezed shut with a shake of her head as well.

I really wished I had kept the handy cam ready then. It was such a cute and lovely sight and such a spontaneous moment with so much laughter that I am unable to do justice to it with this simple write up! I am laughing even now when I recollect the incident to do this post !

God bless Jillu !

Liberty at its peak..

My mom to me: Lavanya, give Idli to Jillu

Jillu : running to me says, Laaviyaa, Jillu ku idli..

                   ********

She has become too attached to her grand dads, which is not surprising at all. But,

The other day, she did not let my FIL out of her sight even for a minute. The minute he stepped out of a room  into another,

"Raghu, Nee Yenga Poiyutte ? Inga vaa..." (Raghu, where have you gone? come here)

The same with my dad...He gets a call and steps out into the balcony for better clarity and our little angel cries. "Mukund, Mukund. Mukund....."

                   ********

Grand mas taken for granted.. No questions about them at all. She has been calling them by names for ever now. With me and grand dads, its relatively new :). For grand mas, she treats them specially by coming up with new nick names - variations of their existing names basically.

"Geetha, Geethi, Geethu, inga vandhu ukkaaachi " (Come here and sit).Yes, she calls all 3 names in 1 go too :)

"Pangajaaa, Pangaji," . She also just calls them simply even while having nothing to say at all.

                   ********

Now, her dad is awaiting his turn :)

The chocie story...

The time has come too soon. Much earlier than I expected or wanted :)

Yes, it is the "I want chocie" routine.

Till couple of weeks back, I had not given chocolate at all to Jillu. Well, she knew of its existence as she was identifying them when some one gave her, but I always took it from her (Bad, ain't I ?) and never gave her. Well, she was not pestering me, so why would I ? My philosophy was, wait till the time comes (as it is bound to at some point in time), so why hurry?

And the time has come :(.  I was hoping to extend it to another 6 months if not a year (yeah, yeah, i can hear your cries of "you greedy woman"), but then my plans were foiled by my friend's hubby who simply popped in a chocie in her mouth at their son's b'day party :). So there went my plans in the air :)

After this unfortunate (for me) and fortunate (for her) incident, I think my mil had also given her the small mittais that we call arisi mittai to Jillu one day. 

And the brunt was burnt by, not so surprisingly, by my mom :)

For 1 week, daily Jillu would say to my mom "Geetha Paati yenakku choket kuduthaa." (Geetha Paati gave me chocolates). Mom obviously just listened without responding

The next week, the same was repeated for a couple of days. Then when the indirect approach did not work, the third day, she resorted to the direct approach and told my mom "Paati, yenakku choket venum" .. hahaha.. LOL.. (Paati, I want chocolates)

My mom : Ok da.. Thathaa will get it for you when he comes home tonight

Then  in the evening, I come home first and she does not tell me anything about chocies. The moment my dad enters inside, she runs to him and says "Thathaa..vaa..choket vaangalaam..vaa" (Thatha, come lets get chocolates)

And then, as a typical mom of these days, I give hundreds of instructions to my dad about which to buy and which not to buy and caution him against getting her these daily and how it will become a bad practice and that it should be limited at the starting itself and so on and so so forth.. You get the drift, don't you?

Well, my dad gets so irritated by all this and he says "porum di...paavam kuzhandhai.oru choclate vaangarthukku ivalovaa" (Enough. She is paapam. Don't do so much for a simple thing)

and what does Jillu say ? any guesses?

She too says "Paavam Kuzhandhai"!

Doctor, Beach, Wedding,Cake etc

Can any one guess the link between these? No? Please read on...:)

Jillu : Jillu innuku yenga poga poradhu ? (Where is Jillu going today?)

This out of her own volition with no prompting or hints from us about going anywhere..and imagine her saying all these in a sing song voice with lilts, ups and downs :)

Me : Yeppo? (When?)

Jillu : Saayangaalam. Thoongi yezhundhuttu (Evening. After my nap)

Me : Yenga poga poradhu? (Where is Jillu going?)

Jillu : Pankaja paati aathukku (To Pankaja paati's house)

and then seeing my face

Jillu : No.. Balaji chlats...(hey, both are the same..Balaji flats is where Pankaja paati resides)

Me : No

Jillu : Namba Dr kitta poga porom..( We are going to the doc.. we had been to the doc twice in the previous week as she was down with fever, cold and wheezing. She is recovering now)

Me : No da..

Jillu : Beach

Me : No da 

Jillu : kalyaanam poga porom.(we are going to a wedding)

Me : (Totally surprised !) No da kanaa

Jillu : Cake cut panna porom (Meaning are we going to a birthday party ?)

Me : (Taken you to too many already?) No da, kanna..

Silence.....poor girl.. she was just looking at me post that with no other options coming to her mind..

Me : Naama Geetha paati aathukku poga porom :)

Now, you know about all Jillu's outings :)

A few extras

sometimes really don't matter and bring a smile to your face :)

We have been teaching Jillu to say "May I come in ?" before opening closed doors. She has caught on to the concept very well. Normally kids wont be able to say all the words and hence they might leave out words in a sentence or shorten the word, whereas Jillu in this case ends up saying extra words that bring a smile to my face every time that she says it :)

She says "May am I come in ?" and even when we correct her, she seems to relish saying "May am I come in?"

                       *********************************************

Another incident that happened this morning also makes me smile :)

This morning, while I was cooking, I added tomatoes to the tawa and it made a "hoosh " noise. Immediately, Jillu said "Thakkaali yenna pannithu ?" (What did the tomatoes do?) 
and I laughed out loud :)

( To give a little background, (in case you did not know), Jillu always has always asked right from the beginning "Amma yenna Pan ?" (What is Amma doing? ) or "Appa yenna pan?" (What is dad doing?) and so on and so forth with grandma, grandpa, etc. And thus it is that she got to know everything, her vocabulary grew and hence the name of this blog as well)

Now Jillu has got around to asking such questions of objects and things as well :) hmmm...Tough/interesting times ahead for us.

Toddler Kissing Patterns!

Different ways our 20 months old daughter kisses us.

1) Kadi muthaa (bites while kissing)
2) Killi muthaa (the usual way of pinching cheeks and kissing)
3) Nakki muthaa (she literally licks !)
4) Flying Kiss

My all time fav is #1 as I make her laugh by making several games out of it and we have fun!

If you have to go tata

from our home then,

1) you have to kiss her good bye on both cheeks
2) she has to kiss you good bye on both cheeks
3) you have to give her high-fives
4) you have to say bye, ba-bye, see you etc etc
5) you have to repeat #4 from the car park below for she will be standing on the window sill & watching you from the balcony