Mew, Khrrr

These are the latest sounds that Sameer has learnt. To keep him distracted while changing his diaper, I used to copy animal sounds. So two of the oft repeated ones were those of a cat and a lion. Plus he has a cat in his stacking toys. So I would say, "बिल्ली कैसे बोलती है? meow." And then about 3 weeks ago he started responding. Not with a meow though, but with something resembling a mew or a muun more than a meow. For the lion, I would either go roar or sometimes grrr. So now when we ask him: शेर का बच्चा कैसे बोलता है?, off he goes khhrrr ...We purposely say 'शेर का बच्चा,' as one day I would like to teach him to roar, as I think that is how a lion growls. For now, I'm happy that he is responding.

Sometimes, children can really surprise you with skills that you never realized they had in the first place. We never realized how much of our conversation with Sameer he is able to comprehend. Yes, there were a few phrases, actually two, but that was it. Now he knows the names of almost all his toys, he knows what I mean when I say diaper change, change clothes: he starts whining and trying to run away each time I mention them, even if its the potty diaper. He knows duddu, khana, pani, cup, ninni (sleep), car, ghumi ghumi, car seat (again whining), dahi, daal etc. Actually the list could go on to quite a bit more, but I think I'll stop here. I think he understands when I say nose, eyes or ears. Although sometimes he'll get them wrong and start pointing to his ears when I say nose :-) Today, he kept pointing to his head, each time I said nose and then smiled naughtily when both Rahul and I laughed. Made me realize that my baby is growing and maturing. He is really a toddler, more than I realized so far. I can actually talk to him about things and he might just understand. Which also gets us to the case of his growing defiance. And if sometimes I don't give in, he'll cry and cry and not get up. Although the other day, I realized that if I ignored his crying for almost 10 minutes, he recovered and then just went back to playing as if nothing had happened!