My 11 month old Baby

Earlier I used to write about my daughter’s monthly progress. Recently I have noticed that I have stopped that either because she is growing up very fast and her progress in so overwhelming that I do not know from where to start, what to write and what not to write . Her every single activity makes me astonished and leaves me mesmerized.

In short, I am trying to put down her progress.

She is very active and full of energy. She is always in a blur of movement. One moment she wants to sit with us and the next moment she wants to play on the floor. Recently she has learnt to smile a lot and would always keep dazzling every one with her cute smile. The other week we went to the doctor’s office and for the first time she responded to the doctor’s hello. She smiled back and made me extremely happy. Her curiosity has no end at all. She wants to touch anything and every thing.

These days like a mouth purifier she always has to have some thing in her mouth. I keep giving her pieces of apple to chew upon, so that her mouth would not be empty. If any time it is empty, she picks up any thing (most of the time dirty things) and starts chewing. Out of habit, I keep asking her all the time to open her mouth so that I can check if she is eating anything dirty. She has found out that trick and every now and then, she will come to me and even without asking she will open her tiny mouth saying “AHH-AHH”. However if she is chewing unwanted thing she will make me run around her and hide from me and wont open her mouth easily. I cannot describe that fight between daughter and mother; you will have to see it to believe it.

Her vocabulary is increasing every day.It has around 10 -20 words. Like mama,dada, tadan,kagan atta-ta, baka-baka,aga-aga etc-etc. Some times she want me to hold her and if I am in the middle of some thing I keep consoling her saying “I am done” and that I will soon come and pick her up .So she also says “I ang done” of course with lots of drag. Whenever we go to a store, she starts babbling and my husband is totally against shutting her up. So if she is with her daddy and I am in a far away aisle it is never difficult for me to find them, I just have to follow her “ tadan-tadan”.God know what that means. We are yet to decipher “tadan-tadan” and all the words she speaks.

Today I was getting bored so I thought we would play hide-and-seek. I asked her to hide at the corner of the table and I pretended to seek her. Now teaching her this game has become a big headache for me. Since then she wants to hide all the time near that corner and wants me to seek her. Whenever she is not around me for some time, I immediately realize that she must be hiding there and not to my surprise, she will be there. So now, baby has learnt how to play hide-and-seek (yay!!!)

She can now point out some of her body parts like head,tummy,hand,nose .She can clap her hands, pat her head ,rub her tummy and tap her knees when asked .I am so proud of her. Babies at this age just begin to point out things but this baby is one step ahead.

She rotates her wrist to say “ta-ta” to her daddy. In fact as soon as I will take her out of the door she starts rotating her wrist to say ta-ta.So I am not sure if she is connecting departure with “ta-ta” or she is just being a parrot. When I ask her to call daddy she takes her hand to her ears and pretend as if she is saying hello and calling daddy. She looks adorable at that time.

She points out where milk comes from and that always breaks me into a big laughter. At night when she gets hungry, she just screams, lifts my shirt until I feed her. Later she buries her head in my shoulder and then calms down.

I am writing this specially because when, a few years down the line, she will be ashamed to be seen with me in public, I can read this and comfort myself with the memory that there were such times too!

When did you feel more freedom?

A person like me will always have a very hard time to live the life without feeling restricted. Some times, it is better to open up, put your heart on the table, and put your priorities first. The outcome may not be pleasant all the time but at least you will not loose your identity as an independent person. However, independence depends on several other factors like financial freedom, your confidence level, the responsibilities you have and most importantly how you choose to pursue those responsibilities.

When I was in college, I would hear from people that women are never self-dependent and at that time, it did not make any sense to me. I always thought that after finishing college I will have an independent life of my own in which I will do whatever I want. I was always very confident to get a decent job, have financial freedom and live my life .Unfortunately that did not happen. As soon as I got married, things just changed. I left India and that changed almost every thing. Firstly, the legalities did not let me work and then along with that I developed so low confidence inside me that now I think I am capable of nothing. People will say that I am just making excuses not to work hard enough and indulging myself in self-pity but in my heart, I know that is not true.

Simple things make me feel that I am just not fit for any thing. For example, the thought has been injected inside me so many times that I cannot even learn how to drive a car that now I am scared to death to even touch the steering wheel of the car. In the U.S. if you cant drive a car ,specially in a city like I live in, half of the freedom is gone just there .Since you cant go any where ,unless public transportation is good, your desires and demands are all suppressed. If you do not have some self-respect and if you do not mind bugging people it is fine.

Diminishing confidence depends on how much faith your loved ones have in you.Some things are not spoken or said ,they are just understood. If you feel that people think you are stupid, it is natural to develop low confidence and that takes away all the freedom from your life in one way or the other. Just the thought of being worthless ruins the whole life on the other hand just the thought of being worth full brings glimmer of hope and happiness in life