Dear Daughter ....

Dear daughter, Of the many words and phrases you've championed in your cute little way "my goodness !" is by far the cutest (yet). I don't know if its your sweet pronunciation of it ( I dare not try to recreate it, lest I spoil it for myself) or its the fact that its a fairly heavy exclamation for shoulders your size. It puts a smile on whomsoever hears it, coming from you, with or without context. A few days back, we were playing and you uttered these sweet words " my goodness!". I just repeated it, without realising that in doing so I had just lured you (successfully) into our game of 'mine versus yours'. So off you went defending your goodness by saying " No Dad, its my goodness". And we kept at that for a few times, responding with " my goodness". Suddenly, for no apparent reason, your eyes focussed onto my eyebrows and you burst out saying "Your eyebrows". Immediately, in the flow of our game, I blurted o...

We have a little new game that I call ‘the  Shocolate  routine'. Every morning on our way downstairs we stop by Daadi’s room. I ask you to stay outside the room and wait for me. You go all noddy with a cheeky like smile and start repeating in a whispering voice with your French like pronunciation “Shocolaaaaate !” Somehow your little brain has already worked out that this game is more fun without you knowing the hiding place of the chocolate trove! I come out of Daadi's room with three chocolates, mostly in differently coloured wrappers, one each for your mom, yourself and me. You are allowed to pick yours and apparently you do that based on the colour of the wrapper – Lellow (Yellow), red or brown. However, you are not supposed to eat the chocolate at this point. I ask you to wait till we are in the car and you respond with another one of those cheeky-smile nods and a nice big 'Yes'. It is easy to see how the 'Shocolate' is still the centre of universe fo...

"My aappey aappey" is your En-jabi (English + Punjabi) phrase to tell the world that you want to do it yourself. At times it is followed by a 'My Help' as a push back to any help offered to your little bundle of effort. Each time the door to your car seat is held open, it is like a challenge assigned by yourself, for yourself to climb the Everest of that seat - your own 'aappey aappey' self! There is a certain self-assured, confident style to your ascent too, even at this age. On my car, with a fairly high child seat for your little hands and knees to mount, you start with touching, toying and fumbling with the various knobs and hooks on the frame. When an easily bemused Dad gently cajoles you to proceed with your mountaineering efforts, you start climbing on the various toys, bags and other assortments lying there, before getting a foothold on the car seat itself. It doesn't take you long from there to latch onto your car seat. Once there, you make ...

Originally Posted on 15/08/2015 Dear Daughter, The other day, on our way to the nursery, we started going through your routine there - starting with when we arrive there, when I kiss you before taking you off your car seat, walking to the door, appreciating all the squares and shapes on the pavement, going in and taking off your jacket, both of us looking for your picture in that little basket, then getting into your room and putting that picture up on the board for the carer. You helped me walk through the list. Or more like prompted me by repeating the words you had chosen with some benign wisdom. I paused at this moment and asked you what you do next? You paused too. I glanced at your face in the rear view mirror and our eyes met. I could see in your big sad eyes that you were aware of the next step in that little dry run of ours. Presently, both of us mentally paused, pondering over the moment that confronts us every morning when I gently let go of your little hand, to make ...