20-24 months- the parrot girl!

My little sunshine will turn 2 in a week's time and one of the most amazing incidents happened last saturday (2/3/2013). Since her joining the play home in Jan, she had already attended to the sports day. But the annual day that took place the day before led me to a shocking revelation of my own daughter. I do not know if it will change with time or is it just a glimpse of her slowly evolving personality. Let me directly jump into the details. When we arrived at the preschool premises, I realized that they have organized a small performance by the play home kids. Since I wasn't aware of this, panic started to build in me in a slow way. I didn't want to go through that drama of her crying when she faces a crowd. Soon enough they asked the 12 kids to assemble and take seats that were arranged on the side of the stage. Each child was called upon where he/she will go to her teacher sitting on stage and sing rhymes. That was when her favourite helper came over to take her, which she happily did. When they had called upon Nakshatra, I was pleasantly surprised and I would lie if I did not tell you that my chest was swelling with pride to watch ponutti get up from her seat and walk over to the teacher with an inordinate sense of confidence. She took the mic from her and began to sing the way she does to us, except that she saw me while singing the third song and called out 'Amma' to which everyone laughed and turned over to look at me. I was embarrassingly happy. She did not complete the last rhyme and when the whole activity was over her class teacher told me she sings even better in class. But to me all this was blinded by what I'd just witnessed. Like the principal quoted her composure and body language on stage as 'fearless', I guess I should term it as 'monumental'. This is one of those incidents that you safely want to place on the rack of your memory but when ponutti reads this post one day, there will always be the proof the CD that we'll receive soon.

The four months can be rightfully described as the months of pure unadulterated talking like forming 2-4 word sentences. But the funny thing is that she would repeat even the most insignificant comment we make. It's very much like having a parrot around at home.
Ponutti joined her playhome on Jan 2nd and it was since then that she loved doing actions to any rhyme she is familiar with. I have seen a tremendous change in her with respect to knowing things. She still does not mingle with anyone and everyone. She even took time to mingle with her classmates. But apart from that, she is really happy and having fun with her teacher and two helpers. She also sings simple rhymes like baba black shep. humpty dumpty(her favourite), twinkle twinkle little star. Her knowledge in using words has had a towering influence in her talking. It may not always be a clarified way of pronounciation but yes, I do believe people will be able to figure it out.
When my mother visited for a period of three days in the month of Jan, I was genuinely shocked but happy that ponutti not just recognized her but also went up tosit on her lap. That is a huge complement in Ponuttis way. She never does that with anyone. She is still dependent and clingy for a lot of things on me. But in school, she has also begun to adore her Ruth aunty very much. Her class teacher was telling me the other day that she always comes first for race competitions in class. This I had seen when I used to sit with her in the beginning. I was pleasantly surprised, I should say that she was actually winning against kids way bigger, maybe even 4-5 months apart. Actually speaking, she is the youngest girl(1 year and 91/2 months) who joined in a  class of toddlers between 2-3 years. But during sports day which happened in February, it was nothing like the enthusiasm she used to show in class. I guess part of it was because of the onset of cold and another part due to the intimidation she felt when she saw other parents around. But the good part was as soon as the teacher came to her,the vestigial excitement she used to have for these kind of events came rushing back and she did her jumping race well enough. She has now found a friend in our next door neighbor Sanju. And other thing I'm very much proud of, is that she is grasping concepts with such ease. I was telling her one day that her ammama in Dubai has come down to Kerala. And now whenever I ask her about her grandma, she would say 'ammama kerala'. She has also corrected words that she would wrongly pronounce like balloon, chetta . She loves saying ABC'S, 123's and particularly the days of the week that ends with a melodious Saturday  There was a time when she would say MNOPQ even when she cries or fusses about for anything. There was another time when she touch our feet with respect after visiting Nikhil's Kalari class. I was even named her 'spider girl' because she would climb window grills to extend where she would reach the tubelight.

The word I've begun to hate in the process is 'paale'. She wouldn't stop asking till she gets milk from me. These four months were unbelievably fast and she kept learning huge concepts every week! We are bound to become spellbound when we notice our child's prodigious streak :)