Reading Bed Time Tales to your Toddler

Being a working Mom means a hectic evening with the little one. The two hours I get after I get home is the most precious time of the day. Strictly divided into three slots of dinner time, play time and bed time, (and the fourth is my slot of MY Time after she sleeps!). My 1.5 year old SSS is becoming naughtier by the day and with extended play times, her dinner time and bed time are fast morphing into play time as well!

While her favorite activity is running around the house, and opening all the drawers and kitchen cabinets she can, my favorite activity is definitely not fetching the balls she throws!  Being from a family of avid readers, my personal favorite activity is reading of course and reading to her is a delightful way of spending time with her. Alas! The only time I get to do that is at bed time! Dangling a pretty picture book is the easiest way to divert her attention from ransacking her cupboard for socks and get her to clamber to the bed!

If you are Mom, you may tell me how short their attention spans are and how difficult it is to make them read, but patience is key. Here are some of my tips to make your kids read –

1. Get board books with bright pictures. The larger the pictures the better it is.
2. Large Pictures of animals, objects they recognize make for ideal reading
3. Forget long stories of the Arabian nights and Gulliver’s travels for now. Read small stories that have very few sentences on each page.
4. You don’t have to read. Spin a different story around the picture
5. Point out little objects in the picture
6. Allow them to turn the pages.
7. If they start tearing pages, tell them a firm No and take away the book for a while
8. Start off for as much time as they let you read to them.
9. You read! If they see you reading, they will want to automatically read too
10. Patience Patience Patience

Of course, I make it sound easier than it really is. Truth is, it is hard work, but I am hoping it pays well in the long run!

Now the only problem is, once they start reading, there is no stopping them. If a juicy mystery can keep me up till wee hours of the night, the teddy bear tales are just as powerful in invoking tears and tantrums to not put the book down and to finish the stories! Then the only thing you can then do is offer that glass of warm milk, change her diaper, switch off the lights and sing her favorite nursery rhymes to lull her to sleep. And that my dear readers, is how SSS sleeps a cozy night to sweet dreams of crows and fairies and cows!

What books do you read to your child?

10 Life Lessons Learnt from a Baby

It is ridiculous how much babies can teach you instead of the other way round. Some of the most profound life lessons come from babies. Here are ten life lessons my ten month old baby girl SSS has taught me by example!

1. Try and keep trying no matter how many times you fall (literally!) -  It is truly laudable how tirelessly SSS keeps trying to make those new movements. Be it sitting, crawling, standing, climbing or trying to walk. She never ever gives up no matter how many times she fails, falls, or hurts herself! This is certainly something we grown-ups need to learn from.

2. Be Bold - It could be out of ignorance of the unknown or just plain daring, but babies venture out into unknown territory far more easily than grown-ups do. Perhaps SSS is telling me to go out of my comfort zone and do bold new things I haven’t done before!

3. Find joy in simple things - Splashing in the water during bath time, untying a parcel, chasing a ball, playing for hours with a piece of string may sound mundane but are a source of joy for the little one. I need to sit back, relax and find pleasure in the simplest things I do!

4. Forget the bad parts easily - She stands up, she slips, she falls, she cries. You pick her up and soothe her. The next moment she is laughing out loud! How lovely life would be if we could forget the hurt as easily and move on with life!

5. Explore the world - However tiny her world maybe, her surroundings will always be interesting to her and she will continue to explore every nook and cranny. I need to start exploring my surroundings – the new park nearby, the attractions the city has to offer, a trip to the nearby hillstation…

6. Find new uses for old things - A tiny box is just a box until she puts a pebble into it and shakes it to make for a new rattle! A chair is just a chair till she learns to push it around to learn to walk! Babies are born innovators not knowing the intended use of things, and manage to use things in ways we grown-ups cannot imagine! I have learnt to convert all sorts of household objects into toys for her and had fun along the way!

7. Surprise us – This element of babies is one of the most endearing aspects. There is never a dull moment with her. You may think a box of expensive toys would wow her, but surprise! She puts the toy aside and plays with the wrapping paper! How fun life would be if we started surprising one another with the smallest of things and putting in efforts towards goals to surprise ourselves!

8. Ask questions – Although SSS is too young to start probing verbally, her curiosity in the smallest of things is amazing. The look of wonder on her face when cars go by, or the baffled look when she sees anything new tells me I need to start getting ready to answer a host of questions. And also start asking some pertinent questions I have ignored in my general life.

9. Exercise - Right from the time the baby develops arms and legs in the womb, they are continuously kicking them and exercising. SSS is never still in one place and forever wants to move around tirelessly.  I need to take a leaf from her active lifestyle and get mobile for a fraction of that time for a slim me!

10. Eat only as much as is required – Last but not the least, babies know exactly how much they should eat and refuse a morsel of food beyond. Now if only we could apply this when presented with a buffet of the most deliciously fattening fried and sweet stuff, life would be much fitter than it is!

Photographing the baby

P of the A to Z Blogging Challenge

Ever since the day she was born, all I wanted to do was to take photographs!  Record her every moment. Be it crying, sleeping, smiling when she was awake, smiling while sleeping, wailing for a toy, recording her first or second or third or zillionth flip to her tummy, and all her possible actions (or inaction). 

Those first three months saw me with a battery of cameras, tablets and phones clicking her all the time. As the days passed by, her movements increased and became stronger, and it became increasingly difficult to obtain a still image quickly!  And then, my mum used to wonder why I am taking so many photos incessantly…well, out of say 20 photos, only one would come out 80% right! Now the latest obsession is videos instead of photos.  If a picture is worth a 1000 words, a video is worth a 1000 photos! It makes everything come alive in pictures and has sound as well!

There are several professional services that have baby photography as a service offering.  Most of them charge exorbitant amounts for a handful of photographs (5-10).  The photographs usually include the use of props, the baby in usually a sleeping pose, a naked baby, black and white pictures, and pictures with the parents.  Much as I would have liked to have one done, the price was too much to pay and the fact that SSS hardly slept for the first three months made it impossible to have a photoshoot for a reasonable amount of time. The photographs of such shoots are beautiful of course, and way better than what we amateurs can take. However, there are plenty of resources online as well that provide tips and tricks on baby photography, and though I didn’t try too many of them, I must say, they are quite helpful if you end up using them.

I use a Nokia 925 phone for all her photos and videos.  It is great to be able to take photos and share them instantly over wifi or 3G on Whatsapp or social networks.  It is also easy to make any edits to the photo using this phone.  The very reason I bought the Nokia 925 was because it boasted of a fantastic 8.7 MP camera and I must say I am quite impressed with the picture quality.

 Now that one set of her grandparents don’t get to see her frequently, it has become a ritual to take a video a day and a photo a day at minimum for them to be able to see her progress. I guess by the end of her first year, I will have a fine collection of videos of her each day!

Some tips for photographing babies that I read here and there and used -

• Google for those adorable new born baby poses and use them in photoshoots
• Don’t use any unsafe pose that may harm the baby. Professional photographers usually photoshop those amazing poses of those levitating babies!
• Use all sorts of props – headbands, cute caps, baskets, colorful pillows, colorful backgrounds to get that perfect photo
• Use a bean bag with different covers on it to get awesome snaps
• Choose the time of the day when the baby is the least cranky. For new born photographers, the sleeping baby is a good time
• Try different camera angles
• Clear up the background – remove the diapers, hankies, too many toys, etc. before focusing on to the baby
• Take photographs of the baby in the same place/background, with a toy perhaps, to prepare a monthly progress photo calendar
• Get someone else to make your baby laugh if you want a smiling photo.  She may just stop smiling when you point the camera at her!
• Post some pics on your social media, but please don't do this every day! She may be your darling, but other people may get bored! Share them privately instead with the people who want to indeed see them

P.S: I did finally manage the professional photoshoot at a reasonable price and the pictures are totally worth it.  Here are a few pictures from the photoshoot and otherwise.

 

Off we go..

O of the A to Z Blogging Challenge

There was a time when we used to just dump a few clothes in a backpack and go on the spur of the moment out for the weekend!  Well, gone are those days, and every outing over 1 hour is planned with much packing involved!  A whole list of things needs to be checked on before we dare venture out.  Sterilized milk bottles, milk formula, extra handkerchiefs, wipes, diapers, a clean cloth to put her on, a hat, an extra dress, toys (and just one won’t do), boiled water to prepare her milky concoction are all packed in the bag with much care. For a one night trip to Pune to visit family, SSS hogged one full suitcase space which was three times her size! 

If you plan to pack the bag with the baby around, be prepared to have her pack herself into the suitcase, very helpfully unpack all that you have packed, flee with the bottle of lotion and tuck it away in a corner behind the door, upset a glass of water into her clothes, poop atleast once, try to eat the diaper, and finally, you just dump everything and zip the suitcase hoping all that is required is in there! Of course when you get to your destination, you realize that the all-important baby toiletries bag has been left behind and you have to rush to the medical store to buy everything again!

 And it is not just one bag you pack, her handy travel bag also needs to contain one of everything her big suitcase contains and trust me this is even more important than the big suitcase.

The day you think you’ll just hop across to the neighborhood store without the BAG, she  will not need just a change in the diaper but also a change in clothes! Even if you have just fed her, don’t you think she won’t get hungry again in a few minutes!

Forget the designer bag you bought to match with the shoes.  That has been substituted with the capacious baby bag now! Oh well, one of the few minor sacrifices Mom’s have to make J.

Fantastic Firsts

F of the AtoZ Challenge

The first everything is special. The first day of college, the first job, the first day of a new job, the first visit to a new city, the first time you take a flight, the first car, the first date, in the spirit of the election time.. the first time you vote, the first phone you buy, the first time you meet your special someone, the first time you buy a house..so many firsts!

Firsts are exciting enough for grown-ups, what to say about babies and their ‘achievements’ read as milestones in baby development parlance.  I am a mom to a 8 month old baby.  The first three months of babies are pretty much spent in sleeping, eating, peeing and pooping.  Once they get used to the fact that they are in a world outside the womb, do they start taking interest in their surroundings and gradually opening up. 

The first smile is a milestone.  The first laugh makes things much more fun.  Then are the firsts in which more strength is required. The first time she will roll over, the first time she will lunge forward, the first time she will sit up, the first time she will stand up, her first independent steps,  and so forth!  Then the first bites come into picture – the first time she eats food apart from milk, her first tooth and so forth.

It is an exciting time for parents and family who cannot help but see how fast she starts growing up.  Look forward to many more firsts for her and for me!

What was/were the Firsts  you have fond memories of?

The first time she stood