Diary on Milestones Met (rather Unmet)

10 months and lot of milestones are unmet. Am I bothered? Not at all!! Yet, would want to record it and tell other mothers later. Read on only if you have the time. It’s a long one & I do not want to edit out the details.

1.Walker- My boys are not attempting to walk. Heredity may be. Mom says I walked after 1.25 years. (Really! that’s unacceptable. I must have been too wary of walking.) They are attempting to stand up but walking? Not at all.
After lending a patient ear to all points of view on giving the walker to the child, we decided to unpack the set of walkers that Ojas & Tejas had got as gifts a few months ago. Primarily because they used to wail the moment we went out of sight. And I was freaked that they would touch something dirty on the floor or pick up an ant. A walker would help them follow us at will. People say walkers are bad, but so what? Let them start walking late because of the ill effect of the walker but atleast they will be happy in their new pursuit.
While Tejas who relies overtly on his own motor skills, whether it is for feeding or climbing our lap or grabbing the mobile phone disliked the walker instantly especially because he was going backwards rather than forward, Ojas was simply thrilled! For a long time he had been frustrated about his inability to crawl. With the walker, he discovered the joys of freedom- he is busy exploring corners, glass shelves, banging the doors and even escaping from me when I try to offer food to him. He follows his football kicking it in the process.
After a few days Tejas became quite savvy with the walker & he chased Ojas when he wanted the toy he was having. Tejas loves to open the cupboard & gets thrilled to pieces when he manages to do it. The other day he dragged my dress material out of the cupboard & then “walked” the entire house with it trailing behind him like the train of a wedding gown.

2. Sipper- Lot of mothers with kids of same age as mine are now using the sipper. And even Dr. Spock says how babies should be introduced slowly to the sipper & then the cup after 6 months. What about mine? They throw their sippers away in a rage- together with the “aay” sound. While they love to use their bottle caps as cups & act as if they are drinking from it but the sipper- no no. They seem to dislike the snout particularly.

3. Responding- My babies were responding to anyone but each other until last month. I was so worried. Surfed the net and discovered that a particular set of twins realized that they were separate entities only when they got separated at college. Weird! Probably that’s what was happening with mine. I figured out that they were regarding each other as a part of a whole so did not feel the need to talk. Only a few days before I noticed the change. They are smiling at each other, “talking” and even showing affection- hugging, “kissing”, caressing the face & head. Sigh of relief. The other day a friend came with her daughter of similar age. We offered her a “foot”ball. We saw Ojas & Tejas looking at each other. I am sure there was some silent communication as Tejas crawled at a great speed, snatched the football and brought it back to home turf. Bad manners! But rejoice, atleast they are friends.

4.Crawling- Finally Ojas started crawling last month. More than us, he was dismayed every time he tried to crawl. The backward crawl was ongoing for 3 months. But he was concentrating on body building- doing push-ups instead of crawling. I was not worried as my sister had never crawled and I knew it did not matter if they mis a milestone altogether. But for his sake, I wanted him to crawl so that he could enjoy making new discoveries. Since he is so dexterous with his feet, I was quite surprised he was unable to get the trick right. He can hold anything with the help of his feet- bottle, toy, pillow. (refer picture)

5.Reading- A friend and also Dr Spock says that the time is right to start reading stories or picture books to the babies. They love to hear your voice and by the year end they will start pointing out at the relevant picture when we say A for… etc. So, with great enthusiasm I bought a plastic coated, bright yellow, picture book and presented it to my little monsters with great aplomb. They loved it. Loved to eat it, snatch it from each other, throw it- all but “read” it. So I brought out a giant fairy tale book & started reading out aloud. The reaction- grab at the pages- they almost tore my favourite book from my childhood and yelled when I took the book away. So much for literacy and so much for the books I read and puzzles I solved during pregnancy. I thought some rub-off may happen. (Please God! I want them to be like me and love books). Ok, let’s face it. They will read & blog online in their past time (refer picture of Tejas)

6. Teething- Tejas has begun – has four little ones and Ojas is happy to be toothless. They say if they cut the upper teeth first, the Mama (mother’s brother) has to feed them kheer (rice porridge) in a silver bowl with a silver spoon to ward of ill luck for the Mama. Tejas is all set to get the silver from his Mama.