Chit Chat with my Ujji Gujji

Children are blessings
Sent from above
Made from happiness

Hope and Love.

We love them

From the start

For this love comes

From deep inside our heart.

They're Our dreams of tomorrow...

They are miracles

Sent from God above

To fill our world

With lots of love...

No matter a boy or a girl

We will love them the same

For "All Children"

Are "Blessings" Only

With Different Names..

Ujji Gujji is the pet name for my granddaughter Anoushka born on Ugadi day on 4 th april, 2011 in Bangalore. I was born here, Sneha , Jenicca  ( Chikku )and Anoushka all were born here.

She is a bundle of joy ....means really a bundle. She was a chubby baby when born and she was so eager that she opened her eyes  to see the world as soon as she was born!

 She always wakes up with a smile on her face  and the first thing she does is come to the kitchen to see me and say 'good morning patti'.( Patti means grandmother in Tamizh.)

She is a bundle of energy sometimes I see 'me ' in her, and at night if I excite her it takes time for her to settle down and so Sneha tells me to play low with her. 

Once she started saying  some  nonsensicalwords   she named herself as Ankitha, later ,once she learnt to say Anoushka  ,she says it correctly.  Purposely I would say aska?, she would correct me saying spastamaga Anoushka by rounding her lips. She cannot tolerate wrong pronunciation she would make me correct till I get it. To tease her I would say incorrectly. 

 It's pleasure for me to hold her in my hands,even now when she is 27 months old.She picks up things fast, very quick in grasping and memory OMG it's excellent.Only once you have to tell her or she observes and next time she picks up and aptly names them.

 By one year she could  identify many objects seen at home and in books, she could recite with her mazhalai atleast 40 rhymes when she was just one and half years. She has picked up Tamizh rhymes also and she loves to say them.

She has a lot of books and she has finished with them. The picture books have lost their attractions, she is into story books and puzzles. She remembers people whom we visited  a year ago and the latest in Jan, 2013. She can recognise people in the photos.

 At 20 months she started speaking full sentences and questions. She knows when to pause and the correct use of intonations. Her favourite pastime is watching Barney series on DVDs . 

 She picked up her speech, nursery rhymes by watching CEEBCEE channel and Barney . She can dance after watching the steps on videos. She is thorough with the nursery rhymes. She does not require a company she can play on her own , read on her own ,sing on her own....But she is fascinated with small boys and girls, one should she her reaction when they go, she will have a big frown but to pep her up the videos taken with them would be the saviour. She herself would decide what she wants to see, photos, nursery rhymes,videos of hers etc. 

 Initially she was finding it difficult to pronounce my name ,later she picked up.I like the way she calls me paatti with the elongation of the sound paa.....tti. 

 Recently to tease her I asked her ' is it paatii or potty'? She made it clear by pronouncing the words correctly. 

 I taught her to say after coming back home, 'Mamma, I am home' and till today she says it if she goes out with others and if it's her amma it's patti . If anyone talks to me , immediate question would be , ' who z dat?'. As a teacher  I found  she could clearly differentiate between whose and who is, which I found was difficult for many kids..it's an excellent progress for her age. A majority of vocabulary and sentence formation she picked up listening to us.

Her favourites are nursery rhymes and her favourite story is 'Goldilocks and the Three bears' all of us tell her the story in our own way by adding some stuff to make it interesting.She is fascinated by the expressions and voice modulation while enacting the characters.A few weeks back I made a tent type and we had the story role play and she was thrilled with it. 

Jenicca her cousin and my other grand daughter narrated her the story of Hansel and Gretel with the book, that's her next favourite. She likes to listen to the stories in i Story Books on my mobile. She likes to know where chikku is in the morning and for Chikku it's Anoushka, they would like to play in the bed with each other for sometime before getting up and Ujji Gujji likes to follow whatever Chikku does. 

From the way we speak to others on the line she guesses correctly, especially she can see the photos of the caller and if it's Jenicca  or Anjana she would say, 'I want to speak to Jenicca'.It's a pleasure to watch her speaking to her and both talk like adults with mmm... and pauses. 

She recalls members of each family if she happens to talk to one of them. She can relate to people the incidents and the place. What a  photographic memory she has !She was able to tell who is my mom when I asked her the same. 

Today she gave me a mixed up bundled clay to separate them,and I just did some and gave her to play, she tells me,' paatti, I am too small I can't break them pl do paatti'. I was stunned .She knows the opposite adjectives and what is her size and when I asked her to give her jeans to me she says,' it's too small, you are big...'

After coming from school she asked me, 'patti is it morning?'

 'No, it's afternoon'.

'The sun has come up. ' I was shocked to hear her say, and in the night around 7.30 she is telling me after sitting on her bean bag, 'patti, it's dinner time'.

Two things can frighten her one is mosquitoes, next is security, even though the same security would greet her and talk to her everyday. 

She enjoys reading books, solving puzzles, building blocks and coloring and crayoning. 

She goes to Pitter Patter a play school  and she loves and enjoys going there.She says, ' I want to wear my school bag.'  A few days after coming back all of a sudden, she started saying on her own sitting on the bean bag, Join your hands, close your eyes , 1,2,3 start..... Thank you god for the food we eat.....For her after school it's ' mom and me' time ..she misses her mom so much that for patti, it's a 'no.no' The way she says 'no,no' with her index finger I am reminded of  Tamizh comedian Vadivelu .

She likes to know where chikku is in the morning and for Chikku it's Anoushka, they would like to play in the bed with each other for sometime before getting up and Ujji Gujji likes to follow whatever Chikku does. 

Sometimes she does not listen to me, so I tell her I am angry and won't talk to her, katti, kitta kaa... .She would wait and watch whether I am able to sustain my anger, and she would try to pattafy me with hugging, kissing etc and won't leave me  till I talk to her. 

She loves and enjoys playing peek a boo especially when she knows Arjun is on his way home .

The other day I took her out and she saw a couple on a bike and the man was young and she told me,'patti that uncle looks like appa', again a shocker for me, when I asked her how, she said, 'he is wearing specks and black jacket like appa' .

A few days back Arjun's birthday came and she was saying 'today appa's birthday is coming thatha ,( Grand dad is called as thatha in Tamizh)come thatha, appa is going to cut cake' 

She can't say balcony, squirrel and she says them as baklony, skuvil..

Initially when I leave her and go to Chennai or other places, after I come back she won't come to me immediately and hug me, of late she giggles and hugs me and kisses me and won't leave me for sometime, which is so clear that she misses me much for I narrate her stories, rhymes, teach her dance, play with her and I am a puppet in her hands, whenever she dances Zumba - a type of dance, I have to dance too with her. 

 Jenicca picked up the steps by watching the you tube videos and she has seen her and now she does the same. 

Atleast once a month she talks to Jenicca on Skype.. this has strengthened their friendship. Recently Anoushka sang the nursery rhymes and told Jenicca' Jenicca don't sing my rhymes'.

She in turn as per Ujji Gujji's request narrated stories with  the Story book and did some action songs in Hindi and English.Later they both played vocabulary game wherein they have to say in turns the names of vegetables and fruits. when Anoushka said ' lady finger' Jenicca said ' Gent's finger' we had a hearty laugh. 

She knows to operate touch screen phone, laptop,and  if I use other's laptop she would remind me , 'patti, it's thatha's laptop'.

 She loves to dance and sing for normal speech she sometimes makes tune and sings. Whenever she gets hurt, (it's boom' in her language,) she would wait for her thatha to come and inform him about her boom and she likes to be cajoled and comforted by him as he cannot see his grand kids get hurt which she knows well. 

She is one of the best behaved child , inside the house and when taken out , she likes to explore, she had been to many places with her parents and with us, but never we faced any problem with her. She takes to the journey like a fish to water!She would like to listen to music while on  move and she keeps asking people seated behind in Tamizh' kathu varudha' ?(whether they get the A/C behind)Some good habits like removing the shoes as soon as she enters the house, keeping things in their places,specific places for eating, playing dancing etc. 

It's a pleasure writing and talking about her the list is endless, would like to catch up more in the next part. I love you Ujji Gujji.