Quiet Play

Anika is 15 months now. Her love and yearning to learn more is steadily growing and her thrill (and mine) in uttering new words is palpable. She is constantly a reminder for me to see the world with fresh eyes. To be intrigued by anything from tomatoes to bindi's.

Tomatoes and bindi's, that's what I am going to talk about today. Because it brought us such calming moments of quiet play this week. Anika is curious about the veggies in the fridge, she asks me to open the fridge so she can open the vegetable tray and pick a vegi and name it. We are down to onion, carrot and something that vaguely sounds like tomato.

Yesterday, she picked a tomato, walked with me to the bean bag and sat on my lap facing me, with the tomato in her hand. I grabbed it and hid it, she knew it was under my hands and we made a play out of it. Hiding it under my hands, under my tee, in my lap, and giggling away at how simple it was to find it and yet how fun it was to look for it soon as I hid it. We played peekaboo with the tomato for the longest time. It was one of my most relaxing moments with Anika. We just sat in a place, with minimal movements and played and cuddled and giggled in wonderment. And now she says tomato clearly enough for me to understand! My absolute perfect moment from last week. Hands down.

Then there is the bindi thrill. I wear a really small bindi, like the one in this picture, on my forehead and Anika also began to wear them after seeing me dress for work. Sometimes she takes mine off and then tries to put it on her own forehead. The fine motor skills needed for this maneuver as you can understand is highly sophisticated and Anika is often flummoxed that it actually sticks! That you can place it on your index finger, your toes and practically anywhere and it will actually stay. So there, we wind down with our bindi's stuck to our index fingers and the game goes on-she wants to pick it up and put it on her forehead but it gets stuck to another finger, her wrist, her palm, then it falls off, and the loop goes on till she's tired of it and wants to just put it in her mouth so the game can be done away with! But through this there is shared communication, language skills, fine motor skills and so much fun in just sitting and playing quietly.

These quiet moments of shared love, communication and bonding arising out of free play are so completely joyous it makes up for all the cranky nights and sick days. All that matters. Isn't it? 

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