Long time no see...still a baby, though

It has nearly been a year since I updated his blog, and needless to say, Pranav is a very different person now. As much as I still think of him as my baby, especially when people back home remind me that if he were in India he would be going off to school in six months' time, he is very much a toddler now, reminding us on a frequent basis the provenance of the term "terrible two's".
He is very much his own person, always trying to assert his independence and eager to try his hand at things. Starting with heating up his milk bottle in the microwave to climbing into his car seat, loading his animation "DVDV's", cleaning up his spills, blowing his nose into a tissue, emptying the dishwasher and stacking the dishes away neatly, there is no end to the number of things he insists on doing on his own.

His current motto in life seems to be: it's not important whether the job is done; it's important who did it. As can be expected, the said person tends to be himself, more often that not. He has proved to be a strict disciple of this: he will re-open the microwave door after you have closed it and will close it again, same with a tap or a bottle lid or a DVD in the DVD player and even something thrown in the dustbin. This also sometimes manifests itself in the insistence of "the favoured parent of the moment" doing a job, which, can sometimes mean that we have to switch dish-washer loading and feeding duties half-way through or that he has to be re-buckled to the car seat so the preferred parent can unbuckle him.

On the other hand, he still cries when left at the childcare, still instinctively calls out for me when he wakes during the night, still wants mummy or daddy to feed him, still wipes his dirty hands on his shirt, still refuses to brush his teeth, still refuses to come out of his bath and still refuses to tell us when he has pooped in his nappy.

Yes, he is still only a baby...