Bojji’s growing up

It constantly amazes me to think back to this time last year and remember that Bojjandi and his antics were barely a mote in our eyes. He's now 6 months old and growing fast in personality and activity. He finally learnt to roll over about 10 days ago and now we can't put him down on his tummy for tummytime any more. The instant his tum-tum touches the ground, he rolls right over onto his back and chuckles up at us with a goofy grin. He also seems to have a real sense of humour because he just waits to catch our eyes before unleashing incredibly good-humoured looking smiles. And it takes very little to make him giggle – tickling, pretending we can't see him while calling his name, threatening to come grab him, nuzzling his fat little neck…

He's also at that incredibly cute stage when babies discover their limbs. So he carefully extends his chubby little hands into the air and opens and closes his fists, making little stars out of his hands and watches them with intense concentration. It's like he's telling himself, "Hey, see what I can do". And when we put him into his bouncer, he keeps reaching out to rattle all the toys purposefully and you can almost hear a Calvin-like, "I'm the Master of the Universe" cackle. We have a lovely kannada poem for this phase: Taarammaiyya, which we sing to him when he's busy making his little stars.

And now that he's 6 months old, we've introduced two major lifestyle changes. First of all, he's now having about 2 ounces of formula before being put to bed for the night, in the thus-far forlorn hope that he'll sleep longer that way. At present he goes off to sleep around 8:30 pm and wakes up around 4:00 am for a feed and then again at 6:00 am, which it turns out doesn't make me a happy camper – my dark circles have dark circles from lack of sleep! And the second change – we did his annaprashna ceremony last Friday, which was Ugadi, so now he has minute quantities of rice every day.

I love the ceremonial transition from phase to phase. Earlier, particularly in my teens, I used to be impatient of rituals, but now I enjoy the feeling of continuity and tradition that I get from following them. I never want to be a slave to rituals and tradition but following them out of choice is a different matter. I also feel it adds a feeling of special-ness to many things which are otherwise just a matter of routine. Even the naming ceremony is one of my favourite rituals, and we have my dad on tape explaining each aspect of the ritual so it's not some meaningless mumbo-jumbo spouted by a priest, but something deep and meaningful which is a way of passing on our culture to the new generation.

Our annaprashna has a set ritual: we make at least 5 different kinds of traditional sweets. Typically I don't like to buy sweets from the market for this ceremony because I like the food to be made of pure ingredients (i.e. no dalda / food colouring). So this time mom had to do most of the work since I was at work. She made sajjige ( sooji halwa), payasa of saamey ka chaawal, red carrot halwa and hayagriva, which is a rich halwa-type sweet made with gasegase, moong dal, jaggery and lots of ghee. I contributed a black carrot halwa to the feast.

Bojji was still just barely recovered from his chest infection so we gave him a quick sponge bath and dressed him in a new outfit. After the Ugadi pooje, we laid out the feast in a silver thali, in 5 silver bowls. Silver is supposed to be the metal used for children's eating utensils because it immediately kills any bacteria in the food and renders it safe. A took Bojjandi on his lap, and then fed him tiny little licks of each item by dipping a silver ring into each cup. Bojjandi seemed to enjoy the payasa the most. After A, I, then Chubbocks, Puddi and my parents and grandma all took turns helping Bojjandi taste the goodies. Then we mixed a small quantity of plain arhar dal, rice and ghee and fed Bojjandi a tiny little ball of it. The little hero hated the bland taste of this, since we don't add salt for a baby, and spat it out or tried to. This of course was followed by all of us feasting on the goodies!