Monday, February 27, 2012

16. Finger-licking good

Hands are human beings first toy and mouth the first organ of pleasure. You fall in love with the world at the first bite. The flavour of your dirty hands inside your mouth is what I call finger-licking good, thumb-licking I mean.


Our thumbs are special.


Shyam Prabhakar from the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory had found out that a specific gene enhancer called HACNS1 might have been the magic ingredient that shaped our hands. HACNS1 is a DNA that controls the genes but is not a gene itself. It is the most rapidly evolving sequence of its kind in humans and is associated with our digit and limb pattern. This DNA gave us an elongate and fully opposable thumb, which in turn gave us the ability to make stone tools or hold this book (or digital device). 


The ability to grasp things, and with such precision, had a dramatic effect on our cognitive abilities. While our brain controls what we do, what we do changes it too. The advanced use of their hands by the hominids required hand-eye coordination, fine motor skill development, and the processing of large volumes of information. The more these hominids used their hands, the more complex and bigger their brains became. 


Babies are mouth-oriented; it really is their window to this new world. Through the mouth they get their first lessons of the globe around them. Putting things in the mouth may irritate parents but it helps the child develop her brain. There are mouth-toys developed exactly for that purpose. They come in all shape, size and texture. It also prepares them for solid food and helps them move on from nipples to spoons to cups.


Anything within the reach of Hridhima first goes into her mouth. Now that she has learned to grasp stuff we have to be careful of not keeping things with choking hazard near her. Whenever she sees something bright she tries to crawl towards it. If the object is far away, she needs breaks in-between. During the break she sucks her thumb for a brief while to get revitalized, and then she is off again. When she finally reaches the object, if it is too big to hold, then she touches it and then puts her thumb in her mouth, touches it again and puts her thumb back in her mouth. I guess she wonders why all big things tastes like thumb.


This wonderful development stage is called as the oral stage by Freud. In case you don’t like it and want your child to grow up fast, think about the next stage; Freud calls it the anal stage!

Sunday, February 12, 2012

15. Parents or Lovers?


Once upon a time there was a couple deeply in love, then they became parents.

Being parents is a wonderful feeling, life changes for good. But parenting can also become a full time job, and most often we become so obsessed parenting that we forget that we were once lovers. Remember the person who was there before your children came into being, it will be the same person who will be with you when you hairs grey, when your vision blur, when your legs become weak, and when your children grow-up and leave. Don’t let parenting make you forget the lover in you. It is from you that your children will learn to love.

There is another very important person whom we forget and ignore after becoming parents. That person it called ‘self’. Every person needs time for themselves. A time when they can do what-ever that makes them happy, a time for ones obsessions, a time for ones hobbies. It is one reason I still find time to read and write. It helps me relax and de-stress myself. Happy and stress free parents will result in happy and stress free kids. It’s the key to happy parenting.

Stress increases cortisol (stress hormone) secretion, which in turn increases the cortisol in mother’s milk. This can make the infants less confident, less social, nervous and cranky. Sons happen to be more sensitive to this than daughters. These behavioral traits stay with the kids even when they grow old.

Hridhima is 4 months now. She has become mobile and can turn and roll from one side of the bed to another. She is keeping us on our toes. Here is a video compilation of her.






Below is some useful reference charts for parents. These charts are just guidelines. Every child follows his/her own pattern. 






You can find the WHO growth reference chart in the following website:


This is how Hridhima is growing:

Following is a link to a website I found interesting.