She still doesn't speak proper English or Hindi, but she can communicate fairly well in English.  She is learning a lot and it surprises us how often she adds new sentence structures to her repertoire.  She can recite almost the whole alphabet (though she frequently forgets m, n, and r) without help.  Her favorite thing for a while was to purposely mess up "W" because the first time she did it, we all cracked up.

She's fully mobile now.  Running, walking, jumping, getting into trouble, you name it.  She has her own toddler bed, so now when she wakes up, she can get up and make sure that we are aware that she is awake, especially if it's before 6am.

Anisha has shed her shyness and has recently begun to go to people that scared or upset her before.  I think she's learned not to be overwhelmed when someone gets too excited to see her.  She's very well behaved.  People are amazed at her self control.  I'm very proud that she's a good girl, but at the same time, it makes me wonder if she's not getting a part of her childhood experience.  We try and let her do whatever she wants when it's possible but as other parents know, it's a dangerous world and kids just can't be as free as they used to be.  It's kind of a relief when she misbehaves.  Even though I will usually correct her, it reassures me that we aren't raising a robot.

She LOVES her little sister Simran.  She can't say her name yet, so she decided to take a part of a pet name that Ekta came up with.  We were calling her "Sim Sim" and Ekta kept using a verse from a song in the movie Pardes.  It goes, "Sim Sim Bola Bola Sim Sim Bola".  Anisha kept hearing us say "Sim Sim Bola Bola" and decided that Simran's name was "Bola".  We liked it, so it kinda stuck.

Anisha is very protective.  She is always watching and will quickly run over and grab forbidden objects from her hands with a stern, "NO Bola!"  At least once every couple of days, she'll have a hugging session where she can't stop going back and hugging Simran.  Simran, of course, is not quite aware of the significance of this act and gets irritated to no end by the 3rd or 4th hug.  She'll let out a little scream, but is powerless to avoid it, for now...

TV is now her favorite distraction.  We try and limit her to just a few shows a day, and though she gets upset, she's not too bad when we turn it off.  Right now, she's into Teletubbies and Sesame Street on TV, and Winnie the Pooh and (gasp!) Barney on video. 

Our main teaching efforts are in ABCs, 123s, and potty training.  We trying not to push too hard on the potty training, but are there to frequently remind her that she needs to learn.  As I mentioned, she's almost got her ABCs down, but she can also reliably count up to about 7 in both Hindi and English.

She's all over the place now.  She's almost perfected her balance, but she's still a little unstable.  She walks fast/runs and she'll climb stationary objects.  Luckily, she hasn't figured out how to move stools and the like to reach forbidden areas.

Her smile lights up my day.  Lately, she's become quite the daddy's girl.  When she's tired or shy, she'll run straight to me and it's hard to get her to go to anyone else.  All in all though, she's a very well behaved little girl.  Of course, now that I've put it in print, that's all out the door.

She's taking fewer naps and is losing some of that baby fat.  She's going to need a whole new wardrobe soon.  Luckily, we recently found out that our next one (due in March 2003) is also a girl, so we'll be able to recycle all of the things we've bought for Anisha.  Anisha still doesn't understand that she's getting a little sister, but she does know to point to Mommy's tummy when we ask where the baby is.

She's finally started to take an interest in videos and television.  In fact, when I come downstairs in the morning, she makes sure I get my laptop computer out and show her the kids videos I've got stored there for her.  When we need her to take a "time out" we put on her favorite video with colors and shapes and she's literally glued to it for about 30 minutes.  Now I know how tempting it is to use the electronic babysitter (TV).

Anisha is much better at walking, although she got her first boo boo the other day when walking to the neighbor's house.  She was wearing a dress and I kinda caught her, but she still managed a little sidewalk scrape.  Of course Mommy breaks out the field medic's first aid kit!  Luckily I was able to stop her before she administered the morphine and started making the splint.  OK, so I'm kidding, but she WAS upset and she DID go a little overboard, but hey - that's what Moms are for...

Still no talking, but her babbling is getting more complex.  I'm guessing that's a good sign.  Of course, if she's going to be anything like her Sumi Bua, it's a very bad sign...Maybe talking isn't all it's hyped up to be...     :-)

She's getting a little more bratty these days.  She's testing the limits of how much crying and whining will get her.  My guess is so far the "takes pity on me" rating is:   Parents=10% of the time   Grandparents=80% of the time!

Between all of us, I think she knows she's got us.

She LOVES dancing.  Just hum a tune and ask her to dance.  She's ready any time of day or night.  She particularly enjoys bhangra and techno/rave (?!??).  What's a dad to do?  I can see it now,  "Sure Anisha, you can go dancing with your friends, as long as its in our family room and the lights are on."

Of course there's been a lot of progress.  She's got eight teeth now.  Her latest "thing" is to pucker her lips and look at you when she's doing something she knows is wrong.  She'll start doing it and then turn to look at the nearest responsible adult with her lips puckered just to show that she knows she's not supposed to be doing it - then she goes ahead and does it anyway.  Like acknowledging that it's wrong makes it OK to do.  Maybe she'll be a politician...

Oh yeah, she's walking!  Just started last week about the 26th of June.  Basically, once everything had died down after the wedding, she had time to practice without 25 people staring at her at any given time.  Along with the walking, the climbing is improving.  We used to be able to pen her into the family room with some strategically placed furniture.  Not anymore...  Now she just climbs right over it.  I guess I've been putting off childproofing the rest of the house too long.  Time to break out the cabinet locks.  The other day, she got into a cabinet and broke a plate on the floor.

Not much progress on the talking front, but I hear that motor skills and verbal skills usually don't develop at the same time.