The Electric Chair

So Cyra has learned her first word - no its not mummy or daddy (although she does make mamama and abba and papapa sounds, we are not counting these as her proper first word), it CAT. Easy enough to learn and repeated oft enough by @Manju Panthaki and me from a book of animals that we show her to keep her occupied while eating food (both us and her eating, in case you were wondering). 

Now she says CAT all the time. Although she tries to speak it perfectly, she cant get the 'C' right, and it sounds a bit like TAT. The first word after getting up is TAT. She looks out of the window and says TAT although there is no TAT (sorry, CAT) there. She says TAT even when she is generally crawling around. Sometimes its spoken forcefully, like TAT! in font 14 with an exclamation mark, and at other times gently, almost musing to herself, tat, in font 9. Sometimes, its repeated at 2-3 seconds intervals. Tat....Tat.....Tat......

So we were in a resort in Khandala yesterday, and there actually came a Tat to visit. It was an open air type of seating, near a very well done hedge, and the Tat came out of the hedge to the beginning of the dining area to beg for food. It was not scared, and kept saying "Meow" for a very long time. We showed Cyra what a Tat really was, and she looked at it agape, with interest. 

Cyra also has the habit to point at things (we dont know if she is actually pointing, but thats the construct in our minds) with her thumb, index finger and middle finger all touching each other and her ring finger and little finger a bit up in the air. Also, she does this while on all fours; ie on all except the hand that is pointing now, fully outstretched and pointing at an angle which is in between parallel to the ground and perpendicular to it. If you are standing a few feet away from her and she is on the floor, it will seem as it she is pointing right at you. She dissolves into laughter, if you point in the same way. 

Anyways, now there is a variation to that pointing. She also says "TAT" while doing that. It eerily feels like she is trying to cast a spell on you. Manju feels that she is doing her best but she is too small yet and her spell is weak. I feel that her spell is just slow and in 10 years time, both of us, a waiter and some assorted guests at Dukes resort and some random people will turn into TATs. This could in fact be true because she didnt cast that spell on the Tat at the resort - she knew it was already a TAT. 

# posted by A Chrysanthemum by any other name... : 11:11 PM