So, we read her the 'Ganesh' Amar Chitra Kitha and she generally enjoyed it. She kind of felt great I think that both her parents were with her. She refused to drink any milk via her sippy cup though which is certainly a problem in the short-term because her food intake has almost gone to 40% or less because she is not drinking any milk now.

The comic ended, she was enthralled with it and try to repeat pretty much everything I was saying. I put the comic aside, switched off the small lamp by the bedside and told her that we must sleep now. She didn't resist too much and fell asleep shortly.

Well, she wasn't the only one. Puja and I fell asleep right there as well. We didn't even change our clothes. We didn't even get up to switch off the lights in the living room or switch on the dishwasher. We simply crashed.

We are trying to ween Akshra off her bottle this week. We've started doing this in the afternoon and today was the first weekend day for this. Boy, she really wanted her milk bottle and cried for over 15 minutes. Not just your normal crying, but wailing. She eventually fell asleep but continued to sob for over a half-hour even in her sleep.

A few weeks ago we were happy to see Akshra start using the dustbin/garbage can. She would pick leftover food and other throw-away items and duly put them in the dustbin. However, our happiness turned to dismay when we realized yesterday that she was not only throwing garbage in the garbage can but anything she didn't like. And that list can be very long and can vary from day to day. It is a doll on one day, her milk bottle on another and a teddy she didn't seem to go on without on another.

Observing Akshu learn to speak has been probably the single-most joyful experience for us। I remember the days distinctly when she would just make incoherent but loud sounds to attract attention. Then she started saying 'papa' and soon thereafter, 'mama'.

Now of course there is no stopping her. You can almost have complete conversations with her. Here are some of the words/sentences she speaks as of now.

• Chai-bikum khilao
• Dubki lagao
• Nemo/Hanuman lagao
• Are yaar
• Are yaar nahi chalta, yaar
• choket do (give me chocolate)
  
• choket dia (you gave me chocolate)
• two-two banoon (two baloons)

and so many other...full sentences. It is just too much to handle.

It has been one of the toughest weeks with Akshra. She has barely eaten anything the whole week, is surviving just on milk, more or less, and has been in this foul mood that just makes it very very difficult to deal with her. Constantly torn between whether to censure her or ignore her or to lovingly explain to her, we are mostly just exasperated and despite ourselves we find us doing things that we hadn't planned. We'll scream at her on one incident and try to talk to her on another and try to reason with her on another occasion. We don't know what to do. This is hard.

Every time we look at her we're reminded of this adorable little plump creature that we used to fall in love with over and over again. This little creature that ate on time, slept on time and simply just seemed to be enjoying herself. Where did that lovely little piece of heaven go and who is this little person, cranky and overly assertive, finicky and just plain difficult.

Akshra turned 18 months yesterday. This is a very difficult age for her and for us. On one side she has grown up so much, running around from to there and she speaks so much: you can literally have a conversation with her. On the other side she has almost completely given up eating, surviving on bare minimum bits and scarps and on milk (which she loves a bit too much for our comfort.)

Sleep is another difficult area. We let her into our bed once in a while and are paying the price now. She wouldn't fall asleep in the crib but only on the bed. We would carry her and put her in the crib at night and sometime during the night -- either midnight or very early morning -- she would wake up demanding to sleep in our bed and we have to oblige -- mostly because we are too tired to try to discipline her.

She has started writing on walls and doing other things that drive us crazy. She throws things and throws quite a tantrum getting very angry and difficult to work with. We don't know whether to scream at her or to explain to her quietly, politely.

Akshra had high fever last evening and Puja took her to a doctor. The doctor didn't see anything major and gave her some medicine. She seemed week but not completely out of her wits in the evening. As usual, she didn't eat much and slept early drinking milk.

I woke up early around 4am to find her really warm. We took her temperature and it was well over 102 degrees. We quickly gave her motrin. She thrashed around a bit and fell asleep around 5am. She has been sleeping since.