Tataie watching

One of the first words Buzz said besides the customary Maa, Paa was Tataie. Since the first time she saw a picture of a butterfly in one of her books she has been fascinating. From all the pictures on a page, tataie is the first thing that she points to. And tataie is what she points to every other minute.

We got to know about a ‘Tropical Butterfly House’ exhibit from some friends. Promptly plans were made to visit. We could not wait to see how Buzz reacted to seeing real, vibrant, flying tataies.

Fighting traffic, struggling with parking, we got there. We stepped in to a small, dark room with doors on both sides and smell of tropical flowers strong. All of it made Buzz really uncomfortable and had her scrambling to be picked up. With D holding her we stepped through the next set of doors in to the Butterfly house. He walked to a red and black butterfly, talking to Buzz all the time. The minute it registered what she was looking at, she wanted down. There was no stopping her. She clapped, she ran, she laughed, she pointed, she chanted

‘Hi Tataie’..’Bye Tataie’.

I was on camera duty while D followed Buzz around. There was this beautiful Blue/Grey butterfly that I was trying to capture, when I saw a wing flutter from the corner of my eye. My right arm became the landing spot for one beautiful butterfly. All excited, I headed to where D and Buzz where. While D took the camera from my hand to take pictures, I bend down to let Buzz have a better view of the butterfly.

No tataie. Aaaa Daaaa

Demand to be held, crying for the tataie to go away followed. That was it. She wanted out of there with her Maa all to herself, much to her parent’s amusement.

The visit to Tataie house has been a while, but she still points to my arm every now and then, when talks of tataie come up. A fun day with beautiful, delicate, patterned, colored butterflies.