my travelouge with my baby

Food

2009-07-03T10:34:00.000-07:00

She is very very choosy about her food (she takes after her dad). I have to run behind her to feed her rice and dal (she thinks irs boring). Sometimes, even if she is hungry, she will refuse to eat run-of-the-mill stuff. So far she prefers half fried egg over bread-butter or Upma, Which is exactly what her Dad likes.

She is very specific about fruits too. So far I have been successful only with apples, oranges, bananas (sometimes), pomegranate and grapes (they need to be seedless and juicy). I tried my best to feed her custard apple, guava, pineapple, berries, jackfruit and some other exotic fruits, which I just love to have (but Aaditya stays away from these). She didn't appreciate any of them. I think I should just stick to what Aaditya likes and get only those things for her.

:-)

Today I found out that, she loves dining out. Give her some nice fish and prawns and she is all happy. We can start eating out now.... Yoohooo!

Monkeys

2009-06-29T06:14:00.000-07:00

We have got a temple next to our apartment complex and there is this big tamarind tree nearby. This has invited a couple of monkey families (No, I mean REAL monkey families). Sometimes when the temple is not enough crowded (monkeys may not be getting anything to eat due to that), they decide to explore the neighborhood. It literally translates to the monkey attack. How nice!

This place has served as a constant source of entertainment to Pari. Our balconies open to this huge empty (and unattended) plot, which is full of wild trees, thick shrubs and knee-high grass. If it were not for the traffic noise of outer ring road, we would have almost felt like staying in the middle of the jungle. This jungle offers us its own wealth(?) of species. I have witnessed more number of big dark flies, colorful moths, big red bees, big red ants with wings (I don't know what they are called), cute green grasshoppers, fireflies and butterflies (ok, they look cute) in just six-seven months than my entire lifetime. Pari loves all sorts of insects. She is so much fond of moths and butterflies.

And today she got to see monkeys... not just one or two but about five-six. They were roaming freely in the balconies, jumping around the windows and we were watching them from inside behind the grills (with windows tightly shut). It gave me a weird feeling. As if the place belonged to monkeys and we were mere prisoners.

It was amusing to see so many monkeys in open and monkeying around. Pari just loved it. Too bad, we are soon going to shift to a new place, which doesn't has such jungle around.

We will miss you monkeys!

Pari is puking her guts out

2009-05-30T11:49:00.001-07:00

Don't know what was it, but it looks like some food problem. May be it was the chicken which we had for lunch. She was uncomfortable since evening and became very clingy.

At around 8 o'clock she vomited the first time. I tried to feed her some boiled and sauteed potato. She puked all of it all over me. Then I decided to only feed her milk. But it was no good. She did puke all of it. So until 11 she had vomited about three times already.

After talking to Doc, we gave her medicine. Thankfully, she was active and playful all this time. In fact, I was trying hard to rock her to sleep. I hope she will feel better in the morning.

2009-04-26T14:05:00.000-07:00

We went to Lalbagh today. She loves grass. Not to mention, she plucked most of the grass of the lawn. Thankfully, guards didn't spot us.

She must have walked for more than an hour (with enumerable falls as seen here).

Now the interesting thing is, she refuses to walk on the road.

She loves her Dad

2009-04-07T14:01:00.000-07:00

Pari adores her Dad. Whenever she is given something to eat, she searches for him first. Only after it is fed to him (sometimes shoved into his mouth), she eats it.

Do you think she tests the food on him first?

LOL.

Walkity walk

2009-03-31T09:55:00.000-07:00

cool, she has started walking since 7-30 PM today.

Yoohoo! it's going to be so much fun now.

bribe

2009-03-30T11:14:00.000-07:00

I am convinced that she understands me completely. Every night I need to make a case about how drinking (bottled) milk is good for her and how it will help her sleep quickly.

Not to mention, I need to tell her that if she finishes her milk, I would feed her.

... this happens every single day (rather night).

New sexy haircut

2009-03-22T12:27:00.000-07:00

Before

After

She looks like goonda.

LOL!

Crazy about lemon

2009-03-14T11:26:00.000-07:00

Yes, she is.

She loves lemon so much that she sucks whole lemon dry, if she manages to get hold of it. It's funny the way she makes faces while sucking on the lemon. However sour it might be, she won't let it go.

Yesterday, she squeezed it so hard that entire contents of lemon - juice, seeds, pulp were all over her hands and feet (and clothes). After that, she went on to rub it all over her face and hair (not to mention table and floor and carpet). And finally when she rubbed her eyes with those hands, she got into the problem.

I had to give her a quick bath to get rid of all that lemon juice.

Eye irritation

2009-03-09T11:48:00.000-07:00

Pari had been suffering with severe eye irritation throughout our Himachal trip. The irritation was present even before we started, but it was not that apparent. I consulted her Doc before the trip, and he assured that the irritation will go off in 2-3 days after medication.

But somehow it never got any better. On her birthday, she was all red eyed and everybody kept on asking "What happened to her eyes?".

:-(

Next day we went to the local eye doctor, who gave another eye drops (doubting conjunctivitis). We used that for 2-3 days, but things didn't change much. When we went to Palampur to attend Chachaji's wedding anniversary, same thing happened. Her eyes become red and she was rubbing her eyes all the time. We consulted one more doctor in Palampur, who diagnosed her for allergy.

Sigh!

On 6th March we decided to get rid of her hair. Her hair had grown too long for her, so managing her hair was becoming a big problem. She wouldn't let me tie it and she hated clips and hair bands. So her hair always used to cover her eyes, which I thought might be causing problem.

Since we cut her hair, the eye irritation has dramatically reduced. I have stopped using any eye drops since her head is shaved. So far I didn't see red eyes, but some mild irritation is still there.

Today I found this. I wonder if I should try that.

The first birthday

2009-02-28T23:33:00.000-08:00

As promised, we celebrated her first birthday in Hamirpur, Himachal Pradesh.

Lots of guests and loads of people, that's all I can remember. All I can say that, it was a huge function. We could meet almost everybody who had been to our wedding.

My camera broke just before packing, so I could not take any pictures. I hope to get some snaps from others sometime soon.

:-)

Weight problem

2009-02-23T12:20:00.000-08:00

I wish Pari would gain some weight.

When I compare her with other kids around, I feel she is way too delicate. She is very choosy about eating and most of the times plainly refuses to eat.

:-(

I shared my concerns with the doc, but he thinks she is doing fine. Her weight graph is normal.

Gah! I am the only one in this house who has weight problem!

What does it mean?

2009-02-19T21:39:00.000-08:00

Finding a name was not end of it after all. When I tell them that her name is Nisvi, first thing people ask is - what does it mean?

Apparently, name without any meaning is considered odd(?). I am kinda fed up with these conversations,

xyz: So what's her name?
me: Nisvi
xyz: Hmmm, sounds different. What does it mean?
me: Well, nothing!
xyz: Oh! Then how did you come up with it?
me: Ummmm... I don't know.

And then I start getting a feeling that I have been very irresponsible and casual about naming the child.

So we have decided a meaning for her name.

Nisvi: The first ray of sun which falls on mercury.

I tried this with couple of folks and it's been working alright.
:-)

Give me my pillow

2009-02-04T10:36:00.000-08:00

She loves using pillow to sleep.

I know it's not quite right for a baby to sleep on pillow. I make sure to put her to sleep straight, but soon enough she turns to her side and then next thing she would start getting hold of a pillow.

In fact she keeps waking up once in a while just to climb on the nearby pillow. It looks really funny when she sort of sleep-walks her way to the pillow.

I have to keep putting her down on the bed every now and then.

Nisvi

2009-02-02T04:12:00.000-08:00

We named her Nisvi.

We procrastinated long enough, but had to finalize a name now... since I need to fill in the birth certificate forms ASAP.

The name doesn't mean anything (at least I could not find any meaning). Well, you would also say that it doesn't sound geeky enough. But then, apple was not a geeky fruit to start with.

:-P

So feel free to pick up this name and make it cool and big.

I like sound of the word already.

MCUG and horrid stuff

2009-01-27T08:59:00.000-08:00

Last week Doctor told us to get MCUG test since she was detected with some urinal infection. When he explained to us about the test, I seriously thought that it was a bit too invasive. I mean there should be some other ways to test the reflux after all.

So we decided to take second opinion. The other doctor kind of reassured us that that is the only way to make sure that there is no problem. She also told us that whoever in detected with this kind of infection, has to do this test.

So there was no go. We decided to get it done.

Poor thing!!! She cried her heart out on the table. She any way doesn't enjoy her doctor trips at all. I couldn't do much, other than trying to console her. But I was told be at her head side and she could not see my face, which made her more frustrated. It took about 20 minutes to complete the test but it felt like forever to me. By then she had become red with all that crying.

Luckily, she was not detected with reflux or any other problems.

I was so much suspecting that the infection might have caused due to diapers (although I am using diapers only in nights since past 2 months). But doctor said that it's not due to diapers. About 3% babies catch the infection due to unknown reasons, and only 1/3rd of them are detected with reflux.

Thankfully, she belongs to that other 2/3rd part.

Brushing teeth

2009-01-19T09:26:00.000-08:00

She has got four teeth now. Doctor told us to start brushing her teeth. I got her a cute little brush (which she thought was yet-another-toy). She chewed on it the way she does for all her toys. The brush became all wet and soggy... yuck!!!

Saju taught her very novel way of brushing. He would brush the front teeth couple of times and then throw the brush down and clap. Then pick it up again and repeat the thing. She loved that so much that she kept doing it for about 10-15 times. It was really funny!!!

I got kids toothpaste today and tried to brush her teeth. She loved it.

PS - Now she eats off the toothpaste and refuses to open her mouth to let me brush.

I love my bells

2009-01-12T09:46:00.000-08:00

This is the new toy I got for her. It's been just one day and I have started hating it already. It makes way too much noise.

But she is totally in love with it. In fact, she likes it so much that even while sleeping she needs it.

Ugh! I hate those bath times

2009-01-02T09:07:00.000-08:00

Nowadays she makes such a big fuss about bath, that I have started hating it. As soon as we start removing her clothes, she starts crying and doesn't stop until we are done.

She refuses to sit in her tub and it's really hard to bathe her while she is standing (and crying uncontrollably). I have tried various water temperatures, but that doesn't make much difference.

And finishing the process quickly means irritating her more. She screams her heart out if somebody tries to get her to do something she doesn't want to do. On the other hand, I can not do it slowly either. Since she keeps standing, she feels cold more quickly, which in turn makes her cry more.

I have put colorful stickers on her tub. There are those bath time toys too. But she would just keep crying.

:-(

I wish she could enjoy her baths.

People and Pari

2008-12-22T22:47:00.000-08:00

She is not a peoples person.

When she sees lot of new people, she starts crying (when they try to talk to her i.e.). On the other hand, she is usually pretty comfortable when one or two new faces show up..... if she is given enough time to observe them. May be she hates too much noise.

But I am surprised at her affinity towards good looking and well dressed people. She doesn't need any introduction to smile at those kingfisher air hostesses. She is totally fascinated by foreigners. When we went to Kodaikanal, there were lot of foreigners staying in Carlton. She used to stare at them, smile at them and make noises to attract their attention. It's funny the way she gets overjoyed when people respond to her calling.

She just won't listen to me

2008-12-14T10:48:00.000-08:00

Did I say that she listens to me? Well, she listens to me, if she wanted to.

But most of the times, she refuses to even look at me. And it's so hard to scold somebody when they are ignoring you and giggling and jumping at the same time.

LOL.

My baby listens to me

2008-12-04T06:18:00.000-08:00

I just don't get it.

We bought a lot of colorful and noisy (and expensive) toys for her, but all she needed was a simple grocery bill. She tore one into two pieces and kept playing with that for hours together.

She was throwing it around and picking it up meticulously. So much fun! Ok, and there were several attempts to taste the paper too. I had to keep a watch on her all the time, since she was very sneaky.

But every time she tried to put it in her mouth, she used to look at me. If I said "No!" she used to reluctantly take it off and give me one of those sheepish smiles. It was very sweet of her.

My baby listens to me!

On my toes

2008-11-23T07:05:00.000-08:00

She has strange attraction toward toes.

When I wriggle my toes, she absolutely loves it. In fact, she loves it so much that she stops crying to watch my toes wriggle.

I think she feels that it's some sort of toy.

... or she must be fascinated by my toes. They are so pretty.

Big pig barrier

2008-11-15T09:46:00.000-08:00

She has started going places... mostly wherever I don't want her to go.

We have this big stuffed pig, which is almost double of her size. I use that as a barrier when I intend to block her way. It works!!!

Anything for Terry Pratchett

2008-11-12T06:38:00.000-08:00

She likes books.... and her favorite author is Terry Pratchett.

Pinch bug

2008-11-05T00:27:00.000-08:00

Now that she has completed 8 months, I can feel the pinch...... literally.

Whenever she gets a chance, she pinches whichever body parts accessible to her. She absolutely loves to pinch on the soft part around elbow. It's becoming increasingly difficult to feed her due to this pinching problem.

Her fingers are tiny enough for the deadly grip. Her nails grow really fast. And they add the required sting to the pinch.

Ahem!

I tried to put mitten on her hand, but now that she is grown up, she has figured out how to take off mittens. She has gotten so much used to this pinching, that she keeps doing it subconsciously..... sometimes even while she is half asleep.

The only option is to hold her hands to stop her from pinching. I wonder when she will give up this habit!

Cozy in the stroller

2008-10-30T21:47:00.000-07:00

She is visibly too small for her stroller, but she likes it pretty much (at least during this video). She enjoys keeping her feet on the handle for no known reasons.

If this video made you believe that she loves her stroller, then you got it all wrong. When I saw her this happy in stroller, I was too enthusiastic to take her for shopping. I was sure that she would enjoy the trip. Oh, but I was so wrong.

She was ok in the car (actually sleeping). I put her in the stroller and walked into the shop. She looked around with least possible interest..... Stared hard at other people shopping there...... Gave stern looks to those who gave her smiles (yeah, that's typical of her)... kept blank face at all those attendant girls, who were trying to talk to her.

All this lasted for about 30 minutes, after which she didn't like it a bit. She could not see me for one thing and everything around her was pretty boring (read baby clothes) for her. To start with, for first few minutes she made sad faces, then made "boooohooooo" noises at people looking at her and finally decided to cry loudly. It was all downhill from there. I could not do much to distract her.

I had to call my shopping off. She refused to be in the stroller any more. I had to pick her up. It was difficult to carry her while pushing the empty stroller.... it was scrolling all over the place.

I think she only likes it when she is in the stroller and people are in front of her. There is no way I can push this stroller from front.

The other model, in which baby can face the mom, made so much sense now.

Mum's the word!

2008-10-17T10:25:00.000-07:00

You already know that her first meaningful word was "Papa". But now that she has learned to say "Mum", she can't stop chanting it.

Yay!

Discussions with Dad

2008-10-12T04:15:00.000-07:00

Pari likes to discuss stuff with her Dad.... mainly current affairs and US elections among all other things.

She has strong opinions about most of the stuff and she puts across her thought with great panache. Sometimes both of them agree on the issue amicably, but most of the times Dad gets beaten up badly.

She attacks his glasses to start with, and then goes on to slap him (if he manages to save his glasses). Her nails grow with lightening speed IMHO and she knows how to use it. She has figured out pinching and her tiny fingers can pinch real hard. To add to this, biting hands and fingers is her favorite strategy (I don't know from where she has learned all these debating tactics).

The debate is worth a watch.

He gets hugs (or pecks in rare cases) if she wins.

PS - This clip is edited for the U certificate.

Playing with Doll

2008-10-02T06:07:00.000-07:00

Playing with doll (for that matter any toy) mainly consists of sampling various parts of it. And she does it the way some connoisseur would taste a rare wine.

She take a good look at the stuff first (to make sure if it's really appealing enough) and then nibbles on it.... slowly to start with and (if she likes the feel or taste) then voraciously. And trust me, her bites are very sharp (even without teeth). We have our share of pain, when she tries to bite our fingers or elbow or knee.

Most of her cheap toys have conked off. I wonder what will happen when she would get her teeth.

She is fond of doll's hair the most.

How cute!

2008-09-28T13:15:00.000-07:00

Her hair has grown pretty long, but it all gets curled up. She loves to curl-uncurl her hair while drinking milk.

How cute!

Yellow submarine

2008-09-25T12:34:00.000-07:00

Pari has started crawling (sort of) since past couple of weeks. She has got bit of a heavy head for her, so she is crawling in a very peculiar style..... reminds me of submarine.

She mainly uses her head and feet to move her body. She rests her head down and pushes it with her hands (I can't help worrying about her nose again). So after every few inches, she needs to look up to check if she is on the right track and to correct the direction, if required. I guess this whole exercise must be pretty tiring for her. No wonder she doesn't do it without an incentive.

Until now, very few objects have interested her to do crawling. One of them is of course me... but most of the times it's Macbook. She is a big Apple fan, already.

My Mother Wears Combat Boots

2008-09-23T10:44:00.000-07:00

I happened to see this today,

From whatever I got to read from Amazon, I found this book interesting. I am no punk, but I might buy it any way.

Pari's experiments with food

2008-09-17T10:40:00.000-07:00

It's been about a month since I started giving her semi solids.

I thought weaning would be easy, since there are loads of recipes available and most of them are pretty easy to make. Most of them sounded yummy to me, and I was very excited about introducing her to various food things... but Pari has her own tastes and she is very clear about it.

I started with watery lentil soup, which she seemed to enjoy. After a week, I decided that she needed to taste some fruits as well. Banana is what everybody suggests, so I mashed ripe banana and tried to feed her. She sprayed it all over the place. I tried to add some sugar and milk to it, but that didn't help much (except it just made it easier for her to spray it on me).

Next was Papaya. It was nice and ripe and I thought that she would love the bright color of her food. But I was sooooo wrong. She acted as if it's chocking her to death. It reminded me of Calvin and his escapades with food.

And it's not just about liking or not liking a certain food type. She is very particular about what she wants to eat at a given time. If she feels like having rice and lentil soup, she will simply refuse to drink lactogen and vice versa (even if she is hungry).

She hates sweet stuff (except cooked apple) and I don't want to feed her sour things (so most of fruits are out of the list). I hope she will love mangoes at least.

Come to think of it, all this is so much similar to Aaditya's food habits. He likes selective stuff and refuses to eat anything else just for sake of it. It won't be surprising if she hates green vegetables and sprouts.

I am going to have tough time deciding the menu when she grows up a bit.

stubby fingers

2008-09-10T13:45:00.000-07:00

When she was born, she had really long delicate fingers. I can still remember how long they looked w.r.t. rest of her palm. In fact, they looked sort of artificial and nonfunctional.

Now after six months, things have changed so much. Hands and fingers are no more delicate.

And I am not sure if I can call these fingers long either. I feel bad for not taking enough pictures of her when she was a newborn. I wish I had old pictures to compare this with.

Hair magnet

2008-09-03T22:48:00.000-07:00

Her hands and feet (specially hands) tend to attract hair.

With her tiny fingers, she can pull even a single strand of hair. I think It's the way she puts her hand in your hair, that it gets all tangled in her tiny fingers (and it gets very painful when she starts throwing her hands thereafter). Much said, keeping hair loose is out of question. When you pick her up, invariably she will end up pulling your hair. So most of the times you will find my hair tied in a tight bun. Not that it really helps, since she manages to pull those stray hair here and there (e.g. just above ears).

It's not just me, Aaditya has also experienced this... actually he has lot of hair for her to pull, but she is most fascinated by hair near his knees. Surprisingly her grip is very strong. It takes a while to open her fist.

But if you request her to let go hair, she sometimes listens and opens her hands.

:-)

Scary eyes

2008-08-25T15:01:00.000-07:00

Aaditya laughed hard when I mentioned about it the first time and now he refuses to hear about it at all. I know it's silly, but I have to write this.

Sometimes I find her eyes very scary... especially when I look at her this way,

They look very big, round and sparkly. It reminds me of all those scary movies where babies turn into devil. I avoid this sight when I am alone at home.

*shiver*

My Papa is the coolest!

2008-08-19T02:03:00.000-07:00

She strongly believes that. So the first words (so to call it) were "Papa".

Apparently, Aaditya has been sneakily working on teaching her to say "Papa" since quite some time. I was thinking that it is going to be something natural.

.... time to tell her who is the Boss!

Headbutt

2008-08-09T01:34:00.000-07:00

She has started turning sometime back (bah, I don't remember exactly when). That also reminds me of this cute record book, which Saumya got for me. I had asked Aaditya to keep the book updated, but it looks like I have to make him do it. I feel evil now.

Ok, getting back to turning, it has been a while since she can turn but she can't turn back. So when she turns turtle, she gets locked in that position (which she loves doing so often nowadays). While at it, she likes to hold her head up and look around the things. But her head is so heavy that she can hold it up for couple of minutes at a time. And she tries her best to keep it up as much as she can, so in the end it bangs down on bed.

I am wondering if it's going to flatten her nose as well.

Head shape

2008-08-06T12:25:00.000-07:00

Do you know how heavy baby's head is?

Normally it's hard to figure out the difference, but when you try to pick up a sleeping baby, you can feel the actual weight. It almost feels like lifting a heavy iron ball with tiny limbs attached to it.

:-)

Apparently, head shape forms for about one year after birth and it keeps changing throughout. Thanks to all that weight, it's very easy to develop flat surfaces on skull. After about one month, we noticed that she has developed a slight flattening on the right hand side. May be it was due to our sleeping position (I used to sleep on her right side). She developed habit of tilting her head slightly towards right while sleeping. Due to her curly hair that flattening was not easily visible. It could be seen only while bathing her. But Mom warned me about it.

It seems severe flattening translates into Plagiocephaly. And only workaround is to keep changing sleeping positions.

So I had to work hard on making sure that she was not resting her head on the same flat spot. We used change sleeping positions, beds and even bedrooms. It's interesting the number of ways one can sleep on the bed.
:-)

Tough part was to keep her head from sliding back to the original position. Since the flat surface was easy to rest on, she used to move and adjust her head to go back to the old position very often. No matter what I did, she used to tilt her head in her sleep after a while.

I spent numerous sleepless nights positioning her head on her left side. I tried to keep some stuffing on one side, so that she would have to rest her head on her left side. But that usually used to make her uncomfortable after a while. So the only option was to keep adjusting the head position as often as possible. But it's easier said than done. It was more difficult, since adjusting her head position usually used to wake her up.

:-(

Thankfully, after rigorous re-positioning for last two months, her head is back to it's round shape now.

:-)

Tiny! Tiny!!

2008-07-27T13:44:00.000-07:00

Awwwe, she is so tiny (and still has so much attitude).

Hiccups are fun

2008-07-23T13:45:00.000-07:00

Hiccups are so amusing that she cant stop giggling.

I think she can't figure out what's going on with her. Doctor has told us not to give her water at all. Her diet consists of only milk, so I try to feed her when she gets hiccups. But sometimes she is not hungry (it's damn hard to feed her when she doesn't want to), so all we can do is have some fun with those hiccups.

She makes cute hic sounds and such a confused face that I can't stop laughing. Which in turn makes her laugh as well.

LOL.

Hands

2008-07-15T19:43:00.000-07:00

She needs to keep her hands moving all the time. Sometimes I feel her hands have life of their own. They need to keep moving for survival like sharks.

When she was tiny (I mean tinier), we had to wrap her all around with a cloth. Her hands used to be sort of tied on her chest. Because, she used to wake up if her own hands accidentally touched her face. I think she didn't know that those things belonged to her. We had to tie her hands to ensure that she sleeps for long hours.

May be, she has discovered her hands now, but surely feet are still kinda novelty for her. When she raises her feet in air, she think they are some sort of toys. She observes them which such surprise. It's fun to watch her.

I want this!

2008-07-11T21:31:00.000-07:00

I want this...

The dress, the baby and yes, that carrier too.... all of it.

:-D

Bookworm

2008-06-28T14:07:00.000-07:00

She is just four months old and she has already started reading..... be it newspaper or magazine or books. Reading is her new found love (after ceiling fan).

:-)

Well, if you thought that she might be interested only in bright and colorful pictures, you got it totally wrong. When I hold a page in front of her, she scans it thoroughly from end to end (although not in any particular sequence). And surprisingly she is more interested in text than images. I think text seems like intricate patterns to her.

On an average, one page takes about 30 seconds to keep her interested. Once she has finished scanning the page, she shifts her eyes from the page and then I need to change to the new page or else she starts crying (Not exactly "crying" crying, but makes grumpy noises). When a new page appears, she gets back to reading again. She can "read" books for minutes together without getting bored.

She recognizes sound of flipping the pages very well now. Normally I read something while feeding her. It keeps both of us busy. But now that she is so much fascinated with books, I can't do it any more. As soon as she hears any flipping sound, she stops drinking milk and starts looking at book. Nowadays, I need to be very very careful while flipping pages.

I thought it would be cool if she can read a book herself. So I picked up a Reader's Digest copy (since that was the thinnest book available) and made her hold it. Too bad that her hands are too tiny to hold anything upright. And when she was able to get hold of it, eventually it lead to her mouth. After the reading was finished, she wanted to taste the book.

Would anybody want to lend her some more books?

:-)

Trip to Chamba

2008-06-15T12:55:00.000-07:00

We had plans to take Pari to her grand-grandmother. It took us about seven hours to reach Chamba. I was worried that she will be annoyed with the curvy roads there, but she was sleeping peacefully most of the time.

Initially, she was a bit irritated by too many new people there, but she became agreeable after a days or so. I think she needs her own time to see new faces and get acquainted with them. But one thing is clear that she is not a typical people person.

She loved Naniji and was happy in her lap.

We also visited Khajiar, the mini Switzerland. It was nice, but Pari didn't quite like that outing. It was kinda humid and hot and evening sun seemed to irritate her.

Next day we planned to return. Apparently all this travel took a toll on her. She caught high fever on the way. Luckily we were carrying all our medicines, so things were under control. I just hoped to reach home as early as possible. But to add to our problems, one old bridge had collapsed due to heavy rain. We were rerouted through a bypass (which was made one way), which took about two hours extra.

As if that was not enough, it started raining just when we were back on the main route. It was about seven in the evening when the rain started and it rained cats and dogs all the way since then. It was too difficult to see anything. It looked like somebody is trowing buckets of water on the windscreen and in some places it became so foggy that visibility dropped to just couple of feets. Somehow we reached home after about ten hours of tiring (and adventurous) journey. What a trip to remember!

We both caught fever the next day. It was tough. I was fearing worse, but luckily she was normal in one day. We were ordered back to Hamirpur the next day. Papa and Ma (her grandparents) were furious over the trips we had been making with such a small baby... and I agree with them.

I am not going anywhere else for rest of our stay here.

:-(

fan of a fan

2008-06-02T12:05:00.000-07:00

We wanted some toys for her. We searched couple of shops and after a lot of discussions, I picked up this really cool and colorful musical gym for her. Well, I thought babies like bright colors and this gym looked just perfect for small babies. I myself was fascinated by those vibrant colors and I was pretty sure that she would love to play with all those cute toys hanging about there.

After returning home, we assembled the playgym and put her in it. I wanted to her to be overjoyed or something. But to my surprise, she was not at all interested in any of that. We tried to attract her attention to the bright green leaves, cute lil giraffe and other things, but she was not too keen on playing with those things.

She was too happy with the ceiling fan instead. In fact, after a while she started crying, since those dangling toys were blocking her vision and she was not able to see the fan. I tried to use this gym for few more days without much luck. After trying for two weeks or so I gave up on that gym thing.

I think we don't really understand her yet. Did I mention about this true love of hers before? Oh boy, She loves ceiling fans so much.... whether on or off. Whenever she is moved into any new place, first thing she tries locate is ceiling fan. And as soon as she gets to look at the fan, she gives it gorgeous smiles. Sometimes she is so happy that she actually giggles loudly. I fail to understand what's so attractive about the plain simple white ceiling fan. She is sooooo happy when she is playing with the ceiling fans. Sometimes even during crying, if she happens to spot the fan, she giggles a bit and then resumes her crying session. We have tried to distract her with fans n number of times and it has worked well every single time.

So ceiling fan it is! Looks like we are going to save a lot of money by not having to buy any of those fancy toys.

:-)

She fell down

2008-05-27T10:21:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was the most unfortunate day.

She got up early morning as usual and I decided to take her out in the lawn. Just when we came out of the house, our dog returned from his morning walk. Now this dog is pretty huge and he has habit of jumping on people.

He started jumping on us. I panicked and screamed and tried to back out. In this process, I fell down and she fell down as well. She fell down from the height of about one feet and landed on the back of her head.

:-(

There was no visible injury, neither any lump. She cried for about 2-3 minutes and then we could pacify her. She has been normal since then.

I hope she is ok. I am feeling miserable. If something happens to her, I wont be able to forgive myself.

:-((

She is talking!

2008-05-19T12:50:00.000-07:00

Heh, nobody can understand it for now, but it doesn't matter. She keeps speaking whenever she feels like and with whoever she feels like.

All these days, all she could do is cry. But now she can modulate her voice quite a bit..... And she is loving it!

New place, new people

2008-05-14T12:24:00.000-07:00

She had a bit of a problem to adjust with soring temperature in Himachal (yes, it's hotter than Bangalore) for first two days.

I think her mouth was getting dry frequently, since humidity levels are low here. So she started to use her tongue more often to moisten her lips. It gave all wrong signals. Everybody thought she was hungry, so I was sent to feed her almost all the time. it was quite tiring, since she used to drink a spoonful and then refuse to have any more. It took me a while to understand the problem.

I didn't want to use any lip balm etc, so I tried to use cream of milk. Heh, it didn't really help. As soon as I applied that on her lips, she used to eat it all. I tried to apply it when she was asleep, but she still used to suck it clean. Luckily it got better toward end of the week. Now she is no more feeling dry.

She is pretty happy here. It's a big house for one thing and there are too many things put on the ceiling. So she enjoys her play time. Dadu has got her a big red inflatable plane, which is tied to the ceiling and she loves to play with it.

I also take her out in the lawn in evening. It's amusing the way she stares at flower beds and roses and tall green mountains. Though I wonder if she is able to appreciate the Himachal beauty for now.

Lot of people had been visiting us to meet her and she has been handling all the crowd pretty gracefully. I make sure to put her in her bouncer and let her see them one by one. Boy, she gives real hard stares to new faces. Once she gets acquainted with them, it's easier to play with her.

The first long travel

2008-05-08T09:53:00.000-07:00

Bangalore to Himachal was a long long travel.

We discussed at length about the various options to reach Himachal, and all of them were ranging from highly difficult to totally difficult. I was planning for this trip since almost one month. Initially We had planned to take a train to Delhi and then to Chandigarh, since flight would have caused her earache. But we had to cancel all our bookings, since Doctor was not in favor of traveling before her first vaccine. I totally agreed with him.

But after that, there was no other choice but to travel by air. All trains were heavily booked due to summer vacations. Ahem!

Flight was peaceful, although it was fully packed and we were waiting on the runway for about one hour. There is no point cribbing about how-crowded-flights-are and how-late-they-get, since it's a known fact now. I think if a flight gets to even take off from any of the Indian airports, it's considered as a big win.

I was dreading her continuous crying on the plane (I have seen some babies do it before), but she was sleepy most of the time. And when she was awake, she amused herself with the small knobs and lights on the overhead compartment.

We were to take car from Delhi to Himachal, which ended up being a sort of adventure trip for me. To begin with, she felt too hot as soon as she got into the car (thanks to Delhi heat). Soon after that, she felt uncomfortable due to the air conditioner blowing straight on her face (I didn't realize that for quite some time). Then she needed a nappy change and after that she was hungry. And all this kept happening in a loop for the most part of our journey.

Doing anything related to baby in a running car needed highly acrobatic skills. And she was not used to getting things done in a small bouncy congested place, so we had to stop the car whenever she cried for something. After numerous halts and uncomfortable tossing and turning (Himachal roads have too many turns) we finally reached home. It took us about 12+ hours.

Note to myself - never try to feed a baby in running car.

Nappy blues

2008-05-02T10:27:00.000-07:00

As per this, We will need to change 6000 nappies. It looks like this year I will be changing nappies most of the times. It's not just about changing a nappy.... I need to change her wrappers (most of the times she is wrapped in two wrappers so that she should not feel cold) and also the bedding. And when she is sleeping, all this needs to be done in couple of minutes, or else she wakes up and starts crying. It reminds me of the way F1 car tire change happens.

;-)

You would wonder why I am so particular about nappies when more convenient diapers (disposable, ah!) are easily available. Well, It's not me... both the moms (mine as well as Aaditya's) are insistent about nappies since beginning. I am strictly told not to use diapers at all.

I did try to use diapers when we had to take her out.... but Pari didn't like it at all. The very first time she cried so much that we had to remove her diaper. Since then she either wets it as soon as I put it on or cries so much that we have to remove it.

:-)

She is a big trickster.

Dad's new ultra cool dumbbell

2008-04-28T06:55:00.001-07:00

Aaditya has got into muscle building nowadays. He has got this new ultra cool dumbbell. It has got some amazing features.

It's self-adjusting dumbbell. When he got it new, it was 2.5kg and since then the weight is increasing steadily.
It encourages (sometimes forces) him to try various poses, thus causing each specific muscle to experience the weight.
It has made it mandatory for him to exercise everyday. He has to exercise whenever dumbbell feels like.
The duration of exercise is decided by the dumbbell (and not by Aaditya), so this makes sure that he gets enough muscle movements.
Each session at least lasts for about 15 minutes, and he can't stop in the middle.
Dumbbell makes really loud noise if he stops exercising in the middle.
He has to walk around while working on this dumbbell. That makes sure that he gets enough exercise for his feet.
It also makes sure that he does the right movements. When he is doing it right, dumbbell makes purring sounds and sometimes even smiles at him. That makes it all worth it.

You must be wondering if Aaditya really likes doing all this. On the contrary, dumbbell is so cute, that he can't get enough of it. He gets up early morning (some times even in the middle of the night) to work with the dumbbell. He is loving it.

Those who have seen him before would agree that it is doing lot good to his muscles. I will try to post a picture soon.

Are you interested in such Obsessive Compulsive Dumbbell?

Mom bonding

2008-04-26T12:26:00.000-07:00

Guys who smoke can vouch for how much smoking helps in male bonding. Similarly having delivered a baby helps in Mom bonding.

When I used to see all these expectant mothers before, I never cared so much. I am really bad at remembering dates. I don't remember any birthdays (except mine), so remembering their due dates was out of scope. I used to be like, "Ok she's going to go on leave soon".... "Oh, she's back already". But I was surprised when so many people called me up before my D-day to wish good luck and to give me tips.

Lot of new Moms especially called me up to tell me about to-dos and gave me some really valuable tips. Some females whom I had hardly interacted before stopped by my cubicle to talk to me and check on the general progress of the baby. It was just wonderful to bond with all those moms at work. It suddenly opened up a whole new network for me, which otherwise was not possible.

I must admit that I used to get bored to death when people talked about their kids on lunch table. I used to wonder how those females can talk only about their kids (and in-laws and sometimes husbands) all the time. But when you are expecting, the whole perspective changes.

It was sort of paradigm shift for me. Nothing helps like "cribbing" when you are expecting. And you need another first-time-mom to crib about your problems. I felt so close to them. We could share our experiences, crib about the pregnancy blues, exchange notes on important tests, crib about labor pain and generally talk a lot about the whole baby-growing-business. Talking to other moms doesn't really help, since they had been-there-done-that long before (and thus forgotten most of the painful stuff).

All I can say is, I found some really good friends during this time. I hope our friendship grows along with our babies.

:-)

Geek name

2008-04-17T06:52:00.000-07:00

LOL

Details

2008-04-15T14:12:00.000-07:00

Babies are kinda scaled down models.

Tiny fingers, tiny toes, tiny nails.... they even have lines on their palms. It's amazing to see all the tiny details.

And they do have teeth (I mean sort of). Their gums are shaped in the shape of teeth. Check this out...

And they can bite pretty hard.... trust me!

Identity crisis

2008-04-12T10:58:00.000-07:00

Pari used to play a lot with Aaditya. In fact, it was her favorite past time (when she is not sleeping, or gulping milk, or littering, or crying, or ....). They used to talk for minutes together (she gets tired of it too soon) in weird "khoo khoo" language and scream at each other. Whenever She spotted him close by looking at her, she used to give him dazzling smiles. They had good time playing kinda kick boxing game - where she used kick his palms with her hands and feet (and not vice versa).

Yesterday Aaditya decided to get rid of almost all of his facial hair, since it used to irritate her. Due to his long hair, it was difficult for him to burp her, since his hair used to tickle her on her face. So he shaved his beard and mustache, and I gave him a short hair cut. That's considerable hair loss, if you had seen him earlier. Check out this pic if you hadn't.

Everything was hunky dory, until he tried to play with Pari the usual way. Forget about playing with him, she didn't even care to look at him twice.

LOL.

By now, she is pretty clear about who her folks are. She knows her mom and her papa really well. Poor Gnu, he had to work on her for two whole days to make her realize that he is the same old Papa.

Things are back to normal since today.

She got a bouncer!

2008-04-08T14:27:00.000-07:00

Today we got her first toy... a bouncer with a vibrator.

She seems to like it a lot. Vibrator works great as a baby pacifier and she sleeps quickly in the bouncer. I think she must be getting a feeling of sleeping in a lap. Aaditya said it's one of the best purchases we made in a long time, and I couldn't agree more. It saves us so much effort to put her to sleep.

But considering how sharp she is, it won't take her long to realize that she is not really in a human lap.

I dread the day when she figures that out.

:-P

Big round eyes

2008-04-08T09:49:00.000-07:00

When I first saw her brown eyes, I fell in love with them. She used to sleep most of the time during first few weeks. And I wished to see her awake to be able to see her big round eyes.

Not any more.... Now we pray that she would close her lovely eyes and sleep for a while. I think those eyes look most beautiful when she is asleep. I bet all parents would agree to this. Babies look beautiful when they are sleeping.

:-D

she is sick

2008-04-05T04:06:00.000-07:00

It's painful to see her cry her heart out.

When babies are sick, you feel so helpless. For one thing, she can't tell us what's wrong with her. It took us a while to understand that something is wrong with her. Doc said she seems to have colic problem and apart from that everything is alright.

Things seem to be improving since yesterday. I hope she is able to sleep peacefully tonight.

to burp or not to burp!

2008-04-03T09:37:00.000-07:00

.... is a serious question. Especially when your baby is not sleeping inspite of numerous feeds.

There comes a time, when baby gets tired of sleeping and keeps crying as if its the next best thing it has invented.

Putting-baby-to-sleep is a long and tedious process. And depending on mood of a baby (and also how much hungry it is), it might take forever. You need to feed and also might have to rock them gently towards end of the feed. One can never predict how much time it would take to feed a baby (it seems forever to me). I wish they could come up with some sort of milk indicator, which would show how much more milk is required to be fed.

Most of the time, she becomes limpid after a feed and goes to sleep promptly. In this first case, even if you jump around holding her, she would not really bother to get up. But sometimes (read one of those miserable days when she just won't sleep), she is in sort of trance.... something like half awake and half asleep state. Now that's a tricky situation. If you try to hold her upright and make her burp, it might (and in 99.99% cases it does) woke her up. And then you are back to square one. Ahem!

Yesterday was one of those days. Even after me trying hard, she didn't feel like sleeping the whole night. I was all groggy and wished that she had a mute button.

Aaditya was no help either (which he is usually not, when he is sleeping). Well, he does help me by playing with her in the day time, when he is not working or not reading slashdot or not watching futurama or ..... Ok, he does help me when he is working late..... which comprises mostly of following dialouges,

Oh God, why is she crying so much? (I wish I would know)
I think she needs milk. (she doesn't have much choice, does she?)
hmmm, something is definitely wrong with her. (ah, my dear Sherlock holmes!)
Did you make her burp? (ahem!)
Oh tiger, you need to learn to change her nappies fast enough. (argh! I prefer it, when I am changing nappies alone.)

But when he sleeps, it's a different story. That way he is pretty consistent. You know what to expect when it comes to dealing with gnu. So as I was saying, yesterday he was snoring right next to her. I tried to calm her down by various means, but things were not in good shape. Occasionally, he did get up due to her high volume (which happened only couple of times). so he got up and cooed something like "oh, baby! what's the matter?" or "why are you crying so much dear?" or something to that effect. He then tried to focus around and upon finding me, proclaimed loudly "Oh Man, I am so sleepy!". And he promptly got back to sleep.

As if sitting up whole night holding a bellowing baby is my hobby.

Top 3 things she likes to do

2008-03-27T10:36:00.000-07:00

It's a short list..... (because, all she does is sleep-whole-day). But she still manages to get some time to do few other things, in spite of her "busy" routine.

So here goes the list,

1. sleep (no guesses)
2. gulp milk
3. bath

Well, she also cries and screams whenever she feels like protesting, but I hope that she doesn't like doing it.

Hmmm, Considering how happy she gets when warm water is poured on her body, "bath" should top this list. She thoroughly enjoys her oil massage and bathing sessions. I am pretty sure she will love to play in sea waves too.

/me is planning to take her to a beach as soon as she grow up a little.

Transmogrifier

2008-03-25T10:55:00.000-07:00

I had entered a transmogrifier. It made loud "Zap" sound alright, but that's the only right thing it did. I don't know how, but I am turned into a "milk vending machine".

I think I need to find the duplicator ASAP.

Help!!!

Whats in the name?

2008-03-20T09:11:00.000-07:00

It's going to be a month since she is born, and we still have no clue about what she should be named.

I got fed up calling her baby after 2-3 days and gave her a pet name for a time being - Pari. I hope she likes it.

:-)

Meanwhile, I am frantically googling for a name, which would fancy both of us. We want a name which would be
1. unique (ok, kinda unique)
2. exotic
3. easily pronounceable by most of the world (must)
4. meaningful (if possible)
5. not too long
6. not too short
7. geeky
8. 1337
9. easy with her surname - Sood

Ok, the list seems to be never ending. It's kinda hard to fancy both of us. Any way, with all this in mind, I tried to search for a name. Usual baby name sites are good, but the names they provide don't meet 7 and 8 criteria. There are some weird sites as well, which generate names randomly.

So far we have got only couple of names. I am still contemplating over "Python". Then there would be three of us - gnu, tiger and python.

:-P

Damn, never thought that it would be so difficult to name a person after all.

Hello World!

2008-02-28T13:25:00.000-08:00

Oh, I am soooo sweet!

2008-01-31T23:46:00.000-08:00

I have become too sweet nowadays.... no kidding!

My sugar readings were showing astronomical figures. So doctor told me to do GTT test and I totally despised it. To be frank I hate to do any kind of blood test... can't stand that oh-my-blood-is-being-suck feeling or for that matter any injection. And this GTT was especially horrible. They keep you hungry throughout the test, make you drink yucky glucose and take out blood 4-5 times. I fainted when they tried to draw blood third time.

:-(

Since I could not do GTT successfully, doctor told me to get admitted, so that they can test and control sugar levels. To be frank, I preferred getting admitted than doing GTT all over again. Yes, if you eat anything in between the GTT test or vomit all that stupid glucose, you need to do it again from the scratch. I found this test too cruel for the mankind.

So, as I said, I pulled myself together and decided to get admitted to the hospital. I went on a small shopping trip to help myself feel better (LOL, yes, it works!). Since this was the first time I was going to be admitted in a hospital, I was pretty nervous. I thought I should try to be cheerful, so I wore a nice black gown, put on my new lipstick (which I bought a day before) and got admitted.

LOL.

It looked like I was a bit too cheerful there. Since I was not really having any problem, they didn't give me hospital gown. So there I was.... all dressed up with that long lasting lipstick (gah! it stayed for whole 3 days), while all other female patients looked gloomy and sad with sort of bad hair day. Note to myself - never put on a long stay lipstick when you are going to be admitted.

Ahem!

Any way, I was put on insulin shots thrice a day to control the sugar. I hated everybody there - nurses who took my sugar readings, nurses who pricked me with insulin injections and the doctor who made me go through all that.

After three days the reading were bit low, but still on the higher side. I am diagnosed with Gestational diabetes., which disappears after delivery. I am told to continue taking insulin and check sugar thrice a day until delivery.

:-(

Boooohoooo! why don't they invent something which can show sugar reading without pricking people and why can't they invent insulin which can be gulped down? The only relief was that there is kind of insulin pen available, which can be used instead of injection. In a way, I should be grateful that this sugar problem was detected only during the last month. I will need to do this for about one month now.

I am so much waiting for the baby to come out.

We saw the baby

2007-08-28T06:45:00.000-07:00

Today we did recording of the ultrasound scan. It's amazing to see something moving (read squirming) inside your tummy.

Doctor was helpful in making us identify the various body parts. She took about an hour to check all the parts and explain about them to Aaditya. I think he enjoyed the whole episode, but my neck started paining towards end of the session, since I had to tilt my head sideways to look at the screen. I wish they had two monitors so that Moms can see it without hurting their necks.

The baby was visible pretty neat. We could even count her fingers. She was moving her hands and feet most of the time. Also she kept her palm near her chin once or twice, as if she is thinking hard about something. I wonder if babies can hear us talking outside. She would be really amused to hear us commenting on her - "Awwe, look at that tiny foot", "Oh, that's the spine", "OMG, it's putting it's hand in the mouth".

The heart beats were really loud and fast, as if some fast train is passing on the overhead bridge. It's amazing the way Docs can check the fetus growth and calculate it's weight using ultrasound. Doctor also gave prediction about the due date. It's going to be 27th Feb 08.

We opted for recording of the scan. Doctor also showed us 3D scan. The whole baby was pretty much visible in 3D, though she didn't reveal if it's a girl or a boy. In India, Doctors are not supposed to reveal the gender of the baby. So the recording was mainly consisting the upper parts and face. Baby has a round face (like me) and a big nose (like Aaditya).

Yooohooo, we saw the baby!

Knowledge is the power

2007-08-20T12:32:00.000-07:00

After the first visit to the hospital, we got all busy with our things.

Doctor had prescribed couple of tablets, which I was gulping everyday. My nausea was getting worse day by day. Things were pretty bad, so much so that I stopped stepping inside the kitchen altogether. But that was not end of it. I could now smell things being cooked in other flats as well... and it was not pleasant at all. Aaditya suggested I could work as a police dog part time.

LOL.

We tried to hire cooks, but the way they cooked made me more sick. The place we rented, had very few restaurants nearby. The traffic on Sarjapur Road was not helping either. If we decided to eat out, it used to take about 3-4 hours. I switched to ordering food, but it just meant that every meal became kinda gamble. I used to order stuff and hope for something edible to arrive. It's hard to imagine taste with the description they provide on the online menu card. The pictures don't help much either. It's never wysiwyg.

Food was becoming a major problem. It made other things look trivial for a while. One fine day, I realized that it's been long since I had visited my Doc. When we went to the hospital the next day, she seemed a bit amused by me. Apparently, I was supposed to meet her every month regularly, which I didn't know to start with. I was hoping that she would give me a sort of time line or something to follow. Now the problem was that we missed a critical ultrasound scan (Nuchal scan), which had to be done before 14th week. I was totally psyched (and annoyed with the doctor) when I realized what that test was supposed to be for.

After reaching home, I started reading on all the stuff related to pregnancy. I downloaded pregnancy calendars for five different sites, so that I would not miss any other things.

In the process of understanding the tests, I had to read up lot of other stuff, which was not pleasant at all. The more I got to read about the problems, more worried I got about the whole thing.

After a certain point, I decided to stop reading all such stuff... too much knowledge is not so good after all.

Long long ago

2007-06-29T11:17:00.000-07:00

I don't remember myself planning for a baby, so when every other thing in the house started smelling weird, it took me by surprise.

I blamed it all on the new house we shifted in recently. I made my maid clean the house couple of times. I tried to use room freshener. But nothing much helped. I hoped my nose will soon get used to those horrible (it was actually a smell of newly varnished wooden cabinet) smells of kitchen cabinets.

But gradually it got worse. In another week, I started vomiting every time I entered my kitchen. Now not just cabinets, but all the pots and pans started smelling revolting. So Aaditya insisted that we see a Doc. I was reluctant in the beginning, thinking that even this shall pass, but finally I had to go.

Yoohooo! and the doc confirmed that a baby is in the making. OMG, a baby inside me! I was happy... in fact it felt like some kinda lucky draw gift. Was I overwhelmed with the joy? Ummm, not really.... I managed to continue with a cool and calm composure.

So the countdown had started.