Ishaan is growing up fast

Ishaan has made very good progress in past one month.

Teething : His top two teeth are almost out and now we can feel the bottom two teeth as well. He is very much interested in different types of food now. He comes to eat/taste whenever he sees us eating. Besides his regular food (fruits, veggies, khichdi), we have offered him pizza, methi/stuffed paratha, cheese, some snacks, cake, chocolate, ice cream and some indian sweets like shera, lapsi, etc. He has liked most of the things. We have noticed though that he likes spicy food.

Walking : About a month back Ishaan was just taking 2-3 baby steps, but since last week, he has started walking like toddlers. If he falls down, instead of crawling, he gets up on his own and starts walking. So, walking has now become his primary means of getting from one place to another. I am happy because he is growing up and achieving milestones. Walking also means less torn pants (Yes !! he has torn 4 pants in 1 month - all torn at knees). However, this also means it is going to be difficult to hold him in one place for some time. Gaurav and I are afraid of how we will contain him in the small space in the airplane on our upcoming trip to India in January - we just burst out laughing every time we try to think about it. God save the fellow passengers :)

Talking: He says words like JheJhe, mummy, mamma, mummum, dada, daddy, baoon (for balloon) and lots of other sounds. I don't think he knows what mummy/mamma or daddy/dada means yet because he just randomly says them. Sometimes, it also feels like he says 'Kavya'.

Kavya's fascination with baby in tummy

Over the past year or so, Kavya has seen many pregnant ladies including myself. Our explanation for Kavya has always been that there is a baby in the tummy. When the baby will grow up, it will come out. Kavya is so fascinated by this that she often pretends to have a baby in her tummy by hiding her doll or some other toy underneath her T-shirt :). She then brings it out and says my baby is now out :). The other day she took off her doll's clothes and explained that when baby is born, it does not have any clothes on - that is why she took them off :).

This past weekend, Pritesh-Shailee and Shashin-Avani came to visit bay area from San Diego with kids. All the kids were excited and were playing/fighting with each other. Kavya was playing Dora and Diego with Rishi. Then she put a doll under her tummy and said there is a baby in her tummy. Then she brought her out and she and Rishi were pretending to be the baby's daddy and mommy :)

Next day, Rishi told Pritesh that Kavya had a baby in her tummy and that he was the baby's papa :)

When I heard this from Shailee, I knew that I had to put this up on the blog so that I can see Kavya and Rishi's reaction 10-15 years from now if/when they read this.

Kavya (3 years & 11 months) & Ishaan (10 months)

Kavya will turn 4 next month and Ishaan is almost 10 months. These past 4 months have been very busy - full of different activities and festivals (Rakshabandhan, Navratri, Diwali and Halloween) .Summer is now over and we will need to be even more creative to keep the kids busy indoors.

Ishaan learnt to crawl like its supposed to be. He also started standing up with/without support. This past week, he started taking first baby steps. Although he still prefers to crawl, he does take 2 to 6 baby steps few times a day. So, he should start walking pretty soon now. We are very excited and are looking forward to see him running around the house :). He has also started climbing stairs. He continues to be very active. Two of his top teeth are visible and almost ready to grow out. He likes to eat our regular food over his own crushed veggies and khichadi. The other day he ate almost quarter of methi paratha. He also likes fruits such as apple, orange, grapes and banana. He is getting smarter and mischievious day by day.

Kavya is getting better at reading and writing. Her handwriting (mainly upper case letters) is improving day by day. She likes to do small exercises/puzzle like connecting the dots, tracing letters, coloring based on numbers, matching/pairing, finding path in a maze, etc. She can count to 100 in English and to 50 in Gujarati. When she is busy with her own activity like coloring, playing on the computer, building something with lego blocks, etc, she does not like Ishaan coming anywhere near her - she immediately starts shouting :) We have to plan to keep her busy in different activities - otherwise its like 'Empty mind is devil's workshop' :-) Sometimes she is the world's most caring and loving sister and at other times, she is a jealous 4 year old who makes faces and tries to hurt the little one by pushing or holding him tight :)

With two active kids, weekends are more busier than week days :-)

Here are some of their pics :

Ishaan's first teeth

For past couple of weeks it seemed like Ishaan will be getting his first tooth any day now. And today, we saw two of his top teeth ready to come out. The border of both his teeth is clearly visible in his gums and the teeth itself are also showing.

Never knew that these milestones will be as exciting and fun for second kid as it was for the first :-)

Milestone : Ishaan has started taking baby steps

Ishaan has been standing on his own without support for few seconds for over a month now.. But today, he started taking 2 to 4 baby steps at a time.. Actually, he did it once yesterday, but we thought it might be just a one off thing. But today, he did it again and we got him to repeat it quite a few times.

It is so exciting to see him achieve one milestone after the other. Although he is going to be little devil once he gets fully mobile, we are very happy.

Kavya is getting creative with Lego

Kavya has been playing with lego for over couple of years now.. However, lately she has become very good at it. She is making some complex structures and sometimes you can even see symmetry in them. Not only she creates what comes to her mind, but she is also looking at designs on the lego box and creating house, fish, etc. Here are some of her creations..

Kavya's funny response

આજે હું કાવ્યા ને સ્કૂલે થી લઇ ને ઘરે આવતી હતી ત્યારે એને કાર માં બેઠા બેઠા એના art work માં લગાવેલી marshmallow ખાધી. મને ખબર પડી એટલી હું એની પર ગુસ્સે થઇ કે glue વાળી marshmallow ખવાય? પછી મેં એને પૂછ્યું "કાવ્યા, તું કેમ બગડી ગઈ છું ?" એને prompt જવાબ આપ્યો "મારી battery (cell) ખલાસ થઇ ગઈ છે ને એટલે." I could not control laughing - It is very funny to see how she applies the concepts and ideas from her toys to herself without considering the difference between living and non-living things :)

Kavya and Ishaan : Getting along ?

The ideal answer to this question that would make everyone happy is yes, ofcourse !! But the real answer is yes and no :-) That means that Kavya becomes the most caring and loving sister some times and at other times, she just gets jealous and tries to hurt Ishaan.

When she is a good sister, she makes Ishaan laugh, offers him toys, even lifts him and brings him to me or Gaurav, feeds him, entertains him, plays with him, hugs and kisses him and becomes very happy when Ishaan smiles or does something and even helps us out with Ishaan by either fetching things for him or watching him for few seconds.

When she is not so good and caring sister, she will take things away from Ishaan, push him, scold him, hold his hand or head really tight or make faces at him. Once or twice, we even saw her stepping on Ishaan. It is really hard to explain her not to do that without getting mad at her. She even scribbled on his hair-less head with chalk the other day :-)

Hopefully, as Ishaan grows bigger, they will start playing together. There will be still be fights, but not the jealousy type.

Weekend full of fun activities

This past weekend was full of activities. It started with Kavya's swimming classes on Friday evening. Saturday morning, Kavya and I went to watch Disney on Ice Princess classics show at HP Pavilion with other friends and their kids. Then on Saturday evening, we all went to the park - with Kavya on her bike and Gaurav and Ishaan on Gaurav's bike. It was lot of fun. Then on Sunday morning, we went to the Uesugi pumpkin patch in Morgan Hill with Anu, Naresh and little Anirudh. It was our first experience of a pumpkin patch. We all took a train ride and Kavya also enjoyed the carousel.
Then in the evening, I took Kavya to her classmate Drew's birthday party at Pump It Up. Junior in Sunnyvale. Kavya had lot of fun jumping and going up and down the slides there. The day ended with pizza from Papa Johns.

What a weekend it had been - full of activities !!

Ishaan's first experience of formula

Ishaan is already 9 months old now. I have been thinking for almost past couple of weeks to start giving him formula once or twice a day. While this was technically not the first time he was having formula - he had it during his first week after birth and then couple of times during emergency situations when we were out, I was very skeptical about it since I had heard about the experience of couple of other folks whose kids had refused to take formula after getting used to mom's milk and even to the extent of throwing up.

Finally, today I offered him formula for his late afternoon milk time.. I just offered him 2 oz at first.. but to my surprise and relief, he took it without any problem.. and when he finished it all, he started crying; asking for me. So, I gave him 3 more oz and he drank all of it too. So, the plan is to start giving him formula once a day and gradually increase it to two times a day.

Somehow I am feeling little bad in giving him formula.. but at the same time I am happy and relieved that he did not have any problem with formula.

Ishaan's first ride with Daddy on his bike

Gaurav has been taking Kavya with him on bike rides for a while now. Today, he wanted to see if Ishaan would sit and enjoy a bike ride with him. First, we did a small trial round around the community. Ishaan seemed to be doing fine. So, we decided to go on a longer ride to a near by park. Kavya rode on her bike and Gaurav and Ishaan were on Gaurav's bike and I was on foot walking/running with them as needed.

Overall, it seemed like Ishaan was enjoying. He cried only two times - first when Gaurav rode over a small ditch and Ishaan was scared of the sudden jerk and the second time was when he heard a dog barking in the park and he got scared :)

We are now looking forward to more bike riding experiences with Ishaan - even considering to finally buy a bike for me :)

Kavya's love for bed time stories

Our everyday routine is that sometime between 9 and 10 pm, I will take Ishaan and feed him and put him to bed, while Gaurav will take Kavya and get her to brush her teeth, get her to change to night dress, read her a story or two and then put her to bed (and most of the times, go to sleep in the process :-) ).

Today, Gaurav got some dental work done. So, he had some pain in his teeth and hence could not talk. So, I was explaining Kavya that she should be a good girl and not trouble daddy since daddy has pain in his tooth and cannot talk. On hearing that, Kavya started crying. When we asked her what happened she said she wants to hear story before going to bed. Gaurav and I started laughing - Kavya had thought and interpreted so much and she looked so cute when she was crying for such a silly reason :)

Kavya's 1st rangoli

This Diwali, I really wanted to do a rangoli with Kavya. I got some colored sand (US equivalent of Rangoli colors :-) ) from Michael's and then was wondering how/where to do it. I did not have the time to do a big one on the patio and I figured that if I did a smaller one, Kavya will get somewhat frustrated if she cannot fill the color within the rangoli design properly.

Finally, I decided to just let Kavya do it on a paper. I printed out some cool rangoli designs from the web. Then today, I set it all up for Kavya. I poured the colored sand in 4 bowls and gave her the paper with the design. To make sure that she does not get frustrated, I decided to use some glue. So, I first applied glue to some part of the design and then asked Kavya to put sand over it. I then helped her to clear out the unwanted sand that was outside the rangoli pattern.

It turned out to be pretty quick and neat. I enjoyed it and Kavya did a good job too.

Kavya's first bingo/housie experience

Today we had a Diwali gathering with the godfather family at Amit-Pooja's place. After the lunch, fireworks and picture session, we played housie/bingo. Kavya was excited and wanted to play. So, Gaurav bought 2 tickets (one for himself and one for Kavya). Amit gave a crayon to Kavya and we explained her that she needs to circle the number that I call out.

The game started and as we started calling out numbers, Kavya was carefully marking the numbers in her ticket with Gaurav's help. Very soon, Kavya stood up saying she got one of the 3 rows. She won 2$ for it. She came happily to claim the prize and I asked her to go back dancing and she did :-). She won one more prize for full house towards the end. Another 4$ win. She was very happy. I am sure she is going to remember this experience for a while.

Curriculum Night at Kavya's school

Today I went for Curriculum Night at Kavya's School. I wasn't sure what to expect, but it was really good. Her teachers had basically laid out the toys/tools and different activities that they will be using during the entire year for learning. This included different activities/tools provided by 'HandWriting without tears', easy reading books, coloring/learning sheets, etc. The teachers explained how they would use those to teach the kids. The goal is to have the kids write the upper case letters clearly by the end of this school year.

It feels good to know what Kavya is going to be learning throughout the year and how. It also gives us an idea about what we should work on at home.

Recently, I bought an activity workbook for her that she loves doing. It has activities like matching, spotting the difference, connecting the dots, finding the right path, coloring based on the marked number or color names, tracing, etc.

It is fun to watch her grow and learn new things.. but it is also scary in a strange way..

Dandia 2009 - Kavya in the news :)

We were debating if we all should go for garba this year or if Ishaan and Gaurav should stay at home while Kavya and I went with friends. Since Gaurav does not like garba too much, he was in favor of staying home with Ishaan, but I really wanted them to come. So, we decided to go this one time and see how the experience is with Ishaan. We went to the Sankara Eye Foundation (SEF) garba in Santa Clara Convention Center on Sept 19th. It was Ishaan's first garba experience and he did very well. He went to sleep on the way to the event and continued to sleep for a while. But the music was too loud. So, he woke up quite a few times.. The good thing was that he did not cry.. although he was not in good mood either. But Gaurav would just hold him and rock him or do some dandia and he would go back to sleep. No fuss - No crying. I was really happy and surprised. I got to do some garba and Gaurav and I also did some Raas (Dandia). Kavya also danced a little and participated in the choo-choo train. So, overall, it was fun. And Ishaan was cooperative enough to give us courage to go one more time this season :)

So, we went to the Bay Area Vaishnav Parivar garba in Fremont on Oct 2nd. We reached little late since it was Friday - So, we got little late is leaving home and then we had to go to Dharti's place for dinner. While this was a much smaller place and crowd, Ishaan did not cooperate very well here. He cried quite a bit and Gaurav had to take him outside the hall and make him sleep. Kavya and I could do some garba, but after Ishaan woke up the second time, we decide to leave. Even though we were there for a short time, Kavya made it to the news (She is in the 3rd picture from the top - wearing orange/brown chaniya choli )

Hopefully, we will be going for more garba/dandia in next couple of years.

Ishaan is crawling like its supposed to be..

Ishaan started to crawl as if he was swimming on the floor. As a result, he had already tore couple of his new clothes by rubbing them against the floor while crawling. However, now he has learnt to crawl like its supposed to be. I hope he does not get too comfortable with crawling like Kavya did. Kavya started to crawl at 6 months and got so good and fast at it that she did not have any motivation to learn to walk. She started walking at almost 14 months.

Cookie baking project

I had been thinking of baking some cookies with Kavya for sometime and it finally happened today. All of us were very excited. Gaurav and Kavya started by mixing the Betty Crocker Cookie mix and butter and egg. Then Kavya and I laid them out on the cookie sheet and even added M&Ms to some of them.

Few minutes later, the cookies were warm and fresh and awesome. Ummm... very very yummy. I plan on doing more of cooking/baking projects with Kavya.

Ishaan is learning to self feed

For past couple of weeks, either Gaurav, Kavya or I would feed the finger food (those Gerber puffs) to Ishaan. However, since yesterday, he seems to be learning to self feed. He tries to hold the little pieces in-between his fingers and then attempts to put those fingers (and thus the food) in his mouth. This morning, out of 10 times, he probably did it successfully 9 times... Now, isn't that something ??

It's very funny to watch him while he does this because he does not have a very good grip yet and also he puts multiple fingers in his mouth and sometimes ends up with only fingers in his mouth while the food drops out :)

The best part is that this activity keeps him busy, so we can do some other work or eat while he feeds himself.

Video coming very soon...

Kavya pretends to be a baby ..

For most part, Kavya is out of the jealousy phase and seems to have accepted her little baby brother.. But end of one phase is only the beginning of another :) So, now is her new baby phase. She likes to pretend and be treated like a baby - just like Ishaan. Here are certain things that she does :

* When we go out for a walk in the evening, she would usually ride her bike and Ishaan would be in the stroller. However, for last few days, she would say that she is also a baby and hence she also wants to go in a stroller. So, we end up going with two strollers..
* She had started drinking her milk out of a regular mug with a straw, but now she insists on drinking out of a sippy cup and that too while lying in Gaurav or my lap - as if feeding a baby with a bottle.
* If I play peek-a-boo or something baby-ish with Ishaan that makes Ishaan smile/laugh, she wants me to do the same with her and when I do that, she also laughs.
* She wants to be carried around the house and upstairs for bed time just like Ishaan.
* She likes to eat Ishaan's finger food (those small Gerber puffs). If I give her some when I give those to Ishaan, she will quickly finish hers and then come to take all of Ishaan's. But lately, we have started telling her that she needs to be a good sister and not a mean sister and so she will eat some herself and also feed Ishaan some :)

Hopefully, she will grow out of this phase as Ishaan grows..

Milestone: Ishaan can climb stairs..

Ishaan is growing fast. Two days back, Gaurav saw him sitting on the 2nd step with Kavya and Kavya claimed that he got there by himself. Since we didn't see this with our own eyes, we were still in denial. Today, I was sitting at the top of the stairs (7 steps) and Ishaan was at the very bottom. Gaurav was standing right behind him.. and Ishaan started to climb - one step at a time to reach to me.. Couple of times, it seemed like he would fall, but he did just fine and made it to the top.

Gaurav and I could not decided whether to feel happy about Ishaan's new learning or to feel worried that we need to be constantly watching him now ? But I guess, since we were showing all of our teeth, we were happy and proud of our little bundle of joy!!

Peacful dinner at a restaurant with two kids.. really ?

Yes, today, Gaurav and I were craving for some nice zesty food. So, we became brave and decided to go to Chevy's - a Mexican Restaurant near by. It's not that we haven't been to any restaurant before with two kids, but the key word here is 'peaceful' :-) We decided to go little early, when Ishaan would take his evening nap. We called the restaurant and got ourselves on their wait list ahead of time so as to cut the wait time. We left home as soon as Ishaan started feeling sleepy and we got lucky, he went to sleep on the way. The wait time was only 2 mins. The next 45 mins were very memorable. We started with 'Guacamole by the table', and then went on to get Farmer's market Quesadilla and Veggie Enchiladas for main course.. Ummm.. awesome.. I had taken PBJ sandwich for Kavya - so she was happy. And to add to that, there was a balloon maker in that restaurant who made a nice little butterfly for Kavya. So, she went around with the butterfly. Ishaan slept through the main course and woke up when we were planning to get dessert. We still went ahead and got some fried ice cream and that was amazing too.. We came back home in little over 1 hour after enjoying a great dinner - something we hadn't really enjoyed in a long time...

Looking forward to next such dinner..

Ishaan's progress over the past 3 months

Ishaan is 7.5 months old now. Over the past 3 months, he has learnt to roll over, sit up, crawl (mostly on tummy), stand up while holding as well as get back to sitting position after being in crawl position. It seems like he will start walking soon. It is amazing how fast kids progress during the first couple of years of life.

Kavya's innocence

In the evening, we were having fun in the patio. When it was time to go in, we asked Kavya to wash hands and legs using the garden water pipe. Kavya held her hands and legs out for the wash and then we asked her to wipe her feet on the door mat. After wiping her feet, she realized that she needs to dry her hands too. So, she wiped them on the door mat too :-) Gaurav and I just burst out laughing on seeing her innocence.. Gaurav immediately remarked that we often forget, but she is still just 3.5 years old..

Ishaan can sit back from crawling position

Starting this week, Ishaan has learnt to sit back up from crawling position. So, now he can go from sitting to crawling to sitting very easily. It is fun to see him learn these new things and also see him tumble down sometimes in the process :-)

Ishaan has started to waive bye-bye

On Sunday evening we had some friends over and when they left, Gaurav noticed that Ishaan was also waiving bye-bye, but then thought it was just a coincidence. But Monday morning, when I was leaving for work and waived bye-bye to Ishaan, he reciprocated. I didn't realize this, but it caught Gaurav's attention. Since then, we noticed that Ishaan has started to waive his hand in response to the words 'Bye-Bye'. So, now at any time, if we say 'Bye-Bye Ishaan', he would smile and start waving his hands.. Its so cute..

We are getting excited and looking forward to all his new learnings (except running around :) )

Kavya (3 yrs and 7 months) and Ishaan (6 months)

Here I am with more updates on both kids. Kavya is little over 3.5 years and Ishaan is little over 6 months already !!

This past quarter has been very eventful for all of us. We did a long road trip in mid June to LA (Disneyland) and San Diego with both kids, Koki-ba went back to India in June, and then we also flew to NY two weeks back - first flight for Ishaan.

Ishaan started turning over when he was just a week shy of 5 months. And then just before turning 6 months, he started to sit without support for good amount of time. In past 2 weeks he has also started to crawl a bit - In Gaurav's words, he moves like a caterpillar - goes forward a bit and then gets back on his tummy and then goes forward again. We also started solid foods (rice and oat cereal) for him at 4.5 months and veggies just over this past weekend. He demands lot of attention and likes being carried around. If you put him down, he starts crying. He is very active and gets very restless easily. He likes to put everything in his mouth - almost seems like he will start teething soon.

Kavya is also growing up fast. She is learning to read and write. She can also identify all the car brands (Toyota, Honda, .. and more than 20 others ...) through their symbols. She likes to play and take care of Ishaan, but she still has some jealousy issues. She also does not like to share her toys and books with Ishaan - she would shout "No, don't touch.. that is mine, bhaiyu' :) Her English has improved a lot. For more than half of times, she now speaks in English and we have to remind her to speak in Gujarati. She had a blast at her first disneyland visit and at grand parents house in NY.

Looking back, it seems like Kavya was much easier to handle than Ishaan at this age:)

Here are some of their pics :

Kavya : School dilemma

Kavya has been going to Bright Horizons, which is like a school as well as day care since Sept 2008. She started out with only 2 days a week, then we increased it to 3 days a week in November and then 5 days starting April 2009. She took few months to adjust and get used to the school. Now she also has a good friend, Keya Shah, that she usually hangs out with.

We had planned to start her with Challenger school which has more academic focus from Aug 24 2009. We were determined because we were thinking that she is smart and so she needs more academic challenges than what Bright Horizons offers and besides, since we have been brought up with academic focus, that's bound to affect our thought process. Also, at Bright Horizons, she spends about 2-3 hours playing outside everyday (even in winters) that we did not like too much due to weather/health issues and also it came across as lack of academic activities.

Ever since we told her teachers at Bright Horizons that Kavya will be moving to Challenger in August, they had been suggesting that we reconsider our decision and that change is hard on kids and that Kavya is comfortable at Bright Horizon. But so far that did not affect our decision.

This week we got a letter from Challenger that the first month fees are due by August 3rd and then the reality sank in. We are seriously reconsidering if this is the right thing for Kavya as well as us at this time . Kavya and I went to Challenger yesterday to check it out again and I also wanted to see if Kavya likes it. She liked it but said that she wants to go there after she gets little bigger :)

Here are some of the thinking points :

As her teacher had mentioned, she is very well adjusted to the routine and place at Bright Horizons. Also, it took her so long time to get used to there. So, is she really ready for a change? Will she adjust to Challenger ? What if she takes such a long time again? Can we handle that struggle and resistance at this time with little Ishaan in the picture? Would it be better to let her spend one more year at Bright Horizon and let her get more matured and develop more understanding before making the move? Should we just let her enjoy as a kid before throwing her in the academic pressures?

Other minor point is also that they offer lunch at Bright Horizons, but at Challenger, I will have the added task of packing her lunch every morning. Do we really want to add more work in the fully-packed morning schedule at this time ?

Although not the most important thing, but Challenger will be overall about 300$ per month more expensive than Bright Horizons considering the flat fee difference plus the added tax benefit we get for Bright Horizons since it falls in day care category.

We are still discussing and reconsidering, but leaning more towards letting Kavya continue in Bright Horizons for another year. We will loose the $320 application fee + deposit at Challenger, but that's not a big deal at this time.

Any Thoughts? Suggestions? Comments?

Milestone : Ishaan has started 'crawling'

Starting this week, Ishaan has begun 'crawling'. He is not exactly crawling, but he moves a little using his belly, hands and legs and then rests on his belly and then moves again. Gaurav says he is moving like a caterpillar :).

Kavya is very possessive of her things and doesn't like it when Ishaan touches them. So, I can only imagine what will happen when Ishaan gets better at crawling and is fully mobile!! Oh.. the fun has just started :) ..

Milestone : Ishaan has started to sit up

Today, Ishaan has started to sit up without support. He can sit up for couple of minutes at a stretch and then he would either put his hands down for support or would just tumble down on the bed/carpet. Its so much fun to watch him achieve these milestones..

First Disneyland trip with kids

Last weekend we made our first long road trip with two kids and that too to a place where dreams come true - DISNEYLAND. We had been planning for this trip for quite sometime with Amit-Pooja and family and finally it happened.

We had been telling Kavya about this trip for few days before the trip and so she was very excited to meet Mickey Mouse. I also created some custom T-shirts so that all of us can wear the same color during our Disneyland visit and it could also be an early Father's Day gift and it worked out pretty well (as you will see in the pictures).

On Thursday, June 11, we left home around 4:00 pm and picked up Kavya from her school on the way to LA. Both the kids co-operated really well during the drive. The portable DVD player (that we purchased right before this trip) and the DORA DVDs were a big help. We had booked a hotel for 2 nights just 3 blocks away from Disney. So, we reached there around 11:00 after only 1 short break for dinner.

Next day, Friday June 12, we reached Disney around 10-11 am. We took some pictures and tried out some rides. Kavya was enjoying and Ishaan was also co-operative. We went to Toon's town to meet Mickey Mouse. Kavya and Mahek met Mickey and Mini (after waiting in long lines :), got their autograph and we continued to go for more rides. We got the FAST pass for couple of rides - so that helped. We also managed to watch the famous Disney parade both times. Kavya danced and jumped and had a blast during the parade. We were getting tired, but it wasn't dark yet. We wanted to go for the laser show, but there was no sitting or standing room.. So, we decided to just wait for the spectacular fire works. We just sat down in the middle of the road to have some food and then it was time for the fire works. That was the first day in the summer season for the fire works.. and it was realy grand. We also saw Tinker bell 'flying' up in the sky above the castle. By the end of firework, Kavya was already tired and cranky and went to sleep. Ishaan was also asleep before the fireworks started. The crowd was so vast that it took a while to move and get out of the park. We then waited near the guest drop-off area while Gaurav and Amit went to get the cars. We went back to the hotel and crashed..

Oh.. what a day it had been. Full of fun and excitement !!

Here are some of the pics :

Milestone : Ishaan started to turn over

We have been waiting for Ishaan to achieve this milestone for a while now since Kavya started to turn over a couple of days before she turned 4 months.. But Ishaan is not too far behind. He turned over quite a few times today - about 1 week before he turns 5 months. We are all very excited about it.

He doesn't like it on his tummy too much. So, he stays there for sometime (few seconds or couple of minutes) and then starts crying :-) Hopefully, he will soon get used to it.

Kavya is learning new things

It is getting difficult to keep up with all the new things that Kavya is learning these days. Here are some of her recent achievements :

Learning to write: She has started writing letters and numbers. As I have mentioned in one of the previous posts, she created her first birthday card and she enjoys writing her name a lot.

Learning to read: Our good friend, Niti, gifted two 12-book series of the famous "Dick & Jane" to Kavya. For past month or so, we have formed a habit of reading two of those books every night before bed time with Kavya. As a result, Kavya is very much interested in reading and can almost ready more than half of those books herself.

Learning to recognize car makers: Now that summer is here, we go for a walk or bike ride with Kavya in the evenings in our community. While doing so, we pass by a lot of different cars in the parking spots. So, we started teaching Kavya about the different symbols and the brand that they represent. In a short span of 1 week or so, she has started recognizing Honda, Toyota, Lexus, Acura, Ford, Audi, VolksWagon, Chevy, Mazda, Mercedez, Subaru, Nissan, Hyundai, Kia, Jeep, Dodge, Convertible, Hummer, Chrysler, BMW, Dodge, Saturn, Pontiac (some of which I didn't know before too :-)

Milestone : Start of solid foods for Ishaan

Ishaan had rice cereal for the first time today evening .. you can say that was his dinner :-) He took it really well. He was happy and didn't protest too much. Lets see how future feedings turn out to be.

This first feeding brought back some old forgotten memories of how messy the baby feeding projects can be :) I also remembered that we started solids for Kavya for the first time on 4/26/2006.

Cherry picking in Brentwood

Last year was the first time we went cherry picking and it was so much fun that we had to go again this year. So, we went cherry picking with friends today to the Lopez Cherry farm in Brentwood. We had a really good time.. will come back again next year.

Kavya's first dance performance

Kavya has been going to CLAP Art's Dance and Movement class in her school every Wednesday. Today was her first performance. Although it is hard for kids at this age to follow all the steps and instructions, it was lot of fun to watch Kavya. She likes to dance, just not as per the instructions :) Hopefully, she will get better at it.

Ishaan at 4 months

Ishaan is already 4 months old. He got his 4-month shots (1 oral and 3 injections in the thigh) today.. Poor baby.. But he seems to be doing well. Just cried when he was given the shots for a bit. He was OK afterward.

He is a delight to hold and play with. He has good head control now. He likes to sit up - either in your lap or with the support of a pillow. So, he is working on his back muscles now. No sign of rolling over yet, though.

He likes to play peek-a-boo with you. It brings a big smile on his face. He has also started to recognize people. So, as soon as he sees his daddy or mommy or grand ma, he will greet with a big teethless smile :)



He has started demanding lot of time and attention lately. He does not like to lay down and play on his own. He will do that for a minute or two and then start crying. So, one has to either sit there and play with him or hold/carry him.

On food front, he is drinking about 4oz milk every 3 hours. Good thing is that he is OK with any bottle and also latches fine. So, that is very convenient. He used to spit up a lot about a month back, but it has gone down a lot now. We will soon be starting solids (rice cereal) for him.

We are enjoying our time with little Ishaan. Everyone says, enjoy them while they are little. I am not at all looking forward to the running around and terrible two phase yet.

Kavya's first card

Kavya is gradually learning to write. Till today, we had only seen her write her own name and then few other letters here and there.

Today is Mother's day and Sheel's birthday. This afternoon, to keep her busy, Gaurav asked her if she would like to make a card for Sheel (a very good friend of ours). Kavya really likes Sheel - so she was very excited about it. So, Gaurav gave her a paper and on another paper suggested her what she could write on the card. To our surprise, Kavya copied exactly what Gaurav wrote : "HAPPY BIRTHDAY" on the front followed by SHEEL and KAVYA's name inside. She also went on to add some pictures like sun, flower, river, tree, etc.



Oh! what a cute first card. We were so proud of her.

Knowing what she was capable of doing, Gaurav asked her if she would like to make a card for mommy since it was also Mother's day... and my dear daughter just plainly refused :)

Dealing with sibling jealousy

Kavya has been pretty good with Ishaan from the start and so were thinking that we do not have the sibling jealousy issue. However, after couple of months, she started to show some signs of sibling jealousy - She would talk rudely or become very quiet. At first we weren't very sure if this was related to sibling jealousy, but then few days back, when Gaurav was trying to play with her while holding Ishaan, she explicitly asked him to go and put Ishaan down and then play with her. So, it occurred to us that we are indeed dealing with sibling jealousy ** sigh **

Often times, the issue is very evident when she suddenly starts behaving badly/talking rudely as soon as she sees someone (either me or Gaurav or Koki mummy) holding Ishaan. Infact, she thinks that Koki mummy is here only to take care of Ishaan.. and so she does not talk nicely with Koki mummy sometimes.. :(

We are trying our best to give her attention and involve her in different activities with Ishaan, but I guess it is still hard for her to accept this big change. I read on some site that imagine if your husband brought home some other woman pne fine day and said "Honey, I love you very much, but this woman is going to live with us now"..How would we take it ? It is a very similar situation for kids when they have a younger sibling. Since the younger sibling is not really playing or interacting yet, they see no benefit of having them around.

At least the good thing is that she is good with Ishaan. She also tries to play with him sometimes and hold him and help out in diaper changing, etc. Hopefully, she will get over the sibling jealousy phase soon..

Kavya (3 yr 4 months) & Ishaan (3 months)

Time is flying by really fast. Kavya is 3 yrs 4 months and Ishaan is 3 months old already.

Kavya has started full-time school. She still offers resistance at drop-off time, but after that she is fine. She is learning new things everyday She has started conversing more and more in English now and her vocabulary is also improving. Sometimes, her accent makes it difficult to understand what she is saying - These ABD kids.. (No..Not ABCD - Kavya is not confused - at least I would like to think so :) ). Lately, she enjoys riding her bike, coloring (she is getting good at it), working on her computer (mainly www.starfall.com and typing) and watching Dora and Mickey Mouse. She is learning to write now and has also started swimming lessons.

Ishaan has started responding and giving big and repeatable smiles. He has also started holding on to things. If you hold him side ways, he clungs on to your clothing or hair really tight :) When lying on his back, he pushes hard on his heels and 'rotates' in all directions. He is a big bundle of joy and fun to be around now. He likes to talk and often responds back when you talk to him. He observes things around him very keenly. He likes to blow bubbles and so I call him 'Bablu' :)

Kavya enjoys being around Ishaan - playing with him and feeding him. However, sometimes she also seems to be jealous - she doesn't say anything (probably because she is too little to realize that she is jealous), but you can sense that from her behavior - she will either become very quiet or upset or talk in angry tone. I am hoping that few months down the road they will play well with each other (of course with occasional fights).

Kavya and Ishaan are keeping us busy. But it is fun (and sometimes tiring too :) ) to watch them grow.

Kavya : Pretending to be a teacher

Kavya has started to imitate her teacher. In the evening, when we all sit and chat and watch TV, she will get a book and sit on a chair in front of us and pretend to be a teacher who is going to read us (her students) a story. If we talk to each other or watch TV while she is reading the story to us, she will get upset and yell "You are not listening. I will call Miss Mandy" :)

Today, surprisingly, she pretended to be Ishaan's teacher. She got her chair and ABC book and sat in front of Ishaan and started teaching him ABC. She probably figured that Ishaan would be a better student than we were and would pay closer attention to what she was teaching :)

Kavya : learning to write

Kavya is gradually beginning to write letters and numbers. She has been able to type her name and other things on a computer for a while now, but now, she is starting to write on paper. Some of her letters are upside down or backward.. but the important thing is that she is making the attempt. Here is a picture of how she wrote her name for the first time..

Ishaan : 2 months old today

Time really flies. Just some time back, we were eagerly waiting for Ishaan to arrive and today he is 2 months old already.

Past two months have been ... umm... interesting. While Ishaan is our 2nd kid, we had almost forgotten the experiences with Kavya at this age. So, this time is a good memory refresher.

Ishaan is a relatively good kid. I say relatively because each kid is different and some kids are easier in some respect than others. We are finding it somewhat easy to handle Ishaan than Kavya - now this could be due to multiple reasons - Foremost being we have been through this before - so 2nd time is usually easier. Also, right now Kavya is at a age where she demands much more of our energy and time than Ishaan. So, you just feel that handling Ishaan is so much easier :). Additionally, Kavya had colic during the first 3 months or so and so that had set our expectations really low with Ishaan.. but Ishaan does not seem to have colic. So, we feel happy and relieved about it.

Of course, like any other infant, Ishaan does have good and not-so-good times. He seems to be very impatient. When he is hungry, he has to have milk at that instant. And since we are bottle feeding him my expressed milk during the day, it takes 2-3 mins to heat the water and then warm up the milk in the water.. But Ishaan can't wait.. He will cry at the top of his voice till you put the bottle nipple in his mouth.. I wish he would understand that milk is only 2 mins away :)
The other problem is that he gets too gassy. No matter what I eat, he gets lot of gas and so sometimes it makes him so uncomfortable that he cries. He even wakes up due to gas sometimes.. Poor baby..

Other than that, he is a delight to hold and play with. He has now started smiling and when you see that smile first thing in the morning, you are sure to have a wonderful day ahead !

Kavya is still a kid - let her enjoy her childhood

Couple of days back, I was talking to my mama on the phone and he gave me an interesting advice. He said that just because you now have Ishaan, don't take away the childhood from Kavya by expecting her to be grown up. She is still a kid.

We have always been cautious about not letting Kavya feel jealous or feel left out after we had Ishaan, but my uncle's advice really made me wonder if we were guilty of expecting too much from Kavya.

We do expect her to behave properly and not be very naughty and understand when it is OK to do certain things and when not. But I want to think of that as discipline and teaching good manners and not really taking the childhood away. Even if Ishaan wasn't in the picture, we would have expected that. Or am I just thinking that because I don't want to feel guilty ? :) It is hard to decide.

Anyways, it is a very useful advice - something that will always come to mind when I expect too much from my little Kavya.

Kavya's pediatrician had also once mentioned something similar a while back - although that was in context of education. She said that when we look back at our lives, what we very fondly remember is our childhood because we have had fun at that age. So, don't burden your child with ABCs and 123s at an early age if they don't want to. Let them enjoy their childhood. They will learn ABCs and 123s sooner or later. How true ? Especially Indian parents have a mentality of teaching their kids everything early on.. but what we often times don't realize is that in the long schema of things, it does not really matter if they learn the ABCs when they are 2 yrs old or 4 yrs old.

Does dealing with 2 kids really take four times the effort ?

Before we had Ishaan, we had heard that with 2 kids, its not double the work, but its really four times the work. In a way, I disagree with that statement. Yes, it is certainly more work.. But not four times.. It may seem four times sometimes due to the nature of work.

So, how has my experience been so far ? Well, my experience is that we have to spend more time with Kavya than Ishaan and since Kavya is at an age where she kind of understands everything, but then has a mind of her own, it becomes extremely challenging to not loose patience and calm. For Ishaan, he needs to be fed and changed and put to bed as per his routine and thats pretty much it. He is now getting to a point where he is enjoying interaction and loves to talk and hence demands attention.

But for Kavya - we need to have her routine pretty much the same way as it was before Ishaan and also make sure that she does not feel jealous. So, for almost a month after we had Ishaan, Gaurav would spend most of his time with Kavya - trying to keep her happy and occupied while I took some rest to recover and took care of Ishaan's basic needs.

For most part, Kavya does not seem to feel jealous. Sometimes, she does want to be held and fed like Ishaan - but then what do you expect from a 3 year old ? She likes to be involved with Ishaan. Most of the times, when we need to change Ishaan's diaper, Kavya will run and get us the diaper and wipes. She also likes to hold Ishaan in her lap. She tries to play with him with rattle and other toys, but soon realizes that he is too little to play.

My advice for any parents who are even planning on having 2nd kid would be to keep the age difference to under 3-4 years. Yes, it will be little difficult for you in the beginning, but in the long run, the siblings will bond better - atleast that's been my experience growing up.

I am looking forward to few months down the road when Ishaan and Kavya will play together and then we will not have to worry about attention and jealously any more.. Of course, then there will be fights and new challenges :)

Kavya : Letter and Words Recognition

Kavya started to identify upper case letters when she was around 2 and then couple of months later she got the hang of lower case letters too. Although sometimes she gets confused between some of the letters like 'b and d', 'l and I', 'M and W', 'n and h' , etc even today.

Gradually, she started to recognize words without actually knowing how to read. I guess they see them as images. For example she could recognize the word "Google".

Recently, an interesting incident happened. There is a boy named "Om" in Kavya's class. Each kid has a cubie in their class with their name written on it. Few days back I was wearing a T-shirt that had "ibm.com" written on it. Kavya came to me and pointed at the last two letters of "ibm.com" and said that this is what is written on Om's cubie :). Gaurav and I were so surprised (and happy too) to learn how she could recognize Om.

I then came to know that she can recognize the written names of all her classmates. I took her ToysRUs few days later and showed her some custom water bottles that had some names written on it and she could identify ("read") all the names that were the names of boy/girl in her class.

It is really interesting and amazing to know how these kids learn things from their surrounding.

Kavya : It's the computer age

In today's age of computers, kids are learning to type before they learn to write. Kavya is no different. She can read/identify letters, but cannot write yet. But she loves to type on the computer. We would open up a notepad on our laptop and she will write her full name or just any garbage. In fact, she likes typing so much that every time she sees me or Gaurav with a computer, she would come running and demand to allow her to write her name.

About a month back, Kavya's use of a computer was limited to writing her name and typing some random letters. But then our good friend, Pooja, suggested a very good website for pre-school age kids (www.starfall.com). The website is very interactive and teaches the basics in a very fun and entertaining way. So, we introduced that to Kavya sometime in January 2009. Since the website is interactive, it requires good use of mouse and Kavya didn't really know how to operate a mouse. So, we did all the maneuvering for her and helped her navigate the site. She enjoyed it. We tried to teach her how to use the mouse couple of times when navigating that website, but she found it frustrating.

Meanwhile, interestingly enough, she got the hang of working with the mouse at her school. At her school, parents are required to check-in and check-out their kids using a computer everyday. So, when I dropped off/picked up Kavya, she insisted that she does the check-in/check-out process. In less than 3 days, she had good control of using the mouse.

Now that she could work with the mouse, she was comfortable navigating the starfall website herself without any help. Browsing the starfall site is now her favorite pass time. As soon as she comes home, she starts the computer and gets busy with the site. Often days, she does not want to get up for dinner or sleep time because she is busy with the site.

In a way, I am happy that she is learning good stuff using the computer and it seems to be much better than watching TV.. It also gives me some time to get some house work done while she is busy with the computer.. However, the downside is that she remains occupied with it even when we have some friends over - so it kind of interferes with her social life.. So, the key is to set rules and limits for everything.

Ishaan : 1 month old

Kavya : Innocence and Curiosity leads to comedy

Kavya had known but never really understood that she was going to have a baby brother. She basically did not understand the differences between a boy and a girl, although she could correctly identify who was a boy and who was a girl.

On January 14th, we came home with Ishaan. That day was the first time Kavya was seeing her little brother since we could not take her to the hospital due to cough and cold. She was very excited. She was eager to play with him and hold him in her lap.

Sometime later, we had to change Ishaan's diaper. So, we asked Kavya to get a new diaper and she went running to get a diaper. Gaurav removed the soiled diaper and put the new diaper under Ishaan while Kavya was carefully observing what daddy was doing. After a while, she got curious and pointed at Ishaan's penis and asked "Aa birdie jevu shu che?" (What is that birdie-like thing"?). We all burst out in laugher at her innocence and curiosity and most of all how she expressed her curiousity :)

Ishaan's first week into this world

How I entered the world of blogging ?

I have never kept diaries or notes of interesting incidents or trips in my life. However, after having kids, I felt it was important to capture some of the incidents that you can read later or share with friends and families.

The traditional way of maintaining a nice little diary was one option, however, it is easy to miss logging into the physical diary due to accessibility reasons or may be even misplace it. So, I thought of using the blogs as a means to save some of the fond memories.

I first started to blog using my dear daughter's blog as if I was Kavya, but then it was difficult to express my own reactions since I was writing as Kavya. Also, then I had Ishaan - and so I decided to use my own blog to capture both of their memories and also express some of my thoughts and concerns as I explore the world of motherhood.