About Summer Holidays, Life Changes, Other Updates and Such

• Mar 30, 2012: Lil N said goodbye to her teachers, akkas and the wonderful friends at her Montessori and Daycare for the last 2 years - Little Feat Montessori. She graduated with lots of memories and learning and ready to join her "big school" coming June. She and I made cute farewell cards for each of the teacher and akka who has touched her life here. 

• Mar 30, 2012: Same night, flew out to Bombay for a month long summer break with both sets of her grandparents. 
• Apr 13, 2012: Flew to Jammu (via Delhi) for the loooooong overdue trip to Vaishno Devi. 
• Apr 14, 2012: Jai Mata Di! Vaishno Devi darshan at last!!!
• Apr 15, 2012: Back to Bombay 
• Apr 18, 2012: Lil N and I set out to visit my dear bro and bhabhi in Pune (N's mama and mami)
• Apr 19, 2012: Visited my office in Pune, met the team face to face for the first time. N spent a memorable day chilling with her mami at home. Great bonding on both fronts :-)
• Apr 21, 2012: Drove to my parents home for us to spend quality time with them for a week. 
• Apr 28, 2012: Back to Bombay
• Apr 30, 2012: Back to Bangalore - Home Sweet Home after a month! Time for getting back to our routine and looking forward to new beginnings with new school and stuff.
• May 11, 2012:  Added a new member to our family - the oh-so-cute-cozy-soft-whitish-fawn lab pup. Born on April 8, 2012 - was about 33 days when he came into his new home with us. Lil N named him Simba :-)

• May 27, 2012: N and I decided to doll up her play room so that she can call it her own and even sleep there with Simba. This is a huge milestone for her and us as well. We bought a tonne of stuff for her bedroom that same day and she has happily slept in it ever since. (Just so I don't forget: This has been a very very gradual process. I had started training her to sleep by herself while in Bombay the previous month. She went from wanting me to be in the same room as her while she tried to sleep, then leaving the door open for a while, then me leaving the room after reading and kissing her good night. When we came back to Bangalore, the whole thing kinda regressed again and she wanted me to sleep with her on her bed which was on the floor next to ours. Then when Simba arrived, it regressed even more! She slept between us on our bed coz obviously if Simba walks on her or worse chews or bites her while she is asleep on her bed that was on the floor, it would be terrible. A week or two of these crazy sleep arrangements especially with Simba falling a little ill and us not having the heart to leave him outside our room, I had this bright idea of getting N all excited about "her room". Thankfully she took to that idea and we excitedly went shopping for her room with her - she literally chose everything and I promised to get her even more if she keeps her promise of sleeping in her room every day. Now I lie in her bed, read to her next to her new bedside lamp, on her new girlie pillows and kiddie bedspread,  kiss her goodnight and leave the room. She does wake up around 4am or so and call out for me crying - and that is when me (and sometimes me and my hubby both) bring our blankets and join her for our dose of baby cuddles until we wake up in the morning :-) The other promise she wanted was that Simba sleep in her room and we have been trying to get him into the habit as well. So far so good. Touchwood...knock on wood...kala tikka...whatever it takes :-))
• Jun 6, 2012: Her new school begins. Goodbye lazy mornings...sigh! 

Happy 3rd Bday My Child

My little baby turned 3 last week. Unlike the past 2 birthdays where we had a huge bash with all friends and family in town, we decided to keep it very cozy and close knit only with immediate family this time around. We wanted to take full advantage of the fact that now that we are in the same country, we can actually share such events with parents and let them have the joy of seeing their little ones grow too. So we booked a trip to Bombay and took a week off from work just so we can be with family.

We enjoyed seeing N bonding with her dada-dadi-bua, nana-nani and even took time out to visit my brother in Pune so that she could see her mama-mami and some of our cousins in Bombay and Pune. Overall nice quality time with family was spent and new memories of the child's 3rd bday were created. Her day started with a visit to the Ganpati temple with her mom-dad-dada-dadi and then cake cutting in the evening. Later we took her to McDonalds for dinner so that she could hog on fries and ketchup to her heart's content!

Got back yesterday and each of us had withdrawal symptoms of getting back to our usual grind this morning :-) The little one kept saying "I don't want to go to school" and "Mamma don't go to office" until she asked what was in her dabba. When I mentioned apples, she asked for cake. And when I actually agreed, she was overjoyed. She was thrilled at going to school with cake in her snack box and actually got ready in a jiffy. She surprised me by even saying her prayers without being prompted to (which is a never before activity btw). I have been saying the Gayatri Mantra with her each morning while starting our drive to school and she helps me finish it. Today she said the whole thing (obviously in her cute childish language) all by herself and pranced around to go to school. But then at the school gate, she actually had tears in her eyes when I dropped her there. I am sure she'll be fine in a few days time as she meets her friends that she has missed over the last 9 days. Already last night was a blast when she just refused to be separated from her best friend A and insisted we go out to dinner with them as well! So a nice Italian dinner was had - courtesy her friend A and our child N who refused to be separated on meeting each other after 9 long days! Another milestone of sorts was had last night when she actually kept her promise of not sucking her thumb if we took her out with her friend A with whom she so wanted to go to the restaurant. She surprisingly did not suck her thumb throughout dinner even though she got sleepy and tired by the end and kept saying "I want to go home and sleep" coz she knew she had promised not to suck her thumb at the restaurant. Even at bed time we insisted a little and she kept the promise well. I am proud of her for keeping her promise this time although it was very difficult for her.

May she grow to make herself and us prouder of her each day...each year...forever. Love you to bits my little one.

Before Amnesia Sets In - Part 2

I had written a post earlier on a few of the most frequently asked questions regarding baby care. Wanted to continue with the same thought process before I forget all these precious minute details again.

Weaning off the Bottle

I wanted to pen down one of the biggest accomplishments me and my little brat have made recently. We had been away to my in-laws and then my parents place over the last month for my bro's wedding. So I took this opportunity to turn my gradual bottle weaning process into an accelerated one coz anyways my target was to wean her off the bottle completely before the wedding. And although it was tough initially seeing the poor baby ask for the bottle time and again and being cranky without it, I am proud to announce that she has finally changed her ways and has been successfully weaned off the Dr. Brown's bottles! Whew!

I must say though that in many ways I was actually happy with her milk intake through the bottle. She drank more than 3 bottles at times (6-7 ounces each). Now with a cup, it has come down to one good full cup in a day and maybe a sip or two here and there. Quite a drastic drop from what she used to take earlier. I am trying though to make it up with other calcium rich foods like cheese, yogurt, milk in her cereal etc. And I do see that she is eating better now that her tummy does not get full with milk alone. But the eating part could just be coz she is growing up and needs more anyway. Oh well...us moms can't stop worrying about what kiddos eat I guess. But atleast this is one big milestone that little N has finally accomplished after me really wondering if she's gonna continue with the bottles forever :-)

So here's how we did it. I tried the gradual process for a month or so before I left town. Used to give her milk from a cup at nights and got her used to falling asleep without a bottle in the bed. Once she got a little used to that process, I stopped bottles during the day as well. The only one she got was when she woke up in the morning and sometimes after her afternoon nap as well. Coz for the longest time she needed that as a comfort factor and as a tummy filler to wake up happy. If she didn't get that she would be really cranky and would not stop sucking on her thumb. So when she was fully awake, she had no issues drinking from a straw cup or a normal cup. There were many a nights when she did not drink enough from a cup and so did not sleep well (which obviously meant mommy and daddy did not sleep well either). But I did not give into a bottle feed at night to make sure she gets the message that she should drink sufficiently from the cup before turning in at night so that she does not get hungry at night again. In any case, one fine day when she had finished her evening bottle on the couch, she was fiddling with it and turned the nipple upside down and said "oh it broke". I grabbed this opportunity with both hands and emphasized again and again how she broke the bottle and how she cannot have milk in the bottle anymore. This logic worked for all her day and night milk intake except for the first bottle in the morning. And I was not in ready to take on that battle yet so quietly sneaked it into her while her eyes were closed anyways. The day we were leaving Bangalore though (Nov. 18th) she opened her eyes during the early morning feed and said "the bottle is fixed now!". And I was shocked! My hubby said its time we take this morning bottle away too. So travelling to Bombay was the best opportunity to do that. Once there, I told her the bottle was broken and so we left it at our Bangalore home. She did not like it a bit and cried for it for 2 days. I just did not give in and dealt with a mostly cranky child there. The 3rd day we went to meet one of my friends who has 2 kids, the younger of whom (baby A) was a year old and obviously drank from a bottle. My little N saw that baby drink from exactly the same Dr. Brown bottle and said "I want bottle se duddu". It ached my heart to see her yearn for it like that. So when we got home, I gave in and let her have her bottle again. You should have seen the happiness in that poor child. She was so thrilled after she had her heart's content. But I was again in a fix as to how to tell her it was a one time thing. So we told her that was baby A's bottle and after you had it, we returned it to baby A. Somehow she bought this story and was ok not having a bottle after that again. She cutely kept repeating "A is a chhota baby na, that's why she has bottle se duddu. I am a big girl so I am not sucking bot and saying bottle se duddu" (bot = thumb in konkani). Awww...what a samajhdar little kiddo.

We left for my parents place the next day and changing towns really helped. I could tell her how we left baby A behind and how it was her bottle. So now N will have cup se duddu. And I had to distract her with lots of stories, books, Dora on TV or watching kids play in the building's lobby - even late at nights before bed. But all that hard work paid off and little N finally took to drinking from a cup. So the last bottle she had was on Nov. 20 when she was almost 2 years and 3 months. Whew! I must say making them drink milk from a cup is more labor for us moms. And inspite of all that hardwork on our part, they don't drink as much as they used to anyway. So I really wonder whether it is worth all the hassle. I mean I had relatives visiting us during the wedding who said our kids had bottles till they were 5 years old. They didn't see it is a big deal that a 2 year old was still taken to a bottle. Infact they told me I weaned her off quite early. Now I am not sure if the tried and tested old ways are correct of the pediatrician's warnings of bottles being unhygienic as they have more crevices to clean. Oh well...whatever it is...I have seen it is easier to change habits sooner than later. So having to do this when she was 4 or 5 would have been far tougher I think.

My next project with her now is teaching her how to eat her meals by herself and getting her out of the thumb sucking habit. Efforts are still on and I will surely do a post once we achieve complete success. So stay tuned :-)

Potty Training

I wrote a post earlier on how we started little N's potty training at 18 months and were mostly done in a month or so. For details, please go to the post here and read from 4th paragraph onwards - "the other milestone I had planned for her at this age was to start her potty training...."

Settling down in her First School

Again, just creating a list of all these milestones here for a quick reference. I had written about how we got her to settle down in her first school ever and learn to stay away from mommy/daddy for a bit. That is always a worry for parents and by the time we get around to doing it again for the second kiddo, we tend to forget the details of how the first one did it. So read the post about it here.

Motherhood opens your eyes to so much more

I had quit my job in mid April since my 6 months of working offshore had come to a close. After this I had the entire month of May free before my little one started her first school ever in June. It had been 9 months since we moved to India and I had only seen my parents right after we arrived. So I packed us (mother and daughter) off to visit both sets of grandparents to spend some much deserved quality time with them. I had wanted hubby dear to come along too but that didn't quite work out what with his work and stuff.

So May was when I had the travel bug. Decided to make a trip to Pune and kill 2 birds with one stone - finish my business and spend a few days with my brother while I was there. I did exactly this, then flew back to Bangalore, picked up my baby and flew to Bombay the following weekend. Spent a week there with my in-laws and then went off to Vapi to my parents. Spent another week there, came back to Bombay for a couple days and then back home to Bangalore. All in all a wonderful trip was had and lots of memories were made. But what urged me to write this post today was this feeling I had topmost in my heart during the entire stay this time with our families. I suddenly felt closer to my parents than I have ever felt in years. I now understood why in all these years when I was in the US, I was treated like a guest every time we came home for a 3 week break. Ofcourse we were guests who were so detached from the day to day ongoings of our own parents...who would call them just once a week and talk about the health and weather and visit them just once a year for a coupla weeks and call it a day. Really? Is that all you get from your own children once you are done raising them all these years...staying up at nights for them...praying...worrying...thinking...breathing...practially living for them all these years? I think now that I am a mother I suddenly realize what our own parents have gone through to bring us up as the good human beings we now are. Now I understand what they mean by saying - it is much easier to give birth to a child than to raise him/her in life.

I guess my husband always knew why he was moving back to our country and he might just read this post and say - duh! But honestly, it took me a while to really get it. I mean, yes we were all moving back to be physically closer to our families and stuff but even during all that, I never thought I would have this feeling in my heart after being away from home for soooo long. I mean I guess once you are in a situation for this long, you kinda start getting used to the setup and start looking at the positive side of things - such as you have a better standard of living in the US, your independence is a huge factor that you gain as a woman, your work life balance is far better than in India. True. But the intimacy we think we still maintain with our loved ones back home by making 2 or3 calls a week, is, in my opinion, just a fantasy in our own mind.

So this time when I was leaving my parents place for coming back to my own home, I suddenly felt glad about moving back to India. I did not have tears in my eyes during the goodbyes for the first time in ages...and I somehow felt like now I am their daughter once again (instead of the once in a year visiting guest). And most of all, I felt I could do so much more for them now that I am here instead of just buying them clothes or gadgets from the US every time we visited. Those are really such superficial joys that they don't even care for anymore. What brings a twinkle in their eye now is the precious bond they now share with their granddaughter...the love she showers on them unconditionally...the joy she brings in their life by just being around. That is a gift that is truely priceless. Oh this can soooo be a Mastercard commercial:

A nice formal shirt for dad from JCPenney - 80$

A pearl necklace for mom from Macys - 200$

A new laptop for dear bro from CircuitCity - 1500$

The joy in their eyes on seeing their little granddaughter/neice - PRICELESS!