Milestones at almost 18 months

Sorry Atri - you have a lazy mother! I keep deciding to update your blog more often and I end up taking longer breaks than before...hope i will stick to my resolve this time as time is flying and your mom's memory is not serving her well :)

Before I proceed on what my son has been upto in the last three months - I want to capture all milestones that he has achieved in this post -

1. Bends over and picks up objects - especially if its a food item - we never waste food!
   
2. Tries to lift heavy things eg. my laptop
3. Plays peekaboo - behind delicately hanging curtains
   
4. Rolls balls and any such objects back and forth
5. Empties containers of contents and fills them- such as the cookie jar game
   
6. Is able to locate and remember objects of his liking in ours as well as neighbours' houses - eg. Biscuit tins
7. Imitates us- takes a napkin and dabs his mouth delicately after a meal - takes that from his dad I guess
   
8. Pushes and pulls toys while walking - poor old stacking turtle of his and now the cycle
9. Uses spoon successfully and feeds himself many dry foods
10. Points to nose, mouth and eyes when asked - rest of the parts we have not been persistent in teaching - he'll learn eventually
11. Runs well - especially when he sees the driver at the door - so that he can hitch a ride with him
    
12. Walks up stairs and climbs down holding a hand - we are not brave enough to let him climb down by himself :O
    
13. Walks backwards when we call him to us for a hug - how predictable!
14. Plays with the ball
15. Helps around the house - yes for sure, especially grabbing the broom from the househelp and showing her how to do a clean sweep under the sofa and such. Give him a napkin or a cloth and he goes about dusting every nook and cranny and even mopping floors - we have a diligent worker on our hands
16. When he throws something on the floor or does something funny, he'll put his hands to his mouth with an expression of 'AHHH'
17. Turns pages of books and bites them off too - even board books aren't spared
18. Points out to bow-bow and cat in the books - he'll open only those two pages
    
19. Knows the correct way to use many objects - laptops, chargers, mobiles, telephone, remotes, broom, comb, handbags etc etc
20. Has gotten very attached to his (formerly mine) blankie and we wont go anywhere without it. Fortunately needs it to sleep only.
    
21. Throws a tantrum when he is not allowed to go with the current love of his life - the driver or when he is all ready to go out and we don't take him out immediately
22. Has reduced two day time naps to one, since he started attending playgroup one month ago
23. Responds to many directions in English, Tamil and Hindi- sit down, get your mum-mum chair (to eat), keep your feet properly on the cycle, get your blankie, get me the remote, give this to daddy, etc
24. Plays excellent hide and seek - seeks me out in the first shot no matter where i hide even in the dark!
25. Kicks a ball or our heads - anything which comes in way of his foot
26. Speaks the words - mamma, da, light, ball, bo-bo, cat, mum-mum(food), owter (water) and some others which I cannot figure
27. Can distinguish the foodie pics on board book such as fruits and pretends to eat them from the page (born to two great foodies, what else can we expect?)
28. Shows the action 'not there' / illai / kaanum with his hands - when he sees an empty plate or a person he expects to see isn't around.
29. Throws the ball over his head - god save my cup of tea when he does that around me
30. Has been dancing to music for the last three months - some more steps have been added to his repertoire - more hand movement, bum movements (Kadavule!!)
31. Indicates to us that he's doing potty by lifting his tee and rubbing his tummy, inside the diaper of course! And tries to pull down his pants for us to clean him.
32. Co-operates while changing clothes by putting hands and legs in the correct openings of clothes - this is more accelerated when we utter the words 'Narasimha' (driver), 'tata' - with the hope of going out someplace and getting a ride in the car, for which he has developed HUGE fascination
33. Is in love with all wheelies, loves to sit in cars, cycles
34. Biggest milestone is that he's able to stay away from mom and dad for 3 hours a day, 5 days a week, in his playgroup - interacting with kids his age or older and adjusting to environs other than home! God knows that this a BIG one for us!

The guidance for building this list is from the chart in Babycenter India
He is on or ahead of track in almost everything, except speech - I'm told boys are slow in this respect - or is he already learning to be the strong-silent types like his dad? Only time will tell!

A year and a quarter

Ok, for those of you who read the earlier story, nanny no.3 did not turn up - she supposedly fell sick on the day she was to join and then decided not to join after all, which is good in a way. I'd feel worse if I wasted time and energy explaining to her scope of work and then she quit on day 2 like the earlier one.
As I type this, Atri has figured out to dance and understood the connection between the word 'dancey' and moving his hands in a dangerously bhangraesque fashion - but we are enjoying it thoroughly all the same :) Rocking him to Channel V / MTV / VH1 to put him down for his morning nap is bound to have some effect somewhere!
We brought in Atri's 16 month with nothing out of the ordinary. No cakes or bakes this time. Just a screaming fest with another new nanny - he doesn't seem to like her at first sight, but we aren't giving up that easily. We have taught her to bribe him (with what else but biscuits) in order to get into his good books - lets hope that works. It's funny how vehement he is in his protest at bringing in yet another new person inside the house. It's almost like he is screaming at the loss of all the exclusive time with mama dearest and presence of an intruder.
He started walking on 15 Jan and it completely changed our lives! And just last week while visiting a relative's house with a staircase, he started climbing up confidently holding the side wall. He isn't satisfied just walking, wants more interesting avenues like climbing onto sofas, boxes, stairs, just about anything. It's been over two months that he safely gets down from the bed by himself - lowering himself onto the floor with utmost caution - it's cute to see his concentration.
He's yet not that into tv, but for certain ads featuring models / beautiful women. The Ponds whitening cream ad featuring a song from Bachna Ai Haseeno - Khuda jaane ye kyu hua hai, keeps him glued to the screen for the full 30 seconds and he'll come running to see this particular ad whichever room he is in, if he can hear it streaming in the air. The title song of the movie Wake up Sid, once manage to hold his attention for the full 3 minutes, which is HUGE for him.
Food wise we are only progressing to a wide variety of cuisines, still not giving him any nuts - which may be needless but I aint taking any chances.
He has been staying alone for a couple of hours with our househelp in the evenings when hubby and me want to go out for a baby-free date and it's a fantastic progress for us clingy parents. Yes, that wasn't an error. Sometimes the clingy baby in turn makes his / her parents so clingy that I wonder if he is more stuck to us or we to him! In fact both of us almost abandoned the thought of our first date together leaving Atri with our maid alone at home - but then we gave some mental pushing and finally made it.
The high chair is no longer of any use to us as our little acrobat easily wiggles out of the straps and buckles and is ready to stand on the table instantly bringing our weak hearts to our mouth. Thankfully it can be converted to a regular table and chair when Atri is ready to use it, so I am not entirely regretting my decision to spend on this piece of furniture.
I think I speak to him quite a bit but he hasn't started saying out any words clearly - mumbles a lot, especially when he pretends to talk to the dog next door, but we are still waiting for him to say some words with understanding :)

Keeping fingers crossed over nanny no.3

Even before Atri was born, I had decided that until he is six months old, I wont engage any help to look after him. Call it paranoia or being over-cautious about his budding immunity, that was the decision and I decided to stick to it. We were in Bombay then and someone recommended an 'international nanny'. By that, I mean that she had gone to several countries on baby-minding assignments. She was 40 plus and while I did not find her too good at first glance, I thought of giving it a go. She lasted all of 4 hours. So I'm not even calling her Nanny no.1.
Then I almost stopped looking as we were to move to Hyderabad in October and I did not want to go through the trouble of looking for Ms.Right, training her and then leaving in a few weeks did not seem worth the effort. When I moved to Hyd, i was told that there is no dearth of help in this city and I would find plenty of people to fit the role. Somehow I was in no hurry to find someone as we were going to be in Chennai for over two weeks around Atri's Ayush Homam. We got back on the 30th November and 2nd December Nanny 1 joined in.
Lakshmi was street smart, vivacious and managed to get into Atri's good books right away. Atri was still in the phase of stranger's anxiety where he would not like to go to anyone but me or S - Lakshmi however, found a way to get him to like her and I liked her a lot for that. Even if he cried while letting go of me, she managed to pry him away and divert his attention. She used to come in by 10.15 am and leave by 7 pm. We went for a couple of lunches with her in tow, where she would take care of Atri. Even in a luxury five star hotel, she was at ease taking Atri around the premises, unfazed by the new places or people. I liked that about her. While I'm the one who used to bathe, cook, feed and diaper change for Atri - it was a luxury just having another person around. The luxury of having an undisturbed meal, watching a favourite TV show or having someone else putting him to sleep in the afternoon was a new experience for me. My parents came for a week around New Year's Eve and my mom was impressed by the way Atri got along with her. We did have some minor hiccups with her, but overall she was fast to grasp new things and I was basking in the luxury of a bright nanny. Alas, it was not to last.
Seven weeks after joining, her older sister came in asking to increase her pay and shorten her working hours as they were to move further away from from where they were staying. The lady's mannerisms and loud argumentative nature put me off completely and we had to let the girl go, instead of chugging along with someone who's caretaker decided to hold us to ransom. Our security cum handyman who had brought in Lakshmi in the first place, assured me that it was best to let her go and that he would find someone good soon.
In the next three weeks, several people from ages 8 to 50 came around looking for a nanny's job. Word spreads fast around here. We managed to send everyone packing. We are strictly against employing children and the 50 year olds would barely be able to catch up with a super-fast Atri.
Nanny 2 landed on 1st of Feb, a supposedly 15 year old school drop out. She seemed dull and disinterested but on the insistence of her mom, who worked in the building, we decided to give her a try. She was everything Lakshmi was not and Atri started screaming the minute he saw her face. The first day, my mind flitted back and forth between nanny 1 and 2, comparing and how sad it was that I had to let the smart one go. On day two, I had my fill of the second one. She did not know how to handle my little one and she was playing with his toys while he was doing his mischief in another corner. I had made up my mind to ask her to leave after she has her lunch. Luckily I did not have to ask her to leave as she herself felt the same thing and she asked to be sent off :) Boy, I was happy! I don't blame the girl. It was her first time at work, other than helping her mother in her employments. The responsibility and maturity that (hopefully) comes with age was missing in her.
Since then until now, I was back to managing Atri by myself while S was at work. Back to square one, I had given up the idea of going for a walk or yoga class for my battered back. I was so upset by the inadequacy of nanny 2 that I had given up looking for someone when day before, S's colleague sent the daughter of the lady who cleans their office. I was still in two minds whether I must engage her services and she is another school drop out who hasn't minded kids before. Saturday went off peacefully and today was the opposite. After a disturbed sleep schedule, he was majorly cranky all day until he slept off a couple of hours ago, which helped me make my decision. I have called in nanny 3 tomorrow. I'm okay with the inexperience as long as she is willing to learn and has a basic inclination towards kids! Keeping my fingers crossed...
To engage help to look after our babies or not to is a big dilemma, at least for me. This is a matter for another post. Now I'm ready to drop off to sleep...If you have any thoughts on this matter, would love to hear them!

Too much too fast

Each day the thought that I haven't updated this space, pricks the mother's conscience in me...and today when Atri did two new things in a span of two minutes, I realised that things are going too fast and it's now or never. If I don't record these memories now, it'll all be washed down the drain of a multitasking mom's scant memory, which by the way has been proved wrong recently.
So what led me to this sudden posting is that we were watching CBeebies while eating breakfast, Boogie Beebies to be precise and Atri actually started imitating the dance moves the kids were doing on TV and he's not a guy who's attracted to the telly in anyway. All the Baby Einstein DVDs that we loaded up on are lying around, except when he decides to play with the DVD covers - to bang and throw them around of course.
The second thing that astonished me was that he has made the connect between the switches on the wall and the electrical appliances. We have a power shut down between 9 and 10 am everyday and today at 9 am when the lights and fans went off, he immediately tugged at me to take him to the switchboard so he could turn the switches on - I had to explain to him - "Not now baby, there's no electricity to power that" - while I understand electricity and circuits are some heavy duty physics to explain to a baby, he's not going to question me on that now - so I can plan my answers later.
One minute he seemed like a kid who didn't understand a thing and now he understands much too much!
It's been just three days that I'm trying to keep him diaper free after his first potty in the morning, taking him to the washroom every 45 minutes or so to make him pee. The second day, as soon as we pulled his shorts down and he entered the washroom, he started peeing, all amazed at the stream of water produced by his body :) Call it timing or whatever, am I happy or what that he's making such associations.
Some other ways in which he makes us smile:

• Lightly taps his hand on his forehead whenever we say 'aiyayo'
• Goes around giving imaginary things in people's hands when I say 'prasadam' - this must be the good side effect of diligently taking him to a temple each Sunday - where the priests in every alter give us the 'theertham' and 'kalkandu' prasadam.
• He can't tolerate the landline receiver being on the hook, the second he spots it in its place, he HAS to take it off, press the speaker phone button, press some random buttons and here the BSNL operator give us gaalis in different languages. He even pretends to have a conversation with her! This has been going on for a few weeks now. So people don't complain that you can never reach our landline.
• He has figured out where his food items are placed, including the secret hideouts in the neighbouring Paati's house. Last week I was feeding him chilled yogurt which he saw me remove from the fridge - when he saw that the bowl was getting empty, he promptly went to the fridge and started to egg me on to remove some more from inside. Biscuit dabbas' locations are all hard wired in his brains. Since quite some weeks, each day when he goes to the neighbour Paati's house, he pulls her sari towards the cupboard where she stores his favourite treats. Since a few days, he has figured how to open it himself, but asks us for help to open the tins.
• He has taken a huge liking to my fleece blanket of the last five years and needless to say has made it his. Just touching his blankie makes him put thumb in mouth and he gets a feeling of great comfort - if we are going someplace where we plan to stay late, we don't fail to carry the blankie with us.
• His interaction with the poodle next door is very heart warming, especially when he tries to lie down in front of him, looking at him eye to eye and having a romantic conversation, almost trying to kiss him :) I don't let him get 'that' close, in the poodle's interest.
• Food-wise, i cannot even make the effort to list down all that he has eaten. It's easier to make a list of what he hasn't eaten so far - probably just three items - nuts, eggs and bittergourd...he eats pasta, soups, regular curries we make at home with moderate spice levels that we eat, just about everything and I truly thank God for that.

The last three months

Playing in the kitchen as I work

So as the title suggests, it's been three hectic months since I updated the blog.

Here are some memorable moments -

In the beginning of June, we did a Thulaabhaaram in the local Guruvayoor temple where Atri was weighed on a large balance with bananas. Little did we know then that bananas would turn out to be his favourite food. He was surprisingly very calm as the priest laid him on one side of the balance.

I took Atri to stay at my mother's for the first time as he turned six months old and he displayed a very strong stranger anxiety, going to absolutely no one and clinging to me as though I would disappear in thin air. I almost cut short a weekly plan to a couple of days as I had to attend to all his needs without a break and was missing S desperately to relieve me. Thursday arrived and S gave us a big surprise by taking the day off and landing up in Mulund. Atri's bad boy phase vanished the moment he laid eyes on his dad. May be he was missing him too!

End June also brought home Atri's uncle Kaushik, from Philadelphia who spent a few days with us. Luckily Atri didn't display too much stranger anxiety this time. We also dared to take him to Rajdhani restaurant with baby in tow - after two minutes, his patience was exhausted and we took turns pushing him around the floor of the mall while the others attended to their delicious thaali.

We love our meal times

We started Atri on solid foods just as he turned six months old, going by the book. His first food was mashed bananas, liking both the green and yellow variety alike. Next in line was mashed boiled carrots, stewed apple and then many many more. In the last three months, Atri has tasted the following:
Cereals - Rice, Ragi, Sago, Rava
Fruits - Banana, apple, papaya, chikoo
Vegetables - Carrot, pumpkin, potato, sweet potato, beetroot
Others - Moong dal, Farley's rusk, Gerber's Oatmeal-apple-cinnamon, Gerber's Sweet Potato, Cow's milk, Rice Cerelac, bits of Marie biscuit, bits of Idli / dhokla
He has had them in all possible interesting combinations which is the subject of a different post altogether.

Me-Athai-Atri

My dad's sister, Lalli Athai came after 20 long years to India and she was nice to spend a day with us end July on her way back to the US. She got many cute clothes for Atri including an Auburn University jersey set :) He got along pretty okay with her I must say. However, he refused to stay quiet with my mom and sis the afternoon I stole out with Athai to take her shopping. They had to run to my house-help Nirmala's house to get her to quieten and mind him until I was back in the next one hour! My entire building and part of the neighbourhood came to know of this episode where a shopping-starved mom left her baby crying with her mother *red faced*

With my baby on Varca beach - Goa

After Athai's visit, it was time to prepare 'the big list' for our first travel with Atri. The last time I'd taken a flight out of Bombay was in November 2007, so it was a much awaited trip, first to Goa, then back home for a day, unpack, repack and off to Bangalore. We traveled Business three out of four flights. As we failed miserably in getting Atri to take to the bottle, and I had to nurse him during take off and landing, business class provided the much needed privacy. It was my first experience feeding in public. After the first flight though, I couldn't care much. But I do hope this was the last time I had to do it. Goa stay at Club Mahindra was fun. Atri enjoyed our taking him out at least five times a day if not more. We stayed mostly inside the resort, taking spa sessions, beach walks, admiring the landscaping in the resort and occasional buffet binging. We managed to stick to our diet most of the time though! Bangalore was good fun. Atri met another set of grandparents - Meera Athai and Athimber, who took very good care of us while we were there. S's parents were also there on a short break, so Atri met up him Paati after five months. S's dad had been with us for over a week end June as we were all down with flu / cold with no one to take care of us. Sadly, Atri did not show any extra familiarity to Thatha :)

Figuring out the Kinetic in Mysore

We went for a day trip to Mysore - the onward journey taking over five hours and turning out to be Atri's longest road trip. We met up with my aunt, uncle, cousins and my little nephew Sumedh making our trip worthwhile. The whole travel experience was very positive, and the next step is to shake off my laziness and get documents organized for Atri's PP - and get cracking on a peachy plan for a trip abroad.

The large living room in Meera Athai's house also injected a heavy dose of enthusiasm in Atri to get moving and he finally start creeping around. First hesitantly and then in all speed. Now he keeps rushing towards Nirmala's voice, any scraps of paper / plastic / threads and his stroller's wheels. He'll also do he needful to reach out to some of his favourite toys or their boxes.

August brought in the long-awaited visit of my in-laws from Chennai. They were in a day after we landed home from Bglr - so the hectic unpacking and clearing up the house was tiring enough to make me forget I'd gone for a vacation at all! Atri displayed his moody self to them despite spending a few days with them in Bglr. But there is progress and today I can leave him alone with them for a couple of hours, without breaking into a sweat. Atri's Paati has gotten two lovely personalised quilts made for him - Snow bunnies and Disney Friends. While Atri plays on his quilts - he'll realise how lovely they are once he's able to comprehend better and when he can read the alphabets. There's another alphabet quilt in the making. He's a lucky fella, what else!

I bought a cute pair of full denims from Mothercare with a comfy broad elastic waist band - I guess Atri will fit into it nicely by Diwali. Whenever I go shopping, there's only enough time to pick out Atri's clothes. Though I did have sometime inbetween to pick out a pair of skinny jeans for myself, to flaunt my new waist size :)

I have reached way below my pre-pregnancy weight, but as that wasn't my ideal weight to start with, I have a slight bit more to go. A diet and finding time for regular walks is helping and I hope to be a yummy-mummy soon (well, yummier)

Atri has started displaying affection generously - biting my chin or cheeks, patting my still jiggly belly and blowing BIG raspberries on it, which makes me burst out laughing. He can sit without support for some stretch of time and stands while holding onto hands or some support. He's very quick to sense that his dad is back from work / run, and coos as soon as he hears the doorbell ring, raising his arms up to daddy as soon as he spots him. His sleep has become disturbed and we fret about it a lot, but hey, I'm focusing on the positives here ;)

I hope to get regular on this blog as it's very tough trying to recollect what happened three months ago, as I'm realising now. Time is moving very fast and too much is happening too soon.

Atri - my little sweet potato, I'm falling more and more in love with you, as the days go by! God bless you my darling.

Nearly there

My mom and my son

Atri turns six months old on 4 June. And if times were flying fast earlier, now it's at supersonic speed.

I've come to know more people in my building in the last two weeks that I've been taking him down for a stroll, than I've known in the 3 and a half years that we've lived here - and I mean from ages 2 to 85 - not bad eh? How is it that a baby in your arms makes you more likable to others? More approachable rather. Earlier I was aware of only 3 kids other than Atri in the building and I just discovered there are two more, and the moms have been kind enough to offer me their no-longer-in-use strollers, Baby Bjorn etc. - not to mention tips to find a right maid and some more useful advice.

A baby is always a good starting point for a conversation, even with complete strangers. Besides, earlier I would never be loafing around the building in my free time, just to chumma hava khaane (just enjoy the breeze I mean) - of which there is plenty now a days. Thank God for a decently bearable summer with lovely sea breeze in the evenings - especially because my boy is pretty heat-intolerant, developing furuncles (boils) in his ear and now nose with some regularity. Antibiotic therapy is something we are growing used to, and I no longer lose sleep over the fact that my baby is being dosed on 'strong' medications. If we have to live in a polluted, hot and humid city, we just have to take this in our stride.

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We successfully spent a night by ourselves (Atri and me) - and I overcame my fear of staying the night alone with him (I thought I could only manage the daytimes). This was when S had to leave for a London trip for two weeks on a Sunday and my mom could make it here only Monday morning. Well, that is one fear less now (actually two, first one was fear of dosing antibiotics). My mom's time here was a good break for me, as in I could take a nap without keeping one eye and one ear open (if it is possible to nap like that) - she could spend some quality time with her grandson. Unfortunately it happened to coincide with some irritation in Atri's life (lets attribute that to teething for now) - and we started him on Denton homeopathic pills - which made him much sober and less keen to pounce & bite (with gums of course, no teeth yet) my ear, nose, chin or cheek, whichever was closest to his eager mouth. So I'm assuming he was in a kind of teething phase and the pills helped him cool off a bit. After that, it was more or less smooth sailing for granny and grandson. As much as I was waiting for S to come back and the two weeks to pass off soon, I was also sad that it would mean the end having mom around to free my hands and eyes for a while to do and see other stuff.

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Anyway, it's two weeks since then and we are back to being by ourselves. A building friend has kindly passed on her stroller to us. The first use of the stroller, which I discovered quite accidentally was when Atri napped off while being taken around the house in it, and this was when he was a bit cranky to sleep mid-morning. So I now use the stroller as method no. 79 to put him to sleep. This method has just placed itself one position higher than the earlier discovered 'Radio-gaga' method, wherein we had to start the FM radio (Worldspace Jazz channel or some soothing CDs wont work here) on full blast with surround sound in the living room, clear up the floor space and dance to the music wih Atri on shoulder until he fell asleep, unable to bear the torture of the St.Vitus' dance. This is was a foolproof method that worked 98.97% of the times. Only that it turned out difficult to use this for putting him to sleep at night after a good dinner, where a full belly presented an impediment to free-style dancing (with weights). So the stroller method turned out easier for times like these.

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At just over 5 months of age, Atri's become a big brother to my cousin's son Sumedh - who was born on May 6th. I can foresee a lot of bonding between the two boys as we are going to be living close to each other soon.

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We tried a dinner at a proper Italian restaurant with baby in tow a few days ago - we did all the things 'What to expect' asks us to do - Calling ahead, warning about baby, going in early etc. - and we managed to eat one course when he got fed up sitting on his bouncer chair throwing those little hangings around and we had to pack up and leave, only to finish the remaining food at home. I had the foresight to inform the waiter about this too. The restaurant was not to filled at that time and I didn't get any angry glances from people around, so I'm willing to try this again sometime. Otherwise, we went to the neighbouring Crepe Station for breakfast yesterday and it went pretty okay. My friend, S and me took turns holding him and eating, and Juhu people were busy sleeping at 9 am on a Sunday morning, so a few cries and no harm done. Another big event attended with Atri was my med college reunion on the last Sunday (24th May, coinciding with IPL finals). There was DJ music (very loud) and a big crowd (for us anything more than 3 is a crowd, and there were over 50-60 people there), S carrying Atri in his carrier. I managed to spend over an hour there catching up with classmates whom I hadn't met in the last 9 years. Most had come with their kids - and I was much appreicated for coming in with a small baby ;) and a very caring hubby! It was funny how the boys from my class (now big physicians and surgeons) were treating S like a damaadji telling him that "dinner will be ready soon", "don't leave without dinner" etc. A lot of contacts renewed and it felt superb that I could make it.

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I have also started doing some work off and on - taking up some writing assignments from friendly people who give me easier deadlines and accept my excuses like ' nanny joined and left' etc. More on that in the next post.

Some firsts

We've always been a social life loving couple - hardly staying at home on weekends. I'm not talking about gracing page 3 parties (even if someone invited us I mean), but going out to restaurants, movies, friends' places or getting friends home. Which restaurant to try out anew was a topic of much debate from Friday night onwards and we'd compete with each other to post the review on Burrp - our favourite restaurant review site. But things have changed so much in the last 4 months. Our last dinner together was on our anniversary a week before Atri was born at Mangi Ferra and since then we've been ordering out from places which are not exactly on our favourite list, or pleading / threatening some of our favourites to come the extra mile and deliver food home. Since last Sunday, things have taken a turn for the better - last Sunday we took Atri to our neighbourhood posh (air conditioned with dinner napkins) Udupi restaurant for breakfast. While we demolished the piping hot Upma-Shira and Masala Dosas (and filter kaapi), he managed to sleep to the instrumental music playing in the background. And you could spot the happiness on my face from a mile!!

The same week, my friend and me went out to a pub (that serves a wicked buffet lunch) with Atri in tow of course. While he wasn't as peaceful as he was in the breakfast episode, he was good enough to let me go up to the dessert course. As my friend tells me, expecting him to sleep each time we go out is asking for too much. As long as he is not crying loud enough to bring the place to a stand still and the people's glares are not burning holes into us, we are doing fine. Now I'm waiting to take him to the movies. Please pray that you are not a part of the crowd in the multiplex screen that we dare to hit for the first time with him ;)

We also took him to the lovely park in our neighbourhood, where S walked with him in his carrier and I walked by myself as fast as I could after the long break in physical exercise. I could see women give S appreciative glances as the daddy who's taking care of baby while letting mamma get her much needed dose of exercise. At this point I couldn't help remember the episode from Everybody Loves Raymond, where Ray takes the kids to the park one evening and amasses a fan base from all the moms struggling alone with their kids.

Atri has also been getting licks of my favourite fruits like apple, oranges and bananas, along with an occasional lick at Parle G biscuit. Instead of making him taste my current most favourite Ginger Nut McVities, I thought it's a better idea to make him get a taste of India's largest selling biscuit and instill a sense of patriotism in him.

He is not yet turning from back to tummy independently as his hand fixation continues, but a slightest nudge with my little finger does the trick and he enjoys lifting his head up to do a perfect bhunjangasan and explore the room around him. His sleeping hours at night are more or less fixed except for some unlucky days (for me) when he wakes up in 5 hours and makes loud hand-sucking sounds.

We're trying to introduce his toys one at a time so as not to overwhelm him. Otherwise, life nowadays is moving very fast and I'm trying hard to record the little things about our lives now that will be over too soon and I'll miss later.