Anvesha @ 15 months

Time for an update !!! I like to have these things documented so I can always look back with a smile :)
Its been 15 months for Anvesha in this world !!! We had her 15 month check up today and she is 19.5  lbs in weight which is the 25th percentile and 29.5 inches in height which is the 25th percentile.

Though her vocabulary is still small, but she still has the ability to convey her mind through some hand gestures, sounds, words. This display of communication is rather impressive. This is also an evidence that she is learning how to share her thoughts. When asked to get her ball, she runs to get it. Ask her where "Tinker Bell" is and she will get her storybook to you. Bath time is fun time for Anvesha. Sing the song, " Chai Chappa Chaii" and she will drag you to the bathroom. She is learning new words.... and my ears are still waiting to hear Mamma :) Here's a list of few words she can say:

• "Doah" for Dog
• "Ish" for Fish
• "Shhhh" for Shoes
• "Aiii" for Bye
• "Da" for Duck
• "Bub Bub" for bumble bee
• "Ja" for jump

She is 75 % weaned as of now and the day time feedings are close to zero... yayyyy !!!! As far as favorite foods are concerned... well she loves strawberries & oatmeal- she will just jump in excitement on seeing strawberries. Her favorite song these days is "Clap your hands"  and she can "clap her hands", "stamp her feet", "jump up high", "turn around" in sequence on hearing this song :) Cute isn't it?? Here's a video of her activities.

Anvesha has four upper teeth and four lower ones right now, one lower molar and two upper molars have erupted and the other lower molar is on its way.She also has a small finger toothbrush and loves to brush her teeth :) We also need to have her first dentist appointment soon :). The past few days have been tough on her .....sleepless nights, lack of appetite and fussiness and I would blame it on these "horrible molars"!!!

She is down to just one nap during the day now and this gets harder on me as I am not able to catch up on my sleep (yeah.... she still doesn't sleep through the night ). I  am not a great supporter of the cry it out method of sleep training... though many people swear by it and that is what her pediatrician recommended too. I just feel its wayyy too harsh on the child and I just do not have the heart to let her cry until she falls asleep. The sight of her falling off to sleep on my lap is just so precious that I can give up anything in this world for that.

It might be a little early to comment whether she is a left handed or a right handed girl... but she prefers to use her left hand a lot. Neither me nor Prateek is a lefty, so it would be exciting to have a left handed person in our family, and we don't wanna manipulate her hand preference at all.

Although I do miss going to work at times, but watching  her grow right in front of my eyes is something I cannot trade off for anything else. Over the years I shall look back with a smile and say with pride, "That's my girl" !!! 

Tulip Fest !!

Spring is here and the tulips are in full bloom :) We have been going to the Skagit Valley Tulip Festival since 3 years... its one of my favorite places here and last year around the same time Anvesha was still a  2 month old newbie. She is more mobile now and runs around more confidently, with me chasing after her. She loves touching the leaves and holding the colorful petals in her hands. It was certainly a delightful trip for Anvesha when we went for the tulip fest this year. She was so happy to see millions of tulips in full  bloom and ran around here and there screaming in excitement.

For a winter baby like her, seeing the tulip fields spread across 100s of acres of land surely is a treat. I find myself really lucky to see these beauties of nature here in United States- something that we miss in India. For kids who are of Anvesha's age, its a wonderful time for getting exposed to these wonders of nature. They can actually relate to what they read in storybooks and watch on the television.

It sure is a matter of great pride for both me and Prateek when people give her compliments on how cute she looks :) Clicking her pics was challenging for us as she would just not stand still.She was so busy absorbing the wonderful sight of the tulips, that she completely ignored us :( Here are few best ones from the tulip festival this year

Flowers are in full bloom all around us and I am so looking forward to summer this year. I also have a mental list of all the things I wanna do this summer..... but more on that later !!!!!

Easter Egg Hunt

Easter is here....my memories of Easter are somewhat faded.... all I remember is the long Easter break we used to have in school, so we didn't quite participate in the Easter egg hunt. But Easter is celebrated on a large scale here in United States. It is great fun for families with children and the kids really look forward to them. The community in which we live had organized the Easter Bunny Egg Hunt and it was such a big hit :)

We dressed up Anvesha in an adorable "Sweet Bunny" pink dress ( it coincidentally matched perfectly for the day) and a  white bunny ears hair band. She looked so adorable in the cute little Easter basket that she took around in hunt of eggs :) The Easter Bunny was such a hit among kids and there was a photo session too. Anvesha was thrilled to meet the Bunny and we clicked loads of pictures of them together.

Anvesha collected four eggs which were good enough for her age :) She happily flaunted her Easter basket and played with the candy filled eggs :)  Though she still hasn't reached an age where she attaches meaning to what is going on around her, but she enjoyed nonetheless :) Here are few memories from today's Egg Hunt.

Encouraging kids to participate in such events is a great way for them to learn various cultures, interact socially plus value and respect diversity. Easter egg hunt may be more of a western concept, but involving kids in such activities is a great way for them to develop and understand these concepts in a better way and relate to what they see and learn in storybooks  :)

Happy Easter Everyone !!!!

Kanjak Poojan

With the navratri celebrations Iam reminded of my childhood days in Shimla, when I got ready to accompany my friends as we were invited by many neighborhood households for kanjak, a ritual very popular in north India- young girls are invited to be worshiped, offered delicacies like halwa, puri, chana and are given gifts or money. Kanjak Poojan is usually done on ashtami or naavmi ( eight or ninth day of the navratris). At our end we perform this on naavmi ( ninth day of navratris ).

We do not have many Indians in the neighborhood here and Anvesha missed the many opportunities that she would have got- had she been in India around this time ;) We did have friends come in for Kanjak though and since Anvesha could not eat all of the yummy halwa puris, I finished them for her, lol :)

We dressed up Anvesha in the traditional salwar kameez that day and she looked adorable as she played around with the dupatta. Since it was 'her' day, I took her to Wiggle Works- kids play area, so that she could enjoy her day. She is fond of stacking these days, so I thought it would be a good idea to get her a stacking ring, which reminds me of the onion rings at Red Robin :)

Here's our Kanjak, ready for her Kanjak Poojan :)

Spring is here !!!!

We've spent most of our winter indoors looking at nature through the window and wishing for an early spring. Now that spring is 'officially here', its our chance to go outside and experience it first hand. We take a simple walk for granted until its too cold and rainy outside and with small kids it gets so so difficult to engage them in any sort of indoor activities. Anvesha brings her shoes asking us to put them on for her and drags us to the main door, indicating that she wants to go outside :) Poor baby !!! little does she know that we cant go out in the cold, rainy afternoons.

Iam personally very fond of flowers ( who isn't ?) and its a delight to see cherry blossom trees all around the place these days. This week we were lucky enough to see some daffodils bloom in the spring and we took advantage of it and spent  some good time outside. Weekend was spent in Portland and Anvesha enjoyed being out, ran all around the place with her ball and didnt want to come back home. Here are some of this week's pics.

We look forward to more of such delightful colors that spring has to offer and welcome it with open arms !!!!! 

Happy Spring 2014 !!!

Here's a poem, " To Daffodils" by Robert Herrick that has stayed with me from my school days, which I think is  very appropriate to this particular post.

"Fair Daffodils, we weep to see
You haste away so soon;
As yet the early-rising sun
Has not attain'd his noon.
Stay, stay,
Until the hasting day
Has run
But to the even-song;
And, having pray'd together, we
Will go with you along.

We have short time to stay, as you,
We have as short a spring;
As quick a growth to meet decay,
As you, or anything.
We die
As your hours do, and dry
Away,
Like to the summer's rain;
Or as the pearls of morning's dew,
Ne'er to be found again."

The Dark Side of Motherhood

All right, so this post is more like a vent post and I don't mean to discourage new moms or soon to be moms, or even bleakly sound positive. So far I have mentioned about the good part of becoming a mom, life as a stay at home mom..... but hey!!! there's other side of the coin too.

Its 8 AM.... Anvesha wakes up and just wants to be held (only by me), she has been super clingy for whatever reason, refusing to eat. While I need to get the household chores done before Prateek leaves for work, Anvesha would just not let me work at all and follows me everywhere. I somehow manage to get some tasks done, gobbling some instant breakfast meals while holding Anvesha. God bless the instant meals concept !!! Too tired to hold her anymore, I end up putting on her favorite rhymes so as to get her down to sit in one place. I hate treating television as a baby sitter, but this is my last resort.

Fast forward... its 12.30 PM now and I have finally managed to get her to sleep after hours of whining. I sit down in front of my laptop and begin to write. I look around me - at the unopened book that I wanted to read but haven't managed to so far, my to do list which is becoming longer and longer, and finally the lukewarm cup of "adrak ki chai" which I wanted to drink while it was still hot... too tired to get up, I gulp it anyways.

These days the success of my day is determined more by whether Anvesha finishes her meals, how much she naps and how much of the household chores Iam able to finish on time. Its so easy to fall into the trap of counting all the wrong things, that Iam forgetting what motherhood really is.... Squeezing out time for myself is a major challenge these days..... I need some pampering, some ME time :(

How many times have I swept the kitchen floor, how many times have I cleaned the carpet stains, how many times have I stepped over that particular toy, how many times have I cleared the tit bits of Anvesha's leftovers, how many times have I raised my voice? My equation of motherhood seems to be always unbalanced. No matter how hard I try, Iam always at the losing end and the more I think about it, the more overwhelmed, hopeless, frustrated and uncertain I get. But you know what, motherhood cannot be quantified and children aren't equations and my purpose is definitely not to solve my domestic life as a complex maths equation. My purpose is to extend grace, plant love in the hearts of people I love most.

I should rather focus on what is going right in order to feel better. I know today I haven't been able to meet any of the standards I have set for myself, but who said motherhood would be a rosy picture? Whenever Iam feeling low in times like these, i see all of Anvesha's pictures and old videos and that makes me feel better.

A beautiful mess !!

The organized side of me would hate to see the messy house that I live in these days ; correction-  "beautiful messy house". This is my life now- a beautiful mess. Despite my best efforts, its crazy and unorganized. Its just way too stressful to keep my house perfectly neat at this stage of my life, its just next to impossible. Iam inherently an organized person, but from the time Anvesha has gained mobility, she has ganged up against me and turned my house crazy :) She'll un spool rolls of toilet paper, empty out kitchen & the bedside drawers, knock glasses off the table. to keep my sanity, I sometimes take her out for a walk or to kids' play areas nearby, but have to limit the outdoor activity these days as it rains crazily in Seattle. 

Here's a poem I came across somewhere and wanted to share here

slow down mummy, there is no need to rush,
slow down mummy, what is all the fuss?
slow down mummy, make yourself a cup of tea.
slow down mummy, come spend some time with me.

slow down mummy, let's pull boots on for a walk,
let's kick at piles of leaves, and smile and laugh and talk.
slow down mummy, you look ever so tired,
come sit and snuggle under the duvet, and rest with me a while.

slow down mummy, those dirty dishes can wait,
slow down mummy, let's have some fun - bake a cake!
slow down mummy, I know you work a lot,
but sometimes mummy, it's nice when you just stop.

sit with us a minute,
and listen to our day,
spend a cherished moment,
because our childhood won't stay!

One day my house will be in shape again, the closets will be organized and things will be in place, but as of now I have stopped sweating over it. This is just a phase and shall pass too !!