September 30 2012

It feels like now Riya has started to understand what we speak. She responds very nicely to what we say.

Yesterday Riya was playing with one of her toys and I was sitting at a distance from her. There was a book lying near her. All these days every time I read a book to her I tell her that it's a book. Yesterday when I asked her to get the book to me so that I can read it for she did it. She went to the book and crawled to me holding it in one hand and pushing it along with her. We found it amazing and we were surprised. Today morning I gave her a piece of bread when I and Vaishakh were having our breakfast. She had already had her's but I want her to learn to ear herself too. That's why I gave her a bread. She ate some and then started playing with it. She made little pieces and they all fell down one by one on the sides of her highchair. When I asked her where all the bread had gone, she looked at those pieces in her high chair and looked at me as if telling me 'here they are' :). This is a new phase and I and Vaishakh are enjoying it to the most. I always talk a lot with her but now that I know that she is trying to understand me makes me feel very happy.

Guess it's a matter of a few months now. She will soon start talking and also arguing. It looks to us like she is building her character now. She has likes and dislikes. She gets upset, happy and angry according to the situations. It awes us every time. Makes me feel motherhood is just fantastic. All you need is just the right proportion of patience!

Looking forward to more of such things from now on...

September 28,2012

A great day spent with Riya. She has been screaming and chatting all day today. I was trying to teach her to say some words but she was not bothered. She went on speaking her own language. I gave up in the end. She never concentrates or listens to us when we are trying to teach her something. She tries to find something funny about it and plays along. Wondering how it will be when she will go to school and actually will have to learn a lot of things.

I took her to the park today and we had only been there for about 5 minutes and it began to rain. I had to quickly pick her up from the swing and put her in the buggy. But she did not want to get out of the swing. She cried when I put her in the pram. She has been doing this since the last couple of times. She loved spending time in the park and cries if we have to come back home. More than playing she loves looking at other babies and their parents.

Another funny incident which happened today was she had picked up our landline phone and was showing it to me. I wanted to get it back from her and when I started going towards her to get the phone she literally ran. I mean she crawled so fast holding the phone in her hand and screaming with excitement.She is so much fun these days. She crawled quite a distance and looked back at me and also saw that the phone in her hand was gone. She had left in behind on the floor in all her excitement to run away from me.

She also waits for Vaishakh in the evening now. As soon as he unlocks the door, she knows it and she quickly crawls towards the entrance of the house to greet her daddy. She is always so excited to see him and she runs around the house like crazy when he comes home.

Riya and I went to my workplace yesterday. I had to discuss a few things at work and also meet my colleagues. Riya loved it and had a nice day. It turned out to be a nice day luckily. The forecast said it would rain but it didn't and it was sunny as well. We took the train from Wimbledon to Gunnersbury where my new office is located. Riya enjoyed her trip on the train and also loved meeting everybody at my workplace. Everybody loved her too. She wore her red spotty dress and she looked great in it too.

I spoke about working part time at work and am happy it was accepted. It's a big relief that I will be going back to work part time. I will at least get to spend more time with Riya. But the hunt for a nursery and a nanny or the right combination of them is still on!

September 23 2012

Riya turns 9 months old today. Very bad day in terms of the weather unlike the sunny day we had when she had turned 8 :). Windy, rainy and cold. We could hardly step out. But we managed to get out for sometime. It was a crazy idea though.
I am afraid the weather is not going to be any better from now on. Winter is at our doorsteps. Riya is now so playful that I am worried about how to entertain her at home the whole day if we are not able to get out at all during the day.

We tried to get a picture of the 3 of us together but in vain. 9 months have passed and we still don't have a decent family photo :). We are always so busy clicking her photos that we now have at least a thousand pictures of Riya.

Riya turns 9 also means I have only 3 more months left with me to spend with her. It kills to think about going back to work. Time is flying at the speed of light and Riya is growing up everyday.I can't imagine that a little baby who fit in my arms a while ago has grown so tall now. These are the most enjoyable days of my life. Babies are fun once they turn 6 months old. I so look forward to spending each day with her. That one smile, one laugh, one mischief makes my day :D. Sometimes I am cross with her too but that does'n stay long. When I see her smiling at me and crawling towards me with her best speed my heart melts.

She is wearing her new white night suit now and looking as lovely as ever sleeping in her bed. This is the best time I can accumulate my thoughts and remember all the moments I spent with her during the day and pen them down. I sit in my bed, next to her's, look at her and wonder how much I love her.

A new development we are seeing in her is that she is getting upset with me when I scold her :). She somehow knows that she needs to go to daddy when I scold her for doing something wrong. How kids learn these things is a mystery. Everyday is new and I wait to see what new things I will get to see on that day.

September 21, 2012

Tough week because of various personal reasons. All that aside Riya still remains the sole reason of happiness in our lives at the moment. On one of the days Vaishakh said "Having kids is a very rewarding experience for the parents". I can't agree more. She has brought so much happiness in our lives. It's not that we have not been happy until we had her but the happiness she brings is just so much different. When we spend time with her we forget about everything else.

Riya has been very good with her bath for the last couple of weeks. She has started to enjoy her bath now. She still hates having to wash her hair but at least she is happy with her bath. She splashes water everywhere and plays with her bath toys. Funnily she didn't want to get out of her bath today. We picked her up but she sat again in the bath tub and started to play.

Mummy and Riya went to the Wimbledon station to pick up daddy today. It started to rain once we reached the station.We all together went to Starbucks and had a coffee. Riya enjoyed her time with us in the coffee shop. She looked at the rain outside and at the vehicles from the glass window. She looked at people around here. As usual she is always interested in looking at people.

She has been very cheerful today. She has learnt a couple of new things :D. She has learnt to play the Peek-a-boo game by herself. She covers herself with her blanket and peeps through it and smiles at me. It was amazing to watch her do it. She first did it at the play and learn class to which I take her every week on the Wednesday. Today she it at home and I am really happy that I captured it on the video too. She has also learnt to give me a hi-five. I have been teaching her to wave her hand to say bye-bye but she never did that. But she likes giving me a hi-five.




You'd imagine you'd never understand babies. Why they like something and why they don't like some things. This will always remain a mystery as they can't communicate and tell us what they think. But I'm sure the mums know exactly what their babies want. It's just instincts. Last night, I suddenly felt she wanted water and when we gave her water , it looked like she really did need water. She had a few big gulps. How I knew this, I don't know. Motherly instincts, that's what they are called :)..

September 17 2012

Chatty Riya.

As expected the fever which Riya had last week vanished in a day. It was probably her teething or the tiredness. Whatever it was I am very happy that it stayed for only a short span. It was Vaishakh's turn to fall sick next :).

Flu,cold,cough is in the air as the winter is fast approaching. I have to protect Riya from all this. I don't know how. But I will do my best. I must mention she has been doing her poop in the potty for continuously for more than a week now.

Riya seems to have mastered the art of making different sounds. We had been waiting as to when she will try to say something. I and Vaishakh kept prompting her with words like 'Ma','Pa','Da' etc. But she never tried to copy us and said any of those words.

Today she just went on and on. It's very strange and funny how babies learn new things. It's like a switch. Once they learn something new they keep repeating it and do it again and again and finally master it. It was very similar when she learnt to stand up holding on to things. She tried and tried and when she learnt it she started doing it very easily. We must agree babies are fast learners. She went on saying 'dadadada'..And also made different sounds and shouted when she was happy and when she laughed.
She first did it in the park when I and she were sitting on a bench after having played the swing, horse and the slide. After coming home I told Vaishakh about it and I wanted him to see it as well. She started doing it again in the evening. I and Vaishakh kept repeating after her and she kept talking. Damn the video camera battery. It always runs into low battery when I need it the most. The first time was when we took her swimming and the second time was today. I want to capture every special moment of Riya and hate to miss any. But I think she will do the same tomorrow as well. As she has now learnt how to make those sounds, I am hoping she will continue to do it frequently and I will be able to shoot something very soon. Who knows she might just say her first word in the next few days or weeks.Hhhmmm...

Mummy and Daddy are waiting Riya. When will it be and what will it be :D.

September 12, 2012

Riya falls sick for the first time and daddy gets a panic attack. Riya had her first dose of fever. She has been having a bit of temperature since yesterday night. She is probably teething, hence the temperature. She has a little bit of a runny nose too. She slept on us all night tucked in cozily in our bed. She probably felt safe being with us. And we didn't want to let her go either.

She has been very dull all day. We had to miss her play and learn class as she was not well. Vaishakh worked from home today in case we had to take her to the doctor. It felt very bad to look at her dull face. Otherwise she is such a bubbly girl. She only wanted to be cuddled. She came n climbed over me and slept on my lap a couple of times. She had her meals alright though. If we were in India we would be flooded with advices about how to get rid of her fever. And some would have given me reasons as to why it happened. We would have also visited the doctor. But we are here in London and there is nobody to give us any advices and the doctor told us over the phone to give her calpol without even having a look at her. Well she has been recovering. Her eyes were still dull but she was starting to get back to her usual self. She had started crawling around and pulling eveything she could reach towards the evening. She is now sleeping soundly in her bed. I think she is now feeling better. I want to see her get up tomorrow and smile at us when we say 'good morning' like she does every morning.

She's my strong little rockstar. I am sure she will be fine soon. This phase will pass away.

September 11, 2012

I have tried to write something a few times last week. But it has been crazy busy. Riya had a nice weekend. She visited her cousin Sam for his bday. She was very happy to see so many people. She was very well behaved. She enjoyed everybody's company. She was so excited all the time. She didn't want to be carried. She tried talking and said some things in her own language. Jai came and said to me that Riya had a conversation with him :).

I left her with Vaishakh for a couple of hours for the first time and went for some shopping with my sisters. I missed her but looked like Riya didn't miss me :). She was happily playing with everybody when I came back home and wasn't even bothered when I came. Looks like she will settle down in the day care easily as well.

She has been sleeping well in the last couple of days and her face seems a bit different. She doesn't look like a baby anymore. She is acting like an individual now with her likes and dislikes getting stronger. Getting her to drink the formula milk is still very difficult. It's been more than 2 weeks now. I am worried if she will settle with it soon or not. I hope she does.

We have observed 2 new behaviours in her. She has a new style of sleeping. She sleeps on her tummy most of the time but now she kneels and sleeps on her tummy. She looks very funny when she does that. She has a new style of crying as well. She raises her nose and makes a funny sound when she is starting to cry. I am yet to capture it in a video.

September 05 2012

Yesterday Riya slept at 11.30 pm unlike other days when she goes to sleep at 8. She had so much energy even at 10 in the night. It's impossible to match her energy levels.  I and Vaishakh were tired and sleepy but she wanted to play. We had our dinner and she sat with us playing with her toys, crawling around us and watching TV. Minal called me and I had to speak to her even though it was so late in India as she wanted to discuss a few things about her Accenture interview. I just hope it works for Minal and she gets through.

Riya was punished by mummy and daddy for staying up late by making her sit in her bouncer without either of us talking to her but she stayed there for hardly 5 mins. She makes funny faces and smiles at us and there it goes, our hearts melt :). We took her out of the bouncer and allowed her to play.

Finally we had to carry her to the bedroom with us forcibly. She didn't come to us when we called her and said we need to do JOJO now :). She probably understood and didn't want to sleep. She played on the bed for a while with us. I closed my eyes and said goodnight to her but she climbed up on me and was trying to open my eyes and pulled my hair. We put the lights off and I and Vaishakh slept on her sides. She was not willing to go her bed either. She didn't want to do anything what she usually does as a part of her routing everyday. After a lot of jumping around between us in the dark she started yawning. Then she came and rested her head on my hand and slept beside me. I sang a lullaby for her and she sang back to me in her own language and slowly she fell asleep. This has been probably the best moment of my motherhood so far. I have never felt so good. I often have this feeling these days that this is probably the best time I have had with her and in a few days that changes, there is a better moment spent with her. But what happened last night was THE special moment I spent with her. I will remember this always and even if there is a time when I forget about these little moments, I have this blog to read through and refresh my memories.

Love you my cutie pie :D..

September 03, 2012

My baby is getting smarter day by day :). She is now standing up holding on to everything but she has also learnt to land safely and slowly on her bum. Good for her. She is so active these days that I have started to get tired running behind her. She wants to discover everything in the house. She tore a book yesterday. So now it's time for us to empty our book shelf .

She now probably recognises herself. She looks at her videos and her own photos and smiles :). If she is screaming in a video she screams even louder as if she is competing with the girl in the video . It's very funny to watch her doing it.

She has now established a relationship with her dad. She loves Vaishakh now. She was away from him for 3 months. That's probably the reason she took a while but now they know each other very well and understand each other very well.

September 02, 2012

End of another weekend. 

She is now 8 months and 10 days old. It's now getting difficult to run behind her the whole day. Riya doesnt want to sit in a place for even a few seconds . She wants to stand all the time. She walks a bit holding on to the sofa. She wants to play the whole day these days. She hardly slept during the day yesterday and today and by the time she has her bath she is already dosing off :). She is soo excited during the weekends that she does not sleep much.

Bath !! It's a big battle. She hates having a head bath. But she does have beautiful curly hair which she manages to get messy by rubbing on all that she eats on to her hair . She runs her hand over her mouth when she is eating and then touches her hair :). Her lunch today was rice n dal paste with a pinch of salt n ghee, n looked like she liked it. Every time I give her a nice home cooked hot meal I wonder how will she manage in the day care as I don't think they will take so much trouble. She has started having strong likes n dislikes now. Vaishakh says her tastes are like mine. Why not ;)?

She did a very funny thing today. She was 7 months 6 days when for the first time she cried bcoz I scolded her. Today when I scolded her as to not touch the food bin, she went to her dad put her head in his lap n stayed that way for a while. She understands these things very well now. Smart eeehh? It's amazing how they learn these things.

She now laughs so much. I and Vaishakh got a couple of videos of her today evening. It's her new game of hide n seek with mummy n daddy. It's a pleasure to see her laugh and smile. Also to watch her sleep which am doing now ...