D is for Dreams

Last night I saw a dream that my baby girl started walking, infact not walking but she was sitting down and then started running. I was excited, speechless, did not believe it was true, so I took her to another room and plonked her down and viola , she was up and running. I went about screaming excitedly at everyone around, grand-parents came running to see the visual and lo and behold there it was again. This morning I woke up to realize it was a dream.

Sometimes the dreams feel so real, as though everything is happening in real and then you wake up in the morning to realize that it never happened. The dreams that I remember are usually happy ones..............so what do you dream of?

C is for Cute

Cuteness Overloaded is my 9 month old baby girl. We had always wanted a second baby and having a first hand experience I was prepared for the night feedings and sleeplessness for the first 2 months, like I say to so many of my friends, nothing changes after the first 2 months, just that your body gets used to the sleepless nights.
I distinctly remember how terrified I was as soon as it used to get dark during the first 1st -4 th week after my first one was born, I was scared thinking of the nights, how bad it would be, the pumping that I had to do at 4 am in the morning. With my first born this saga went on for 2 months after whcih he has not given my much trouble.
Moreover my 2 year old nephew was here with my parents and he did not allow my mom to come near the baby at nights, so it was pretty much me and hubby, after the first week it was pretty much me talking care of the baby at nights and even mostly the other times.

Then July 9th 2014 happened, the baby latched on immediately for her first feeding itself, no issues there, at night we send her to the nursery, they got her back after every 3 hours but we were pretty much rested the remaining time, she hardly cried which is so much of a blessing. After we came home mom, me and baby slept together, I pushed my hubby out with daddy to the other room, she was a sound sleeper, normally babies should feed 3 hrs at night, my little one slept so well, we had to wake her up for her feeds and normally I did only 2 feeds, after feeding, I gave her to my mom who patted her for some time and then all 3 of us would be asleep, day times also she slept peacefully, I was no longer scared of the evenings. 3 months later dad left for India,my mom and baby moved out to the other room, she came for feeding once at night and that's it, otherwise I slept peacefully, mom took over all our home tasks and taking care of the baby.

My little one was also pretty easy going, she played,slept,smiled a lot infact some girls at out apt have nicnamed her Smiling Ritiha as she is always smiling to everyone around.
Now everyone says that she looks exactly like my son and whenever we go out everyone will be oooing and aaaaaaaing at how cute she is, infact when we went to leave my mom at the airport people standing in the queue were gushing at her and one lady put all her luggage down to come and peek at her and squeal at her, I secretly thought she would take her away and go if she could, now the question I have is How come no one ever said that my son is cute if the look alike, is it because she is a girl?

I know, started this post with this question but got digressed...
Any thoughts??

B is for Broadmoor

Broadmoor is the apartment complex that we have been staying for the past 6+ years since we came to US (after wedding). It is a slightly old apartment complex with about 500 units, all interconnected with internal gym/swimming pool/game room.
Hubby was living with friends at another place and then when I came a month later we signed a lease at this apartment complex (Apt 309) courtyard facing.
We shopped for bathroom curtains, bath essentials, kitchen essentials and it was the first time I was setting up a home. We also had a group of bachelor guys who stayed in teh 4th floor and another 3-4 couples in the same apartment.
All of us mostly hung out together. I was too much into cooking then and tried and tested various new receipes for everyone.
It was here that we conceived our first baby and when it was nearing for my due date we decided to move into a 2 BHK as we needed the space with parents coming over.
We shifted to Apt 303, hubby did most of the moving and arranging as I was 8 months pregnant by then. Our baby boy first arrived in this apartment and we had my parents and the in-laws both come over and stay with us.
We celebrated my son's first food giving ceremony here with all our friends. After parents leaving we felt the house too big and shifted abck to a 1 BHK (Apt 213), also we had left baby boy in India and it was only the 2 of us.
At this time there was a case of bed bugs all over the apartment and hence we threw away our sofa/bed and other stuff away, we sort of had a matteress in the front room and we were sparwled over there all the time(kind of like bachelor days). At this time we got addicted to the serial "Prison break" and would watch back to back episodes. We also had new friends with other friends who were having kids our son's age.
Time flew in going to gym, workign out, playing TT(remember the game room)

6 months later our baby boy was back, now the previous bachelors, most of them moved back and the new ones had formed thier own groups, we sort of felt left out and at one point I was very homesick.
Slowly we got to meet other families from the apt complex, we had a first apt Diwali celebration where I was a part of the initiative commitee. Had our first book reading club and formed a bond with many friends, suddenly there was a lot of activities going on, Thu evening Saibaba aarti, Navratri pooja, Shivratri jagran, get-togethers at so many places, birthdays of dear friends were celebrated, holi, independence day,Ladies parties were organized and enjoyed together. Kids played together all the time, we knew each and every one, we shared and joked and formed a common bond, lots of old faces have gone but new ones have come and kept the tradition going.

Broadmoor is truly a home away from home for me, a perfect place to live in.

A Letter to my Baby Boy

First of all I love you my baby and there is no one in the whole wide world that I would love more except your little sister(I have to write this else you will be yelling at me, she is my sister Amma, you have to love her more).
At this age of 5 you do not listen to anything that I have to say, I have to keep repeating things ten times for it to register in your head or most of the times you will not even blink an eye.
At this age all you want to do is play with your friends, have sleep overs and generally just have fun. It amazes me to see your developed social skills, you can play with both kids above and below your age, you are very popular in school too where other parents coem and tell me, Oh, you are Ritvik's mom, XXX always talks about Ritvik.(proud mama moment)...Be like this always sweetheart.

If anytime in life you are faced with rejections or hurt (which you will for sure), all those are part and parcel of growing up ,remember to not give up , you can always come back to your Amma and Appa and we will welcome you with open arms.
You have grandparents , cousins, aunts and uncles who love you to bits and pieces.

You are growing and will definitely want to try out new things in life, but please do not play with your body, health is very important in long life and so is putting oil on your head and body(which you so run away from nowadays).
Please do not take drugs and get addicted to alcohol and abuse.
Go wild, live your life but also be responsible for your actions.
Sometimes I wish I could hug you and keep you safe in my arms forever.

I love you my baby, umaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah

The Value of Life

Many of you must have stumbled upon Oregano's Blog here through Pepper's blog.
It was shocking to read of a 23 yr old having Kidney failure without any symptoms and then reading about his journey, his willpower, the changes in his life makes one want to thank God every day for the healthy life he has given me and my near ones.

However we were faced with a somewhat similar situation a month back. One of my friend's kid, almost same age as my son, whom we have seen since he was 2 years old and is always in and out of our house playing with the gang had to have a liver transplant.
It hit us all from nowhere, the 6 yr old had no symptons, just complained of stomach ache a couple of times, parents took him to the doctors where they did some tests and said it was some viral disease, they could go back home.
2 days later he puked and so they again took him back, this tiem they send him to the Childrens hospital to conduct more tests, and aft 2-3 days they told the parents on a Wednesday night that his liver was 80% damaged and the only option was to do a liver transplant. On Thursday morning they got a donor and were ready to operate that night. This is when the friends circle came to know about it. We were shocked to hear about this, some of the guys went to the hospital whereas the few of us took care of their little ones.

The surgery went fine and Fri noon myself and 2 other friends went to the ICU. It breaks your heart in a thousand pieces to see a kid lying on the bed with tubes all over his body, I am even scared to think what his parents must be going through.
For the next few days we were in and out of hospital in turns helping out,taking food, being there, thankfully the kid was responding well.
There were a few hiccups here and there but after 2 weeks he got discharged.
He will have to take immunosuppression drugs for his life and for now the 1 year period is very critical to make sure his body adapts the liver.
He has to take about 20 pills per day and has to avoid crowds so that he does not get any common cold or any other disease as that will again lead to a hospital visit.

The liver biopsy was done and the doctors could not point out the reason for the failure which is another very scary thought. The said it could be any virus that may have attacked and it was acute which means the liver damage could have happened within a week.

I am sure God has some great plans for him, this life changing incident will definitely lead him to become a big doctor or scientist(the kid is way too smart, the smartest that I have seen till date)

Praying for the kid to be well soon and also for the health and well-being of each and every person in this world.

Go and hug all your loved ones, I definitely did that, Life is too short and precious.

8 month Milestone

The little R completed 8 months today. She can sit by herself and can hold onto things and stand. She is eating mostly all foods in the pureed form. She also got 2 lower teeth coming out and one upper teeth.

She can babble a lot nowadays, still sleeping half hr morn, half hr eve and the 2-3 hrs noon nap.

Touchwood a good night sleeper also.

And then there were 2

This post is inspired from R's Mom post here .
Sibling love is the most beautiful and precious emotion  in the whole universe.

I see my little one's eyes light up the moment she sees her older brother, He in turn wants to hug, cuddle and kiss her all the times (xcept when he is playing on his ipad) even then if I ask him to entertain her he will call her quickly 'Kunniie"(in Malu).
He can dance and entertain her non-stop and she will always be in peals of laughter, if I do the same thing he does she will just smile. If he screams peeka--peeka boo you can hear her squeals in the other room.

At night he will kiss her and then tell me, Mom, she is the cutest or things like 'She is super cute Amma', I love her, she is my baby.

The younger one is no less, the minute anna walks in and squeezes her tight a bright smile will be plastered on her face. We will be scolding him as he might crush her or put her weight on her but she is always having fun.

Hope thier love and bonding continues as years go by.

Luv u my chubbies.