Ear piercing

Time: 5:50 PM, some day in summer of 2025 AD
Location: Some Fairfax county school playground
Setting: A group of kids discussing about what is cool & trendy

Kid 1: I wanted to have a tattoo but my dad says when i live under my own roof, i can do what ever i want!
Kid 2: I wanted a body piercing but by parents strictly told once i get my driving license i can think about it!
Another Indian Kid: I have a special thread over my body (Showing off his thread by pulling it out from his shirt)
Siddarth: My parents are cool. They got my ears pierced even without asking me :) They know i will be in this kind of situation back then itself! I even have a youtube video of my ear piercing here

All the kids in unison: Your parents rock! I wish mine were like that :)

Yogurt rice & pickle

No, i haven't started my solids diet. I need to wait for few more weeks to try out solids. Even then i will not be tasting yogurt rice & pickle for quite some time (i guess but it mostly depends on what my parent's decide!) but then you may wonder what & why is this post for? This is lunch for my parents today. When dad was keeping yogurt rice in his plate he tried to remember when he had something like this the last time. Not few days or few weeks before but it is been roughly 5 months. To be exact a week before aya joined them as part of the big plan to help mom bring me into this world safely in good health and of course to lovingly take care of me from there!

Dad chuckled at that thought as he added pickle to his plate. The recent months had been feast for him in a daily basis from morning to night :) After i was born it slightly took a back seat but as i was a good kid, the feast resumed back to its glory in couple of weeks! While sitting in the couch and slowly eating, dad was not able to follow whats going on the TV. To the people who don't know about my dad & TV, it is something that doesn't occur often. If i have to put in mom's perspective, dad is somebody who gets glued to TV once it is ON. Dad doesn't deny it (one of very few things that dad lets mom to go away with her version of the story!).

Dad's memory flashed back to the recent months and he was reminded sweetly about the number of times he had fish puli kulambu, chettinad chickens and who will forget the delicious biriyanis (be it chicken or mutton)!  It wouldn't be nice if he didn't mention about the daily vegetarian dishes & delicacies that he devoured without fail even once during the weekdays...  Everything that was made simple or complicated was yummy and mouth watering as it had the correct amount of ingredients cooked to time to capture all the right flavors of various masalas into the dish and when served hot it was something perfect to be labeled as a feast. Hearing my crying sounds dad got back into reality and thought about the future for a second. Then only it struck him like a lightening that eating any meal without interruption is itself will be a feast in the near future :)

3 hour timer

If you know the meaning of this term, then you had a baby in the recent months! I need to be fed without fail in regular intervals and the max time i can go is 3 hours. If i am awake then it is much shorter mostly since i burn my calories quickly pumping my arms/legs as if i am cycling or boxing often. Even though adults may not properly understand my constant cooing and babbling it takes a lot of energy out of me. Each feeding section is followed by a immediate burping sequence (mandatory) and if my I/O system is working good then by a diaper change (optional). I like the way when dad addresses me as a 3 hour timer to mom when calling from work to check our status (both mom & me as i can be very naughty sometimes) during the day. The adults have started to wonder by now itself when my timer is going to extend from the rigid 3 hr schedule but they are not getting the whole point. The timer will extend after many many years and till that time they will have to adapt to more difficult schedules once i start eating solids and when i become more mobile/playfull!!!

New room

After aaya left to India two weeks ago, parents decided to sleep in my room as they don't want me to be alone all night. They knew this was a temporary setup as they had all their stuff in their bedroom. Last weekend dad tried to move the crib to their room with the help of Ram uncle but it didn't work out as the crib didn't go through the narrow passage out from my room without disassembling it. As it was already late, ram uncle left and dad postponed the shift for this week. He searched for the crib assembly instructions as he didn't want to mess with it and later create bug issues as i am comfortable ONLY sleeping in my CRIB! He was afraid that he may disassemble it incorrectly or miss one or two step while putting it back again.

As usual he had kept the crib assembly instructions in a very safe location like many other important documents and now not able to get it when needed as he forgot that safe location! As Sivakami & Alag family was going to visit us during the weekend from Philadelphia, he didn't have a choice but to move it today. He did make couple of mistakes by removing the screws on the wrong side but found it out at the earlier stage itself. Then it didn't take much time for him to disassemble, move it with the help of mom and put it back in their room. To me nothing changed as my view of crib didn't change at all! Same comforter, crib sheet, bumper and of-course the balloon over the top of the crib makes any room the SAME for me :) I guess i will move back to my own room before i turn one!

Diaper wipes

Changing diapers is a normal routine for any parents when they have a baby. My parents were very liberal with diaper wipes during the initial weeks. They didn't care how many they used. During those times when they were little lax, i will rock my legs here & there without care and then they need to spend more time cleaning my legs. so their main goal was not to get myself soiled in the dirty stuff. Dad asked one of the visiting friend about the norm for the number of wipes for a regular diaper change. When he found out that it was three wipes for a change, he silently wondered whether i was special in that case because it was nothing compared to how much they were using.

Anyway after three months if you take a look at the same subject i think i am not special! Most of the the time it will be three wipes and even few times they may feel comfortable with just two. hm... But today it is a different story! To put it in plain words, it was a RIOT! Early morning when mom was feeding me, she noticed the rumbling sound and it is nothing unusual to her! After feeding me she called upon my dad to do his part of the bargain:) When she handed me to dad, after noticing the yellow thingy on the  sides of diaper and a little bit on the dress he made sure that he held me carefully without touching any of the fresh warm poo... UCK UCK babies have a cute way of describing things! When he started walking few drops of poo fell on the comforter and only that time the adults realized the RIOT i have done!!! See, i don't plan for these things and in my defense i don't have any control over these faculties! I don't have a choice with the food i eat as well as pick a time to do my business. Everything comes with a flow! Dad used insane number of wipes to clean the mess and today i felt SPECIAL :) 

Picture people

(This is not the crab dress. No i didn't mess the dress! Mom wanted to take pictures with a different dress)

(Cute boy with his family!)

I visited a professional photo studio to take my pictures for the first time today. Though it is not the first time for my parents to visit a studio, i know that my visit to the studio is completely for different reasons than theirs if you know what i mean!  Dad took off from work in the afternoon even though we had our appointment only at 5 PM. Getting off from work was not to get me ready but to get everybody out to the studio in time. That includes mommy in pretty looking saree that matched with  grandma and a clean shaven dad! The ladies took a lot of time to get ready while dad was not sure whether to wear a formal dress or the usual tshirt/jean combo that he enjoys! Mom wanted him to wear a full slack but dad thought it didn't suit him well as it didn't hide his excess amount of body fat properly :) Finally he ended up with mom's favorite tshirt and everybody was happy! Mom was looking very pretty in the pink saree(her mother-in-law gave it to her for Diwali that was just before her wedding). She claims that she wore the saree by herself but dad suspects the other way. Usually he will help her out but now a days its her mom! I wore a cute crab dress that Meenu athai gave and i had one more as backup just in case if i mess up or should i say if the adults didn't do a proper job with the diapers!

We showed up a little late (nothing surprising there) and everything went very well. The lady who took our pictures briefed us about the studio membership details and the adults decided that it would be fit to enroll in it as they figured out that they will take cute portraits at regular intervals. of course the portraits with be cute only because of my presence! Dad was asking the lady about digital copies of the image and when he found out that they cost exorbitantly high, he made a mental note that he should scan the pictures later to keep a digital copy in Picasa web albums. Now mom is in the hunt for picture frames and then it will be places for them in the house as already all the walls inside our place has one or other thing in them!!!

Shower - Mom/Dad?

Aya will be leaving to India in a week and all the adults were very busy as ever! She was cooking lot of dishes and  freezing them up so that parents could have them for a couple of weeks after she leaves. Knowledge transfer was also going on in full swing starting from things such as cutting nails, showering, things to look for and the nitty-gritty details in taking good care of me. Aya showered me daily and the parents were mere spectators till this day. Mostly dad will act as first assistant during the shower by helping aya with mundane things like checking water temperature, putting liquid soap as requested etc...  Dad says mom is the second assistant but he knows that she will mostly do nothing :) She will look at the three of us daily as if watching some interesting show!

This week both mom & dad took turns to shower me once with aya's guidance as one of them have to continue with the job from next week. It was a easy decision for aya to select the successor. I don't like when they wash my face and i wiggle around with a frown! Mom had difficulty keeping me in place sometimes while showering me. As everybody felt that this will only increase over time it was decided dad will shower me while mom will dress me up after shower. 50:50 rule - Difficult 50 for dad and easy 50 for  mom :)

Passport

I got my AMERICAN passport last week. Did you notice the CAPS & BOLD formatting in the previous sentence? Just wanted to make sure that everybody notices it since it is something that a lot of people including my parents who are trying to get hold of :) Dad had my passport application in the things that needed attention for a long time. When he saw somewhere in the Internet, that the cost of passport application is going to increase along with few other stuff, he sprang into action immediately. He gathered all the required documents and we headed to the post office the next day which was the last date when the old fee structure was valid. There was some confusion about how to take my picture and we went to CVS to make passport size prints of my existing picture. The lady in the post office mentioned that the picture background was slightly dark and she needs to take a picture again there. She was pleasantly surprised that the first one she took itself came well. She said that was something unusual for some one like me since it is difficult to make the babies look at the camera. In most cases babies will look here & there or close there eyes or sleep or do something that will lead to many more takes!

Now let me show of my analytical skills... My dad got his passport in his late teens while my dad's dad got his passport in his late thirties... I think i am getting things what my dad had when he was in his twenties and his dad in his forties... roughly two decades disappear when one jumps from one generation to the next! if this is the case then i should apply for a passport my kid in 10 yrs :) Is my logic right? I am not sure about other things but at least this goes well with my passport!!!