Standing Up!

Yay!!!! Huge Milestone for our little princess.

She's been at it for some time now and was pulling herself up when we plonk her on the bed or on the couch. But yesterday she pulled herself up on the magazine rack and stood up for almost a minute at a time. She kept repeating it all evening and made it look so effortless. We are so proud of her :)

Coming soon...BABY STEPS ...so stay tuned :)

Deciphering the growing wish list of our 3 year old

Past couple of days I've been trying to narrow down Sean's wish list for this Christmas for ahem…Santa. He has been trying really hard to be nice the whole year - notice the stress on NICE - thats the only form of blackmail that works on him these days and let me tell you I have been using that to its full advantage :)

I'm sure he has the scene from Polar Express etched in his mind where the kids see the Elves watching all the boys and girls on their screen and making a note - NAUGHTY or NICE. To see him believing in Santa so much I almost wish I were a kid again :)

Yesterday on our way home we had an interesting conversation,

Sean: Mamma, what time is it?
Me: Its 5:20 Seany
Sean: Mom, can you buy me a watch ?
Me: Ok Sean

And suddenly I had this light bulb moment ...and I could hear the keyboard in my head typing fast - List of possible gifts for Sean this X'mas
1) Watch

We continue the conversation,

Me: Sean, maybe we should write that letter to Santa and ask him to get you a watch.
Sean: But Santa is getting me a DC choo choo (thats his term for DC metro train)

I chuckle thinking how naive he is for thinking that Santa would get him only 1 gift. I'm also in a bit of a shock...how in the world are we going to pull that off - a DC Choo Choo train for X'Mas???!!! I'm thinking hard as to how I can convince him to settle on something 'Buyable'

Me: You mean you want a ride on the DC Choo Choo train?
Sean: No, I want a small DC Choo Choo train. I want to drive it.
Me:But kids can’t drive trains. You have to be older.
Sean:But I’m already OLDER.
Me: But you already have so may trains and the big train table.
Sean: But I dont have the DC choo Choo Train..And I dont have the DC Choo Choo train tracks.

By now I realised this conversation was really not going any place i wanted it to...

Me: Lets ask Santa to get you a watch.
Sean: I want Santa to get me a watch and a Train. (Ha, so much for the assuming he is 'Naive'. He seems to be grasping more and more about this gift receiving season fast)

Since he didnt mention DC train thereafter, i left it at that....but soon enough he had a new thought,

Sean: Mommy, can you get me the Little tien DVD (Little Einstein)
Me: Acting very ignorant - Do they have Little Einstein DVDs?
Sean: Yeah!
Me: Where did you see them?
Sean: In the green store
Me: Ok (Me thinking - Green Store? Which one is that?)

Anyways I make a mental note of the DVDs to his wishlist. At this rate I'm pretty sure if I continue to have similar conversations everyday till christmas...i may end having way too many things possible gifts ...MUST GET HIM TO PRIORITIZE. I'm hoping that somewhere along the way I can decipher all his thoughts and get him to agree on final list and hopefully the stores will still have them and that way we can keep Santa alive for another year.

I have to say that this is a huge step in our quest to find Santa's ultimate gift for Sean...because till last week he wanted to Santa to get him 'GIFTS' and a sleigh bell. I'm glad we have started defining what those 'Gifts' are :)

Now Rhea's gift- no brainer for another 2 years hopefully...right now she is happiest with a kleenex tissue...of course Santa will definitely do better than that this year but you know the bar is set so low..its just way too easy. I sure pray that I won’t have to pay the price for this time in the coming years :)

Donning the Pearly Whites!

Rhea has been chewing on everything she can get her hands on for the past couple of weeks. We suspected that she was teething and kept checking her gums but nothing. Sean got his first tooth after he turned 1 so i thought she was following in her cheta's footsteps.

But NO..NO...NO.This weekend we noticed a slight bump in the lower right gums and yeterday as i ran my fingers ...i could feel it ...Her first little tooth!!! She was so happy when I massaged her gums...am sure it was a big relief for her. You can barely see the white on her gums but I'm pretty sure in the next couple of days they will pop out and she will don her 'FANG'. I will have pictures then :)

Thanksgiving

Lilly Ammai's Visit

Sean enjoying a cuddle from Lilly Ammai. He is sporting the slippers that Roan and Joshua sent him!

Rhea is 8 months old!

Happy Birthday Daddy!

Halloween 2006

Yesterday Rhea made her debut 'trick or treat' adventure and I'm glad to report that she totally loved it!!! We were at home for a while and handed out candy to a few neighborhood trick or treaters before stepping out. Sean was very excited to hand out candy but was a little disppointed that our candy pile at home was getting smaller. he kept saying' But where is my candy' so finally we stepped out. The first couple of houses he was a litlle shy to say 'Trick or Treat' and was happy to get the candy. But after couple of houses he became a pro and was loving the fact that his candy bag was getting full. he wanted to eat some rightaway but we managed to convince him that it is better to get home and then enjoy the loot. Rhea was havoing a lot of fun and waved bye to bye to everyone as we left. By the time we finished one round of our neighborhood Rhea seemed tired and sighed a few times as if to say 'Ok people...i'm getting tired...time to go home and chill'. Sean was not ready and wanted to keep going. we told him taht we were expecting sarah and Suzanna chechi and he finally agreed to come home.

Anishchayan,Chechi,Suzanna and Sarah showed up half hour later. Sarah was dressed as 'Snow White' and looked adorable. Suzanna was a witch, a good looking one at that(if there ever was one)!! Heres a picture of the kids in all their halloween glory!


I think we had a good mix - A fireman, a princess, an adorable pumpkin and a witch!!

Mr Independent..

Sean is very much into learning to write his numbers and letters these days. Most of the time I help him on paper but sometimes i play a game of find the letter and type it in WORD on the computer. He has become so confident about his computer skills athat nowadays he doesn't want me to sit down with him...well atleast not until he accidentally presses some key that brings up a new window and he cannot proceed.

Anyways I just turned on the computer now and this is what he said to me in almost one breath,

"Mommy,I have to do my numbers and I need to do 1 and I need to be strong and I need to have my breakfast and I need to do my letters and I want to do it myself..."

It is all the things we ask him to do everyday and he formed one sentence out of it all..

And now as I type this he is playing with his little sister singing 'Vavo Kuruvi, vavoo" the lullaby that kollad appacha taught him and Rhea is enjoying all the attention from cheta and sqealing in delight!!

I wish i could freeze this precious moment in time..