Rhea is 9 months old!

Rhea is 9 months today. She had her 9 month appointment today. Here are the stats,

Height: 27 inches (50th percentile)
Weight: 19 lb 7 oz (70th percentile)
Head Circumference: Hmm..i dont remember ...but she is right on target and thats all that matters right!

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..

Bye Bye

Rhea waved bye bye for the first time yesterday. I was at home with a sprained back (lonmg story so will skip the details) and was at home. I was upstairs in bed most of the time. Whenever I came down though Rhea would get really excited and babble loudly and smile. When I didin't go and get her from Daddy and Mummy she would have this really perplexed look as if to say ‘Why aren’t you carrying me, mamma'. She would keep looking at me for the longest time. Finally I broke down and carried her few times. She didn’t want to go back to Daddy or Mummy from me after that. Pavam vava. Finally I had to say ‘Bye Bye’ in an attempt to trick her to think that I’m stepping out. I was shocked when she waved back in response. I didn’t know she knew to wave. I was so excited and kept saying bye bye to see her reaction!! It was such a cute sight and she must have been wondering what the fuss was all about. Oue lil baby is growing up so fast…

Halloween Pictures

Spooky??


Do I look like a real pumpkin?


I'm the new Fireman in the Firestation!


Enjoying the fall colors!


Firemen can be silly too


I'm lovin being a Pumpkin!



Awesome Twosome!

Portrait of our Princess!

Am I cute!

Dressed for chilly weather..

Its getting chillier by the day. Days are getting shorter which means that I leave when its drak outside and by the time I get back from work the sun is beginning to set. None of us are liking the extra layer of clothes and jackets we have to put on. Here is a couple pf pictures of Rhea before we left for church today morning.


How's my new outfit


Do you like my hat?

Happy Diwali!

I tknow this post is a few weeks late. But I have the cutest picture of Rhea in her 'Indian dress' as sean referes to it. He even said ' She looks like a princess' when he saw her in the outfit.


I'm a princess

I have to admit sean looked smashing in his kurta-pajama. He didnt want to be pictured and avoided the shutterbug like the papparazi were hounding him :)We went to our friend Kala and Parimal's house for the Diwali party. Sean had a graet time and enjoyed watching the fireworks. Rhea enjoyued being the centre of attention..she was the only baby there and hogged the limelight!

Weekend pictures...

Took some pictures before we left for church...Dada is missing ...next time we'll try to get one of the four of us!


Brother & Sistah


Dada, where are you?

Sean's 3 year stats!

Sean had his 3 year well child check up on Friday. I know...I know..he turned 3 almost 5 months ago...but hey better late than never.



Dr Howell mentioned that he is doing well. He was supposed to get his flu shots next weekend but since we were at the Drs office she asked if we want to go ahead and take it then...well sure why not...its easier to take care of 1 cranky kid at a time. Rhea is also scheduled for her flu shot next week. Sean wasn't too happy about the shot and shed a few years whenn he got poked but bounced back to his cheerful self after the pain wore off in 5 mins. Below are his 3 year stats. He is in the 75th percentile for height and 25th percentile for weight.


Weight 31 lbs
Height 39 3/4 inches
Head Circumference 18 3/4 inches

Rhea is 7 months

Rhea turned 7 months today! She is such a joy!! She has been busy the past month and happend to sit on her own. SH ehasnt repeated the feat and I attribute it to the long nasty cold that really borught her down. She is slowly bouncing back to her normal self again. She is very close to crawling on all fours. But she has figured to scoot from one point to another and manages to go after all her toys and cheta's choo choo trains.



I'm 7 months old!

My New shoes!

I have been meaning to get a new running shoes for months. The last time I shopped was right after I resumed jogging after Sean was born..so about 2.5 years ago. I was beginning to get knee pains after my runs these past few days, which definitely is sure sign of worn out shoes.

Aji, Sean and Me went to the running store on Saturday. The one I was wearing was a Mizuno Wave Rider and I had fell in love with it because its so light and also has lot more room in the toe area. The store didn’t carry the same model in the latest version in my size and the gentleman showed me a pricier model that had lot more support. It felt great but was $40 more and I felt that I couldn’t justify the extra $$. He said that he could place an order for the one I wanted. In the meantime I tried out other brands to see if I had more options – Nike, Asics, Saucony, Brooks…I tried them on and did a quick jog on the track in the store. One after the other my feet screamed – NAH..NAH...NAH.They seemed to still be in love with the Mizuno Wave rider. On a side note - one cute thing was every time I tried on a shoe and ran down their indoor track Sean would get excited and he would run up and down on the track. It was fun to see him getting hyped to run on the strip of indoor track. Hopefully he will develop a love for running and in couple of years we can all go for family jogs! We placed an order for my shoes – he showed me one in a smaller size and I loved the color too…it was a combination of lavender, blue and purple different from the Orange, grey and white I have now. I guess they change the color of all their models every year.


My new shoes

My shoes arrived earlier than expected and I picked it up on the same day(Tuesday) but couldn’t run the same day or on Wednesday since Sean was really cranky (no nap) both days after I got home late after my trainings and I just spent time with the kids. Finally yesterday I got home at my usual time, spent some time with Sean and Rhea and got on the dreadmill (yes I dread the treadmill…I prefer running outside, it is so much more enjoyable and the time passes quickly when u have so much to gawk at :). I ran for half hour…kness felt good and I was HAPPY!

Sean came down by the time I was done and as I was stretching he looked at my shoe and pointed to the lavender color and said ,

I don’t like that color
Me: Which color, the lavender?
Sean: Yeah.
Me: See its got purple too. They didn’t have any other color shoe Sean.
Sean: In the store they had a pink one. I liked the pink one.
He was referring to the more expensive one. I didn’t think he’d remember that.
Me: Purple is nice too. Maybe next time I’ll get the pink ones Ok.


Maybe next time this model will be in pink and I don’t have to shell out the extra 40 bucks.

Visit to Cox farm!

Yesterday we went to Cox farm which is 10 mins from our home for the Fall festival. We've been meaning to make a trip here for the past 3 years since we moved but it happened only on Monday. Rhea stayed home with Appacha and Ammachi as she had a lingering cold...


Seany and Dada


Look at all the baby pumpkins!

It was a lot of fun...sean had a great time. Anishchayan and fly, Parimal, kala and kids and our new friend from church Roshan and his kids were also there...



Sean was quite the dare devil and we were tremendously impressed! He was not scared to go on any of the slides and even came alone on most of them.



The bigger steeper slide, Mommy and Sean did together.

Woohoo!!!

Dada and Sean did bungy jumping there was also a ton of other activities like - Penny search, Hay ride, fun mazes with hay, milk the cow, lots of baby animals etc..


Sean, searching for penny's in the Penny Pit


Hello Bessie, the cow!


How tall am I??


We followed the rules and had a bum-bastic time!!!

Me and Aji had lots of fun doing silly stuff too...






That was fun! Can we do this again tomorrow???

Winter Ready ?

Yesterday I finally sat down and took out Sean's winter coat from when he was a baby. I wanted to make sure Rhea can use it. She seemed pretty excited to get into it but lay still afetr we zipped her in. I guess there wasnt much moving she could do in it.


I wonder if she will fit in her baby car seat with this huge one piece winter suit. We will have to try it and see. Hopefully it will work and we wont have to buy a car seat now!

Sean has outgrown his winter jacket from the past 2 years. So we need to get him one. he is not a huge fan of shopping (I guess i can attribute it to the Y chromosome) and was alomost in fits when i suggested we hit the stores yesterday. We will have to look around soon though since it is getting chillier by the day..

All set for Halloween..

I already got Sean's halloween costume for this year. Its a secret so you will have to wait till the end of the month for the scoop. I mean it not a huge surprise if you know his fascination for all the 'BOY' stuff.

Well, for Rhea I didnt want to get a new outfit since we had sean's first costume. We tried it on and it was a perfect fit. She looked so cute in it...



So here's a fun trivia - take a look at Rhea's picture and guess what she is going to be ...no prizes for guessing right since its a no brainer...

Sitting up.

Rhea sat up on her own for the first time yesterday..YAY!!!

She did it only once so far and Ammachi was the sole witness. She is trying mighty hard to repeat the feat. She can now stand aon all 4's effortlessly and most of the time she will rock herself back and forth as if to gain momentum to make that final turn to sit. She is at it all the time and we're sure in no time she will do it with ease. Its a cute sight to see her work on it...i'm alomsot always tempted to help but what good would that do...

If we catch her in the act again I'll try caprure the evidence and post it here...

GO RHEA!!!

Mamma's little helper!

Sean has been insisting on claening the table after dinner these days. Appacha does this everyday and he decided it is his job to do it. He is pretty good at it and even puts the mats away after he wipes it. We didnt show him how to do it, i guess he was watching appacha everyday.


Cleaning the placemats..


Putting the placemats away..

The only downfall to it is that after the first couple of days he has been running out of patience to wait till we finish dinner and slowly sneaks in one mat after the ohter while we're still having dinner. We tell him he doesnt have to do it (well, not for another couple of years) but he is adamant about it so we let him have his way

Fall already...

Well the weather certainly feels like that...it was quite chilly this weekend and I had to give in and take out their fall clothes...

This is right before we left for church..


Aren't we cute!


Looking pretty!

piano maestro..

Yesterday I took both the kids to the basement and we played a lot. It was a lot of fun...Rhea looked like a prodigy on the keyboard. Of course she got a lot of help from her big brother too...Here are the pictures...









Clowning around...

Sean had a lot of fun wearing his clown hat and being silly...he also played in the tunnel and Rhea had fun playing all of cheta's toys...it was her first trip down to play and she had a blast..