Wednesday, November 21, 2007

Count down to 6 months old!



Can you believe than in 3 days my Ranjit will be 6 months old?! I sure can't, where on earth did the time go??? It hit me today- his Dadi, Mona Moushi and I took him to his 6 month doctor's visit. Not only did he get poked around with needles (he was so good though, he hardly cried!), the doctor gave me the go ahead to start solid foods whenever I want. So tomorrow I'll start with some rice cereal (which I tried a couple weeks ago for kicks and giggles and decided to stop when he seemed to get gassy because of it)and then go from there; organic baby food aisle, here I come! I'm also going to start training him to use a sippy cup; this I think will be met with quite a bit of enthusiasm. I tried to train him to drink from a katori (waati?) the other day and the boy couldn't get enough! He would grab the cup with both hands, throw his head back and gulp down every drop of milk- the boy's an eater, what can I say?? It was a little messy, true, but he is definitely ready to get refreshment from a variety of sources now.

The doctor also confirmed that the two bumps that I had felt on Ranjit's bottom gum WERE in fact teeth bumps, much to my relief and annoyance as well (relief because I felt like I was going crazy, thinking he was teething but not getting any confirmation, annoyance because when I took Ranjit to a nurse for confirmation she said that those bumps were not teeth, they'd already been there).So pretty soon his pearly whites will start to show- any day now, teeth! They sure have been taking their sweet old time!

Ranjit has gained 2 inches in the last 2 months as well! That brings him to 27 inches and 14 pounds, 3 ounces... he's a little skinny (he only gained 1 pound in the last 2 months) but he'll catch up I'm sure. In the meanwhile, he's almost outgrowing his 6-9 month old clothes, which means I'll get to outfit him with a whole new slew of 9-12 month old wardrobe pretty darn soon!

Tomorrow is Ranjit's first Thanksgiving! I need to get him a little Indian (native american, that is) headdress or something for the occasion- I wonder if Jewel has those...

Wednesday, November 7, 2007

Ranjit's Happenin' Halloween and Diwali



Ahhh, the joys of having a baby... not only do you get to play with them and turn them into your very own toy, you get to dress them up in cute little outfits EVERY DAY (until they're old enough to simply say "No more mommy, stop the violence!"). So, the past couple of weeks have been an absolute joy for me. Not only was I able to dress up my little monkey in a monkey suit for halloween, I also got to put him in the cutest little kurta pyjama outfit EVER when his Dada and Dadi threw him his big Diwali party.What a hit he was! He socialized like he'd never socialized before, blowing kisses (rasberries) and drooling on everybody who dared to hold him. Foregoing the open bar, he attentively sat listening to his Dadu and Vikas uncle sing for him, then politely excused himself so that he could go to bed at 8pm(I tried to convince him to sing his rendition of "So Long, Farewell" from Sound of Music, but he wanted to save that for his next party).
That weekend was also very exciting for him because he got to hang out with his Booah and show her what a cute little monkey he could be. No candy for him this year, he had to be a good little primate and eat his bananas instead!


Finally, he met his Arun Azoba mama who traveled all the way from Oregon to meet him. He pulled his nose, hair and glasses and took him to the Shedd Aquarium and showed him all of his favorite fishies... they became pals!

Wednesday, October 24, 2007

Ranjit Prepares for his Debut

This coming Sunday, Ranjit will finally enter society at his grandparents' grand Diwali party... in order to show the world that he's not just another pretty face, Ranjit has prepared a composition on his Fisher-Price piano... here is a sneak preview!



Yes, he is quite dedicated to his art, as you can see. He is SO dedicated in fact that the other night, when he was in one of his playful moods at 4 in the morning, I put him in his crib and went to bed, thinking he would play a little and then go back to bed. However, I woke up 40 minutes later to the sound of music coming from somewhere. When I reached Ranjit's room, I found that he had somehow traveled (the boy cannot crawl yet, mind you) from the head of his crib to the foot and was clanging away on the piano at 4:30 in the morning! Carnegie Hall, here he comes!!

Friday, October 5, 2007

Hooray Hooray Hooray




I'm not Christian or anything, but all I have to say is "Hallelujiah!" Ranjit has learned to fall asleep on his own! Finally! I think... perhaps I'm speaking too soon and tonight will be back to his old ways, but last night he fell asleep after 45 minutes on his own, then 6 minutes when he woke up for his 2:30am feeding, then 5 minutes after he woke up for no reason at 5:30am and another 5 minutes for his 9am nap! FINALLY, I'll be able to get a decent amount of sleep instead of spending hours rocking him, bouncing him, shush-ing until I can't shush no more until he finally gets to sleep.

The poor boy had so many tummy and skin problems when he was younger that every evening he would start crying and not stop until we soothed him to sleep... while this was definitely necessary at the time, I think we basically made him forget any self soothing skills that he had to begin with. So Ajit and I would bounce him in his bouncy, which worked really really well at first but then stopped being effective a couple weeks ago. Ajit's dad also built a wonderful gujarati jhoola for Ranjit, which he LOVED and put him into restful sleep almost immediately, so we transported it to our condo this weekend, using it for his naps as well as to get him to sleep at night. However, he would still get up in the middle of the night, WAY more than he had to. I began to panic a couple of nights ago when he would nurse in the middle of the night and STILL would need to be put in the jhoola after he was done eating and burping in order to go back to sleep. That used to be the way that he would sleep! I began thinking, what on earth would happen after the jhoola stopped working? How would I get him to sleep then?!

So I decided to take action yesterday. Earlier in the week, Ranjit and I had met up with my grad school friend Kusuma and her sweetie pie 5 month old baby Sarita this past week; Kusuma showed me the book "Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Baby" by Dr. Weissbluth, one of the nation's leading sleep experts and gave me some excerpts from the book to read.









I was already familiar with his book since he is the head of the pediatric practice that Ranjit goes to and so I had already been following SOME of his advice, (except for the part about letting Ranjit sleep on his own). I read all 10 pages in 10 minutes and felt so empowered that I decided to try his advice! So I went out and bought the book and read it from start to finish in a day (doing most of my reading while I was trying to get him to sleep in his jhoola) and learned that not only was it necessary for my own wellbeing to get him to be able to sleep by himself, it was actually necessary for him to learn this skill now otherwise he would have trouble into his toddler and maybe even teen years! I was so motivated that I decided to try it right away... even if it meant that he would be crying for a couple of hours, which is what the norm is according to what I've heard. And it worked after only 45 minutes! They were the longest 45 minutes of my life (and probably his too, poor baby), but after that he fell asleep SO quickly on his own that I definitely feel every excruciating minute was worth it. I'm still using the jhoola to make sure that Ranjit's naps are long enough (he wakes up after 40 minutes usually, after which I put him in the jhoola to rock him back to sleep so that he gets in at least an hour), but he basically sleeps by himself now!

I know that the next time we go to see Ranjit's doctor I will seek out Dr. Weissbluth and shake his hand, he really knows what he's talking about! Unfortunately his writing skills are a bit shotty (he isn't very good at organizing his thouhts) but my goodness he has wonderful information in his book. I'm going to use his advice for the next 5 years for sure!

So thank you Dr. Weissbluth, thank you Kusuma, thanks to Ajit's dad, you all have helped set me on the path towards being a well-rested non-zombie mother!!

Tuesday, September 25, 2007

Ranjit's first play date!

What's this? Does 4 month old Ranjit have a girlfriend? Kids these days, they're dating at younger and younger ages! Ha ha, just kidding- no dating for Ranjit until he is 3! The girl is my friend Chiragi's little baby, 10 month old Anokhi. They came to visit all the way from the far away land of St. Louis. It was their first time meeting little Ranjit!
At first things didn't go quite as well as planned. When Ranjit and I went down to meet Chiragi and Anokhi in the lobby of our building, I expected Ranjit to give Anokhi a curious look or two, then turn his attention to himself. However something very odd happened. When Chiragi and I brought the two together, they looked at eachother for a split second before Ranjit started pouting. In response, Anokhi started whimpering... to which Ranjit replied with a resounding "WAHHHH!!"... Anokhi, not wanting to be outdone started crying too, which caused Ranjit to scream at the top of his lungs. It was quite the scene; pretty much everybody in the lobby stopped what they were doing to stare at the mayhem. Soooo Mansi and I decided to take Ranjit and head back upstairs and calm him down before Chiragi, Devang (her husband) and Anokhi joined us.
After that things went better. Ranjit took a nap and woke up in a much better mood. Anokhi and he started sizing eachother up again, but then pretty much ignored eachother and played with the adults in the room for the rest of the day. Ranjit had lots of fun watching his Devang uncle make funny faces at him and talking with his Chiragi auntie; and I think that there was an unspoken agreement between him and Anokhi that they were cool too.
Tomorrow Ranjit has his 4 month old shots, poor baby! Wish him luck!

Monday, September 17, 2007

Ranjit keeps his mommy busy



Since the last posting 2 weeks ago, so much has happened that I don't know where to begin! We spent another week in Ohio where Ranjit had fun meeting all of his Dadu (a.k.a. Gulula) and Aaji's friends and seeing the sights in Beavercreek Ohio. He visited the temple, a nearby pond (where he saw some duckies) and learned how to play the piano and tabla.

After coming back, we decided to put him in his new crib in his own room. He seemed a bit disoriented at first and refused to go to sleep- in anything! Not his crib, not his old bassinet, not in his bouncy, not anything! Finally he went to sleep in bed with us, but woke up every hour and a half or so (I loved that, you can probably tell), and kept on kicking me in the bladder. I realized later that he was probably waking up so often because of his eczema, poor kid. We also realized that he couldn't sleep in his crib because we didn't put a bumper in; Ranjit (who break dances in his crib, no joke) would hurt himself on the crib slats everytime he moved! So his Dadi and Dada brought a bumper, we put a humidifier in his room and swaddled him so that he couldn't scratch himself -and this worked wonders! He goes to sleep so easily now; we put his classical lullaby cd on for naps and bedtime and he goes to sleep within minutes!! And he loves his new room; it's still in the making so I won't show a picture just yet; I'm waiting for our Scooby Doo Safari wall decals to come in the mail before unveiling his nursery to the world.

As for Ranjit's sleeping patterns, he still wakes up more often than he used to (every 3 hours instead of every 3.5-4 hours), which I think might be because he is teething, I think.

Yes my little pooky bear is going to get his first tooth soon! It's a bit early, but he's showing all the symptoms; he has a slight loss in appetite once in a while (he tries to eat but then he pulls away as if in pain), he's drooling buckets, he gets fussy every once in a while, then grabs my finger and starts gnawing on it and yesterday when I gave him a frozen teething ring he started going to town on it! Poor guy- so much to deal with for an almost 4-month old.

Nevertheless, he has been in a generally happy mood; he went to the Shedd aquarium this past Saturday and seemed to enjoy watching all the fishies swim too and fro; I think he smiled at a Piranah! He also went to eat at Subway with his Dada, Dadi and parents for the first time; he seemed to like it for the most part; it should have been his first restaurant experience since Subway veggie patties are all I ate for the first 2 months of his life.

Finally, in the last week, my baby has hit a couple of milestones! He has rolled over a couple of times, laughed a couple times (this is the most precious to me, I hope he starts laughing even more!) and started making all of these wonderful noises that keeps us entertained for hours... I'll try to get a little video of it up in my next posting. Next week he'll turn 4 months old, which is supposed to be even more amazing! Hopefully I'll be able to video tape more. More later!

Tuesday, September 4, 2007

Ranjit's first Out-of-State trip


Ajit and I decided that before we took Ranjit to see the Taj Mahal, Macchu Pichu, Angkor Wat, the Acropolis and the Egyptian pyramids, we needed to perhaps take him on a couple short trips to get him warmed up. Where else to begin Ranjit's travels but Beavercreek, Ohio, home of his Aaji and Dadu? We set out on Saturday, September 1st morning to beat traffic but alas found that there was no way to beat Chicago traffic unless we left at 3 in the morning. Ranjit was especially unfond of the parking lot that the Dan Ryan had become and cried the whole half hour that we were inching along 5 miles an hour. However once we got on the expressway, he fell asleep and was pretty calm during the rest of the trip (aside from the usual "i'm hungry" and "i'm sleepy" cries).

Ranjit Discovers That We are a Fast Food Nation
Along the way Ranjit went to his first fast food restaurant, a plain-jane little Burger King in some podunk town outside of Indianapolis. He seemed unimpressed. While we were eating our veggie burgers and milk shake a friendly but strange looking man approached us and started chatting with Ranjit, which he and I were fine with. That all changed when he raised his hand to shake hands with my baby... I watched in horror as his potential petri dish of a hand as if in slow motion grabbed Ranjit's little fingers and shook them while Ranjit, who had decided that he did not like this man, began to curl his lips into a pout. Luckily that pout turned into a cry and so we apologetically excused ourselves from the strange man's presence and carried Ranjit back to the car where I quickly wiped his hands down with a wet cloth before he could put whatever germs that had been transferred into his hands into his mouth. (Ladies and gentlemen, if there is anything that I've learned in my 3 months of motherhood is that moms do NOT like strangers touching their babies, especially their hands! My advice to you is if you see a cute little baby that you don't know, talk to him, smile at him, sing to him, do the hokey pokey in front of him, anything, just do NOT touch him, especially his hands!)

Ranjit's fun weekend
Ranjit's first visit to Ohio has so far been filled with new sights and sounds; he went to the Spicer Heights play ground and swung on a swing while strapped to his dad, saw goats bleating and cows mooing at Young's Dairy farm (they have ice cream there too, but he had to pass - maybe next year?), went for a hike in Glen Helen forest in Yellow Springs (home of Dave Chapelle!), went for long walks with Grandma and listened to his Dadu sing Bengali songs at Mr. and Mrs. Bhattacharya's house. He also spent hours mastering the art of thumbsucking, after a month of trying to suck on different fingers and not finding any satisfaction in any of them. About a week ago he settled on the thumb, but couldn't quite figure out the technique (on one of his tries he almost poked an eye out). But now he knows to curl the rest of his fingers in while inserting the thumb facing up...so we possibly have a thumb sucker on our hands!


Anyway, today Ajit left back for Chicago while Ranjit and I stayed on to have more adventures in Ohio... stay tuned!

Thursday, August 30, 2007

Ranjit Visits Oak Park



Since Ranjit's Mansi auntie had invited us to come have lunch with her in her condo in Oak Park, Ranjit and I decided to stop by Village Hall and say hello to my ex-coworkers. The boy was a HIT, attracting my coworkers plus some strangers that I would rather have stayed a bit away, but what can you do. He stayed there with me for a full 40 minutes, smiling and cooing from time to time (he didn't give them his full comedy routine, they actually thought he was quiet!) while 20 to 30 people stared, smiled and spoke jibberish in front of him (or at least that is what I imagined it was like to him). I actually think that maybe whenever I decide to start working I need to take him on interviews, he could charm the pants off of anyone!

Afterwards we went to the Pathak's for lunch, where he had a great time playing with his Mansi auntie, taking a bath in her sink (we had a little diaper incident, I won't go into detail) and taking a walk around historic Oak Park. This pleased me and Mansi to no end because the last time he came to her place he cried for an hour and a half of the two hours that we were there! He left a little tired, but I swear that I heard him say to Mansi "I had a splendid time, let's do this again, shall we??" Yes, he's quite a conversationalist.

Saturday we leave for Ohio, now THAT will be an adventure, more to come!!

Monday, August 27, 2007

Ranjit's Tummy Time Evolves

This weekend marked a momentus occasion for Mr. Ranjit Singh; not only was it his parent's one year anniversary, it was also the first weekend where Ranjit was consistently able to stay on his tummy with his arms supporting him for 5 minutes at one time. Big deal, you say? It is, it is!!
Why? Until 1994, when the American Academy of Pediatrics started urging parents to put babies to sleep on their back, most babies slept on their tummy and were used to being in that position. Today, most babies are much more comfy on their back, where they spend their sleeping hours (not to mention time spent in car seats, swings and bouncy seats). As a result, it is recommended that as much of a baby's wakefulness be on their tummy, or tummy time, so that they can eventually learn to crawl. This is usually met with much fussing from babies, since they are just not used to this perspective. The fact that their head is so big and heavy probably doesn't help either.
Our little Ranjit is no exception. I don't know if he's too young despise anything at this age, but if he isn't, it's safe to say that he DESPISED tummy time. From the first week our doctor started recommending that we put him on his belly for a few minutes a day so that he would be used to the position. When we got him home and turned him over (that itself being a challenging feat for me), he started whimpering and crying so heartbreakingly that I immediately flipped him back on his back. I thought it would get better as time went on but it never failed;it seemed like he would only be able to spend 10 seconds at the most on his belly before he started looking at me like I was betraying him somehow.
So the first two months came and went with several failed miserable attempts to put him on his belly, which I thought would remedy itself as he got older and he developed better neck control. (besides, I thought anything that can make a baby cry that much must not be right, right?) When we went to the doctor for his two month check up, however, I was slightly frazzled to learn that Ranjit's head was getting a little flat from being on his back too much. Upon more research I was even more alarmed to hear that since the "Back to Sleep campaign", there has been an epidemic of plagiocephaly, or "flat head syndrome". While this syndrome is more a question of aesthetics, its remedy (a baby helmet) is expensive and uncomfortable for the baby, who has to wear the helmet for 6 months.
Thus I became a Tummy Time Nazi, making sure Ranjit gets at least 10 minutes of tummy time a dat, whether it be on my belly, Ajit's belly, Sunita mami's lap (it's so cute, you have to look at her in action), his boppy or just on the floor. We recently learned the "monkey hold", which also gives him his tummy time. Crying or no, I knew that Ranjit would never forgive me if I let his head get flat and made him wear a helmet for his infancy.
And it worked!! He is now able to support his neck quite comfortably, which makes me happy to no bounds. So here I present all his forms of tummy time, which resulted in the above picture. Hooray for Ranjit!

Friday, August 24, 2007

Ranjit Doesn't like the Library


Ranjit has so far seemed to like visiting new places, whether it be Target or Whole Foods or Chicago's Grant Park. So today I decided that Ranjit and I would continue exploring Chicago by going to the neighborhood library. I used to have a Chicago Public Library card about 5 years ago and decided that it was high time that I renewed it. On the way to the library Ranjit was content. However, once we parked the car, I realized that I had unfortunately failed to remember his Baby Bjorn front carrier. Not wanting to waste the trip, I decided to carry him into the library using his car seat.

From the moment we entered the library, Ranjit (not yet knowing proper etiquette for a library) began talking. And not the cute little gurgling noises that he usually makes when he's in a new place, instead he was taking a rather loud and demanding tone, as if to say"Library?! You're taking me to the library?? I can't even read!" After trying to sooth him a bit, I succumbed to the dirty looks given by the other library patrons and decided to fill out the application outside, where Ranjit decided to be quiet again. He even smiled at the friendly homeless man (maybe he wasn't homeless, but I'm assuming) who came to talk with him. The second that we re-entered the premises, Ranjit began ranting and raving again. Luckily, the amused security guard was very nice as well and helped me out by basically being the runner between me and the librarian, taking my application and delivering my card into my hands.

Finally, Ranjit and I made our way back to the parking lot, Ranjit quiet as a mouse (don't worry, he started up again in the car). My conclusion? Either Ranjit doesn't like being at new places in his car seat or he doesn't like libraries. I'll let you know when we find out.

Ranjit's blog begins


So today Ranjit turns 3 months old, and boy oh boy are Ajit and I excited! Starting at 3 months he's supposed to cry less, smile more and change a LOT. Since he has so many fans, and I need to start documenting all of his different milestones anyway, I thought I would get into 2007 and start blogging for all the world to see (or at least for all our relatives to see).

Ranjit started today with a big smile, but for some reason he's not eating. I wonder if he's began teething because it seems everyday he goes "on strike" from eating and will only gnaw on my finger before getting really cranky. Luckily I was able to put him down for a nap before he got too cranky today, but there have been days in the last week when he is too cranky to go to sleep. Hopefully we'll get to the root of this problem soon.