'Tis the season to be a monkey

Thanksgiving began 2009's holiday season (as it does every year) and as always, it was spent getting together with family, shopping and EATING. This was Ranijt's second Thanksgiving, but the first Thanksgiving where he was conscious most of the time and ready to party. We all went to his Prakash Azoba mama's house like last year, but instead of crying and dozing off before the festivities began like he did the year before, Ranjit ran from room to room pointing out all the "a fan"s, climbed up and down the stairs with the determination of Sir Edmund Hillary climbing Everest, and entertained his aunties and Rajit uncle with a riveting dance performance to "Sailor's Hornpipe, Oh Susannah and Turkey in the Straw".

This song, believe it or not is THE song according to my silly son. He insists on dancing to it at least 10 times a day, climbing onto our bed and wildly gesturing to the computer (where the song is always played on YouTube.com) and saying "a DAH aDAH" until we finally give in and play the song. Right before the song begins there is a moment where Ranjit recognizes that his wish has been granted and his face lights up with a grin reserved only for the most exciting of occasions before he proceeds to bounce up and down on his knees on the bed with such great gusto that his grandmas fear that an injury may occur from simply bouncing too much on his knees!
Here is a video taken by Ranjit's mona moushi:

The rest of the weekend was spent with his Dadi, Dada and Booah in Skokie, where Ranjit showed off his new ability to imitate and learn new words. Things that Ranjit spent his time perfecting: 1) Ripping off toilet paper from the bathroom and pretending to blow his nose- loudly. 2) Putting on shoes- his Dadiji's shoes, to be exact 3) Learning and repeating new words like Animal ("Ahmul"), Paper and Dog ("woof woof")

Finally it was time to come back home on Sunday, but the excitement didn't end there- today Ranjit went out in the snow for the first time! It snowed about 3 inches this morning, covering the city of Chicago with a thin white blanket, enough for Ranjit to notice that something was different when he looked out his bedroom window this morning. When we walked out the door, Ranjit pointed at the snow falling down from the sky and cried "bubble!" After agreeing that the snow does look like bubbles, I took Ranjit to the dog park in front of our apartment and set him loose, expecting him to go wild and kick and run in the snow like I saw other kids do in past winters. Instead Ranjit cautiously shuffled up and down the sidewalk, creating little piles of snow with the tips of blue winterboots and looked around him like he was a little lost. Finally he indicated that he wanted me to pick him up and said "o ho" (which I have decided recently means "go home") and let me carry him back into the warmth and safety of our building. I think that he was probably a little confused about how different everything looked, but I think after a couple more snows he'll be more comfortable and be ready to actually "play" in the snow. It is, after all his first encounter with a Winter Wonderland!

Back by Popular Demand

So what if I haven't posted anything for 9 months? I've been raising a toddler for goodness sake! But let's try this again shall we? Ranjit is 18 months old (as of yesterday) and my goodness he's doing so much it would be a shame not to record it! As it is, he has changed a great deal since my last entry in February, so here is a quick update.

SLEEP:
This is probably the least important to any of you, but the absolute most important to me...He is (practically) sleeping through the night on a nightly basis. At least 7-8 hours goes by before he asks for milk early in the morning so that he can sleep for another couple of hours. My body is still recovering from the last year and a half of broken sleep but I see the light and any day now I will begin to feel normal, hooray!

EATING AND GROWING...
I hate saying this out loud because every time I do, Ranjit gets skinnier, but Ranjit has definitely gotten some meat on his little bones. During his last doctor's visit he jumped from the 3rd percentile in weight to the 6th percentile... that's double, not too shabby right? He's pretty tall although don't ask me how tall he is (he never stands still enough for me to correctly measure him) - I think at some point in the last month he had a growth spurt because one day all of his 18 month pajamas stopped fitting him. Believe it or not, he has a little friend who's a month older but shorter and skinnier than him, a little Indian munchkin named Ram. Everytime I see them together it gives my heart relief that he is not the smallest person in the room!

What are a few of his favorite things? Berries, strawberries, blueberries and blackberries... he likes them together with bananas and cheerios. He also LOVES fruity sweet yogurt and will eat it practically any time of day. He calls it "ego" and pries opens the fridge, takes it out and hands it to me when he wants to eat it. He likes pizza (no surprise there considering his parents are pizza fiends) and also eats kichadi pretty often. His other love is veggie burgers, specifically Subway - style veggie patties (although he has been known to scarf down a pizza burger every once in a while). His number 1 food? Good ol' fashioned milk. His Aaji taught him to say "Doo doo" too which has made it even easier for him to get his hands on it.

MONKEY IS AS MONKEY DOES
To summarize Ranjit, I must say he is a monkey. He runs around like a monkey, jumps around like a monkey, says "ooh eeh ooh ooh" like a monkey and screams like a monkey when he doesn't get his way. His favorite activity is bouncing up and down on our bed while listening to a Canadian fiddler's rendition of "Sailor's Hornpipe, O Susannah and Turkey in the Straw." He does this 10 times a day, at least. I believe only a monkey would do this. My son is a monkey.

TOP TEN WORDS I THINK MY MONKEY SON IS SAYING
I think I mentioned 10 and 9:

10. "Doo doo" (milk)
9."Ego" (yogurt)
8."A phoh" (phone)
7. "A phoo" ( shoe)
6."A cah" (car)
5."Agay!" (again)
4."Ah dun" (All done)
3. "Toh-too-teeee!" (one, two, THREE!)
2. "No! Thasee!" (No, that's silly)
1. "Eeya poopoo" (I'm about to go poo)

SINGING MONKEY
Yes, my monkey has been singing since he was 15 months old. And I'm not a crazy mother who has lost touch with reality, he really sings, I have many witnesses!

His first song: Twinkle Twinkle ("Ticko ticko leeto tah!")
2nd: This Old Man
3rd: Happy Birthday To You
4: "Pio Pio Pio"
5. The clock song
6. Old Mc Donald Had a Farm (Sung while changing diapers)
7. Beethoven's 9th symphony (don't ask)
8. "Ring around the roses" (Mostly the "Ashes ashes" part)

And that's my updated for you fine people. He's entertaining, don't you think?
This weekend is Thanksgiving weekend, I'm sure that there will be plenty of monkeying-around to report soon... happy Turkey day everybody!

Shriek, Rattle and Roll

Well Ranjit began to feel much better this past week, thank you very much... he had a little trouble sleeping in his crib again but now he's back to normal and is working on exploring the world around him. He seems to have put crawling on hold (he bonked his head a couple times while trying to get into crawling position from sitting position) and is back to creeping and rolling to get where he wants to go. He's more interested in standing anyway- he can stand while holding on to furniture now and he's pretty stable; so maybe he'll be a cruiser instead of a crawler, who knows.

He's also working on his vocal stylings some more, shrieking and grinning at random times with no apparent reason. I think he does it just to be cute. :)

Finally, on the food front, Ranjit has fallen in love with Cheerios. He insists on having them with every meal, taking a bite of a cheerio between 4-5 spoons of the gruel that I feed him every day. He also enjoys teething on apple slices, digging little ditches in the mealy part of the fruit with his solitary tooth.

Sorry this one was a little late! Better late than never!

A sad little nose :(

Poor baby has a cold. He's been in reasonably good spirits most of the time but at night he's miserable. At the beginning of the week his nose was totally stuffed and he had to breath through his mouth when he was sleeping (there's nothing cuter or more pathetic than watching him sleep with his little mouth open in the shape of an "o") so we gave him steam baths to clean it up. He thought it was hilarious, check out this video! (Click Here) To top it all off, the past few days his nose has been in a constant state of purging, and it ain't pretty since he can't blow his nose. But I think he'll be better soon, hopefully.

Due to his sorry state, neither he nor I left the building for 4 days last week. 4 straight days! What did we do to occupy ourselves? Well first I taught Ranjit how to read so that took up a good portion of one day...








Then Ranjit learned how to get from sitting position onto his tummy while chasing after his brand new Gymboree beach ball!









And finally he learned how to swing himself to sleep in his jhoola so that mommy could watch t.v instead of helping him nap. :)

All in all we had a good time... he's just a happy baby with a sad nose!

The Tooth Has Set me Free

After 4 months of repeating the words "He's teething" over and over to friends, family, and strangers while Ranjit gnawed on every object within reach, grimaced as he chewed on his fingers and drooled all over kingdom-come, it has finally happen- his teeth have FINALLY broken through his gums and are THERE, clear as day! Well, kind of, I can see them peeking out anyways. No picture possible yet, but in the next couple of weeks we will get one posted for you all to see, I promise! You don't understand how relieved I am (not to mention how relieved he is, the poor guy has been uncomfortable for so long!) - I was starting to think that I was crazy, he really wasn't teething, that he'd never get any teeth and I'd have to get him some baby dentures.

But not so, they're there and they are SHARP. He makes sure that I know how sharp they are by grabbing my finger and inserting it in his mouth and biting down, hard. Thanks Ranjit.

Ranjit is getting more mobile as well- he is going to be crawling real soon, I know it! He's getting into crawling position more often and getting more strong-willed in going after things. Until now he's mostly been rolling to get to where he needs to go but now he is totally creeping, pulling himself to his object on his belly. I think his time spent at Gymboree is in part responsible for his new passion for mobility- pretty much all the babies in his class are crawling or about to crawl (save 1 or 2) and he has been enviously watching them, studying their every move.

Finally, Ranjit has become a pro at Peek-a-boo. Not only does he love it when we play it with him, HE actually plays with us! He grabs anything- blanket, book, towel, toy- covers his face and starts cracking up and waits for us to uncover his face- and when we do he has this huge, proud smile from ear to ear! Sometimes he just likes to put things on his head, seriously. He puts something (blanket, whatever)on his head and just smiles with his hands and feet levitating in the air. Cute, but a little strange (he gets that from Ajit).

Well, that's 3 postings in a row all within a week of each other, I'm doing good! Next week will have a video, I think... till then, have a great week!

Operation "Fatten Ranjit Up" Continues!

I might be seeing things, but I believe that Ranjit is gaining an extra chin and an extra roll in his thighs, hooray! AND I think I might be beginning to see signs of a proper Buddha-belly. So our work is paying off - no empty calories for this baby! Every meal that we give him contains protein and fat in the form of formula or daal, luckily he happens to love everything I give him (even though everything looks like gruel to me)! We also found a food that he DOESN't like, potatoes. The picture here is of Ranjit trying to eat sweet potatoes (which he LOVES) by himself, by the way. He grabbed the bowl and tried to slurp the food down himself. As you can see he only got some of it on his belly.

Other than that, we started going to Gymboree this past week; every Friday Ranjit and I get together with about 6 other babies and their moms/nannies and are taken through a 45 minute gym routine for 6-9 month olds. It's pretty hilarious, Ranjit has been mystified these past two times we've gone there. He stares wide-eyed at all the babies around him and when the "instructor" begins her little song and dance (involving puppets, lots of puppets) he leans forward and looks up at her like she's the most amazing thing he's ever seen. There's actual gym equipment too! The best part is when we put all the babies in the middle of the floor and bring out a huge rainbow-colored parachute and float it over them, first up, then down. Last week Ranjit was sitting under it and got knocked over by the wind created by the parachute (he was ok, the place is covered by thick mats), but instead of crying he started squealing with joy instead as he watched the parachute descend upon him, waving his arms and legs in the air. This past Friday I just kept him lying down during ParachuteTime, but one of the other babies who was sitting up toppled over from the wind (later I learned that every week pretty much someone's baby topples over under the parachute).

So Ranjit has a new trick, pulling up to standing by holding someone's (usually Ajit's) fingers. He can't get enough of it! If you're close to him, without fail he'll purposefully grab your fingers and say "MMMM! MMMM!" and start pushing up onto his feet. Once he's standing he happily cries "Ah-DAH! Ah-DAH!AAHH!!" If you don't let him hold on to his fingers and let him stand then he frowns and moans "MMMBa, MMBa", pouting until you sigh and help him stand up again.
So yes, things are progressing, definitely for the better- To top it off, Ranjit is sleeping better (for now) and I'm sleeping better and all is good with the world. Stay tuned for another update next weekend!

Slacker mommy's new year's resolution is to blog more!!

I've been SO bad about blogging, my most sincere apologies to Ranjit Singh's fans out there. :) As Google as my witness, I promise to update Ranjit's blog at least once a week from now on!!

Here is a quick update on what you've missed for the last month and a half...Ranjit is now 7 and a half months old, can you believe it!

Ranjit's Amazing Human Tricks Update
In the last month and a half, Ranjit has become a pro at sitting up, and complains when he is laid down. He is SO cute when he's sitting, his little legs splayed out before him, slightly bent, his whole upper body lunging forward as he reaches for his toys with his perfect little hands. :) When encountering a new face, he slightly leans forward and stares up curiously, his eyes wide with wonder - I've never looking at someone's profile more! Now he's added clapping to his repetoire, sitting up proudly and clapping (or at least trying to).

Ranjit has also made strides in the communication front. He babbles constantly now (his favorite sound being "Bababababa") and smiles and squeals like you're the funniest thing ever. Instead of crying when he's hungry, he looks at me urgently and says "mmmmm MMMM", alerting me to the fact that he wants something. He also says "MMMMMM" when we take a toy away or if we're not feeding him fast enough or if he wants more food (which he happens to LOVE). Last, but certainly not least, I THINK he's beginning to recognize his name finally! Months of everyone having their own nickname for him had taken it's toll, but now about 75% of the time he turns around if someone says "Ranjit. Ranjit? Ranjit! Ranjeeeeeeet.... RANJIT (he turns and shows his toothless grin)!" He's getting there. :)

Ranjit is also becoming an expert at picking things up and has taken to raking the carpet of his bedroom floor with his little fingers to pick up the goodies that lay in between the carpet fibers and attempt to make them his very own gastronomic delights (I have been able to thwart these attempts so far, hopefully!). He's on his way to developing his pincer grasp which will be even more scary.

Speaking of scary (but exciting!), I believe my little prince is getting ready to crawl as well! He's started slightly creeping (he's not very good at getting to the object of his desire yet, but he's moving) and he has been doing baby push ups on a daily basis, which I think means he's strengthening his little arms so that he can start moving around more efficiently- let the babyproofing festivities BEGIN.

Ranjit's Ever Changing Sleeping Patterns
No sleep for mommy lately... eating lots of cookies and drinking gallons of tea in the morning so as to not keel over from exhaustion. Unable to explain Ranjit's EXTREMELY frequent waking, sometimes 5-6 times/ night,yeccch.

His naps are pretty good ( two that are about 1-2 hours each), during which I try to catch up on my sleep but nights are a little tough. :) Still trying to decide where to go from here on this one.

Ranjit LOVES his food!

Pears, Bananas, Sweet Potatoes, Carrots, Oatmeal, Rice Cereal, Daal... the list of Ranjit's favorite foods is growing and growing! Unfortunately he MAY have a sensitivity to dairy. We gave him some yogurt last week and after gobbling it up he threw up all over the place... poor kid! I believe he will join me and all his Moushis in the Krishna club one day, but for the time being we will be laying off the yogurt! Hopefully he'll continue to love his food! He's a little skinnier than we like, only 14.8 pounds, so I have begun Operation Fatten Ranjit Up. I have also bought a new digital scale so that I can feed my obsession with his weight by weighing him every day. :)

Other than that, Ranjit has been meeting new friends and hanging out with his Aaji, Dadi, Dada, Dadu, many aunties and uncles....starting next week I'll start writing more details but trust me, he's been having lotsa fun... more later, toodles!!

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...

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!

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!!

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!!

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!

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!

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!

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!!

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!

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.