Sheer Excitement

Roma picked up a hair clip for Tara at Nordy's and at the checkout counter saw these ducks and bought it, on impluse. Tara was ecstatic. We've never seen her so excited over toys. Take a look.

Star Attraction

For the past month I've been keeping a big secret from Mom and it was so hard to keep, well, not anymore because the surprise arrived on BA flight 49. Mom's sister Roma is here!! I had duped mom into thinking a friend was visiting for the weekend so when Roma entered the house and stood in front of her, Mom looked like she has seen a ghost. Mom just stood there frozen while Roma approached her and gave her a hug. Mom was icy cold. Tara took to her immediately and hasn't left her side since. Last nite it was way past her bed-time and she kept playing pee-a-boo with Roma and gave her the biggest smiles she could muster up. She's still pretty weak after the stomach flu which she successfully pass onto me.



It's so nice having Roma in town. I've been bugging her to visit for the longest time and she always told me once I have the "kutties" she'll be here. Tara leaps towards her and gleefully tugs on her glasses. Roma brought some lovely toys and gorgeous dresses for Tara. Dresses you could only get in Europe, they are go classy I'd like to wear them. She also got her a lego kit and knowing Tara she enjoyed chewing the box rather than playing with the toy crocodile.



With daylight saving time kicking in today we all were up early. After dolling Tara up in one of her new dresses we set off to show Roma Seattle. We drove past Microsoft then made our way to Kirkland and landed up at Cheesecake Factory to get her an American sized meal. "On-God-Yamu look at the portion size, yah" - was her reaction.

HooBoy, indeed

Tara is sick, horribly sick. It was a normal Tuesday afternoon at home, mom was feeding Tara and suddenly out of the blue she puked. We thought nothing of it, until she puked again and again. I got home from work and she was still puking. Doc determined it's probably a stomach flu. Asked us to keep Tara hydrated and offer her only water and Pedialyte (Gatorade for kids). How did this happen? Where did she get this? Started to think back and the only time we took Tara out was to my colleague Matt's house on Sunday for the Sign Language class. I pinged Matt's wife and awkwardly asked her if anyone was sick. Her reply in a nutshell "HooBoy". Turns out she and Matt had the worst stomach bug and Tara's managed to pick it up!

Last nite was hard, so hard. Tara was cranky and in so much pain it was unbearable to see. She slept on my shoulder or mom's lap the entire nite. Waking every half hour, screaming in pain and then crying herself to sleep. She isn't keeping anything down, so is hungry, tired, weak and sick to the stomach literally. Now to the icky part, her pooh is so foul smelling that the whole house stinks. I almost threw up a few times as it was so bad. My poor sickly-pickly baby as Shamu used to say.

This is Tara's first illness, not a milestone to look forward too. She's been such a happy, healthy baby. I guess it was a matter of time before she caught a bug, but HooBoy I didn't expect this.

What about the Toys?

It seems like we buy toys for Tara everytime we go out. It's more for our excitement than hers. I've noticed that she likes everyday ordinary things more than any PlaysKool overpriced toy. The top on her list is Adit's laptop ... it's amazing how much she likes hitting the keys. One of our friends told us to lock the computer and then let her go at it, brilliant idea! Before we knew the CTRL+ALT+DEL trick, she has nicely messed up my desktop as we can't seem to fix the darn thing. But I stray from the point, which is no more toys for you Tara, here take yesterday's newspaper and chew it.

She likes tapping away on Adit's laptop,


she loves to press all the numbers on the telephone,


she enjoys making music on the utensils,


and munching on my keys, while all the toys lay around sad and ignored.

Deepavali Day

Tara's first Diwali went off not with a bang but more of a ring-a-ding-ding. While Mom and Mr.Shandekar were doing the pooja Tara was gleefully trying to ring the bell, swallow the bell and bang the bell. She did fold her hands together for a brief second before returning to banging the bell.

Our great plans of decorating the entire front of the house with tea-lights turned into just decorating the front porch. The wind got the better of us. After the futile effort to keep all the lights burning we headed to the Vedic Cultural Center for the Diwali celebrations. We entered the house to the chant of Hare Rama, Hare Krishna with the smell of incense heavily coating the air. Tara had her knitted eyebrow look, not knowing whether to cry or to jump up and down like the dude next to her. The incense smell was so intoxicating, I got a mild headache so we left pretty quickly. Tara on the other hand got a boost of energy from the incense and did not stay in my arms. She was waving both hands and kicking her feet furiously until we reached the car and then promptly knocked off asleep.

Curious Tara

It's becoming harder and harder to keep Tara entertained. She only naps for 45mins during the day and hits the sack after much protest around 10pm. During the week, I rush back from work and load mom and Tara into the car and we set off to greenlake so she can play on the swing and amuse herself looking at what the other kids can do. She especially likes banging on the musical bars. Recently when she was happily banging away at the bars I chatted with another "mom" about daycare waitlists and when I turned towards Tara, here was this little boy with a snorty nose, ruffled hair and muddy hands giving Tara a wet-icky smack on her cheeks. Naughty, Colin!!


We've enjoyed some crisp fall days of late so going to the park was plenty of fun. However since this past weekend the weather has reverted to the good ol' rainy days so I frantically looked up things to do. Found out that the Children's Museum was having a KidFest and the entrance was free. The place, not surprisingly, was PACKED with kids, kids and more kids. Tara seems to enjoy people more than she enjoys toys. She plays pee-ka-boo with anyone and everyone which after the first 10 times can get pretty tiring for the stranger. I give them an apologetic thank-you nod and try and distract the attention-seeker. After touring the museum we went to a room that said a play would be on in 10 mins. 10 mins later, Mr.Shandekar turned out to be the STAR attraction, he played the role of Punjab the Heavy Weight Champion of the Worrrlllddddd...uh-huh. When he came roaring onto stage, Tara let out a big scream while I shoke my head and rolled my eyes. I've posted all the pics in the Month 7-9 album. Mr.Shandekar, stick to your day job :)

One Lonely Bottle

I'm no longer Tara's vending machine. This weekend she had the last of my pumped milk. I stopped pumping at work about a month ago and the stock has come to an end with no chance of ordering refills. I am done with sitting in conference rooms, storage closets, parking lots and locker rooms holding the pump and hearing the he-haw, he-haw sound while anxiously hoping no one peeks in. I still feed Tara when I'm around but no more pumping! I can now take a lunch break and head to Pike Place Market instead of the storage closet.

Tara had her 9 month well-baby check up last week and here are the questions the Doc asked me. Is she crawling? Is she feeding herself? Is she waving bye-bye? Is she sleeping through the night? My answer to all was an emphatic No. What I didn't tell the Doc was she claps her hands, she tugs on my shirts and props herself up, she things she can knock down everything with the push of her index finger and she admires herself for hours in front of the mirror, typical girl!! She's on the 75% for height & weight, all kudos to grand-mom and a little pat for the milk-maid.

Haven't posted a video in a while. Here's a longish one of Tara playing with her toy piano. Wacth as she looses balance and grabs on for dear life half way through it.

Wish you were here

Dear Shamu,

You can stop haunting me now about not having attended the Roger Waters concert when he first came to Seattle. Last nite Mr.Shandekar and I went for the Dark side of the Moon tour of Roger's. It was un-bleep-believable. He started off with Mother, then Shine on your Crazy Diamond, then Wish You Were Here ..... at that point the tears were hard to hold back. I had so many flashbacks on every song that was played, memories of you and me sitting in the London planetarium watching the light show played to the music of The Wall when I was 11, memories of you blasting the Pinkies in our Nugumbakkam house over and over again. I knew every word of every song but couldn't hum a word as that lump in the throat would not clear until the encore. When the first words of Another Brick In the Wall started I yelled my lungs out, just like you ... sang one step ahead just like you. Wish you were here.

Daddys gone across the ocean,
Leaving just a memory,
A snapshot in the family album.
Daddy, what else did you leave for me?
Daddy, whatcha leave behind for me?
All in all it was just a brick in the wall.

-your Comfortably-Numb Babbyo

After 4 years 8 months and 2 days ...

We finally received our green cards in the mail. Actually Mr.Shandekar got his a couple months ago and I've been anxiously waiting for mine ever since. It has been a long tiresome wait and now we are Permanent Residents instead of the terrible sounding Registered Aliens. Mom called me yesterday and here's what the conversation went like:

Mom: Guess What?
Me: Tara's finally got teeth and can stop chomping down on everything
Mom: No
Me: Tara's crawling she can move around instead of being carried all the time
Mom: Guess again
Me: Tara's starting talking complete sentences, no more ta-ta-pa-oooh-ta to decipher
Mom: No, you've got your greencard silly
Me:Say WHATTTTTTT!!

My buddy Steve gave Tara - Bruce Springsteen's Born In the USA CD when she was born and it was to make fun that I was still struggling with my green-card process. I hadn't opened that CD until yesterday. Tara was born here...big deal...I can live here till 2016 atleast without talking to another immigration officer.

Dada's Visit

 
Adit's dad came and visited us this weekend. Although the weather was a little dull, Tara brightened his short stay with us. She was first taken aback by his Santa-Claus like beard but soon it was something she could play with endlessly. She's also started imitating the word "noooo" every couple seconds which is constant entertainment. We took Dada to Tara's Gymboree class where we made him do the heavy-lifting by singing all the songs which required tossing the little fatty into the air. I've posted all the pictures in the Month 7-9 album.