November Pictures

I feel like every post starts out with the statement "we are way behind on posting," and this entry is no different. Life has been hectic as I wrap up a project at work, Sameer continues to put in start-up hours, and Sonia runs us ragged during "down time." :-) But, everything is going great, and we are really looking forward to a long break at Christmas.

Sonia is going through lots of changes, a few ones worth noting:

• She is walking a ton (or should I say running). Today we went to the Stanford Shopping Center, and I understood for the first why some parents by a "leash" for their kids. Every time we looked away Sonia would literally scamper out of the store we were in. At one point she was behind a display at Banana Republic and I literally had to crawl underneath it to get her out. Of course the mall was packed with people, so it was very different from taking her to the park where it's so easy to keep an eye on her. What is most amazing is that when she takes off she never looks back...it's like she's actually trying to ditch us. Good thing her legs are about 1.5 feet long, because it's pretty easy to keep up with her.
• Sonia has decided to become an incredibly picky eater. At this point the only things she reliably eats are Cheerios, blueberries, crackers, and strawberries (not exactly a balanced diet, I know). Things she used to eat all of the time she is now refusing: turkey meatloaf, string cheese, mac n' cheese, apple sauce, yogurt, broccoli, etc. What kind of child doesn't eat mac n' cheese?! I have started researching vitamins. And, yes, we have tried waiting her out, but she is more stubborn than Sameer and I combined, and that's saying something.
• Not unrelated to the above two points, Sonia continues to have trouble sleeping through the night. It's obviously a combination of actually being hungry and I think all of her neurons forming as she takes some quantum leaps in her gross motor skills. Either way, if you're bored at 4am, go ahead and give us a call because we're up.
• On the more charming front, Sonia continues to pick up new little habits. Now when she gives hugs she actually pats us on the back, mimicking what we do to her. We get to experience this a lot, because whenever one of us comes home, she'll stop what she's doing and run over to give that person a hug. And she is showing a lot more free will -- when you ask her, "Which book do you want to read?" she always picks one of a few favorites (and the other day she went over to the cupboard, found her favorite freeze-dried fruit, and brought the bag to me as if to say "feed me this!").

Below are our (very belated) pictures from November. I'll try and get up a new video soon of Sonia walking, but all of the ones I've taken so far are just long shots of her walking away from me before I finally put down the camera and follow her, so not great moments in cinema. :-)

Thankful for a long weekend

We had a great, long Thanksgiving weekend. Boy did this family need a break from the rat race, and we embraced four days off from work with all the laziness skills we possess. Unfortunately I didn't manage to take my camera out of my purse, so no photos to capture the memories...I guess this blog post will have to suffice.

First off, the big development is that early last week Sonia woke up one day and decided she could really walk. Not just the handful of steps like in the last video we posted, but actually walking from one end of the apartment to the other (and, yes, I appreciate that in our apartment that is still not that many steps). It was amazing how dramatic the change was -- one day she's stumbling to take 3 steps, and the next day she figured out how to stand up in the middle of the room and just started walking around. She's still not that stable on her feet, so I think she has fallen more in the last 5 days than in the previous 12 months combined. The first time she walked across the room to Sameer and raised her arms up to be picked up he asked me, "Do you think I'll ever be happier than this?" Maybe, but it was pretty darn cute.

In the spirit of one step forward, two steps back, Sonia has taken to waking up again nearly every night. I'm not sure if it's switching her entirely to cow's milk, teething, the temperature changing, or something else, but the net effect is that four nights out of five we're getting up in the middle of the night (and typically caving at some point to give her a bottle to get her to go back to sleep). I now remember why I vowed that I would not end my maternity leave until Sonia was sleeping through the night...it is very hard to be up for an hour in the middle of the night and then be coherent at work the next day. Needless to say, we spent a lot of time this weekend catching up on sleep.

As far as Thanksgiving itself, we had a great day celebrating it at Sanjay and Melissa's -- they hosted an amazing meal for 28 (!) people. It was the perfect day...we showed up, we ate until we couldn't eat anymore, and then somehow we managed to leave without doing any dishes. What great house guests we are. Especially because we brought our toddler who gets scared whenever someone new acts like they might pick her up, who then welcomed everyone by spending the first 20 minutes at the house crying. Thankfully, by the end of the night she had warmed up to the crowd, so at least we looked somewhat truthful when we kept telling everyone "I swear she's not always like this."

The rest of the weekend was a blur of errands and laziness. Notably, we started our search for a new car...who would have thought we would still have my old 1995 Honda Accord in 2007? I am tempted to keep it until it literally dies by the side of the road since it is maybe the only big frugal thing I have ever done in my life. Unfortunately, as things are beginning to break on the car, the prospect of it dying by the side of the road is becoming more realistic by the day.

Still no real talking from Sonia, although she has cemented "go go" as her first pseudo word (it means dog, and has effectively replaced "fluffy puppy" as the name of her various stuffed dogs). We were in a baby store that had this print of various dogs (sounds tacky, but trust me that it was cute). When Sonia saw it on the wall she started to say "go go" over and over, and what do you know...pretty soon Sameer was telling the woman behind the counter that we would buy it. Now it's hanging on her wall as proof that she has daddy wrapped around her little finger. I figure if one pseudo word can get her a print she sees in a store, then once she starts talking for real it's only a matter of time before she talks Sameer into a real dog. :-)

Back to the real world tomorrow...how may days until Christmas?

Step by step

One more quick post for tonight.... For a few weeks, Sonia has been doing a lot more standing and even the tentative step before sitting back down. But, in the last couple of days she has started to occasionally string together a few steps, which I finally caught on video tonight. Not surprisingly, it is only for Fluffy Puppy that she will actually walk...to get to the rest of us she is fine to slowly make her way crawling. I suspect it won't be long before we're chasing after her!

Birthday Celebrations

We've had a very busy time since Sonia's birthday! On Thursday Sonia went to the doctor for her 1-year checkup. She weighed in at 21 lbs, 10 oz (61st percentile), her height was 29" (48%), and her head circumference was 46.5cm (87%!). So, she continues to maintain her near-average size combined with a huge noggin. This helps explain why she only has one hat that actually fits her. Five vaccinations later (poor baby), she was done...no more visits for another 6 months.

On Friday Grandma, Grandpa, and Uncle Kevin arrived for the weekend. Sonia decided the weekend everyone was visiting would be a great time to exhibit maximum fussiness, so she proceeded to spend the better part of the night whining and showing off her "prune face" (it didn't help that tooth #5 is making its debut). On Saturday, we finally celebrated Sonia's first birthday with lots of friends and family in attendance. As you can see from the photo, Sonia was not a big fan of everyone singing her happy birthday and chose to immortalize this moment with tears. Remarkably, she refused to even try the cupcake, opting to celebrate with a barley teething biscuit instead. A very questionable call. But, while Sonia may not have been all smiles, the rest of us managed to have a good time (and plenty of cupcakes).

On Sunday it was my birthday, and we headed to the SF Zoo to enjoy some incredibly good weather and let Sonia see some real live animals since she is so enamored with the stuffed variety. Sonia enjoyed looking at the giraffes and the meerkats, but had one of her biggest meltdowns ever in the "Family Farm" petting zoo. Admittedly the goats there were a little aggressive when it came to asking for treats (including one who ate directly out of the vending machine that dispensed the food). After that, we wrapped up our visit and headed to the Cliff House for lunch. Since Sameer and I got engaged there nearly four years ago (time flies), it was fun to come back with the whole family and reflect on just how much has changed. We had champagne (and a sippy cup full of water) to celebrate our birthdays and Sonia was a very good sport for the whole meal (a plate full of strawberries helped).

Here's Sonia with Grandma and Grandpa right before their departure on Monday (Uncle Kevin had to leave us a day earlier). It was so much fun to have them all visit...can't wait until Christmas when we'll see them next!

One Year Later

Just a quick post to wish Sonia a happy first birthday! In some ways it's hard to believe it's been a whole year since we had her, and at the same time it's hard to remember what it was like before she was in our lives. We're planning on celebrating her birthday for real this weekend, but today we marked the occasion by giving her a few presents, including a new Sonia-sized chair. She quickly figured out how to climb onto it and sit on it like a little princess on her throne...too true.

Here is a picture of her from this morning, and below that is a picture of Sameer holding her an hour after she was born...what a difference a year makes!

Flower Child

We had a great Halloween today -- I was able to leave work early, and while our planned outing was prevented by a car seat / seat belt malfunction (too difficult to even describe), we still were able to walk around with Sonia in her costume and visit the pumpkin patch conviently located in the parking lot of the Whole Foods across the street. As an odd added bonus we saw Mark Zuckerberg on the street (the CEO of Facebook), which is as close as we get to a celebrity siting in Palo Alto (it's not every day you see $5B of net worth walking down the sidewalk). And we had a grand total of 2 trick-or-treaters visit our condo, which means we will probably be eating candy until the New Year.

Here are a couple of photos of Sonia in her costume, and then all of our photos from the month of October (a lot of photos...we had a busy month!).

It's The Great Pumpkin Patch

On Saturday we ventured to the Smith Family Farm to celebrate Maya's 5th birthday, which was tons of fun. The whole place was one big photo op, and we did not disappoint expectations, taking about a hundred pictures of Sonia in front of various sized pumpkins. As an added bonus (as if hundreds of pumpkins and birthday cake were not enough), there was also an area with farm animals for the kids to look at. Sonia was visibly excited to see all of the animals, and in general was far braver than Sameer, who was noticeably afraid of the turkeys and refused to get any closer because they might "reach through the fence and bite Sonia." The only downer of the whole day was that after carrying a very full diaper bag, Sonia (not a petite child), and a reasonably-sized pumpkin across the entire length of the farm (my husband being conveniently MIA when it was time to pack up), I dropped the pumpkin within site of our car and it broke into two pieces. Sameer's response at my disappointment that I had broken the pumpkin that we had carried all the way from the field was "at least you didn't drop Sonia." Yes, thank you.

On an unrelated note, but just so I don't forget it later, Sonia continues her obsession with dogs. I'm currently reading a book that happens to have a picture of a dog on the cover, and everytime she sees it in our room she picks it up and kisses the cover. We also received two catalogs for children's clothing recently that had pictures of families on the cover with golden retrievers, and Sonia repeatedly points at the dog in the photo and then leans over and kisses the dog (and not the people in the photo).

Oh, and no walking yet. More standing (and falling), but no signs of real first steps anytime soon.

Here are some photos from our trip to the farm!

Right around the corner

We are behind on posting, as always, so this will be a bit of a catch-up post. Sonia is at a really fun stage where you can tell that she is just on the verge of lots of changes. Most notably, she is getting closer to actually walking. She's now at a stage where she can stand on her own (until she notices she's doing it, and which point she promptly sits / falls down). She'll even sort of shuffle her feet a bit if you hold your arms out for her, but then she sits down and crawls over to you instead. We took her to a children's shoe store on Saturday because she is outgrowing her old shoes, and the saleswoman told us to not to buy any shoes because once she starts walking she will need a different style than you would buy for a pre-walker. She said that we should come back when Sonia is capable of taking 10 steps, and then as we were leaving she said, "We'll see you in 2 weeks!" Scary, but fun, to think that all of that is right around the corner.

It also seems like more and more often Sonia is referring to us by "ma" and "da" (or sounds that approximate that). She'll sometimes say "ma" when I walk in the room, and she says "da...da...da" all of the time when she is playing with Sameer. She is also getting better about indicating what she wants, including lots of pointing accompanied by "ba ba" or "ga ga" (especially when she sees one of her stuffed dogs, a Blackberry, or the bag of freeze-dried fruits which is her favorite thing to eat).

On the non-verbal front, she is starting to be more generous with her "kisses" (basically when she leans in and puts her face to yours). This weekend in particular she has been a bit of a mommy's girl (a very rare thing), so I have received lots of affection despite Sameer's best attempts to win back favorite parent status. She has also figured out that if you are near her and sleeping while she would like you to be awake, if she takes her little hands and repeatedly hits you in the eyes, she will succeed in getting your eyes to open. This is significantly less cute than the kisses.

Best of all, Sonia is starting to laugh a lot more often. She has figured out that if she makes laughing sounds while someone shakes / tickles her, then it sounds especially funny. She literally never tires of this. Earlier today I was doing it to her, and when I stopped she grabbed my hand, pulled it back toward her, and then starting shaking it to tell me I was supposed to be shaking her. Below is a video of her laughing with Daddy...and everyone is happy because it is right after she "slept in" until 6:30.

Dog gone

Today, disaster struck the Dholakia household -- Fluffy Puppy was lost. No one knows precisely when he went missing, but Chuki took Sonia out for a long walk this afternoon and when they came home she realized that FP was no longer with Sonia in the stroller. Part of me wanted to get mad at Chuki for not noticing that Sonia had thrown FP from the stroller, but she (Chuki) felt so bad about losing him (and in fact went out twice to retrace their entire route looking for him) that it was hard to get angry. And, honestly, Sonia is constantly throwing things of late so it could have happened to anyone.

I'm sure all of my childless readers are mocking this post, but those of you with kids who are attached to a single item can probably appreciate the near panic that set in at our household almost immediately. Fluffy Puppy was the first thing in the world that Sonia had clearly adored, and it was genuinely sad to think we had lost him so quickly. Every time she saw him she would break out into a big smile and crawl over to where he was and pick him up and hug him. With this mental image permanently imprinted in my brain, I of course went straight from the office to Target on my way home (where Dada had purchased the original Fluffy Puppy, albeit the Target in Tracy where they live). Unfortunately they did not have another FP, but they did have a dog that was somewhat similar (same manufacturer and also grey and white, but a bit smaller and some sort of mutt instead of a Husky), so I bought that. I gave it to Sonia when I got home (with an explanation about how this was Fluffy Puppy's cousin and how FP was now playing with real dogs...shamelessly lifted straight from The Velveteen Rabbit). She hugged FP#2 (name still pending) before going to sleep, so perhaps a crisis has been averted. Nevertheless, the next time any of you are at Target, please check the stuffed animal bin to see if they have a small, grey and white Husky-style dog and I will reimburse you for it.

Daddy's Girl

So this week at work I started a new project, which means I've working harder than usual (since it's a new client and team, it's a little early to be resting on my laurels...maybe starting next week). As a result, Sameer has been picking up the slack at home, including watching Sonia in the morning more while I get ready (although she seems to be a constant presence on the other side of the glass shower door when I'm in there, so I'm not sure how much "watching" Sameer can really claim here) and again watching her in the evening after the nanny leaves but before I get home. Net result, Sonia is getting lots of quality time with Sameer, and after one short week she is back to being a big Daddy's girl. As if to drive this point home and make me feel as guilty as possible, she has started to make a big production of giving kisses to Daddy when she sees him in the morning. Of course Sameer eats this up (it is pretty adorable), but feels a bit bad for me, so then he will say to Sonia repeatedly, "Can you kiss Mommy too?" And her reaction is to just look at him like he's crazy ("Mommy who?") and then kiss his cheek again. When she was playing in our bed this morning (after waking up at 5:30am...ugh), she did manage to kick me in the eye while she was trying to get to Sameer, so I guess that counts for something. She has also started to say "Da" more often, although it's hard to tell if this is in reference to Sameer, or just because she has figured out Sameer will clap and hug her when she does it.

In other news, our ever growing pack of stuffed dogs has a new member. The alpha dog continues to be Fluffy Puppy, but he has now been joined by a new yellow dog which we've started to call "Shine" (the name of the golden retriever my family had when I was a baby). Shine joined the group because Chuki took Sonia to Right Start (a baby store) and she was playing with him while they shopped, and then refused to let go of him when it was time to leave the store. Since Chuki is a sucker just like us (and also because we're looking for a back-up to Fluffy Puppy), she decided to go ahead and buy him and bring him home. This brings our stuffed dog total to four, including a small brown dog we received as a gift ("Kona" - named after Ryan and Sarah's brown dog) and a dog puppet which seems to shed as much as a real dog ("Dreyfus" - which is just the name he came with). Neither of these two comes close to receiving the same level of affection as FP and Shine, although I can't seem to figure out why she discriminates against them since they all seem very similar to me. In any event, three of the four are sleeping with Sonia each night, which makes it look like she is running a small kennel in her crib.

Lazy weekend

We've enjoyed a great, lazy weekend staying close to home. Friday night Sameer didn't arrive home until late, so after Sonia went to bed I started to systematically watch all of the new shows Tivo had recorded all week.

To say that I am glad that the new television season has started would be an understatement. In addition to welcoming back our favorites from last season (Grey's Anatomy, Heroes, House, How I Met Your Mother...and we're still waiting for Scrubs and Friday Night Lights to return), we're trying out a few new shows as well. So far, decidedly mixed results. Big Shots (premiering after Grey's Anatomy) was absolutely terrible -- almost unwatchable. The Big Bang (or something like that) which came on after How I Met Your Mother was maybe worse. Bionic Woman wasn't terrible, but it wasn't good so definitely disappointing given all the hype. So far the only new show I genuinely liked was Dirty Sexy Money (I'm a big Peter Krause fan). And we'll probably stick with Private Practice (the Grey's Anatomy spin-off) for a little while since Sameer is obsessed with Kate Walsh.

On Saturday we relaxed and spent time at the new playscape a quick 3 blocks from our house. We've already established our new weekend pattern of hitting Whole Foods on the way to the park and then hanging out there while we eat our sandwiches. In the evening, we went over to Ryan and Sarah's to see their super cute 1-month old daughter Leah. It was fun to see a baby so tiny (8 lbs) and realize just how much Sonia has changed in 10+ months. Sonia particularly enjoyed getting to know their Labradoodle Kona, who literally followed her around the house, licking her constantly. Sonia would pretend to be upset, but then as soon as Kona stopped, she would crawl back to him as if to say, "Why did you stop playing with me?" The quote of the night from Sameer: "You're right, maybe we should get a dog." You heard it here first.

Today the Dodsons trekked down from San Francisco for a quick stop at Whole Foods and a visit to the park (are you detecting a pattern?). It was great to see those guys and a chance for us to show off the ridiculous sunshine of the Peninsula and make our "you should move down here" sales pitch again. This afternoon we're off to Costco as soon as naptime is over.

What wild and crazy lives we lead. :-)

Below are our pictures from the month of September (including a few from this weekend).

Rules are made to be broken

I am a well-known rules follower. When we did personality testing at school (Myers-Briggs), my profile (ISTJ) highlighted this trait clearly, saying something to the effect of "ISTJs are not comfortable with breaking laws or going against the rules...they are uneasy when things are not done by the book."

So of course when we were preparing to have Sonia, I dutifully read all of the books and imagined that we would follow all of the "rules" as to what you are supposed to do. Well, 10+ months later, reality has set in. Just a few highlights of the rules we are breaking...

• Rule: only feed a baby in her highchair, never anywhere else. Reality: based on the amount of cereal covering a good percentage of our living room (not to mention the stroller and car seat) it is clear that, a) Sonia has figured out how to shake the Snack Trap such that it sprays cereal everywhere, and b) we are certainly not limiting her eating to the high chair.

• Rule: no television for kids until they are at least 2 years old, and really not even then. Reality: one of Sonia's latest tricks is picking up the remote and pointing it at the television like she is changing the channels. I wonder how she picked up that behavior? Apparently our plan that we would only let her watch the television during major sporting events on the weekend is not being adhered to religiously. Thankfully the nanny actually does follow this rule, so at least her television exposure is significantly limited by that.

• Rule: try to avoid the pacifier in the first place, and definitely take it away before the baby becomes too attached. Reality: while we have largely limited the pacifier to when she is in the crib (and occasionally when we are in a restaurant or at someone else's house and she is fussing), Sonia is definitely hooked on the thing. There is no way she is going to sleep without it. Krista made me feel better the other day when she told me her pediatrician said it was fine for her daughter to keep using it because in a lot of ways it's really hard to be a baby and do you really need to take away the one thing that makes them happy / calm? Of course, this will seem like a bad call when she's 3 and we're negotiating about whether to get rid of it. At the least I've decided to wait until her 1st birthday and ask the pediatrician at her check-up.

• Rule: baby-proof your house before your child gets too mobile. Reality: our house is more like an infant obstacle course than a baby-proofed environment. Our stereo is covered in little baby fingerprints and one of Sonia's recent tricks is touching the wine glasses on the wine rack so they clink together like a very expensive, very breakable wind chime. Literally every weekend we talk about how we have to put everything away, but the issue is a) there is no where to put it, and b) we are lazy. You know it's a bad sign when you're discussing how maybe you shouldn't have your 1-year-old's birthday party at your condo because it's not a good environment for children.

• Rule: establish a routine and stick to it, but don't let your child become overly dependent on it. Reality: if any of you reading this can get our child to sleep in a Pack N' Play at somebody else's house (instead of her crib at home, or at least her car seat / stroller) I will give you $100.

So, as we often say, we will not be winning the "Parents of the Year" award anytime soon. (Can you imagine if there was some sort of parenting rating system and how all of us Type A's would react to that?) I figured I would post about it so that all the other parents who read this blog could feel a bit better about their own parenting style. :-)

Fluffy Puppy

I recently read an article called "Loved Ones" (that my nanny brought home from one of Sonia's organized playgroups). It was all about how children this age often develop attachments to some sort of security object (blanket, stuffed animal, etc.) to help them cope with separation anxiety. As if on cue, in the last week or so Sonia has become very attached to a particular stuffed dog she has. The article mentioned that children will choose an object from the existing toys / things in their life, and sure enough Sonia somehow decided that of all the toys, and indeed all of the stuffed animals, there was something special about the one that we are now calling "Fluffy Puppy." Honestly, if I had known it ("he", I guess) would become so prevalent in our lives, I would have named him something far more clever.

Unfortunately Fluffy Puppy would not have been my first choice to be her prized possession. For one, he has typical plastic, sewn-on eyes which pretty much scream "choking hazard". Of course, they are attached pretty securely and if I ever saw Sonia chewing on the eyes I would, a) be very disturbed by the visual, and b) take Fluffy Puppy away. The bigger problems are that FP is mostly white in color (except for the areas where he has already gotten dirty after being dropped on the ground repeatedly) and is one of a kind (he was a gift). My master plan had been to buy two of something (animal, blanket, whatever) so we could have a back-up as the article suggested. But, Sonia beat me to the punch by becoming attached to FP, so I guess now we'll just have to hope she doesn't lose FP like she has lost about a dozen pacifiers, one "Snack Trap", and countless small toys.

I'm sure after all of this build-up, our loyal readers are wanting to see FP for themselves. Here are a couple of pictures of him, plus a video taken very early this morning (5-something) that shows the kind of love and affection he is receiving (and also that Sonia can be unbelievably happy when she wakes up, despite the fact that it is too early for humans to reasonably function). I must admit, there is something undeniably cute about watching a 10-month old hug a stuffed animal. Here's hoping we can manage not to lose him.

Sign language

We had all the best intentions of teaching Sonia baby sign language. We rented a video when she was around 6 months old and dutifully made the signs for "milk" and "more" and "eat" for probably a week or two. But, apparently we have very short attention spans (and couldn't bother to teach the nanny 3 basic hand gestures), so we eventually just stopped doing it and I guess figured we'd start communicating when she learned to talk (no time soon, for the record).

But recently Sonia finally has enough dexterity that it's become obvious that had we done sign language she would probably start using it at this point. This morning when I pulled her out of the crib, I set her pacifier down on the dresser near the chair where she gets her morning bottle (normally we leave it in the crib since it's just for sleeping, but I was a bit out of it at 6am). After Sonia finished her bottle, she started pointing at the pacifier on the dresser, very clearly indicating she wanted it back. When I didn't give it to her, she made little fussing sounds until we got up and walked out of the room. Then later, when she was sitting on her playmat in the living room, she started making the gesture for "milk" (basically opening and closing your hand like you're milking a cow, not that Sonia knows this). For a brief moment I thought perhaps she did know sign language after all, so I went and got her bottle and offered it to her. But, she rejected it, so apparently the milk sign definitely means something to her...but too bad we have no idea what it is.

And, yes, I realize we could still start sign language now. I guess the question is has our attention span / patience improved any in the last 4 months? :-)

Weekend away

Last weekend we went to our friends Chris and Teri's wedding on Catalina Island, which was great fun, perhaps even more so because we almost didn't get to go. Sameer was supposed to ask Dada and Bebe if they could watch Sonia for the weekend, but amidst all of the frenzy that is his start-up lifestyle these days, apparently he forgot to mention it to them. So, when he called on Thursday to "work out the logistics" for the weekend, he discovered that in fact they were going out of town to attend a wedding themselves. Whoops. Anyway, to make a long story short, after writing a big check to our nanny to stay the weekend with Sonia and imposing on Sanjay to watch Sonia Sunday morning (when our nanny had plans), we headed off to Catalina. Best of all, since Sonia was at home and hanging out with Chuki, we had literally no concerns that she would be upset by our departure. To top it off, Sonia chose the night before we left to finally return to sleeping through the night, so we didn't even have to feel guilty about Chuki having to wake up repeatedly. The photo to the right shows Sonia the morning we were leaving...as you can tell she is clearly distraught over our eminent departure.

Our weekend in Catalina did not disappoint - we got to catch up with lots of Trilogy friends we hadn't seen in a while, and of course enjoyed an open bar and wedding cake at Chris and Teri's big celebration. I particularly liked the fact that it was the other women who were pregnant while I got to celebrate in style, although it's hard to believe in this photo that Mackenzie is the sober member of our party (note: for the record it is a chocolate covered banana, which seems dirtier in the photo than it was in real life). Catalina itself was great to explore, very quaint town with perfect weather and fish & chips on every restaurant menu...a tailor-made destination for LJ.

Sameer and I were glad to return home on Monday - despite it being a great weekend, it was hard being away from Sonia for so long (and Sameer has vowed to take her with us to all future weddings...my apologies in advance if that impacts the upcoming nuptials of anyone who reads this). In a rare photo of Mommy and Sonia you can see that we are very excited to see her, and she is tolerating all of our hugging and kissing. (You can also see in this photo that her Britney Spears-esque abs show that she is not missing any meals.) While we were away, Chuki taught her to give her kisses on her cheek when asked, a feat she will repeatedly perform with Chuki but refuses to do with either Mommy or Daddy. I guess that's what we get for leaving her for the weekend. :-)

Our very cute, but very early, wake-up call

Sonia has always been a pretty good sleeper (or at least since she was 4-5 months old). We never really had to let her cry it out for long periods of time, she just sort of figured out how to sleep through the night around the age she was supposed to (I'm sure you all remember the countless blog posts on this topic right around then).

So, I guess karma is paying us back now because we are back to getting up in the middle of the night, every night. It started when Sonia got sick and wasn't eating very much during the day, and then was waking at night both because she had a fever and was genuinely hungry. So we were giving her a bottle or two at night and she would go back to sleep. I knew this wasn't ideal, but she was sick, and you break all of the rules when your kid is sick. Flash forward to now when she is all better, but she is still waking up somewhere between 2-5am to have a nightly bottle. And of course now it's totally different than when she was 5 months old and doing the same thing because she's big enough to stand up, hold on to the edge of the crib, throw her pacifier onto the floor (yes, another habit we need to break), and cry as loud as she can. We go in with all the intentions of just comforting her (no food), but she's onto our plan now. She starts to basically scream, and raise her arms up, and you can just look at her and know that she is not going to go back to sleep anytime soon. And, honestly, it's hard to resist it when your 10-month old leans over the top of her crib and tries to hug your waist because she's so happy to see you. So we give her a bottle (which she drains like she has never seen food before), and then she happily goes back to sleep.

Now, the "right" thing to do would probably be to let her cry it out, and I'm sure that would work. But of course that would mean we were all up for a long time in the middle of the night, and at 3am it is hard not to take the path that gets everyone (us included) back to sleep as soon as possible. We should also probably still enforce her usual wakeup time (6:30am) even if she wants to sleep later (because she isn't hungry in the morning), but again it's hard to force yourself to wake up earlier than you absolutely have to because it's the "right" thing to do. Of course, it was a lot easier before to do all the "right" things when I didn't have to get up in the morning and go to work all day...I keep searching online for the article that says "How to get your 10-month old to sleep through the night again and not lose any sleep yourself," but for some reason Google can't seem to find it.

It was almost like this morning she sensed she needed to be her cutest to make up for the accumulated sleep debt of her parents...here she is playing "peekaboo" around my laptop (and you can almost see her two little teeth in this photo).

Infirmary redux

We had another low-key weekend Chez Dholakia since Sonia was still a bit under the weather (or, at least still cranky / fussy / eating little / waking up multiple times during the night). Sameer and I were originally supposed to go to New York for Kruti and Vipin's wedding, but since Sonia is a handful to take care of when she's not feeling well, we decided that I would stay home with her and Sameer would go to NY solo. I was definitely bummed to miss out on all of the festivities and a chance to catch up with our HBS friends, but after the first night where Sonia woke up multiple times crying and I finally had to give her infant Tylenol at 3am, I at least had the comfort of knowing we had made the right call. Definitely not a good weekend for us to both be away.

So, Sonia and I had lots of mommy-daughter bonding time and I had some wild-and-crazy weekend nights spent watching "Flip This House" on A&E (strangely addicting) and Netflix movies that Sameer would never agree to see. I realize I was never that much of a socializer, but even by my standards this was pretty pathetic. [On a related note, I have discovered that I am officially too old to watch MTV. I tried to watch the "pre-game" show for the VMAs earlier this evening to see if Britney would be performing (yes, I admit it, I sort of wanted to see if it would be a train wreck or not). Anyway, I watched for 15 minutes, knew exactly zero of the people who were being interviewed, and decided I can just catch the Britney train wreck on Youtube if that's how it turns out.]

The good news is that Sonia is for the most part feeling better now -- no more fever, eating like normal, etc. Unfortunately, it seems that waking up in the middle of the night wasn't related to the fact that she was sick because she continues to do it (twice last night, resulting in a midnight bottle for her because I was too tired to "debate" it with her any longer). It's hard to think that we might have to go back to sleep "training" all over again...I'm crossing my fingers that she sleeps through the night tonight (especially considering that for the first time today she took only one nap, so she's got to be exhausted). Since Sonia was feeling better, today we headed out to the park to enjoy the incredibly good weather we've been having lately. A couple pictures below of our outing...the first just because her expression is too funny, and the second because it shows how ridiculously happy she was when Sameer came home (we were in the park as he was driving back from the airport, so he just met us there). I was happy too since I know who's getting up at 3am tonight! :-)

Take time to smell the flowers

Recently Sonia has been learning lots of new things and in general showing that she is becoming more of a little person every day. Sometimes the signs are small, like when we were at the mall the other day and we noticed that every time a dog would walk by she would point at it like, "Take me over there, I want to see that." (BTW, she is absolutely obsessed with dogs...yet another sign that she is on my side in the battle with Sameer on that topic.) Other times the signs that she's learning things are more obvious, like when she reads her favorite book B is for Bear every night. Each page has a picture for the letter, and for "F" there is a flower. While it's not actually scratch-and-sniff, we started to pretend we were smelling the flower when we read that page, and now Sonia has started doing it herself. Not exactly the most impressive party trick, but it still manages to crack us up every time she does it. Tonight we finally captured it on video, so for those of you requesting more videos (hello, Mom), here you go.

Infirmary

I have received a few inquiries wondering why there have been no recent posts (okay, really only one request from my mom), so I thought I would take a few minutes to describe our not-so-great Labor Day Weekend. It started off when I got home Friday afternoon from being away for another week (not too popular of a decision, but had to happen because of work). I came home to find a very unhappy Sonia who was being tended to by both Chuki and Sameer. When she saw me she started crying for me to hold her, and I'll admit that I was secretly happy that even though she was obviously upset about something, at least she still seemed to prefer that I hold her over everyone else (stay tuned for the ramifications of that preference).

But, when I picked her up, I realized what the issue was...she felt like a small space heater, and indeed it turned out her temperature was 102. We called the nurse, who told us that if it continued like that for 4 days we should call back (she was kind of enough to not explicitly point out we were overreacting), so we gave Sonia infant Tylenol and after much crying and consoling she eventually went to sleep. I had assumed that it was just teething, but then Saturday afternoon I started to feel absolutely miserable myself (same symptoms -- fever, achiness, etc.). I came to the perhaps obvious conclusion that unless teething is contagious Sonia was fighting off some sort of virus, and now I had it too. I guess her big preference for Mommy to hold her above all others was not so charming after all when it turned out that with it came 3+ days of a fever / chills / sore throat / the works.

Flash forward the rest of the weekend -- Sonia is alternatively miserable (inconsolably crying) or up and about and wanting to play (depending on where she is in her infant Tylenol dosage), and I am for the most part out of commission the entire time. Needless to say, it was a busy weekend for Sameer as he tried to deal with "two sick girls" and still manage to work his usual 24x7 schedule (apparently start-ups are not too familiar with the concept of a holiday). Thankfully, Dada and Bebe came down on Sunday to entertain Sonia so Sameer could get some work done and I could get some more sleep, and as of today we are (mostly) better, although Sonia waking up 5 (!) times last night crying because she didn't feel good has not made for a fast road to recovery for anyone.

So, long story short, no interesting posts about our fun times this weekend, and certainly no photos of our fever-induced good looks. :-) But, I'll include our pictures from August which I am behind on posting. Let's hope next weekend is more fun!

The Tooth Fairy has a new customer

I'm a bit behind on my blog posting since I just returned from more than a week away from home (and, ahem, apparently someone can't figure out how to upload pictures, despite my multiple requests while I was away). We both left last Friday to head to New York to attend Salil and Arpita's wedding, which was tons of fun and a great chance to catch up with old friends from HBS. We managed to have a great time eventhough our red-eye flight was 5 hours delayed (departing at 3am instead of 10pm, causing us to miss the ceremony) and the airline lost Sameer's luggage. Thankfully it was an Indian wedding, so after a couple of phone calls Sameer had located an outfit to borrow, and he managed to convince at least a few people that the fact that he was barefoot was "even more authentically Indian." Since there were literally hundreds of other Indians there, and no one else was barefoot, this seemed a bit of a stretch, but was still a better call than wearing the tennis shoes that were his only other option. Sonia stayed at home (her first time with both of us away) being watched by Dada and Bebe, who managed the entire weekend like pros.

On Sunday, Sameer flew back home while I continued on to Kitzbuhel, Austria for a week of training for work. It was hard to be away from Sonia for so long, but it was a great program and always fun to get a week in a very scenic locale that counts as "work." And, thankfully, this morning when I saw her for the first time she seemed very happy to see me, which finally got rid of my paranoia that she would forget who I was and act like I was a stranger when I came back.

While I was away, Sonia managed a few firsts, notably that two of her teeth managed to break through her bottom gums after literally months of drooling, whining, and chewing on everything. But, as the picture demonstrates, you can't really see them yet unless you're looking very closely. Trust us -- if she were to bite you now it would hurt a lot more. Not that she would do that, of course.

In other news, for the first time Sonia managed to stand on her own for a few seconds. According to Sameer, she had pulled herself up on his legs while he was standing in the kitchen (her not so subtle gesture that she would like to be picked up), and then he looked down to see her just standing there next to him. Of course, as soon as she realized what she was doing, she quickly fell down and has yet to repeat the feat. Yet another reminder that our days are numbered before she'll be running around. And also a reminder that even in just a week away you can miss out on so much!

Nine months and counting

Today we took Sonia in for her 9-month checkup with the pediatrician (a bit delayed from the actual 9-month mark as we are always tardy in making these appointments). A lot has changed from her 6-month checkup...we've hired a nanny, I've gone back to work fulltime, Sameer's changed jobs (something I realize I failed to blog about), and Sonia has learned how to crawl, "cruise," and eat solid food. And she's gotten a lot bigger! The stats this time around were that she weighed 20 lbs exactly (68th percentile), she is 28 inches in height (62%), and her head circumference is 45.2cm (81%). So, her noggin remains huge, and her body is starting to catch up. It was kind of funny after the nurse weighed Sonia and said she was 20 lbs and Chuki (who had brought her to the appointment, so was there as well) commented, "That's exactly the amount of weight I'd like to lose." And we both just sort of stared at Sonia sitting there and laughed at the thought that you would have a goal of losing an entire 9-month-old's worth of weight. Ahh, sad, but true.

The doctor said everything checked out perfectly from the physical exam. Sonia performed as if on cue by demonstrating her ability to stand up and her ability to make loud, whining noises whenever the doctor tried to touch her (which the doctor kindly attributed to "typical stranger anxiety"). Thankfully this time around there were no shots, so we didn't see the whining escalate into full-fledged crying. The doctor asked me if I had any questions, and I couldn't think of any. Of course immediately after she left I remembered that I wanted to ask when we should take away the pacifier at night, but by then it was too late. I guess that buys Sonia another 3 months of having it since the next appointment is not until the 1-year mark. Hard to believe she'll be there in just a few months...time flies!

Be careful what you wish for

A few weeks ago we bought Sonia a walker toy, but it turned out to be very anticlimactic. Sonia would sit in front of the toy and play with it, but resisted all attempts to get her to actually stand behind it, let alone push it forward. It seemed destined to be relegated to the dustbin of bad toy purchases. And, yes, I know, I think this is one of those toys they recommend you avoid lest your child figure out how to push it down the stairs. But, we don't have stairs, and our nanny recommended we buy one, and we're suckers for anyone suggesting we get some new toy.

So, we were pretty psyched when in the last week or so Sonia figured out what it is for and began pushing it around the apartment (admittedly, not a very big space). As you can see from the video below, she's not really figured out how to steer the walker, so it's a bit like a demolition derby in our living room. I guess she must have inherited her father's driving skills.

But, now that she is a little terror "behind the wheel," I'm left to wonder why exactly we wanted an unsteady baby cruising around our tiny living room. What were we thinking?! Good thing at this age she has no real memory for this kind of stuff, so if the walker "disappears" I don't think she'll miss it. Anyone in the market for one?

Share and share alike

One last post for today, I swear.

In just the last few weeks Sonia has started to demonstrate that she might actually understand what we're saying, and (better yet) actually act on it. She definitely suffers from "selective hearing" in that she cannot seem to understand "stop touching the stereo" or "please don't eat that magazine." But, we've been working on "sharing" and she seems to now get it when we ask her to give us something she is holding. Truth be told, I think she has no idea what we're saying, but she has figured out that if she hands the toy she is holding to one of us when we stick our hand out, then she will be praised. Close enough, I guess.

Parting is such sweet sorrow

Since I recently wrapped up a project at work and have yet to start my next one in earnest, I have a rare bit of down time (or at least "less work" time). So, I'm working on catching up on my blog posting among other things.

One thing I've been meaning to write about is that Sonia is definitely starting to exhibit "separation anxiety," or more explicitly, she is noticeably sad when either Sameer or I leaves the room / house. Sometimes this is cute, like on Sunday when I was in our room getting ready and she crawled down the hallway and pushed open the closed door, and then looked all happy and proud of herself that she had succeeded in "finding me" (a feat that is not so impressive, I suppose, when you consider how small our condo is). Other times it is just plain sad, like this morning when she cried when I left the house. Admittedly it was the perfect storm of separation -- Sameer left early in the morning to go out of town (so wasn't home either), and since it was Monday she had just spent two days basking in our undivided attention. And every Monday is always a bit tough as her almost 9-month old brain has to remember that not only does she know who Chuki (our nanny) is, but half the time she prefers her to us. To make matters worse, Sonia got up very early this morning so was already cranky and tired by the time I was walking out the door. So, given all of those factors, I shouldn't have been surprised that she would cry, but it was still sad. Mind you, I have zero doubt that within 30 seconds of my departure she had forgotten all about it. And it's funny how I would probably be equally upset if she didn't seem to care if I left -- I guess there's no getting it right.

But, in general, things are going really well. Everyone keeps asking me how it is to be back at work, and while my (truthful) answer is always "hectic," so far it has actually been working out reasonably well. Chuki has been great, and even though every now and then she will do something with Sonia that I wouldn't normally allow (e.g., let her try strawberries, which are not recommended before 1-year of age because they are a common allergen), those moments are pretty few and it's obvious that Sonia completely adores her. Having Sameer work at home most days makes the logistics much, much easier (a fact I remember again each and every time he goes out of town), and also alleviates a lot of the "mommy guilt" knowing that he is around to take a break every now and then and check on her. Plus, it's great to hear about the day she's had with Chuki (going to the library for storytime, enjoying a summer concert in downtown Palo Alto, joining a playgroup at the park, etc.) and to know that her days aren't just spent playing with the same 5 toys in our living room. And, despite her well-deserved reputation as a master pouter, Sonia is a pretty happy kid, which is all that we can hope for.

Below are some photos of our outing to the park yesterday that show off some of that happiness -- I love that first one where she is just so excited that she closes her eyes and grins.

For my belated photos from the month of July, click here. More posts to come!

Finger food

For the last few weeks, we've been trying to get Sonia to start eating more solid food (or, I would argue, solid food for the first time since baby "solid" food is still pretty much liquid). Anyway...on the advice of multiple people, we started with Gerber "Graduates" which are kind of like Cheerios, but a bit easier to eat (slightly easier to pick up, and dissolve in your mouth quickly -- which is important when you have no teeth). At first, Sonia was pretty excited about these new small toys we were placing in front of her. She would indeed pick them up and look at them, before casually throwing them on to the floor. Despite my efforts to demonstrate to her that they were food by eating them myself countless times (for the record, they taste pretty good), she seemed to have no idea that they were something she could / should eat. Multiple times she sat in her high chair and cried because she was hungry while grasping 3-5 pieces of cereal in her hands.

But, somehow, in the last couple of weeks she finally figured it out and now eating the Graduates is her new favorite thing to do. As the video demonstrates, her dexterity has not quite caught up with her desire to eat them, so each one takes 5-10 seconds to slowly get shoved into her mouth. And perhaps we have been a bit too zealous in our praising of her efforts, because she is so used to our excitement at her success that she now claps herself each time she successfully gets one into her mouth. Needless to say, there is no such thing as "fast food" at our house these days.

Cruising along

Sonia continues to become increasingly mobile, which is giving Sameer renewed hope that she might actually turn out to be coordinated (although with my genes in the mix this seems highly unlikely). Her latest trick is starting to "cruise" (sort of walking while holding on to something). As the video below shows, she only does this when she's really motivated, like by a chance to get her hands on the phone, the remote control, or (the ultimate triumph) a laptop keyboard.

A couple other things to note from the video:

• We finally broke down and got a cover for our coffee table to make it at least slightly less dangerous to Sonia. This officially completes the transformation of our living room from a place where we could entertain adults to a baby playground. (Although it is possible to remove the cover from the table, so there is hope yet.)
• Sonia's hair is starting to really grow in, and as the video demonstrates you are never too young for bed head.

Recent milestones

Hi there, loyal blog readers...that is if there are any left of you. Yes, I know, I am becoming ridiculously bad about posting regularly. Suffice it to say that going back to work fulltime has made many things in my life "optional" that before were not. Not just blog posting, but also cooking dinner (or even going to the grocery store, for that matter), going to the gym, reading our mail, paying bills on time, getting to the dry cleaner on a regular basis (although I have become quite creative in pulling together outfits that are marginally acceptable for work out of whatever random clothes are actually clean)...you get the picture. Hectic, hectic, hectic.

But, in the midst of all of this activity, life is good. Sonia is getting bigger and more mobile every day. A number of recent milestones include:

• Figuring out how to consistently pull up to a standing position. She is so excited about doing this now that if you are somewhere where there is nothing to pull up on (say in the park on the grass), she will pout and be visibly annoyed. She is not "cruising" yet, but that is right around the corner since she does occasionally go from holding one thing (say the couch) to something very close by (like the coffee table) with a little feet movement.
• Speaking of pouting, she has developed a new super-pouty facial expression. I have yet to capture it on camera, but it involves scrunching up her entire face and is used to express extreme dislike, say for eating vegetables or being held when she would rather be standing.
• She is sort of eating more solid foods now. About 50% of the time she still spits them out, but sometimes she will actually chomp on the Cheerio (or whatever) and swallow it. Of course, when I saw "chomp" I should say gum it excessively because she still has no teeth to speak of.
• Waving -- well, kind of. Every morning we practice waving goodbye, and now sometimes she will sort of move one of her arms. We all get so excited when she does this and she is super smiley as a result, but I don't think she has figured out the cause and effect yet.
• Kind of like waving, but far more annoying, is Sonia's newfound ability to throw things. Most notably, every night when we put her down to sleep, as soon as we leave the room she immediately stands up in the crib, grabs the pacifier out of her mouth (which she gets to have when it's time to sleep), and chucks it onto the floor. Then she immediately regrets this move, wants the pacifier back, and starts to wail loudly. The fact she does this every single night either signifies that she is not smart enough to figure out that the pacifier will no longer be within reach if she hurls it across the room, or that she is a little genius who has figured out a plan to get us to come back into her room when she doesn't want to be sleeping. I'm not sure which is worse. :-)
• Perhaps our favorite milestone is that she has learned how to clap. She doesn't do it for very long (which is why the video below is so short), but she does seem to do it when she's most happy, and then of course she is all smiles because we react like idiots and start clapping maniacally back at her.

Other than that, life continues as usual. We found another house we are considering making an offer on, but since 22 other people (!) requested to see the disclosure packet for the house (the first step in making an offer), it will be a little competitive to say the least. We may not even bother to make an offer since there is so little chance of winning, and if you did win you would be the idiot who paid more than 22 other people thought the house was worth. Of course, now that I've typed that, then we'll probably win just so I have to look like a fool on my own blog. :-)

Close encounters of the dog kind

As mentioned in the previous post, Sonia had her first real experience meeting a dog this past week while we visited my parents. As the video below demonstrates, the affection was decidedly one-sided when Sonia first met Muffy (a rather large golden retriever whose name is short for "Miss Muffet", which made a lot more sense when my parents used to also have a cat named Spider). Sonia didn't cry when Muffy would "say hello" (read: lick her face, hands, and legs), but she definitely wasn't smiling. But, by the end of the trip, she was actually seeking the dog out, crawling over to her and looking sad whenever Muffy walked away. I just knew she would be an ally in my multi-year battle to convince Sameer we need a pet.

Family vacation

Last week we enjoyed a great trip to Oregon, filled with lots of visits with family and friends and only a few travel-related mishaps. We flew up to Portland on Friday, a trip that almost didn't happen since we completely misjudged how long it would take to get through the check-in line at Southwest. After waiting over an hour in line (during which I spent most of the time giving Sameer the evil eye since we were running late due to the fact he had refused to pack the night before because he was "too tired to stay awake" at 8:30pm), we just barely made our flight. We would have definitely missed it, save for having frequent flier status on American (a perk we used to avoid the long security line, even though we weren't flying their airline), and the fact that the gate representative was actually an old classmate of Sameer's from Webb (who he was convinced had held the door open a bit longer since, as she said, "I thought when I saw the name it had to be you.") Nevertheless, we were the last people to board a crowded flight, so that meant no extra seat for Sonia, and even no two seats together until some kind man offered to switch with one of us. It is amazing what lengths people will go to to not sit next to your almost 8-month old baby. Still, the flight was uneventful, and after picking up the world's worst rental car (a Dodge Magnum -- all I can say is don't buy one), we made it to my parents' house for a quick lunch. Everyone was excited to see Sonia, especially my parents' dog Muffy, who was thrilled that there was a new person in the house who also gets around on all fours. Despite being an old dog, we quickly learned that Muffy can move pretty fast when she wants to, and within 15 minutes had given Sonia her first ever dog licking, which left Sonia so stunned that I don't think it even occurred to her to cry.

After lunch, we headed to Camp Colton in Colton, Oregon for our friends Kellie and Zach's wedding "retreat" (a weekend long affair where most guests got to stay at the camp where the wedding was held and hang out and catch up). We got to spend a lot of time with my old high school friends Charity and Kellie, Sonia got to experience the great outdoors Oregon-style, and we got to enjoy a lot of family bonding. Unfortunately a fair amount of that bonding occurred in the middle of the night when Sonia decided that she was too scared to sleep in a new, strange crib, and instead wanted to sleep with Mommy & Daddy. That would have been fine, except that we were in the kids' room of our shared cabin (the only room with a crib), and the only other beds were bunk beds. And of course I had foolishly chosen the bottom bunk thinking this was a great score on my part, but obviously there was no way Sonia was going to sleep in the top bunk, so instead she and I spent the night sharing the bottom bunk. Let's just say her motor skills, especially kicking and squirming, are quite advanced. The next morning everyone else staying in the cabin had the good social graces to claim they did not hear her crying during the night, so at least we were the only people she managed to repeatedly wake up.

On Saturday we attended the wedding itself, which was a fun, family-friendly event. Lots of other kids and babies for Sonia to stare it, and Grandma, Grandpa, and Uncle Kevin in attendance, so no shortage of people to help watch her. My dad was a big hit on the dance floor, as always, and everyone had a great time. It was a beautiful day weather-wise, and the night ended late with everyone by the camp's big firepit enjoying s'mores while the hired nannies watched the kids. Perfect.

The next day we drove to Corvallis so Sonia could meet my extended family for the first time, including her Great Grandmother, who is a young-at-heart 97 years old. We met up at my Aunt Judy and Uncle Harry's house, and my cousins Julie and John were there, along with John's husband Mark and their adorable son Arthur. We enjoyed a leisurely lunch and of course the obligatory family photo session (4 generations in attendance!) before Sonia decided that it was naptime and we headed back to Portland to my parents' house, where we stayed through the 4th of July. Sameer got to play a fair amount of golf (including shooting a record-setting 96), Sonia learned how to pull herself up to a standing position (exciting, but also terrifying to think that a lot more mobility may be just around the corner), and, best of all, we finally got my parents on high-speed internet so they can actually watch the videos of Sonia that we post here. We also took Sonia on her first ever trip to the vineyard, although alas she did not get to participate in barrel tasting. The trip was so great that Sameer decided to prolong it even longer by locking the keys in our rental car while it was running in the driveway (he had turned on the air conditioning to cool it down, but then locked us out of the car when he closed the doors). Sonia no doubt picked up a few new vocabulary words as Sameer described his sentiments about the auto-locking feature of American cars (note: in no way was this incident his fault, the car itself was obviously to blame). But, the locksmith came surprisingly fast given it was a holiday, and we still made our flight on time and got Sonia home to sleep in her own bed, blissfully not in the same room as ours.

All in all, a great trip home. Below is a picture of the whole family from our Corvallis visit. For more pictures from our adventures, click here.

Standing on her own two feet

Since mastering crawling, Sonia has shown a big interest in moving on her own, including wanting to try standing. So, we raised up her musical toy on the legs it came with, and now, with a little help, she stands and plays with it. (She still hasn't figured out how to pull herself up, despite a fair number of attempts.)

But, as you can see from the video, she's not too steady. (For the record, literally 10 seconds after this video ends, she was back up on her feet playing again, so rest assured the mat on the floor provides a very soft landing.) Note: the first 15 seconds of the video are a little dull, but since we've yet to figure out how to actually edit the videos, you may have to fast forward on your own.



For more pictures from the last month, click here!

On the move

This past week has seen some fun milestones for Sonia. First, she has finally picked up a couple of new consonants, which means now we listen to "na, na, na" all day long (instead of just plain old squealing, although she still does a fair amount of that). Occasionally she mixes it up by saying "ma, ma, ma" instead, which is in no way a reference to me, but it's still great to hear her say it. And, of course, Sameer is pouting because so far there is no sign of "da, da, da."

Even more fun is that yesterday morning Sonia woke up and decided that she knew how to crawl. I'm not sure what happened while she was sleeping, but overnight she went from sort of awkward lunging to (relatively) controlled crawling. Below is a video of her showing off her new skills. As you can tell from her face, she is pretty proud of herself (and as you can tell from our encouraging comments, we were pretty excited too!). Already she has figured out that if she crawls over to the stereo and makes like she is going to touch the buttons, we will come over and pay attention to her. Sneaky, sneaky.



Today was Father's Day and we had a great time doing one of Sameer's favorite things -- having breakfast at Alice's in Woodside and then continuing on to the San Gregorio General Store and the nearby beach. The weather was fantastic, the breakfast burritos were deemed by Sameer to be "as good as what you get in Austin," and (as you can see from the photo) Sonia was in good spirits. What a great way to spend the day!

Many hairs out of place

So I've been meaning to blog about the latest advancement in Sonia's dexterity. She has learned to grab very small items, but unfortunately she is using this new grasping power to pull at her own hair. She was finally managing to get some more hair after months of rubbing it off the back of her head while she slept (since she now sleeps on her stomach), and I had visions of someday soon putting little barrettes in her hair. But, alas, one day a couple of weekends ago it was like she had an epiphany: "Hey, even though you won't let me pull at your hair, it turns out I have my own hair I can grab onto!" And, since she inherited my sad, fine hair, the little strands don't stand a chance and they quickly break off. So, as a result, she has basically given herself the equivalent of a "high and tight" military haircut. Sigh.

Of course I googled about this online, and it turns out that in older children this can be evidence of stress / boredom / loneliness (hello instant Mommy guilt!). But, in babies, it is usually just a sign that they have figured out something new to do with their hands. Since we can't intervene while she is in her crib at night and during naptime (when she does this), then apparently we kind of have to just live with it. I think you can put little mittens on their hands (like they use to keep little babies from scratching their faces), and/or grease their hair down so it's harder to grab, but we haven't resorted to that yet. At this point, the hair is already mostly gone, so there's not much left to pull out.

For some perspective, here's a "before" shot from February showing that Sonia had hair growing in evenly, including right above her ears (and of course even more grew in during the subsequent months).

Here's a shot from this week, showing how now there is far less hair on the back of her head up to the line above her ears that marks the height to which she can easily raise her hands to her head. I can only imagine what this picture will look like in a month or two when her arms get longer. :-)

I guess we'll just go with fewer profile shots for a while!

The truth about business trips

So last week I went on my first business trip since I started back at work (just an overnight to Dallas for a conference). Sameer has gone on many, many trips since we first had Sonia, and he always laments on how hard it is to be away, how much he misses us, etc. But, after my own trip, I now know the truth: going out of town is awesome. Before I get branded as a bad mother, let me be clear -- being away a lot would suck. But, one night away, just this one time, was pretty great. First off, I took the video iPod, which definitely decreased the amount of work I got done on the plane, but did allow me to finish watching season 1 of Friday Night Lights while I sipped wine in First Class (thank you frequent flier status). While in Dallas, I ate numerous meals in restaurants, had adult conversation, drank cocktails at a bar with friends from work, slept in the world's softest bed (did I mention they put us up at the Four Seasons?), and managed 8 hours of sleep since for once I did not have a "wake-up call" at 5am. I can't emphasize this last point enough -- I think I had forgotten what it feels like to actually be well rested. It feels great.

So, it's official: I'm on to Sameer. The next time he "has to go out of town" (witness: today's journey to Ohio), instead of imagining him sad and lonely on the road, I will envision him lying well-rested in a hotel bed, not for a moment wondering if he has remembered to prepare the next bottle.

Other than my trip to Dallas, things here continue pretty much business as usual. Sonia is managing some forward movement (more like a series of controlled lunges than crawling, but progress nonetheless). Video to come, but rest assured if something is in front of her that she wants, she will get there. I wish I could say she was exercising this skill by crawling to us, but we've had the best luck with all of the things she is not supposed to want: her pacifier, the remote control, our cell phones, and (of course) anything made of paper. Rest assured, we are watching her like a hawk these days.

We also had a lot of fun last weekend hanging out in Berkeley with Sanjay, Melissa, and Maya. Sonia refused to take her nap while we were at the park (why sleep when you can systematically pick every piece of grass you can get your little hands on?), but she finally konked out once her uncle sang her to sleep -- too cute. Here are some pictures from our outing:

The end of an era

As always, I am way behind on blog posting. This time I have good reason as I've been a bit busier of late. Yes, it's true. I finally went back to work. Many, most notably Sameer, were beginning to wonder if I was ever going to actually go back, but as of last Tuesday I am officially employed once again. So it is the end an era...the era of Sonia and I spending nearly every waking hour together. I can't believe it went by so fast, and it goes without saying that it has been really difficult to go back, even though it feels like the right decision.

First things first, we finally hired a nanny that we are really excited about. Chuki is originally from Tibet, but actually grew up in India before moving to the US about six years ago. As a result, in addition to speaking English and Tibetan (?) fluently, she also speaks Hindi and has promised to teach Sonia the occasional phrase or two (not to mention cook up some yummy Indian meals once Sonia progresses to adult food). But, most importantly, Chuki is really great with Sonia, who is all smiles from when Chuki arrives until she leaves. And Chuki actually does the things with Sonia that Sameer and I always talked about (everything from going to baby story time at the library to actually managing a bath every day). I've gone from feeling somewhat guilty about going back to work to feeling guilty that we are not as energetic and motivated as Chuki. Needless to say, this is a good "problem" to have.

As far as work, I won't name the company I work for (lest this blog come up if you google for them), but they have been fantastic about keeping things low key as I ramp back into the swing of things. So far, so good. It's actually been great to be back in the office and catching up with colleagues -- it's amazing how much has changed in the 6+ months I was out, and how little has changed at the same time. It also helped that the first week was a short week with Memorial Day, so it was the weekend again before I knew it. Not to mention, I had the comfort of knowing that when Sameer is not traveling, he's working from home and Sonia gets to see a lot of him. Still, it's been hard not to be with Sonia all day, but since I am in town and working reasonable hours, I do get to spend some time playing with her every day. Honestly, one of the harder things to get used to is still waking up with Sonia bright and early (typically somewhere between 5:30 and 6:30) and then not getting a chance to take a nap later. It's definitely the right call to get up because then I get a chance to play with her before it's time for me to go to work, but the accumulated sleep debt is a bit of an issue. If I was smart, I would actually go to bed early and solve the problem. But, instead, I stay up doing constructive things like catching up on the first season of Friday Night Lights. Actually, that is a good use of my time -- it is a much better show than you might guess from the title / subject matter. Coach Taylor has now displaced Dr. House as our favorite TV character (and since we watch a lot of TV after Sonia goes to bed, we have some pretty strong opinions on this subject).

Other than those big changes, life remains pretty much the same. Sameer and I enjoyed our first night away while Dada and Bebe babysitted (an occasion that saw me make up for all of the missed nights out in one big night...needless to say, after one too many margaritas Jose Cuervo and I are no longer on speaking terms). We also enjoyed a visit from Allan and his girlfriend Alex, and this weekend we saw Ryan & Sarah, Jason & Miles, and Lee Wen and his girlfriend Sadie. We even learned that Sonia is a bit possessive, as when she burst out crying when Miles picked up one her toys and left the room with it. Obviously we're going to have to talk a bit more about "sharing." :-) But, mostly we've just been relaxing and enjoying the spectacular weather we've been having lately (as in this photo from the park today). I must admit that it almost makes living in suburbia seem like a good idea.

Better sign off...sadly, Monday morning is fast approaching.

Click here for all of our pictures from May!

Daily callisthenics

While Sonia can't crawl yet, it's not for lack of effort. As the video shows, she spends the better part of the day trying to get up on all fours, only to have absolutely no idea what to do once she gets there. It's like watching someone do push-ups over and over -- must be quite a workout! Of course, once she actually figures out how to go anywhere, it will start being a workout for us...

Happy Mother's Day

It is well known that I like holidays, and of course presents, so I was excited that this year I gained a new holiday: Mother's Day. And while the day is obviously best spent reflecting on how much our lives have changed for the better since Sonia came along (and also being thankful for our own mothers), as an added bonus it does nicely bridge the near year long gap between Christmas and my birthday. I was a bit concerned that Sameer didn't seem to be too focused on planning anything, including repeatedly trying to schedule other things for Sunday ("Why can't we do it on Sunday...do we have other plans?"). So, I was pleasantly surprised that it turned out to be such a great day in the end.

It went without saying that Sameer would be getting up with our daily 6am-ish wakeup call from Sonia, but the day was off to a good start when I got up about an hour later to find that they had ventured out to get me a latte and pastry from Starbucks. No calories counted today. After a lazy morning, we decided to enjoy the sunny weather by having lunch outside at Zott's. While bringing Sonia there was a bit of a different scene than we might have enjoyed as undergrads, there is still nothing better than greasy food, beer (cider, in my case), and sitting outside. It's no Ski Shores, but it is a lot closer to where we live now. After a long lunch, we went to the baby store to look at strollers (my choice -- it was definitely a Mother's Day gift that Sameer would agree to participate in the buying process) and then hit a couple of open houses (even if it's Mother's Day, Sameer is not going to go the whole weekend without seeing a least a couple). Sameer then headed to the grocery store to buy the ingredients for the dinner he cooked all by himself. Never one for modesty, he was quick to note, "Hey, this is really good!" and indeed it was very tasty. Finally, instead of our usual TV watching, Sameer agreed to spend "quality time" working together on Sonia's baby book, which is definitely something he would only agree to help with on Mother's Day. And it seemed like an apt way to end the day, reflecting on how much has already happened in just six months (thankfully this blog bailed us out of our inability to recall when any milestones actually occurred).

Best of all, as my actual present Sameer sent me to get a facial (including purchasing absurdly expensive skincare products!), and since the spa was closed on Sunday, it had to be on Monday: bonus Mother's Day time! So I spent a good chunk of yesterday afternoon getting pampered while Sameer juggled conference calls and an increasingly mobile Sonia.

For a man who had no plan as of Saturday morning, Sameer managed to set the bar pretty high for Father's Day.