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!