Cruising Along

Even though today was all about his sister, Deven is deserving of some attention too since he has recently started "cruising". One of his favorite pastimes is doing laps around our coffee table (enticed by an ever-moving toy), or going back and forth between holding onto the couch and holding onto the table while standing. Everyone who sees him remarks that he will be walking soon, which is meant to be exciting, but is mostly just scary. Here's hoping his balance catches up quickly with his desire to be on the move.

Pump It Up

For anyone who missed Sonia's birthday today and wondered what it was like, all you need to do is watch the video below repeatedly for about an hour and a half and then you will have lived the same experience. No, four year olds never get tired of going down slides. Over, and over, and over again.

Good times had by all!

Happy Birthday Sonia!

If you have seen Sonia recently, she has no doubt told you that she was "almost four."  Today, after much anticipation, she finally got to drop the "almost" and celebrate her birthday.  Truth be told, the celebrations started on Friday when she was feted at preschool (where we celebrated, of course, with pink flower cookies as is traditional).  On Saturday, Sameer convinced her (for the second year running) that going to the Stanford football game was part of her birthday celebration.  And, finally, today was her actual birthday, and we celebrated at Pump It Up with many of her friends.  Given that it was pouring down rain, we were pretty glad that we had decided on an indoor venue.  For those of you not aware (i.e. not the parents of a young child in the Bay Area), Pump It Up is an indoor bouncy house extravaganza, and as soon as we entered into the first "arena" the squealing began, and did not stop for the next 90 minutes until finally complete exhaustion set in.  Then, of course, we countered that with juice and cake (sorry other parents!), so predictably everything was all smiles until the inevitable meltdown struck (sobbing tears at the thought that she would not receive a goodie bag at her own party...I guess rookie mistake to not have realized that when everyone else is receiving a bag fully of random party favors, the birthday girl will want one too).

The rest of the day was filled with family visiting the house, much excitement at the opening of presents, more sugar highs and lows, and a final collapse out of complete exhaustion (I'm referring to Sameer and me, of course).  It's hard to believe that it's been four years already since our lives changed forever, and seeing all of the smiles and hearing all the laughter today just reminded us again how much they have changed for the better.

Happy birthday Sonia...we love you!

Celebrating Sonia's birthday at preschool (cookies for everyone!)

Even Sonia enjoys being the center of attention when it means getting a crown and a pink flower cookie

Opening presents on the  morning of her birthday (thanks for the piggy bank, Grandma & Grandpa!)

Climbing through the obstacle course at Pump It Up

Getting ready to climb the rock wall

Smiling as everyone sang "Happy Birthday" (in front of the world's largest Hello Kitty cake...slight miscommunication with the bakery)

9 months old

Yesterday Deven had his 9-month check-up (a bit early, but close enough).  We learned several things at the appointment:  1) it is difficult to give a child a flu shot who will not stop squirming (thankfully we are not nurses), 2) if you tell a 3-year-old once that if she is "brave" at the doctor's she can have a lollipop, she will assume this is a permanent rule and cite it during future visits (Sonia was there too to get her flu shot), and 3) Deven has been busy growing for the last three months.

For posterity, here were his stats:

• Head circumference:  46.1 centimeters (76th percentile, slightly up from his 6-month checkup)
• Height: 29.5 inches (90th percentile, which is way up from his 6-month checkup...we're still a little suspicious of the measurement, eventhough they took it twice, because again he is a moving target at all times)
• Weight: 17 lbs, 15 oz (14th percentile, which is down from his last checkup, but also somewhat a function of essentially growing taller while his body mass doesn't keep up)

The doctor laughed outloud at Deven's "squirmy wormy" nature and kept repeating things like, "Boy, are you in for a fun ride."  For the record, this was not reassuring.  :-)