Chocilla

Mijo

2011-06-08T00:03:00.001-07:00

Don't you just want to eat him up?!?!

Discovery Museum with Grandpa

2011-06-07T23:58:00.001-07:00

Today at the Park

2011-06-07T23:50:00.000-07:00

Youngest ever Elvis impression

Chick magnet. This crowd started out with 3 and grew to 7.

My boys

2011-05-11T12:51:00.001-07:00

My boys enjoying a rare sunny day in our backyard.

Ahhhhh!

2011-05-10T21:56:00.001-07:00

Dress up

2011-03-08T22:38:00.000-08:00

Aiden back to being 3.5. Here his is slinging his baby, wearing a tutu and mardi gras beads.

A Peek into the Future

2011-03-08T22:26:00.000-08:00

Here are some photos from a trip to the San Jose Discovery Museum in January. What I love about these pictures is that crazy hair of his that makes him look like a teenager (minus the dinosaur shirt). We've since cut Aiden's hair and he's back to looking like a 3.5 year old. Still its kind of fun to imagine what the future will hold.

Brothers

2011-03-07T21:00:00.000-08:00

Hey Mijo,

You want to eat something? Eat this!

Crunch Time

2011-03-07T20:50:00.000-08:00

At 7 months, not much is known about little Sol Emmanuel De Souza. He likes to smile. He likes to play with whatever his brother is playing with. He likes to go outside. As you may have seen in a previous post, he likes food. Believe it or not, he is also a workout fiend. Since moving anywhere still eludes him, he spends extended periods of time each day working on his six pack. I do not lie or even exaggerate.

I can't wait to show this one to a girlfriend in a few years.

Yummm!

2011-03-06T23:22:00.001-08:00

This little guy is super excited about the food coming his way. I was planning on starting him on solids as late as possible but he was getting so irritated watching us eat and not much bothers him.

Rain

2011-01-15T21:55:00.000-08:00

One rainy day last month I asked Aiden what he wanted to do. First there was dress-up including a transformer band-aide on his forehead and an oversized Hawaiian shirt. Then he decided we should go play in the rain. So we did.

Tasting raindrops.

Aidenisms

2010-12-26T22:03:00.000-08:00

Aiden, like all kids his age, says the most hilarious things. I keep thinking .... I should write that down and then I forget. Sigh....anyway, here are a couple. I'll try and remember more.

Since Sol was born Aiden has been down in the dumps, pretty much every day. This was a seriously joyous kid, and now not so much. Lately he seems to be returning to his old self. Anyhow, for the last couple of months he says "Not good" every time we ask him how his day went, how the park was, how he felt about playing with friends, even when he appeared to be enjoying himself. After Sol's stay at the hospital, he started saying "because I have kidneys!" if we asked him why his day was "not good".

We hosted Christmas this year and when I was putting Sol down for a nap the family decided to watch a romantic comedy. When Aiden saw the couple kissing he asked, "Why is he bitting her?"

And....finaly a conversation with Dada......

Dada: Baba what do you want to do to day?

Baba: Target would be nice.

Dada: Really? What do you want to do there?

Baba: A ride or two would be good.

Merry Christmas

2010-12-26T21:55:00.000-08:00

I'm not sure I'll get out cards this year. So....Merry Christmas, happy holidays and a happy New Year everyone. We wish everyone a happy and healthy 2011.

Hospital

2010-10-20T22:01:00.001-07:00

My little man was so brave during his stay at the hospital. He didn't complain even though he had a crazy huge IV-lock for 2 days.

This was also the first time Baba and I had been separated for so long. During our visit we only saw each other for 2 hours each day. Its amazing to think I can still say that after 3 years. Lac and I can't even say that about each other.

Aiden was really worried about Sol and about my not coming home.

A friend told me about a ritual where you give a kiss for them to store in their pockets for later. I'm so grateful for this idea. It really helped both of us be able to say goodbye. Here I'm giving Aiden a good night kiss for each pocket. He told me he planned to put them on his knees.

Pancake Breakfast

2010-10-18T21:23:00.000-07:00

A gem from 2 months ago. Aiden helped me make blueberry pancakes.

So! play....

2010-10-17T22:42:00.000-07:00

Mijo plays with a toy for the first time

And some glamour shots....

Grandparents

2010-10-17T22:30:00.000-07:00

The boys had a great time hanging out with their grandparents this weekend.

Fire Purse

2010-10-17T22:13:00.000-07:00

We interrupt this program....

2010-10-10T20:30:00.000-07:00

We've been slacking in the blogging department. Mostly because we've been enjoying the boys and figuring out how to go from a family of 3 to a family of 4. But....we've also had some health scares that really distracted us.

First the boys were exposed to Pertussis, not a huge deal for Aiden but extremely serious for Sol. In the end, tests showed that they never had it; however, before we got the results, there were hundreds of dollars in visits to 3 different doctors, lot's of internet research, sobering moments, and preventative treatment. Phew!

Then last week....Sol took us for another ride. It started with high fevers and the nursing hotline telling us to get a move on over to the emergency room. Lac and I often talk about how lucky we are that we haven't had to take either one of the boys in yet and he teases me about whether I have the stuff to make the trip. Now we know.

At the emergency room, little Sol clocked a fever of well over 103, nearing 104. Not what you want to see in a little guy only 2 months old. They immediately started checking for meningitis. Not what you want to hear when you're a parent. Our little guy was such a champ and did an amazing job of tolerating all the poking and prodding he was getting, and there were a lot pokes. We got some experience learning the system and trying to advocate for our family. They don't tell you you have choices; you have to find that out for yourself. It took us a while to figure out we could bypass emergency room staff and bring in people more experienced with a newborn.

Then we were transfered to CPMC in San Francisco and spent 2 days on their pediatric floor with more testing. In the end, Sol turned out to have a raging bladder and kidney infection. Preliminary testing shows that he may have a structural problem in the drainage from his kidney to his bladder on the left side meaning this is far from over. For now we're at home recovering from all the testing. Once the infection is gone, there will be more.

What do you think of your brother ?

2010-08-27T00:12:00.000-07:00

Continuing on the discussion about how Aiden is coping with Sol turning his world upside down. If you ask him what he thinks about his brother, his answer really depends on how things have gone up until then. By this we mean, how many hours has mama spent playing legos with him or how many stories she's read to him or in general what proportion of her time has been divided between the two bros. If he's in a good mood, then he loves his brother and wants to teach him all sorts of good stuff (mostly how to play legos), if not, he'll tell us that he wants to put some major hurt on him or send him away. In this video he's being very honest about his feelings, but at least he wants to send him to his favorite place.

The next fashion trend ?

2010-08-26T22:45:00.000-07:00

Anytime we see one of these punk kids walking down the street wearing lowriders down to their knees showing off their cool boxers, we wonder if one day we'll be watching one of our boys walking out the front door looking just like that. Here's a preview of what we can expect to see in a couple of years. Who needs lowriders when you can flip em around backwards.

I want to eat his dinner

2010-08-18T15:55:00.001-07:00

A question that we get asked a lot these days is 'How is Aiden dealing with the new arrival?'. It was something that we worried about a little bit as well. W didn't know how he would deal with a new sibling, especially given that he had Angela's complete attention for his entire life.

We tried to prepare him as much as we could before Sol was born. He knew for a long time that there was going to be company very soon. In fact he even referred to the in utero baby as a sister. He would sing to the baby and tell us what all he'd teach her when she'd come out. Angela also rented some books from the library about having siblings which he'd question quite a lot. One other thing that really helped was getting a doll for him to practice. He named the doll 'cookie' and would play big brother to her. We had installed the baby's car seat next to his, a month in advance just so he gets used to it. He'd take cookie with him to the park and she'd get a ride in his little stroller. Having watched him with other babies, we knew he'd make an excellent brother, but we'd only find out for sure when it really happened.

So when Sol arrived we had our fingers crossed. As you might have seen from his initial reaction, he was really excited to see Sol. He took his own sweet time to get close to him but soon wanted to play with him and pick him up. In fact, sometimes he gets so excited that he doesn't quite know what to do with Sol. Pretty much every day he asks to hold Sol and it's really precious to watch how gentle he is with his little brother. He hasn't yet quite come to terms with hearing Sol cry. At first he rushes to Sol and tries to sing to him and when that doesn't seem to work, he raises the decibel level a few notches in an effort to drown out Sol's cries.

But of course we knew there'd be times when he'd show us the other side. There's been a number of times when he's demonstrated to us that he's not too happy with the situation. He has any number of ways of displaying his displeasure. Sometimes he pretends to be a baby and says that he needs to be held, rocked, nursed or in plain words 'I need some attention'. And not surprisingly it's seems to be around the same time when Sol needs Angela. If these indirect ways don't work, he'll ask us very direct questions like, 'Will you spend time with me ?' or 'Do you love me more than the baby?'. On a couple of occasions he's even threatened to take matters into his own hands with some pretty radical ideas. He's expressed various desires like 'I want to bang the baby', 'I want to jump on top of him' and best of all, 'I want to eat his dinner'. When it comes to these threats he's an equal opportunity tough guy. On a couple of occasions he's told both of us 'I want to throw you into the garbage can'. But so far these have been empty threats and he's not actually followed through with them. We are hoping it stays that way. There's only been one time when he's had a complete blow out which is quite natural given that there's a lot of thoughts that must be going through his tiny head and he just had to let some steam off.

We have been making a conscious effort to spend some quality time with him everyday so he doesn't feel like he's getting the short end of the stick. Keeping to his regular schedule of parks and other activities with his friends as much as possible also helps . We also try to get him involved with some of Sol's activities to give him a sense of ownership. You can already tell that Sol's going to love having him as a big brother and will probably be his shadow for the first few years.

Hands

2010-08-16T13:15:00.000-07:00

I'm loving these hand pictures. I still can't get over how small he is. I'm trying to memorize how soft Sol's skin feels and what he smells like because I know he wont be a baby for long.

The baby's name is ?

2010-08-15T19:09:00.000-07:00

Aiden's favorite word these days is 'poopie'. Regardless of what the topic may be, he somehow manages to inject poopie into the conversation. So when I asked him what the baby's names was, the answer didn't surprise me at all. The only saving grace here is that, unlike the rest of us, he uses it as a term of endearment. But I am still not sure that Sol would appreciate it at all, so it's good that we have it all documented for them to sort it out later on in life.

Big Bro meeting his little bro for the very first time

2010-08-13T23:42:00.001-07:00

So when Angela started her labor we had asked Quita to take Aiden out for dinner. Sol was born while they were out for dinner and by the time we got home that night Aiden was fast asleep. So when he woke up the next morning and came into our bedroom as usual, he had no idea that there was a new person in the house. This video captures his reaction when he first discovered his little brother.

Which is which?

2010-08-13T18:21:00.000-07:00

Can you tell which one of these is Aiden and which one is Sol ?

More about Sol

2010-08-11T11:13:00.000-07:00

I wanted to add more about Sol's name.

The end of my pregnancy was very emotionally difficult. I struggled with so much darkness and anxiety and overwhelming feelings of loss. Pregnancy is supposed to be a joyous and beautiful time of anticipation and it was hard to accept that I wasn't experiencing those feelings. I worried about being able to connect with our new baby and about his health. I worried about being able to deliver him safely into this world. I worried that I had made a mistake in wanting another child so desperately. I worried about how Aiden would experience the change. I was a mess. I'm crying as I write this just remembering how broken I felt.

When things got really dark, people started appearing out of nowhere helping me. An friend of a friend nurtured and comforted me and became a friend of mine. My sister-in-law listened and reassured me I wasn't gong crazy. My mom moved in and simplified my life immensely. A another friend offered to support me with her gifts during and after the birth. Playgroup friends showed me you can be a loving and graceful mama to more than one. Someone unexpected left a gift here or a note there. It's not easy for me to accept help but it really felt like there were angels all around supporting me when I needed it most.

All babies are miracle babies but Sol feels particularly magic to me because after all the darkness, his birth was everything we wanted and more. The moment I held him, I fell in love. It literally felt like the clouds had cleared and the sun came out.

Welcome to the world little Sol. We are overjoyed you've made it here safe and we are so blessed you joined our family.

Did you pick a name yet ?

2010-08-11T01:04:00.000-07:00

Just like with Aiden, we hadn't picked a name at birth because we were hoping for a little inspiration from the baby. You'd think that after the experience from the last time, folks would be used to it. Not so. We'd get very curious looks anytime we mentioned the fact the baby didn't have a name yet. And we won't mention some family members who'd come up with all sorts of reasons of why we should get on with the program and come up with a name already.

So after a week of the baby being born, we finally settled on a name. We went through the same rigorous process as last time. And the winner is 'Sol Emmanuel De Souza'.

We were looking for names that meant a few different things like light, peace, wisdom etc. Sol in Portuguese and Spanish means 'Sun'. When Aiden was born, he lit up our lives like never before, and we didn't think that we'd ever experience that feeling again, but this baby has brought more light into our lives, so the name seemed apt. In Hebrew it means 'Peace'. It's also a form of Solomon who of course wrote the book on wisdom. 'Emmanuel' in Hebrew means 'God is with us'. And of course 'De Souza' is his clan name :)

Sol's pet name at home is 'Mijo'. It's a short form of 'Mi hijo' or 'My son' in Spanish. I hope he doesn't ever look it up on the Urban dictionary because I just did, and found out that in Portuguese it means 'piss' (Eu mijo na tua cabeça = I piss in your head). Must have something to do with the rivalry between those two neighbors. Why else would it be a term of endearment in one language and a bodily fluid in another that's closely related to it ? Anyway, we picked Mijo in honor of his Quita who uses it to refer to the boys in the family affectionately. Quita moved in with us to help us get through this transition and we don't know how we'd deal with it without her. We are thinking that we'll hide her suitcase when she decides to leave :(

In and Out Baby

2010-08-09T15:46:00.000-07:00

Now that we've had a few days since the birth, I figured that I'd jot down my version of the birth story before my memory fades. It goes without saying that Mommy reserves the right to correct any aberrations that may sneak in here. After all, she's the main actor here and I'm just the supporting cast.

Our due date was August 9 (which BTW is today) but since Aiden had arrived six days early, we were on the watch out for early warning signs. Angela pinged me around 3:55 p.m. on Monday, August 2nd to let me know that there may be some excitement coming soon but nothing urgent. By the time I got home the excitement had died down a little but we still timed the contractions for a couple of hours to gauge the frequency. I stayed up a little late to watch a DVD called 'Comfort measures by Penny Simkin' because I figured that it may come in handy anytime soon. I had some redeeming to do from the last time and it was for this reason that Angela had lined up not one but two Doulas to help her labor at home as much as possible.

I decided to stay at home the next day just in case. Most of the day went by without much of a fuss and we even managed to do some last minute shopping. Around 2 p.m., I went into my office in the back to get some work done and Angela pinged me around 5 p.m. to let me know that she was having some strong contractions. Since she was pinging me from a laptop, I figured that it can't be that urgent. But when I moseyed back into the house I saw that the level of excitement had gone up a few notches. What I didn't realize at the time was that it was about to go through the roof in a hurry and that my nerves would be put to a stress test like they'd never been before.

We asked Angela's Mom to take Aiden out for dinner so that he doesn't get too disturbed. No sooner did they close the door around 5:35 p.m. did her water break. From here on it was one hell of a roller coaster. I was on the phone with the doulas and midwife, packing up the car and trying to comfort Angela all at the same time. By now Angela had progressed into active labor and needed to be transported to the birth center ASAP where highly trained medical professionals could attend to her as opposed to a frazzled IT guy. I somehow managed to corral her into the car at 6:15 p.m. and dreaded the thought of hitting work traffic. Fortunately the traffic was clear and we got to the birth center at 6:35 pm.

The midwives immediately checked her and found that she was into transition and at 7 cm dilation. When they told her that the tub would take 10 minutes to be prepared, Angela didn't pay heed and said that she was getting into the tub, water or no water. She got into the tub which was by then half full and was soon actively pushing the baby out. By now I had gotten into the tub along with her sister Helena. Within about ten minutes of pushing, we could tell that the baby was about to make his grand entrance.

At this time I should mention that despite my protestations, Angela had put into our birth plan that I was to catch the baby. When the moment arrived, I was a little freaked out about actually going through with it and it took a little coaxing from the midwives. At precisely 6:58 p.m. our beautiful angel dived into the water and with a little help from midwife Julia and aunty Helena, I was able to catch the baby under water and place it on Angela's chest. It was by far the most awesome feeling that I had ever experienced and I was glad that Angela insisted on overriding my preferences :)

We then got to spend some precious private moments with him during which time Angela was able to initiate breast feeding. The midwives then had him checked and weighed and handed back to us. We got something to eat and after resting for a couple of hours, decided to head back home around 10 p.m. We got home around 10:15 p.m. by when Aiden was fast asleep. We spent the next few hours just marveling at our new baby before dozing off to sleep.

Chocilla #2

2010-08-04T10:58:00.000-07:00

A quick post to let everyone know that our second baby arrived yesterday around 7 pm. He was born at Sage Femme Midwifery in San Francisco and like his big bro, had a beautiful water birth and this time Daddy actually picked up some guts to catch him in the tub. It was a pretty awesome feeling to catch your baby like a fish! Mommy, Baby (yet unnamed) and big bro Aiden are doing great. More stories will follow later (including how we almost had him on highway 101), but here's the first picture of the new born. He looks a lot like Aiden when he was born. See http://chocilla.blogspot.com/2007/07/chocilla-makes-his-entry-into-world.html

Time Flies

2010-07-31T22:00:00.000-07:00

We've been missing the last couple of months....busy looking for a new home, finding one, packing, moving, unpacking, getting ready for a new baby and enjoying our beautiful family. But there's no better time to come back on line than to celebrate Baba's 3rd birthday.

Our little boy is getting bigger and bigger and even though we make every effort to savor each moment, time is still flying by too fast. At 3 Aiden delights and surprises us daily. He loves music and will sit for over an hour (no joke) playing DJ. He's constantly asking me to "Burn a new CD with Farmer in the Dell...." (insert new favorite song). He also loves legos and has started creating his own cars and trucks. He knows exactly what pieces he needs and isn't satisfied with anything else. He especially loves decorating all surfaces with lights and proudly shows off his "supped" up creation. He's funny and he's a rascal. Long ago he figured out that some things fly with Dada that wont fly with Mama and he doesn't hesitate to play jokes on his father. At the end of each day Lac and I settle down and look at each other with amazement and say this beautiful boy has done VooDoo magic on our hearts.

Happy Birthday Baba! Here are some pictures of his birthday celebration.

BFF Hope

Kissing cousin Ethan

who was very taken with Dada

Auntie Elena's insanely cool cupcake extravaganza.

Not so little anymore....

Happy Birthday Dada!

2010-04-20T22:52:00.000-07:00

Dada's birthday is just a few days away so I've been trying to get some hints from Baba about what he would like to give Dada as a gift. Every time I ask him he answers the same way. The conversation goes something like this....

Me: Baba, Dada's birthday is coming up...What should we get him?

Baba: A truck!

Me: You think Dada would like a truck?

Baba: Yes!

Me: What kind of truck should we get him?

Baba: A dump truck!

We've had the same conversation a couple of times because I keep thinking I'll get a different answer. No luck. So am I'm ruining the surprise by posting this before Dada's B-day?

Body Talk

2010-04-17T08:34:00.000-07:00

There's been a lot of body talk around here lately. Both because Aiden's getting to a stage where he's more curious about his own body (and ours) and because we're trying to prepare him for the baby coming this summer. We've been having where-did-I-come-from conversations and about a month ago I showed him an amazing book about fetal development with photographs of every stage. I showed him pictures of sperm and an egg and told him these were parts of the Mama and Dada that come together to make a baby. Then we didn't talk about it again for a long time.

Last night Baba asked Dada to read him the baby development book. I overhead them from the other room and Baba was explaining to Dada.....This is an egg. It's for making a baby....Not for eating.

Also last night, I went out so Baba and Dada were on their own. Baba was missing me and said, Mama, hold me! Dada said, OK I'll hold you. Baba gave him an I'm-not-stupid look and said "Where's your pepet??" (That's vagina for those of you who are not up to speed on Konkani slang.)

I'm pregnant!

2010-04-01T14:34:00.000-07:00

Even though it would have been an accurate statement coming from me, I wasn't the one who shouted "I'm pregnant!" at the dinner table the other night. It was Baba showing off a napkin crumpled under his shirt. He was delighted to finally have a bump on his tummy like mine. Dada and I took turns feeling the "baby" in his tummy kick and admiring how quickly it had grown. At one point I asked him how the baby was going to come out and he said through his popot (penis in Konkani).

It was so funny I ended up taking lame, out of focus pictures instead of the video I wanted. By the time I figured out the error, Aiden was on to us and when we asked him "what's in your tummy?" he said "a napkin!" Duh!

Coming Back Soon

2010-03-06T23:03:00.000-08:00

When Lac and I go out on date night, Aiden verifies with us that we're coming back. "Coming back soon?". "Yes, we're coming back soon" we say. "After my nap" he'll say. He'll stand at the window and wave to us as we walk to the car. "After my nap" is sort of a catch-all for anything he wants to happen soon. Often its used when he wants to drink juice and he's already had some (he's only allowed one a day). So, he'll say, "I'll have juice soon, after my nap".

Lately, Quita has been taking Aiden out on weekly dates. They go to Fairyland, the Discovery Museum, the Zoo, the park..... Today, she brought him a Lightning McQueen lunchbox (a.k.a. Litna MaCaKeen) to carry his lunch during their date. As they were leaving I said "Aiden, I'm going to wave to you from the window." I stood there watching my little boy carry his lunch box down the stairs and walk to the car. He didn't look back to wave so I knocked on the window waved to him and signed I love you. Aiden turned around waved back and said, "I'm coming back soon!" "After my nap!" I said.

Here are some pictures from their adventure today....

Birthday - They will have cupcakes

2010-02-15T16:21:00.000-08:00

Aiden just loves going to birthday parties and it's not just because there'll be a ton of kids to play with. If you tell him that there's a birthday party coming up, the first thing that he'll say is 'They will have cupcakes'. After all the playing, jumping and running around portion of the party is done, he'll start to ask about the cupcakes. He's got his unique way of eating one. Start with the frosting and then work his way down. Nothing else make him happier than eating cupcakes, except may be dump trucks. Here's a couple of pictures of him enjoying some sugar at Andrew's birthday party.

You are some dog!

2010-02-12T09:45:00.000-08:00

Another story about the perils of Aiden's very fertile imagination. A couple of days ago we gathered together for dinner at a really nice Burmese restaurant to celebrate Grandpa's birthday. Which by the way Aiden was quick to remind us was back in January. I guess it was his way of letting us know that we were slackers. We were joined at the dinner by Gideon, a friend of Helena's who Aiden hadn't met before. After a quick up and down look and a couple of questions, he quickly decided that Gideon was cool enough to hang out with him. He spent most of the rest of the evening hanging out with Jonathan & Ashley who are his heroes. Every now and then he'll pull a new trick on us and when we ask him, 'Who taught you that ?' He'll say 'Uncle Jonathan & Aunty Ashely taught me that. Mama and Dada teach me nothing'. We knew he absolutely adores Ashely but we had no idea that his adulation went a little beyond that until we saw Ashley's face turn pink after a little conversation with Aiden. He pulled the famous 'I showed you mine, now show me yours' trick on her. He didn't understand why Ashely couldn't return the favor after he had pulled his shirt up and showed off his nipples.

A little later on he decided that he wanted to be Orio (Cousin Ethan's dog). He then went around the table assigning dog names to everyone else. Mama was Emma, Ashley was Anokie, Jonathan was Marius and Aunty Helena was Eponine. Next in line were Gideon, Grandpa & Dada. Knowing that he had exhausted all the dog names in his vocabulory, I was very curious as to what would happen next and absolutely dreaded the thought of what name would be assigned to me. Remember that I have personal trauma from a previous episode of his imagination going wild (Dada-Under the bottom where the poop comes out). So he thought for a moment, pointed to Gideon and said 'You are some dog'. That was his way of making Gideon comfortable I guess. Then he pointed to Granpa & Dada and said the same thing. You never know what's going to fall out of his mouth next, so I was relieved that he didn't point to me and say 'You are dog poopie'. Phew!

Future grand prix driver in the making ?

2010-01-25T00:41:00.000-08:00

Saying that Aiden's obsessed with anything on wheels would be the understatement of his brief life. He's got more wheels than any man his size (or any size for that matter) would possibly need. Every time we go to any store, he's quick to find the section that sells kids toys and picks the wheels that he fancy's on that particular day. He can name most car brands by their logos even when they are zipping past on the freeway and knows more automobile types than most adults would care to bother themselves with. He likes arranging all his wheels end to end forming long trains going from one room to the other. If you ask him what he wants to be when he grows up, 'Car doctor' is at the top of the list besides of course garbage man, postman, policeman, fireman... you get the gist of it.

He's also taken to Dada's hobby of following Formula one. Here he is on a recent trip to an arcade in a Philly shopping mall, practicing his skills on both two as well as four wheels. This arcade by the way was his first time ever to such a venue and it totally saved his and our sanity. It was too cold in Philly and the poor kid was going stir crazy being inside the house all day long. He was like 'I am bored to death people, do something about it before I destroy all the expensive things in my cousins house'. When he saw all the cool things at the arcade, he couldn't believe his luck and was running from one game to another.

Dada - Under the bottom, where the poop comes out

2010-01-07T21:25:00.000-08:00

So I don't even know where to start with this post or if it's even a good idea to disclose this information, but here goes. I am in charge of Aiden's bedtime routine. You'd think that would be pretty straight forward, right ? After all, he's just a kid, how hard can it be ? Give him a bath, put the jammies on, read him a story, say night night, close the door, done. Wrong! It's a long intricate routine which he tries to prolong as much as he can. Every day he comes up with a new trick to extend his bedtime. After Mama gives him a snack feeding and leaves the room, I need to read him a story or two, make sure he's got enough water and food, sing a song or two and then on his terms he agrees to turn the light off. But that's not the end of the night, it's the beginning of the end. I have to lay with the prince until he falls asleep. And while I am laying there, he'll ask me all sorts of stuff. He usually starts by asking me 'Where is her'. And when I tell him that she's right outside getting some work done, he'll come up with all sorts of reasons why she's leaving the house. As if his Mama is gone out to party. Then he'll ask me to tell him more stories, give him water a couple of times, hold him (even though I am already holding him), pull the covers up, pull the covers down.... You get the point. Eventually he'll just exhaust himself to sleep.

Well yesterday he came up with a new trick which looks like is going to be added to the daily routine because he repeated it tonight as well. So he likes to pretend that he is different people, animals or things. We like to think that he has a very fertile imagination because he never pretends to be a boy. I mean that would not take much imagination, right? Usually it's just one personality at any given time, but the personalities switch every 2 minutes or so. But yesterday he decided that he wanted to adopt multiple personalities at the same time. So I said to him, well, you'll have to assign different body parts to each person. Little did I realize that this was going to come back to bite me in the butt (literally). So he started with Julietta (his crush), Angelina, Emma & Orio (Uncle Rick & Aunty Elena's dogs), Gianna etc who all got various body parts depending on how much he liked them. So Julietta of course got the face, Gianna got the chest and the rest got his limbs. Then he added Mama to the list and said she was his bottom. Now normally you wouldn't like to be somebody's bum, but his Mama always tells him how cute his bum is, so it's actually a good thing, right up there with the face if not better. Then he added me to the list and I was beginning to wonder which remnant of his body would be assigned to me. Without any hesitation he goes 'Dada, under the bottom, where the poop comes out'. I just could not believe what I was hearing and burst out laughing. He's probably the only person in the world who could call me an A-Hole and make me laugh :)

How to take a great family picture!

2010-01-01T21:53:00.000-08:00

We hope you had a great holiday season with your loved ones. We had a blast as well. We are currently in Philly bonding with Aiden's newest nephew Ethan, who is just an adorable little boy. We'll post more of our holiday pictures in a later post but just wanted to share our holiday family picture with you. You should have received it in your mailbox by now and if you have not, it's because we don't have your street address. Please send it across so we can include you in next year's mailing list.

This picture came about after many unsuccessful tries at different locations. With the holidays fast approaching and no family picture in sight, we were beginning to get a bit stressed about the whole thing. So we finally called in the FPSF (family picture special forces). The FPSF team included, Aunty Helena - the resident artist photographer extraordinaire, 'Uncle Jonathan' - Aiden's hero and all around cool dude in charge of mood setting, Aunty Ashley - excellent mood setting assistant and Grandpa - resident expert in charge of documenting Aiden's entire life for future generations. Here's a picture from Grandpa illustrating the elite FPSF team hard at work.

Gradpa's PG-13 Family Calendar

2009-12-07T22:35:00.000-08:00

Grandpa comes out with a new calendar every year featuring major family events. Aiden loves looking at the pictures of his extended family and talking about what their doing, almost every day. Lately he's started asking more pointed questions about these pictures he's been looking at for years.

The most curious calendar is the first one which is dedicated to Mama and Dada's wedding and Uncle Rick and Auntie Elena's engagement. Aiden wants to know where he is....Where's Baba? There's a beautiful wedding picture, a close-up of Mama and Dada hugging during the wedding, and one of us (me? Dada?) told him that he was the twinkle in Dada's eye. Aiden loves being included and if you ask him, he'll point out which twinkle in Dada's eye he is.

Now for the scandalous part! In the calendar, Grandpa included pictures from Mama and Dada's super fun Bachelorette and Bachelor parties. At my party, I was led on a treasure hunt through Mission street bars with a list of tasks to accomplish. I was allowed to enlist the help of my fellow partiers and thank God. Did I mention I'm shy? Auntie Elena, my soon to be sister-in-law at the time, was happy to help. She's an East Coaster and doesn't have my shyness issues. There's a picture of Auntie Elena licking salt off the neck of a guy we found at one of the bars. As you can see, it's a great photo.

Who's that? Aiden wants to know. Luckily these questions have gone to Lac.....I think he said....Ummmm....that's a man. What's Auntie Elena doing? She's licking the salt on that man's neck.

Least you think Auntie Elena was frolicking by herself, I guess I should mention the other party picture that Aiden is curious about. The one where I'm torturing some guy. OK so I guess I'm not *that*shy.

Aiden asked Dada, What's Mama doing? And Dada told him very matter-of-factly, She's pulling out that man's chest hair. Aiden took this without any question, of course that's what she's doing.

So maybe this is the moment to admit that it's only now, in writing this, that I'm wondering if was a good decision to leave this calendar in places where Aiden could find it *and* to look through it with him with the same nonchalantness as Goodnight Moon. Maybe we should "lose" the calendar before the questions get even more probing or he understands what he's seeing. Or, maybe not. What do you think?

Beer: The good and the bad

2009-12-05T13:00:00.000-08:00

Let's start with the bad, so we can get it out of the way and because the good of beer and toddlers seems improbable.

Dada has a beer iPhone game that allows you to pick your brew (Guiness, Lager, Hefeweizen etc). It then fills the screen up with a slow pour of your sparkling ale, bubbles included. The user tips the iPhone like a cup to pretend to drink. The liquid tilts and drains and at the end there's a large BURP. Geeze. Who thought of this game? A better question might be why does Dada like it so much?

You might be wondering what all this has to do with Aiden. I've been wondering that myself. Dada decided to play this game with Baba and he's now a toddling beer expert who has no problem talking about burping and calling out "Hefeweizen" at the playground at the top of his lungs when he's out with Mama. Way to make me look like a really responsible parent. Thanks Dada!

Here's the good, sort of.....This weekend we're nursing a sick little boy who can't keep much down. You'd think throwing up would be upsetting. But, Baba just thinks he's "burping" and that's cool, right? This morning when he couldn't handle breakfast he said "I burped it".

Get better soon little guy!

All of them and a big soapbox which you might want to skip

2009-11-22T22:12:00.000-08:00

Aiden still nurses and this is a post about nursing. If you don't want to read about a toddler nursing, this is a good place to stop.

So Baba still says "switch" when he wants to nurse. Tonight as I was getting ready, I asked him, "Baba, which side do you want" and he said, "all of them!". There was so much abundance in the way he said it, like I had 10 breasts.

*****My Soapbox Statement*****

If you have concerns about the fact that some toddlers nurse, you're not alone. I'm starting to get raised eyebrow comments from members of my own family. Here are some facts....

The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends

Exclusive breastfeeding for approximately the first six months and support for breastfeeding for the first year and beyond as long as mutually desired by mother and child....There is no upper limit to the duration of breastfeeding and no evidence of psychologic or developmental harm from breastfeeding into the third year of life or longer."

Here's more from the American Academy of Family Physicians

"Breastfeeding beyond the first year offers considerable benefits to both mother and child, and should continue as long as mutually desired." They also note that "If the child is younger than two years of age, the child is at increased risk of illness if weaned."

If you're wondering why the AAP and AAFP are officially OK with extended nursing its because it's so gosh darn good for kids, regardless of their age. We all know there are immune properties in breastmilk. Some of these properties actually *increase* during the second year and during weaning. Considering that toddlers (and even children) don't have mature immune systems this is a very good thing. It's as if the mother's body is giving her child as many immuno-boosters as she can as her child enters toddlerhood and gets ready for increased independence.

Here's more research I found on-line.

Nursing toddlers between the ages of 16 and 30 months have been found to have fewer illnesses and illnesses of shorter duration than their non-nursing peers (Gulick 1986).

"Antibodies are abundant in human milk throughout lactation" (Nutrition During Lactation1991; p. 134). In fact, some of the immune factors in breastmilk increase in concentration during the second year and also during the weaning process. (Goldman 1983, Goldman & Goldblum 1983, Institute of Medicine 1991).

In this soapbox statement, I'm focusing on health benefits. There's more...all of the benefits of nursing for the mother and the baby (I won't list them all here) are *cumulative* so the longer you do it, the greater the benefit. That means extended nursing is good for me too. It protects me from several different types of cancer. It gives Baba great protection from allergies. The list goes on and on and it's amazing.

I haven't even touched on the emotional and social benefit of giving the child the freedom to decide when he or she is "old enough to stop". We all mature at different speeds and Baba is the only one who will know when he's done. However, nursing has to work for both mother and child. It's shouldn't be forced on a mother who's not game or is feeling resentful of that aspect of the relationship. Personally, I don't and can't know what my upper limit is. If Aiden is still going when I reach it, then we'll have to talk. Until then, I'll keep asking him "which side?".

Hair Up

2009-11-22T21:43:00.000-08:00

Aiden is turning out to be....opinnionated....I could have said bossy, but I'm trying to be nice about all this. He has really strong feelings about how I wear my hair, glasses and more. You may have noticed a trend here, maybe we should just call him a fashionista. For the record, I wear my hair up 99.9 percent of the time. I usually sleep with it up. If Aiden happens to see my hair down say after a shower or God forbid if I take it down for a *second* to re-adjust my barrette he says "Hair up". Glasses are much worse because I wear them all the time. We have lots of talks about how Mama gets to decide what she wears on her body and how she wears her hair. I don't think I'm getting through to him. In fact I'm sure I'm not.

Today while skyping with his Auntie Gunush in Bangalore Aiden noticed a problem. "Hair up" he said. Auntie Gunush was surprised but complied (she's way more accommodating than Mama). After she put her hair up, Aiden said "That's nice". Geeze!

For the record here is a list of Aiden's fashion pet peeves:

Long hair down

Eye glasses

Jackets and big sweaters on Mama

Hats (on Mama, Aiden and sometimes Dada)

All is right in the world. Mama's hair is up and Aiden is pretending to be Rosie the hen.

Big Smiles

2009-11-18T22:14:00.000-08:00

It hardly seems possible that someone so small could have such a big smile.

Halloween

2009-11-18T20:58:00.000-08:00

We did the whole shebang for Halloween this year: pumpkin patches, pumpkin carving, pumpkin seeds and trick-or-treating. Aiden loved most of it, except for maybe scooping goo out of the pumpkins which was way too yucky for him.

Carving pumpkins with BFF Hope.

Aiden was a tiger this year and was finally old enough to go trick-or-treating. He had a blast but thought it was really odd that after ringing the doorbell and saying "Hi" he wasn't supposed to go *inside* and spend more time. We almost lost him the first few homes when the kindly grandparents answering the door seemed more than happy to let him come in and join their party.

Just American

2009-10-29T21:58:00.000-07:00

Aiden has always loved being read to. Either Mama or Dada usually read him a story before it's time to hit the sack. And we turn off the lights after reading a story or two. He tries all sorts of tricks to extend his uptime. One day after I had read him a couple of stories and turned off the lights, he asked for more stories. When I wouldn't turn on the lights again he threw a fit. So I decided to make up a story on my own. It went 'Once upon a time, there was a little boy.....' It would be a story about one of the more exciting things that happened in his life during that week. And it would end with 'Do you know the name of this boy?' And with all the excitement of a toddler, he'd say, 'BABA !!!'. He really took to it and now it's a regular feature of the night time routine. One day just to make it more interesting I decided to try it with different accents. First I tried a strong Indian accent. He didn't like that at all and said 'regular'. I said, you don't like Indian ? And he said 'No Indian, regular'. So then I tried my version of a British accent and he did the same thing. 'Regular'. I said 'Oh you mean American' and he said 'American'. And from then on everytime I try any other accents, he says 'No Indian, No British, Just American'.

Here's an illustration with 'Runaway Bunny'

Baby Band

2009-10-27T22:24:00.000-07:00

Aiden's BFF Hope came over to the house the other day and the two of them decided to start a band. They're both accomplished singers but they're still working out the whole teamwork thing....

Here Hope has started singing and just needs a little cooperation from Aiden. I love the very slight look of frustration on her face as she tries to sing through Aiden's ruckus.

They are finally in agreement about the song but maybe not the tempo....

Artistic differences are such a drag. Aiden's feeling very Old McDonald and Hope is a little BaaBaa Blacksheep. What will they do?

Bear Wearing

2009-10-26T22:13:00.000-07:00

Take away the crib (OK we never had one) and I would survive. Same goes for the changing table....our guest bedroom desk worked just fine. One day we had guests and moved it to our bedroom floor. We're still parked there. The beautiful bassinet that held all Stoddard babies as we slept and was painstakingly refurbished by Quita... we used it once. The stroller which was a bone of contention with Grandpa because on his first try he didn't get the exact one we had researched ....we barely used it. But, don't even think about taking away my Ergo baby carrier. I would flip. You might be able to raise a baby without one but I'm not in line to try that experiment. I love it that much. I used it when Aiden was 5 months and I'm still using it now that he's 2 years 3 months and 27.5 pounds. It's a dream. When I see the Bjorn, I cringe remembering all those sore shoulders even when Aiden was a lightweight. BTW, we still have our Bjorn and it needs a new home....anyone interested????

Aiden's jumped on the baby-carrying bandwagon and he's a very good Daddy to his bear Corduroy (pronounced "Corduroid"). Here you see him changing bear's diaper. Just how many diapers can a little bear wear? Then, my favorite.... taking Corduroy for a jaunt around the house. The bear-in-the-shirt idea is all his. Aiden loves carrying Corduroy as much as I love carrying him.

Our little Handful

2009-10-04T23:15:00.000-07:00

Today during bath time I had an "oooh noooo" moment. First it was the art and then it was the teeth but I'll start with the art.

Art is Aiden's new obsession. He didn't get it from Mama and he didn't get it from Dada but Baba can spend hours drawing. We signed him up for an art class this summer and he didn't want to go. He was in the middle of a phase right after he had the chicken pox were he didn't want to leave the house or try anything new. I normally respect his limits but staying inside was driving me batty so I took him anyway, protesting the whole way. I told him we didn't have to stay, we were just going to have a look. We walked through the door, Baba trying to wiggle away; me with an iron grip when suddenly I spotted the letter "L" cookie cutter on the playdough table. Aiden loves letters and it was worth a try....

Baba, I see the letter "L" over there. He froze. He reconsidered. He never ever complained about art class again. Now he begs me to go. Art class has 6 tables each with a different project. The projects change every week but there's always a playdough table. We spent 5 consecutive weeks playing at the playdough table for a whole hour before he had the heart to explore.

Now our home is fully stocked with markers, crayons, playdough, a million cookie cutters, paint, stamps, and bathtub paint. So back to our story.

Today Aiden asked me to paint a bulldozer on the side of the tub. Did I mention I'm not artistic? I can pick a bull dozer out in a line up...I think...but I'm not sure I know what one *really* looks like. Anyhow, I did my best. Baba admired my effort but then he started complaining. I drew wheels on my bulldozer and they have crawlers. He made me change the wheels to crawlers. Then there was no dirt in the bulldozer. I added dirt. Wait, the bulldozer should be dumping dirt into a dumptruck. I drew a dump truck. I was so relieved when Dada came in to take over. This was getting complicated.

Later I heard from Dada about the tooth brushing episode. The toothbrush was in and out of Baba's mouth in a flash. What happened to brushing your teeth Dada asked. Aiden answered....Baba fast!

Chelsea's Wedding

2009-09-02T21:14:00.000-07:00

We just got back from Spokane Washington where we celebrated Chelsea and Rob's beautiful wedding. Aiden has a blast and spent more time dancing at the rehearsal dinner than we did. It was there that Aiden found Chelsea, the bride, and proceeded to follow her around everywhere treating her to the splits and other dance moves. He was smitten.

When we finally turned in for the night he said "More party" softly between yawns. He was in luck, the wedding was right around the corner. I don't think Aiden had as much fun at the wedding....he had to wait way too long to see Chelsea. When he did, DadA said, "look there's Chelsea. She's wearing a beautiful white dress." "Take it off" Baba said.

OK, at this point I have to admit that my adorable little boy has a bit of a bossy side. I have no idea where he gets that. He's not fond of glasses, sweaters, hats and apparently wedding dresses....even on other people.

Back to our story. We explained that only Rob gets to take off Chelsea's wedding dress and whisked him away before the wedding got scandalized.

That was last weekend.

Today over dinner, Dada was reminiscing with Baba about the wedding and laughing about how Baba had wanted to take off Chelsea's dress. Baba came right back at him with "Rob do it".

I guess he got the message.

Over here Joy, dance with me!

Playing with Dada

Who taught Aiden to make that funny face?

Oops!

Playing at the Spokane children's museum.

Guitar

2009-09-02T21:11:00.000-07:00

Quita got this mini guitar for Baba and he loves that its just his size. Now he and Dada can play together.

Dump truck loves you.....What is Mama doing ?

2009-08-13T22:10:00.000-07:00

Putting Aiden to sleep at night used to be quite a chore but now he's settled into a nice routine. Don't get me wrong, he still tries every trick in the book and sometimes invents his own to keep from going to bed. I usually get home from work around 6:30 p.m. at which time he's just finishing up his dinner. Around 7 p.m., I always ask him to same question 'Aiden, should we have a bath?' and I always get the same quick answer 'NO?'. I have slowly learnt that rather than force him to do something it's a lot easier to trick him into it. So I will say 'Aiden, what do you think needs a bath today, the Porsche or the big rig (or any other combination of his other gazillion toy vehicles)?' He suddenly feels this big surge of power that I just gave him and picks two toys that he wants to take into the tub. Well, he usually wants to take all of them, but he understands that the tub is only big enough for two. Anyhow, the point is that by now he's forgotten that it's him who's getting a bath and that his nap-time clock has just started to tick. Bath is usually over in 5 minutes but then he'll play in the tub for at least a half hour. He's only supposed to be there until the tub drains which usually takes 10 minutes but while I am playing with my iPhone, he slowly turns the drain off. Remember, this is the same dude who didn't want to get into the bath in the first place.

Then I take him to bed to change and even before I have put him down on the bed, he's say 'Shapes'. It's a game on the iPhone that he loves to play. He knows all kinds of shapes and today at the art class, he made his Mommy's jaw drop by saying 'Baby took my Pentagon' when some kid borrowed his plato creation. After that he runs out to show Mommy how cute he looks in his jammies. Next thing he will say is 'Pictures'. That means Mama has to show him pictures of his handsome self on her laptop. His favorite pictures are those of him playing with his hero, 'Uncle Jonathan'. Around 8pm, Mama takes him to bed to read some stories and nurse.

I walk in around 8:30 to put him to bed to see them happily playing games. This is when he suddenly develops all sorts of needs that will either delay Mommy's departure or necessitate him leaving the bedroom. He will feign pangs of hunger and ask for food, water or to nurse. And when he's exhausted everything, he'll bribe Mommy with all kinds of hugs & kisses. Then I take over and he starts his games all over again. I usually have to sing him a few songs and pretend to be one of his dump trucks. He will go through the entire list of cars that his family and neighbors have. Yes, he knows the car makes, it's a little surreal to hear him say 'Aunty Helena has a Volkswagen'. I eventually pretend to sleep but he will keep jumping all over me or telling me all sorts of stories. And when nothing works he will kiss me and tell me 'Love you Dada'. He knows that this trick of his always works. The other day he tried this and I told him 'Dada loves you, Mama loves you, Quita love you.....Nathan loves you'. I went through every single member of the extended family. After I was done he said 'Dump truck loves you' and I burst out laughing and his sleep got postponed by a few minutes.

Sometimes when I am trying to put him to sleep, he'll hear Mommy doing something outside and he'll say 'What is Mama doing' ? As if to imply 'Does she not know that the king is trying to sleep here ?' It happened again today when Mommy returned from a quick run to the grocery and hence this first post from me in a while :)

This video is of him going up and down the ramp of a church behind our house. It's his favorite thing to do during the day.

Hair - part 2

2009-08-04T21:40:00.000-07:00

We all knew the day would come when we'd have to cut Aiden's gorgeous head of hair. We put it off as long as possible and as you can see from the pics, it was getting a little out of hand.

The moment of truth came when Aiden got chicken pox last month and Dada started giving him oatmeal baths....great for his skin, not so great for the tangles in his hair. Dada left the bathroom one night and declared that was the moment. Not tomorrow, not the next day.....*now*. Over the next couple of days Dada trimmed Baba's hair leaving him with a cute shorter version for his 2nd birthday (on the 26th!).

Before

After

The Games Toddlers Play

2009-07-25T19:38:00.000-07:00

One of the coolest things about the last couple of months has been pretend play. Aiden will "cook" with me and loves to fill his dump truck with "sugar and coffee" when we're in the sandbox. At night, during dinner, he wants us to pretend the food is a car that goes over the Golden Gate Bridge through the Rainbow Tunnel (his mouth). He takes his food along the same path even when he feeds himself.

Aiden invented another game called "Baby Tiger". He comes in, close enough to touch noses and says "Hi baby tiger". When he says that, it means that he's a baby tiger and I'm the mama tiger. I say "Hi baby tiger" back to him, really excited like I'm meeting him after a million years and then I get to hug him. The animal changes but he seems to like being a baby tiger more than any other.

"Minivan" is another popular game. When we're lying down he'll sit on us or have us curl around him, am arm is the car door and he like to open and close it. For some reason, I'm always the minivan in this game.

I keep asking him, Aiden, can I be the Beemer?

No Beemer....Minivan.

Aiden, today can I be the Porsche?

No Porsche.....Minivan.

How did I get to be the minivan? I'm not sure I like being the minivan. I think we've found a compromise. He does let me be a convertable and I can live with that.

Critiquing Toddler Art

2009-07-21T20:32:00.000-07:00

Contrary to popular opinion, there is such a thing as good and bad toddler art.

Here is an example of good toddler art. The medium is water-soluble markers on white paper.

This is an example of bad toddler art.... The medium is permanent ball point pen on white duvet cover.

Singing with Baba

2009-07-19T21:57:00.000-07:00

I can't think of many things that are cuter than having a toddler sing to you. Aiden has a few songs in his repetoire and has been known to sing Baa Baa Black Sheep to me and Dada at night as we're trying to quiet him down.

Here's a clip of him jamming the alphabet song with Uncle Jonathan.

The second clip is of him singing his own version of "Old McDonald Had a Farm". His version goes something like this. "Old McDonald had a Farm. On his farm he had a dump truck. Honk honk here, everywhere, honk honk..."

OC

2009-07-11T22:43:00.000-07:00

I've been wanting to post more pictures from our OC trip to cousin Monique's wedding back in May. Where did the time go? Not only was it the occasion of Aiden's big rig drive but it was also the first time he wore a suit. If there were a sound track to this post, it would be "What a difference a day makes".

(You already seen this one but its cute enough to post again...) Here's Aiden working hard for his money.

But he cleans up real nice!

The trip was a great opportunity to meet new family and bond with some favorites. Here's Aiden with Aunty Helena and Uncle Rick.

With Quita

Our family. We may spend each day together but the family portraits are few and of questionable quality so I love this one.

Once we finished taking pictures and actually got to the wedding, Aiden partied like a rock star, entertaining guest late into the night - and way past his bedtime. He created new tricks (like the splits) which have since come in handy and showed off the old faithful - crawling around on the floor.

Aiden with cousin Yvette and Aunt Alma.

This was also the occasion of our first "dangerously honest moment". You know when a child says something about how he or she sees the world and its something the rest of us would probably censor. Aiden pointed to and commented on Aunt Alma's "beard". Luckily she didn't hear or understand what he said. I don't think anyone else did either. She's not a blog reader so let's just keep this one to ourselves. For the record, Aunt Alma, we think you are beautiful just the way you are.

And....I saved my favorite picture for last. Aiden and Uncle Rick sharing a moment before we headed off to the wedding.

Golden Gate Bridge

2009-07-06T22:31:00.000-07:00

On a recent trip to Grandma's house, Aiden discovered the Golden Gate Bridge. Not only is it beautiful, but you have to go through a tunnel to get to it and then you go through *another* tunnel coming off it, a rainbow tunnel no less. Who could have conceived of such a wonderful route?

Aiden then requested that Mama build the Golden Gate Bridge at home. I was pretty proud of the result.

Enter Dada and things got competitive. The bridge was reinforced. The towers made taller with a dinosaur at the top. Ramps were added (I take credit for the ramp structural design but Dada perfected the technique of smoothing the surface so the cars didn't have such a bumpy ride.) Not unlike the real thing if you ask us.

PS: Look closely at the picture you'll see Dada (in helmet and blue sweatshirt) and Aiden on the bridge. After we had so much fun building it, we decided to ride our bikes across it.

Hair

2009-07-06T22:25:00.001-07:00

While we all agree Aiden's hair is fabulous. Lac and I are finally in agreement that it needs a little trim. We'll wait until after his second birthday and then...big sigh...I'll do the honors while he's asleep. At least that's plan A. We may have to come up with something else if that doesn't work. I'm trying to start forgiving myself now. Please wish me luck.

Big Rig

2009-06-13T14:11:00.000-07:00

Have we mentioned that Aiden is into cars and trucks? I find myself telling people this and they nod in a "but of course...he's a boy" kind of way. When they do that, I know they just don't get it. He's obsessed. Aiden can spend the afternoon walking around the neighborhood trying to open the door to any vehicle he can reach and call it a good day. On his rounds, he'll touch the tires and the lights of each car and identify them. He knows the difference between a police car, a mail truck, a fire truck, a van, a mini- van, a pick-up truck, an SUV, a car transporter, an excavator, I could go on but I can't keep them straight myself. Beemer and Thunderbird are the new additions to his car vocabulary. Each new place we visit is sized up based on it's qualifications as a race course for whatever 4 wheeler happens to be in his pocket.

On our recent trip to OC for cousin Monique's wedding there were a couple of big rigs parked outside our hotel. Ask Aiden and he'll tell you that was the coolest part of the trip. He wanted to drive those big rigs the moment he saw them. When no one was looking we let Aiden climb all over the trucks. Here we are "sneaking" the big rigs.

It wasn't good enough though. He wanted to DRIVE them. The next day, when we saw big burly men working on the trucks, fixing them up for their next journey. Dada and I looked at each other as if to ask the question.....Your son dreams of driving a big rig. Do you have the cajones to ask them if he can? Neither of us did.

Enter Aiden's super hot Auntie Helena. We didn't hesitate to send our precious little one down with her to ask those men if he could drive a big rig. We watched from the safety of our 4th floor window to see what happened. There was talking, laughing, and then there was DRIVING!

Dada's worst nightmare!

2009-06-13T13:56:00.000-07:00

The backstory on this is that somehow I've been branded a "tree-hugging hippy" by my husband. While I've always sort of wished that I were a "tree hugging hippy", I'm sorry to say that my spirit isn't free enough and my politics aren't active enough to fit the bill. However, it does look like Aiden is off to a good start. While a Ardenwood Historic Farm for friend Hope's birthday, he and Alicia decided (on their own) that the tree needed some hugging.

Blue Angel

2009-05-12T18:42:00.000-07:00

Aiden was on cloud nine during a recent trip to the Hiller Aviation Museum. You have to wonder why it took us so long to take him there since we live near SFO and have the luxury hearing each and every airplane land and take off. Aiden is particularly appreciative of our prime location and "airplane" was his first word (well technically, it was a sign).

One of his favorite parts of the visit was getting to sit in the cockpit of a Blue Angel fighter jet....

AND a 747!

Here is a priceless video of Aiden as a Blue Angel fighter pilot. It's a shame the sound quality is so bad. Listen closely and you'll hear Mama and Dada spar over what the Blue Angles actually do.

The video ends before Mama and Dada are done so you'll just have to imagine the ending....Dada changes his story so the fire button drops chocolates instead of bombs. Mama and Dada have had endless laughs over this video. In 1:03 minutes it pretty much captures our relationship.

What's the minimum age again ?

2009-05-08T22:17:00.000-07:00

Before anyone calls child services on us, I'd just like to clarify that there is no alcohol involved here. It's just that when we go to our local sushi place, the first thing that he asks for is a shot glass. He liked drinking miso soup out of it. Go figure!

Easter Sunday at Quita's

2009-05-08T21:37:00.000-07:00

Easter Sunday was spent at Quita's place with the family. We dyed a bunch of Easter eggs using all sorts of natural dyes prepared by different folks. Aiden of course wanted to lend his artistic talents to the occasion but we had to convince him that it would have to wait a couple of years or else he could have some semi permanent tattoos from the dyes.

As usual there was a beautiful spread put together by Quita with contributions from everyone else to keep our tummies from grumbling. Before we could feast on the food we had the star attraction of the day, an Easter egg hunt exclusively for Aiden. This was far different from the other hunts that he had participated in during the week. Quita wanted to make sure that this was one time no one was going to steal eggs from her beloved grandson. If anything there were half a dozen people folks prodding him along. He had a great time with eggs big and small and he couldn't believe his luck when one of them accidentally cracked open and cheddar bunnies popped out of it. That of course meant that the surviving eggs would meet a violent death.

Uncle Jonathan came over a little late after finishing his shift at work and was treated to a wonderful cocktail prepared by Mom. She told him that we had prepared a special Easter cocktail to celebrate the rebirth and that he had to guess the ingredients. He took us for our word, had a few sips and started guessing the ingredients one by one as if he were tasting a fine wine. We had to stop him after a few sips because our guilt conscience got the better of us. The drink was a mix of all the natural dyes we had made and had everything from spinach, beets, grapes, blueberries, red onions, yellow onions, coffee & turmeric. After he found out what it was Jonathan took a few more sips. Only Jonathan could have pulled that off!

Easter festivities

2009-04-23T16:53:00.000-07:00

Last time around Aiden was too little to partake in any of the Easter festivities and hence the celebrations were limited to doing things around the house. This year though things are a bit different. He gets overly excited by any animal costumes and so we were sure he'd be pretty psyched to see Easter bunnies running around the place. We went to a couple of different places where he had a chance to indulge in Easter related activities. First up was a picnic at a Mom's club in our neighborhood. They had a few activities lined up to keep the kids interested including an entertainer but as you can see Aiden was more interested in checking out the various wheels in the house. He eventually warmed up the celebrations when the entertainer started singing his favorite songs.

Things started getting more interesting for him when we moved outdoors to start the Easter egg hunt. It took him a little while to get used to the concept of collecting eggs in his basket and at first had to be coached by Mommy. Eventually he got the hang of things and collected a few eggs. All the kids were around the same age as him so there was very little competition. It was nothing like the next hunt that we went to, more on that a little later.

The next event was a big party was over the weekend in downtown San Mateo. Having never been to it before we had no idea about the scale of the event. They had lots of different types of activities planned to keep the kids busy. Things like puppet show, sack races, wagon parade, egg hunt etc. Thanks to Aunty Helena who too the initiative to start decorating Aiden's wagon while baby sitting him on Friday night, we managed to put something together very quickly to take part in the parade the next day. Again Aiden was more interested in checking out all the other wheels at the parade instead of getting in his own wagon. It was only when his dear friend and super cute kid 'Hope' got into the wagon did he show any interest. The Easter egg hunt at this place was a complete riot and a bit overwhelming. They didn't separate the kids into different age groups, so we had over 100 kids from the ages 2-10 all competing for the same eggs. There was no chance Aiden was going to get a single egg at this event so Daddy had to get a little creative and grab a few for him. We even had some kids steal these when we tried to enact our own little egg hunt for Aiden. That's how bad it was and the Parents weren't very helpful either. It was just a quick preview of how competitive it's going to get when we start little league :)

We also had another celebration at Quita's house where Aiden has no one competing for his eggs which he enjoyed a lot. More on that in a latter post when I am able to load the pictures on my laptop.

Sour!

2009-04-20T19:45:00.000-07:00

Aiden is showing he's a direct descendant of Quita. He loves munching on lemons! Really. I guess we should be happy that he's willing to try almost anything. It's not a perfect world though, if Aiden doesn't like the food presented, it takes less than a second for him to spit it out so it ends up dribbling down his chin onto the floor. Yummm!

That's exactly what I thought would happen the first time I gave him a lemon. He made a lemon face, proclaimed it "sour" but then after a thoughtful pause, went back for more. The face he made after each bite looked like torture but he was clearly enjoying the taste.

In this next picture he's doing the sour face so Mommy can catch it on camera.

Quirky Talking

2009-04-12T23:18:00.000-07:00

OK...I admit it. I'm a huge, huge fan of my baby and think almost everything he does is cute. What mama in her right mind doesn't? This post is dedicated to honoring Aiden's quirky habit of talking out of the corner of his mouth. He does it mostly when learning new words so I'm trying to enjoy it while it lasts. I was looking through pictures from last month and realized that this phenomenon has been captured. I can't believe I almost missed it!

PS: While we're talking about this picture, the dump truck shirt is a big favorite right now as is anything and everything remotely resembling a truck.

From Sunscreen to Sandscreen

2009-04-11T23:44:00.000-07:00

He may be only 20 months young, but he's already way too cunning for us and has a lot of tricks up his sleeves. Check out this sequence on a recent bike trip on a bay trail near our place. We stopped at a beach to let him play for a little bit. But it was a hot & sunny day so we had to bring out the sunscreen which he absolutely hates.

Act all cute when Mama pulls out the sunscreen so she has no clue about what you are scheming.

Somehow convince Mama to lend you the tube so that you can apply it yourself.

Wait for Mama to turn around for a nanosecond, then dunk the tube in the sand.

Apply some sand on your face and get a little taste as well.

If it doesn't get all over the place, it doesn't belong in your face

2009-04-11T23:27:00.000-07:00

That theme is from a popular ad for Carl's Jr from a few years ago. Aiden has taken that theme to heart and like to really dig into his food with his hands. We've been very fortunate that he's been a good eater since the beginning. He likes to feed himself and pretty much eats anything although he does have a few favorites like the spinach & potato pancakes. But he won't put up with the same menu for too long and Mama has to constantly keep up to his tastes. Lately he's taken to stating his preferences very verbally. Today I picked up some Horchatha from a neighborhood Taqueria and he kept on saying the word a million times.

Go Giants!!!

2009-04-07T23:48:00.000-07:00

Baseball season in underway and our hometown team, the San Francisco Giants won our home opener today beating the Brewers 10-6. These pictures are from last season when Aunty Chichi & Uncle Adam were visiting, but I am hoping that this season brings better luck to the Giants. Last season didn't go too well for us, but we have 'The Big Unit' this year, so I am keeping my fingers crossed. Aiden really loved it the first time we took him to a ball game. He had never seen that many people gathered at one place since the KFOG KABOOM concert last year and was really amused by it all. We hope to take him out to some more ball games this year. I am sure his favorite part would be taking the choo choo train to the ball park.

Hair

2009-04-06T23:03:00.000-07:00

Will someone please cut my hair so everyone will stop calling me a girl?

Bike, helmet.......Off

2009-03-28T11:50:00.000-07:00

If we have learnt anything about Aiden since he came into existence it's that he likes the least amount of clothes on him. It could be freezing outside but he will fight his darnedest to get away with not wearing a jacket. It's the same thing when the sun is out in full force. He absolutely hates wearing a cap. We have tried many ways of convincing him, but he won't fall for any of the tricks. His preference is to wear the minimum amount of clothing that is necessary to survive. In fact if we let him, he'd be perfectly happy to run around naked all day regardless of the weather outside. About the only time he makes an exception is when he wants to go for a bike ride. We recently got the iBert for him and he absolutely loves it. I think it's because he feels like he's in control since he's in front. He likes checking out all that passes by and will call out the different car types and colors. He also loves to ring his little bell. Initially he tried to resist wearing the helmet or jacket but was easily convinced that it was a case of either or. He understood very quickly that if he wanted to go for a ride, his noggin had to be protected. He will keep asking for more every time I try to pull back into the garage after a ride. And when he knows that the ride's really over for the day, the first thing he'll say even before the bike's been parked is 'Off'. That's to tell us that the helmet and jacket need to come off ASAP. The spring weather is here now and we should have a lot more fun bike rides in store for him. Fortunately there are a lots of beautiful trails all along the San Francisco bay and we can reach some of them without getting into a car.

Payback time ?

2009-03-25T22:04:00.000-07:00

Aiden got a lot of presents this past holiday season while we were in India. One of them was this drum set that he received from Aunty Baizin. While there's a part of me that would like to give her the benefit of the doubt and think that she had all the noble intentions of uncovering any hidden musical talent that Aiden might possess, something tells me that there might be an ulterior motive behind it. You'll see what I mean by that when you watch the video below. Aiden just loves to bang on it as hard as he possibly can and create an absolute ruckus. Sometimes he feels like starting his day with a good shall we say, drum roll. While growing up in Goa, Aunty Baizin had to put up with a lot of rubbish from her brother and this may just be her way of saying, "It's payback time brother'. I'll tell you what though, if you are looking to annoy the heck out of your next door neighbor, you couldn't pick a better plan that this.

Aiden's New Game

2009-03-24T22:01:00.000-07:00

Aiden is already aware that Mama and Dada have some important anatomical differences and he likes to talk about it. He likes to talk about his own body too. Recently he extended the discussion to his entire extended family and he has a really large extended family. The game consists of running through parents, aunts, uncles, cousins and wondering or proclaiming if they have a penis. It sounds something like this.....Baba popot. Dada popot. Papa popot. Unca Ik popot. Mama Pepet. And the list goes on and on.

I should mention at this point that popot and pepet are actual Konkanni words and happen to be the only ones he knows in his dad's first language. These aren't necessarily textbook worthy words but they still manage to get the message across.

Fascination with all things water

2009-03-22T20:21:00.000-07:00

Most babies have this favorite toy that they cuddle up with when they are ready for bed, usually a stuffed animal. Aiden also has one toy that he absolutely must have along with him when we put him to bed. But contrary to what you might believe, it's not a stuffed animal, rather it's his water bottle. He will absolutely not go to sleep without it. In fact there are nights when he will fall asleep while still holding on very tightly to his beloved water bottle. Not sure how this came about but it could have something to do with the fact that his Dad has a paranoia about running out of drinking water. On any trip, be it road, biking or hiking, I always have to have twice as much water on me as the regular person. I can't for the life of me understand how my wife can drive a car that never has any drinking water in it.

This obsession with water has led him to be fascinated by all things water. In fact his favorite word is 'Ocean'. He somehow manages to direct every conversation to the Ocean. Any body of open water, even if it's a lake or just a pond is deemed an ocean, he will remind you ever day that the water in his bathtub ends up in the ocean, the rain water drains into the ocean etc. All this is because when he had once inquired about a drain along the sidewalk, we had casually mentioned to him that the drains help empty the runoff water into the ocean. Little did we realize that this thought would get stuck in his head. Now anytime he sees a drain, he stops dead in his tracks and proceeds to do a thorough inspection of it. Here he is stealing a ride on a friend's brand new little red bike for the very first time but then along comes a drain.

Stretching

2009-03-22T20:04:00.000-07:00

He's at the age where he watches everything that we do very closely and wants to imitate anything that we say or do. This includes the stretching exercises recommended by my doctor for my knees. Of course he does not believe that there's any medical reason for Dada's stretching. As far as he's concerned, I am just messing around on the floor and wants to join in the fun. Sometimes he will try to stretch with me but more often than not he'll sit on top of me and play horsey which of course signals the end of my exercise routine.

Sleep

2009-03-10T21:27:00.001-07:00

All babies sleep like this. I slept like this. Remind me again why this is such a comfortable position?

Party Trick

2009-03-09T22:10:00.000-07:00

Aiden is in the middle of a verbal explosion. Everyday he picks up new words and he loves trying to pronounce the ones that are way out of his league. He's even tried "Checkoslovakia" which started because his Dada was teasing him. Aiden, not to be outdone took him up on the challenge. It's really cute to see him sign "more", "more" asking us to repeat a word over and over again when he hears one he wants to learn. It's even cuter to see him so proud of himself.

This weekend we set up a mini play ground for him in the backyard and once he finally got to climb on it, he exclaimed something with joy. I had no idea what he was saying at first but I knew it was a real word because he was staring at me so intently and kept repeating it. I finally figured out he was saying "awesome!". A California boy at heart!

Anyhow, here's Aiden's party trick.....he can say his name!

Red Purse

2009-03-06T21:48:00.000-08:00

This week was hard because we had a lot of rain (very needed, I'm not complaining) which kept us indoors too much. Anyhow, we were able to entertain ourselves for the most part. At one desperate moment Aiden grabbed my purse signally it was really time to leave now. Wise beyond his years, Aiden answers that age-old question of how to keep the bag from falling off your shoulder. The answer is so obvious, you have to wonder why we ladies didn't think of it before.

Higher Up - Move over Bollywood

2009-03-06T20:51:00.000-08:00

It took me so long to recover from our trip to India that I didn't end up posting much about it so you might find old posts from December popping up randomly.

This one is about Aiden and Mahduri grooving to some catchy Indian rock music. Mahduri is Granny's (a.k.a Maizine's) maid and was very enamoured with Aiden but didn't really know how to show it. She did, however, teach Aiden some Indian gems that I never would have thought to teach him like how to shake his bangles, call in the chickens, and blow his nose country style (first into your hand but then quickly flick it out - thanks Mahduri). On our family trip to the Spice Plantation, she also taught him his first Bollywood moves.

In this first video you see Mahduri teach Baba the dance moves to a song called Higher Up (the words are in Hindi but the chorus is all English and in a nut shell is just the repetition of the phrase Higher Up over and over and over again).

These second two are Baba doing the move and I had to post both because I just can't pick between them. In one he tries to sing the song at the end, so cute, and in the other he dances with Dada as the whole family watches.

Karmic Revenge

2009-03-05T22:51:00.000-08:00

Remember the last post? I think Aiden read it because this week, he dished out some karmic revenge. I went out for the day leaving Dada and Baba to hang out together for some father-son bonding time. At one point Lac went down to the garage to toss out a diaper, a task that takes less than two full minutes, and Aiden pulled a trick out of his hat that we had never seen. He locked the door leading down to the garage. So, Aiden was in the house by himself and Lac was in the garage below unable to get in. The front door was locked too.

Did you lock the door, Baba? - Lac called from the other side. He heard our little angle giggle and run off to play with his toys. Aiden was fully aware of what was happening.

The stage was set for a pretty bad situation buuuuut Lac luckily had his house keys in his pocket and was able to let himself in through the front door.

The moral of the story is that you have to be careful around those toddlers. They are the biggest wild card of all because they grow and change so fast it's hard to keep up with what they are capable of doing....

Graffiti Goan Style

2009-02-16T22:47:00.000-08:00

Every time I hear a new story about Lac's childhood, I get a little bit more nervous. Let's just say he was a rascal. Could that mischievous quality be genetically passed to Baba? If not, do I have to worry about karma? Story after story have piled up. Actually, the stories haven't really stopped....not much has changed in the last 30 years.

Anyhow, our trip to India revealed a new adventure I hadn't heard about which was made all the more delicious by physical proof, let's call it Graffiti Goan Style.

The artist is none other than 10 year old Chocolate-Daddy and the hiroglyphics boil down to this: Squatters' Mama you own many coconut trees.

"Mama" is Lac's departed grandmother (that's actually what they call her). The canvas is Mama's front door. A stick covers the word "Aba" which refers to the squatters who had set up house on Mama's property in a derogatory way. The coconuts refer to Mama's status as a property owner.

Mama was not at all happy with the new decorations on her front door but I find it really interesting that she didn't paint over them. Was Mama rolling in laughter at her grandson's antics when he wasn't looking?

P.S: The squatters are still there.

Censored!

2009-02-06T21:56:00.000-08:00

Warning: There are shower-related stories in this post!

Lac and I are learning the hard way that we just can't say anything we want these days. At 18 months, Aiden has turned into a little parrot. Sometimes he just needs to hear a word once and it becomes a regular in his lexicon. That usually happens with the words we wished we hadn't said.

The other day, as I was carrying Aiden to bed, we passed Lac getting out of the shower and I said, "ooh sexy" in passing (really, I swear). Big mistake. Aiden repeated my remark; his version was much cuter. Oh no! I stifled my giggle and whisked him off to bed. 10 minutes later, Lac came into the room to finish getting dressed and Aiden, unprompted said "Sessy". Sigh...

Aiden learned the word "tattoo" in much the same way. Now my secret is out. It was me getting out of the shower this time. He pointed to my rear (yes it's true) and asked in classic Aiden "this?" I said matter of factly, "oh that's mama's tattoo". If you don't make a big deal about it, it just blows over. Right? Wrong! Tattoo is quickly becoming one of Aiden's favorite words. He likes to say it and point to my rear. For the record, he puts the accent on the first syllable.

Totally unrelated cute photo courtesy of Grandpa.

Hooray for Chaddis !!!

2009-01-24T18:19:00.000-08:00

If you ask Aiden what is one of his favorite memories from the India trip, I am sure he would say being able to go native every now and then. Since most floors are made of ceramic tiles and there's no carpets to worry about, it's a lot easier to let them go without diapers. Parents in India use chaddis (briefs) when they are potty training the kids. The chaddis help provide a little bit of protection, especially so with the boys (or else the ceiling would get sprayed) but at the same time it helps air the babies' bottoms a bit. One day Aunty Baizin decided to try Nathan's chaddis (briefs) on him. It took him a little while to get used to it, but after a while he loved it. Having never been without diapers before, he had never experienced the feeling of pee running down his legs. So, naturally, he was a bit perturbed the first time it happened. His cousins Christian & Nathan did their best to demonstrate to him how it's done by pointing their popots towards a tree and peeing. Christian especially had an endless amount of pee and could pee on demand.

Here's Aiden dressed in chaddis doing Ring around the roses with his cousins. It's one of his favorite ways to play and since returning back to the States it's normal fare for him to get Mommy & Daddy into the act.

Cousins are kewl

2009-01-18T23:03:00.001-08:00

If you ask Aiden what's the one thing that he misses most about India he'd probably say hanging out with his cousins. He'd wake up early morning and go straight for the first victim making sure they knew it was time to wake up and play with him. He has a lot of friends in the US from his playgroup but none that live with him. So for him this was like having a playgroup at home all the time. All his cousins are older than him and he liked playing with all of them. But his favorite was Nathan, the one most closest to him in age. At first Nathan was not too excited about him. He probably thought who's this new punk stealing my thunder, but by the end of the trip Nathan warmed up to him and they were good buddies.

Here's a video of him roughhousing with Christian & Nathan. His aunties trying to be protective of him can be heard in the background asking the older kids to be gentle with him, but you can make your own judgement as to who needs the protection.

Life is a beach

2009-01-18T21:36:00.000-08:00

We live about a 5 minute walk from the beach in Goa. And when you look at the pictures above, you would think that we would have been at the beach every single day. But for some reason or the other we kept getting distracted and only made it there about half a dozen times. But when we did make it there, Aiden went absolutely nuts. He just loved being on the beach, period. As soon as we got there he would make a mad dash to the water, as if it were a swimming pool. Within a few minutes he'd be soaking wet and we'd have to change his clothes. If we let him, he would play with his beach toys all day. In his excitement, he would treat sand like confetti and throw it everywhere and at everyone. He ate a bunch of sand as well but didn't seem to mind it at all except when it got in his eyes. At the end of the day it was quite an ordeal to clean it out of his curly top. As you can probably tell his curls were more pronounced in Goa than normal. We think it's because of the humidity in the air. Everyday was above 90 degrees with 90% humidity. If there's one one thing that he didn't like about going to the beach, then it was the part about the sunscreen.

Outsourcing playtime

2009-01-12T22:30:00.000-08:00

Our next destination was Bangalore, the outsourcing capital of the western world, to visit with the Quadros'. This was Aiden's first experience with what it must be like to live in a true community setting in India. The Quadros' being very popular wherever they go have a ton of friends and that means a ton of kids running around the place. Most of the kids were older to Aiden so he was like their new toy. He particulary bonded with this one boy from the neighborhood. He followed him all over the place copying his every move. Cousin Kiara let him play with all the other kids but kept a good eye on him and made sure everyone knew exactly who had first dibs on him. She also gave him his first piano one on one lesson. We had a bunch of people over one day for a party and it being the Christmas season, everyone sat around and sang carols.

Cave Hunting

2009-01-10T19:27:00.000-08:00

After a short stay in Goa to recover from the long journey we made our way to the ancient caves of Ajanta & Ellora. These caves dating from 200 BC to 1100 AD are cut from the volcanic lavas of the Deccan trap in a steep crescent shaped hillside in a forested ravine of the Sahyadri hills. After the seventh century, the jungle took over and the caves lay unnoticed for centuries until in 1819, a party of British army officers chanced upon them while of all things tiger hunting. One of the tigers they were hunting sought refuge in one of them. So really the credit should go to the tiger.

Everywhere we went in India there were animals and Aiden's fascination with them grew each day. He does a few animals sounds and signs like dog, cow, monkey, horse, tiger etc but any animals that he does not recognize are put in the dog category. All along the road he would go ruff ruff whenever he saw goats, sheep etc. He was so excited when he saw this sculpture of a cow and wanted to ride it. Little did he care that it was a centuries old treasure that probably should not be treated like a pony.

It was so incredibly hot that we had to bring out the spray bottle to keep Aiden from overheating. But you wouldn't guess that it was hot if you looked at these folks who were dressed in full winter clothing. They were from Ladakh which is near Kashmir in the Himalayas and it's always freezing cold there.

Back from the homeland

2009-01-09T15:01:00.001-08:00

Happy New year every one. We just got back from a wonderful month long vacation in India. In the aftermath of the Mumbai attacks a few of our friends and family were a little worried about us embarking on this trip with the little one. But we have to say that we always felt very safe wherever we went. It was a bit alarming though to see gun totting cops wherever we went, especially at the pristine beaches in Goa. Our itinerary was very packed. Starting on Dec. 5th, we flew straight to Goa from San Francisco via Mumbai, spent a couple of days relaxing at home with Maizin, then took off on a 4 day trip to check out the ancient caves of Ajanta & Ellora. From there we flew to Bangalore to spend a few days visiting the Quadros' and returned to Goa in time for Maizin's birthday. The next three weeks were spent in Goa celebrating Christmas and New Years and then before we knew it the vacation was over and it was time to head back to the States.

More details will follow in subsequent posts, but here's a couple of pictures to get you started. Angela enjoys a bit of R&R time at Saba's beach shack and Aiden gets spoon fed by Madhuri while sitting on Dada and catching up on the news. That's pretty much how the entire trip went for him. He went from the somber life that he lived in the States with his Mom & Dad to a sudden explosion of being the center of attraction everywhere he went.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to everyone...

2008-12-15T20:32:00.000-08:00

...We are having a blast in India. Aiden is a very good traveller and is making lot of new friends. We will be back in Jan with lots of pictures and stories. Cheers.

Shout out

2008-11-30T22:02:00.000-08:00

Aiden has started that really adorable phase where he wants to wear our clothes (in his case, shoes, hats and barrettes). He found a pair of my shoes that he liked and practised wearing them until he could walk. Then he walked from one bedroom all the way to the other so he could look at himself in the mirror wearing Mama's shoes.

At the risk of offending anyone, I'm going to take a moment to be controversial. I really wanted to call this post "Aiden's shout out against Prop 8". But, it's really my shout out. I've hesitated a long time about this because I know Prop 8 is a sensitive topic for many, especially in my own family. Still I feel too strongly about this to keep quiet. Everyone should have the right to love and where love exists it should be supported. That we have legislated against it makes me sad. There was a time when it was illegal for people of different races to marry each other. When you see the beauty that is Aiden, it seems pure craziness that anyone would be threatened enough by his existence that they would want to deny him the right of growing up in the security of a legally recognized family. I hope one day we'll look back on Prop 8 and be able to say the same thing. So many arguments for Prop 8 presented it as protecting our children when it does the opposite. Like it or not gay people have children too and those children are as deserving of family as the rest of us.

One really amazing thing about having a baby is that you see the world through fresh eyes. When it comes to cultural norms, babies don't know anything about "should" they just accept everything the way it is and everyone the way they are. Maybe that's why we love them so much. People are either friendly and helpful or they are not. Coolness doesn't even register. Neither does moral or right. Kindness is key and really all you need to know about a person. I feel that as a state, we've lost sight of this. It can be so easy to loose the child's gift of total acceptance. My hope for Aiden is that he never does.

In the spirit of total love and acceptance, here's my shout out against Prop 8.

Helping out at home

2008-11-25T21:43:00.000-08:00

Aiden seems to have realized that raising a baby is a lot of work and that Mom & Dad (well mostly Mom) need all the help that they can get. He's decided to pull his own weight and help around the house. (We won't talk about all the work that he puts in to make sure that the house is an absolute mess to start with.) He likes attending to all the household chores like sweeping, scrubbing, cleaning, weeding, sweeping etc. But his two most favorite chores are vacuuming the house and watering the yard.

Whenever we bring out the vacuum he immediately takes over the job and before we know it the house looks spic and span. Unfortunately he has not yet grasped the concept of the fact that there is a finite amount of charge on the vacuum at any given time. Whenever the vacuum runs out of power he raises absolute hell. He thinks we are up to some mischief to prevent him from helping and we have to explain to him that it needs to be plugged in downstairs. Lately he's even started demanding for the vacuum by taking Mommy downstairs and imitating the sound that the vacuum makes.

As soon as he wakes up in the morning, he does the water sign. At first we though that meant he was thirsty but soon came to realize that it meant we have been ignoring watering the plants and that it was time for him to take ownership of that all important task. He can spend hours doing nothing but flooding the entire sidewalk. He doesn't quite appreciate it when we tell him that there is a drought going on in California which means we have to save water. He even has his favorite yard shoes. Mommy recently bought him these cute Crocs with the theme from the movie 'Cars'. Whenever it's time to go out and we tell him that it's time to put on shoes he makes a car sound and asks for his favorite shoes. This is the first and so far only preference that he has shown towards any sort of clothing. Could it be a harbinger of things to come ?

1st work of art

2008-11-12T22:05:00.000-08:00

Can you tell we're behind on posting?

This post is the cyber equivalent of refrigerator art. Aiden made his first work of art on election day using paper forced on us by the people at the polling station. It is a careful examination of the confusion facing the undecided voter: do I want change or do I think everything is just jiffy the way it is?

Giraffe

2008-11-12T21:42:00.000-08:00

Time is slipping by and I never posted Halloween pictures.

Aiden was a giraffe this year. While he's obsessed with hats, he doesn't like wearing them. He likes it when other people wear them. So, I didn't have high hopes for his Halloween costume which had a hood. We bought it early and put the costume in his toy box. The first time he wore it, I got out every book I could find with a picture of a giraffe. I put the costume on him and took him to the mirror and excitedly compared him to the pictures. I wasn't sure he got it but he was happy to wear the costume and even asked us to put the hood on every once in a while. That night, Quita (grandma) came by to babysit and he actually showed her the pictures of giraffes and wouldn't let her turn the page. Then he pointed to his costume. It was one of those "Ah-ha!" moments. He gets it, he gets it!

Since then the costume is a favorite. He brings it to me when he wants to put it on and is so excited to wear it.

A stroll to the park

2008-11-12T21:17:00.000-08:00

One of the advantages of living in our neighborhood is that it's walking distance to the children's park. Aiden absolutely loves the walk to the park, but he loves it even more since he got his new wheels. He just lays in his big red all terrain wagon like a king while his subjects (Dad or Mom) pull him along. Along the way he commands us to make a mandatory stop at a party store to pick up a balloon to be attached to the wagon to let the masses know that the king is on his evening stroll. He loves watching all the hustle and bustle on the street and gets very excited when any sort of vehicle passes by. His favorites are the big Harleys that gather at the local biker bar. He does this really cute sign where he pretends to ride the bike and even tries to imitate the Harley growl. We pass quite a few dogs along the way and he's the first one to notice them. Once at the park he loves to ride on the swing or play in the sand pit but absolute favorite is this pink dinosaur. He lets out a big dinosaur roar even before we actually get to the park as soon as he gets a visual.

Aiden's Lexicon

2008-11-11T11:53:00.000-08:00

"Dada" - Dada or Mama

"ffff" - Ceiling fan

"nana" - Banana or Granny

"up" - Pick me up, put me down, I wanna go out

"hat" - hat

"hot" - hot or cooking, hot mama

"seetch" - switch (sides nursing), I wanna nurse

"boo" - ghost lights for Halloween

"uggah ick" - Uncle Rick

"Chichi" - Aunty Chichi

"Am" - Aunty Pam

"gok" - go

"raaaarh" (growl) - bear or dinosaur

"om" - home

"shuz" - shoes or socks

"fuf" - flower

"bup" - balloon

"gee" - gidy-up, let's play horsey

"keek" - kick

Aiden's Election Day Happy Dance

2008-11-04T21:25:00.000-08:00

Aiden voted today and is thrilled with the results of the election....When he saw the crowd go wild he started clapping along with them. He's enthusiasm died down a little when we got out the camera but you get the idea.

The Very Best Part of my Day

2008-10-30T22:52:00.000-07:00

The very best part of my day is right before Aiden goes to bed. Lac comes home in the evening and takes Aiden for his bath and bed time routine. The whole thing takes 30 minutes. After he's been bathed and dressed, my little boy comes running out to see me as if he hasn't seen me in forEVER. It's so cute and makes my heart melt every time. Even cuter is his new winter look...Dada pulls his socks up to his knees. The thing that breaks my heart is every once in a while, when I'm not home, Aiden comes running out and is so perplexed when he doesn't see me. Actually I've been told he gets a WTF look on his face. This happened the other day even though he walked me out to the car and saw me drive away. So sweet.....

Pumpkin Patch

2008-10-30T22:23:00.000-07:00

Aiden loved his first trip to a mega pumpkin patch, well any pumpkin patch. It was another story for Mama who found the whole thing really stressful: lots of people, really long lines, and hardly any decent food. Note to self, try the neighborhood patch next time and study up on being zen before the Disneyland trip.

Aiden's obsession with bikes comes in handy while Mama and Dada take turns waiting in line for the graveyard train trip for 1.5 hours. No joke.