Avi's Costume Parade.

I love shopping. I used spend all my free time roaming around center city looking for deals on shoes, practically living in H&M and even making occasional trips to BR.

Having Avinash has taken that love to a whole new level. Obsession really.

I can't say that I ever got much into Halloween growing up. Mostly just tried to put something together at the last minute or didn't bother at all.

I never realized that this holiday had so many great shopping possibilities. Turns out I can not resist buying baby and now toddler costumes in every design available. I especially the Carter's prams because they can be worn as regular clothing as well without too much added bulk. What is the point of all that padding anyway? Is a baby more believable as a duck if his butt is five times its normal size? I suppose it is cute, but I really don't want Avinash to think he needs artificial augmentation of his body already! Or ever.

Well, as a result Avinash can now host his own one-man Halloween toddler costume parade.

To start, this little tiger is paraded around on the shoulders of his very own parrot.

 

It was amazing how amenable to face painting Avinash was. Not touching his face and smudging the whole thing afterwards? Not so much.


His dragon costume totally came in handy when we went to Ren-Fair.  Although people seemed to think he was a turtle.  Ummm...no.  Think people.  Why would a turtle be terrorizing historically innacurately dressed knights?  Makes no sense. 

He wore it again on one of our many trips to the Children's Museum trick-or-treating.  I don't think he even knew how to say the word nummies at the beginning of this month.  Not sure where he learned it either, since I have never used that word.  Here is the little dragon devouring his spongebob gummy-nummie.

 

And here is the little giraffe trying to devour a mini pumpkin.  The zoo had this cute little pumpkin patch set up for pumpkin decorating, but Avinash did not quite understand the point.  And kept calling them applays, hee.

 

I love this giraffe watching the monkeys picture.  He looks so tall all of a sudden, maybe this costume is rubbing off on him!  This is right before we met a little ballerina who talked up a storm with Avinash about the all the 'e-o's  they saw.  He may have then followed her around for the next half hour or so.  Luckily her mom didn't mind when he tried to hold her hand.

We dressed him up as a pirate to play on the ship at the Natural History Museum, he totally loved it!  He didn't believe us for weeks that the ship had left and always had to see for himself.  I painted an eye patch on myself that day and one of the kids asked me how I hurt my eye?!

He put on his penguin costume at the gymnastics party.  The best thing was seeing him sliding down the parachute on his tummy, just like a real penguin!  We were so worried about the timing of the party because it coincided with nap time.  He was so sleepy when we got there, but as soon as he saw the parachute-slide it was an instant transformation. 

Last, but not least....the little Big Bird-esque ducky.  This shot of him in the dryer is so awesome.  He loves to move clothes in and out all the time, why shouldn't the ducky to laundry to? 
This is actually one of the few costumes he puts on willingly, even the leggings, ha.

 

~18 weeks

Growing, growing, growing...


The baby is getting bigger too!
Finally big enough to feel all the little kicks!!
I painted my hands for Karvachauth on Tuesday. Before heading out to the mandir, I was relaxing on the couch and felt the first definite flutters. I think it was telling me that it was hungry too! Ryan was so thrilled when he found out. He was just beaming and put his hands on my belly and tried to feel it too for the next fifteen minutes. I didn't have the heart to tell him that it would probably be a while before he could feel it too.


I love how we combine our traditions with technology. Ryan checked the moonrise times beforehand. I looked up the only area mandir having a Karvachauth katha online. When we got there, we were of course late. So, Sameer looked up the story on his phone and read it to us.





Garima and I couldn't remember any of the songs, so we just pulled some up on Youtube while we were waiting for the moon.




Luckily I downloaded a star map onto my Droid so we could tell exactly what direction the moon would be. (Instead of the usual 360 degree search).




Then of course we looked up the nearest Indian place by rating and called to beg them to keep the kitchen open past 9:20. All in all a pretty fun evening actually.

I might be an idiot...

So, I usually hate bothering my doctor about stuff. I know that I can look up most stuff on own or always just ask my mom if I'm really not sure. Plus, I have never really been that sick anyway to be calling my doctor or coming in for sick visits.

Well, I had been sick for a week with a general cold, right after I had gotten the flu shot and swine flu shot. Hmm...I wasn't really getting better and it was especially tough since every site I checked basically seemed to imply that I couldn't really take any cold medicine safely. Great. Well, I took a little cough syrup and nose spray anyway, no big deal.

Then my stomach started itching last night. I noticed little red splotches, in some places my skin had even started peeling off. Even my mom was worried when I told her. I'm freaking out to say the least. Maybe I have an infection, is this a terrible rash? Did I have a bad reaction to that stupid vaccine? Is my cold something worse? Am I having a severe reaction to the medicine I've been sneaking? I called my OB and went in for a check up.

Well, I had sort of forgotten that while I was making popcorn last night, the fancy stove top kind, that I took the lid off too soon and got showered with popcorn kernels.

Anyway, as I'm sitting there in the doctor's office I suddenly make the connection. It's not a rash. It's just a minor burn. That is why my skin is peeling in little pox-like spots.

Oh god, what do I tell them? They will think I'm a total idiot. Well, I panicked and just played dumb not mentioning the whole popcorn incident.

Luckily the kinda thought it was nothing anyway and suggested cortisone cream. I just said thanks and basically ran out of there.

Maybe this whole pregnancy brain thing is true...

Update.

Just a little update.

Our new baby is currently 17 weeks and 3 days along. Supposedly my womb is now the size of a large honeydew melon. LARGE.

And it definitely shows. But I know this is only the beginning. I always read these produce comparisons, but where do you go from large honeydew? A watermelon I guess!

We are calling the baby 'new baby' for now and call Avinash 'old baby' to avoid confusion. We figured that this works on a couple of levels since he is getting older, not that he is old news or anything, ha. (I'm sure most normal people don't mock their children like this.) I told Ryan the other day that Avinash could also be 'original baby', and he's like, 'oh as in original recipe?' Apparently he didn't get the OG reference, sigh.

Anyway, this is our first real new baby picture, taken around 12 weeks. We did have one taken around 8 weeks but the blurry fuzz was less exciting.


I love how you can already see the profile of the face! My dad hasn't seen it yet, but I'm sure he thinks it looks like him. I remember when we had an ultrasound picture of Avinash's foot that he thought resembled his own, haha.


And, here it is...my first 'belly shot' taken around 15 weeks. Not sure how people can bear to post these weekly. Though I was really excited at my 16 week checkup to find out that I hadn't gained any weight since my last visit. Of course this feeling was quickly deflated when I went back in today a week later and found out that I had magically gained 4 pounds in a week. My pregnancy appetite is definitely back. I actually really like that feeling, but know that I need to control myself! At least all the left over birthday cake and cupcakes are finally gone.

Just in case you needed more proof, here is what we discovered when I stood in front of the thermal scanner at the natural history museum.




New baby already has it's own thermal signature!! Our big ultrasound is in two weeks where we can find out the gender. I'm getting so excited but am still undecided. What do you think? Should we find out this time?

Turning two.

Avinash's second birthday party was awesome! We were completely exhausted by the end of it though. I ordered balloons, a chocolate-raspberry cake (only ONE this time) and cupcakes. I bought Thumbs Up and Limca sodas again. We pretty much made everything else. Chole batura, bhel puri, pulav, raita and tandoori paneer. The food was definitely the highlight. I didn't do much else besides eat the whole day. Avinash on the other hand barely had two bites of food he was so busy running around and watching all the other kids. Everyone loved getting their faces painted, though most of it got smudged by cake soon afterwards, oh well. I put up a few pictures here so you can see. Thanks to everyone who came over and celebrated with us, we are so grateful!

Chocolate raspberry cake from Dessert Gallery, plus we got cupcakes on the side...we were eating leftovers for weeks.

 

Our attempts at getting a kids picture (somewhat spotty).

I put up scrapbook pages from his albums to use as decor around the house.  Finally, a way to use all my layouts!

Avinash ate all of the red fondant stars on the cake.

Facepainting and halloween-themed goodie bags (from the dollar spot at Target) for the kids.

Our attempts at getting a kids picture (somewhat spotty).

Avinash ate all of the red fondant stars on the cake.