Heard around the house.

Nandini
aka
gudiya ki gudiya

"Hooo...." (accompanied by perpelexed look)

{photo courtesy of Avinash}

Crying and look of fear as Avinash approaches for one of his crushing hugs.

Well, she doesn't say much really, but all of her coos seem very telling.  She gets a very serious look on her face all the time and then looks sideways as if she knows you are doing something weird. 

We were all laughing today when she was sticking her tongue out along with Avinash.  That's like doing baby calculus right?

Avinash!

"Too fast Nana!" (when driving around curves)  "Mommy! ' do that." (ie, don't) "Oh, baby mo'e dhudu?!"  (whenever Nandini cries)
Avi are you going to school? "No way! ' today!"  (ie, not)
Avinash's retort to Nana, briefly interrupted by seeing a booboo on his finger. "No! 'Tay, 'tay, 'tay. One 'tay, two 'tays, three 'tays, ooooh booboo! 'tay, five 'tays."
While running around the house at top speed.  "B'areful!"
"Avi where is your card?" "Oohh, loss' it?  Woo-woo eat it!"  Uhhh...how did you come up with that one Avi?  I guess I should expect to hear this excuse again in a few years when you lose your homework?  I might also add that we don't have any pets.  He was referring to a plastic taco bell toy.  Not sure what is more worrying, the fact that he is lying or that we have a plastic chihuaha in the house.

Turning thirty..

Some highlights ...
Avi singing 'happy to you' to me by himself after dinner.
Nandini watching Avinash run around during aarti, then shaking her fist at him.
Getting a happy birthday milk mommy card from Nandini (I had mixed feelings about that one).
Family birthday dinner at an Italian restaurant.  Blueberry pie with biscuit crust instead of cake, homemade by Ryan of course.
Otherwise starving myself to prepare for eight courses at Per Se on Wednesday.

The best...

One of the best bites of food I've ever had.  Ramp perogie at per se with butter poached morrels.
The menu was even customized for us. 

Just thought I would check in to say I'm feeling a little loopy right now.  Probably not a great idea to drink two cups of coffee when you haven't had more than, say, three hours of sleep at a time in over a month. 

Especially since the baby fell asleep on her own as soon I finished drinking said coffee.  Great.  Now I can't sleep.  Sigh.

Also, I'm getting a little panicky about going to Pennsylvania tomorrow.  I probably should start on packing, but can't seem to do it.  Especially since none of my clothes fit me.  And I'm about to turn thirty.  And all of my friends are young, fabulous, thin city-dwellers.  Blerg.  Also, the thought of returning to work, like ever, is freaking me out.  Even though that day is many months away.  It is still out there though.  Looming.  Just waiting to suck all the fun out of my life. 

I saw an episode of extreme couponing.  Now I even feel inadequate about buying groceries, great.  I have yet to talk to half the people I should about coming home.  I need to go to the Indian store to get my eyebrows threaded and possibly buy something that fits for the havan.  But it's so far away.  Luckily they do threading at the mall here.  Sigh.

I don't know what I'm going to do on the plane all by myself with Nandini tomorrow.  So worried about going through security too.  I hate the idea of all that radiation flying around near the baby.  Not to mention being patted down.  Appartenly they will pat down a baby's diaper??  So wrong. 

I can't wait to see our family and friends.  But mostly my little boy.  He looks like he has grown so much over just a few days.  He started going to 'school' in Allentown.  My dad even put him to work in the office (Avi wouk! Avi hep!). 

Anyway.

New baby, new layouts

I finally printed out some of the hundred of pictures of Nandini's birth and first few weeks. Nandini layout-mania has ensued. It is so fun doing so many girly pages (finally!). I can finally use all of the pink in my stash.

This is just a pretty page with a few pictures of us with Nandini while we were still in the hospital.  I was so excited to use my new white embossing powder.  I always used to make cards with gold embossing.  I saw this layout on two peas and knew that I had to copy that lettering. 

Using one of my many free 8x10s from walgreens, I made a straightforward birth facts page.  Even after her bath in the nursery, she was still so red the day she born!

Nandini's first visit to the mandir was really amazing.  She got a special blessing from the pujari and Abishek, and he even gave her the flowers from the murti.  I am glad I found some indian-looking paper to journal on.  And, the pink ribbon matches the trim on her romper.

I was so happy when I found this picture.  The expression on Avinash's face is so precious.  Everyone was kind of winding down a bit from all the excitement, but Avinash was still snapping away with the camera.  He looks so proud it just makes me smile to see.

I was trying to convey all of the wonderful chaos happening around us after Nandini was born with all of the family that were busting to meet her seconds (!) after she was born. 
I misted white cardstock with pink and cream Mr. Huey spray to make it match these Sassafrass papers.  Also, matches our pink-red newborn baby girl!

Almost four weeks old!

Nandini is almost four weeks old!  I can't believe.  Time has flown by.  And alternately stood still, because it feels like years ago since I gave birth to her.  It seems like a lot has been going on.  I mean, mostly it is just nursing and sleeping.  But other than that.

Let's see....

her umbilical stump fell off.  [I saved it in an envelope.  You know, (as explained to me by Dad's aunt) in case she has to go to court or something.]

took her to the doctor twice about the seemingly excessive vomiting thing.  Each time was reassured and discovered she was gaining weight at an above average rate.  This is a totally new experience for me at the pediatrician's office.  I'm just wondering how she can be gaining over a pound a week while my weight loss has stymied.  Blargh.  At three weeks she weighed 8 pounds, 13 ounces (!).  Exclamation point in parantheses to denote my own shock, while the sentence itself is not that exciting.

missed seeing her first 'roll' from her tummy to her back.  She has yet to repeat this act in front of us, but I suspect that she is too heavy now to turn herself over again for a while.

invited a friend over for her first play date.  Mostly they ignored each other, cried, and generally wanted attention from their mommies while we drank coffee.  At least I enjoyed it.  I guess she doesn't really care about 'seeing babies' yet.

ventured out of the house to go strawberry picking at a farm almost an hour away.  Later discovered the same farm sells their strawberries at Central Market.  Oh well, I'm sure she vicariously enjoyed all of the homemade strawberry shortcake anyway.

suddenly started sleeping better two days ago.  She seems to like being bundled up and sleeps by herself better on the couch than in her own crib.  She still likes to wake up every morning at 2 am and get her drink on.  (Ryan said this yesterday in the middle of the night, I love it.)

can hold her head up for longer than a few seconds now.

had her second photo shoot. A girl can never have too many.

loves to be held close to your chest.  Especially on Mommy.  She grabs on to my necklace all the time while getting cozy.



luckily, she doesn't seem to mind being made fun of by her parents yet. Like when we make her walk across the room to get to us (not really). Or when we mock her for being hungry all the time. Ooops. I figure she doesn't really understand right? Apparently, Ryan has the sinking suspicion that she can understand us, but has been mocking her anyway. Very nice honey.  At least we haven't done this yet..

she is starting to look around more and more. She usually seems to be staring at the lights, but has more moments when she looks right at us.

and generally is just becoming more adorable and more precious every day.  She is certainly living up to her name, bringing so much joy into our lives.  Love you Nandini.

Weekly challenge winner

Yay!  And for one of my favorite layouts ever!

Nandini's first bath..

   faithfully recorded for posterity by her own proud big brother Avinash!

Avi

He is not a great eater so I try different tricks to get him to eat.  He loves to watch sesame street in the morning so I have been putting the veggie episodes on a lot.  Yesterday it totally worked and he asked for broccoli for breakfast.  He ended up having two bowls of steamed broccoli and I felt like one proud mother. Who is not above manipulating elmo for my own means.

Catching up.

This is the last page I did before Nandini was born.  It was based on this blog post, and I love how it turned out! Now, I just need to catch up on the rest of 2010.

Tummy time.

One of the few new things that we bought for Nandini (this and some super necessary rubber teething giraffe?). Decided to open it up finally and give it a try. I love the rainbow and the hanging monkey most of all.
After I put her down I had left the room for a minute to get my contacts and when I came back she was on her back.  I think she must have rolled over, but I didn't witness it and couldn't reproduce it.  Avinash had rolled over for the first time at two weeks too, but he did it out of anger.  He couldn't stand tummy time and just flipped himself over.  She on the other hand doesn't seem to mind it and often falls asleep when I try tummy time. 

Lifting her head up..

 Watching me with one eye open...wonder where she gets that??