Aryan's First Birthday

Aryan has turned ONE. He is such a vibrant active baby. Looking at him makes me wonder if this is the same little baby who had fragile little fingers and tiny little feet. He grew up so fast and learnt so many things in this past year. It seems like yesterday he was a tiny little baby swaddled in his crib and today he is running around the house with big toys in his hand and making all these sounds. It is so difficult to keep up with him now.

Aryan had started walking when he turned eleven months but then he preferred crawling over walking since he didnot have good balance and was slow as he kept falling too much. But now that he has practiced a lot and so he is walking all the time. He stands tall and can reach stuff on the edges of the table.
So now he has more places to explore and yes destoy. We have to watch him all the time since somehow he finds stuff to do that is "too exciting" for him. Like turning the gas stove on and off, climbing the sofa back rest to reach the top half wall on the stairs, climbing on the dining chair, leaning too far while sitting on the sofa, emptying the humidifier water on the floor, pulling the refrigerator power cord from the back of the regrigerator, taking wire plugs out of anything that is plugged in, taking the power outlet covers off and then insert stuff in the power outlets, opening the kitchen cabinets and pull the stuff outside and then go and sit inside the cabinets, go inside the pantry and pull all the stuff down, pushing big cooker all around the house, pour mugs of water out of the bath tub on to the floor, tear small pieces of toilet roll and spread them across the bathroom and bedroom, put hands in the toilet bowl, turn the TV on and off, put hand inside the VCR slot, take batteries out of the toys, hide the remotes under the sofa, scatter his neatly folded clothes, take his clothes out of the dresser drawer and spread then across the bedroom floor, overturn the garbage can, put toys in the diaper disposal, cling to my legs like monkey when I am trying to walk. There are so many other things he does that makes us smile and wonder where he got that idea. Well, he also does some good things like he likes the broom and whenever he gets chance, he starts to clean the floor. He also picks old food particles from the floor and eats it, thinking that he is actually helping us clean the floor. I guess that is another reason he gets diarrhea often.

We celebrated Aryan's first birthday in the weekend. Aryan clung to Kushal and buried his face in Kushal's chest for the better half of the party. Aryan has this strong stranger anxiety and he was feeling very overwhenlmed by the number of people in the house. Aryan does not go to anybody except us and his dada. Slowly during the course of the party he opened up and started playing with his toys but never interacted with anybody except us. His party was good, we had lots of food and ate the leftovers for 3 days. His photos have been uploaded. Aryan wore his sherwani and looked very cute. I loved the photo where Kushal and Aryan are standing together. It seems like Aryan looks a lot like his papa.

We take Aryan to gymboree where he can play with other kids and interact with other people. Also we took him to the library's children section where he imediately went to the small play kitchen area and started playing with the small utensils.

Aryan now recognizes his doctor and starts crying at the first site of his doctor. Aryan also got his first year vaccinations and cried a lot, but he was fine right after the doctor left. Aryan also got his blood test done last weekend. Some of the drawbacks of turning one!!

Well, it was fun watching Aryan grow through his first year. We had help from so many people in this first year. Aryan's dada and dadi took care of him the first six months, then Kushal's masi came and took care of Aryan and now Aryan's dada and great grandma are here to take care of him. I think Aryan is very lucky to have such a great family support.
That's all for now.Will try updating the blog regularly.

Aryan's India Trip

Aryan went to India trip on Dec 12 and got back in chicago on January 13th. Aryan's mom was having nightmares before going to India since she was taking Aryan alone with her on a 15 hour flight to Delhi. We made every preparation and asked so many people for advice and tried to pack -repack stuff for Aryan. And then the D-day came and Aryan was off to the Airport. His Dadi was very sad to see him go since she had gotten very attached to him. Aryan was fine at the airport, he played with two little girls at the airport(well he actually pulled their hairs and threw his toys for them to pick up then cutely smiled). Just when the boarding started and mommy was getting relaxed, Aryan threw his worst tantrum and started crying, kicking and screaming. He would not even stay in mommy's arms and mommy had 3 bags on the shoulder plus a stroller plus the hysterically crying Aryan and a bottle of milk and some cherios in hand. So mommy decided to step aside and take care of Aryan since there was a big line to enter the plane. But Aryan would not heed to anything, finally we had to board the plane. One gentleman helped with the bags, Thank GOD. When we reached the seat, People around gave me weary looks just like I used to earlier to those with crying babies. Aryan was totally out of breath at this time and was hicupping and crying with big sobs and screams in between. I told myself, this is going to be a really LONNNNNNNNNNNGGG flight. Anyways, took a deep breath and sat down with Aryan. I tried to feed him milk from the bottle and he threw the bottle so far, I was lucky it didnot hit anybody. So I didnot give him any toys. Well, then I took his pillow out and covered myself with a blanket and started breastfeeding him. Somehow that worked... Phew!!! and then Aryan went to sleep. He woke up couple of hours later and I fed him some fruits and yogurt and he went back to sleep. He then slept and slept and slept for most of the flight. He woke up a couple times to breastfeed and went to sleep again in the bassinet. So overall the flight went well. He did not even cry during takeoff and landing, well probably he didnot feel the pressure in his ears since he was sleeping all the time.

Once in India, he was fine. He cried looking at some relatives and some relatives he smiled at. He spent most of his time in Lucknow and bonded well with his Nani and Mama. Mommy was so relaxed since she could sleep late and Aryan was well fed and taken care of by his Nani and Mama. He learnt a lot of stuff while in India and got to taste diferrent food. He stopped eating his regular cereal and khichdi and was eating paratha for breakfast and daal roti and sabji for lunch and dhoodh roti in the night. He tasted all Indian fruits and seemed to develop his taste fast. It was cold in Lucknow so we had to make him wear at least 4-5 layers of clothing.
Aryan also went to Punjab to meet his father's side relatives. He went to Ludhiana, Patiala, Nabha and Mukerian. He got his "Mundan" done in Nabha. So all his "jhulfe" are gone and now he has tiny pointy black hairs. He got sick in Punjab and when we got back to Lucknow, he was in a pretty bad health. He was vomiting, had high fever and had severe cough and cold. He would not even open his eyes and had stopped eating and feeding. We took him to a child specialist in Lucknow and the doctor said that he has got pneumonia. It took him a while to feel better. He still has cold and cough but is doing much better. That was a big scare.

Once back here, he is still jet lagged. He was sleeping in the daytime and in the night will wake up at 1 in the morning and will start playing. It was difficult for mommy and papa, since they donot get much rest during day at work. Also he is not sleeping in the crib since he has gotten used to sleeping in the bed. We donot let him sleep during daytime so that he will sleep during night but he is still having problem sleeping in the night. Hopefully he will adjust soon and we will get some sleep too.

Will be posting his photos this weekend.