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Monday, December 14, 2009

Rohan goes forth

Rohan ha iniziato a gattonare! Un pochino, pochi centimetri alla volta e in uno stile tutto suo, ma bisogna considerare che non ha neanche sei mesi. Cosi' ora comincia una nuova fase delle nostre giornate, in cui il principale compito dei genitori sara' tenere lontano il piccolino dai pericolosissimi giocattoli del fratello maggiore. Urra'...

Little Kunju is crawling! Nothing spectacular, just a few centimeter at a time, but he is definitely moving forward and now it's a matter of days before he gains the strength and confidence to sprint around the house. Already today morning he was proceeding "fast" towards some pieces of puzzle and I barely managed to put them away - thus saving them from drool - before the little one landed on them.

Our next months will be spent keeping Rohan out of danger, saving him from Rajiv's toys with small parts and saving Rajiv's toys from the little brother's curiosity. I am also looking forward to see if when Rohan is a little more obviously mobile Appu will take a greater interest in him as a playmate. I hope so, even if that means getting a helmet for little Rohan :)

Friday, December 11, 2009

Just to cheer myself up

I am not in the mood for light blogging these days, but I think I should try anyway and maybe the mood will improve :)

One thing I have done to that end is buying a Christmas tree. You know, one of those artificial ones that can be folded and put in a box. I also got a few cheap decorations, just to get started. I thought I would assemble the tree and decorate it with Rajiv one of these days, because in Italy normally the tree is put up around this time, but we decided to take the tree to Calicut next week instead. That way we can have it for Christmas itself and maybe we can even put some presents underneath.

Normally for an Italian baby the first Christmas would be a very exciting event - for the relatives I mean: all the baby really wants is to eat the tree... Rajiv hasn't had a real Christmas experience yet and it won't happen this year either, but I like the idea of having a few things here and there to remind myself of what season it is. Christmas for the children will come in due course.

Tuesday, December 8, 2009

Week twenty four

This has been another horrible week for me, in so many ways. I will surely talk about it in future posts but right now I prefer not to talk about it, so please respect that in the comments.

So let's move on to the kids, which is why you are reading this anyway, right? :)

To start, Rajiv has been promoted from "butterfly" to "dragonfly". It's a big thing, it means he now gets to hang out with older children at daycare and I am sure he loves that.

The daycare sends a daily update by email, just a couple of sentences about something that the child did or said, or learned. Today's update says:
While playing a game, Rajiv heard the instruction that he had to touch something in black colour. Some of his friends touched their hair. Rajiv realised that he could not do that, so he ran after his friend to touch her black hair!

Sometimes these updates leave me speechless. Who is this amazing kid that pretends to be my son?? But seriously, fancy Appu knowing the color of his own hair... or Appu playing an organized game, for that matters! I am soooo proud of him!

In the meantime, Rohan's main occupations are drinking liters of toxic pink stuff (antibiotics, they tell me) and trying to crawl. The latter is a source of great frustration for him. He can position himself on hands and knees, but then no matter how hard he tries he is unable to move forward. He rocks on his knees trying to jump forward and a couple of times he actually managed to swing his legs ahead between his arms, like a gymnast. I don't see a future for that technique, though.

Another small but important milestone: I am now carrying Rohan mostly on the hip, like a big boy! And I do carry him a lot, because he is often crying these days. Part of it may be the frustration from his failed crawling efforts, sometimes the floor might be too hard for him, who knows. He also has a cold and an almost healed ear infection, and a tummy surely bothered by all the medicines. And he is also teething, but you knew that already...

Friday, December 4, 2009

Update

Rohan is doing better. We went to the doctor today and his ears are looking good, it seems, just a little pink but not "angry red" like last time. Go antibiotics!
By the way, our little one is over 7 Kg now and about 71 cm "tall", if you care for stats.*
The rest of the family is doing fine and hopefully I won't have anything to report for a while on the health front.

*Well, if you really care for stats I might as well tell you that the big brother is around 13 Kg and if you find a way to measure his height (other than in his sleep, I mean at the doctor's office) please don't hesitate to inform us. :)

Thursday, December 3, 2009

A truckload of pictures from France - Part IV

It's over, this is the last batch!!!


Ecco le ultime foto del viaggio a Parigi. Come accennavo nel post su Notre Dame, dopo aver rinunciato a visitare la cattedrale abbiamo deciso di prendere due biglietti per il pullman a due piani che fa il giro delle attrazioni di Parigi. Una di quelle cose che senza i bambini non mi sarei mai sognata di fare, ma invece e' stato bello e dopo tanti giorni di metropolitana siamo riusciti a vedere un po' di Parigi in superficie!

Al secondo piano dell'autubus solo le prime due file di sedili sono coperte e il resto e' aperto. Ci siamo seduti nella prima fila, cosi' eravamo riparati dal vento, con il vetro davanti, e avevamo una buona visuale, ma eravamo comunque all'aria aperta. Era una mattinata soleggiata e non fredda, proprio l'ideale. Non ho fatto molte foto della attrazioni turistiche, ma la mia postazione mi ha permesso di fare un servizio fotografico completo a Appu e al suo papa'.

Purtroppo non abbiamo finito tutto il giro, perche' Appu ben presto ha cominciato a spazientirsi e man mano a diventare isterico, cosi' poco dopo l'Arco di Trionfo abbiamo abbandonato il tour e siamo tornati a casa in metropolitana. Per fortuna i biglietti erano validi per due giorni e abbiamo potuto passarli ai nostri Amici Emiliano e Ilaria per il giorno dopo.


These are pictures from our tour on the open bus, after the failed visit to Notre Dame. Remember? We couldn't do the whole tour because Appu was bored and tired and started acting up quite violently, but as long as it lasted it was nice. As it is usually my style, not many pictures of the attractions here, but lots of pictures of Appu (and dad)!














Wednesday, December 2, 2009

A truckload of pictures from France - Part III

Bear with me, we are almost done. :)

Ancora foto da Parigi, ma abbiamo quasi finito, promesso! Questa volta il tema e' "La visita suggerita dalla nonna".

Nonna Laura ci aveva raccomandato di andare a vedere le gallerie Lafayette, rinomati e immensi grandi magazzini, per far vedere a Appu le luci. Purtroppo Appu dormiva quando siamo arrivati, ma ha visto le luci uscendo. All'interno siamo subito andati al reparto giocattoli, abbiamo giocato con i trenini, abbiamo scoperto che Appu odia con passione le scatole musicali (boh?) e abbiamo comprato un puzzle di legno con i numeri. Poi siamo andati a cenare al ristorante del piano, che in teoria doveva essere particolarmemte adatto ai bambini. In realta' non era niente di speciale e anzi la caratteristica principale era che avevano finito tutto, si poteva scegliere solo tra due panini. Pero', forse anche per questo, era completamente vuoto, cosi' ci siamo sistemati regalmente in mezzo alla sala, abbiamo sparpagliato tutta la nostra roba su varie sedie e abbiamo mangiato i nostri miseri panini - ma non importa - mentre Appu componeva il suo puzzle nuovo. Tutto sommato, un successo.

This is the Galeries Lafayette edition! It is the largest department store in Paris and nonna Laura had recommended that we took Appu to see the lights outside.


Quite impressive, I must admit, but I liked even more the Christmas displays. It was all animated with threads hanging from robotic arms that could make the characters move in a very realistic way. Too bad Appu missed it because he was asleep when we arrived, but at least he saw the lights when we left later.




The store is huge. We spent some time on the children's floor, in the toy area. Appu played with a train table and gave us his opinion on various toys. He hates music boxes it seems: when I picked one he didn't just force me to put it back, like he sometimes would, but probably not trusting that I would put it exactly where it was he went around the store until he found a store attendant who could take care of the matter. My son with an OCD...

In the end we bought a wooden puzzle (and a small music box, but Appu must not know this) and then we went to have dinner at the restaurant for little people on the same floor. The restaurant was not very special, if not in the fact that there was almost nothing to eat, but at least it was almost empty, so we could spread our stuff around and camp comfortably in the middle of the room. Appu worked on his new puzzle and Rohan mostly looked at his dad.




Appu composed his puzzles, then he took them apart and started again a few times.




Then it was time to put everything away ("Taia!") and we left, quite happy overall wit our little pre-Christmas celebration.


Tuesday, December 1, 2009

Week twenty three

A few illnesses later, we are still here. Appu is better now and, even though his parents have taken turns feeling quite sick over the past three days, I think we can say that the virus has now been expelled from our household for good.
This is little Appu on Saturday morning, still feverish and weak :(


But no more!

Rohan however is not doing well at all, piccolo. Just when on Sunday night we thought the worst was over and we were ready to pass out go to sleep, the little one started to cry and we had another virtually sleepless night. It turns out that he has a quite bad ear infection. We had just given a course of antibiotics a week ago for a mild infection in his left year, but the doctor says that maybe the infection was resistant to that particular antibiotic, so we are trying another one now.

Thinking about it now, we probably should have checked his ears earlier. All the problem that we thought were due to mommy separation, like the fact that he had trouble drinking from the breast and wanted a bottle instead, were probably just due to pain swallowing and sucking.

But I don't want to write another health bulletin here, so let's move on to more cheerful stuff. Ear infection or not, little Rohan is becoming stronger every day. Look at these push-ups!



Look at this cuteness!



Rohan has also started to speak (if you know what I mean...). Earlier he used to say mostly "a" and occasionally some "m" sounds, but as of this week we have had an explosion of "ta ta ta" and even some "g", more rare.

Now let me conclude with a few pictures of Kunju with his acchamma, who has taken great care of him while mamma was out of commission.

Here Rohan is being shown pictures of his cousin Jaydev to inspire him to greatness.


"Aiyo! Both fists in the mouth?"


Achamma 1 - Rohan 0


Uhm... Achamma 1/2 - Rohan 1/2


Nothing tastes as good as a clean saree...


And the best picture, in my opinion, is this one.