Weekend

The weekend is slowly coming to an end and the IPL is finally over (a few minutes to go as I type), for which we are thankful. But it was also a good weekend for other reasons, starting with our stay at the Ideal Beach resort in Mahabalipuram with Ninju and her parents.

We spent most of the time either in the pool, or in the restaurant, or transitioning the kids from one to the other. Appu loves being in the water and with his water wings he can get in and out of the pool by himself without fear, but he wouldn't let go of the edge without somebody to coil himself around. His solo floating record is about five seconds. Kunju entered the pool too, alternating between suspicion and delight, but unfortunately the cutest event of the decade will remain undocumented because the dad was taking laps in the pool instead of taking pictures as instructed.

The usual delayed photo avalanche

Un sacco di foto della nostra gita a Calicut per il matrimonio di Shiv e Deepu il mese scorso. Gli sposi non si vedono per niente, ma in compenso ci sono un sacco di bambini scatenati!

Pictures from our trip to Calicut about one month ago.

All abooooard!



Rohan is reunited with his achamma...



... and Rajiv lives the good life with grapes, a powerful fan and Blue's Clues.


Peek-a-boo!



The next day, lots of fun with Armaan.





Peek-a-boo!!




And then it's party time! Rohan, however, doesn't care much for it, especially with the paparazzi following him.





A glimpse of the rel party.



And then look! Everybody's favorite chicha is in town and the children go crazy :)



Follows a quiet Sunday morning practicing martial arts at home.

It's official

Rohan can walk!

Two or three steps, straight into mamma's arms. And after that he laughs like a baby hyena.

If you however attempt to repeat the trick a few times, eventually when you say "Come to mamma!" he will carefully lower himself down and then crawl, because when it's too much it's too much and what's the big deal anyway. But after crawling to you he will still laugh like a baby hyena, because life is good.

Sorry, I guess this one will be lost on non-bilinguals

Appu says:

"Let's go eat a big ciotola of noodles!"

Laptop is back

And to celebrate, I immediately uploaded this week's photos, ready to be blogged. It is a somewhat random collection, but here it goes.

Appu wearing his new purple shorts (from a Benetton store in Calicut, quite ironically) - a favorite color these days. I am so glad little Rajiv is still gender-blind and does not know that purple (not to mention his pink Dora underwear!) "is for girls".



Mamma and Rohan ready for a shopping outing. Our balcony, self-portraits.



Failed attempt to take a close-up of Kunju's face. What you see is instead his finger, let's not worry about which one.


Appu wears a mundu (sort of) and is miserable for about twenty minutes until he gets to trade it for a diaper and bright red shorts.




So you don't believe Rohan can stand on his cute little feet? HA!

Steps, pools, drums and more fun.

My laptop is undergoing some serious surgery after Rajiv has liberally showered it with juice last week, so my blogging capabilities are somewhat limited. Regular (not bad for a joke, eh?) posts will resume as soon as possible - and pictures too.

For now, a few quick updates.

I think I mentioned that Rohan has taken his first step about two weeks ago. I really mean a single accidental step, but I think he enjoyed it. He took his second step today. Again a single step, but intentional this time. He is clearly trying to walk, so I think it won't be long now that he has set his mind to it.

Little Rohan has been quite sick lately, but he is on his way to recovery. Clearly his physical fitness has not suffered, but the same cannot be said of the parents. Surprise... :)

We spent last week in Calicut - again - and Rajiv had a great time with all his cousins. We went swimming and he loved being in the pool, sticking like a clam to mamma or aunt Shal. He had water wings - or whatever you called those things in American English? - but he used them mostly as a fashion statement. We will definitely try swimming classes again this summer, I am sure he will love it this time around. (There she goes again, mamma, jinxing herself.)

Let me close with a short mamma-Appu conversation. The scene opens with Appu hitting mamma (not too hard) as if keeping a particular beat.

m: Appu! No hitting! Is mamma a drum?
A: No.. No, no! Mamma is not a drum.

(Keeps thinking...)

A: Mamma is a BIG drum! Yeah!

Sigh...