19 and counting

It's hard to believe that Rian is already 19 months old. It feels like it was just yesterday when we celebrated his 18 month birthday. The little guy has surely been keeping us busy, but its such an enjoyable phase that the month has flown by pretty quickly. So many things keep happening and every day I think at least once "ah, I should add this to my blog, this should be in Rian's diary", but the busy, stressful life that I'm leading leaves me with little time to visit my blog as often as I'd like. Let's hope I can at least add one entry every month, with all the major things to remember. So here's a quick recap of the last month, in an approx chrono order:

• Rian had a blast at Shayona's bday party in The Jungle in San Jose. He was wary at first with the ballpit and the unstable surfaces, but Daddy got him finally started and involved. Rian and Shayona were sliding from a 3ft slide and we absolutely enjoyed the last 10 mins when they held hands and went down sliding.
• Rian chipped his left front tooth. A visit to the dentist was more traumatic than the tooth chipping itself, as Rian was restrained: hands, legs and head. Fortunately Mommy wasn't there to see it, Daddy braved the visit with Cely.
• We moved Rian's crib out to his own room. He's been sleeping fairly well on most nights, but it's not a smooth road. Mommy thanks Daddy for all the efforts, and continuing help.
  
• Mommy and Daddy went to IKEA to buy stuff for Rian's room. Turned out we need to return 80% of the items we brought home :-) It's all good though, coz we got a pretty good idea about what we want to do with his room, once we got into the process of thinking about it. Rian's room now boasts an alphabet and numbers mat (waiting for its stink to go away!).

• Mommy has been cooking more n more for Rian. I made dosa for the first time in my life and Rian loved it :-)
• Rian started going to a class on Saturdays in the morning for an hr. It's a "mommy n me" kind of a class. He's have quite some fun seeing others his size and the indoor play is good for this season. Daddy joined us for the second class to take some pictures. 6 more classes remain, the series is of 8 classes.
• Rian has been spitting out water very well now for more than a month, at brushing time. Recently though Rian has taken to spitting out everything liquid :-( It's been 4-5 days now. Hope it's a phase and it gets over quickly.
• So far I've cut Rian's nails while he was asleep. Now that Rian sleeps in his own room, I don't have that luxury. I tried getting him into our bed, and cutting his nails, but he kept waking up and I wasted an hr!! Finally the next morning, with a lot of cajoling and explaining (half an hr again), I finally cut Rian's nails for the first time when Rian was wide awake! So far only did the hands, the toes still remain...
  
• Rian has picked up more than 20 words, and his vocabulary increases every day. This weekend he said three new words (teeth, wow, baby) in addition to lots of alphabets and numbers (A, B, C, D, E, O, P, T, U, 2, 3, 4, 9) and he's catching on to "aaji" and "ajoba" too!

Wish us luck for the next new challenge: conquering the sippy cup (for milk)!

And so it begins...

... A different phase of parenthood. One that involves many heartaches for the mommies and daddies.

The first few months' worries were about Rian's feeding (milk). Then came the struggle with solids, then the teething wave hit, then toddlerhood, followed again by the molars and some more hunger strikes. Now a new wave of independence is sending my little one into fits of super energy. Some of it was witnessed by us at The Jungle while celebrating Shayona's second birthday.

Along with this super energy comes the hurt. Sigh, the hurt. It's getting worse and worse now as the falls are harder, and Rian is taking more risks.

Rian chipped one of his front tooth today morning. He leaned over asking for something from the bathtub, and he was leaning on a step stool. Suddenly he lost his balance and his mouth landed on the bathtub exterior which is tiled :-( It all happened so suddenly and in an instant, there was very little that could be done about it.

The next moment, all I knew was how hard I was crying, seeing that some part of tooth had been damaged, and blood oozed from the broken lips. I quickly called Daddy and quickly tried to cool the wound with some water, in the process washing away the cracked pieces of tooth (I think there were three). My mind dreamed up lots of scary thoughts as I handed him off to Dad, since I didn't see the extent of the damage. My first responses of panic were ... Oh My God, Rian lost BOTH his front tooth! How will he eat now? His speech will be affected! He's gonna look horrible in all his photos. God... this was the worst ever I must have cried.

Turns out 15 mins later, after a good cool down from Daddy and his favorite teething rings soothing his lips, Rian was a happy camper. Mom though was still in the ditches. Finally calmed myself down to get closer to Rian to see the damage. 1/4th of his front tooth - gone. A very sharp edge remains to the tooth - this is bothering Rian's tongue and causing him to wake frequently at night. Here are the before (3 weeks back) and after pictures.

The bird has left the nest

Sigh... Happiness and sadness, a hollow feeling takes over Dad and Mom as we moved Rian's crib today into his room. In pictures, the empty space in the master bed and the final place of the crib.

Word explosion

This is so cool, I have to jot it down for my own memories. So January 1 Rian opens his word bank with three words, and it's literally an explosion so far. Here are all the words my little one can speak (some are Rian-ized variants of course!):

1. Bappa
   
2. Bubba (for bubble)
3. Moon
   
4. Star
5. Fish
6. Dirty
7. Boov (for car... think vroom vroom)
8. Buvva (for bhoor jaa... wants go out)
9. Mumma
10. Deddy (for Daddy)
11. Tatya (for Aatya)
12. Ball
13. Tuttle
14. Guava
15. Nana (for banana)
16. Dudu (Marathi word for milk)

Rian had his 18 month appt with the doctor today, and Aal Izz Well.

TT ... and it's not an Audi

TT = Tantrum Time, and sadly it's not an Audi...

Since the past couple of days, Rian has started throwing tantrums. It's that time of the age, developmentally, I guess. He's able to communicate partially with his words, but I'm guessing gets so frustrated trying to piece together the rest, he bursts into tantrums. He gets really loud and shrilly, and waves his hands back n forth. His face is a sore sight and I can literally see the anger and frustration. Sigh. Poor thing.

Luckily we've been able to handle the first few fits with decent amount of patience and firmness. Affirm to him that - no, you cannot get to see the TV now, it is dinner time. It's okay if you refuse to eat. TV is after dinner, for 5 minutes.

It's not easy to distract him when he's in a tantrum, so we try to give him a few things he wants e.g. you want the belan, take it. But you won't get the knife. Let's go see the moon and maybe we can see a few birds flying, but no TV.

Wish us more power for continued patience :-) Toddlerhood is a whole different ballgame, we see now.

The 18 month mark

Unbelievable as it is to us, Rian is 18 months old today on 6 Jan '10. A quick recap of the last few weeks to record how Tuggy keeps us continuously amazed:

• Our Austin trip to the Dave home gave Rian loads of time to play with Aanya. I think Rian has picked up the nthu to talk from her, just like he seemed to have picked up the interest in eating from Shayona during our Florida trip.
• Rian started the New Year with a bang and lots of words: dirty, star, fish. He added to that till date: daddy, touch, ball. He had mastered Bappa, mumma, mum-mum long time back.
• On our 7th anniv yesterday Rian gave me the gift of calling me mumma :-) He had his vocabulary constantly growing and could say the word mumma for some time now but could not say the word to call me to get my attention. He would say it of I asked him to say it. Today though, 4-5 times he called out for me and looked for my response :-)
• Rian did the unthinkable today: he was able to climb out of his crib to a point where he can fall and hurt himself. Note that the crib is in it's lowest position and Rian did not use the bumper to get the extra height. Mummy and Daddy are wondering what to do now since we were thinking of moving his crib to his own room! Any suggestions?!
• When do these critters STTN???? Last night was better than most, slept in his crib from 9:30pm to 5am but refused to sleep from 5am to 7am :-( and that too in our bed. This is one of our roadblocks for moving Rian out to his own room. Lately Rian has taken to staying awake for an hr or so when he wakes up in the middle of the night. He loves playing with our fingers and unconsciously slapping dad and mom.
• Rian has started responding to the word 'smile'. When mumma says 'smile beta smile', Rian does this cute shy smile that is unbelievably sweet. I'll try to upload a few photos if I can find them. Many of our friends have told us that Rian's smile melts their hearts, and imagine this lava at your command for disposal :-)

Rian's latest toy

Last weekend we bought a new toy for Rian - a laptop - with ONE objective - he will no longer jump for ours :-) Working well for us so far!