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!

Bribing Rian

A while ago, we'd bribed Rian with 5 mins of TV time - he has one favorite DVD of Marathi songs for kids with cartoons. This worked well for us when he absolutely wouldn't have a single morsel of food. It started backfiring when Rian started pointing to the TV every night at dinner time and with his nanny Cely too. We promptly stopped any TV time at dinner.

With the advent of winter and dipping temperatures and cold/cough that Rian and nanny Cely have caught, they don't seem to go out for their morning walk which used to be an hour. Long summer evenings had Rian playing outside in our complex but winter makes it dark and cold outside at 5pm, thus ending play for Rian before it begins. Today he is so desperate to go out (bujja) that I bribed him to sleep saying if you sleep now, we will go bujja once you wake up. I'm planning to use the same one to make him eat something before we leave for the evening. Let's see how that goes!

Hello again, world!

It's been more than 2 months since we're off life-support aka grandparents'-support. I can tell you for sure, it seems like its been 2 years! Life is a lot more hectic and the it literally shows: Daddy's lost a couple of inches around his midsection, and mommy's completely lost it ;-)

These last 2 months, Rian has been through some fascinating changes, and lack of time-n-energy have led to this dry spell in blogging. So here's a recap of Oct/Nov/Dec:

• Running. For a while now, running is Rian's preferred mode of transportation. We mastered crawling at 9 months and walking at a year. After that, it's been "stabilizing self", and then run, run, run.
  
• A tremendous sense of independence. This hit us when Rian wanted to eat all by himself, and that was the only way he would eat from us. Cely somehow still managed to spoon-feed him. I believe his independence stemmed from his sleep training too (more below)
  
• Teething. Above self-feeding fancy was quickly lost due to molar eruptions. These were by far the most painful, and we finally started giving Den-Tonic to Rian. That seemed to help his pain a bit, and he was back on semi-soft stuff to eat. When the pain eased, Rian was right back on track to eating himself. BTW Rian has more than the 6 teeth that he used to sport for almost 6 months :-) but a lot of his molars are not seen, so he's still the kid with 6 teeth for the photos!
  
• Sleep training. While the life-support was here, we never sleep trained Rian. Partly because it was easy to sleep in on weekends ;-) and partly because we were sure the kid's screams will not be ignored by the grandparents. Daddy started sleep training Rian after Aaji left, and to tell you the truth: I'm surprised how well it has gone. No crying, no fussing. All credit goes to Daddy and his patience, and his ghisa pita record of "Tiger barobar gai gai karaychi na" (we have to sleep with Tiger now). Rian's tiger was picked up the day we dropped Aaji to the airport, and when Daddy saw it, the scheme of sleep training with the soft toy took root. On the first day, Daddy spent more than an hr. On the second day, it was close to 40 mins. On the third day it was 15 mins. Most days Daddy emerges victorious from the bedroom in under 10 mins!!!! It has helped Rian's night wakings a bit. A month ago or so we took the next step: instead of moving his crib to his room (which is a non-reversible event), we moved to the guest bedroom. Mommy and Daddy get some cozy time and some conversation this way, and Rian is a scream away on the baby monitor. He still has 2-3 night wakings, but I must admit there are days I get 8 hrs of undisturbed much-needed beauty-sleep!
• Floriday. Yup that's what I mistype it most of the time. Our Florida holiday. Traveling with Mausami-Gunjan-Shayona was great! Mommy and Daddy got advice and help on Rian matters :-) and Rian had company. We visited Key West, Everglades NP, and Miami. We didn't cover as much tourist ground as others cover in 6 days (+2 days for travel), but had a good time with each other and relaxed with our kids - mainly - were able to forget that work and home (with more work) exist :-) Now that's what I call a good break! Rian seems to be catching up on the talking front too, observing a loquacious Shayona :-) He's mostly babbling now, and its a lot of fun to watch him try to convey something!
  
• Life Happens. After the break, a week was great. That was the lull before the storm though. The last 10 days have been hell. Amit had some throat irritation going. Rian then had fever and throat irritation. To treat his fever, the dumb doc actually gave him Ibuprofen that caused a flare up in his acid reflux. We were down to 0.3 ml/day of Zantac, slowly reducing the dosage since his first bday, and this caused us to go up again to 2 ml/day :-( Then, Cely fell sick with cold and cough. Rian now seems to have caught cold. Daddy had food poisoning and is down since yesterday. Mommy's body seems to be finally catching up with the sore throat and cold :-( Sigh.
  

Anyways, it was nice to recap all the things - good and bad - going on with us. So many more exciting things to look fwd to this year and early next year:

• Holiday cards. I guess we'll see if Mommy has enough time to do holiday cards this year. Cely's taking off when Mommy has her 10 day break.
• Texas vacay. The plan is to bring in the New Year with Ujjval-Sonali-Aanya.
• Transition to the sippy cup. Rian was almost there, after Florida. A couple more weeks after the health returns, and we should be good to go, me thinks. My new goal is end of Jan :-) 19 months.
  
• Move to his own room. He's almost there with the sleep training. After we get back from our next vacay, we'll move Rian's crib into his own room. Mommy needs to do some research though, on whether she wants to get Rian's room all decorated/painted/muraled. One part of it is on the way though - a 16 X 24 canvas of Rian's picture. So excited, and looking fwd to receiving it!
  

Co-incidence?

http://rocknroli.wordpress.com/2009/11/20/lil-maestro/