Wednesday, January 26, 2011

Tuesday, January 25, 2011

Random updates

We have had a rather lousy start to our new year this year with each of us taking turns to fall sick. The boys aren't completely well yet. Last couple of weeks have been especially hard on Anurag - this is his first time falling sick and the poor baby has stopped eating and is quite miserable. After trying the regular medicines we have now moved on to using Homeopathy medicines for him, which seem to be quite effective.

Another unfortunate news is that we discovered that Anurag too is allergic to eggs (inspite of the negative skin test results that we got 6 months ago). We learnt this the hard way when we introduced eggs in his diet. I hope both boys will outgrow this soon.

We moved into our own campus flat this week! We still need to do a lot of work in the house to be completely settled, but at least we now have our own place. It has been interesting to see Kabir's reaction to our move. Initially he didn't understand why we were moving at all and why we couldn't just continue living with nana-nani. And then he kept referring to nana-nani's house as "Bombay" ( as in : "I want to take this toy to Bombay"). We haven't become completely self sufficient yet and I have been taking the kids to nana-nani's house in the afternoons, so Kabir is still confused about the transition. But this is a small transition compared to the big move from the US, so I'm sure he'll soon settle in. My biggest task now is to find a good nanny for the kids. How I wish we could have Iren back with us! I don't plan to go back to work immediately, but would like to start exploring some work from home/part time options soon and having good childcare would be essential for it. As of now Kabir goes to a playschool for 2 hours in the morning. He doesn't seem to be quite in love with the place yet, and so I'm not inclined to have him stay there longer. At the same time, I don't know if a nanny will be able to look after both boys for the whole day without going completely crazy. So I'm struggling to find the best childcare solution.

On a separate note, I was thrilled to find a good public library here. What I have missed most about the US (not counting Iren!) is the convenience of public libraries. There isn't a single decent library accessible to us here. Fortunately, I discovered from their website that British Council Library (which used to be located at Nariman Point) has now become an online library which works just like Netflix in the US. We immediately became members and now we have books being delivered to and picked up from our home! They have a good collection of children's books although it is primarily by British authors. In addition to this, I learnt that there are a couple of really good online sites here that sell new and used books for really cheap! They even stock children's books from American authors. So I will no longer need to request our friends in the US to bring books for me!

Wednesday, January 5, 2011

Ganga darshan

One of the most memorable parts of our trip to North India last month was our trip to Haridwar and Rishikesh. While Saurabh and I had both separately visited before, it was a first for Kabir and Anurag. We enjoyed the beauty of the Ganga and the peaceful ghats. Of course, having chai and pakoras by the river made it a quintessential Indian experience :-)