Bua's visit

Kabu's bua & phuphaji visited us for a day last week and Kabu thoroughly enjoyed being spoilt by them (and we enjoyed some respite from trying to discipline him).

Papa's glasses are off-limits, but bua lets Kabu try her sunglasses

some cooking lessons from bua

This is the way we eat our food..

Kabu is in the do-it-yourself phase these days....which means that mealtimes have become a nightmare. And the mess that he manages to create is simply unbelievable.
Thankfully, there's one snack that he likes so much that he actually makes an effort to get most of it in his mouth (as opposed to getting it on the walls, the floor and everyone around him). Here's a video of him enjoying his soy yogurt.

Cooling off

Summer is in full swing here and Kabu is enjoying a good share of water activities to cool off. Thanks to my friend Vaishali's suggestion, we joined a parent-child swimming class at a local club. So for the past 3 weeks Kabu has been going for swim lessons! But the truth of the matter is that he clings on to me like a scared monkey through out the class and always makes us leave even before the class has ended. But outside of the class, he loves playing with water and really enjoys the little inflatable pool we got in our backyard this summer. Here are some videos from earlier this month..

Introducing a new face

Do you recognize him?

This is how he looked when I saw Kabu after work on Monday. His nanny had chopped off his curls because they had become a tangly mess and it was an extremely hot day. I'll admit it - I was secretly thankful. I should have done this myself a long time ago but I'm a wimp and couldn't go against the family pressure to wait till his mundan.

So this is the BEFORE pic

And here's another AFTER pic:

Is it just me, or does he suddenly look atleast a year older?

In any case, I love the new look. And Kabu is visibly happy and comfortable in it.

Kabir and Arushi

One of our most enjoyable trips recently was our trip to Chicago about two months ago . The highlight of our trip was the time we spent with my dear friends Abha and Soumitra and their daughter Arushi. Arushi is about three months younger than Kabir and Kabir left no stone unturned in bullying her :)
Although I'm late in posting them, these pictures hold a special place in my heart. I feel they are symbolic of the friendship that Abha and I share and cherish. The two of us have shared our experiences through various stages of our lives - as college students, as roommates, as independent girls working in corporate America, as married women and now as mothers. It was indeed a special feeling to see our kids play together!

Arushi and her beloved dou-dou



Kabu shows off walking to Arushi

Our divide and conquer strategy for meal times

some outdoor play time

morning play time

Twins? Or chaddi-buddies? :-)

Berry Picking

The berry-picking season is here again! Yesterday we drove up to Sauvie Island to pick some strawberries, blueberries and raspberries. It turned out to be an ideal outing for Kabir since he loves being out in the open and picking fruits off the plant branches seemed to satisfy his appetite for destruction. Being able to treat on fresh juicy berries was a bonus!

On a side note, I can't help but recall last year's berry picking outing when Kabu was just three months old. See how tiny he was? This time he made up for the berries he couldn't taste last year :-)

A week in Japan

We had the opportunity to travel to Japan last week. Saurabh had a conference there and Kabir and I joined him to make it a vacation. Although it was short and somewhat hectic, the trip was good and we had a nice time.
The biggest challenge of the trip was finding vegetarian food for us. Thankfully, we had already forseen the problem and had practically carried our kitchen with us. I took a little electric hot plate to cook food on, a pressure cooker, a hand blender and some raw material to make kabu's khichdi, oatmeal etc. We found a local supermarket from where I could get fruits and vegetables to make Kabu's food. I didn't have so much patience when it came to our own meals, so we usually just heated the frozen parathas that we had carried with us. On a couple of occasions we found a vegetarian or Indian restaurant and treated ourselves to a full meal!
So all in all, we were able to cope with the food issue well, though not without any glitches. On this trip, Kabu became overly fond of popcorn (or bubkun, as he calls it) and asked for it constantly when we were out sightseeing. Since I hadn't anticipated his sudden love for bubkun, we ran out of all that we had pretty quickly. So I had no choice but to look for popcorn in a Japanese store. We found it, but we couldn't read the label on the pack. Since Kabir is allergic to dairy (and egg and nuts), I was afraid that the popcorn would contain butter. In any case, we tried it and decided that it didn't have any buttery taste and so Kabu was back to enjoying his bubkun. On our last day there, we met with some friends who could read Japanese. I asked them to read the label, just to reassure myself that there was no dairy in the popcorn. It turned out that we were right - there was no dairy in it afterall. But oh, there were prawns and octopus in the oil and the flavoring! Can you believe that?! Who would want octopus in their popcorn??! My friends joke that atleast we now know that Kabir is not allergic to octopus...oh well.
I've already posted all the pictures on Picasa and Facebook, so in this blog I'm only posting some of my favorite pics of Kabir from the trip. You are welcome to see more on Picasa.

Playing in the hotel lobby

Golden Pavilion



Getting dressed to go out


On the rooftop of Kyoto Station Building



Paparazzi

Japanese ladies loved him - they would give him gifts and candies and photographed him

Outside a Buddhist temple

A sunburnt Kabu

City bus ride

Tokyo City - playing on Odakyu building rooftop