Pat on the back

I made an interesting dinner tonight and I am proud of me. Yes I do get excited with smaller things in life too ;). Any who, I made baked potato with vegetarian chili, cheese and sour cream toppings and a side salad with lettuce, carrot, peppers and cucumbers. This is just different from all the pappu, koora, sambar, chapathi, chole dinners and was nice.

So let's talk about V for a bit now shall we. He is being a riot. The kid's ready to walk. He wants to stand all the time. He is crawling pretty fast though. Cannot believe he is going to be 8 months old soon. I keep uploading the pictures on to the picasa site, so keep checking. Link is on to the right hand side in this page ;).

A Big Sigh

What did I do today to let that big sigh? Cooked food like there is no tomorrow. here is the story.

Even with mom around to help, I feel like I am not getting enough time to spend with V. I spend hours in the kitchen cooking lunch, dinner, evening snack, 3 sets of coffees and the cleaning, doing dishes, laundry and all. In between I spend some time with V but I feel like it's not enough and I also wanted to reduce the time I spend in the kitchen. Not to mention the work I do in between for Chaitu and Prabu( I am their personal-take care of-all our paperwork-and bills-and appointments-and anything -else-assistant;).

So yesterday I cleaned the kitchen inside out to get it ready for today's cooking marathon. Today I made 5 different kinds of dals( recipes to come soon) and 2 curries. Mom will be making another pulusu(kozhambu) and I will call it a day. From tomorrow all I have to do is grab a dal or lunch for the parents and they are good to go. I got me some salad stuff and morning star burgers. So my lunch is taken care of too:). Hopefully this should reduce my kitchen time:). Did I mention I was fasting today?;);)

V was very helpful today. Surprisingly he slept for 4 hours in the afternoon while I was cooking away. He hardly naps for more than an hour every day in the afternoon and I was surprised to see him sleep that long. He loves to help his momma. He is slowly starting to stand on his own by holding things and crawling pretty fast. We should be ready to do the annaparasana soon.

Here are some pictures mom and dad took today.

Fun Weekened

Ignore the title. Sorry for delays in posting. Been busy with like a billion of doctors appointments, filing for citizenships, passport renewals, calling in for future doctor appointments, cooking, cleaning and the list goes on without mentioning the too much fun I have in between by just sitting with my feet up and not doing anything sometimes.

Chaitu was here for the weekend ( actually he came in on Wednesday;)). V refused to get down from his Chaitu mama's lap:). Saritha, Som, Siddhi (from here on will be referred to as the Parikh's ;))and the 6 of us went to Pei Wei for dinner on Thursday. Pei Wei is the sister restaurant of P.F.Changs. However, it's diner style and much relaxed. Food is still goooood. On Friday we had dosa party at our place for dinner. I made sambar, potato curry, tomato-onion chutney and coconut chutney and mom made the dosas.

So on Friday we bought some books for V. You know those cushiony soft books for infants. And on Saturday we went to outlet mall and bought more toys for V. No we did not learn the lesson that kids at this age don't care for toys. That toy store trip was more for us than for V. He absolutely didn't seemed to like anything in the store. We did pick up couple of things that "we" liked. We come home, open all the bags and see if V liked nay of the toys or clothes we bought him. He crawls past all the things to go grab mom's red water bottle. Nice, I know. So I figured I might just buy a box of tupperware and let him play with it. Once he is done, I will just use it in my kitchen. why bother with those fancy toys that he doesn't even like to look.

I think we try to buy toys for kids at this age because those are the once, we adults get attracted to and not the kids. Hey but it was still fun ( trying to justify purchases here):). You can see all the new pictures here.

We still haven't decided on which house we want to buy and when. Every time we decide to settle down on the house, we get a call saying they reduced 10 or 20k on it. So we are just waiting to see how the market will be in next few weeks to months and then figure it out.

That's it for now. You all get back to your regularly schedules programs while i go make my lunch. Ciao

Awesome Movie

Saritha and I saw Sivaji last night. Total paisa vasool movie. Paisa Vasool meaning - worth the 16 bucks I spent on the ticket. Yes it's a tad bit more than the regular movie. I went in expecting nothing but 3 hours of fun and fluff and nothing to think about and that's exactly what I get. I thought it was better than all the Rajni films I have seen so far. Manish Malhothra could have done a better job with the heroine's costumes. I thought he moved away from the bikini tops and side slit lehengas but guess not. At the end, who cares ;). I can definitely watch it again.

V is trying to hold on to things and stand and is getting tad bit naughtier. Refusing to sleep till 10 in the night and all that fun stuff. Me trying to give him quiet down time form 8 to 8.30 so he can sleep by 8.30 is not working so far. But I keep trying:).

Chaitu is here for this weekend. May be we should hit the outlets this weekend. Haven't been to the mall in ages and I am in the market for new hand bag , new clothes and new anything and everything ;).

How exciting.....

V keeps saying amma, amma, amma. It's nice to see him trying to talk already:). coughcoughsomeoneisjealousthathedidn'tsaydadayetcoughcough. He is crawling a lot and wants to be held so he can walk. Me trying to tell hi to take it easy doesn't see to work much.

Totally unrelated but another thing I a excited about this week: I found a mango that tastes like Banginapally mango we used to get in India. At 4 bucks a piece it was well worth it.

Saritha and I are going out tomorrow evening to watch Sivaji. Just the girls. The men are staying home to baby sit the kiddos. yee ha;)

Thinking...

of a title and I cannot come up with one. But let's get to business.

Happy Father's day to all the daddios out there:). Kamalakar mamayya and attayya are having an awesome time on their Alaskan Cruise. I cannot wait to hear the details when they come back. As far as I know, they were supposed to be on this cruise like a billion years ago but never gotten around to take the time off. Glad they are finally on that ship and away from the crazy us ;).

Ravana dodda left back for India today and my mom is very sad that she cut her trip short. What can I say? Life sucks some times and you just gotta deal.

We got all dressed up today and went to a housewarming party. If you click on the "Vikram's Pictures" link on to the right you can see updated pictures. V is starting to crawl fast and now he just wants to stand up. Me telling him to take it easy is not seeming to work:).

And, Iniya is one month now. Can you believe it? Now I have to start bugging her parents for more new pictures:)

That's all for now. Nighty night.

And he did it

Told ya he's gonna crawl soon and he did. Not fast enough but tiny spaces. Starting Monday, I think we have a brat in the making. Today V turned 7 months. I put together a collage of his pictures of last 7 months ( just few pics, not a lot).



We have to go shopping this weekend so we can get that baby proofing the house stuff:). Fun days are going to start and I don't think I will have enough time to blog as often anymore. However, I do and I will try my best to keep you all up to date of our adventures.

So what's going on?

with you all. V is going to be 7 months old tomorrow. It feels like he was just born yesterday:). He is slowly getting ready to crawl. He managed to (almost) put fingers in electrical socket yesterday. This is why they say you need a village to raise a kid;). He is also scaring Prabu. Not by making faces but by being stubborn and throwing small tantrums. I wonder why they never do it with mom's as much as they do it with dad's. As vani vodina says, "That's because they know we don't give in to them as easily as dad's do." I think she's right to an extent.

So here's a picture for today. This is just V trying to figure out what he needs from the costco magazine.



and one more of my favorites.

4 years ago today

and now...



Time flies. Thanks to everyone who emailed and called in to wish us. Prabu and I took V out for dinner;). Not that he could eat Chicken Kebobs and hummus, but hey we tried. He did enjoy the restaurant though. He kept laughing and entertaining us all the while we were there. He also wants me to tell you all that he helped me today in making rice pudding for his dad by not getting off my shoulder all the while I was trying to make it before Prabu came home:). He even said "aa...ooooo" couple of times, which I took as saying, "That's enough milk mom. Add some more Jaggery in there."

Talking about V, he is sitting on his own.


Also, I didn't mean to scare and cause any concern by posting about my thyroid issue. I was just showin' off the fact that I do get "high scores" in tests ( pun intended;)). I am on medication and doing good. Now my mom and I have one more thing in common. We take the same exact medicine;).

More Pictures:).

He's gonna do it....

V is gonna crawl in 3 to 4 day I think. He is gonna be 7 months in 5 days and I think he is going to crawl by then. It's just too funny to watch him move around the room. He is starting t o sleep less and play more, even grabbed the remote and turned the TV on(I think he just pressed random buttons and it just turned on).

Vitti, Vani and kids are here for a visit. V is having a blast playing with his Srikar and Vibhu Bava. We went to an Indian restaurant in Phoenix today to celebrate Ramani Dodda's birthday. We were the only Indians in that place ( I forgot I wasn't in somerset;)).

Prabu has been busy all week with work. As I was telling Manga Aunty today, I think this is just a prelude to, "Sorry hon, I didn't have time to get you anything for our anniversary. You have seen how busy I was." ;).

"It's not me hon, it's the thyroid."

That's what my doc said I should tell Prabu if I find myself angry or crying for no reason again:). I went in for a follow up for my thyroid issues. Basically, my TSH levels have not only hit the roof, they are flying up above the sky. The normal TSH level is anywhere between 0.5 to 5 and mine is 322.LOL. So I come out of the exam room and another doctor was passing by in the hall way and he says to me, "Are you the one with a TSH of 322?" Ok, I am now very famous in my doctor's office. I couldn't help but let a wide grin. He is like, "I am glad to see you smile and be chirpy." Apparently when you have that high levels, you are just tired and are not that smiley, let's just put it at that. I was laughing and telling Prabu the whole thing and he didn't think it was that funny. Poor guy was all worried. I had to tell him to relax and I will be taking medication and should be fine. Why shouldn't I be happy? I can now fight with him more and just blame it on.... thyroid;).

V is starting to move around the room a lot. I added some pictures here.

6 month visit

to the doctors that is for V. He had 3 shots today and he cried exactly for 28 seconds and that's about it. He slept all the way home and in the evening he removed the band-aids by himself and handed it over to me with a smile. I wish I had mom take a picture of that. It was just too funny watching the little guy hand it to me like, "Here, I am done wit dis."

He is gotten very attached to his new toy as you can see below.


No silly, look again, he doesn't want the new Wizard Mickey that Chaitu got him this weekend. He wants that empty water bottle so he can do this:


So to re-iterate what every one told us, kids at this age don't care for real toys. They just want those empty bottles and cardboard boxes:). He also likes the junk mail we get. It's like a daily ritual now in the house. My Dad brings mail home. And then in the evening Prabu gets home, V and him go through the junk mail one paper after the other and V gets to play with the empty envelopes. He loves it:).

Trip to Babloo and Julie's

We all drove down to visit Ramesh A.K.A Babloo and Julie's house this weekend in McNeal, Arizona. We = me, Prabu, V, Chaitu, Mom, Dad and Ravana Dodda. It was a 4 hour drive from our place. It was just this quiet small town( more like a teeny tiny village). We did a lot of fun stuff on saturday and sunday enjoying the weather, the nature and all. The whole trip just felt so peaceful.

Lakshmi dodda made awesome food while we were there and Julie ( ok Babbi too) made "Salad of all good things" on saturday night for dinner. Don't email me for the recipe cause I don't have one. You can make it on your own without a recipe. Just add "all the good things". And I had boiled whole Pecans for the first time and boy were they good.

Here are some pictures. The pictures you see of all the veggies like artichokes, asparagus, spring onions and all the other beautiful flowers are all taken in the community garden in the community health center where Ramesh and Julie work.