Friendly Mosquitos

Today I was going to write a post about all the nice conversations that I am having with Rajiv these days.

We talk about how he is going to play a bigger cello when he grows up and he tells me, with a dreaming expression on his face, that his cello is going to grow too.

He asks me why I am putting the melon in the organic trash bin and I say that it has gone bad. So he says, "Yeah, he was pushing the vegetables, that's not nice!". That's right.

He asks why he can't watch a lot of videos. I tell him that watching too many videos hurts our eyes. Surprisingly, he seems to agree immediately. He says the videos bite our eyes, just like mosquitoes. But the mosquitoes don't bite our eyes, only our body. I remind him that if he stays under the blanket the mosquitoes won't be able to bite him.
He agrees and adds: "And Rohan is going to catch them!"
Me: "And papa'?"
Rajiv: "Papa' will zap them!"
Me: "That's right, we don't want mosquitoes!"
This must sound too harsh to him, because he says that maybe they can stay, if they are nice. No biting. And maybe they are hungry and they need something to eat. How about noodles? But really small ones, which we don't have - so they can't sit at the table next to Appu - but they have small noodles at their home and really small bowls too, so they can eat there, or maybe bring them over. They can't eat apples though, because there are no really small apples: that would be silly. There are no small trees, because birds live in them and they are not small..

I wish I could remember the rest, but right now I don't unfortunately. We had a rough night with Rohan being sick and I was not even sure I would feel like writing about something nice. But maybe there aren't many other things you can do when you have only slept a couple of hours.

Rohan was really cute and affectionate today morning, by the way. I hope he is feeling better. I'll check with Meaghan soon and maybe I'll just go back home and stay with him today. Or maybe I'll try to work a little when I still can, we'll see.

Long weekend

Rohan is still very sick and of course it always happens on a holiday or on a Sunday - or both :) like this time.

Appu was very sad in the morning as well, because his sleep was again interrupted by Rohan throwing up (which he calls "spitting" and thinks that Rohan does it on purpose) and also because mamma neglected him in favor of his "silly" brother. Fortunately Kalena and her mom invited Appu to go for a walk and although Rohan and I missed him a lot while he was gone, he came back a new happy boy.

Rajiv didn't eat much today though and I am hoping he is not going to be sick like his brother. We spent the day watching cartoons, mostly, and eating microscopic portions of very plain food. Mamma too, because you never know.

In spite of all this though, we still managed to have some fun. The kids played with the Aqua Doodle (a mat on which you paint with water) and after fighting over the who is going to use the brush and who the pen they moved on to pouring full cups of water directly on the mat - just to see what happens, I guess. What happens is that the mat turn completely blue, then puddles form and finally the water starts rolling off onto the wooden floor of the living room.

The cutest moment was when I decided that Rohan needed a little reward for how bravely he was facing his troubles and so I opened a doll that I had purchased at some point by mistake and had kept in storage ever since. Look how cute he is with his "baby"...



To distract Rajiv from watching "George: a very monkey Christmas" for the third time, I decided to put away our small and beaten Christmas tree. The kids helped me to take the few surviving decorations off the tree and then we put them in a small box, that we proceeded to decorate with stickers. At first Rohan was having trouble and Rajiv was putting all the stickers, then Rohan got it and became an unstoppable sticking machine, while Appu moved on to posing for silly pictures with the tree.







Since the boys wanted to attack the Aqua Doodle again, which hadn't recovered yet from the earlier play, I redirected them towards a different water game instead. We put a plastic mat on the floor, filled some tupperware with water and played with a bunch of car- and truck-shaped sponges. They got all wet and that was a good excuse to move upstairs for pajama time.

Certain days, I think I deserve a mommy medal.

Sharp News

A grande richiesta... il primo dentino di Rohan! Il piccolino ha anche la tosse e il raffreddore, povero - e povera anche la mamma, con la tosse e il raffreddore anche lei, e con un bimbo malaticcio e dolorante. Ma Rohan cerca di mantenere il buon umore ed e' simpatico e tenero come sempre!

Guess who just got his first square millimeter of exposed tooth: could it be our little smiling hero, who is about to lose his stage-name "Toothless Wonder"?

Unfortunately little Kunju is also a bit sick, bothered day and night by cough and running nose, but he keeps smiling his way through the day as much as possible. Go Rohan! - soon to be known as "Jaws" (and quite fittingly as we speak he is trying to bite my feet under the table).

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Happy birthday, Rohan! Today Rohan turns eight months old.

Buon Compleanno, Rohan! Oggi Rohan compie otto mesi.

A room without a view

Some of you probably already know the whole story of S's suspected chronic appendicitis, but even if you don't I won't go into all the details here. Suffices to say that S was admitted to the hospital today and he is now, as I type, sleeping off his anesthesia while his appendix rests in a jar.

He is in the same hospital were I went for the same surgery in November, but I had a much better room, with a nice view. His room instead is a little dark and the small window has a not very promising greenish glass. I haven't investigated the view any further but all in all it is a bit depressing. In any case, he will come home tomorrow evening and if he is smart (and is given enough drugs) he will probably spend the time until then sleeping.

I am home alone with the two little guys, but so far all is going well. Should I be scared?

Update

Rohan is doing better. We went to the doctor today and his ears are looking good, it seems, just a little pink but not "angry red" like last time. Go antibiotics!
By the way, our little one is over 7 Kg now and about 71 cm "tall", if you care for stats.*
The rest of the family is doing fine and hopefully I won't have anything to report for a while on the health front.

*Well, if you really care for stats I might as well tell you that the big brother is around 13 Kg and if you find a way to measure his height (other than in his sleep, I mean at the doctor's office) please don't hesitate to inform us. :)

Week twenty three

A few illnesses later, we are still here. Appu is better now and, even though his parents have taken turns feeling quite sick over the past three days, I think we can say that the virus has now been expelled from our household for good.
This is little Appu on Saturday morning, still feverish and weak :(


But no more!

Rohan however is not doing well at all, piccolo. Just when on Sunday night we thought the worst was over and we were ready to pass out go to sleep, the little one started to cry and we had another virtually sleepless night. It turns out that he has a quite bad ear infection. We had just given a course of antibiotics a week ago for a mild infection in his left year, but the doctor says that maybe the infection was resistant to that particular antibiotic, so we are trying another one now.

Thinking about it now, we probably should have checked his ears earlier. All the problem that we thought were due to mommy separation, like the fact that he had trouble drinking from the breast and wanted a bottle instead, were probably just due to pain swallowing and sucking.

But I don't want to write another health bulletin here, so let's move on to more cheerful stuff. Ear infection or not, little Rohan is becoming stronger every day. Look at these push-ups!



Look at this cuteness!



Rohan has also started to speak (if you know what I mean...). Earlier he used to say mostly "a" and occasionally some "m" sounds, but as of this week we have had an explosion of "ta ta ta" and even some "g", more rare.

Now let me conclude with a few pictures of Kunju with his acchamma, who has taken great care of him while mamma was out of commission.

Here Rohan is being shown pictures of his cousin Jaydev to inspire him to greatness.


"Aiyo! Both fists in the mouth?"


Achamma 1 - Rohan 0


Uhm... Achamma 1/2 - Rohan 1/2


Nothing tastes as good as a clean saree...


And the best picture, in my opinion, is this one.

What a week

Exactly one week ago we took Rohan to the doctor to check whether his cough would require antibiotics, and the doctor immediately checked his ears. This has always felt like an empty ritual to me, checking children's ears no matter what the initial complaint, probably because in Appu's case it never led to anything. However, to our great surprise, it turned out that Rohan indeed had an ear infection. It was even more of a surprise because he was as cheerful as usual and the doctor herself couldn't believe it.

We went home with our bottle of antibiotics, feeling that this continuous sequence of colds and fevers and the like was rather vexing. S himself was still suffering from a dragging mix of running nose, headaches and general feeling of having been run over by a truck. The late night spent with the jet-lagged kids had not helped.

In such spirits we still were when on Saturday morning Appu woke up with a fever. There had been some cases of Hand Foot And Mouth Disease at daycare, so I immediately looked it up online and found with a sinking heart that the virus could bring 7 to 14 days of vomiting, aches, intestinal problems and general misery. I was therefore almost happy when I realized that I wasn't feeling that good myself. Could Appu and I have something completely different from the dreaded HFM?

Then it turned out in an exciting twist that I had appendicitis. Appu's fever wasn't forgotten, but he seemed better the next day - albeit troubled by my hospitalization. I had surgery and it went well, so we were happy. We were still giving Rohan his antibiotics, but not quite remembering why anymore.

I had a hard time feeding Rohan and ended up pumping milk to be given to him in a bottle for most of his meals. The first two nights where rough, but after a couple days I was able to sleep next to the children again and this was a huge improvement for everybody. I am recovering very fast, although unfortunately I am still unable to care for Rohan by myself because I cannot lift him or hold him AND he has a habit of kicking my belly :) Thankfully acchamma is here.

Then, today morning Appu woke up and threw up yesterday's dinner. My first thought was: "Great, now he can't go to daycare and he will be miserable here at home". That's because a mamma unable to pick him up, roll with him on the bed and have random collision around the house has been a big challenge for Appu - and a big source of frustration for mamma. However, when he vomited again, and again and again, we started being a little more concerned.

We went to see the doctor and she concluded that scary things are to be ruled out. It is most likely food poisoning or a virus (probably the latter). We are to watch for changes though, because you never know. In the meantime we have an interesting night ahead - will the antiemetic work? - and we can look forward to a new wave of barfing flu - who is Appu going to give it to first?

Anyway, I don't really think we are unlucky. That would be insulting to people who have actual big health problems. But it's not fun either.

Mamma e' tornata a casa

Mamma e' stata operata di appendicite, ma adesso siamo tutti di nuovo a casa e speriamo che in un paio di giorni tutto torni alla normalita'.

Mamma is back home! For those of you who don't know yet, I had to have my appendix removed on Sunday, but I was able to be home on Monday night already. Appu had a hard time while S and I were in the hospital and even now he is in a very bad mood. He would like to be picked up and I can't do it and he would like to sleep next to me, but I am afraid that he would kick my wounds or climb on me the way he often does in his sleep. S is not getting much sleep, because Appu moans all night, but I hope in a couple of days things will be more or less back to normal. Rohan is receiving excellent care from his acchamma, so he is not complaining much :)