******* 4! *******

Today is Appu's birthday. In case you missed the dragon reminder on the sidebar, I just thought I'd put it here too. He is four! He is a big big boy who can talk and argue, has his own ideas and can correct his mamma's English pronunciation. He likes numbers - yesterday I could lure him away from the tv by saying "Hey, I'm going to read a new math book, anybody interested?. He likes seeds and flowers and can recognize daffodils, tulips and dandelions.

He loves maps. He knows where to find North and South America on a map, where Canada and India are and he can find Australia too. He knows some places are very far away and you need to take two planes to go from India to Canada: the first is a "sleeping" plane and everybody is quiet - this was my stroke of genius, I admit - the next is a "waking" plane, where we have fun (you can imagine how much fun..). He also knows that when here it is night in India it is morning time. Now how many four year old kids can grasp that?!?

(Did I mention that bragging is not only allowed but required in birthday posts?)

He likes new clothes, as in clothes he hasn't seen before, they don't really have to be new. He likes to choose what pajamas he is going to wear and we now have a pretty large collection for him to mix and match. Some favorites are the very soft one, which is still too big but he can wear it if he doesn't run in it (or he'll trip), the Thomas one, the monster pajamas and his purple ones that say "Little Brothers Are Awesome" - not really for what it says, but because purple is his favorite color.
He used to love his super dog pajamas and the spiderman ones, but now they have become short and it's ok for Rohan to wear them because Appu is growing. He is four!

He is learning to read all by himself, by which I mean that I don't even try to teach him, but he is the one who asks how to read a word or stops while speaking to see if he can figure out what sounds are in a certain word. He likes to have books read to him too and is now ready for some longer stories, but sometimes what he thinks the book is about would leave you speechless.

He is not afraid of being in a dark room, but he doesn't like to enter the room if the light is not on. Smart, I say.

He can get dressed by himself, but he still has some trouble with zippers and buttons and sometimes socks can get tricky, but he always has the tag on the back. He also can help Rohan and he does a remarkably good job, if Rohan lets him.

He can pee standing up! And he loves to pee outside on the grass, by the way, laughing like a silly appu while I tell him "Careful! Not on the shooooooes!".

He can climb like a monkey and go fast on his tricycle.

He likes all sort of music and makes up his own songs too. If I show him a video of some musicians he wants to know their names. He told me that the CD we played last week in the car has the same song (one of Bach's cello suites) that we heard from a video in the computer. He likes to play music but is not a very disciplined student.. :) He has a nice bow hold and likes his cello but we don't practice much - my fault. However, maybe that's why he still likes it, because there is no pressure whatsoever - see? How to turn any parenting shortcomings into great insights.

You probably already know that he likes trains and the only reason why I didn't make this the first item in my list is that there is going to be a special train post soon. But I like how he plays with his little Thomas trains making up stories as he goes. I also must be the only mom (or not?) who has to sleep with several trains in my bed: the little puppies are allowed to bring two trains or cars each to bed and sometimes we still have yesterday's trains too.

He can fit inside his new carry-on luggage.

He can eat without making too big a mess, unless he wants too :) And he can carry a bowl without spilling the content. Sometimes he likes to blow on his own pasta, sometimes he doesn't and he needs mamma's help. He prefers English words and really would like to know how you say "rotini" in  English, but apparently mamma is part of a big Italian conspiracy and just won't tell him.

He likes to do work, like mamma and papa', with paper and pencil. When he grows up - like, now? - he would like to work at mamma's "ufficio".

I'm sure I left out some really important stuff, but I am also sure that by now you couldn't care less and your eyes are already crossing, so let's just conclude with a picture. Not the best or my favorite, just the most recent mostly in focus photo in my hard drive.

Happy birthday Big Piccolo Rajiv!

It's official

Rohan can walk!

Two or three steps, straight into mamma's arms. And after that he laughs like a baby hyena.

If you however attempt to repeat the trick a few times, eventually when you say "Come to mamma!" he will carefully lower himself down and then crawl, because when it's too much it's too much and what's the big deal anyway. But after crawling to you he will still laugh like a baby hyena, because life is good.

Laptop is back

And to celebrate, I immediately uploaded this week's photos, ready to be blogged. It is a somewhat random collection, but here it goes.

Appu wearing his new purple shorts (from a Benetton store in Calicut, quite ironically) - a favorite color these days. I am so glad little Rajiv is still gender-blind and does not know that purple (not to mention his pink Dora underwear!) "is for girls".



Mamma and Rohan ready for a shopping outing. Our balcony, self-portraits.



Failed attempt to take a close-up of Kunju's face. What you see is instead his finger, let's not worry about which one.


Appu wears a mundu (sort of) and is miserable for about twenty minutes until he gets to trade it for a diaper and bright red shorts.




So you don't believe Rohan can stand on his cute little feet? HA!

Steps, pools, drums and more fun.

My laptop is undergoing some serious surgery after Rajiv has liberally showered it with juice last week, so my blogging capabilities are somewhat limited. Regular (not bad for a joke, eh?) posts will resume as soon as possible - and pictures too.

For now, a few quick updates.

I think I mentioned that Rohan has taken his first step about two weeks ago. I really mean a single accidental step, but I think he enjoyed it. He took his second step today. Again a single step, but intentional this time. He is clearly trying to walk, so I think it won't be long now that he has set his mind to it.

Little Rohan has been quite sick lately, but he is on his way to recovery. Clearly his physical fitness has not suffered, but the same cannot be said of the parents. Surprise... :)

We spent last week in Calicut - again - and Rajiv had a great time with all his cousins. We went swimming and he loved being in the pool, sticking like a clam to mamma or aunt Shal. He had water wings - or whatever you called those things in American English? - but he used them mostly as a fashion statement. We will definitely try swimming classes again this summer, I am sure he will love it this time around. (There she goes again, mamma, jinxing herself.)

Let me close with a short mamma-Appu conversation. The scene opens with Appu hitting mamma (not too hard) as if keeping a particular beat.

m: Appu! No hitting! Is mamma a drum?
A: No.. No, no! Mamma is not a drum.

(Keeps thinking...)

A: Mamma is a BIG drum! Yeah!

Sigh...

Touching base

Hello everybody, long time no see... Sorry about that.

A few bits and pieces of our daily life:

Rohan is cutting more teeth; he has almost four now and he is beginning to put them to (bad) use. Ouch.

Achamma e achacha were with us for the weekend. Rohan remembers his achamma from previous visits, obviously, because he jumped into her arms as soon as he saw her. Appu is a little less theatrical, but I think he enjoyed his grandparents' visit too.

Have I mentioned that Rohan goes to daycare now? He seems to love it and mamma gets two to three hours a day to work - or sleep, if necessary :) Not much, but a good beginning and we are thinking of leaving him for more hours if a full time spot can be found for him later on.

Appu is again watching more cartoons than we would like. It is unfortunately the result of a new wave of viruses, coughs and headaches that has swept through our home recently. S. is still unwell and sometimes preschool tv shows are a parent's only friend in times of difficulty. These days Appu's favorites are The Wonder Pets. It is like a musical for children and the pets mostly put their thoughts into songs, sadly.

Fortunately Rajiv has other hobbies as well, so there is still hope. He loves to play outside and he has lots of friends. He likes to read letters and numbers anywhere he can find them - number plates are a big favorite - but he doesn't read words, so no need of contacting MENSA just yet :) At home he likes to paint and I wish I could allow him to do more of that, but with Rohan around every art session puts us in red alert mode.

Another recent passion of Appu's are snakes. Not real snakes, but funny cartoon snakes and especially abstract snakes, like these:


We play snakes with playdoh and sometimes with strings or shoelaces. Mostly we have small snakes looking for their big mamma snake. Other times the snakes just spend their time slithering around the house at great speed and climbing the coffee table, going down, climbing up, going down, climbing up, going down.



Accidents are very common among playdoh snakes, but we offer good snake-care and after a brief session with mamma they are like new.



Last but not least: Rohan is standing up more and more. Just a few seconds at a time, but he is getting more and more confident on his feet. Soon he should be able to push his walker around. Video time!

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).

-------

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

Buon Compleanno, Rohan! Oggi Rohan compie otto mesi.

Come le ciliege

Rohan dice "mamma" (o giu' di li'), ormai ne sono sicura. E come se non bastasse, ha anche iniziato a camminare costeggiando i mobili, sempre appoggiandosi naturalmente. Lui ogni tanto prova a lasciar andare il suo appoggio, ma i risultati sono dolorosi.

Big milestones come in pairs. Rohan is saying "mamma" (and more variations on the same theme). Sometimes he makes those sounds accidentally but S and I are quite sure that often he really means it. He has also started "cruising", i.e. walking holding on to some piece of furniture. Have I mentioned before that he is a genius? :)

Complimese

Ho trascurato i sei mesi purtroppo, quindi festeggiamo i sette.

Non c'e' molto da dire, tranne che Rohan e' un bimbo splendido, dolcissimo e molto intelligente. Gattona ormai con disinvoltura, ma sempre con cautela. La sua vera ambizione pero' e' camminare e si vede subito da come si destreggia a tirarsi in piedi aggrappato ai mobili e a riposizionarsi per terra senza farsi male che la stoffa del bipede c'e' tutta. Dovra' aspettare ancora qualche mese, ma non ho avuto il coraggio di dirglielo. Intanto la settimana scorsa io, Rajiv e Rohan abbiamo fatto un bel girotondo tutti insieme - Rohan tenendo me con una mano e Rajiv nell'altra, contentissimo. Niente male, eh?

E per dimostrarvi che mio figlio e' un genio (entrambi i figli, ma non divaghiamo), Rohan capisce quando dico "Batti batti le manine" e cerca di battere le mani. Sembra l'eroe di un film muto, povero, pero' il movimento c'e', il sonoro verra' con i mesi e la pratica.

Sotto ci sono tre foto: le prime due di circa un mese fa e l'ultima di oggi.

--------

Rohan is seven months old! I didn't make a big deal when he turned six months because I was on a blogging break, so let me make a big deal now :)

Rohan is an adorable baby, very sweet and very intelligent - always trust the mom on this. He is crawling very well now and he is pulling up to stand without many accidents at all - he is very careful and yet daring, because already he tries to hold on to the furniture only with one hand. He makes a lot of cute sounds, he likes people more than anything else and he is learning to clap. It's very early for this, but I told you he was a genius, no?

A few pictures.

About a month and a half ago.


About a month ago.


Today.

Dad, Kipper and some more stuff

First of all, Happy New Year!

I haven't written for a while and as you might expect there is a lot of backlog, but I will try and catch up by unloading on you massive amounts of videos and photos with minimal captioning - not a bad thing at all, probably.

The reason for the long silence is in part that I have been vary busy trying to attend some lectures and thinking about my plans for the future. However, as most of you surely already know, the main reason why I haven't made an effort to write is that my father died in the middle of December and, while it was impossible for me to write about it for several unpleasant reasons, it also didn't seem to make much sense to just keep going as if nothing had happened.

There are things I would have probably written here that now don't seem appropriate anymore. I will think about it and maybe I will come back to this topic later on, or I might not. I wanted to at least post a picture, but unfortunately the most recent I have is from a year and a half ago. Here it is, at the Torino airport.


My favorite picture of my father is another one, from my childhood, but I can't show it to you now. I took it when I was about seven years old I think, with my first camera - Fisher-Price childproof camera, one of the best gifts ever. It was Easter and we were having a family gathering. My dad posed for a photo in the act of lowering an asparagus into his mouth and although I say so myself, it is really a great picture. The only print I have is in a photo album in Torino, so I won't be able to post it until (if) I succeed in making a decent digital copy of it.

Anyway, let us move on to the promised goodies. For this first post I want to show you three videos. The first two were filmed in Calicut during the Christmas holidays. Those were early crawling days for Rohan, he is faster and less prone to accidents now. In case you are wondering, there is really no point to either of the videos, it is just an attempt to capture a little bit of comforting chaos.






The last video is not a home movie, but I thought I would share with you one of Appu's favorite episodes of Kipper The Dog. We love Kipper around here and I think nonna Laura will be especially pleased by this particular choice. I recommend you all watch it, Kipper is good for you.

Rohan goes forth

Rohan ha iniziato a gattonare! Un pochino, pochi centimetri alla volta e in uno stile tutto suo, ma bisogna considerare che non ha neanche sei mesi. Cosi' ora comincia una nuova fase delle nostre giornate, in cui il principale compito dei genitori sara' tenere lontano il piccolino dai pericolosissimi giocattoli del fratello maggiore. Urra'...

Little Kunju is crawling! Nothing spectacular, just a few centimeter at a time, but he is definitely moving forward and now it's a matter of days before he gains the strength and confidence to sprint around the house. Already today morning he was proceeding "fast" towards some pieces of puzzle and I barely managed to put them away - thus saving them from drool - before the little one landed on them.

Our next months will be spent keeping Rohan out of danger, saving him from Rajiv's toys with small parts and saving Rajiv's toys from the little brother's curiosity. I am also looking forward to see if when Rohan is a little more obviously mobile Appu will take a greater interest in him as a playmate. I hope so, even if that means getting a helmet for little Rohan :)

Week twenty four

This has been another horrible week for me, in so many ways. I will surely talk about it in future posts but right now I prefer not to talk about it, so please respect that in the comments.

So let's move on to the kids, which is why you are reading this anyway, right? :)

To start, Rajiv has been promoted from "butterfly" to "dragonfly". It's a big thing, it means he now gets to hang out with older children at daycare and I am sure he loves that.

The daycare sends a daily update by email, just a couple of sentences about something that the child did or said, or learned. Today's update says:

While playing a game, Rajiv heard the instruction that he had to touch something in black colour. Some of his friends touched their hair. Rajiv realised that he could not do that, so he ran after his friend to touch her black hair!

Sometimes these updates leave me speechless. Who is this amazing kid that pretends to be my son?? But seriously, fancy Appu knowing the color of his own hair... or Appu playing an organized game, for that matters! I am soooo proud of him!

In the meantime, Rohan's main occupations are drinking liters of toxic pink stuff (antibiotics, they tell me) and trying to crawl. The latter is a source of great frustration for him. He can position himself on hands and knees, but then no matter how hard he tries he is unable to move forward. He rocks on his knees trying to jump forward and a couple of times he actually managed to swing his legs ahead between his arms, like a gymnast. I don't see a future for that technique, though.

Another small but important milestone: I am now carrying Rohan mostly on the hip, like a big boy! And I do carry him a lot, because he is often crying these days. Part of it may be the frustration from his failed crawling efforts, sometimes the floor might be too hard for him, who knows. He also has a cold and an almost healed ear infection, and a tummy surely bothered by all the medicines. And he is also teething, but you knew that already...

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.

Week twenty

(Am I counting right?)

Just because we are spending our days in a small badly lit flat watching Dora The Explorer all day, it doesn't mean the kids have stopped their growth. So here is the usual (bi-)weekly update.

Rohan is moving more and more and if I keep postponing writing about it soon I'll have to tell you that he is crawling! But not yet. He is trying to move forward, but he only manages to slide back farther and farther from the desired toy. He tries to push up his butt and then propel himself, like so,


but not much luck yet. He is however able to grab what he wants if given the chance. That has really just happened over the course of this trip, it is true that at this age in two weeks you might get a completely different baby. Look at him!




He has full workouts with frequent milk breaks and he is also trying to sit. He can sit for say one second, but he doesn't give up.



This is mostly a Rohan post, but I want to say something about Rajiv too. First, look at this picture:


When Appu saw it he saddened and said "he's crying", but actually our little hero was not crying at all when the picture was taken. He was saying "pasta!" with the attitude of a guy who is not going to wait one more minute for his food. And he is pointing at the plate, demanding to be fed.

But the proudest Appu moment was when I managed to teach him a very important physics lesson. There are in fact two kinds of magnets, even though they all look the same. Sometimes they attract and stick together ("tac!"), sometimes the repel. But if instead of screaming and smashing your toys on the floor you try both sides of a cart to see which one will stick, you might be able to make a train.

Firt time EVER

Yesterday my little owl fell asleep listening to a story. Just to give you an idea of how sick and generally subdued he has been. He woke up almost right away, but I still want it to be noted, for posterity, that the book was "Picnic con gli amici", a Mickey Mouse Clubhouse book just arrived in nonna's suitcase.

Tour Eiffel

For our first days in Paris we are keeping the evening for sightseeing, after S comes back from working with his collaborator Jan.

Yesterday we all went to meet Jan in the morning and then I left with the little ones to spend some time at a playground. Have I ever mentioned how much I love gated playgrounds, where you don't have to worry about the kids wondering off to the road? Ok, I am mentioning it now: go parcs parisiens!

After playing near a fountain for a while and leaning on the edge to retrieve some leaves from the water, Appu looked like he had been to war. He was also very tired, so we decided to head back to meet dad and we went towards the gate. There I attracted Appu's attention towards a "nice puppy" who immediately jumped on Appu and hit his hand with a paw. "Ouch" said Appu, looking very sad, and then we were on our way.

I am mentioning this incident because when we met dad Appu immediately said: "Cani, ouch" ("cani" is "dog"). It's the first time that he tells a story, he never before discussed something happened in the past like this. Mommy is very very impressed.

We had lunch with a few people at the institute and then Appu, Rohan and I went back to the flat where the kids enacted their personal version of "mom's hell". My ears are still whistling from two hours of screams and have I mentioned that I think Rohan is teething?

But. Dad came back around 5:30 and we went out. And it was cold and damp, but that's ok.



Note: this picture was only taken because Appu was falling asleep in the darkness of the Champ de Mars and I wanted to wake him up with the flash :)


Appu sinnging "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" looking up at the tower while we were in line for the tickets was the cutest thing!


Appu and Kunju, in their respective carriers, on our way up in the "choo choo" elevator (you have to see it understand why).


Appu wandering around on the Second Level. Is it just me or the slanted cap gives him a very French look?


Crepes on the go on the way home.

Amazing Appu (aka Rampant Rajiv)

Warning Warning -- Heavy bragging alert --

Time to talk about my favorite toddler!



He knows the whole alphabet and recognizes printed letters and numbers. Sometimes he mistakes an A for an H and stuff like that, but mostly he gets it right. He likes it when I write things for him, like his name, and he can distinguish MAMMA from APPU, because one has the M and the other has the P. He likes to read the number plates of the cars parked downstairs and he enjoys counting along with the display in the elevator as we go up and down. He doesn't quite get the counting backward thing when we go down, but thanks to the elevator he now knows that zero is a very important number, because that's where you go out to play :)

He likes to sing and in the last few months he has added quite a few tunes to his repertoire. My favorite though, is still the first song he learned before he was even two. This is his version of the lyrics of "row row row your boat":

ROW ROW ROW ROW ROW (this can keep going forever unless you stop him)... BOAT!
... STREAM!
MOMMY MOMMY MOMMY MOMMY
.... DREAM!

Other great interpretations include the alphabet song, "twinkle twinkle", "C is for Cookie", "giro giro tondo" and "CONNI" (aka "Unicorni"), the two latter in Italian and complete with accompanying dancing and signing.



He is speaking better and better. He can say things like "It's broken" (no comment), "I don't want taia!" (which means "I don't want mettiamo via", which means "I don't want to put this toy away"), "E' pronto" (which literary means "It is ready", but it is more used like subtle way to say "Why haven't you started making dinner yet?"). I think he understands that there are at least two languages in his life and he somehow also understands that weirdo who is his mom is somehow connected with one of them. He is very willing to switch from one language to the other when asked, and when nothing else works he just screams :)

He can say "Rohan is sweeping" (sleeping) and "Rohan is crying" in both English and Italian. With this he has his brother's range of activities more or less covered, but he is quite pleasantly surprised when Rohan deviates a little from his routine and plays with his cute little screams. I can't wait for Rohan to start crawling, then it's going to be wild around here! ;(



We no longer have major problems putting him to bed - with some exceptions of course, just to keep us on our toes - a long as "latto" (mamma's milk) is available. If I say "Rohan is crying" normally he lets go right away though, which makes his mom very proud of him. He is beginning to be a little confused about what other people call milk, like something in a carton, but he seemed fine with the explanation that that is cow's milk, as opposed to mamma's milk, and he found it hilarious.

When he is not asking again and again for the same cartoons on tv, he likes to do puzzles. He is getting so good at it, he can do 12 pieces puzzles almost by himself and we do together some 24 pieces puzzles, where he places most of the pieces himself with a bit of help (like "can you see the eyes of the cat, where do they go?"). I am so glad he is able to sit down and work on something for a little while, it kind of compensates for his usual tornado approach to life. It also shows once again that one shouldn't be too quick in placing labels on kids: the same child can be wildly adventurous and impulsive and calm and attentive too.

He is also learning to play with other children. He knows that is he takes something he should give it back and if someone gives him a ball he throws it towards someone instead of running away with it like he would have done a couple of months ago.

Unfortunately he sends a lot of time away from me, otherwise I would have many more things to tell, surely. Sometimes when I read the reports from daycare I can't help thinking that they are even more deluded than I am (he said "we'll see"?? please...), but maybe that is why I love them so much. I couldn't leave my little guy with anyone who didn't think he is an Indescribable Wonder!!

(quoting from "Chrysanthemum", a recent favorite: you have to watch the version read by Meryl Streep)

Week seventeen

The big news this week is that our little almost four month old baby has learned to roll from back to tummy. Yeah for Rohan!

Appu learned to roll at about the same age and this fundamental milestone opened up for him a new world of play and discovery. It also started our diaper change struggles, because our little guy could no longer bear to be on his back even for a second. The moment his shoulders touched a flat surface he would flip as if he had a spring under his butt. Our little Appu never seemed to do anything gradually - for example when he learned to crawl he was so taken with it that he would sometimes try to crawl over the pillow in his sleep at night.

Rohan instead, doesn't seem to be in a hurry. He slowly moves one leg across his body and then from there keeps reaching until he finds himself on his side and then keeps working on it until, to his own great shock, his tummy touches the floor. At that point most of the times he cries and looks as if he is wondering who did that to him. He doesn't roll often, only a few times a day, but he is getting used to it. He seems to be a little more cautious than his older brother and maybe a little less independent, in the sense that he prefers to look at someone's face and smile back rather than go exploring around (not that he can explore much yet :) ). All he really seems to want is somebody's company and attention.

Week five

One more week has gone by. Rohan's neck is getting stronger and so are his screams. He still doesn't care much for play, but he can now follow a moving object with his eyes so he is entertained by mobiles and S's juggling balls. We still haven't found a good pet name for him, so we just call him Rohan and his brother calls him "Roran". You would have to hear this to know how cute it is...

My mother arrived yesterday and she will stay with us until the middle of August, almost three weeks. I really hope that Appu can bond with her in this time, unfortunately he doesn't get to see her very often. He seems comfortable with her though and is already calling her "nonna".

Both kids are sleeping now and if I stay up to blog instead of going to bed I will deserve what I get... so goodnight!

Delusions

Questa mattina Rohan mi ha sorriso: lo stavo tirando su, lui ha guardato verso di me e ha fatto un grosso sorriso. :)

I think Rohan smiled at me today. I mean, it could have been just a coincidence, but all evidence points to the contrary. He was a bit uncomfortable so I went to pick him up and when I was lifting him he looked up, towards me, and exploded in a gigantic smile. So maybe he likes me...

Week three

We just came back from Rohan's three week appointment. The midwife said the jaundice seems to be almost gone and the weight is good: 9 lbs 2 oz, about 4.1 Kg. The little one is beginning to cry a little more, but we are not scared yet. Mostly he moans a lot, especially in his sleep, which is annoying but harmless. Today he lifted his head for a couple of seconds during tummy time and if that had not been exciting enough, he also sucked his fist (yes, the whole little fist) for the first time.




Appu is still being quite nice to him and he is being very patient about the constant noises that disturb his sleep in bed at night. In an unexpected twist, he has developed somewhat of an obsession for Rohan's socks. He tries every trick to convince us to put them on him. The words "too little" still don't ring a bell, I'm afraid.

Today it was the second day of Appu's music camp. We go for an hour in the morning to sing and make noise with a few other kids, then we have some coloring and some music listening and play to do at home. Rohan comes to class with us in the sling and so far he has slept through it all. I'm quite happy with the whole experience so far and Appu seems to enjoy it. He has fun with the musical instruments (today we got to use a really cool drum with beads inside) and he is very interactive. The only part he doesn't like is when everybody gets up to dance holding some colorful scarves. Somehow that scares him and I end up having to carry two kids in my arms, while waving the scarves around, so that is now also my least favorite part... :)