i thought i would skip it!

But then a monthly update is something I enjoy doing and it's so much fun to read later! Cubby turned 17 months aka 1 year and 5 months old on 20th of Dec 2008. We celebrated in style at Pune with a lovely dinner at a gorgeous place called Khaana, Peena, Jeena. My life's motto I say! :D But then this post is about Cubby and let me rack my brains about what's new!

You have started proving the adage that kids always do exact opposite of what their parents tell others. We kept telling your grandparents, what a pain you are to feed and you behaved like an angel the 10 days we spent with both sets making them wonder what the fuss is about?! Ofcos they struggled a couple of times and didn't think we were making up stories! Phew!

You are a constant chatterbox now. We still can't figure out most of it, but you are in what I call "parrot stage". You just wanna repeat whatever we say. Considering you picked up Oh Shit! when someone passing by said it, we better watch our tongue. You tried and almost succeeded in saying complicated words like zabardasti (zabardatti) and musibat (started as musitab and moved on to right pronouncation!). Your Mama who flew down from the US taugh you useless marathi words like Yedpat (silly) and Chamya (I dunno how to translate that!). Both Chashma and Camera were Camma till you said Camea today! :) You have learnt many many more words which i just can't remember and you are already trying to make sentences too! Oh yes, aeroplane is aeopaya and you refuse to call even helicopter anything but that. Among veggies, you love to say Bainga for Baingan! Meethi for homeopathic pills which we call meethi goli! :) You finally made your nana happy by saying Ajoba and you love the word so much that you chant it very often! Everone including Aaji (previous fav word) and mama are called Ajoba!

Trying to put socks on Daadu's feet!

Your power of association and sharp ears amaze me. In our area, a lady comes to collect the kachra (rubbish) everyday and she rings a traditional bell (the sort used in puja) to announce that she is there. We being on third floor don't hear it often and have requested her to ring the door bell also connected from ground floor. The moment you hear her regular ting ting bell, before she rings the door bell and we realise she is there, you start saying Kacchi! Kacchi! Same goes for dogs barking in some far corner and you going Bhoo! A stray cracker somewhere and you go Patti. That day you zapped us by saying Meethi when papa said he will give you some Chamomilla! You actually KNEW that it's your homeopathic medicine's name. When we change you, its standard that once pajama is through your legs, I say stand up to pull it up your bum. You say "stan up" on your own once step 1 is done! Awesome i say!

Step By Step! One step at a time!

You love climbing steps now. And you want to do it the grown up way by putting just one foot at a time on the step. When there is no support to get going on all fours! It's so cute to see you do that. Plus you also love to Jump down with our help. As soon as we say one, two, three... you say Jump! Or you say it even when you want us to help you do it.

I might know nose, but i still LOVE showing my Tummy! Sigh(from Mommy)!

You finally know some body parts! Yaaaayyyy! From showing your eyes, nose and ears on your head to being able to show other peoples nose to being able to figure out your own nose, it's all so much fun! You now know nose, ears, chin and hair perfectly. Cheeks and eyes are still found just about anywhere. You also insisted on raising your pajama and showing your knees when asked where is your Bum. You seem to have sorted that out (keyword being almost!) and get tad confused with finding your knees when they are not covered by full pants that you can raise! Hehe!

It has added sugar? Preservatives? Colours? Then give it to me!

You can ask for a few things now when you see them. So you managed to successfully flick the a pen from the lady at Kingfisher check-in counter by chanting Pen! Pen! till she gave it to you! You also ask for Paani when we are having some and Bikkite (biscuit) when we are having our chai. What would i give to hear you ask for normal food! :p

Trying to read in the cab on way from Pune to Mumbai!

You love your books alright. Everyday you hop into my lap saying Godi and pick up a book. Depending on your mood, you point to everything asked correctly to not even recognizing your fav cauu (cow)! Lot of times, you point to both the pages to show the said object making sure one of them is right anywayz! :p Like your mom, you never say no. So what if you don't know or won't do that thing later!

Hurry up you slow coaches! :p Dont miss the UCSB Tee Mama got from his college in US!

You LOVE walking. We can make you walk for long time and you are happy to oblige. Once you are tired, you will refuse to move and thats our cue to pick you up. Wide and open spaces drive you nuts and your happiness is infectious when you start almost running all over the place. This time in Mumbai, you walked at Gateway and Colaba. You also entered a mall looking place on your own whim and mommy got a great bargain on some stoles out there! Following you has its own benefits! :D

You have started showing signs of throwing tantrums. You now can shed tears within seconds of being told no. You sit down without bending your knees when offended. Thats our way of knowing you are angry with something even if you don't cry! You throw things too often for our liking, but pick them up once told firmly or if we offer to help.

You have suddenly developed a bit of stranger anxiety. That doesn't mean you cry as soon as you see someone new, but you don't always go to people with smile as easily as you used to. But then again, it all depends! You also cling a LOT MORE to us and i guess it because you understand that we are not around all the time. Ofcos there are other times when we have been asked if you go to a playschool because they find you verry social for your age.

Showing his "Dhaaga" tied during the Vaastu-Shanti Puja in Pune.

You now point to your chest, when asked Cubby kidhar hai and follow it up with Idha hai! You can almost say Cubby Jain when asked to repeat.

You keep chanting either Mummy or Papa depending on who isn't there in your immediate vicinity! And the crying when we go to the loo continues.

Trying to play Foo-Ba like older kids in the terrace where his Mommy used to play!

You love mimicking us and try and do things we are doing. If your Papa is exercising at home, you try to copy him and even attempt spot jogging! :p Plus, you KNOW you are being cute and follow the copycat act with that fake smile of yours!

You can finally give a hug!! Well, almost and not always. Mommy tells you "give me a Huggie" about 1000 times and you might just oblige twice. But the feeling is incredible!!! You bend forward with your l'il arms outstretched and mouthing Uggie and give the best hugs ever!

All the people who met you this time around and gifted you toys, but saw you playing with bartans instead, have sworn to just buy you vessels rather than expensive toys! While you chucked Elley the adorable stuffed elephant and ignored the gorgeous wooden car, you were thrilled to see the kadhai rotate for endless amount of time!

You love Dhakkans (lids/caps) also known as Dhanka in Cubby speak. You love to close lids of everything in sight. Bottles and dabbas. We manage to shove a few spoonfuls of food with the help of those Dhankas. As you concentrate to get it right, we get the spoon in your mouth! When not that, you cannot even wait till we finish having paani and keep chanting Dhanka till the bottle is given to you.

You have a funny quirk where the sound Su is pronounced as Foo. So while see-saw is see-sa and sargam is sadgam, su-su is foo-foo, soup is fooppa and Suhas is foohas. Add to that Coffee is Cosee! Really weird!

How can we NOT be crazy about someone as adorable as you are?! :)

There are lot of things you do, which I cannot even describe with mere words! They have to be seen to be believed and appreciated. Your little reactions, nuances of doing things that you keep picking up, the smile that cannot let you get anyone upset with you for over 5mins, the cute gait with which you walk and the words you keep learning and repeating are a joy that I could have never imagined possible!

Rock on, Dude! :)

Love you mostest! Belated Happy 17th to ya!

just a quickie

to say that we are enjoying our vacations at both the grand parents' homes!

Dada-Daadi are done enjoying Cubby's company in Pune and we are now in Mumbai at Nana-Nani's for a few days starting today! and its been quite a ride!! :)

hope to see you on this side of the year itself!

hope all you guys having fun and have made some super plans for new year!

cheers!

move over MFH!

So, Smita tagged me to this fun thing! Ofcos, me being, technologically handicapped me, came up with pretty dumb questions till I figured out yeh MS Paint ka khel hai. You remember that programme?! We used it when we got our first computer sometime in 90's! The only thing computer was used for was to play Solitaire and PC Man, followed with Tetris in later stages and MS Paint. We were actually PROUD of our creations! Sheesh! Considering how bad I am even now, I can't even begin to imagine our efforts then!

Anyhoo, this is what the tag is about. -

You must use all the five words given to you by your tagger and draw pictures using paint or GIMP or any other photo editing tool.-

Each picture must be self explanatory when you relate it to the given word.

Each word MUST have at least one picture attributed to it.

None of these pictures should be copyrighted. By this I mean that you have to draw them yourself.

After you finish the tag, which will take quite some time; you need to pass it on to other people with a fresh set of 5 words.

I am doing a slight twist! Am going to try and add OUR non-copy right pictures along with my AHEM... creations! ;)

My words were Garden, Kebabs, Grin, Hair, Words

I hope the garden is KINDA obvious! And that's us at gorgeous Cubbon Park!!

Oh well! I Love Kebabs! Thats me (even in the "drawing") fat and satisfied afta having yummylicious kebabs at Barbeque Nation. Empty skewers are a mute testimony! :p

In Jain Parivaar there is no dearth of toothy smiles and grins! There Cubby doing his bit!







Errrr... Hair! Yeah thats what it is! Different hairstyles! And that's us giving Cubby his first haircut! Quite a momentous occassion! We feel like hair stylists n all! ;)






Words are now small ones, mostly! :) And thats ABC in Cubby's room. Not that we teach him any! Just to add some colour! :p



Hope you guys didn't fall off the chair seeing my artwork! ;)

Now the tough job of tagging others! That too come up with my own words!

I tag you peoples,

Puja - books, home, cooking, baby, friends
Mampi - teacher, shopping, movies, police, god
SnS - love, travel, dreams, celebration, food

Ok! I can't think of any more words. So, anyone else who is game, just go ahead and do it! I had a lot of fun! And aur kuch nahi toh mujhe sabko hassaane ka punya milega! ;)

of coming out and awards...

You know how everyone is a closet poet, and there is a reason, some, like me, should STAY in the closet! We scribble silly rhymes once in a while or just sing them and forget about them! But sometimes, we actually dare pen them down and mail them to friends as birthday wishes! And then copy it to the husband, who find this more than a year and a half old mail and resends it to me!

So what better to do than put it here and laugh at oneself! :) And ofcos let you guys have a good one too!


My favourite one though is one I used to sing for Cubby when he was really tiny and you know how they have ugly, green l'il butt?! I used to say


Puttt Puttt Puttt Puttt Puttt
On you little green butt
It is the little and it is the green,
It is your butt on which i do Puttt Puttt!


Ok! Dont run away, already! Just one more and the torture is over! I promise!

Arre O! itika (I was trying to cheer her up for some reason!)
You must read and learn from tales of jaataka
At times life is about getting coffee with cream,
At times it is about a few broken dreams


But let nothing keep you down
Its must easier to smile than frown
Uneasy lies the head that wears ghum ka crown
The point is to swim back and not drown

What would it be, our life?
Without a few joys and a few strifes!
Just keep chin up forever
Things will turn out just super!

I cant think of rhyming any further
My imagination is at the end of its tethers!
Hope it brought some cheer
Keep rocking Iti Dear! :P


Plus there is an award to acknowledge. Thanks a ton Monika for The Proximity Award. The blogosphere has been wonderful to me and the number of friends made is just amazing. So many I haven't even met as yet, but I know when we do, there won't be a trace of awkwardness! :)



This award is given to a blog that invests and believes in PROXIMITY - nearness in space, time and relationships! These blogs are exceedingly charming. These kind bloggers aim to find and be friends. They are not interested in prizes or self-aggrandizement. Our hope is that when the ribbons of these prizes are cut, even more friendships are propagated. Please give more attention to these writers! Deliver this award to eight bloggers who must choose eight more and include this cleverly-written text into the body of their award.


I pass this on to SnS, Dee, Monika, Mampi, Mamma Mia, Sue, Suma, JaM, Devaki, Puja and Chandni.


(I know I have added more people, but agar mera bass chale toh list will be endless! So please to excuse! Take a bow ladies!;)

dabba gul!

I was going to write a post about how Cubby came into his current Ganju (bald) avtaar, but when we went for lunch today, noticed a guy opening his dabba to have khaana, and all of us wondered when was the last time we carried a lunch box!

Since I moved to Bangalore, post shaadi, I almost never took dabba simply because I would have to cook some lunch to carry. It is just too much effort! Ek baar kar lete hai wahi bahot hai! Of cos when I was in Mumbai for my delivery, I used to carry lunch to work everyday. One, it meant, healthy food and more importantly MOM was cooking it! :D

I remember in my primary school, we had two breaks. One a sorta mini snack break and second a lunch break. The snack dabba would obviously get over very quickly! :p By the time we moved on to secondary school (thats 5th std onwards), there was just one break around lunch hour. By now, we also had groups and certain friends would have lunch together. WE would open our dabbas and hope that the other person had something nicer (read chatapata and unhealthy!). Worst would be if multiple people got same subzi, esp if it was something dull like cabbage.

My mom made fresh lunch before going to work. It was unwaveringly chapati and subzi. Add to that I was a picky eater. I could count subzis I like on fingers rather than the ones I didn't like. The only silver lining was my mom is a good cook, so even sad veggies tasted nice unlike some food some of my otha friends got.

Pav-bhaji held a special place in our heart. Pav-bhaji was lunch meant it was made the previous day for dinner at some pal's place. The mom's would always make extra for next day! The person who got it would take one pav BEFORE opening the bhaji dabba, to ensure he/she gets something at least! The scene after opening the dabba wasn't a lot better than all brothers eating like uncivilised animals in Satte Pe Satta! :p

I remember buddy G who used to eat ONLY alu subzi and that too made only in a particular fashion. She used to get it at least 4 days a week. The other two days was egg sandwiches which incidentally were very yummy. Her mom used to send a whole dabbaful and we would still finish it all.

V was me thinks the only north Indian in the group. The achaar she got was always in demand and so were the parathas! :)

Once I dropped my lunch box and so didn't eat it. That gave my wicked brain an idea. If i didn't like something , I would tell mom dabba gir gaya and the food she had so painstakingly prepared would be go in the dustbin. Of cos this didn't last for too long. One day she said show me the gira hua khaana and realised I hadn't even opened the dabba and was lying through my teeth! :(

Now when I cook and someone doesn't like/eat it, I feel so bad. Now I know how much effort it takes to put a fresh and complete meal on the table. Now I know how irritating it is when you ask someone what do you feel like eating and the person says "Anything! Kuch bhi chalega". Now I know what it feels like when food you have taken effort for gets thrown in to the dustbin.

After getting married to the totally non-fussy eater M, I have started eating almost all veggies without a complain. We make them l'il more chatpata (northie style) to make it interesting. Trust me, lauki paneer is MUCH nicer than the bland Marathi style doodhi chi bhaji! My bro who swore he will never eat lauki (snake gourd) didn't even realise he was eating it at our place! :p

When we started working, someone or the other would order one extra thing from the canteen to add a little spice! Now toh only dinner is made at home and M cooks half of it and me the rest and I have to concede M is a much better cook!

Mom, this post is for you! Thank you for making healthy and tasty food for us everyday! Now when I struggle to make different breakfast everyday, I can't help but look back how you made so many different kinds and we still made faces when you made upma once in a while! Or the time we tried to "improvise" the food you made! Sorry! We were little silly and young! :) And when you ask me even today what do you wanna eat, I will still say "Kaahi hee"!

Some things never change! Love ya mom!

P.s dreading the day I have to pack lunch for Cubby!

PPS - Whats in your lunch box today?! :)

and life goes on... if only a little lightheaded!

We decided to run away from all the depressing news for sometime. Started with watching Oye Lucky, Lucky Oye on Saturday night. Excellent movie and Abhay Deol, like always, doesn't disappoint.

Didn't do photo post in a long time. Yesterday when I spoke to Papa, he insisted I do one pronto. I thought why not?! It's these innocent smiles that will hopefully bring us a better tomorrow.

This one is for you, Papa. Kabir's hair-raising story! :D

Was born with a decent mop of hair! That's what apparently gave mommy the horrid reflux!

The hair seemed quite straightforward to start with!

Perhaps a little wavy?

Till the curls started showing up bit by bit!

Before you knew it I had a curly top!

Curls that mingled into each other!

Sometimes turned into ghungralee latein too!

Everyone said my curls were absolutely adorable!

Till they became too wild to be cute!

Mom-dad went ahead and gave me a haircut!

And i looked cute even without them, curls!

The waves seemed to be getting back!

Are those fresh beginnings of curls, yet again?

Till THIS happened!

Mommy! Where has my hair gone?!

What did you say? It will grow back? Curly too?

Okie! In that case, Mogambo khush hua! :D

So, that's all new bald Cubby for you! Of course I think he looks lot cuter with hair, but apparently this helps better hair growth in future and anything for Cubby to not suffer from thin hair syndrome his mommy suffers from!

HERE's his video after the loss of hair. It's amazing how kids can express everything without saying a word! :D

Yeh sab, kab, kyon aur kaise hai, batayenge next post mein!

tab tak, padhte rahiye - Mama-mia!

not the kinda century I imagined!

Last evening we got out of the house clueless, hoping to have dinner and catch a movie. A friend called and movie got scrapped and we had a nice dinner instead. Got home by11, put Cubby to sleep and went off to sleep too to be woken up at 5am to a cat entering our house through the bathroom window. After we had shooed it away, I looked at my phone to see the time and my phone read 1 new message.

I read "heard about terrible attacks in Mumbai, trust everyone at home is ok." I showed it to M and he checked his phone to see similar sms from Papa. Since we don't have cable TV at home, we logged on to the internet and came across the goriest images and worst news we have read in a very long time.

Yet another terror attack on Mumbai. Not some bomb-blasts orchestrated by some militant group but actual people blazing guns in some of the biggest establishments and most popular areas and haunts in Mumbai.

After a long time, I cried reading the news and seeing the images. I have lived in Mumbai and seen the first blasts that rocked the city and over a period of time just got numbed in acceptance of the situation. The way shit happens, bomb-blasts and floods happen. WE laughed and sang our way home through waist deep water till even the water decided to kill.

And yet we kept saluting the spirit of Mumbaikar. What choice does he/she have but to go on living. Even my mother matter of factly said trains are running and she may go to work and we told her nothing doing. Stay put at home. But thats how we are now.

Yet this time, it's sending chills down my spine. Holding people hostages, indiscriminate shooting and killing of people by some who look 16years old and should be in school...

It's been over 12hrs and the situation is yet to come under control. Brave police officers and innocent civilans are still dying and I don't think I want to watch it live on TV. Relaity TV was NOT meant to be this, was it?!

This is not the time to come up with blanket generalizations and simplistic solutions like wiping out a race as a solution to these constant attacks.

Let us keep the faith in humanity. Like M said in his comment in my previous post "But overall, I guess it is better to trust and love in these belligerent times than to suspect everyone. Aage, sabki apni kismat..."

I cannot help but agree with him. I don't mean be careless and don't be vigilant, but please dont let your prejudices stop you from reaching the best in you.

This is my 100th post and I had requested M to do a guest post, but this isn't the time for it.

Instead I am linking his Brilliant post here. Maybe he can write the 101st for me.

Please pray for safety of the hostages and pray for the city that once never slept because there was so much camarderie and friendship around...

Dostana - real and reel

Last week just flew!

Firstly, I didn't go to work on Monday because of slight temperature and bad cold. So that anyway made work week shorter and that improves my mood totally! :p

One of the days Chandni of Chandu Land had posted about being in Bangalore and I just left a comment asking will we see her in when she is here. And one fine day I see a mail from her in my inbox saying "Do you wanna catch up?" and I couldn't say anything but "Of course".

Many missed calls later, Monika decided to co-ordinate the whole plan and thank you so much for that girl! :) We kept changing the time and place till we finally settled down on doing dinner at Indi Joe, a very nice continental khaana place near old airport.

This was the first time I was taking Cubby without M who had couple of con-calls scheduled that day and had to take a 6am flight the next. To expect him to chaperon us was totally unreasonable. I managed to get us a driver and off we were.

Picked up Chandni and her lovely buddy P from their hotel. The conversation started pretty much immediately with standard what do you do and where do you live with regular and lotsa attention being showered on Cubby. True to his style, he made friends with Chandni only on getting chocolate from her.

We got a bit caught in traffic and Monika was already there by the time we reached. Another round of hi's and hello's followed and we settled down to chat our hearts away! :) The three ladies ordered Long Island Iced Tea, while your truly said cheers with a glass of water and had soup post that to nurse her bad throat.

Cubby after getting bored of being told don't touch this and that, walked off and went on to make friends with everyone who would care to give him a second look. Being a weekday, the restaurant wasn't too full and waiters not too busy and someone or the other kept entertaining him. Sometimes I would find him sitting on the bar, at another he was chatting up with a l'il baby in her pram. He was totally playing to the gallery and putting his best foot forward and best smile ready to be seen.

While he was busy, we also ordered some yummy and fattening starters and kept talking about this and that. The topics mostly revolved around husbands and babies and jobs and families and it went on non-stop. No one went on for a second drink and we ordered our khaana and spoke with our mouths full! :)

By now Cubby had started getting sleepy and restless and after sharing our bill I decided to take a leave, while Chandu and P had plans to meet some other friends and Monika had to drive back home to her l'il guy Ojas. Of cos Cubby left the resto with a gorgeous flower from a fellow diner who was watching Cubby prance all over the place and came to tell us that he is just about the cutest and happiest baby she had seen! Touchwood! She actually ripped open her bouquet and pulled out the flower he liked! :)

All in all, lot of fun was had and no one would believe that we were meeting for the first time! Chandni asked if she was the way we imagined her to be, and I said its too much effort to imagine and am happy she is nice n cool in asli life! :) And so is Monika whom I hope to see again in near future since we are in the same city.

Saturday, plans to meet Swati and family finally worked out. Hubby A, Aryan and Swati made it to our place Sat evening for chai and it was so much fun. I made / fried some burnt snacks (I have a feeling Swati will NEVER accept a dinner invitation from me!) and we sat, ate, talked and tried to keep kids from either loving or hating each other too much.

Cubby obviously wanted to have EVERY toy Aryan touched and is still alien to concept of sharing. Plus Cubby had a bit of fever too making him cry at the drop of the hat. But by the end of the evening they had almost made friends when it was time to leave. Thanks for that cute Duckie, Swati! :D

Who would have thought blog world will give so many new friendships that don't seem NEW at all but leave you feeling comfortable and happy?! :)

Sunday noon was lunch with bro-in-law (the birthday boy) and sis-in-law sans the kids. We went to Silver Metro. The buffet was quite nice except the dessert counter which was not all that happening. We stuffed ourselves and kept chattering non-stop. Came home satisfied and happy with the way the afternoon had turned out.

Last night went to watch Dostana and had a rollicking good time. The movie is fun and totally politically incorrect! So if you are looking for some "classic" cinema, give it a skip. But if you just wanna laugh at the double entendres, enjoy Abhishek's excellent comic timing, smoking HOT John Abraham and sexy Priyanka Chopra doing their bit for Dostana, I suggest go for it. I laughed hard, drooled over John, cheered for Abhishek and danced to the songs!! :D And i don't care if that makes my taste crass! :p

Ofcos a terribly weird thing happened while at the movie. We were sitting outside, waiting to be let in the hall. A guy came and tried talking to Cubby. Now the kid rarely instantly dislikes people enough to not even smile at them. The guy didn't look very respectable, but we try not to judge and thought Cubby was just sleepy.

There was another woman and a man with this guy and in a few minutes the woman picked Cubby up and they were trying to play with him. They were in our line of vision constantly and Cubby looked markedly uncomfy. We went to take him as the movie was about to start and then took our seats in the movie hall. The theatre is perennially empty and these people sat behind us.

The girl tapped on my shoulder and said "Aunty, bacche ko mere paas de do." I said no thank you, he will sleep now. She said he can sleep in her godi and I can watch the movie. By now, I was terribly suspicious and said that wont be necessary.

What seriously freaked me out was the fact that these people just walked out and disappeared within 5mins of our conversation. I am now quite sure that they were the kind of people who steal kids and I just thanked my stars that I didn't worry about me being judgemental and trusted Cubby's and my instinct.

But the whole incident was very scary and the only bad part of the week that was othawise filled with fun and friendship - real and reel variety!

How was your week?

Cheers!

sweet sixteen is an understatement!

And so Cubby turns 16months! Whow! 1 year and 4 months is how young he is now. For once I am going to try and do the post on time. There are no pictures this time, simply because I don't remember clicking too many plus I forgot to mail them to my id! Hey! Don't go away without reading the post though. I promise I will put just the pictures next!! :p


This month hasn't been one with too many new things happening, (I eat my words after reading the whole post!) but improvement in everything that was achieved last month EXCEPT the eating bit ofcos. You still miraculously turn into a devil at meal times. One day at a time, one meal at a time! :)


You baby talk is now full of stories and conversation most of which errr... we still don't understand. But you seem to be talking in earnest and always saying something terribly important! You do love trying to repeat words that we say though you understanding them is not mandatory. So new words are Green peas (geeen ppeee!), bicycle (bycica), penguin (pengi), pumpkin (punki), coconut tree (cocona tee), sun (sunn), bucket (buckke), biscuit (bikki), balloon (baoon), chocolate (chokki), cream (cemme) and so many more that I can't even recollect now and its all totally cute! Plus we love the way you put so much emphasize on your words and look at us for approval with that killer smile of yours.

We have made liittttle progress in body-parts. You now show your tongue many times when asked once. I guess you just KNOW its funny to see your mommy stick it out and then encourage you to do the same. You show your teeth too and lets not forget the stomach (tumma in Cubby speak!). You insist on raising our clothes and pointing to our tumma and then showing yours in return! You did that to a little girl in the park and it was so embarrassing! :D Ofcos nose, ears, eyes etc... everything is on top of your head. You know you will look funny if you had your nose up there.

You are learning everything so fast. Till last month you were handing over our phones to us. Mommy has now achieved new levels of indulging in child labour. You know how to put bartans in the sink. So after we have nashta, we give one plate to you and tell you "Jao. Sink mein daalke aao". You walk cutely and drop the plate with a clang! :D The flip side is you also put lot of clean bartans for the heck of it! :p

You have also learnt to put your dirty clothes in the bucket designated for it. When we say lets put the clothes in the red bucket you totter along carrying you clothes and put them in the buckke! I am very very impressed! :)


You also keep toys in the toy box when asked to. We say put your fire engine in the box, you do it, put your penguin and that goes in next and eventually you put the rest in without being asked to one by one.

You have started enjoying the see-saw and slides at park a lot more now. You seem to be getting more and more comfy on the slides esp and are letting yourself go and enjoying the ride down! :) Swings still aren't big favourites, but whats the rush?! Wish we could take you to the park more often though.

You retention power is absolutely amazing. You have to be told something just coupla times and you will remember it. Be it some name of the toy or something in your book. You point out to sun, pussycat, juice, candle, cow, house, fish, birds, clouds, flowers and so much other stuff. You may not always relate to it in another place, but baby, you are ready to perform! :p

You have been developing strong associations too. You hear a bomb going off and you say Patti (patakas) and look outside because that's where you saw and heard the pattis. Say coconut tree and you look out of the balcony and point. Say moon and you look for sky. It is all very fascinating.

You understand little games now. If mommy is mimicking your actions, you have a naughty smile on your face and you keep doing new things for us to copy. If you are walking funny and we do the same, your action continues with bigger gusto! The expression on your face during these times is totally priceless. How can one kid be SO cute?! :)


Your kisses are kinda cute. Because you are used to seeing us tell you "Give me a kiss" with our finger pointing to our cheek, you also touch that spot with your finger and say Kisss! Hehe! You have now figured out the kissing sound and pucker your lips adorably! :D I could crush you in a bear hug at those times.


You have started dancing! :D Ofcos your taste in music is as ghaati as your parents and its dhinchaak Hindi numbers that get you grooving. From just moving your hands in air, at times you move your feet too. It's more like a left right motion, but it's one step ahead. Literally and figuratively! :)


Having dinner at restaurants is not as easy as it used to be anymore. You want to climb on the table, pull things, walk all over the place and generally be a menace. It's still not at a stage where we have to stop going out completely and we hope things will look up!


You have become major nautanki. Your fake crying has to be seen to be believed! Lips quivering, tears streaming, volume going up... it almost always melts your papa's heart, but mommy is made of sterner stuff! :p


You want more godi than you have ever wanted in your life! You want us to pick you up all the time and it can get a tad tiring at times. But hopefully you will grow out of it one of these days.


You are learning to climb the steps. The funny thing is you are trying to do it the way we do. On rare occasions you climb with all fours, but most other times you hold the railing with one hand and our hand with other and climb like grown ups do. All in good time sweets.


We have started seeing signs of tantrums too. Things being thrown, banged, hitting us at times and it's not very pleasant. But apparently all kids go through this and we are very firm when we tell you no hitting or throwing things and you seem to understand.

How could I forget how much you love to close doors. Especially the fridge. Everytime we open the fridge, you come running to shut the door which you usually do without touching anything in the fridge and wait for us to say Good job! We also say thank you everytime you help us and you say it back. Thankoo in Cubby speak.


All in all it's been an exciting month. While physical milestones are now kinda stable, the leaps your mind is taking makes you change a little more everyday. Mostly in a nice sorta way.


Plus all the wickedly sweet things you have started doing, I just cannot capture them with my words.


Be the way you are, a nice, helpful, friendly l'il dude and we will work on the rest!


Love you SO much! :)


MmmmmmuuuaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaH!

kyunki paper bhi kabhi ped tha!

Just saw another pile of wasted paper on our office printer, prompting me to write this post, which I anyway have been wanting to for some time now.

When email came along, we all not only marveled at the speed with which communication could happen (heck M and me used to send each other 5 looong emails a day at the peak of our pataoing season), but also about the fact that we could now dream of having paperless office.

The files would now be on the computer and you won't have to wonder if you need the box variety or the slim one. Imagine the amount of space it could free up. Imagine the number of trees that could be saved by saving all the paper. We were all happily hoping, weren't we?

Then we realised computers can crash, all the data can get wiped-out, even the back-up can get corrupt and if not termites, virus could eat into out virtual files.

Next, we were filing print-outs of emails and the files are in back in action along with our shortly under-worked printers.

I completely understand the need to have hard copies of records which cannot be left to the vagaries of virtual nature. Heck, even I have 15 different files with faxes and prints of emails that I couldn't "avoid" printing.

But there are things we can do to avoid misuse of paper, especially in office environment. (I doubt lot of us waste lot of paper at home, considering its OUR money we are spending!).

Many times I see just one column of an excel sheet thats printed on one page rendering it useless to the guy who has printed it. The original sheet which is now one column/row less and the other which has one row too many. It makes me so mad to see it. A simple thing to do is to do a print preview before you print and format it so that it fits into one page! I mean that cannot be very difficult, can it?! Sometimes, you just have to change the setting from portrait to landscape and Voila! Computer is a little bit magic! :p

To be even more proactive, please check formatting of your files before sending them across to someone. Just assume that the other person won't take the effort to save paper and take the initiative.

Similar stuff for emails. As a normal netiquette, please check if the mail you are sending isn't a long chain mail with information that DOES NOT need to reach the final recipient. Delete the portion that is NOT relevant before sending the mail. If that hasn't been done by the sender, just make sure you as a recipient check it out before hitting Ctrl+P. A lot of times, the second page will just have the address of the sender. If the main content looks like it will fit in one page click on page 1 of 1 and print.

Check if you can reuse some of the paper. I am so anal about this thing that I actually check for some stupid printing (I find plenty of it) and use it in our fax machine. The fax gets printed on the clean side and a piece of paper that would ordinarily have got wasted gets sorta recycled or at least reused.

Instead of using new and fancy note pads, just ask the house keeping to tear up the waste paper into neat rectangles and staple them to use as note pads which you can use for your simple calculations / to note down phone nos etc in office.

If you have given a print have courtesy to PICK up prints from the printer even if it means hauling your ass 30metres from the cube. We anyway don't get any exercise. It is plain rude to leave piles of paper and making others hunt for their pages in your mess.

Use right sized envelopes to courier your stuff. It's OK to fold your claim into three folds and put it into a regular sized envelope than use a A4 size one because you don't wanna crumple the paper. I mean seriously, as long as you have filled out the form right, they will pass the claim, crumpled or not!

Use tissue paper with care. Whats with using 5 tissues to just dry your hands. If you don't want to use your hanky, use the tissue wisely. Please pull them out carefully too. No one uses the ones that fall around the basin and get wet at the edges even though they are not dirty or unusable.

Don't use paper to mop up things at home esp in your kitchen. Use cloth as much as possible. The way we used to in good old days before paper became fashionable.

But most of all THINK before you print. Print ONLY when you NEED to. Check and format BEFORE hitting the print button. Format documents right when you are the sender. Try to reuse and recycle the paper as much as you can.

We have been consistently screwing the natural balance of earth for a long time and it could soon be too late to make amends. So one step at a time, one paper at a time and perhaps one tree at a time. And if a lot of us do it, we could soon be saving a whole forest! Ok! A small patch of green, hopefully?! :)

And me, I am trying to work up the gumption to say "Wake up guys! Stop wasting SO much paper!"

The word "gumption" taken from Tharini's blog! Check the post out and make your own sentence! I had fun doing it!

And yes remember the title, Kyunki paper bhi kabhi ped tha.

kuch random yaadein! :)

There are a lot of things running in my head, but I am too bored to think them through logically and put them down here! So like my previous few posts am trying to keep random, yet special memories alive here!

I did this post on my failure at doing this "Surprriisse!" bit successfully. It would always end up being a pseudo surprise. But this one time, I did manage it and M was completely stumped.

This was coupla years ago, when M had come back from Thailand after a work related trip. He got back really late in the night and slept like a log. I woke up at the usual time and was tiptoeing around the house so that I don't disturb him. (Ofcos he is am sure direct descendant of Kumbhakrana and would need a lot more to wake him up!). But then my mom is a terribly light sleeper and old habits die hard. Anyhoo. I digress.

As I was looking around his samaan, I saw a duty free bag and HAD to check what goodies it carried. I found lotsa dark chocolates (the ONLY ones I like and eat) and some Ferrero Rocher. I don't know what came over me, and this is what I did!

Love isn't just blind, it's yummy! :p

The creation!!

The artist! ;)

And the man's reaction when he saw it after waking up all bleary eyed and muddled brains? "Who said you could open the chocolates? What if we had to gift it to someone?!"

Thank god he has helped me get a real sense of humour and I just burst out laughing! Plus I know he isn't very good with getting surprised either. Ofcos, he later made up for it and dont ask me how! ;)

And here's pictures of a trip I had completely forgotten about when i stumbled upon old photos recently. We went to one of you friends' farmhouse... a gang of mad people and had lotsa fun. We both were a many kgs lighter (or so we would like to believe) and coupla years younger.

Bright and bushy tailed!

We stayed up late, lit a bonfire, sang and danced to dhinchak bollywood numbers, played dumb charades, chatted about everything under the sun, almost froze to death at night as we tried to share meagre resources available in terms of chaddar and daris and generally chilled out! :)

I just like this picture! Don't ask me why!

Bright and what had you said?! :)

After night of masti the calm lake put everyone in contemplative mood

Till the fun mood set in again!

I skipped the corny Titanic pose!

Am looking forward to the weekend now!! :)

Cheerios!

Fatherhood and M!

The Mad Momma did this gorgeous post on Making of the father telling us about OA's journey into fatherhood. It got me thinking about M as a father and so this post.

Proud Papa at the hospital

M is someone who is born to be a father, me thinks. He always got along famously with kids. Even now, he is comfortable playing it rough with kids every age than have same old conversation about recession and mutual funds with adults. The kids of course adore him and often forget that he isn't really their age.

Yeah! That's M under all those kids!!

To give you an example, one of M's biggest fans is his college friend's kiddo who is now about 5 years old. It happened a few year ago, we were supposed to go for a picnic together. His mom had told him there will be water fall there etc and that M and me would be accompanying them. He told his baby sitter all that and then spoke about M and me (he call us by name) with so much familiarity that the kind lady asked the friend in the evening "Are M and Abha's parents going to come to take care of them, or will you have to take care of them also!"

I always remember this incident and laugh. And it didn't stop there. Another time, we were supposed to watch Happy Feet with them. So the kiddo sweetly asked his mum "The way you are taking me for the movie, Abha is bringing M?!" Least I was proven to be an adult! :p

Managing smiles at some unearthly hour long after Mommy gave up!

Yet, M would always worry if he would be the same with his own kid. He would say "yaar kisi doosre ke bacche ko ek-dp ghnata entertain karna theek hai, par poora din! baap re!"

He would stay up with me every night till Cubby slept (which was very late for first few weeks), egg Cubby on to feed properly and trying to make me smile while I shed my breastfeeding tears and suffered post partum depression.

How can someone's hand be so small and soft?

And, I must say he is doing an awesome job. He is actually better with Cubby than I am. a Lot more patient and sensitive to his needs. There was a time when I was actually jealous of their bond leading to terrible fights between us. The poor guy could not believe that I can resent his love for OUR baby. But then that was another era, now that I look back.

On Cubby's first dinner out just after his naamkaran

Look! He is smiling at me! :)

And now he is laughing WITH me! :D

Champi! Tel Maalish! Are you laughing AT me?!

Today, I am happy to just see them together. M can't bear to see him cry while I mercilessly stand and let him bawl his heart out. I think we unconsciously keep playing "Good cop, bad cop" for all you know.

Happiest with my Papa!

Cubby's eyes light up when he sees his Papa, which incidentally was also his first word. M really knows how to make him smile and laugh. He comes up with new games and fun things to do. He is adept at all the standard baby stuff like changing clothes, diapers, cleaning potty, putting him to sleep, feeding etc. He gives him his dawaais on time and generally saves him when the mother threatens to whack his beloved Cubby.

Main tab bhi Papa ke haath se khaata tha!


Main abhi bhi Papa ki plate se khaata hoon!


A for Amitabh, B for Bacchan, C for Coolie...

You have to see it to believe the dedication with which they watch TV together! :p Cubby will take food only from Papa's plate because Mommy is the bad woman who gives him dull khichdi.

CubbyR is also the creative Papa's imagination and we quite like it! :D

You are SO cute that I could eat you up! With Ketchup!

So just when I thought I cannot love this man more for being such a perfect husband, he goes on turns out to be an even better father! :)

M did just this MUST read ONE Papa Post on his blog. I am thinking maybe he would have said this if he had uploaded these pics and done a daddy post! Hint M! You can do SUCH a good job of it. Till then, tell me have I said it right with pictures below?! :)

I pray to God for your good health and success

I will comfort you when you need me...

I will always stand behind you...

And carry you when you are tired to go on... on your own

I will help you discover new worlds...

I will share my can of juice with you

And say cheers over a glass of beer when you grow up

WooHoo! WE rock together!

With nice things said, how about not rolling over to my side of the bed?

Or worse, make ME your bed!

Thank you sweets for making this journey a lot more fun, by being there all the time and doing everything just right! You rock, pati M! :)

On a side note if you have 4 long minutes, check out THIS video. Total dhamaal and too cute for words!