Thursday, March 20, 2008

baby olympics! :D

we as humans just cant stop being competitive! and we dont even leave our little babies out of it. babycenter.com which is the website we registered on sends is weekly updates. it was in last weeks updates that i read the term "Baby Olympics". now all mother are even more enthu in knowing if their baby is doing better than the others. mine has started standing, what does yours do! look at those cute teeth, tumhaare abhi tak nahi aaye?" "how come he also isnt walking, he is older by six days naah?" aarrrgghh!

all babies move and reach their milestones at their own pace. as long as your baby is making movement of some kind and the doc says he is doing good, please dont take on forced heartburn. i have heard of friends whose first kid rolled over at only 8 months and the younger one is moving on his side at one month! and the first one is doing just fine now! :) you think when he / she is giving interview to beome VP of some company or even trying to get their first job they will ask when did you start walking? or talking? :)

so do not fret about how fast the other kid is doing things or dont boast if your kid is faster. as proud parents we can hardly avoid talking about what our l'il star's latest performance is. and sharing your baby's milestones is fun as long as you dont get into the comparision act! :)

today Kabir turned 8months and as cliched as it sounds time indeed flies!! :)
(will talk about his milestones soon!! hehe!)

happy birthdate my sweetheart!

may you grow stronger... mind and body and have even happier times ahead!

love ya! : )

Wednesday, March 19, 2008

Humpty Bumpty had a great fall!!

Bumpy had his pet name come even truer today when he decided to explore the floor right from the edge of the bed! Yup! he fell headlong and with a bang! i had gone away for a minute attempting to barricade with many pillows and gol takiyas! But Kabir Jain decides to push away the softest pillow and jump down.
of course i was scared stiff!! he bawled his heart out for a few minutes and then thankfully got distracted by other things. he seemed all ok and was gurgling and hollering like his usual self soon enough. :) gave him homeopathic dawaai called Arnica Mont at hubby's behest!
we have started sleeping on the floor in any case. its not just fear of him falling, but even a 6 x 6 bed seems small when you have a twisting and turning baby between you. after a nights sleep it still feels like you have gotten off the wrong side of the bed!
and he really MOVES in his sleep now! i dont remember the last time i saw him sleeping straight on his back! he mostly sleeps sideways or on tummy with his hands a legs curled or stretched at weird angles. he still wakes up with a smile and it sunshine raised to N when he does that! :)
now no leaving him alone even for a minute on the bed! i dont think theres any kid including us who has grown up without doing the falling thing! :)
soon you will be able to judge the distance and know what can hurt you my sweets! :)
love ya!

Tuesday, March 18, 2008

loooonng hiatus!

logged in here after ages and realised its been two months since my last post! i keep telling myself i will be more regular but somehow it just never happens! But this time i hope to keep my own promise! :)

in two months Kabir has become cutest baby around. i know all babies are, par apna baccha... hehe! i am terribly proud and so so happy to have him! he is an absolute sweetheart and his smile is to die for! will put up pictures soon! when i look at him now, i wonder how on the earth did we find this newly born expressionless pink ball of flesh of all things, cute??!! :) since he has turned four months (is almost 8 months now) every day with him has been a revelation! a new sound, a new expression, his smiles of recognition and his laugh with gurgling sounds... all of it is just sheer magic.

when i reach home after day's work (hard or otherwise), his welcome smile makes the world look like the most perfect place to be in! :)

may god bless him with every happiness and success. amen! :)
love ya lots kabir! you are a darling!

Wednesday, January 9, 2008

what's in a name??

i think this is one of the most used line and all of us have used it at some time or the other!

but when it comes to naming our baby, we all just go crazy! especially these days when every parent is in a scramble for a "unique" name! Internet websites are a big hit (no pun intended)! some still buy books and go through pages and pages of it! and then ofcourse out here, since we do no sex determination we have to find lovely names for both genders.

in our case we had LOADS of girl names and very few boy names. And then ofcourse Cubby happened and we were like, yaar ladke ke baarein mein seriously socha hi nahi tha! we kept on going in circles about what should it be! we had come down to 3 or 4 names which were Ishaan, Nishad, Aarav and Kabir! and ofcourse every name was said with surname to see if it had a good impact! hehe!

Finally after so much thinking we decided on Kabir! :) we got usual questions like "but isnt it a muslim name??" and "wont he face racism in future?" and all thta jazz! and we kept saying no one knows of what cast Kabir was! He is known as Sant kabir, inarguably a hindu thing! and even if it is a Muslim name we really don't care! he was one of the greatest men around and we like it! and then it was finalised! :)

so Bumpy aka Cubby aka CubbyR is officially known as Kabir Jain. we had a traditional "barase" (marathi naamkaran ceremony") ! there were some 150 odd people whom we invited and who turned up. you can imagine the noise in the small hall. and what does Kabir do? he sleeps through the entire ceremony and post that! i mean people said make sure you remember to take the baby when you leave the hall! hehe!

ofcourse though we had thought of the name six months before, by the time we anoounced it, Chak De! India had released! and woe! i was asked upmteen times "are you a SRK fan??!!" aaaaaaaaaaaaaaargghhh! the fact that i almost cannot stand SRK just made ir worse!

But then i really dont care if it a common name or not! both of us just loved the name and couldnt imagine Bumpy being called anything else!

welcome Kabir! :)

Friday, January 4, 2008

what everyone has to say!

i had put my previous post as a review of Wipro Diapers on a website called Mouthshut.com and here are some comments i got which shows how all babies at one level are just the same! :)

->> Can you believe it that I do carry one or two spare Diapers in my dash board as well as one at office too as dunno when wifey is going to walk in the office.

still remember when my kiddo used to wear those triangular nappies (not so long ago) and right like you our bedroom terrace as well as kitchen terrace was full of Jhandi’s as my wifey used to call it.

->> I have probably by now bought no less than 10,000 diapers and still counting. I know the entire Engineering of diapers. Like,

-How to check whether there’s potty while the baby is running around.
-How to pack a diaper with a potty in a neat manner.
- How to repair a diaper.
Did you notice, babies always pee when the diaper is just taken off?
Have used them all- little junior is now comfortable with pampers and he has a habit of tearing off his diapers, so tough diapers last at least 3 hrs :)
I remember the shock when we first bought Huggies 8 years back- 14 bucks a piece and we had to use min 4 a day !! Good that we now have this huge 50’s pack and the price is as low as 4-5 bucks.
Otherwise kisika potty save hua to kisika nikla :D

Also, sniffing diapers from a distance without physically checking it, is an art . Like sniffing fine wine. The smell must linger on, so that you can identify.....whether its fresh or vintage :) :)

->> I wonder if all the babies do it the same way as mine does it all the time the moment we start for dinner or lunch - bang on time - almost every time.

Second as long as she is on the back seat - it never happens - but the moment she steps on the drivers seat that too only the day she is not wearing a diaper - she pee’s on it - why ?

The night - u dont put on a diaper - she will sleep in such a way that the next day morning you will have a wet pillow and not the mattress. Thanking god that these days we have washable pillows.

->> yes, i think these chaps have a Kids Union up there in Stork Country. because all kids, unfailingly for the past 30 years (my mom says i used to too), poo as soon as ma-pa sit for dinner and pee as soon as diaper/nappy is taken off.

and they whine as soon as you drift into first stage of sleep.

and they puke as soon as you finish changing their T-shirt

and they feel hungry just a few seconds before you step out for the evening’s plans

and they smile as soon as you get back home from work---- ah, that’s what makes it all worth it!

(this whole comment from kids union to here is Daddy O's.)

->> Thankfully our baby has outgrown her diapers...she just completed potty training, which of course included a prolonged (2 years) session of sitting on assorted newspapers and magazines. I did notice her marked preference for the Economic Times and also found that TOI gave her a nasty temper......:D

Parenting shows you really what being ’flooded by warmth’ means.....

->> I love kids when they r just fresh from bath, well fed and not feeling sleepy :) :)

->> Ah the bane of child rearing - the poo’s the pee’s, the nightwatch, the moodiness. If kids werent so cute, they would wind up in the dustbin.

Been there , done that, and in the paleolithic era when my girl was born, there were NO DISPOSABLE NAPPIES.

We had plastic katchies that we slipped over the regular cottan diaper.. horrible they were - necessary evil. We slept on the surgical plastic sheets and slithered about in misery. We carried tiny plastic potties whereever we went, in case the child wanted to ’go’. HORRORS !! But I survived !!

Am alive and love my children nevertheless.. and they love me.

->> i was baby-sitting for a friend and ofcos the baby had to poop and never having changed a diaper before i was hopelessly lost (i think i also put the poor girl’s diaper on ulta) ... anyway, was halfway through changing when i heard the door and thought thankfully parents have come, my tortures over. anyway, baby’s dad walks in, sees what i’m doing and runs away to the other room to get away from the smell ... so much for him being a godsend, shouldnt he have been used to it by then ????

->> But was reminded of an interesting reason that my friend gives for the use of diapers :) She says it serves like a ’’cushion seat’’ whenever the baby trips and falls as soon as he starts walking :) Also, prevents him from su-su ing the carpeted floors :)

Now this is a looong post and a copy paste job from my comments section! :)

most of the detailed comments belong to fathers who have done their share of diaper duty and really know the entire thing inside out! i am impressed, heartened and they gave me a serious complex too! :p

most mothers just heaved a sigh of relief saying their diaper days are over! i guess they didnt even want to relive the memories!

guess they do still change a lot more diapers!

but warm welcome to new age daddies who are doing their bit of Dirty Job of another kind!

god bless them! :)

cheers!

Thursday, January 3, 2008

diaper diaries!

well heres something i just put up at another place where i write! after this i will add the comments i got on the review!! am sure it will make for a fun read!! meanwhile here it is! :D

Minding Pee difficult Qyon?

The moment you know you are going to have a baby, even the most logical and cynical person starts dreaming and trying to imagine what will he / she be like. We think of the looks, the cute smile, the way your finger will be held tight in tiny fist with little fingers and you are already dreaming about walking holding that little hand which trusts only you. And among all these rosy dreams one of us says “Par susu - potty kaun saaf karte baithega?”

Suddenly the daddy goes Ewwww showing disgust with his facial expressions and the sound. The Mommy tries to put up a brave front and says “Come on! It’s our baby!” But in her heart she too is going Ewwwwww!

Soon the D-day does arrive! 3 days in the hospital the nurses are taking care of most of the things and you haven’t had a chance to check if its your baby only ki kahi exchange hoke opposite gender aa gaya! But then before we know we are changing nappies by the dozen per hour and it seemed like a never ending task.

Mayunk was of course still dreaming about a potty trained child who could take care of not just his emotions but also the motions! He wanted as ready-to-use baby with minimum hassles! Blame the quick-fix culture. Well I would be lying if I didn’t think it was indeed a pleasant dream. But like the French say, “Avec un si, on peut mettre Rome en bouteille” translated for pauvre people who don’t understand French as “With an IF, one can put Rome in a bottle!”

Then comes the rainy season (in Bangalore it lasts till December) and your house starts resembling a breeding ground for nappies (you seriously think they are multiplying by themselves!). Every possible surface is covered with white, yellow, pink, blue and other coloured pieces of cloth with fan moving at full speed! Then comes the moment you thought never will. THREE DOZEN nappies are in different states of wetness and poor Cubby ki laaj rakhne ke liye kuch nahi and he is now affectionately called Su-Su Boy!

Then we decide it’s time for to use the last resort! Out we rush on our bike to buy some (no no! not more nappies!) Wipro Babysoft Diapers! (Phew! So that’s what the review is about!)

Wipro is a fairly new entrant in baby care products and has tough competition to face from old timers like Johnson and Johnson, Huggies and Pampers. I tried using other two diaper brands for my baccha, but Huggies gave him a rash. Pampers has the silliest made diapers. Though it was no rash for CubbyR, the stick on tape that holds the diaper is made of an extremely hard material with sharp edges. So sometimes those tapes end up cutting baby’s inner thigh.

Wipro Babysoft Diapers on the other hand do really have cloth feel as they claim in their ads and the stick on tapes are like you cellophane tape which stick easily and don’t hurt the child. The fit is extremely comfortable (or so I think, since Kabir has never protested) and has a good soaking capacity. I have rarely had a leak unless Cubby has had too much liquid or it is too cold! ;)

Like all other diapers, it is available in 4 different sizes of Small, Medium, Large and Extra Large. They have different colours for every size which makes it stand out in all the green colour diaper packs. Their costing is the same as the other players with a small diaper being 10bucks a piece.

Wipro diapers are still not available commonly with all chemists (at least in Bangalore), but most of the bigger departmental stores / super markets stock them and finding them should not be very difficult.

Of course every child is different (AND special as TZP says!:) and what suits one may not suit another. So if you want to try Wipro, make sure you buy a small pack first and see if its suits your baby, since diapers don’t come cheap!

Apart from that nothing matches the comfort of a cloth nappy! So if you aren’t too busy or tired its best to let your baby’s skin breathe in a comfy cotton nappy. Diapers are best to be used when you are going out with the baby and at night so that your little angel’s sleep doesn’t get disturbed ‘coz of the wet feeling. Upside is your sleep doesn’t get disturbed either! Hehe!

All in all I think Wipro is a brand that can be trusted. They also have something called Wipro Babysoft Nappy Pads which are like pads that need to be stuck on the nappy which can be used for short times out or even during the day giving more comfort than a diaper. It does tend to leak because of its structure, but won’t soak through for least few hours.

I haven’t tried other products like powder and soap, not because I don’t want to, but I have been gifted with enough supply of J n J to last my darling Cubby for a year at least!

So now you know what NOT to get if you come to see us?! :p

Happy New Year to All of You! May you have a year that you have always dreamt of! :)

Our dream is potty trained CubbyR!

Wednesday, December 26, 2007

it's official now!

am back after a loooong hiatus! well am back in office which means internet access without having to beg hubby for his laptop @ home!

i know! i know! you are wondering what kind of a mother IS she?? she hasnt mentioned seperation pangs at all and is harping on about getting 8hrs of non-stop internet access!

well! ofcourse i AM worried! i am scared and anxious! i have always said that sitting at home isnt an option for me, not because i have a great career going, but simply because i enjoy my time out in the sun (even if its seen only from office window) and that little money i earn makes me feel a lot better! :)

today is day one and daddy o has sweetly agreed to work from home to make sure i am not in tears and feeling miserable! :D i am sure its a matter of time when i will get comfortable with the idea of leaving our 5month old Kabir with his favourite Rajamma. everytime i worry too much, i look back on my childhood! my mom was always working and my brother and me turned out just fine! or so i would like to believe! so CubbyR (his daddy's creation) will do super too!

amen!

on the other hand i feel oddly misplaced in my office! the fact that my place and system has been given away doesnt make it easier! i feel as if its my day one in new work place! soon i will get back into the familar groove and it will be asif i had never gone away!

so whoever is reading this... just say a little prayer for us! :)