Interesting Quote

A baby will make love stronger, days shorter, nights longer,  home happier, clothes dirty, the past forgotten, and the future worth living for

10th Month Update

Well a lot has changed since my last post, Pranav had his first serious fever about 3 weeks back, it lasted for about a week. It was a very agonising experience for us, as for any parent. Since it's quite difficult to see your infant in pain. But even when he was running fever he used to be mostly active. We managed to find a decent pedatrician in this new city we have shifted to. Fortunately he beleieve in not giving too many medicines to kids. So whenever his fever touched 100degress C we used to start sponging. Only if it goes beyond 101 or touches 102 we were asked to give medicine, fortunately it worked find for us.

The saddest part of the fever week was Pranav completely stopped taking any food except for mother's milk and warm water.

Fortunately that phase is now over,  now-a-days he crawls and crawls real fast on his knees, he climbs up on anything he finds approachable, plays with the TV remote, cell phone, pull down lot of things from the rack etc etc.

On his pronounciation he has started saying "Amma" very clearly. Now-a-days i am making every possible effort to make him say "Accha" though still no luck ;-) (jealous father u see).

On his food habits, they are quite diverse and extreme disparity is there, certains he eats decently certains he doesn't take much. We have tried kora, banana ( big and the small one), rice with curd (made into paste), idli, etc.

The Immitator

                        Pranav until his 8^th month was more of an observer but now he seems to have become an imitator as well. He not only observers our actions but has started imitating some of them. Say for eg: his grand dad keeps singing a song to him where in he actions by closing and opening his fist. Pranav has got a clue or two from there on and keeps closing and opening his fist each time that song is sung J.

Further if he doesn’t want something or have had enough of it he will keep nodding his head towards left and right so as to say no, in a way in which grown up adults do..

Eighth Month

                        Kannan ( aka Pranav) is into his eight month now and ofcourse as expected he has shown some considerable changes in his behavior and pattern. The first of them ofcourse that he smiles quite a bit now. He interestingly has some criteria's in his mind when it comes to smiling at people who are not known to him. He doesn't oblige all strangers with a piece of his smile :-)

In terms of physical changes he rolls over pretty fast now.... moves across the entire bed and with some help and at times with no help, manages to sit over. Infact now a days he sits and manages to play a bit with some the toys he has.

While in his earlier months he used to go with anybody without any hassle or crying, but now-a-days when it comes to people not familiar to him he is really choosy as to with whom he wants to go. Even if a stranger lifts him he would observe the person for few seconds and break into tears incase he doesn't want to be with him/her.

But ofcourse he is really fond of his mother, no matter what happens doesn't leave a chance to be in his mom's arms. Even if she goes by without looking at him, he starts making all kinds of noises.

By the way we started trying different kind of food on him, though he is mostly fond of Ragi, we have tried dal rice, curd rice, big banana, some boiled vegetables, apple etc. The latest suggestion from a  pediatrician was to try the navadhanya mix, which supposedly has a mix of a balance diet for an infant.

Seventh month

                                            Pranav is almost about to finish his seventh month. There have been quite a few changes in him. He has started recognizing most of us much better. At moments when his mother isn't around he keeps looking for her and the moment she lifts him he is all fine and starts giggling.

He doesn't say much of "accha accha" now a days unlike in the 6 month :-(. 

But he has started crawling on his stomach while on the bed. And he has already started attempting to walk on his knees, but i guess he is still few weeks away before he does that comfortably.

Well the most important thing is that he has started taking other food apart from mother's milk. He seems to like Ragi ( in paste form) quite a bit, further we have been giving him Banana and having him taste some others fruits as well.

Choru unna

Kannan's choru unna went well. Our original plan was to reach Guruvayoor on 1st August for 2nd of August function. Interestingly on 1st August evening it was declared that 2nd of August would be a political strike.

It kind of worked in our favour because owing to the strike there was relatively lesser crowd in Guruvayoor. We had his choru unna around 9:00 a.m. There was Payasam, rice, paripu, pappadam, and few other things served on the Banana leaf.

During the function lot of kids and parents where made to sit in a line and perform the ritual so there was a fair deal of crowd gathering around us. Which kind of annoyed kannan, though he stood thru the ceremony, but  immediately after  that as know as we took him aside for a photo shoot he became quite irritated because of so many people around and so much noise. Eventually we decided to bring him outside the temple and the moment we came out and he got a fresh breeze, he dozed off immediately .

Also since Rakshabandan was on 2ndof August, Kannan had his first rakhi tied on this day, Sonu ( aka Vedika), my brother's daughter had sent across the Rakhi by post well inadvance, such a sweet gesture :-)

6th Month Update

Phewwww.. time is just flying by really quickly .. It's been 6 month's since you (Kannan aka Pranav )came to this world. Well there has been drastic changes in you over these 6 months.

Now you recognise all of us to a great extent. Earlier you used to be wary of our neighbour (Mami in tamil) and used to start crying at the very site of her, but now you have kind of got used to  her, though you are still not very comfortable in her company.

You have started imitating some of our acts. Whenever we are eating you have a constant gaze on our plates, which makes us feel sorry :-( since we have not yet started giving anything else to you but mother's milk. Well but the change is soon to happen. Next week we are going to Guruvayoor for your choru onnu, once that's done you can not only have your gaze on our plates but also get a share of what we are having.

Now-a-days you have developed a pattern where in almost always you need to be rocked to fall asleep. And you like most other toddlers like roaming outside and your achachan ensures that you get a peep outside every once in a while.

Week's update

Last week Pranav had his first colic pain experience ( atleast that's what we thought it was). He was absolutely inconsolable no matter what we did, the usual Dhapli sound, songs, swaddling, swinging nothing worked. He even refused to be breastfed. All of us were absolutely petrified since this was the first time we saw him in such discomfort.

Eventually as last option we gave him colicaid. Considering how uncomfortable he was, it wasn't easy to feed him the medicine either. But eventually we managed to gave him the medicine and about after 15 mins he started to feed again, and eventually slept off.

Though Pranav in recent times had got used a sleep pattern where in sleeps at around 10:30 and sleeps thru the night, inbetween wakes up twice or so, just to be fed a bit and sleeps off again. But yesterday he was in an altogether different mood. Yesterday night he had all plans to test our patience. He went without sleep until 3 :15 in the morning. Fortunately he wasn't crying much but he wasn't accepting to sleep either.He was in a kind of a playful mood. But unfortunately neither of me or my wife were obliging :-). Infact until 3:!5 yesterday night when he eventually slept there were bouts wherein both me and my wife lost our cool. Can't blame her she was really tired yesterday and she was trying to feed her continuously thinking he is hungry and that's why he isn't sleeping.

But i am glad eventually we were able to put him to sleep. Hopefully our patience levels have gone up a bit, probably a plus point of being a new parent :-)

Musical Interests

At this very young age Pranav seems to have a liking for music..

anytime if he happens to cry incessantly we pick up a Dhapli and make some sound and all of a sudden he becomes very attentive, trying to listen to the sound.. at times he even seems to forget that he was crying.. :-)

Updates ..3rd march 2012

It's been three weeks that I have stayed away from Pranav (Yes that's right, that's what we have named him). This is the longest that I have stayed away from him since his birth.

Anyhow, today he had third shot of vaccinations. My wife was telling me probably this time unlike the earlier ones he felt pain and cried quite a bit :-(.. Now a days the vaccinations list is like a hotel's tariff card, there are certain number of vaccinations to be taken, among those for some of there are multiple varieties, one of them which causes fever and the other that doesn't. Obviously it comes at price.

By the way Pranav's going to take his first flight this weekend. Goshhhh.... retrospectively I took my first flight at the age of hmm.. I guess 23 and he is taking while he is 2 months old:-).. For the curious ones we did a lot of research on whether it's safe to take an infant via flight.. Overall the findings were on a positive note. Though almost all of them advised to feed the baby while take off and landing..

Home remedy for your kid

here's a quick tip, incase you happen to observe that your kid is not passing stool for some days. Then a home remedy that you could use is to: Get some fresh oranges, peel them off and make its juice. Strain the juice out to make sure there are no particles in the juice and only liquid. Give the baby a few drops. This should help the baby in passing stool. As per the pedatrician this should be done only when the kid has not passed stool for a day or two and not regularly.

P.S. this worked for us, but do consult your pedatrician before trying.

Well Finally the d day came. 16th feb we were blessed with a sweet little baby boy:-). Though it was no exactly on the planned date but thanks to God things just fell in place. And here I was holding the little one in my arms. Quite an ecstatic feeling.

A sense of responsibility also seeps in from that moment onwards. Well in jist i could say that the intial few days aren't the easiest ones. As in certainly the kid doesn't trouble you much but then you need to ensure that the kids get fed every 3 to 4 hours. Which in turn implies a disturbed sleep cycle for the new mother. Then ofcourse there are those frequent nappy changes that ones needs to handle. And the moment the baby relieves itself it's hungry again. So as of now this is the cycle which he is following.

We have seen some drastic swings in his sleep cycle in the last 17 days, so i am quite sure it's not yet stabilized.

As anywhere else in India as well great care is taken for post delivery recovery of mother. The place where we were in there's this nursing homeVasudeva Vilasam which provides Ayurvedic medicines as well as a nurse, who would come across to your place make the mother and the kid bath.

P.S.: the date was 16th of February 2012. This post was in the draft hence published late.

1 month old

Pranav is now about a a month and a half old and we could already see visible changes in him. While for the initial 3 to 4 weeks the only thing he knew was to cry and to sleep, now things have changed. At times he is willing to just stay awake, while somebody else talks to him and keeps him engaged. His gaze is slightly more stable now, i guess he is able to see us.
And ofcourse he has started making different kinds of sounds, guess that his own sweet way of talking, and at times he tries or rather pretends to try :-) to listen to what we are talking to him. His sleep patterns have improved but still not stabilized completely.

Eight Month's back: When this all begun

We were about a year and few months into our marriage and going by the Indian tradition i could already hear the murmur at family gatherings where in they would check as to when we are planning to grow our families.

Well for us since Chennai wasn't familiar city, that meant we needed to do extensive research before wechoose a gynecologist or a hospital. But today when I look now at it retrospectively we got it wrong the first time. We kind of relied heavily on online search about hospitals and doctors. But then i think the best thing to do was to get an opinion from friends or colleagues who already gone thru this.

But it was special a real special feeling when i first came to know that we were expecting a new member. I was the one who collected the confirmation reports from the lab and bought it to my wife. I still remember she waiting anxiously while sitting at the chair and looking over to see the expression on my face. Even before I broke the news just from my smile she guesses the result. I had never seen such a sweet smile on her face before :-).That subsequent night we went out for dinner and celebrated the same ..

What this Blog's About

Well I have another blog on items pertaining to everything except my personal life. This particular blog I intend to post my experiences with our first Pregnancy and beyond.

Well in about 3 weeks time we are expecting our first kid. Quite obviously the excitement and anxiety is immense. When I tried googling to see if there are any good blogs which could give some tips for a first time parents, well i found some, but they were mostly experiences of people who are not native Indians. Not that these are not useful but then owing to our culture and traditions the experience of bringing up a Kid in an Indian set-up, i think is quite different from a western owing to various reasons. So I thought I will give it a try to start this blog which i might use to share my experiences about parenthood, the mistakes i do and probably the good experiences or learning I have.