The First Tooth

Our little baby N just cut his first tooth and for once I was correct about all the signs ! He has been drooling, biting, fussing a little and getting up randomly at night. So finally yesterday I spotted a white spot and had daddy and grandma confirm before getting really excited about it.

I am sure the drooling days and sleepless nights will continue for a while, but seeing that first pearly white was a lovely surprise ! I am now looking forward to his next milestone (will it be crawling or will it be starting solids ?).

YAY for the first tooth !

Our Little Teacher - Part 2

I was spending a relaxing morning with R doing his favorite doodling activity. I was doing Make-A-Match game with him on the doodle board. I listed down 4 colors on the left side of the board and 4 animals on the right side and I asked him to make a match. The colors were (Yellow, Brown, Grey and Red) and on the other side I had (Elephant, Duck, Elmo and Bear). R looked at the board for a minute and then asked me what "Grey" was. He looked at it and said "Green?". I think he thought Mommy made a mistake. So I told him it was the color "Grey". There was a pause and some deep thinking and then "Mommy, this should be an 'a' ". I asked him to spell the word for me and he said "Gray". I was taken by surprise and got a little confused about the spelling myself. So I called daddy and asked him and he was not sure too. R insisted that it was Gray so we ended up googling the word. Turns out "Grey" and "Gray" are both correct. "Grey" is the British version and "Gray" is the American. We were both right in our own ways :). R was beaming with pride when we told him he was right !

I am getting very nervous about doing these activities with him :).

Our Little Teacher

Recently, we have been deliberately making mistakes so that R can correct us. It started as a way to make him talk. We noticed that he would respond better when he knew we were wrong. A good way to make him read a page would be by saying "Spot bakes an apple" instead of "Spot bakes a cake". He would literally jump and say "No Mommy, Thats Spot bakes a cake". Occasionally we also get the "C'mon Mommy you can do better" looks as well :).

On one such occasion he surprised daddy. Daddy was trying to get him ready in the morning and R was just not co-operating. So Daddy said "Is there a T in sleep". He looked at Daddy and said "T makes the "Teh" sound. There is no Teh sound in sleep. There is a Teh sound in STOP. Then he spelled out S-T-O-P. And then went on to spell out sleep "S-L-E-E-P'. I am sure he gave the "See, wasn't that easy" expression to Daddy.

Cute/Funny Phrases by R

R has been talking a lot lately. Here are some cute/funny phrases he has been using. All we can do is sit and laugh rather than get angry at him.

At 10:00 pm in the night:
How could you be so tired Daddy ?

Monday morning blues:
It is too hot today - no kindercare (his daycare)

On Daddy asking R: What rhymes with apple?
Keep trying daddy, you will get it !

On praising him for doing something nice.
Want to give me a hug?

The First Rollover

Our baby N rolled over for the first time last weekend at 16 weeks. He likes it so much that he has already mastered it and starts rolling over the moment you lay him down on a flat surface. The poor chap had been trying for the past 2-3 weeks but wasn't able to remove his hand completely. Then finally on a bright Saturday morning he did it and we only saw it after the feat was complete :). He is now trying to push himself forward and gets frustrated when he doesn't move at all. We have been explaining to him that crawling is months away and there is absolutely no hurry ! His life will be easy if only he could understand us.

I am now back at work and can only hope that I don't miss his next milestone.

Father's Day Celebration

Up until now I never did anything special on Father's day. However, since this year was special for us (R turned 3 and we got our little bundle of joy N) I thought it would be fun to do something and maybe even start a tradition. I ended up buying a hallmark voice recordable card after watching their TV commercial. I then spent a good 30 minutes trying to get R to say something nice. It was a fun-filled 30 minutes as he kept saying silly things to hear his own voice. I wanted to get him to simply say "I love you daddy". We ended up recording "I love you daddy, Good job Mommy ". For some reason he couldn't stop saying "Good job, Mommy". I thought it would be funny for daddy to hear that as well. I even managed to get R to write "Daddy" and sign his name on the insides of the card. In addition to the card I got a personalized frame saying 'You are the best Dad" with R and N's names embossed on it. On Father's day I made R give the gift bag to daddy and say
"Happy Father's Day !".

This year was also additionally special for me as my dad was spending time with us. We ended up spending the day in Napa valley where both the dad's did some wine tasting. All-in-all it was a memorable day and marked a good start to a tradition.

N gets angry !

For the past couple of days we noticed our baby N (who is almost 3 months now) getting angry ! Today in the morning grandma was putting him to sleep on her lap and she happened to sneeze. N was caught by surprise and he started crying loudly. I took him and managed to get him to stop crying. He, however, seemed to be pretty mad with her. He would start crying the moment he would see her. It was so funny to see his expressions change on seeing her. It took him a nap to forget what had happened. I guess we are going to see more such incidents in the coming days.

R gets potty trained !

I thought I would never get to say this ! Up until last week we did not really try very much with R. We decided to not even try until N turns 2 months. Last week we kept him at home and did pretty much a bootcamp with him. The first 3 days it looked like it would take us months to get him anywhere :). The fourth day however things changed completely and by the end of the week he was done with his diapers. It almost seems too good to be true !

Truth be said I had been looking forward to this milestone. I was hoping we wouldn't be in a phase where we would have to change the diapers of 2 kids :). Anyways, all said and done, R did a great job and I have never been so proud of him.

R Bloopers : Episode 2

Standup Comedian

The other day R and I were reading One fish two fish red fish blue fish by dr. seuss. After reading a few pages we came across Old fish and New fish. R immediately said "Old Fish - Grandpa, New fish - Baby N". After saying that he started rolling with laughter and I couldn't help but simply join-in the madness. When he finally stopped laughing he said "I am funny, Mommy" :) !

Food Choices

Since I am at home now I have been trying new things for R. He has mostly been receptive about the different food choices. However, the other day we gave him some green lentils with tomatoes. He looked at it and said "Mommy, this looks terrible". For a minute I didn't realize what happened or rather didn't want to acknowledge that he said that :). So I asked him what happened and he repeated "Mommy, this looks terrible." I was really amused and just tried to control my laughter.

R Bloopers : Episode 1

Are you happy, Mommy ?

Today I had a very interesting conversation with R. We have been potty training R this week. I had been tired because of our numerous bathroom trips. R sensed something was wrong and during one of our trips asked me: "Are you happy, Mommy ?". I was a little surprised at the question and just responded "No, I am not happy". I figured he was just saying one of the phrases that he picked up at the daycare. However, he immediately said "Please don't be sad, Mommy. Please don't be sad, Mommy. I will do my poo-poo and pee-pee on the potty, Mommy. Please be happy, Mommy". My heart melted and I just gave him a hug. He cheered up immediately and declared "Mommy is happy !". The conversation was enough to take me through the rest of the day :). It is truely amazing at how kids sense and pick up these things.

The First Smile

Last week was a special week for me. Our little baby N started smiling. He has been smiling randomly since the first couple of weeks. However, since last week he started smiling when I would come near him and talk to him. He also smiles when I whistle and of course when his favorite grandma takes him and chats with him. Things have suddenly become fun - we now look forward to N staying awake and playing with him. We are now looking forward to his other milestones !

Caillou

R's current favorite TV show is Caillou. The book Caillou: My Room was his favorite for some time. Due to this the TV show was an instant hit and has helped him weather his anxiety crisis in the last month.

After looking at the show I wondered why Caillou was bald. Turns out Caillou also means "bald head". Wikipedia answers this: The original storybook character of Caillou was much younger than the television character, and like many very young children, had no hair.

R has now started calling our baby N "Little Caillou". N doesn't have that much hair and wears a cap mostly which makes him look very bald :). Lets see how long this Caillou mania lasts ...

R visits the dentist

Today I took R for his first dental check-up. He was not having any problems but I thought it would be a good idea to get his teeth checked-up now that he has turned 3. The visit was not a pleasant one and eventually the doctor just ended up counting his teeth ;). We had to skip the cleaning part completely ! Turns out this is completely normal and the doctors also don't want to force as the kids may get traumatized - where were these doctors when I was growing up ?.

It was good to know that all his 20 teeth are doing fine. The doctor was really nice and I was happy with my selection. Although R might not agree with me as he refused the "prize" at the end of the check-up.

R Turns Three !

Yesterday our little R turned 3 ! It seems like just yesterday that we got him from the hospital. It is amazing how time flies. R will be going to preschool this Fall and we keep asking ourselves if he is "ready" for preschool - I guess for us he will always remain our little baby.

Some favorites from this year:

Favorite TV show:
World Word (although his latest favorite is Caillou ;)

Favorite Food:
South Indian Food (looks like this one has no contender)

Favorite Family Member:
Daddy (This was definitely a year of DADDY)

Favorite Toy:
Laptop (Toy and Real !)

Favorite Book:
Mommy's ABC Book followed by Bob Books and Dr Seuss "Hop on Pop"

Favorite Nursery Rhyme:
Wheels on the Bus

Big Brother

Our little boy R recently became a big brother. Our baby N arrived end of last month and brought with him a lot of anxiety for R. First few weeks were a little tough - he chose to ignore the baby which was fine with us. He is doing much better now although there are a lot of tantrums these days. We are seeing a completely different side of him and it is a little sad to see him react sometimes. We are hoping that this will end soon (although in our minds we have resigned to the fact that things will take a couple of months to normalize).

Summer Camps in Bay Area

Although R is still too small for summer camps I thought this might be useful for other parents out there. The following is a very comprehensive list of summer camps in the bay area.

Click here to access the list.

Childcare Resource in Bay Area

I recently came across this group: childcare_ca@yahoogroups.com. This mailing list is for silicon valley and surrounding area families to post their queries and reviews on bay area daycare's, refer nannies that their own kids have outgrown and a forum to post their questions on child care options. The group is pretty good and I hope to use it to find a nanny for our second baby who is due soon.

The Hair Cut

Yesterday R had his first tear-free painless haircut. After 2 years of bad half done haircuts - this one definitely goes in his list of milestones. He started off with reluctance but managed to sit on the chair alone after a little bit of persuasion and comments like "You are going to look cute after the haircut" and the famous "You will get a lollipop". I also managed to take a few of his favorite books which were easy for him to hold and that took care of the rest of the haircut. It was interesting to see his reactions while looking at himself in the mirror - he was almost making sure the hair stylist was doing her job ! All-in-all we had a successful haircut and we all ended up coming out happy and satisfied :). I am keeping my fingers crossed and just hoping that the trend continues ....

Word Search

A couple of weeks back I found this site where you could make your own word search games. R had liked the concept in general - although the ones that we came across in books were a little difficult for him and he quickly lost interest.

The Word Search Maker Tool allows you to add your own words, select the grid size and of course the font. I printed a couple of these with his favorite words and with large font and he had a lot of fun spotting the words. He has got pretty good with this now. The following is a sample of a simple word search. Try it out when you get a chance !

Book Recommendations: 0 to 12 months

Here are some book recommendations based on feedback mostly from friends and some from R :).

1. Snappy Sounds Vroom !: R loved these books. We got 2 of the books in this series and it was the easiest way to make him giggle !
   
2. Where is Baby's Belly Button?: This is part of the Lift and Flap Book Series. Many of the books by Karen Katz are very nice. R tore away most of the popup flaps but still loves to read them.
   
3. Quack Quack
4. Bear Snores On
5. Baby Number Cruncher Teether Book
6. Home Sweet Home
7. Tiny Love Double Sided First Book
   
8. Bright Baby First Words

There is a nice BookFinder tool on the pbs.org website. I recently got some good recommendations for R - although these were for 2+ age range. Have fun reading !

Online Educational Games/Learning

Recently there was a discussion about this on the parents list at work. Some of the top picks were as follows:

Starfall : R has used this extensively. We introduced this to him at 18 months (especially their basic ABC section) and he started liking it. He went from spending 5 minutes to a good 30 minutes by the age of 2. He has now moved on to the other sections on the site which are very nice too. Overall this is a must-try site.

PBS Kids : R loves Word World and Sesame Street sections on the site. The Word World section is extremely entertaining and has lot of learning games. See my old post for more information. My only complain is that the site is extremely slow.

Literactive : Focused mostly on reading. Good site !

Nick Jr : I personally haven't tried this one but have heard great reviews from a lot of friends. I do plan to try this out sometime soon.

Tux Paint : The site provides an open source drawing software for kids. Again haven't tried this but the site has been highly recommended by a lot of parents

UpToTen : Looks like a cool site. Need to see if R likes it.

Story Line : On-line video streaming software where actors read the stories. R is a big fan of books so I might try this out soon. For now, we are focusing on been the "actors" ourselves :).

Common Sense Media : Provides information on a lot of sites and also reviews about them.

If you know of any other good sites, feel free to post the link in the comments section.

Toy Recommendations: 2 to 3 years

Here is a list of toy recommendations for the third year. Again mostly based on what R liked and played with.

Leapfrog Word Builder/Whammer: R absolutely loves the word builder. The same thing comes in a letter builder version as well. I would just go ahead and get the word builder as it has the letter mode in it as well.

Leapfrog Letter Factory DVD: Teaches letters and phonics. R used to watch this when he was around 20 months. He totally got hooked on to it.

Leapfrog Word Factory DVD: Teaches word building. R started watching this one once he knew his alphabet. This is a good next step to the Letter Factory DVD.

VTech On The Go Laptop: See my earlier post about this.

Standing Easel: We got this as a gift for R's second birthday. We have used the whiteboard a lot to play games and write letters and words :).

Trike or this: The first bike is extremely safe. The handle also helps us push the kid when he/she is just learning to ride the trike. The second one is unsafe if the child doesn't know how to bike. R started riding on the second one after he was able to bike with confidence.

Gertie Ball: If you want to get a ball for your kid to play with - this is the ball ! After trying a couple of balls we settled on this one.

12 Piece Jigsaw Puzzle or Pets in a Box Jigsaw Puzzle: Good next step puzzles for kids.

15 Random Things about R

This post is inspired by the 25 Random Things on Facebook. Although I haven't written mine I thought it would be a good idea to compile one for R. Here are 15 random things about R.

1. We decided on R's name a few weeks after we found out we were going to have a baby boy. I in fact got used to referring to him with his name while he was still in my tummy.
2. R was born 2 weeks before time but he made sure he came on a bright Saturday so that mommy didn't have to worry about daddy not been around. Daddy had failed 2 surprise calls so looks like he decided he couldn't take any more chances.
3. R was a very happy baby in general (note the word "baby" as this was more true in the first year :). A proof of this was an innocent question by daddy to his pediatrician "why doesn't he cry?". The doctor laughed loudly and said "and you have a problem with that ? "
4. He rolled over for the first time when he was 12 weeks - although he didn't repeat the big feat for another few weeks.
5. R cut his first tooth in the 7th month (although as an anxious mom i still feel the tooth was lurking since the first month and came out only later :). By the end of his first year he had 8 teeth and the rest came out soon as well.
6. R never crawled when he was required too. Turns out this is becoming pretty common. Of course he crawled for fun after he started walking.
7. He started walking when he was 11.5 months and had mastered it by 13 months.
8. He loves medicines (referred to as 'magic potion' by mommy and daddy). We have never had any trouble giving him medicines!
9. He was a very late talker and the first real word he ever said was "apple" [excluding all the baa's and boo's].
10. He is obsessed with letters and words. He knew his alphabet at 25 months. He could spell his own name at 27 months and even started spelling 'MOM' and 'DAD'. His teachers often joke that he should participate in the spelling bee championship.
11. He loves having books read to him and now reading them himself.
12. R loves Southern Indian food and is ready to eat dosa's anytime of the day.
13. He loves watching Sesame Street and his favorite character is Elmo !
14. During his second year he gallantly suffered through a bowl of avocado everyday due to his mom's obsession with his weight :).
15. He loves traveling and he is the kid to have on vacations!

Bay Area Kid Fun

A friend of mine recently recommended this great site for finding out cool stuff to do with kids in the bay area. Check out Bay Area Kid Fun - I am sure you won't be disappointed :).

Does a Panda Go to school ?

Last week I got the book Does a Panda Go to school? from the library. After reading the book once, me and R ended up creating our own "Who goes to school" game. This is how we played the game:

Me: Does a monkey go to school?
R: Noooooooo
Me: Does R go to school?
R: Yes !
Me: Does Mommy go to school?
R: Noooooooo
Me: Does a dog go to school ?
R: Noooooooo

And so on. We had a lot of fun with this game over the past 2 days. This time I made sure I took a small video of him while playing the game. Give the game a shot with your little one and have some fun of your own!

Toy Recommendations: 1 to 2 years

Here is a list of toy recommendations for the second year. Again mostly based on what R liked.

Puzzles:

Shapes Puzzle : I got this one to introduce R to puzzles. He loved it and mastered it very soon as well.

Numbers Peg Puzzle : I got this one along with the Shapes Puzzle and R loved it.

Alphabet Peg Puzzle : I got this when R was 20 months old. He did not like it in the beginning - I guess he was overwhelmed by it. However, after a couple of months he was able to do many of the letters and by 2 he could do the whole thing. The pegs are really nice for the little ones. Note the pieces are small so there needs to be a lot of monitoring when the kid is playing with it.

First Lego Set : Loads of fun for those lazy weekends.

Thomas the Train Beginner Train Set : A good first train set.

Doodle Board : We started off by getting a small doodle board (the one used for travel). R loved the concept and used to spend a lot of time playing with it. We eventually got a big board to satisfy his curiosity.

Little Tikes Sports Center : We got this as a gift and it has been a fun toy - especially for a lot of older kids that come home.

ABC Building Blocks or this : Great toy - absolutely worth the price. I got it for $10 when it was on sale.

Beads : I got this from the Lakeshore Learning Store and it is a fun activity for the kids. The only painful thing was the small beads which were all around the house !

Bookmobile

I just discovered this week that the Mountain View Library bookmobile visits our company once a week. I went to try it out and must say was very impressed. They gave me a card even though I was not a Mountain View resident and it took pretty much 2 minutes. I also got to pick up 6-7 books that I know R would like. Their catalog is available online and you can ask them to get preselected books as well.

It was always a hassle to try to fit the library visit on a weekend. R is already enjoying the books I got this week. I think I definitely scored one here with him ! I would recommend checking your local library to see if they have a similar program.

Toy Recommendations: 0 to 12 months

A very close friend of mine recently asked me for some toy recommendations for her niece. I sent her the following list mostly based on R's recommendations :). He has made use of almost all the toys we ever got for him - although there have been some favorites.

Smaller Toys

Counting Pal : R loved this one. He would finish his cereal in minutes while listening to the various tunes and playing with this toy. Since then I have gifted this to various friends.

Rock a Stack : Extremely silly toy but it has seen various uses over the years. R still plays with it once in a while.

Baby Blocks : He used to love playing with this one. Great for improving hand-eye co-ordination skills.

Choo Choo Train : Fun toy - our engine stopped working in some months though.

Alphabet Drum : R didn't have this one. We went to a friends place and he spent quite a lot of time playing with it.

Laugh and Learn Puppy : R didn't have this one - but have seen this one at a lot of friends place. This one is similar to the Leapfrog Tad which seems to be no longer available.

Rhyme and Discover Book : This was an all time favorite.

Learning Phone

Musical Mobile

Mozart Magical Cube

Larger Toys:

Play Gym : This was the most used toy in the first 6 months.

Learning Table/Playground : Extremely useful toy - R still plays with it once in a while.

Exersaucer : Great toy to keep the baby occupied and play by himself. R used this extensively from 5 months to almost 11 months.

Learning Home : Great learning toy. It takes a lot of space but well worth the money. R got this as a gift and still plays with it. It is amazing to see them play differently with the same toy over the years.

My little "Painter"

R has been doodling a lot lately. Today for the first time he drew some objects (instead of writing letters and words :). This is what he drew for "Sun" and 'Pumpkin". I guess we will have to wait and see what he draws next. Very soon we will come to know if he has any scope of becoming an artist !

R Bloopers : Episode 1

Baby in Tummy

When we came to know we were expecting our second one I started preparing R for the arrival of the baby. I would point at my tummy and say our baby is here. He got the idea quickly and would point at my tummy whenever we asked "Where is our baby". However, one day he pointed at my tummy and then his tummy and said baby is here :). Since then I have stopped asking him that question !

Oh, Sh** !

Ever since R started talking we have been very careful of what we say. However, there are those occasional gaffe's. One day R wanted to do his favorite ABC puzzle (which has those tiny little zillion pieces :). I was carrying the board for him and the whole thing accidentally fell from my hand. Instinctively, I said 'Oh Sh**!'. He looked at it and then repeated it and of course couldn't help repeating it again and again. Fortunately for us, he seemed to have forgotten it easily as well.

Personalized ABC Book

Last year I got addicted to digital scrapbooking. One of my biggest achievement was this personalized ABC book for R. I took pictures of R with things that he liked or activities that he was doing during the first 2 years. He loves this book mostly because of his own pictures. Seeing him enjoy the book totally made all my efforts worthwhile. It has also become a good memory book for him.

If you don't want to spend a lot of time on making the layouts etc, Shutterfly has this nice ABC book template which can be used. You just need to upload the pictures and write the words etc. Definitely worth a try !

Here are some sample pages from the book.

The Alphabet Race

R has been watching Sesame Street for about a year now. His favorite section is of course Elmo's World which comes at the end of every episode. One of the episodes of Sesame Street had Elmo participating in the "Amazing Alphabet Race". Elmo needs to find all the letters of the alphabet on sesame street within a time period. R absolutely loves this episode and it has by far been his most favorite.

Having motivated by this we have been playing this game with R as well. Once in a while I give him a random magazine and ask him to find all the letters of the alphabet. He loves it and gets really involved in finding the letters. There are lots of high-five's after finding some difficult letters like x, z, q etc. Another variation is to find the letters on the way to the park. He has spotted letters on car license plates, on road signs (like STOP, NO PARKING) etc. It has always made the walk more interesting - although occasionally we do get frustrated when we don't find the letter 'Q' :).

The "On the Go" Laptop

Almost a year ago R got this laptop as a gift. I think he was just about 2 when he got the laptop. This has been one of the most used toys in our house and in fact we got a replacement for it as he broke the one he got as a gift. He has spent hours on it and I am pretty sure he picked up a lot of letters and words from the activities on the laptop. He used to carry it with him in the car and thanks to this laptop we have had quite a few nice meals at restaurants. As with toys, R has now moved on with this one - although I do make it a point to get it out every once in a while and it still holds his attention for at least an hour.

Pros:
This laptop comes with 30 different games, one of which shows you an upper case (or lower case) letter and the child needs to correctly push the corresponding letter. The activities are extremely intuitive and R figured out most of them on his own.

Cons:
The actual size of the screen is pretty small although this doesn't seem to bother the kids. The precision of the mouse is not very good and it got a little frustrating for him once he got a hang of using it.

Make a Match

R got hooked on to the "Make a Match" game while spending time on StarFall. Some of the letters (D , H and M) had a small version of matching letters to objects and he really liked it. One day while shopping at Target I found this really cheap card Matching game (cheap = $1) and I got it for him. There were a total of 36 cards which was a little overwhelming for him. We split it into a 2 part game of 20 and 16 cards and he absolutely loved playing with it. He is able to play the entire game all by himself and it is pretty funny and entertaining to watch him play. We start the game by placing all the cards face down. He opens the cards 2 at a time. If they don't match he says "They don't match" and puts them face down again. After opening a few cards he will eventually find a matching card and will loudly say "They match" and get them out of the game.

I would definitely recommend this game or any version of it to all the moms out there !

Morning Mantra

Past two mornings had been particularly bad with R. He would start throwing a tantrum the moment we mentioned the idea of leaving the house to go to his daycare. All he wanted was to watch some Elmo on TV and he would refuse to move. It was weird seeing him like this and we just let him cry out. Today I reached a breakthrough with him. After having cried relentlessly for 15 minutes he came and hugged me and keep whimpering a little bit. I started talking to him in a calm voice trying to divert his attention. I asked him if he would like to sing the ABC song. He said a firm 'NO'. Then I asked him if he wanted to sing 'Twinkle Twinkle' to which he said another 'NO'. I pursued further (at this point he had stopped crying and was listening to what new ideas I might come up with) and asked him if he wanted to play his favorite word game. He got down from my lap, wiped his face and said a beaming 'YES'. He quickly ran and got the game. I sat with him for 5 minutes and we made 5 words and his mood seemed to have completely changed. After having done the 5 words he said "pack-up time" and cleaned up the tiles etc ... and said 'Mommy, C'mon lets go'. Within 2 minutes we were out of the house on our way to the daycare.

It is amazing how a simple 10 minute game with him helped lift his mood. I had figured the Morning Mantra and I couldn't be more relieved. I have now decided to spend at least 15-20 minutes doing some activity with him in the morning ....

Diaper Days and Date Nights

I just found out today that Camera Cinema's have weekday afternoon movies where babies are welcome. Their website says "Our Diaper Days and Date Nights movie screenings are a great way to get out of the house with your little one(s) and meet up with other parents and their cultured babies in a kid-friendly environment."

I am not sure if I would really go through the effort of packing up everything and hauling the baby and then feeding and soothing him through the movie. I'd rather watch a movie at home over a period of N days ! But who know baby #2 might change my opinion :)

More details can be found at:
http://www.cameracinemas.com/diaper.shtml

The "Dog Pit"

During the Christmas holidays R learned how to use the laptop (the adult one :). He used to be able to do some basic navigation using the keyboard while playing on StarFall. One day we just gave him our old laptop to explore the site on his own. Within a few days he mastered the mouse control and was able to navigate and play things on his own.

One of R's teachers recommended trying out the PBS Kids website. I showed him the games for Word World and he quickly got hooked on to it. His favorite is the Dog Pit. This game has now become his new blackmail weapon for getting things done his way! I am extremely impressed by the quality of the game and the site in general and would definitely recommend giving it a shot. The only problem I see is that the site is extremely slow which sometimes does test the patience of the kids who have no idea what "loading..." in general means :)

R on the Board of of Fame

Every now and then (once a quarter or so) R's daycare puts down interesting facts on the white board about the kids in the class. This particular one in Sept 2008 had R's name on it and we couldn't be more proud of him :). He is generally a quiet kid but looks like he cannot hide his enthusiasm when it comes to letters !

A game of Opposites

R recently got a hang of the concept of opposites. It started with a simple 'YES/NO' and 'UP/DOWN'. I then remembered having got a book of opposites a year back. It was a gift from one of R's friend at the daycare. The book: Winnie the Pooh's Opposites has quite a few opposites which are simple to understand although I was never too fond of the pictures. I guess that was the reason I had kept the book away until now. R was thrilled when we showed him the book and within a few days he knew all the opposites and is able to read the whole book all by himself.

R has now invented a game of rapid fire opposites. He starts with a word and we are expected to say the opposite for that word. He changes the words so fast that almost always we have lost the game ! I have to remember to take a video while playing the game - I am sure this again will not last too long

M O M

R has been spelling a lot of words lately. A couple of weeks back he got up crying in the night and yelling "Mommy, Mommy". After about a minute of crying he started spelling out the word Mom 'M O M, M O M" in his sleep. I think he was hoping that at least we will understand now :). Both me and hubby had a nice laugh in the morning. I guess that is the level of his obsession about letters and now words.

The same thing happened yesterday. I was able to get out of work a little early and I surprised him at the daycare. The kids were all playing outside since the weather has been so gorgeous. His teacher saw me and called him out. He saw me from far and started running and saying 'M O M, M O M' - everyone around him started laughing ! I am sure this is just a phase but it is so very entertaining.

Bay Area Train Rides for Kids

Last week there was a thread on the parents list at work where everyone suggested train rides around the bay area that kids would like. I thought it would be a good idea to create a map of this. My hope is to take R on most of the popular train rides. He is so into "choo-choo trains" these days. We started off by taking him to the Oakland zoo last weekend where he had a blast. Next stop is the Sonoma Train Town.

Here is a link to the map:
Kids Train Rides

Whats GNU ?

After reading some reviews on Amazon, I recently got this game Whats GNU? for R.

Although the recommended age of the game was 5-8 years old I thought I would give it a shot - considering that he is so crazy of building words. He definitely got a real kick out of the game the first time he saw it. I did not follow the rules of the game and just asked him to make 3 letter words given a card with a starting letter. He absolutely loved the concept and quickly started building words. The one that impressed me the most was when I gave him the letter O card. I was racking my brains to come up with a simple word for him and he suddenly looked at me and said "Mommy, I know ONE". He got really excited when I praised him by saying "good job !"

Here is what he came up with in his first attempt of playing the game.




I am looking forward to having more fun with this game...

Being known as R's parents

Back in November I was waiting for our big 20 week ultrasound at the clinic. Hubby was supposed to drop R to the daycare and meet me there. I remember him entering the clinic beaming with happiness. After probing a little bit he told me about this little incident that happened at R's daycare.

R's daycare needs the parents to enter an access code to enter the children's room. The code is a 5 digit number. It has been a while that R has been dialing the numbers and he now knows the numbers by heart. He now confidently walks and dials the numbers and opens the door. Today apparently a parent of a preschooler was waiting behind R. After R opened the door she looked at my husband and asked him if he was 'R'. My husband confirmed it and asked her how she knew him (he thought maybe the kid went to R's class). Turns out that all the teachers had been raving about R in other classes - as the kid who knew his alphabet, numbers and who can spell his own name! Seeing a small kid enter the numbers so fast and correctly made the parent guess that the kid was 'R' :).

It was truely a memorable moment for us - to be known as R's parents :). I guess we will have to start getting used to it.

The motivation for this blog

I have always wanted to have a blog to share/log some of the exciting events in my son R's life. However, trying to find time between a full-time job and taking care of R was very hard and time just went by. The closest I got was to creating an album each month and sharing it with friends and family. Now that we are expecting our second one I feel like I have already forgotten some of the exciting events that happened in the past 2+ years. The blog is my attempt to salvage some of the exciting events that happened in the past and to capture new ones that happen all the time. I hope to blog some of my personal experiences on raising a kid as well.