The Wonder Years

Time flies fast especially with kids around I guess. You are going thru the day and waiting forthe kids to go down so you can finally get …..to sit down ? But not so fast….still need to finish up your real chores!

Interestingly enough as new borns you always think of the time you will have once they no longer need to fed every 2 hours and as they get to 6 months you think …hmm it will be great once they start on solids and i stop breastfeeding. And then they turn one and you realize that you hadnt accounted for them being mobile now. So all your time goes in keeping track of where they go, what they do and the clean up after them.

Arjun and Rohan now are in a phase where they like to play with something up until they see that the other one has something else. So Arjun is playing with this bowl (or dabba as he calls it) and throws a side glance at Rohan. Oh he is holding a bowl too but that does look more interesting than what i have! So he manages to get it out of his hands and now I have Rohan angry. So the fighting starts. Most of the times I can work with this in the background but one day it suddenly turned quite. I really needed to finish up cooking their dinner so I let it stay quite for a few minutes. Should have known better by now right? anyways once i noticed, panic hit. I run across the room and i see both of them in the bathroom……will skip the details but i am sure you can all guess.

Jayesh and I were talking about this later that night and we observed that somehow they didnt need to fight when they were messing around in the bathroom. So obviously they were totally immersed in the activity and their toys are just not interesting enough. Some toy manufacturer needs to have a baby in the house to figure out what they really like.

Time outs or not….. we face this question a lot these days.

Jayesh and I cannot get around to doing the timeout thing. we come from 2 completely different backgrounds and still have the same opinion. I had really strict parents and we were punished for doing or not doing something we were told. No questions asked. Jayesh had the exact opposite experience where he would be reprimanded but almost never had a time out.

Of late we hear a lot about not making time out to be a punishment but giving them the down time to understand the outcome of their actions.  This sounds good but we are still not sure how to do this.

For eg: Last week Rohan/Arjun broke a dvd….

Our first reaction was - what did you do ronu and he looks at us like ‘oh  i am not supposed to do this?’

So then we realize that first its our mistake - it cannot be within reach and now what do we do next?

You cant give them a timeout for something they dont know and then we tell them - if you do this then you can’t see Curious George because thats where it comes from . They seem to understand it but i dont think it means it wont happen again.

so now if they break a dvd again, they dont get to see curious george for a couple of days and that seems a good way to get the point across but we will most probably have to find something equally interesting for them to do in the meantime. so we are really paying for their mistake because now instead of letting them watch the episode and get some time to have dinner, we get to find a way to entertain them (most likely read a couple of books) .

 will be interesting to see what others do in this situation, what is the option to a time out?

The kids are now almost 2. We are certainly thru with all night feeding and changing and we get our 8 hours of sleep but doesn’t seem enough!Life with two 2 year olds is somewhat like the college days for us. You are really busy trying to get your degress but still having a great time. Friends, movies, parties in the midst of exams and lectures. 

Thats exactly how we feel these days. 

The imaginary games are unimaginably funny.  Most recent is after my parents visit in Aug 07.  Since they left the kids pick up a bag and say they are going to Bombay. It is so adorable!  All this time we were wondering what goes on in their little minds and now we can actually hear it. Rohan will repeat everything you say. (i need to be really careful with my words.)  They are so uninhibited when it comes to speaking in Tamil, Kannada or English. Jayesh speaks Kannada and I speak Tamil. Both are indian languages but quite different from each other. All these years i have not been able to get myself to speak in kannada because i am not sure how right it would be.  Now he can speak better than i can even attempt! They still prefer english, mainly because thats one commone language between home and day care i think. 

Speech i think is by far the biggest milestone in the second year. Between March and Nov they have gone from a vocabulary of just a few words to sentances.

Challenges -

We can also sense that they now have a mind of their own. there is always some particular book or spoon or toy they are looking for. nothing else will do.    we have been warned enough about the 2 yr tantrums but i dont think anything can prepare you for it. Something that seems to have worked for us so far is the fact that we are pretty laid back but I am not so sure that will work with a 2 year old!

Its been a while since i updated the post and for good reason. In this last six months we had a big long trip back to india. That with the planning that usually preceedes such a trip and the post recovery phase, we pretty much put everything else on hold. But we had a great time and lots of updates and pictures.

But first, the kids turned one yesterday! A major milestone, we kept thinking back about the year that had just gone by. The most hectic and the most enjoyable year of our lives (so far), kids take over your life but oddly enough you wouldn’t want it any other way.

We took the kids on their first trip to the san fransciso zoo yesterday. They had a great time. The highlight of course was the lion (for those who know Rohan, this was pretty much expected). The lion put up quite a show as well so the kids were really excited. Rohan kept referring to the lion on our ride back. Ocassionally we would hear the roar from him followed by a long dialogue about something ending with a roar again….

Pics are uploaded - http://arjunrohan.shutterfly.com/action/?a=0AYuW7Nm0YtWLmI

As i was saying, we took a trip back to india in Nov. Visited Bombay, Madras and Coimbatore. It was a great break for us and the kids had a blast with everyone fussing over them. Pics to come ….-

A pretty major month in terms of milestones, both Arjun and Rohan are now rolling over. They had such different approaches to doing it but eventually started to turn the same week!

Rohan had been trying for a month now , and was really really close except that his fingers would end up in his mouth and he couldn’t  make the final switch without getting them out.  It took him a whole month to figure this out and finally he got it on July 16th. The irony of it was that we kept waiting to see him do it and when he got around to it, of course none of us were around. But now that he had figured it out, we got to watch a few quick replays soon after

 Arjun on the other hand was happy just looking at Rohan at work. And for the longest time, it almost seemed like he was content being in the bouncer and enjoying the world around him. One fine day he decides that its time and soon enough (July 7th) he makes his first turn.  Jayesh’s mom was there with the camera ready so we actually caught him in the act ! This was a good thing because it took him another ten days before he would do it again.

 Life has gotten even more hectic since then (if at all that’s even possible). Now we have them rolling onto each other and all across the living room. We need to keep a constant watch on them, but its real fun to see how they now try to get around the place. Arjun is on the roll (pun intended) looking for things as Rohan tries to push himself ahead. Today it seems like Rohan has figured out the knack to crawling. He should be on the move in a couple of weeks. Time to get moving on those child proofing projects ….

Its been a while to the last post, its been a hectic one month with parents gone and we being home alone with them at home. We see them grow each day and realize how strikingly different personalities they have.

Rohan right now is trying really hard to turn. It has become an obsession for him at this point. He gets started the minute you put him down and invariably ends with him stuck in an odd position and we helping him to get on his tummy.

He then rolls over to his back and gives a big grin. A few minutes later he is back to trying again!

Rohan now has a crib mate ….and its not Arjun. He has discovered the big Winnie the pooh picture on the side of the crib and every morning has a long animated discussion with him. He can actually go about this for more than an hour as we discovered today. It is really cool to watch him from the side. Eventually, I guess he tires himself with this one sided discussion and puts himself back to sleep. Still need to capture a good picture of this scene.

Arjun and Rohan were born on the 17th of Feb 2006. Life with children is a real roller coaster. You always end up having a good even if you are really freaked out as you take off.  I will attempt to keep this blog active with tracking their growth and ours as parents.

Rohan and Arjun turned 2 months on the 17th of April. They are now about 9 lbs each, with rohan  keeping his lead. Already, the second month brought with it a lot of changes. They are stronger (knock wood) sleep longer — ok, not that much longer, but every minute counts when it is between 12 and 5 AM.

Some milestones this month -
First Shots

They got their first shots (vaccinations) and i think it was harder on us than them. It is amazing how babies deal with pain - right after the shots both went to sleep for about 5 hours at a stretch, nothing would wake them up.

Smiles all around

Now for something happier, Arjun and Rohan are starting to focus on faces and occasionally break out into these completely adorable toothless grin. These are not the same as ones we observed on month 1. These smiles seem more deliberate, last longer and it does feel like the babies are enjoying themselves.

Another thing we are figuring out is Arjun loves being talked to, while Rohan seems to prefer solo conversations. He maintains quite a sustained dialogue with his Pooh Bear toy.

Another use for the car seat
We observed today that during the day, both curled up and sleep longer in the car seat. They seem to prefer that over their crib. Actually, at this point, they prefer sleeping anywhere other than the crib, but the car set was quite a surprise. Someone should talk the Graco guys to get to build a crib.
All this blogging time can be directly attributed to this discovery.

Rohan and Arjun turned a month old on the 17th of March. They have been putting on weight steadily and we are all heaving a collective sigh of relief.

We were actually starting to see the differences in their personalities already! Rohan seemed a lot more patient while Arjun seemed to have a mind of his own. People remind us that all this could very change in the first year.

Arjun smiled for the first time on March 31st. This was especially rewarding because it came right after a 2 am feeding.