Halfway around the sun

This is posted by Tom & Varsha.

Today is Shreya's half-year birthday, which she celebrated by a visit to the pediatrician and some vaccinations. Ouch! She spent the rest of the day being very good.

We dug out some old pictures in honor of the occasion.

When I was Zero!


They used to call me "Spike". Look at all my hair! I think they miss it...


"...and that completes the proof!"


Finally, here is a little poem by A. A. Milne.

When I was One,
I had just begun.

When I was Two,
I was nearly new.

When I was Three,
I was hardly Me.

When I was Four,
I was not much more.


When I was Five,
I was just alive.

But now I am Six, I'm as clever as clever.
So I think I'll be six now for ever and ever.

Gastronomic adventures

About six weeks ago, on our last visit, the pediatrician suggested that we start Shreya on solid food. Until that point I had been thinking that I couldn't wait for Shreya to be able to taste this, that and the other thing (whatever yummy thing I happened to be eating at the time). But after that visit, I found that I had suffered a complete reversal of emotions and that I could wait, indefinitely. I had no desire whatsoever for Shreya to consume anything other than milk (for which she was, of course, completely dependent on me). "You enjoy being food?!", a friend exclaimed incredulously, and although it is hard to explain, except perhaps to another nursing mother, that was indeed true.

We wandered over to the store and took a look at the rice cereal that they recommend as the baby's first solid food, and had found that it had all kinds of disturbing additives (soy lecithin?!) and an ingredients list a mile long. Well, we weren't going to feed our baby that so I let a month slip by still exclusively nursing without guilt. But then Aai mentioned that in India, babies are fed rice gruel (ghurghutya bhaat) which is just made from regular rice and water and a long cooking time. I was running out of excuses, so one day about two weeks ago, brimming with good intentions, I actually made the stuff. But when it was ready, I just couldn't bring myself to feed it to her, so I ate it myself, while she continued on her diet of milk. Meanwhile, she was getting hungrier and hungrier and more and more interested in the food we were eating, not to mention chewing on things.

Although she had been sleeping through the night at two months, she was now waking up twice to be fed. Then one day, while I was carrying her and eating a pear, I noticed that she was staring fixedly at the fruit, following its trajectory from my hand to my mouth. She had appeared to be staring at food on previous occasions but we had eventually realized that it was only the pattern on the tablecloth that fascinated her. But this time, as with the time she tried (unsuccessfully) to lick some residual chocolate off my fingers, there was no mistaking the object of her interest. So I relented and let her lick the outside of the pear. She didn't actually eat any of it of course, but even so, she gave such a yelp of delight that I finally decided that I needed to snap out of my selfish reluctance and let her embark on the adventure of taste.

Accordingly, on Tuesday, Shreya had her first taste of solid food in the form of avocado. (We chose avocado over rice gruel because it is ready to eat, and doesn't need to be cooked specially. That it is so tasty is an added bonus!) I'm not sure if "solid" is the right word for it, given that it was about a teaspoon of mashed avocado mixed in with two teaspoons of breastmilk which it cost me some grief to extract -- rather amazing really, given how easily Shreya gets it. Anyway, Shreya seemed to enjoy this green liquid, not just to eat, but also to decorate her face, her hands, her clothes, her parents' clothes and the floor.
(click to see enlarged photo)

About half an hour after she had eaten it, she spat up at least half of it. Despite this, and despite her desperate attempts to squirm out of my arms and get away from the mere sight of mashed avocado the next day, I still think she liked the stuff. Since it had frightened her on Wednesday, we gave her a break from it on Thursday. But on Friday when we tried again, she ate it like a connoisseur! And today she was ready for a new adventure: banana. Once again, she seemed to really like it. Once again, she spat it up later. Tom has a theory about that. He says that it is probably a sound behaviour for an omnivore to throw up a new food it has tried, to minimize the chance of dying from it. I am not worried. I'm sure Shreya is going to take to banana. Next week, we will try cereal on her (in the meantime I found a brand of cereal without the scary additives list) and then she will be through the ABCs of food!

We did capture some of these precious moments on film. Tom will post them later, so stay tuned!

Shrinking Clothes!

Shreya at 6 weeks...

And at 5 months.

(Thanks to Marie for the idea.)

Tom's hoodie

This cute little woolly outfit is a hand-me-down that Shreya got from Daddy! It was apparently what Tom was clad in when he was brought home from the hospital. It is soft and warm and fluffy and seems like it would be very comfortable for a baby in cold weather. However it doesn't separate the baby's legs and so it doesn't work well with our carriers, or with the five-point harness in the car-seat. This, combined with the fact that it really doesn't get all that cold here in Albuquerque anyway (Tom and I never once wore the winter coats which in Chicago had been a necessity), has resulted in its not getting much use since it has passed into Shreya's possession.

Today however, at the tail end of March, out of the blue, we got a snowy day! Admittedly, the snow itself was all in the mountains,



but the temperature in Albuquerque was in the low to mid thirties (Farenheit) and supposed to feel considerably colder due to windchill (though I didn't notice any wind...). Now that is not that cold, but coming on the heels coming on the heels of several weeks of 70 degree weather, I thought it might be a bit of a shocker. And yet, I really wanted to get in my daily walk. So resolutely digging this out of the drawer, I put Shreya into it, strapped her into the stroller and set out.



And we had a nice walk, Shreya and I. She smiled and cooed and looked around and, eventually, fell asleep nestling into her soft hood. And I pushed her stroller and mused on my overwhelmingly good fortune...



Tomorrow the weather is predicted to return to highs in the 60s and once again we will bask in spring. And Tom's hoodie will, in all probability, be relegated to a box where it will languish until the next little one in the family needs it.

To carry 'er

We like to take Shreya for walks. We have a stroller for her, that used to be Karina's (I think), but given the state of the sidewalks around our home, using it is not very feasible, since one is forced to wheel it in the street, and although there is not too much traffic, this is still a bit alarming. So we have only used it a few times, generally preferring to carry her.

What is the best way to carry a baby? As a child I remember being carried in my mother's arms. In my head, I have a vivid picture of Aai, with me sitting on one of her arms and resting against her chest. Do I really remember this? I wonder... Perhaps it is a memory reconstructed from a photograph, or extrapolated from seeing her carry Pallavi in that way, or perhaps even from her recounting how at age two I loved to play "bus", a brutal game in which we pretended that she and I were traveling across Mumbai by bus and she had to carry me in one arm while standing with her other arm raised to hold an imaginary strap, because it is crowded and there aren't any seats. Apparently my two-year-old self did not allow for the possibility that some kind soul would offer a woman carrying a toddler their seat. Anyway, I really marvel at her carrying us like that, because now that I have Shreya, I can attest that it is very hard! I do carry her like that occasionally but never on a long walk. Only once, Tom and I took her to the trail near the Rio Grande and realized after getting there that we had forgotten to bring a carrier. We had to play "pass the baby" every few minutes and even so, when we got home I was very sore.

Instead we use a carrier to transport Shreya, or as it is popularly called these days, we "wear" her. We have two carrier for this purpose. The first, a Baby Bjorn, is another hand-me-down from the Bensons and is what we exclusively used until a month ago. Shreya loves it! One of its big advantages is that the baby can either face in toward the parent's chest, the better for taking a nap as in this picture with Mommy, or out, with a better view of the world, as in this picture with Daddy.

One disadvantage of the Bjorn is that it is rather hard on one's back. About a month ago, on a friend's recommendation, we got another carrier called the Beco Butterfly. (Thanks so much, Ivona!). The weight distribution on this is quite different, and it puts much less strain on one's back, so we like it. At first Shreya did not like it, possibly because she had to spread her legs out wider in it, and she was not used to that. But after much bouncing her and singing to her and other distractions, she now appears to enjoy being carried in it.

It can only be used in the inward facing position, alas. But it does have a couple of big advantages, apart from the back-saving design. One is that it is easier to pass the baby from one parent to the other, without having to take her out of the carrier. But the major bonus is that it can be used as a back carrier. This is extremely useful for doing things other than taking a walk!

This one's for you, Uncle Mike!

Make sure you have sound turned on!

Oh look, a baby!

A long time ago (before I even had thoughts of having a child) I read somewhere that, according to a study, babies recognize other babies by the size of their eyes. (The size of the eyes of the one being seen, I mean. As in, "It has big eyes; it must be a baby like me.") At the time, I took this with a healthy dose of disbelief and scorn ("I can't believe what passes off as science!") But now that I can make my own observations, I am not so sure. It is certainly true that babies, including the young of other animals, do have rather large eyes in relation to their faces. Nevertheless, I am still skeptical regarding the causality implied in the claim, in part simply because I do not remember the arguments put forth to support it. However, the fact of recognition seems to be supported by the babies I have recently had the pleasure of interacting with. Recently, at a party there was a one-year-old who seemed very fascinated by Shreya. Well, actually everyone at the party was very interested in Shreya, but the toddler seemed particularly enchanted and she tried to offer Shreya her toys and otherwise engage her attention.


When I take Shreya along to meet other moms and kids, she also often seems to stare intently at the other infants, and sometimes reaches out for them. Most of these times, I don't happen to have a camera with me (and have my hands full holding Shreya anyway) but here are some pictures of Shreya with Adelaida  (thanks to Adelaida's parents).




For those who asked, Adelaida is the same baby in the Yin and Yang picture. Her parents, Dale and Marie seem to share our fondness for hiking, board games and sushi, so hopefully Shreya will see a lot of Adelaida in the years to come!