Story Time

We love story time.  Every night before our little munchkin goes to sleep he will very sweetly point to his books and say "mamma book".  What he means by that is can you please read me my four favorite books:

1. Curious George

2. Good Night NY City

3. Baby Animals

4. The Little Train that Could

We have no idea why he prefers these 4 over others.  These are not the most visually arresting books, nor do they make any sounds, so it must be the way we narrate the story. Dhruvi knows some of the words and pages in the book very well and will often skip to that page and say the words he knows.  A few days back he picked up his baby animal book and said "Ackoon" which means Racoon.  Out of all the animals Dhruvi had to pick the Ackoon.  My theory is that the dark circles remind him of Mandar's dark circles :)

But I digress...Today's pics are not about reading him his 4 favorite books, but reading books on the iPad.  In the spirit of full disclosure, the pics are about me testing my new camera's low light capabilities.  He actually does not care what we read to him on the iPad, he will happily watch the screen as Mandar gets his daily dose of CricInfo.

It started off reading a real book under a blanket fort and a torch...

And soon we settled on the iPad.  This one is my favorite shot from today..

And we finally ended up in bed snuggling with Papa..

Dhruvi loves all electronic gadgets, but the iPad by far his is most favorite, like father like son.

Cupcake Mess

Mandar and I always bicker amicably about which side of the family Dhruvi represents.  Is he a carnivore Puranik that prefers savory and spicy foods over sweets? Or does he have the decadent Bapat sweet tooth?  The truth is he is perfect blend of both ( at least that is my official story).

Dhruvi never really cared for cake earlier, or so we thought until we went to India over the winter break and discovered he really likes icing more than cake.  We had a cake smash for Dhruvi on his first birthday, but despite the encouragement he refused to indulge.   This weekend we let Dhruvi have a cupcake and loved the mess our little munchkin made.  We are really looking forward to his cake smash on his second birthday.

The Beginning

Let the Mess Begin....

Yummmmmm

Papa to the Rescue

Here Papa, Your Turn

Sugar High

Finished

Done, baassh (means finished in Marathi), no.  Dhruvi's way of telling us he is done having his cake and eating it too!

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow....

Today was the second snow of this season.  The first one was on Christmas day, since we were in India we missed the wintry wonderland.  So lucky for us that we had another snow day in the big D.

This was Dhruv's first experience with snow, and I was really excited to see his reaction. A picture speaks a thousand words....

Once he saw the snow he was curious to touch it and put it in his mouth :)

We don't have the right snow gear for Dhruv, so I really did not want him playing in the snow for a long time , but could not resist the temptation of making a few snow balls for him.  He had a quizzical look on his face at first...

Typically when Dhruv throws something on the floor it is an edible product or the "bone" (iPhone), and this act is quickly followed by Mandar or me saying "no Dhruvi... we don't throw whatever it is on the floor".  He did not hear those known words and appeared confused initially. 

He quickly realized I was encouraging him to throw the snow balls and found it rather amusing.  I am really thankful for the flexibility I have with my job and the ability to work from home.  It really gives me an opportunity to enjoy these precious moments with our little monkey.

Dhruvi's First Aquarium Visit

One of our family goals this year is to go on at least one family outing per month.  And no, eating out does not count :)  The whole point of this goal is to spend some fun times with Dhruvi doing an activity which we normally would not do on the weekend.

There is a Sea Life Aquarium opened up in a mall very close to our home.  Prior to having Dhruvi, we wouldn't even think of visiting an aquarium in a mall, but with a rambunctious 18 month old  and 32 degree F weather a small indoor aquarium close to home sounded like a good idea.

We were very skeptical about this place, but were pleasantly surprised to find a pretty cool aquarium with sharks, sting rays, manta rays, and a fish petting pond.

At first,  Dhruvi was a bit nervous.  He had never really seen fish in such close vicinity before, but quickly warmed up. His new favorite word is "sark".  Despite the neon lighting and reflective surfaces... I managed to capture a few pictures to capture our resident "sark's" first trip to the aquarium.

Happy New Year

It is a New Year, so it is time to hit the reset button and not dwell over what you could have, should have, or would have done last year.  It is time to make new resolutions and resolving on achieving them!

We just got back from a lovely trip to India.  This was Dhruvi's debut trip, so we were really excited to share our bundle of joy with our friends and family in India.   Needless to say he was the star of the show and captured everyone's heart. One of my resolutions this year is to do a better job updating this blog, so our family and friends have a window into Dhruv's life other than the occasional iPhone photos, or links to YouTube videos.  Static pictures and dynamic videos can only do so much to give our family and friends a window into Dhruvi's world, so wanted to provide some more context into our little munchkin's Dhruviverse.

To start off this New Year here is a picture of our little boy on New Year's Eve.



 It was the next year in India and we were calling our family to wish them a Happy New Year.  In India Dhruvi picked up the word "Happy Happy".  He typically says that word when he sees a candle on just about anything, or will repeat the word if prompted.  This was one of the many phone calls to our family where he was cooing "Happy Happy" on the phone sitting on his throne.  So here is wishing you a Happy Happy New Year and a toast to new beginnings.

Cheers!

30 Days of Thankfulness

What a great idea! For the month of November, I am joining an incredible set of women that share a passion for photography to document each day of November with a picture of the things and people in our life that we are Thankful for.  This is a good test run for me to decide if I can accept the challenge of doing a 365 Days in picture of my life in 2013.

Day 1, November 1st: I am thankful for this precious camera and my nifty fifty lens that enables me to capture our family's memories one click at a time.

Day 2, November 2nd: Today, I am thankful for the two Dick's Sporting Goods gift cards that I won at a company raffle.  With these gift cards, I bought my new running shoes (which were quite expensive) just in time for my upcoming 5K on Sunday, November  4th.

Day 3, November 3rd:  Today we did what we always talk of doing on a weekend. Wake up early and go for a walk.  Now early on a weekend means wake up before 8.00 AM and head out of the house before 9.00 AM.  By our standards getting out of the house by 9.00 AM is early; unless our chunky monkey wakes us up before 8.00 AM.   There is a new trail in Grapevine that held promises of offering spectacular views of Lake Grapevine.  The trail was good, but did not have great views.  We did enjoy our walk/run and soaked in the sun midst meandering paths with canapes of lush trees.
This is a picture I am thankful for today.  Walks with my Family.

Day 4, November 4th. Today I ran the 5K I had been training for for the past 6 weeks.  I am proud that I met my goal of running the entire race and not walking it.  The icing on the cake was my timing.  I finished the race in 36 minutes and 38 seconds.  This is record time for me.  I could not have gotten through the end of the race running without the encouragement and support of my dear friends Shilpi and Vishal.  Dhruv is now almost 15 months and I kept telling myself that I needed to get back in shape.  All I did was compain and not actively work towards shedding the baby pounds.  My dear hubby who knows me better than I do finally helped me get over my inertia by signing me up for a training program.  Today, I am thankful for my supportive family and friends.   My hubby is a rockstar!  He made me the perfect playlist for today's race and was there to cheer me with Dhruvi in tow at the finish line despite sleeping only for three hours last night. My friends really helped me challenge myself and run the 5K and finish strong.  I am truly blessed.

Day 5, November 5th.  Today I am thankful for my son and my best friend's oldest son being friends and enjoying each other's company. Aditya, my friend's oldest son is 9 years old and excels at regaling my 14 month old.  My little guy worships Aditya bhaiya (which means older brother) and loyally follows him around.  This evening they were goofing around in my friend's backyard and Aditya put a ballerina clip on my son's hair who thought it was super funny.

Dhruv's First Professional Haircut

We went for our first haircut today, and I capitalized on the opportunity to take some lifestyle pictures of my handsome baby.  Technically, this is not Dhruv’s first haircut, but it is his first haircut at a professional salon.    He was born with a lot of hair and has had 3 haircuts to date courtesy Papa The Barbarian, oops, I mean Barber.   I was pretty determined to take my sweet boy to a “real” salon and decided on taking him to Cool Cuts.  We had no idea how Dhruv would react, but took our chances.  He is not yet at the age where we can reason with him (bribe him).

The Before ( I know his hair is not super long, but I wanted it to be even).  This was taken on a bench right outside Cool Cuts

 The Ride.  This was our first time at Cool Cuts and I was pleasantly surprised to see how kiddy friendly the place is.  We picked the red car since Dhruv has a red Little Tikes car at home and hoped some form of familiarity would assuage his fear if any.

 We finally put the cape on Dhruv and he was ready for this exciting ride.

After he was done being distracted by the cool car and Dora blaring in the background.  His look says it all…. “What are you guys doing to me?”

 The comb in his hands served as a good distraction for sometime

Dhruv is a good boy and sits obediently  through this part

 Proud Papa admiring his son

Oopps… it finally happened.  Dhruv realized something was different and he had tears in his eyes

Papa consoling Dhruvi

Dhruvi sporting a Mohawk (My personal favorite)

 Perfectionist Papa ensuring a clean cut

Dhruvi gets his bribe, a car for being a good boy

 The After  - Handsome like Papa 

We had a great time taking our chunky monkey for his first real hair cut.  Life is good :)