Rhea remembers Avani

The D Space
Fiona writes:
Yesterday while Rhea was playing (she's into "wrapping" gifts for people) and she said, "I'm gonna make a present for Avani!" I have no idea how shethought of her out of the blue!!! We havent talked about her at allrecently...she put a Dora video in a bag and some other stuff..I have noclue what..:) She is just too cute...and is growing way too quickly. Wewent to buy keds for myself the other day, but dint find any at the right price....but of course ended buying Rhea a pair. She was a typical girl, since she wanted the pink shoes that dont really look like keds....Nandan and I kept trying to make her like the Nike ones....but her mind was set. I love buying shoes for her though....cos she's all excited about them and wants to wear them all the time. We used mom and dad's bday money for her.We had a cold front here since Sat, and all wkend the temp was in the30s..the wind chill being in the low 20s..and raining...so awful cold weather. Today its a little better....butstill pretty cold and wet. Its supposed to get warmer as the week goeson...I can't wait, cos I can't take the kids out to play or for a walk...

Stranger Anxiety

The D Space

This is something very common with kids, starting around 9-10 months and can go on for as long as they are 18 months.
This is when kids start bawling whenever they are around strangers.
This used to happen to Rhea a lot, whenever she met anyone new, especially when they are indian. I think , it had to do with the fact that indians , in general are pretty hands-on with kids, and approach them directly, while american, tend to view them from a distance, completely a cultural thing. Or maybe Rhea just liked white people.

Rohan and Ryan have some stranger anxiety. They don't like random people, even known people like Tania, carrying them. They have the confused look .. "Should i cry cos someone i don't know is carrying me? Or should i be happy because someone *is* carrying me?" But they don't bawl on seeing strangers, like Rhea used to.

So the good news is that they have very little stranger anxiety.
The bad news is that they have no fear of anything else, and to compound it, like most 1 year olds, have very poor judgement..

"Oh wow, it would be fun to climb up on the table"
"Uh oh, how do i get down".
"Maybe I can dive down head first..that should work.."

As a result, Rohan had his first bump on his forehead, and also hurt his teeth while negotiating the gate at the bottom of the stairs at Molly's house.
He was trying to test the gate, and fell , tumbled onto the wood, this was before Fiona had even laid the diaper bag down.
The bleeding stopped after some ice, and a popsicle, and he was *back* at it again, and tumbled again.

He's a climber he is. Will climb onto anything. He uses the wagon , the Dora chair, and Rhea's stroller or chair (all of which have varying levels of instability) to climb up onto the couch, or to try and open the pantry door, and then will give a triumphant smile, whenever he gets up there.

If i'm sitting next to the couch, he will even attempt to climb onto me, so that he can get to the couch. Then onto the lamp, to try and pull it down.

Or to the blinds, to try and hit them, cos that's a lot of fun too.

Ryan's space

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Ryan is fiercely protective about his space.. . I guess being the youngest of three kids will do that to you... Rohan on the other hand loves invading it :-)
That often makes for very interesting situations...
This morning, Ryan was chillin on the walker and i mean chillin...cos he wasn't moving or anything... just sitting cross legged on the walker ....

Rohan came by to push the walker, cos rohan *loves* pushing stuff...
Ryan stopped him with the ol.."hand in your face" move.
Twice.
Rohan gave up and moved on,to pushing something else..

The other day, Fiona took the boys in the stroller to pick up Rhea from day care. While in the room, she was talking to Rhea's teacher who was explaining the days events. Her teacher, put her hand on the stroller to lean on it.
Teacher - "Did you see that???"
Fiona - "No, what happenned? "
Teacher - "He just pushed my hand off the stroller.."
Fiona- "Really?"
Teacher - "Yeah, look i'll show you again..."

And sure enough, there was Ryan, shoving her hand off the stroller with the "Yeah i don't think so... this is *MY* stroller" look...

Rohan the climber

The D Space
Rohans climing onto everything and everywhere..
He climbs the toy chair and he climbs Rhea's plush Dora chair..
Now he moves the Dora chair towards the couch, and then uses it to climb onto the couch.
This morning he stood on top of his roll-along-walker and climbed onto our dining table chair.
He does climb everything without wondering where it may lead to...so sometimes its funny to see him climb onto a chair with great difficulty and then realize that there's nothing else he can touch (for example if the chair is in the middle of a room).
Fortunately he can climb down now . Previously his dismount would be very filmy, kinda like the dismount from a speeding train in a hindi movie - diving and then rolling till he stopped.
Which is great when youre on the carpet. Not great when you are on the tile.
He did it only once on the tile..and a nice big 2 inch diameter round bump later has hopefully learnt his lesson.

What do these things have in common?

The D Space

What do the following things have in common?

Dora and Boots plastic figurine, the TV Remote control, Henry the stuffed toy dog, Rhea's plastic stacking cups and the M&M Salt Shaker.

Give up?

These are all things that Ryan has tossed into the master bath tub.

Ryan loves tossing things in there..I wouldn't care much about the rest, but the remote control drove me crazy. I spent a half hour looking for it , and Fiona said that last she had seen Ryan was strolling with it into the bedroom. I crept on all fours (at Ryan's height) in our living room, our closet, Rhea's bedroom, and Rohan and Ryans bedroom. Then i went into our master bath , and there it was...lying at the bottom of the bathtub...
And yes..
It still works....

No Haircut for You!!!

The D Space
So Rohan and Ryan both have flowing curls. And their sideburns, like my dad used to always say about me, look like Shivaji http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shivaji

Given that neither Rohan nor Ryan can sit still, we decided to take them to a specialist hair stylist place, designed for kids and toddlers. At Toy's 'R'Us.
This was a pretty nifty place, with videos and nintendo for the kids.

We signed up and there was a 30 minute wait, so we waddled thru the store waiting our turn.
When we went in , and were about to get started , the hairdresser informed us that neither rohan nor Ryan could get a haircut, because they were NOT wearing shoes!!!!!

But they're just one , and can't walk, explained a very bemused Fiona...
They don't *have* any shoes...

But they had a sign there saying NO shoes..No haricut..

Why ? asked Fiona...

"Because, if they aren't wearing shoes, then if some hair fell onto their feet, and entered their body, then there would be a lawsuit" ..Seriously that's what she said...

Apparently kids have a unique ability to absorb hair thru their feet..And socks don't prevent this either, unless they are shaped like shoes. Fantastic...


We refused to buy shoes, just so they could get a haircut, so Rohan and Ryan's first haircut was a non event..