Green Monster

If you see a little baby with a bright green face, and you're about to scream "Monsteeeeerrrrr", pause. It might only be Bobby. To start him off on solids, I made him have some avocado. As I put a tiny sliver in his mouth, he grimaced  slightly and immediately spit out a bunch of green drool. I used the spoon to collect the green drool and shove it back in his mouth. This went on for a few times after which i figured he probably ate at least some of it. We did this with a few more spoonfuls and then most of Bobby's face from the nose down was green. He tried repeatedly to grab hold of the spoon, deciding the spoon looks more enticing and must be tasted instead. In the end, to his delight, i handed him the empty spoon for him to feast on! Yeah to solid food! I suspect more work heading my way!

Back to School

We survived the first week back to school. 

This year has been most unusual. Due to the pandemic, and the numbers of people getting covid not abating, we were uncomfortable sending little miss Haana back to school. Most other parents have been in the same boat. So the school district had both options of traditional in class teaching, and online only option. With first few weeks being online only. 

So last week little miss Haana started her online school sessions at 750am. And while it is certainly not the same at all, i have to say, i have much to be thankful for. I actually, in my selfish way, am loving this arrangement! 

I can see little miss Haana all through the day, even though she's attending school, and i have started working half days. I can still see her almost every hour for a few minutes when she gets a break, and i can give her a pucchi (kiss). I can make sure she eats. And she gets done much sooner than traditional school. We can spend more time together, even if she has to do some school work on her laptop sitting next to me. She still has time in her day to do some of her arts and crafts work that she always keeps thinking up. Bobby and Haana can spend some moments together through the day. Unlike earlier, when i would pick up Haana after school, from an After-the-Bell program, we get home close to 6pm, she's home and with much more time to spend together, and doing things she likes. 

I am loving this! Much to be thankful for. 

Sitting and Standing

In a news update, little Bobby boy is now standing up on his own two legs, holding on to a sofa now! He's surely wobbly right now, and is not super stable yet, but he's going to get there!

Also when sitting in bed, he's started to sit up by himself. Wobbly too, but its getting there!

Tree, Hose and Bubbles

Last weekend I stepped outside in the front yard for a bit, and realized quite surprisingly that it was actually not bad outside. I went in and got my fancy folding chair (it reclines too!) and positioned it under the tree shade. Bobby boy had just fallen asleep. 'I guess I am going to have a few minutes of peaceful time', was my thought. Except, before i could get to the chair, someone else did. 

Little miss Haana placed herself in my chair under the tree. Not willing to admit defeat, i squeezed myself on to the chair right next to her as well. We sat there looking at cotton puff clouds in the blue sky, my favourite thing to do! After playing the have-you-never game for sometime, slightly drowsy, i said to little miss Haana, "It's getting kind of warm now. Let's go play with the hose". Resounding agreement. We tried to plot a prank in which we will ask dad to come out to the garage, and in stead, spray him with the water hose. But alas, he was too clever for us. He got a wind something was fishy and he took off faster than we could corner him. By the time i got to the garage, little miss Haana was already dripping wet! I got in the soaking fun soon enough. 

By now little Bobby boy was awake and had just fed. There he was sitting in his stroller, watching us playing with the hose in the alley. I decided he couldn't be having too much fun just sitting there watching us. "We must take this party to the bath tub where Bobby can join in". 

And soon, little Bobby boy, little miss Haana and I were amidst cotton puff bubbles in the bath tub. Bobby boy, with his new found grasp was trying to use both his hands and 1 leg to get a hold of the yellow ducky as she bobbed around. When he missed and splashed the water instead, it would send the yellow ducky farther away bobbing in the water. Little miss Haana helped out by sending the yellow ducky back his way. After a few attempts, he finally got a hold of the ducky, and of course it went straight into his mouth! 

No pee pee fountains this time! 

Only 2 Hands

In the morning when little Bobby boy wakes up, he feeds and typically falls right back to sleep. I keep watching him sleep in my arms. With my one hand caressing his head, another his back. Then my one hand touching his sweet cheeks, another holding his soft baby arm. Then my one hand holding his hand and another around his legs. Then one hand touching his sweet baby nose and ears and another caressing the side of his tummy. The only problem is, i want to do all of that all together and i only got 2 hands!

Crinkle Toes

Sweet Bobby boy now has a few friends.

I have to mention the Crinkle Toes. The friendly neighborhood yellow lion with crinkly toes. Bobby boy first met him when he got his new play mat. And there on one side of the play mat was Crinkle Toes hanging from one corner, looking kind of interesting. But once Bobby held out his hand to touch the yellow lion, he came alive in all this crinkly golden glory! Especially the toes! And so the friendship began, where Bobby boy feasts on soft crinkly multi-colored lion toes, and the lion hangs in there and gets eaten :). 

In another friendship news, we have on the crib, pads on all sides that feature Winnie (from Winnie the pooh), and Tiger, pots of honey and buzzing bees around the inside on the crib. When Bobby boy is laying in his crib either fixing to fall asleep or just having woken up, he has long conversations with Winnie and Tiger. They make plans of what games they will play in the dreams next: climb aboard clouds, grow some wings and hop on tree to tree, i'm sure. 

Scooter

My little Bobby boy likes to go places. When he's on the play mat, he starts out at one corner. And then, soon, decides staying at one place is for sissies. So he scoots and drags himself; and if he hasn't been seen in the past 5 seconds, he's well on his way to some place else. Added to his reportaire lately has been rolling, from tummy to back and back to tummy, which means he can get to places faster. Also means he can jump off bed and other places at the blink of an eye, and can no longer be trusted to stay one place at all. 

All of this means, leave the Bobby boy at one place on the play mat, and in a few seconds he's found at another location.

He's also figured out there's another way for him to move from one location to another. Riding on someone's shoulder. And the elevation makes for good sight seeing as a bonus! 

Magic

I've neglected to write this earlier, but the truth is, we've all been partaking in this pleasure. My little boy Bobby, all of 4 months old, now routinely locks his eyes with another set of eyes, intently watches, and then, given the right circumstance, breaks into the ever-so-wonderful a smile. Full of instant delight!! Its the most wonderful thing! Fills the heart worry so much love and joy. My little Bobby boy is magic like that!

Worksheets

To get her ready for the new school year which will start soon enough, Dad printed some worksheets for little miss Haana to do during the day. There were a few pages of Math problems, and then one page of reading comprehension with several questions on the back for her to write answers for. I was working my half days on the dining table. 

From the corner of my eye I saw little miss Haana working on her work sheet. First, diligently on the math problems. Then after that, she disappeared briefly with the worksheets. I heard drawers open and shut, tape being pulled from the tape-roll, metal scissors, more drawers open and shut. In a few minutes, the girl was back and reported that she was done with her work. She left the worksheets and disappeared to have some well-earned fun!

Later Raj was checking her work in the worksheet. Math problems were solved correctly. Then he flipped over to the reading comprehension. The reading passage was printed on one side, and what was this white sheet of paper stuck to the backside? Instead of answering the questions for the reading comprehension, the girl stuck a white paper over the questions, and called it done! Apparently life is too short to be spent over answering reading comprehension questions!  This school semester will be a long one ;)!

We All Fall Down

Yesterday would forever be known as the infamous day - the day that would explain all future problems in my baby boy's life! The day I had a feeling is coming on - it's not a question of if, only a question of when.. The day that raises yet another eyebrow on my parenting skills.

So what happened? Bobby boy rolled over from the bed! :-(. He's been quite a roly-poly lately, rolling around with ease from tummy to back and back to tummy. He does that on his play mats and often rolls out of them onto the carpet. Someone has to repeatedly get him back on the playmat to avoid him chewing on dust mites and whatever else the carpet is hiding! 

But backing up, we had had a good sunday. After a good 5 months and a few weeks, we finally decided to visit friends of ours', little miss Haana's best friend Rushi's place for a play date: where parents hang out -chatting and eating while the kids hang out - playing and running around! It was Bobby boy's first visit to anyone's home too. We enjoyed our outing all of us. Bobby boy played and was amused by his Zeeta aunty and Sai uncle, and once he was tired, he took a good nap. Miss Haana and her best friend Rushi need only each other, and were scarcely seen most of that afternoon. The adults chit-chatted over cups over delicious decaf ginger chai, savory lunch and then snacks. We all had a good time! 

I was tired by the time we got back but there was work to be done. I had to give bobby boy a bath then an oil massage. These days little miss Haana enjoys a massage from me too. A feeding session before the bath, another session after the bath and then put boy to sleep (and not without a fight). Once i was done with the bath and massages I remembered little miss Haana needs her nails cut. At this time both the bobby boy and little miss Haana were hanging out on the bed. I cut her nails and was was just heading over to throw them in the trash when it happened. The little guy rolled over off the bed. I heard the soft thud followed by crying. Dad got him and picked him up and walked with him. I felt mad at everyone (all of us were in the same room sitting around on the bed or closeby when this happened) but mostly myself. Little miss Haana started crying too; big tears all the way around. She was scared if something happened to bobby. She said i don't like Bobby crying. I hugged her and told her babies need others to make sure they're safe (#failedit!), but also they need others to make sure they feel safe. If we cry and freak out, that will scare him more. So we have to pacify him, tell him is ok and he's fine. He's not broken, he's ok. Little Bobby boy had stopped crying in the other room and in this room little miss Haana felt better!

I remembered another incident like this one with little miss Haana when she was a baby and she rolled over the bed (Yes, i have done it before!). But after some searching through the old blogs i realized i was probably too mortified to write about it. I had sent a private email about the incident so i know it happened when little miss Haana was 4 months old (same age as Bobby boy now), and it scared me a lot. I remember pacing the bedroom with her in my arms, back and forth, worrying and wondering what to do. It was a friday evening, should i go to ER? Have i permanently damaged her? Is she gonna be ok? This time around, not that scared, but instead just mad. 

But my bestest friend tells me, babies bounce. So we are good!

MIT Appathon

Sometime mid last month I came across an idea. MIT had organized an appathon and I decided it will be a good idea for little miss Haana and I to participate together! So, i entered us and then waited to see if they'll select us. The contest was to be on a theme that will be disclosed at the beginning of the week, giving contestants 1 week to come up with a functioning app using the MIT platform - AppInventor, that supports block coding. 

Meanwhile i suggested little miss Haana do a few tutorials to acclimatize herself with the platform. So we did a few tutorials over the weeks leading up to the appathon week. 

It took me some time to realize that my little miss Haana is only 8 years old. And the way the coding concepts were taught when i learnt them, which was at age 18, will not work for a child as young as her. Of course it took several fights for that realization to dawn upon me! But when it did, i was humbled. So we deviced our own lingo. We likened cloud storage to a reference book in a library, and variables to a cheatsheet, data structure like a list to a book with pages. And thus we learnt along; using every day things to explain the coding constructs. Anything that required exploring and picking up new things and tools, little miss Haana was way ahead of me.

Finally the big week arrived. We had been waiting for it for a while now! Except i messed up on the timezones a little bit, and didn't realize the 'clock had started' till the next morning, about 14 hours later. But no worries, we have time, right?

On day 1, we brainstormed a little bit and came up with some ideas.. On day 2, little miss Haana was ready to go, but i wanted her to spend more time brainstorming and then creating mind-map and then getting more detailed in what the app screens will do. Obviously we faught over whether she should be more prescriptive or get moving along. 

On day 3 we started some coding for the app. We were building a game for other kids her age. And in the game, the kid has to keep their character at social distance from other kids running around in the play ground. In our brainstorming we reasoned this is the best way to teach kids about good choices. We talked about how we could extend it to different scenes - social distancing at playground, within a classroom, at recess etc. Then we talked about how we could extend that even outside of covid. We could teach kids make good choices against bullying, against discrimination etc. In our mind it had some real potential. And we were getting excited now!!

On day 4, things were getting a bit sticky.. For me, things were hitting against a wall, again. I had been telling little miss Haana to work at it, and expecting she would just sit by herself and work things out by herself. And that was not happening, she was actively not working on it, even though i was reminding her that time was running out. It was soo frustrating. Why was she throwing all this time away? Its only 3 more days and then she can do whatever she wants.. Several times in frustration, i told her lets quit it. Free ourselves from this madness and go about our way. But repeatedly little miss Haana said no. She was determined not to quit. And she wasn't letting me either. 

But in spite of that, she wouldn't sit and work it out by herself. What gives? After another fight that Dad needed to break us up from, it somehow dawned on me, as to why these fights never happen with dad. I realized, i need to reset my expectations. I am expecting her to be like a high school or college kid, who figured things out by herself; once explained or told, she'll just work at it by herself. It dawned on me, she's 8!!! She will not be able to work something out by herself, especially something like coding she had never done before, something that's new and more than a bit daunting. It finally dawned on me, how unreasonable my expectations are. 

Next, I sat with her, asking her questions along the way. Ensuring she understands what she's doing. And asking her what she needed to do next. Telling her when she couldn't connect the next dot herself. 

And now we were making progress! On the app. But even more importantly, progress between us. And perhaps most importantly she was making progress learning and not backing down. There's a ton of information on the appathon and coding. On the slack channels people were asking all kinds of questions. All daunting and scary for someone with no coding background. Indeed i have years of software experience and yet i can relate to that fear of what you don't know: how big, complex and uncanny it looks. And little by little, piece by piece she was adding functionality to her game, and she was crushing it! Most important of all, she was a turning into a fighter! 

Day 6 she had worked and finished up one game for her app. We were feeling good. We decided we will add another game to the app. And a chat component too. She's already made a chat earlier when we learnt concepts of global storage, so it should not be to hard. 

Day 7 we worked ALL day long. We didn't even break for lunch and barely got up from our chairs. Our deadline was 7pm. At 4, she started working on the video, which also had to be submitted with the app. She had started working on the transcript of it the previous day. Now we were refining it. Other last minute glitches and nail biting later, we finally uploaded the app and the video at 654pm!!!! Phew but Yeahhhh!! We high-fived! It was an intense day! But all culminating in this great sensation of achievement. She gave her feedback on the appathon too. It was a great feeling!

I think i learnt a thing or two during the appathon. Tempering my expectations with some reality check. Both little miss Haana and I, together came to a place where she can talk about her feelings without closing and bottling them up, however intensely and powerfully they flood her being. If i could get to be a bigger fan of hers', i just nailed it. She didn't give up, when though i provided several opportunities for her to do so. 

I hope in this exercise, she learnt some thing about herself. That she really can and does do whatever she sets her sights at. 

You go girl!

Shhh.. by Google

So looks like google has set up the best sales campaign for its google assistant device "nest" - they sent it to us free (for subscribing to youtube music). 

I am kind of a privacy enthusiast, for what is worth, so the device had been sitting out in the garage, unopened, for weeks. Recently, though, we needed something to play baby lullaby music without holding up the phone, so we finally pulled the nest out of the box. Raj told me the set up papers noted that the device only starts recording what you're saying when you preface it with "Hey Google..", and you can tweak what it has stored about you. 

The good thing is, its kind of handy to have. We've only just used it to play music. Although miss Haana tries to have conversation with it. It doesn't go very far. 

The other day Bobby boy was crying and after a few seconds i heard this shhhh shhh sound. I wondered what that was, and it was from the google nest. Looks like it started playing it in response to the crying, without being commanded to do so. Scary, creepy and in that instant, kind of handy. Am i sort of amused but the device? Certainly. Am i warming up to it? Nah, i wouldn't go that far! Is it still plugged in? Mmmm yes, yes it is. (Feeling a little bit like a fraud)!