Indiana

The weekend before Disneyland, we flew to Indiana to celebrate Masi and Bij Masa's engmt! Syona had tons of fun in the plane, we got icecream at the airport and I had glow in the dark necklaces for her the whole trip through with lots of stickers. We dressed Syona in her pretty pretty (Indian Clothes) every day and she had tons of fun partying with her masi and bij masa til the wee hours of the night. During the gaarba she hardly let me have a break from holding her as I danced because she loved being part of the action so much. During speeches she was doing somersaults on the floor. Rascal. She also wore a matching outfit with Masi (see pic). My mom made her small mini outfit out of the leftover material of Masi's outfit- too cute.

boo

Syona loves wearing her hair in pigtails these days. She asks for pigtails every morning :) Santa will be bringing her a boo doll for xmas. I think she will think its a little syona doll!

Elmo

This year we dressed Syona in her hero character, her ultimate favorite: ELMO. At least once a day we hear the infamous words "Elmo watch? Elmo watch! Elmo watch!". She simply cannot get enough, however, interestingly enough, she demands us to fast forward the Elmo intro song, she doesn't like to diddle daddle it seems.

Here is a pic from Syona's Halloween Parade at school. She did not want to sit in the buggy with her friends and mostly cried through the whole parade because she wanted me to carry her when she saw me come in, haha.

Although the pic at the top was a point when she was having fun at the parade:

Here are some trick or treat pictures of the rascal and her harry potter dad:

Disneyland

For Thanksgiving this year we decided to take advantage of the days off and head off to a resort in Redondo Beach where we stayed off the marina. The room was pretty nice- we left on Tuesday night after work and Syona slept the entire way there. We got there around 12:30 at night and Syona spent the next 90 minutes running around and jumping in the room. She was so excited about our "road trip!". While at Redondo Beach we had picnic on the beach, took her to some small rides on the ghetto boardwalk and played skii ball, and went to a really nice Thanksgiving buffet dinner at the hotel. On Black Friday we decided to take Syona to Disneyland! We left the hotel around 8AM and didn't get back until past midnight. We went on Mr. Toad's While Ride and Peter Pan's Flight first (which I didn't realize) are actually kind of scary, so after we got off the 2nd of the two rides, she broke into tears. We stopped to eat our homemade sandwhich lunch and then took her to the princess show where she danced around and really enjoyed. (since disneyland, we introduced her to the Anastasia Movie which she loves). We then took her to Mickey's house in toon town, waited in line for 90 minutes only for her to cry when we finally met Mickey. See pic :) After her nap, we got icecream and watched the parade which was really fun and she liked, and went on the submarine ride. We had some burgers, fries, apple sauce for dinner and then saw the Fireworks. She was so sleepy by then but was enjoying her large lollipop. It was suuuper cold day, but she didn't want to wear her mickey hat and gloves the whole I think because she wanted her pigtails out. haha. And she was enjoying her nice big disney lollipop. The last ride we took her on was small world, which she really loved, and we probably should have just ridden that all night. I changed her in her PJs and we rushed to get out of the park. She fell asleep in her stroller so instead of taking the tram back, we walked a mile to the parking structure but got some yummy bennets on the way back! It was a really fun trip for us, after we got back, Syona has been asking for another road trip and sometimes saying Mickey and DIsneyland :)

Indian Dress

In preparation to celebrate Masi and Bij Masa's engagement, we all decided to go to a Gaarba at the Santa Clara Convention Center. It was PACKED with people all dancing. This was the first day Syona wore an Indian dress. When I took the two out for her to pick from, she was immediately drawn to the one with the jewels and sequins. She called it her pretty pretty and couldn't wait to take a bath to put it on. After we had her dressed in her pretty pretty, we put on her bangles but she wanted even more, so she started putting on all of mine! She had a lot of fun dancing at the Gaarba with masi, bij masa, dadu, ba, bhabhi, faiba, fua and muma and dada of course. It was fun holding her and doing all the steps. Here is a clip of her with the dandia sticks. She even wore some of my bangles all night and kept her forearms elevated to keep them on- haha.

Go Giants

Syona knows what shows she wants to watch and what shows dada likes to watch. When the TV turns on with either football or baseball, she goes nooOo. However, after realizing that I won't switch to Elmo or Curious George, she will watch through some sports with me. You would think that she doesn't understand, but as we were watching game 5 of the World series. She goes and cries out "strike"... Seems like she is paying attention after all. She knows that when I run around the house after a home run is hit, that I want to give her high five. She also gets pretty happy herself. After the Giants won the Series, we taught her to say go Giants! Funny how after 20 years in California and all the life's changes, there is still a constant of watching and rooting for the Giants (this time it was meant to be though).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QY7X0MFWRow

Syona at School

Syona has been doing really well in school lately. She still has her moments when she is dropped off and picked up, just a pick me up kind of ask, but we watch her on the video all day and she seems to be partcipating and doing well. We have our first parent teacher conference in November so I am very excited for what the teachers have to tell us! When I pick her up from school, she helps me gather up her used bibs, sippy cups and hello kitty lunch bag. In the car on the way home, I try to always bring her a snack and while she eats she asks for music (!) music (!) and then recites all her friends in class Arnap (Arnav), Reeeya (Riya), Andwew (Andrew), Raygan (Reagan), Marco and then goes through her teachers, Miss Claudia, Miss Vieta (Violeta), and her new teacher Miss Mim (Kim). She says everyone's name with a super big smile so I feel good knowing she enjoys the people she is with all day. She made an apple one day in art class and if you ask her what she made in school she always says "Apple!" even though she has made lions, numbers, elephants, leaves, etc.

Sticker in my Ear

Syona has learned new ways to express herself. She loves stickers these days, and this is one of the ways to reward her now- though sometimes she does a pretty good job just asking for it non-stop and you give it to her anyways. She can spend endless amount of time sticking these hearts, stars, DelMonte banana, Gala apple, wedding circles, etc all over her hands, arms, legs, ears, my foot...The last couple of days, she seems to believe that she left a sticker in her ear and keeps asking us to check there. When I do, I just blow in her ear and that gets her giggling. She is a great fun these days and go through phases of really loving/caring for me. Like today, before I could pick up a phone call, she asked, "dada, where are you". Maybe it's because I've been bribing her to sit on the potty with different types of treats- like gummy bears, lollipop, an other mints... The crazy thing is that she knows how to see each kind of these treats and will gladly wait on the potty for a long time while I go retrieve the treat. Unfortunately, I haven't gotten her to actually sit there long enough to go in the potty itself. I'm saving a ice cream bar as the main reward when she does eventually go.

Syona on eBay

We did a Merch photo shoot for eBay Halloween and used some of the office kids for starring roles :) It was crazy coordinating so many kids together! And Syona was not happy wearing the frog suit but she then did when I promised her it was only for a few minutes. We gave her like 7 lollipops through the whole shoot! Check her out on ebay.com :)

Masi's Engagement Party!

Picture's of Syona at Masi's engagement party

ABCs

So recently I made ABC flash cards for Syona as one of her additional lessons and she literally wants to go through the cards everyday, often twice or three times. Around 18 and a half months she has been singing the ABCs all the way through. And these are the letters she can recognize on flash cards: A,B,C,D,E,F,H,I,M,N,O,P,Q,R,S,W,X,Y and sometimes Z. haha. She catches on pretty quick, and she can now recognize letters on our clothes or books. I think she understands the letters together makes words.. she knows her name is SYONA. S for star and Syona.

Syona made rice and cookies today!

Wednesdays are my day off, and today I thought it would be nice to introduce Syona to cooking! So I had her help me pour rice in the cooker (which she is good at with all the pouring practicing we have done as one of her lessons). We then washed the rice together which she couldn't get enough of and I had her push the button to start the cooking! For dessert we made the cookies also, which she had fun whisking with me. We put the egg in and the butter. She even grabbed hold of the sugar jar and dumped some in also, haha. I showed her how to roll the balls and then we put the cookies in the oven and she had fun eating them also right before bed time. It was really cute seeing her stand on the chair in the kitchen licking the sugar and batter and running around have her dada wash her hands every 2 minutes.

Syona's Dream Academy

The last couple of weeks have been an adventure. Syona started going to school and as much as we thought that she was independent and ready for school, those first few days put us (mainly Syona) through the ringer.

That said, I think the transition could have been smoother and that we should have stuck with our first instinct. The story goes like this, we visit 4-5 schools around the area and ended up likely this one school call myDreamAcademy in cupertino. We like the neatness, teachers/front desk, and the cameras.

However, when it came time to enroll, the toddler program was about to shut down at that site (due to not enough kids), and we were referred to the sister school (same owner, different location). After a cursory look and kind of being put on a spot to decide, we just went with it. Bigger premises, and the one floating teacher we spent talking to on the visiting day was nice. Month later when it came to bringing Syona to school, the main teacher in the room assigned didn't meet our same type of TLC requirement. We gave it a try and after 2 days of constant crying and a weekend of Syona's acting out we knew that we needed to rectify the situation. Then, to keep long story short, we talked to the owner and found out that the Cupertino location is open for toddlers and decided to move back there. Turns out that the teacher we talked to in the 2nd location is now going to be main teacher there.

Side note, the interesting story is during this period of time when Syona went to school, she got really attached to her hat such that all morning and afternoon, she would keep her HAT on. She would keep it on as her security at least until we pick her up. Right before I drop her off to school, she would ask for it to be put on when we got into the car...

Fast forward to today, Syona has now been in this new location for over 1 week and her transition here as been wonderful. She immediately took to the new place and people much faster and better. The good thing is that we can peek in on her any time through this webcam that we have (see her napping, eating, playing, etc...) The main measure is that she is back to having fun over the weekends and weeknights. What a relief!

She still rather stay and play at home, but she knows that it's okay to go to school and is not scared of the place any more.

Good things to note, when doing this transition, it's a good idea to set up a friendly routine. Spend more time in the morning, dressing/feeding/playing. Make sure that the little one knows that she will be cared for, hand kid off to caring teacher to be picked up so that she is comfortable, sing a song of choice before leaving the room. Of course, don't forget the HAT (or any other security item) :)

Montessori at Home

So after visiting all the different preschools, we decided to invoke the Montessori (allowing children to learn through self direction and exploration with guidance) at home. I used basic materials in our house (baking pans, golf balls, corks, old containers, beans, plastic cups, paper cards, etc) and made her 5 basic lessons. I may have blogged about this before, I can't remember. It's been about 3 months since I first made the lessons. But she still wants to do them at least every other day and has really mastered some of them really well. What really impresses me is how she can recognize numbers out of order. Oh and she remembers to always do her lessons on her mat. If someone sits down with her with lessons without the mat, she goes to get it.

So many changes...

In Life and in Syona that we haven't kept up with the blog! Since we last left off, Syona has turned 18 months, Masi and Bij have got engaged! And Paul and Shilpa went to Paris for the first time leaving Syona at home with her ba and dadu.

Paris was great. I cried in the plane missing her, but soon as we settled down to some nice meals and good wine, the tears subsided and it was certainly nice relaxing for a change. I think the first night we slept in until 2PM. We hadn't slept like that since Syona was born, it was fantastic. We missed her terribly but she did well with Ba and Dadu and even though she asked for us a few times a day, she never cried for us which was reassuring.

Syona now not only can count to 20 she has a really strong grasp on what counting means. At my mom's house she counts all the dadu's in the golf picture which is really cute.

She can spell her own name now S*Y*O*N*A - we have to put some videos up here on that front. And we are teaching her her last name also.

When she was 17 months, she took her easter eggs and laid them out on her block toy like this. We thought it was pretty artistic of her to put those two toys together.

Syona soaking up new learnings like a sponge

It's not all fun and good things when it comes to raising my daughter. Recently she learned a couple of new behaviors. First one is that some nights when I come home, especially later in the night, she has learned to great me with an enthusiatic "NOOOOOO". I'm pretty sure that this has to do with her associating me with putting her to bed. She is at the stage where Sleep is to be avoided at all cost when it's at home.... Not that she avoids going to the crib, but she likes to stretch it to as late as possible. There is a new routine where she wants to keep learning up to her bed time. She is interested in some of the new iPhone apps I downloaded that describes and shows pictures of different animals and also of the alphabet. She is definitely learning and growing up in that the bed time routine is not fun enough with just reading books- she now picks the books she wants to read at night (she likes the Rainbow Fish, and Good night SF is still okay), but some of the other books are too small/kiddish for her now. Same thing with the music we put on before bath time. She no longer wants to listen to the baby music from before that sounds too much like for babies; instead, she insists on the more musical and lively type of toddler music. Back to the other "not so fun" behavior, one morning she woke up with the demand for Dada to go down and get her a bottle of milk to start of the day... we got a good laugh that morning, because it was really like a demand, with a small push to go downstairs and get the milk (and it was specifically for Dada to go get the milk), this has been my morning routine for a while, but the efficiency in the demand itself was really something.

Father day- 6/19

Syona woke up that morning and Shilpa asked her to say "I love you" and corny as it is, it was the first day that she was able to formulate those words. Since then though we have not heard her say those words. That week she is also able to count the numbers from 1 to 10. She just need queues of repeating the word from us (Syona says 1, we say 1, Syona says 2, we say 2...all the way up to 10). It isn't always complete, most of the time she still stops at 4, but she definitely knows what comes next. I think the caterpillar book has really helped with this, and the new montessari type card that Shilpa has created for her one night. Her favority number is 8... I'd like to say that this is the chinese side of her coming out, but I think the reality is that she really enjoyed that episode of Elmo/Sesame Street.

PS- Her shirt says Daddy's little Monster.

Counting

Syona has been growing up pretty mighty fast recently. She can count 1-5. Sometimes she says 2 like three times so its: 1, 2...2..2, Twee, Fo, Fi, haha. Paul claims she also knows 6, 7 and that 9 comes after 8.

It's been really nice having her weaned. Although the whole process probably cost me 5+ pounds from the lack of working out during weaning to the eating without having the extra 500 calories or so burned a day. (I've been managing by just recently signing up for a trainer, starting to run again, and doing some cool cross-training and toning classes). Syona also sleeps through the night now, 7:30 to 5:30 (+/- a half hour) but she is pretty consistent. Instead of breastfeeding her in the morning, I or Paul go down to get her a bottle. She used to gulp down 10 oz and then ask for "more mum mum." So we used to go down and get her more. The other day I got smart and filled up two bottles at once and brought them upstairs (one I made extra hot for later) and so she drank her first and had a few sips of the second and went to bed. Then she woke up like 3 hours later and asked for more milk, so I handed her the bottle and she pushed it away with her hands and said "ole mum mum". I couldn't believe it! She knew it was old from before! "Ole mum mum, down". I had to lie to her and say "No Syona, when you were sleeping, dada brought you more mum mum". After saying it like 20 times she had a few sips but she never finished it.

April bring your kids to work day

Here are some pics of Syona at Bring your Kids to Work day. I even brought her eBay badge she got issued from last year! haha

From Left to right (Syona, Ellen's girl Corrigan, Kathy's baby, McKenna)

a day in the city with syona's new wagon

Syona LOVES her wagon. When you mention it, she laughs and shake her hands. Love it!

Thank yOU uncle bij and masi!

I don't know

Syona is now able to answer almost any question with these three words. They are now audibly understandable. I love this clip

Syonasmuma

This mother's day we had plans of meeting in the Campbell farmers market and the two girls in the household had a good time getting ready for it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W0gK8uqtIBs

However, morning showers changed our plans such that we directly went to the mother's day BBQ tradition started last year. Regardless, it was fun getting together with the Bas, NaiNais, Bhabhis-

Syona was playing in the backyard with her new red we wagon with the Masis and GuGus. Afterwards the whole gang watched a pretty good movie "It's complicated" with Faiba/Fuwa/Drs Sarah and Madhu.

Syona the good girl

So I have to give her serious props. She is taking this whole weaning thing very well. She has not cried about it once. I think the harder part for her is the sleeping on her own and having me not come and comfort her, but other than that, she is totally cool with drinking from her bottle. I know she still dreams about breast feeding, because once in a while she tugs at my shirt and asks, "mum mum" but then I reminder her what a good girl she is and how she is big and give her a bottle and she drinks from it. I am truly really proud of her. I know in her life of accomplishments, I think this is a really big one and starts of the others very promisingly. She is secure and confidant enough to let go of the breast feeding, and respect me asking her to, and listening to me and trying to be a good girl. I am so so proud of her. I forgot to say I got her a lollipop at the hello kitty store yesterday and let her wear my new pearl necklace for a while today and told her its because she is a big girl!

OH, and one other super cute thing she did, I've been sick and blowing my nose all day and yesterday she grabbed a piece of toilet paper and held it up to her nose and blew and I started cracking up and she was smiling and looking if there was anything on her piece of tissue- I melted, so super sweet. She copying what I do, aww.

Weaning the Little One

(Pic above of Syona at CDM with Ba and Nai Nai week of Spring Break)

So the time has finally come, I think it's time to wean Syona. I must say, I do enjoy the breastfeeding, having her close and cuddled, making inside jokes only she and I share and giggling away, plus the routine we have with bringing her in our bed and me just feeding her while I sleep was a pretty sweet deal for the last few months. hOWEVER, Syona asking for mum mum whenever we go out is getting pretty inconvenient. It is very sweet that she wants to be with muma, even if it's just a 10 second quick fix, but I think I can part with the good stuff for the fact that it will be nice to not have little hands squeezing my nipples through my shirt. It seems surreal to even think of a time when I can hold Syona worry free of her asking for mum mum, when she and I can just hug and play and be and she feels loved and comforted from me in other ways.

So we started the weaning process last night. We are sort of coupling it with the she has to sleep in her own crib now process, which is a lot of work all at once, but kind of goes together because she relates nursing with sleeping and the only way to disassociate that for now is to not have she and I cuddle all night long. Boo, I do miss that though, even though it has just been one night.

Last night was tough though. It reminded me of the early days when we could not get her to stop crying. She went to sleep with Paul just fine at 7:30 but then woke up shortly before 11 asking for me. I went in first and even though all the websites said stay strong, I folded in like 7 minutes. Haha. So I nursed her, but then took her off early. This she did not like at all. She cried and wailed and cried and cried so much, she was mad! I have never seen her SO mad. So I fed her again (bad i know!), and ended up feeding her like 6 times to satiate her. Every time she would say, "all done, right there" pointing to her crib, and I would put her in her crib, and then she would call for me moments after. She knew something was up. So Paul brought the big guns in and toughed it out with her for probably 1+ hours. I saw a pillow in her room this morning, so he must have camped out there for some time. Any case, I did not feed her through the night, but did feed her this morning once and then did not feed her ALL day! The cool thing is, we spent all day together because today is my day off, and she asked for mum mum in the morning but I explained to her that she is a big girl now and mum mum all done and that she should have her bottle (a few times) and then she finally took her bottle. I was actually kind of surprised. So then I played off that the rest of the day, and kept telling her how she is a big girl and muma is so proud of her and that she is drinking from her bottle, and I know she could understand because her eyes would move around to what I was referring to or talking about. Like when I said, "Muma's mum mum all done, Syona a big girl now, she drinking from bottle, wow, good girl!", she would like at my shirt and then look at the bottle and sometimes I could even see her little eyebrows moving like she was thinking hard.

In any case, Paul is putting her to bed tonight. I hear a few cries... but seems to be going fairly okay. I think this may be another long night...

Syona's first haircut

We are running a weeks behind on these blog posts. Don't know where all our time goes, oh yes I do! It goes towards taking care of a baby and cleaning the whole house after the busy day each day, haha. Anyways, I wanted to document Syona's first haircut which was quite an eventful experience. We took her to Lollipops a super cute salon in Saratoga where the kids sit in these little cars. I met Paul and Syona after work, and right when I got there, it was Syona's turn to get her haircut. Of course when she saw me, she wanted our usual Syona muma greeting time with hugs, kisses and 30 second mum mum so she was not happy when we put her in the car. Anyways, I'll let the pics speak for themselves :) But it was a super fun experience for us, she looked like such a big girl when she was done with short little bangs. I'm just happy she can see now! And we even got a souvenir lock of her hair to save with her first haircut certificate :) And of course, she got a lollipop at the end, her first one!

Syona and her monkeys

Syona loves all her play animals. Monkeys are her favorite- she wakes up in the morning and makes the hou-hou sound and bounces up and down. Sometimes when she's eating, and then she plays as Mama monkey and feeds her monkey(s) some milk mum-mum. Like how she interacts with everyone else, she is diplomatic with the monkeys too (if both of them are there, she would feed them both). She gives them hugs and kisses when she feels like they need one. During dinner time, when you ask her to go get her monkey (distraction so that we can get a couple of bites in), she would run and get the monkey and bring it back to you. Then she turns back right away and get the other monkey, without us tell her. Told you she was diplomatic. She doesn't do this just we the monkeys, she likes to get her bear and bunny out of her pen, and if you try to put the bunny away, she'll point at it and say HOP until you bring it back down. Today, she also learned to answer No and Yes. I've been trying that for a while, but today she finally said No - to getting a new diaper.

Words & More

Today she said "oval" and pointed to the shape. I was amazed. We did two puzzles together and she was able to figure out which piece belonged to each puzzle. She also pointed to the moon in the book and said "moon" and kissed the moon like a thousand times. I've now transitioned over to a new team at eBay, which I love, and am working 4 days a week, with Wednesdays off. So today Syona and I went to a free gymboree class and had lunch at fresh choice. I wasn't super impressed with the class and I think Syona liked the music class we took at Harmony better as well. She had her first icecream cone with frozen yogurt on top at fresh choice. I think she really liked being able to hold the cone, although muma had to take it away when she started to smear it on the walls. Syona has gotten pretty confident at walking. She can fill in the blanks with "up" and "down" when I sing London Bridge. Other new words: snake, elmo, goose, dodo (string bean), more. She points to moose, pig, wolf, mouse, and puts her nose in the air like the bear in the book when we say "with his nose in the air".

Copy Cat

Syona is absorbing new words every day. We were just playing bubbles to distract her to eat today and she learned the word POP. It takes one or two repetitions before she gets that once you touch the bubble when it's falling down that it goes pop. This is just one of the few new words she's learned; others include - hat, open, up, down, off, uh oh, tank u, right there, that, this, oh no, all done, on, some indian words like "right here" and "give me", bubbles, balloon, ball, bao bao (pick me up in chinese), book, fish, duck, byebye, beep (pronounced bup), diaper, hiiie, along with all the new animal sounds like baa for lamb/sheep, roar for lions, etc. The words are for the most part pretty well formed- you can definitaey understand her expanding vocabulary. She blinks her eyes repeatedly if you do so, and bounces the toy basketball. She also recognizes people (Ba, Nainai, Dadu, Masi, GouGou, Paul, Shilpa) in picture albums and when they call on the phone, she'll listen and if you ask her to give a kiss, she'll kiss the phone... Today she formed two sentences, "Ooo Ooo mum" - feeding her bottle to her monkey, and "diaper on", as paul was getting her dressed after her bath. She is doing all this all the while even when she has been sick with the stomach flu through the last week. Nothing better than waking up several times in the nights of the past days to clean throw up and then having both parents get sick with the same thing. :)

First few steps

Syona took her first steps! It happened tonight right after her bath! I was up in the room with her drying her off, she was standing and so was I and all of a sudden what do you know! Lil one took her first few steps! I was so surprised and then called for Paul! She did it again and we even managed to get it on video! Here is a quick clip:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M-fuYyMvIiI

Days at the Park

Every free chance we get when the weather is warm, we sneak away from the responsibilities at home (taxes, laundry, never ending dishes, spring cleaning) and take Syona to the park. She absolutely loves it. Especially the swing where our nanny Lien told us she did not want to leave it for record 1 hour. (Luckily there is a park 10 minutes away that Syona and Lien can walk to). We bring her sand toys on occasion too so she can play and make castles and fish molds in the sand. She likes the tunnels a lot that we let her crawl through and the slides as well. I love letting her take her shoes and socks off and really feel the grass and the sand and be a kid. I think its actually pretty nostalgic for all of us. Here are some Syona pics!

Spoon Feeding

After taking Syona in for her 1 year appointment, the doctor recommended we start letting her eat with a spoon herself. So lately we have been plopping some semi solid food in her suction bowl and giving her a spoon. She may only get like 2 bites in herself, but she is learning and gets tons of positive reinforcement. Good job syona!

February 12, 2010 at the Zoo

We celebrated Syona's real first birthday with a trip to Sonoma and overnight stay in Monterey. Paul and I enjoyed a bit of wine tasting before topping the night off at a nice Italian dinner and getting in early to put Syona to bed before her big day. Syona must have known it was her birthday because she awoke at 5:30 AM and wanted to play. This morning was also the first time she ever replied to the question "Syona, how old are you" with a prompt noise and a little finger sticking straight up! After breakfast, we made our way to the SF Zoo where Syona spent her birthday with the lions, tigers, giraffes and monkeys. She loved it and we ended up with season passes so we can go all year. We travelled from one end of the bay to the other and joined my parents in Monterrey. After a nice warm bath and room service Ocean side, we put Syona to bed and woke up the next day to explore the fishes at the Monterey Bay Aquarium. It was a huge animal loving weekend for the little one and a birthday well celebrated together.

happy 1st birthday syona monster!

We celebrated Syona's 1st birthday last weekend at the Old Spaghetti Factory in San Jose, a family tradition restaurant. I can recall when I was getting the kids meal here sitting in the cable car, so it was really neat to celebrate Syona's birthday here. We had about 60 people attend the festivities (including 2 toddlers and 7 adorable babies, poor Mckenna was sick and could not come), and therefore was able to secure the backroom all to ourselves! I think Syona

was really happy to see all the balloons, her placemat (each kids got their own special souvenier as well) and her baby friends. We had set out a little play area with some play mats for the babies to waddle around and have fun. As much as they say the first baby is really for the parents, we did our best to make it fun for Syona and her little pals as well. We had set out a huge kids table with chairs for the parents and high chairs for the little ones to all sit together. Syona did a nice job eating her spaghetti noodles all by herself and oodling at her balloons. The best part was when the cake came out, we sang happy birthday (syona didn't cry so it's good we prepped her by introducing the bday song since she was 11 months) and then took turns all feeding her cake.

We then gave her a big piece and let her go to town, which was really fun to do and a treat for all of us to take pleasure in and enjoy. I had got a little tutu made for her from eBay and a little happy birthday syona shirt as well that got pretty trashed during the spaghetti and cake time. Auntie Jackie made the end of the party and surprised us with some good news ***to be posted at a later date*** and we did a champagne toast at home to celebrate.

Syona opened all her presents and has been playing with fun books, cars, puzzles, music toys and little animals ever since. Thanks to everyone for coming, celebrating and for showering Syona with so much love and joy. Special thanks to Bhabhi for coming to Syona's party all the way from India and for Koichi making a day trip from Seattle! Love you guys!

Dear Miss Lien

Here is a snap of Syona with our wonderful nanny, Miss Lien. Syona certainly knows her by name and loves to get her legs massaged while getting fed her milk bottles. What a life!

Mr.Mom

I have to say, it's been pretty nice having not only a nanny at home, but a Paul as well. Paul has been on the last of his paternity leave for the last 2.5 weeks, and I have been the bread winner bringing home the applesauce and split peas with brown rice baby food. What a switch! :) I took this pic of Paul, carrying Syona in the Baby Ergo wrap, picking up some groceries from Safeway, with a starbucks coffee and a balloon for Syona in his hand. Hence, the title of the post Mr. Mom.

But with all joking aside, I do truly notice a change in not just Syona's attachment to Paul, but Paul himself. He is a lot more weary of Syona's needs, how to feed her, waking up to change her diaper, helping her take her naps, playing with her and her toys, teaching her new tricks like what a duck says (quack quack) and all around just being there with her. Syona is soooo much attached to her dada at the moment, that she loves to go to me BUT, then loves to go back to him in no time. It's very sweet and it makes me very happy to see them both bonding. I think he needs to stop confusing her by showing her his nipples and saying mum mum (food) though, but you can't have everything.

3 Pretty Ladies in Leopard

Syona and her two grandmas all coincidentally decided to wear leopard print on the day we celebrated Paul's mom's 60th! Happy Birthday Nai Nai!

PeePee, PooPoo, Brush Your Teeth, then Mum mum- Morning routine

From a few days of waking up and keeping the diaper off in the morning to air out her rash, I found that Syona has a morning pattern of doing her business then. So Shilpa and I got the idea of getting her started with potty training. Shilpa already bought the potty converter (plugs right into our big potty- see pic below)

Sure enough little Syona was ready for this step. The first day, she went tinkle. The second day, she went pee pee and poo poo. She now goes shortly after we put her on the Can. She even knows to flush by turning around and pointing to the flusher when she is done. So we try to sing a little bye bye poopie song. :)

To round off the routine, we are also trying to get the teeth brushing in before taking her down for the rest of the morning routine of eating/having mum mum before playing.

As you can see, Syona is starting to progress even more from the mother goose phase to toddler phase. After the first week of my three week paternity leave, I have had time to find out more of what she comprehends already. I can tell that she feels closer to me in that she would look for me to hold her and would readily call Dada when referring to me to do something for her. For example, she calls out Dada and points to me to read her books by picking up a particular book (Hand, Hand, Fingers, Thumb - the one with the monkeys on it). Since I do all the monkey sounds and movement that she seems to enjoy, I think she is associating all monkey things to me now. I guess the State of California has some things right in terms of providing some leave time for paternity purposes since spending more time with Syona really provides bonding memories (now if we can get the budget balanced).

Syona's First Xmas

Another successful holiday season under the belt, and boy are we glad they are over! But fun they surely were! Suffice to say, we have been so busy wrapping presents and preparing for Syona's first xmas we haven't been very good at updating the blog.

I have noticed big changes in Syona from Xmas to New Years weekend. She almost feels like she's more a toddler than a baby, but she is still my baby of course. She sits with her two feet on either side of her like kneeling and then plopping her little butt down. She knows so many new words she can point out like pajamas, star, feet, socks, ear, nose, eyes, head, monkey, picture, turtle, pumpkin, ball, toy! Lots of words!

Xmas eve was really nice, we all went over to Paul's family house and celebrated xmas eve there. Uncle Roi and mom made a some good pasta and shrimp and lamb and other feasty foods. Syona opened her first few gifts there before she fell asleep at night. My mom and dad went home early so I could give Paul's family the frames and book of Syona I made, called "Syona: the true story of a little rascal."

We slept at my mom's place that night like we always do and woke up early the next morning, jumped on sejal and bij with syona and went downstairs to open gifts! We started opening presents at around 8am and broke in between to feed Syona her mum mum and give her some naps. When she slept we all opened our presents. I think there was a point where we put Syona's high chair on the ground in the middle of all the wrapping paper and fed her some mum mum.

Syona got some nice toys for xmas, blocks, a giraffe car, cute clothes, everyone poops book, dresses, bath toys, stocking stuffers that had tights, books, gift cards and money! I made sure to tell her to say thank you to everyone who got her a gift by giving them a kiss (and sometimes she would even do it).

New year's was really fun as well. My parents watched Syona and Paul and I went to Thea's at Santana Row for dinner. Dinner was fun because I had decided to pump and dump that night and enjoyed a few drinks. Champagne on the house too. After dinner, we walked around Santana Row for a while and then came back to Thea's for some coffee.

After we got home (around 11, it was hard to stay out!), we said bye bye to my parents and I took a shower and we celebrated the new year's countdown in Syona's room holding her little hand and head.