These are a Few of my Favorite Things...

Girls in grey dresses and pink satin sashes
Musical toys and warm cuddly blankets
Bright colored balloons all tied up with strings
These are a few of my favorite things.

Standing near windows and gazing at the blue skies
Cute little books and peekaboo with own eyes
Laughing and loving and playing on swings
These are a few of my favorite things.

                                        

 An inspiration from my favorite song :)

Cheesy Days: Things you can do with Cottage cheese

I always struggle when it comes to snack times. I try and find interesting recipes and this is one such. Its fairly simple and Megha likes it. Introduced this for the first time recently (27Dec2012). She is 12 months.

Ingredients:
Banana: 1
Cottage cheese: 1/4 cup

Method:
Peel the banana and cut into small pieces. Mash/puree along with cottage cheese.
You can store this in fridge for up to 3 days.

Notes:
So far, I have replaced banana with strawberries and blueberries. 

Somthing Fishy: Broccoli, Potatos and Salmon

Today Megha had salmon (de-boned fish). She has had cod before but very little. Since salmon has relatively low mercury content, I chose this for her. I cannot say she loved it, she was ok with it.Check with the doctor before introducing fish. She is 12 months when I first gave her fish.

Salmon is one of the foods which has high iron content. To help absorb iron better, we need to club it with Vitamin C; Broccoli is perfect for this!!

Ingredients:
Broccoli: 1 cup, shredded
Potato: 1, peeled and chopped
Salmon: 3 ounces, cut into pieces
Mozzarella cheese: 1/8 cup
whole milk: 1/2 cup
salt and pepper to taste

Method:
Place broccoli and potato in a sauce pan and layer salmon on top. pour in the milk and cook in medium flame until the veggies are tender; about 20 minutes. Switch off the stove.
Add salt, pepper and cheese and puree until you reach desired consistancy.

Note:
Do not place lid while cooking. Else, milk will boil over.
Introduce white cheeses to baby before colored ones like Cheddar.

Rasam rice and chicken: A new favorite

Since Megha is now eating so many more verities than before, I give her so many more combinations of food. Her new favorite is rasam rice with chicken. She absolutely loved it!! Recipe is so simple it hardly takes and time.

Just follow the rule of introducing any verity of food separately before giving together. Megha had rasam rice and chicken separately before.

Rasam recipe is updated Here. Chicken recipe is updated Here. You can substitute broth with water here as rasam has enough and more flavors to it.

Mash rice and chicken thoroughly and feed!! She loved it :)

The Tonsure and Ear Piercing Ceremony

One of the biggest milestone in any South Indians life is the day we get the first Tonsure done. For convenience sake, we got both Tonsure and Ear piercing done on the same day, 09Nov2012.
Megha was almost 11 months old then. Below is a picture taken a day or two before the ceremony...with her beautiful hair. I was feeding her then...

With our families help, we celebrated this memorable day at Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanam in Tirupati, Andra Pradesh, India.

Most of the family whom we invited showed up.

The day before, all of us staying at Chennai went to Tirupati in a hired taxi. Oh it was fun! Megha slept pretty much all through the 6 hour journey. Avva had some motion sickness which soon subsided with sprite. My parents, sister and other family members from Hyderabad were already waiting for us in Tirupati.

That was the first time my sister was meeting Megha. Meg took to her perimma (Aunt) in absolutely no time. They bonded pretty much right away. Here you see Vineela, Rajesh mama, Jayeesh and Kulwant.

The morning of the 9th, we all set off to Tirumala in different cars. After the usual rush (which usually is present no matter how well we plan ahead), we reached Tirumala on time. Below are our relatives from Chennai with the exception of Durga atta and Ravi mama who went ahead to Tirumala to help my parents set up everything at the guest house.

My mom and Durga Atta had already set up the pooja room.

 I had mixed feelings that day. On one hand I was happy that Megha is getting the tonsure done, and sooner the better, but on other hand I was thinking that the last link to Megha is now gone. I mean, this hair which is being shaved is the hair she was born with, the same hair which she has from inside me...

anyway...

she cried a bit in the beginning but soon she stopped when my mom gave her a plate full of almonds. Just before finishing she started again but controlled after I started singing her rhymes.

I couldnt have been more proud of her. She did so well during this. I think in under 15 minutes the whole this is done.Some sandal wood paste was applied on her head for her to cool off.

She got changed and then we went for her ear piercing. Oh boy...I cried more than her :) lol She did pretty well though. We used a numbing gel; she cried because she was uncomfortable, not because she was in pain.

In both cases, Dimpu mama did a wonderful job of holding Megha. Below is Meg with dad, both freshly shaved heads.

 Then we went for darshan. It wasnt a bad day actually, we were out in about 3 hours. Srinu mama made friends with one of the security guys and we could stay and look at Perumal for about a full minute! this is the first time in my life (and i had been to Tirumala several times) I got a chance to really stand and observe Him. What a sight it was!!

I am soooo proud of Megha. She took everything in so well.

Then we headed back towards the guest rooms, had lunch and returned to Tirupati. All of us VERY tired by the end of the day.

Picture with my sis and parents.

We can Fake anything and evrything

...Says Megha. She can now:

Fake Cry: Cry without tears, which stops the second you pick her up.
Fake laugh: Unbelievable but she fakes it some times. She goes he he he he and then stops and stares seriously, which gives away that she just faked it.
Fake Cough: Courtesy Anand, she can now fake a cough. Its actually cute.
 

The First Few Days at the Day Care....

...Is not going well at all. We found, what we thought, a perfect daycare for Megha. Apart from M, there is just another little girl. Other 2 kids are pre and after school cares, so, it's just two of them. She cries the moment I leave her till the moment I pick her up. She is just so attached to me that my heart breaks when I leave her. I only leave her for 2 hours a day now; coming Monday onwards, I will be increasing it to 4-5 hours so that the day care provider and Megha would get a chanc to bond.

I really don't know what to do :(
All my friends keep telling me that since its only been 4 days, I should not worry. That it would take at least 3-4 weeks before she settles in...I so hope so.

When you grow up, I hope you forgive me baby, for leaving you there. I do
You know I have to work...

It's so hard being a parent. One half of me wants to return to work because eventually I will have to return to work and I like my work. Other half of me feels guilty for leaving meg at the daycare :(

She can Crawl!

Actually, she started crawling a LONG time ago. I wonder how I missed blogging this important event. She started crawling on the Vinayagar Chaviti on Sept 19, 2012.

She crawls to all her favorite places now, the below being one of them. Its her favorite spot to watch TV.

Welcoming Megha in India!

Megha's tonsure and ear piercing ceremony was planned in India. We took her to India and she landed there for the first time on 02Nov2012. Her maternal grand parents and her paternal grand mom had come to welcome her at the Chennai International Airport. Some of the pictures welcoming her at different places she had been are below, starting at the airport. Oh what fun she had!!

Here is the flexi my parents had brought to the airport. I had a better picture,which I cannot find anymore :(

Here is the one at her paternal grand parents house.

Here is the Rose welcome at my sisters place in Hyderabad.

Here is another welcome at my Maternal aunt's place. Sai Thata did this by hand! how sweet of him.

Here is another one at my parents place, displayed during a party they hosted in Megha's honor. This now rests in my parents dining room.

Megha's first Halloween

So much has happened since the last time I wrote something. India trip was hectic but fun.Will update details later!! Now Halloween...

I've heard that Halloween is one of the things kids look forward to besides Christmas. and why not? It's got everything! You can dress up, have as much candy as you like and adults usually don't say no to it!

This is Megha's first Halloween (31st Oct, 2012). Since we were flying out to India on that day, we couldn't take Megha out for Trick or Treat. She is too young anyway. But this didn't stop us from dressing her up :) look at our cute pumpkin :)

We had a Halloween party at our friends place and a the kids in attendance dressed up.
Perhaps next year she can go out trick or treating.