Father's Day 2015 (June 21st)

Anand was not home for Father's Day this year, which fell on Sunday; so we celebrated Father's Day on 20th June itself. Megha had been very excited about this as we had been making crafts for days in advance. We had made a bear craft which said "I love you Beary much" a few weeks ago but Megha decided that she cant wait until Fathers Day to show him. So, she told him the very same day when he got home about the craft. Will update the picture later.

Megha helped me make puri and chole curry for breakfast. Original plan was to make two items but later we ended up making minion cookies for the dad. Here she is helping line up the cookies in the baking tray. She loves to help!

Here is the final product after baking.

After a quick trip the library for story time, we went to check out the trains place. It was very good. The weather was beautiful and it was good to get out of home.

Apart from being a museum, it was surrounded by woods, small ponds and all. We were able to hop off the train to explore the are a bit.

Here is Megha by the pond. There were some fish, frogs, lotus and water lilies in here.

Here she is posing...

We went around a bit in the train, stopped by to check out some spiders too.

Had hotdogs for lunch.

Here are Megha and Anand in front of the museum.

One last picture:

In the evening, Sasha, Neeta and Naomi had come to celebrate Fathers Day with us. We had some lovely food (Anand made burgers). Here is the cake cutting sessions by dad's.

Megha made the below crafts with a little help. I cut out some old greeting cards, words and letters. Took hours to do that but it was fun. When I cut out all the letters needed for a greeting card, Megha stuck them up with some glue. She decided where all the animals and flowers would go too. It was a fun craft.

Here is the very proud Megha after the craft.

We also made another craft with pebbles and stones. We first painted the rocks (she chose the colors), then let it dry out and then wrote the letters (I did). She used glue to stick them all on a plate.

Dad also got another craft, beautifully framed from the daycare provider, Sherry. Megha even signed it with her thumb :)

Over all I think it was a good day...Hope Anand enjoyed it too.

Not to forget, Anand also got a beer bucket consisting of different beers from around the world :)

Strawberries from the back yard

It's such a good thing we bought a couple of strawberry plants. They have been so good to us. Megha helps me so much in gardening. I hope she takes a liking to gardening; its such a stress buster.

Without fail, they give us a few (at least one) strawberries per day! Yesterday we got a whole handful of them.

Megha helps water the plants and here she made a strawberry stone pie :) very proud of her creativity :)

29 weeks

As of today I am exactly 29 weeks with the baby boy. Now that I am in my third trimester, the fatigue hit me real hard. It's a good thing I took off from work; I don't think I would have been able to continue much longer if I hadn't. The tiniest of chores is wearing me out. I feel sad that I have to leave Megha at the day care between 10 and 5. When will I ever get to spend this time alone with her again? Never!

I also plunged into cleaning. Probably the nesting instincts. I want the baby room ready NOW. I really am getting stresse over the room now. I cleaned out a bit but there's still so much to do. I am trying to take things slowly and do one small thing a day but I really wish the baby room is ready. And the hospital bag! I still have 2 months plus, so I guess that can wait. Don't know.
Well, at least Megha's room is de-cluttered and it's looking much nicer now.

I feel very anxious lately. Especially when Anand is away on night shifts or is with friends late nights... I no longer feel safe at nights.
Many nights I am up until 2 or 3 AM simply thinking. I guess that's where the good old Indian joint family support system played a key role. Someone assuring that it will be ok. It maynot really work out the way I planned it wanted but it will work out.

And not to mention, I am so bored of Indian restaurants here. I feel like eating something really spicy, even at the cost of heart burns! Ha ha! 

A trip to the Fair

Summer is here and so are the summer activities. Whenever Anand off from work during the weekends, we take megha out for something fun. Of late I stopped taking her alone to a certain places where I suspect I will have trouble alone :)

Here she is on her all time favorite Carousal.

Here is Megha's first ever Ferris-wheel ride picture. I had never particularly liked this ride but glad to know that Megha liked it.

After a several more rides, it was time for face-painting. She chose to be a butterfly (there was no option for her favorite unicorns) and chose the colors herself! Orange and Black...my Monarch Butterfly.

As expected, she had a meltdown when it was time to go. 

Constipation Remedies and Fiber Rich foods for Toddlers

As I said in my previous post, I started doing some research about fiber rich foods.
Here is what the kids need in terms of fiber to keep the constipation at bay.

• Toddlers (1-3 years old) should get 19 grams of fiber each day.
• Kids 4-8 years old should get 25 grams a day.

Some of the below foods I started giving Megha are. 

1. One medium pear with skin: Contains 5.5 grams of fiber
2. Small apple with skin: 3.6 grams
3. medium banana: 3.1 grams
4. One TBSP Chia and Flax seed powder: 4 grams
5. 1/2 cup cooked green peas: 4.4 grams
6. 1.2 cups of Spinach: 8 grams
7. 1/2 cup cooked carrots: 2.5
8. 1 cup Broccoli: 5.1 grams
9. 1/4 Oats: 4 grams
10. 1/2 cup moong dal (whole green gram): 3.3 grams
11. 1/2 Toor dal: 1.25 grams
12. 1 slice Whole grain Bread: 2.8 grams
13. Wheat Bran 2 tbsp: 4.5 grams (add to yogurt/milk)

Soccer Season begins!

Now that Megha is 3+ we enrolled her in soccer lessons. Its so good to see her kick the ball around and 'try' and listen to her coach. For the most part she is doing good; but since the class starts only at 6:15 PM every Tuesday, she seems a little tired by the time the lesson actually begins.

Here is the little star in her soccer gear...

Bend it like Beckham! I wasnt 100% sure if its the right time to start the lessons but I am glad we enrolled her now.

Gluten Free Oatmeal Pancakes for Toddlers (and adults)

As I had mentioned before, Megha suffers from constipation from time to time. I am always looking for fiber rich foods but of late I did not. Time to start again, now that I am home (I should have no excuses :)

So, I stumbled up on this super easy gluten free oatmeal pancakes recipe; I tweaked the recipe a bit to adjust the portion but the original recipe is Here. As such, Megha loves pancakes and I was hoping she would like this too and she did!

Serves: 3 (Makes about 10 pancakes)

Ingredients:
Steel cut oats: 1 cup
Milk (I used whole milk): 1 1/2
Apple: 1 small
Egg: 1
Cinnamon: 1/2 tsp
Nutmeg: a pinch (optional)
Salt: a pinch
Baking Powder: 1/2 TBSP

Method:
Add the oats, milk and cut pieces of apple in a blender and blend it until the mixture is fine (about a minute to two).
Add everything else with the exception of baking powder and blend again for 20 seconds. After taking the batter out in a bowl, add the baking powder.

Heat a pan/griddle and when hot, pour a ladle full of the batter. When you see the bubbles rising on the pancake, flip that over to cook on other side. Press it down with spatula if you feel the pancakes are a bit under-cooked. Transfer to a serving plate. You can either have it with butter or syrup or plain cakes. Its sweet enough even without syrup because of the apple.

Verdict: Megha ate 2 and half pancakes (with maple syrup)! It means its a super success.

Mothers Day 2015

Mothers day 2015 has gone by really well. Megha and Anand made breakfast, bought me flowers, a baby monitor as a gift and I sure did feel loved.

It was warm and sunny and in the evening they did a BBQ for me. Anand's leg wasnt feeling good and it was super nice of him to make the day special, inspite of that. We were hanging out at our new patio set that evening.

He also made rum cake which turned out yum. A starter with celery sticks, wings, virgin mojito and meat for dinner. Megha got burgers and fries.

It was a beautiful day.

Updates

I have taken a few weeks off from my work. I hope I will be able to concentrate on myself and the baby in the next few weeks. I had written a bunch of things to do when I am off and I hope to get to them. One day at a time.

I have some ideas for the baby room. I really want deep blue elephants and polka dots theme :)
Not sure if I can really pull this off but lets see. Still have to make cozy space for the baby, like I did for megha.

This baby sure is more active lately. He likes to move about a lot in the evenings. His movements are kicks are much more prominent than Megha. Sometimes its really bad that I cry out loud, quite literally. I have to hang in there, tell myself to hang in there, it will pass. It does pass, eventually but not without a lot of tears. At times, because of all this, I feel a little resentful. Not towards the baby but towards the pregnancy. I feel why am I the one to go through this. Why doesnt a man's life change as much; why should I get to be the one curled up in fetal position waiting for the pain to pass. Why cant I simply be. Those moments pass but not like I said, not without some resentful-ness. Then I remind myself, is this not what I wanted. Was this what I wanted?
The baby, yes. Everything else. No.

Back to the baby room. I am really excited.