Zerelina's World

Wow its been a year since I updated this site! So much has happened.

 

Mihir was born on August 1st 2006 and has been such a joy and blessing to us. Second time around parenting is both easier and harder. Easier because you have done this once before and would be an idiot if you hadn't gotten any better at it. And harder because you have two of them to care for now.

I had 20 weeks off from work when Mihir was born and loved every minute of it - it was over too soon, though.

 

Rohan is growing so fast. He went through a "Cars" movie phase and simply lived all the characters from the movie. I think we've watched it at least 25 times if not more. He also started pre-school part-time this year at the same time as when Mihir was born. It was a lot of changes for him - poor little guy - but he's such a trooper and doing great.

 

This winter has been kinder on us than the last - health wise and we managed to stay healthy until spring when we all got sick one-by-one with some infection. So we missed out on Memorial Day weekend plans, but ended up having a great time this past weekend with both sets of grandparents visiting us.

 

Work is still busy and promises to get busier for me in the next 2-3 months. Kunal moved jobs within the company this year as well and is now a "Researcher" which oddly enough suits him. Oh and he also grew his hair out over the past year. You would not have recognized him if you'd met him on the street! Many say he looked like Sanjaya Malakar, so he finally got tired of that comment and had a haircut.

 

 

Spring is finally here. Sarah had come over with her mom and dad. She is speaking a lot of English now (a true bilingual) so it was easy to understand her. She and Rohan played well together, unfortunately I only remembered the camera till much later so I only have a couple of pictures. [See May-June 2006 photo album].

 

We also took in a train ride from Snoqualmie to North Bend. It was a very warm day and even warmer on the train. Towards the end both Rohan and Zerelina were very hot and tired.

 

We finished remodeling Rohan's new room. Nana (Zerelina's dad) was here and he made a train table as well as closet shelves for Rohan's room. They look beautiful. He also put up the lights and put finishes on the shelves we got for the toys.

 

Rohan was very excited with his Thomas bed (regular bed with Thomas bedding). He also loved the train table and played with it almost all day today.

 

I also have video, but I'll send that over e-mail.

10 days ago, Rohan, Kunal and I went to the Pro Club for Santa Brunch with Peo, Mari and Sarah. I've added a photo album with some pictures. Rohan was scared of Santa (as expected) so we took a family photo with Santa. I haven't heard back from Pro Club about the picture, perhaps we should ask at the front desk next time we go there.

See new photos of R taken on-around Halloween. He dressed up as a monkey [Our neighbor's daughter was a Princess Barbie]

So over the past several months, I decided to read books from some Indian authors. So I started with Bharati Mukherjee and read two of her books - "Desirable Daughters" and "The Tree Bride"

 

Not really a great read, but a good read. What I wanted from the books was a little bit insight into that which is the old (late 1800's to mid 1900's) Bengali Brahmin family's roots (K's really not mine). These books are more about the old Bengal - Bangaldesh than current West Bengal. But still, some good insight into that which is snobbery of schools, Calcuttan's (Kolkata now) vs. non-Calcuttons, etc.

 

It's amazing how the caste system continues to survive in India - one we almost take for granted but having lived here now for 10+ years, seems so old and of the by-gone era's.

And along with it fall has brought us cloudy, gloomy, overcast, rainy weather. I miss summer already.

K is leaving tomorrow morning to go to a conference in Lisbon, Portugal for a week. He'll be back the following Friday. We're a little worried how R is going to take it. Every morning he wakes up asking for daddy "I go to daddy" and if you don't comply, the tears start pouring down.

 

This morning he inexplicably started crying about "I want to wear daddy's t-shirt". After some time we figured out this was a red t-shirt of his that he'd worn the day before. Daddy also has a red t-shirt of the same kind, so he's calling this t-shirt "Daddy's t-shirt". He got so upset that he couldn't speak and literally lay down on the floor and pounded his fists (I thought that only happened in movies!).

 

Well he recovered soon enough and was snugly sitting in his red t-shirt (which needed a wash) until I convinced him to change into the "Peek-a-boo" shirt that nani got him from Leavenworth.

 

So this week is going to be interesting. None of us know what to expect. But I want to start explaining to him tonight itself that daddy is going to fly in an airplane and go visit far-away people for a while and will be in a while. He has concept of days, but usually only thinks as far as "soon", "in a few days". Not in terms of "in a week".