10 months - 12 months

9 months - 10 months

7 months - 9 months

The pincer grip

Not just rejoicing in his previous success, Nischal added yet another kiss-evading maneuver that turned out be the most effective.

Dad had to stop kissing his son - mouth ulcers. But it took him a while to realize he was the victim of Nischal's latest weapon.

Puzzled ?

The dad was, too - for weeks. Here's the skinny:

When dad tried to reach him with puckered lips, he'd put out his hand and grab hold of his lower lip. And then use his little pincer grip to the hilt.

Initially dad was all in praise of his dad - about Nischal's cute little fingers, holding on to things, how he grips, cutie pie, yada yada yada. The next day, he couldn't open his pie hole to even scream in pain.

The little nicks Nischal presented him with had bloomed. On the bright side, dad lost a couple of pounds - not being really able to eat anything without yelping about it.

Eating your feet

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Flipping, crawling, etc.

Nischal's dad has been busy doing a lot of useless things other than updating the blog.

Nischal flipped around 4.5 months, and since has been threatening to crawl or sit up.

His mom & grandma have debates about whether he's going to sit first, or crawl first.

After flipping, his first task as General Nischal was to get the big picture. So, he spent a few days circling on his tummy. Then he started doing pushups. The pushups vary in style and intensity. He has followed this next with various yoga poses that his grandma knows all names of.

He has started crawling.. but barely. For a while, while the " I'm going to sit now " act was on, he'd raise his one leg up like a dog about to pee - and the crowd at home would go wild. Then he half sat on one butt, and decided not to continue - too much adulation.

He has figured out that the bed has a different surface from the floor. On the bed, his locomotion is achieved by a series of pushups and slamming his face down on the bed to move forward.

On the floor, this movement has a disadvantage in that his head gets banged up a bit. There, he prefers to slowly move his legs, alternatively rock, and in most cases just bawl until somebody brings him that damn toy.

Its in this arena his intellectual development exceeds his motor skills. He's figured whom to smile at, bawl at, or just abuse incessantly - to get what he wants.

His mom occasionally worries :

"His brother stood up at 7.5 months .. "

"This guy isn't even sitting at 7 months .."

"The donkey next door was braying at 3 months .. " etc.

Nischal continues unfazed, with his yogic postures and pushups.

Introducing, Count Droolula

Before I explain the title, I'll put forth a small quiz. You've seen the movie, 'Aliens' with Sigourney Weaver? Allow me to change your mental image from Sigourney's nightwear to the alien. What was the scariest part about the alien? Maybe 'scariest' is the wrong term.... I should say 'most hard-hitting'. I know many of you will answer .. 'the saliva / drool/ fluid / gooey stuff it had all over its fangs, body.. etc. ' Nischal hasn't seen 'Aliens' yet.. but he somehow knows this. As reported in a previous post, he initially had good success with head butting. But after seeing his dad's persistence.. Nischal has changed his tactics. Now he drools. There's drool on his face 24x 7. There's drool on his chin, on his cheeks, neck, his tshirt..everywhere. And if you get close to kissing him, he gets you first and is very generous with his drool. In case you think you can dodge, think again. He has a maneuver - shaking his mouth left & right to apply error corrections - and gets you anyway.

Shaolin and headbutting..

Today once again, Dad remembered head conditioning scenes from various Shaolin movies.

This was after being head butted on his nose, once again.

This sequence goes like this:

• Dad is carrying Nischal.
  
• Dad tries to kiss him.
  
• Nischal turns towards dad and headbutts him on his face.
• Dad lets out a 'ooh', 'aah' or an 'ouch'.
  

The 'my-son-can't-do-anything-wrong' mom thinks it's because Nischal has a big/heavy head, and still can't keep it straight.

Dad thinks he hears phrases like

"Keep away, you unshaven mongrel!",

"Again? Take that !"

"Just keep asking for it, don't you?"

or other kind words from Nischal. Maybe all those headbutts are doing things to Dad's brains.

After he dabs nose, he peers into Nischal's face.. and sees no sign of any hostility. Just a serene smile.

So the next day, he works up his courage, and .. BAM! - the sequence repeats.

Given the frequency of visits, the doctor thinks dad is just ashamed to admit being beaten by his wife. Dad prefers him thinking that way.

Meanwhile dad now has theories about Nischal's previous life. He keeps measuring Nischal's head, checks the shape, the damage to his own nose, and googles for images of past Shaolin monks' heads.

Early morning code review..

Nischal wakes up early - around 5-6 am - for his milk.
Dad feeds him, and puts him to sleep by rocking him.

Some music also helps - played on dad's laptop.

So he stares at the screen as though the java code there is actually the music.

Dad - the typical geek - is already fantasizing that his son might start seeing music in code.
Nischal, probably is thinking - 'Smile about the music, or frown at the messy code - what should I do ?' *Sigh*
'Maybe I'll just mess myself instead, give dad a taste of his own medicine..'

April 2009 - Nischal talking to his mom

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Some pictures from March 09

Feb 06 - Feb 21

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Sympathetic balding?

Nischal's dad has a very valid reason for putting on weight - or so he says.  'Sympathetic pregnancy' - is the term he uses, and points out that most weight he has gained has been during the two pregnancies of his sons.  While his wife lost weight religiously after delivery and is back to being trim, he lovingly rubs his belly like he's still planning on delivering it sometime.  New years & resolutions have whizzed past, but there's another new year always round the corner, eh? Another dimension to Dad's aging process is his rapidly declining hair. His pate is emptying at the top. Unlike the bulk, that is something he's definitely losing hair about.   Nischal - despite his busy schedule of chugging milk, pooping & sleeping - seems to have noticed this and has decided to lend an empathetic hand here.  Now he also is rapidly losing the already scant hair he had.. resulting in a rather empty dome worse than his dad.  If thats not a true father-son bond, what is?

From 2009-02-06 - 2009-02-21

The eyelashes are coming..

Nischal, like many other babies I'm guessing, has no eyebrows, or eyelashes and very little hair. Its really incredible that we find these hairless, eyebrowless, eylashless beings super super cute. In the same breath we no doubt also consider ourselves 'smart' , 'intelligent', etc.

 

While I remember the eyebrow thing with Avaneesh, I don't remember how his eyelashes were. So we had decided that Nischal will end up being a 'no eyelash' being. 

But 3 days ago, Lo and behold, we spied small prickly things growing at the tip of his eyelids. He's growing eyelashes!

 

The choo choo won't leave the station..

Another popular game General Nischal used to play with his parents was the 'drip irrigation' game. The parents may not really be aware of the game, however.  

The game goes thus: 

1. Soil the diaper a little bit.

2. Yell like there's an ant biting your behind

3. Parents take the bait, and change the diaper

4. Give them a few minutes to relax

5. Repeat steps 1 through 4 about 3 times over the course of an hour. 

7. Enjoy the look on Dad's face as he re-reads the pampers packaging and calculates the damage to his wallet. 

But before you spawn google searches for tickets to the next performance, we regret to inform you the 'drip irrigation' game has ended. 

These days General Nischal had been fighting a rather internal battle.
Since his mom got on some more serious medications, she's been advised not to breast feed. So, the man has been put on Lactogen & Nan. This has 'blocked' the aforementioned hero and thereby has caused the demise of the game. 

While the resultant flatulence set more ships to sail than Napolean ever did, the end result would still be that the choo choo wouldn't leave the station.
... the bear wouldn't come out of the cave.
... the shuttle didn't launch ..

.. . the rabbit remained in the burrow

.... the writer's stupid analogies' cup runneth over.  

But Nischal being the fighter he is, wouldn't ignore the issue either. All day he would struggle, make weird faces, and would be generally unhappy. The clueless parents of course, had nothing other than platitudes to offer him. And when the prized event did happen after a couple of days, it would cause him more pain than war injuries would.  

But now, the valiant efforts of his grandma and Sudha ( the lady from the village here to help with him) have now ensured he manages to poop twice a day. They sit with him, make the same   'uuhhmm..'  noises as him, massage his butt, lift his legs, etc. for 10-15 minutes until the choo choo finally leaves the station. :)

And then there's a dramatic change in persona. There's a glow in the face, he's back to looking around for victims to shoot at, planning new games with his parents, pondering about light fixtures,  practicing his 'bite the bottle with eyes closed' manoevre, etc. 

Now the birds are singing again, the water is flowing freely, and there is peace in the land ...

A tete-a-tete with my big brother

Mom - hit in the face, and dad escapes with a shot on his legs..

Reporting from the war front ... shelling by Mr. Nischal continued, and yesterday Mom was the first casualty. She caught a volley on the face and clothes, and let out a shriek. Surprisingly however, Mom later seemed unfazed and unhurt, and even talks about event in a rather light vein. 

Dad was hit a few hours later -  He claims he was tricked. In his own words 

"I was alert. Armed with a wet tissue in hand, I blocked and diverted the trajectory well. But just as I moved my hand towards the new diaper, the second volley caught me. I'm lucky I only got hit on my leg.. " 

Despite the confident front,  the previous arrogance has clearly left him. One could see signs of fatigue and humility on his tired face. Like the chap departing from the White house, he realizes that he'd presumed victory a little too soon. 

Mr. Nischal, unfortunately wasn't available for a comment. His office responded that he was 'resting'. 

.. More news to follow ..   

The little alien has a name : Cool dude

Ok . not literally 'cool dude' .

We named our boy 'Nischal' . In Sanskrit, it means one who is calm, unruffled. So, one could paraphrase it to 'cool dude'. :)

Right now the parents aren't enlightened enough to understand the pearls of wisdom from the dude.

When he's hungry he hunts around with an open mouth for his mom. His parents fondly call that the 'jaws' move. He does that when he's not hungry too to ensure she's within reach. For reasons unknown she gets a little upset when he does that at night every couple of hours.

His working hours are fixed to Pacific Standard Time. His parents just don't get it, and are stupidly talking to everybody about how he doesn't sleep at night. But true to his name, he's cool about it. He knows he can eventually train them.

He's also into sports, his dad thinks. Not sure if its shooting or archery. Every diaper change, he aims at his dad. And he is sure a determined chap - totally unfazed about missing so far. He does have some minor successes - eg. his grandpa who's a little slow at jumping out of the way.
One can't blame Nischal's skills though - given the parents' infernal practice of using diapers, he doesn't really get enough opportunities to practice.

Once in a while when his zombie parents look like they're going over the top, he flashes them a quick smile - and they're all happy and glowing . "Too easy" he thinks and hopes that life ahead is a little more challenging than these pushovers.

He's now gone through the ceremony of being officially put into the cradle. Not fooled by all that drama, he still prefers his parents arms. He's a little annoyed that he has to keep asserting this often.

Chugging milk has also built up his vocal chords a bit. His parents' response time has gotten better owing to this. Being the kind and understanding soul he is, he readily accepts their failings and is willing to work on them and better them.

Enter the Alien - Dec 11, 2008

The 'baby with no name' came out at at 11:38 am Dec 11 IST at 35 weeks.
He weighed 2.57 Kgs ( 5.66 lbs) and was 18.5 inches long.

Like most newcomers, he kinda looks like an alien, but everybody around him treats him like the cutest thing that ever came on earth.

He also, for no apparent reason, lets out short whines/ groans every two minutes.
Definitely a party animal too - he's up all night.


Anu is also fine & recovering well. She was hoping for a daughter she could buy pretty frocks for, go to chick flicks with, and commiserate about an
insensitive father & older brother whose emotions are limited to things with wheels.
I too feel deeply for her. :))

Cradle ceremony

Welcoming ceremony

Days 4 - 22

Born on Dec 11, 2008