Shortly after Cian’s birthday party he came down with a cough, runny nose and fever. It’s the first big cold he’s had and it’s a doozy. It just doesn’t want to let go which is annoying. The dr says it will be around for at least a week or so.  Not looking forward to that! (edit.. it has now been a week and he’s still suffering!)

Cian’s super clingy – he’s crying unless you are holding him or sitting right next to him on the floor playing. In some ways it’s cute because he’s very lovey, but difficult when you are trying to eat, make food, go to the rest room, etc. And as the week has gone on, it’s gotten more difficult to manage.

One good thing about Cian is what a great eater he is. Not sure if that is due to the BLW we did or if he’s just a good eater. Even with him being so sick, he still ate homemade vegetable soup with pasta in it, pureed kiwi and frozen lemon lollies and of course his favorite pomegrante! Of course that wasn’t the planned meal, but at least he got some veggies and some fruit! haha.

I wrote that and then the next day he didn’t want to eat anything for lunch and i was thinking.. this must be what it feels like to wonder if your child is getting enough nutrition. I just let it go though and thought if he’s still hungry, he’ll be moany and not sleep. He took 2 epic naps – 2.5 hrs and 1.5 hrs, so I guess he did get enough to eat! And thankfully for dinner he redeemed himself and ate tons of fish, cauliflower, pomegrante and pear.

But after several days of this, I am missing all of our activities. The days go much slower when you can’t go to music class or playgroup.  We’ve done very few of our normal activities this week, but we did go swimming one day which seemed to make him feel a bit better. we were planning on going again today, but he’s been sleeping all day, so not sure if we’ll make it!

Wow. I can’t believe I have survived the 1st year. Yeah! Congrats to me! haha. I am not sure why we give the baby so many presents for the first year of life.. I think all of the love and adoration should be given to the mommas and pappas. Its tough making that transition to parenthood, figuring out your new roles, schedules, lack of sleep, organized meals, etc.  So we are ecstatic that we made it.

And it hasn’t been all easy. But I am so grateful for the wonderful friends I have here in Mumbai who have been such wonderful lifelines. I couldn’t have done it without them for sure. And my online mom’s group has been amazing – doctors when i need them, mommies who have been there done that (recently!), inspiration to try new things, courage to do what i believe is best and not what others say i should do, and most of all, encouragement that i can do it all! And of course our families have been great – they are so far away, but being able to share all of Cian’s milestones over skype on an almost daily basis has been great as well. Thank goodness for Skype!!

And Cian.. what a first year for him! He has been on 22 flights, has been in 6 countries (including India), has been to the beach, has been to Indian’s holiest river, has been to two weddings, has been to Ireland twice and the US once. He’s had 4 international visitors to Mumbai. He is definitely an international baby!  He has friends all over the world and here in Mumbai he has an international set of friends who he adores.

And now on his first birthday, he celebrated internationally too – we did our first video conference call with my mom and paul’s parents. We didn’t want anyone to miss seeing Cian’s first cake and candle, so this was our solution. it worked pretty well actually! And we managed to also video it – which will be uploaded on the video page shortly.

He’s a busy little bee at 1 years old. His current schedule is playgroup on Monday with about 15-20 kids ranging from birth to 4, Indian music class on Tue, soon to be swimming as well, western music class on wed, just a casual friends meetup on thur and gym class on friday followed by another play group with all the 2010-2011 babies in Bandra. Wheew. He’s a busy boy!

Our favorite memories of the year —

• all of baby led weaning (BLW). We all survived BLW and it seems to have been great for all of us. People are still shocked to see that Cian’s favorite foods are tofu, broccoli, asparagus, zucchini, etc. maybe he’s just not a fussy eater, or maybe exposing him to so many of these fresh veggies first was the best thing to do. Who knows, but we just hope that his good eating habits stick around!
• taking a 4.5 month old Cian on a rickshaw treasure hunt around Bandra
• Cian wearing traditional Indian clothes at Kevin & Tj’s wedding
• Going to the beach for the first time
• Going swimming
• watching him play with his best little friends Isla & Martha
• laughing – his new ‘trick’ that is just hilarious!

Tomorrow is the last day of Ganpati and the start of the Mount Mary Festival, which makes me think of what was happening last year during these two festivals…I was in the hospital about to have my little munchkin!

I remember thinking that I hadn’t even gotten out to see ANY of the ganeshes around Bandra like I have every previous year. And the traffic getting to Lilivati was absolutely insane with the festival going on – I only knew that because of how long it would take Paul to get from our house to the hospital which is only a mile or two away!

And how things have changed in 1 year. I am thankfully skinnier now than I was when I got pregnant! I now feel like a ‘soccer mom’ with all the running around I do with Cian – play groups here and there, music classes, gym classes, etc. My living room no longer has any “asian feel” to it as it’s cluttered with baby toys and all other signs of adulthood have been removed so to not hurt the little one.  And a huge one for me that is.. I only get online for a few hours a day – during naps and after the little one is asleep for the night!

The other thing I am realizing this year… I have seen these festivals TOO many times. The ganesh idols in my neighborhood are the same ones they have had for the last 7 years – so no real interest to trudge around in the hot steamy weather to see very similar ones as to the previous years.  So then that makes me think…it really must be time to make a move.

will this be our last ganpati and mt mary festival living in Mumbai? only time will tell. Check back this time next year

After a long hiatus – Slaint.com is BACK! And with a new look.  A friend in SF used to host slaint.com for free for years so I never had to worry about it, but he decided to cut his costs and dump all his freeloading friends! So slaint.com was offline for a while until I got motivated (and the time!) to sort it all out again.

So now here we are! A brief into to the new site:

Instead of moving all my photos onto slaint like I used to have, I have decided to keep them at Flickr and just provide links – they are on the right side of this page under “photos”.  I have also put a tab at the top called photos where I will put some of my flickr photosets. I can’t guarantee to do them all because I upload so many photos and it’s easier to just click the appropriate link on the sidebar!

I only take videos of Cian, so that tab should probably just be called Cian, but for now we will pretend that there might be other videos up there at some point! haha. That is also where you will need to check for new additions.

And the blog tab will bring you right back here!  And for all of you that are curious about Paul.. you can go to this newly created website from under the links tab.

I really hope that this new format will allow me to easily update and to get back to blogging. I have actually missed it quite a bit and have a ton of things I could have written about in this last year – but it was difficult to find the time!

Anyhoo…welcome back to slaint.com!