Astrovelo

Oscar the grouch from Sesame Street is Adit’s most favorite character. He behaves like Oscar too, as seen here with our trashcan. We thought that he likes our trashcan because it is made of shiny stainless steel. But, his teacher commented the other day that Adit is after trashcans at daycare as well. Maybe, it is a sign of things to come. He may take up trash handling/sanitation as a profession when he is a grown-up. He will be in good company with the likes of Tony Soprano. That means I don’t have to worry about my retirement. My “Family” will take care of me in the old age.

Adit looking at the falling snow through the window.

Some photos of Adit sent by his teacher.


eating lunch

lounging with a book

finger painting

out for a ride

smile smile smile

Hey Big Sister, stop embarassing me in front of my buddies

Adit, just a few seconds before he pulled out some grass and put in his mouth.

All through this month, Adit was troubled by a bad cold, but he kept fighting it and was as smiley as always. He started eating a lot of new solid foods. To rice cereal, carrots and sweet potatoes, we added squash, green beans, pears and applesauce.

Rice cereal must be his current favorite. Like Pavlov’s dog, when he is put in a highchair with straps on and with a bib around his neck, he knows what’s coming. In his teacher’s words: “If his cereal is not ready when I put Adit in the chair, he gets really upset”. His eating speed is just amazing. His mouth is wide open even before we can scoop up the next spoonful.

Adit loves green beans just like his sister, but didn’t like the applesauce at all, which was surprising. This was his reaction to applesauce, which is probably sweeter than anything else he eats.

Right now he eats the solids twice a day, and slowly we’ll increase it to 3 times: breakfast, lunch and dinner. Adit likes to put everything within his reach in his mouth. Doesn’t matter if he is hungry or full, everything must go in his mouth. Every object in our house is now officially covered with his saliva.

Adit is starting to roll over and trying to crawl these days. Very soon, everything of value will have to be moved 3-4 feet from the floor. He likes to play with balls a lot. He also likes to sit and bounce in the exersaucer like Ashwini. Adit sits up and plays with his toys. But if he falls down, he can’t make himself sit up from sleeping position and just gets upset. Lately, standing up by holding our hands is the favorite activity. He continues to enjoy being out on the swing. Ashwini is more than eager to push him on the swing-set.

Eventhough Ashwini just tortures him, Adit adores his sister to no end. He is happy to see her around. If she starts to sing and dance, he stops crying immediately. They seem to have developed a special bond already. I can imagine that he is going to learn everything from his sister; good and bad. If she says it is cool, he’ll do anything. Here you can see Adit admiring Ashwini as she does peek-a-boo to him.

Adit getting ready to go to the waterpark.

Adit turned 7 month old today. This last month will be remembered as the month of big changes. He started going to daycare, started eating solid food and starting to enjoy the vertical dimension. He has been sitting up a lot longer without falling down and is more interested in sitting and playing with toys. He knows what toys he wants to play with and gets upset when that toy is taken away from him. This happens a lot as Ashwini tries to control what toys Adit gets to play with and he doesn’t like her intervention at all.

One of Adit’s most favorite toys right now is the ‘taggies’ blanket. Many of you must have noticed that kids like to play with the labels on toys, especially stuffed toys. This smart person came up with an idea of making a little blanket with different kinds of labels all over its edges. Adit just loves to put this unlimited supply of labels in his mouth. He also likes to play with balls.

It was easy to get Adit to start with solids. He liked the idea of eating from a spoon after making a mess a few times. He started off with rice cereal and he loved it. He is just opposite of Ashwini in terms of speed of eating. He is finished in just a few minutes while Ashwini needs to read books, listen to stories to eat her food. Adit’s stomach handled carrots very well too. The next thing we tried was sweet potatoes and they just wreaked havoc on his tummy. All those diaper changes has left him with a bright red diaper-rashed butt. Hopefully, it will get resolved soon.

Adit is learning to make different sounds and is getting very good at complaining when things don’t go his way. He still doesn’t make any baba-dada sounds, but is getting close. Screaming (learnt from his sister) is his sound of choice. Many times he carries on conversations with lights, ceiling fans or trees that he sees outside the window.

Adit is getting acquinted with “Dora the explorer” and “Blue’s Clues” at an early age because of his sister. Ashwini hardly watched any TV until she was 2 years old.

We had a fun half day at the waterpark. Adit couldn’t play in water as much as his sister did, but I took him for a tube-ride down a canal. He had a blast with all the water splashing onto him from fountains, jets etc.

Adit still doesn’t sleep all through the night and wakes up at least once to drink a bottle. If we listen to his pediatrician, we will just close the door, put a pillow over our heads and let him cry to sleep by himself, but I don’t think that is going to happen very soon. He still seems very small and delicate to us to be treated that way. One day will come when he sleeps through the night and we’ll share our celebration with you all. A couple more photos of the big guy…

Sir Adit John