Abhi's first monument

Abhi has been to a concert and two beer festivals but never a national monument. It took him almost a year but now he can add to his experience 556 feet up the Washington Monument.


Keshav's cousin Govi visited us last week from Bangalore. He was actually in the US for work in CA and then visited us to get a view of DC (and NYC) before heading back home. He saw lots of stuff last week gone from morning to night everyday. On Friday, Abhi and I spent the day with him in DC to see the Washington Monument. So, Abhi got to to see DC from the highest point. I have never seen it before either so I was up for the occassion. I was not incredibly impressed but it is worth a look and it's free - nice thing about sightseeing in DC. After you have been on top of other landmarks around the world, this one pails in comparison, what can I say. Abhi did have fun. He looked out the windows and talked up a storm.

Here is our self portrait series from the top...

Things Abhi can do now...

As you can see in the picture, Abhi is now holding his own bottle. When I say it is time for milk, he goes and gets on the pillow to get ready. Course, he doesn't always drink, he likes to also play with the bottle which leads to milk everywhere. But, he is doing pretty good. He also is now drinking out of sippy cups frequently. I just bought him one with a straw and he likes it. I gave it to him this morning for the first time and he caught on immediately. He then proceeded to carry it with him everywhere this morning while he was playing. He was looking at his book with one hand and holding the cup in the other.

I am not sure if I have kept up what Abhi is able to do now on the blog so here are the latest things...
Up down with arms
Peek-a-boo (although he doesn't always cover his eyes)
Wave (knows bye bye means wave)
Go down stairs
Do upside down (bending over and looking through his legs)
Eating finger foods well - he is chewing good (he now has 4 teeth on the top to go with the 2 on the bottom, so he is having fun crunching cheerios and crackers between them)
Shaking his head no (and he knows what it means too)
Drink through a straw -new this morning

He is talking a ton too. However, I am not sure what he is saying most of the time. He is saying versions of ball, duck, and night night. I think I have heard attempts at buster and mooing like a cow. The latest is "hi" and "hi sweetie"(sounds like hi deetie). He has been saying hi sweetie for awhile but it took me awhile to figure out. I always say that to him which is where it comes from. But he says hi to people all the time now, it's cute.

Still spending time at the pool and Abhi loves the water. Here is a picture of Abhi after last Thursday's outing to the pool. He was a little tired!

4th of July Weekend

Abhi's first 4th was fairly uneventful, I must admit. He did not even see, or hear (slept through) any fire works. Since his bedtime is 8 or 8:30, he was gone by the time the fireworks started at 9:15.

First, let's back up... Abhi got to experience his first water park Thursday afternoon. We went to the signal hill water park with my friend Helen and her sons Anthony and Gabriel. It is by their house and Helen said it is smaller and more on a scale Abhi could handle. And it was very nice and smaller than our other parks. Abhi is just so darn independent that he wants to first of all, walk on his own without holding your hand and secondly, he wants to venture into the deeper waters (up to his waist and chest) where he gets a little wobbly. He also wants to join the bigger kids in climbing on things which he is too small for. It is a little unnerving and it is nonstop following and supervising for me! But he loved the sprays of water and had fun. We went about naptime, so I was a little worried about him getting overtired. But as soon as break came around, we put him in the stroller, got some snacks, and he was off to sleep. He took a 2 hour nap at the water park! It was awesome because I got some time to layout and chat with Helen and read my book. Relaxing by a pool is a rarity these days!!!

The 4th and the rest of the weekend mostly centered around Wimbledon tennis. So, Abhi got to watch some tv this past weekend. I don't think he really even cares now...he is too buy walking around and exploring everything possible. Plus, since we are rarely in the basement, it is new territory for him. We finally got out in the evening of the 4th and went for pizza at Tony's, the best pizza around us. So much for cook outs. Then we came home and did the nightly ritual of bath, read, bottle, sleep for Abhi and he was out by 8:30. Then we were planning to see the city fireworks from our deck. We have a fairly good view from there (although one of the trees has grown considerably since last year) and it beats fighting crowds. So, we poured ourselves a glass of wine and headed to the deck. It promptly started to rain! The fireworks still went on though and we did briefly watch under umbrellas.

Speaking of Wimbledon - excellent tennis! I do feel for Federer, but awesome Nadal!! Spain is on a role and that was a match for the history books!!!

Saturday we went to DC to the folklife festival that the Smithsonian has every year. It was hotter than blazes!!! I don't know why they have that festival during the hottest time of the year. I was too hot to enjoy anything!

Sunday, like I mentioned, was consumed with tennis. Then we met up with Kehav's cousin, wife and family in the afternoon for lunch - visiting from Dallas.

Hope everyone had a wonderful 4th of July!!

A busy weekend!

First of all, Uncle Carey came to visit. Carey hasn't seen Abhi since he was 3 months old so he can definitely see Abhi has grown a lot! Carey came in Thursday night and it was out to dinner from there. Abhi probably stayed up the latest he has ever been up - 10pm! Friday we chilled at home. Abhi showed Carey all the things he does during the day....walk around, empty drawers, make lots of noise, talk, play, eat, play some more, look at books, pull buster's tail, you get the picture. They also engaged in some good boy fun wrestling and dive bombing the teddy bear. Poor teddy! Keshav came home and we went out for Thai, one of the newest additions to Manassas, Zabb. It's not bad.

Saturday, Carey left in the morning. After that, it was on with the rest of our busy weekend. Abhi's friend Sachin, turned 1 last week and so we went to his bday party on Saturday afternoon. The kids played and had fun (see pic - that is Sachin on the Elmo couch) and we got to meet Sachin's dad Andy and some of their family and friends. We met Sandy (Sachin's mom) and Sachin in mommy and baby yoga back when the boys were still tiny. Now they are growing up fast and becoming big 1 year olds. We stayed all afternoon and ate and visited but early eve it was off to our next engagement...

We then proceeded to Lori and Bill's for dinner and it was off to the Dave Matthews Concert with them and our other friends Helen and Tim. That was after a diversion home to get necessities like diapers which I totally forgot earlier. Usually, I am over packed...not on Saturday, the busiest day we have had in awhile. Anyway, Abhi did not get to go see Dave this year instead he stayed home with babysitter Hayley ( and Ben Lori's kids). That was a wise decision since he is so busy. We could have never kept track of him!

It was a long, fun night shall I say so we had to do some sleeping in on Sunday. Even Abhi was very tired after all the running around we had been doing, missing some naps here and there, and going to bed late. Some rest and relaxation was needed for all three of us!

But, we weren't finished with our weekend as there was still a picnic Sunday afternoon for my old friend Jaime who was in town from Boston. It turned out to be a really nice afternoon and we went out to Burke lake and met some of Jaime's other friends in town. There were some other kids, food, and plenty of space for Abhi to run around for awhile. We had a great time and it was the first time Abhi met Jaime and forever even since I have seen her so it was well worth adding on to our busy weekend.

You might be wondering, when did Jeanine and Keshav become such social butterflies. We were wondering the same ourselves. Guess everything just came up at once.

(An aside...I have been trying to post this since Monday - Abhi is teething big time and that has been very time consuming over the past two days!) More soon...maybe an update on more teeth!

Enjoying the Summer!

We are enjoying the summer so much I haven't even made time to write on the blog! Sorry about that, here I am finally after a month. I will admit it was just as much out of laziness as being busy. Keeping up with Abhi is not for the weak! I feel like I collapse into bed every night. You know the energizer bunny? That is Abhi!!!

We made our spring trip to Kansas City and visited the grandparents and as many other family members and friends as we could. We went swimming at my cousin Heather's house and Abhi got to hang out with is cousin Grant who is a month older. It was fun getting the boys together. They didn't seem to pay too much attention to one another but did seem interested in this "other person my size." Of course, Abhi was not interested in a toy until Grant was playing with though....always the case. Too bad we live so far away and the boys can't grow up together.









Abhi got to ride on the tractor with Grandpa John and got to sit on the motorcycle with Paw-Paw. We went to the waterpark with Grandma and ran through water Nanny was spraying with the hose. He was poker-faced on the tractor and motorcycle but loved the water! So, he kept the grandparents busy and had lots of fun with them. He also explored and tried to eat lots of rocks, mulch and whatever else was available outside. Inside the house was an adventure too...always getting into something!

Shopping, as always, was on the agenda as was eating, and a trip to the Nelson Art Gallery sculpture garden (Abhi got to play with Sophie), city market, and the Power and Light district (a new part of downtown). Abhi continued with his love of swinging...we stopped at parks every chance we got. I even got to go to a country bar (abhi was asleep at home) with line dancing, 10 gallon hats, and the works...forced by a friend who was also being forced for a bday party. It was entertaining at the very least and no, I did not line dance! Ahhhh, the midwest!

But, anyway, we are back and settled in to the summer in Virginia. Now we enjoy and wait to go see the other grandparents in India in August! More posts to come soon about Abhi's summer adventures, I promise!