Really dislike the changing season

Fall sucks when it come to kids getting sick. Arya had a fever spike on Friday night to105. But luckily that was it for the fever, but the nasty child that accompanied it is refusing to go away.
The flavor of the season seems to be a vital infection that is keeping her eyes red. Even though she does not have pink eye she cannot go to school, because the school won't take chances. So she is home and bouncing of the walls.

I am really glad that she is not feeling to sick, but she is sick enough to be clingy. Normally that would not be an issue but this is just the worst week with crazy work schedule and finals at school.
Aartggggggg

Arya's first week with daddy in Australia

Deepoo left for Sydney in the 2nd of October. The first few days was hard on Arya. She was fussy and cranky. But I made sure that she got to Skype with him at least twice a day.

That seemed to work. After the first 5 - 6 days she seemed ok with it add long as she got to talk to daddy at least once a day.

Two days back Arya was watching Dinosaur Train on TV. Deepoo and I were on Skype and Arya was excited as usual. But after talking to daddy for only a few mins she says "mommy can I go back to watching TV again please?"

I guess kids are a lot more resilient than adults. Now she expresses that she misses day, but also says that we will see him in January with the doggies. Then she will go with day to see the koalas, tigers, and kangaroos.
What about mommy? Arya says " I will leave mommy here alone because she has a lot of work to do. When after id done with her work I will come back and get her"

Arya writes her first word

Today Arya wrote her first word..   If anyone can guess..the first word Arya wrote is... "poop". Yes my 3.5 year olds is obsessed worth that word....

Remember what my mommy said ???

So it is dinner time and Arya is jumping around refusing to listen. She had just finished playing with her train set which was still on the floor. Below is the conversation between me and Arya:
Mommy: Arya you need to put your train tracks away now.
Arya: (crying and saying) I don't want to..I want you to help
Mommy: I an not going to help you. you need to do it on your own.
Arya: can Aja (maternal grandpa) help me?
Mommy: He can help only for the pieces you have difficulty with and he will not put then away.
Aja sits with her and tries to help and Arya says:
Don't help me. Remember what my mommy said? You cannot help me put it away. I have to do it myself.
I hope it stays like this forever....

The counter top win....

Despite being told numerous times to not play around on her step stool, Arya did not listen and was dancing on her step still in the kitchen while mommy and daddy were cooking dinner. You can guess what happens next - the step stool tipped and Arya hit her teeth on the counter top. Tears and blood and a piece of ice later Arya is back to playing around and not listening again.

Each time something like this happens we'd hope she has learned her lesson. But I guess we are some time away from that happening.

Luckily this time only her gum was busted and no damage to her teeth a far as we can tell.

Arya Fell Asleep on her own

Yesterday Arya had a first...  The first time she has fallen asleep on her own withouth being in a car!  I know, lots of qualifiers for this one and seems a little late, but up till now she has never fallen asleep without some coaxing from mommy/daddy/baby sitter when not in a moving car.  Yesterday, she went to the couch, cuddled up on her own, and went to sleep.

Of course there is a catch...  She had skipped her nap since she was too excited playing with her baby sitter, nanny MacPhee.  By 6 PM she was crying when I asked her a simple question like which tv show she wanted to watch.  So she sat on the couch and went to sleep...  3 year old taking a nap 2 hours before bed time, that is never good.

I had to wake her up at 7 pm to have dinner.  Plan was to get her to eat then sit around and watch a movie till about 9, then get her to sleep again.  Nope, no go...  She could not stop crying.  Even a Skype with mommy (who was in DC at the time) didn't help.  She watched maybe 5 minutes of the movie before crying again.  I decided to get some food in her and get her back to sleep, but even then she wouldn't stop crying long enough to chew food.  I actually believe she was trying to stop crying since she was listening to me and seemed like she wanted to eat.  I eventually gave up and picked her up, took her to her room, put on her night time diaper, and said goodnight.  Almost instantly she was drifitng off to sleep.  So tired even after having a 45 minute nap and having been awake for about an hour.

So another first...  She went to sleep without dinner.  :-(  At least it wasn't because she was in trouble.

Arya bargains her snack

After getting home from school I asked her what she wants to eat. Arya says she wants to eat a few packets of gummy fruits. I tell her that I would like foot her to drink milk. Arya replies " how about I hand 4 gummy fruits and 1 milk."

What's next???

Arya dancing

Arya has been dancing with some interesting moves. She has been in ballet class for a few weeks now. Every Thursday is a fight because she does not want to do ballet any more. So this coming Thursday (08/02/2012) is her last ballet class. She is already enrolled in gymnastics and she does fight it every saturday, but this is something that she will not get a say in. Arya definitely needs to get some energy out and work on her flexibility. I am a little surprised that for a 3 year old she is not as flexible as I would have expected her to be..

On the dancing note - Arya loves listening to the hindi son on Raj's wedding site and started dancing to it when it plays.. She also loves dancing to most music - the most recent one was to Happy Feet 2
Link to you tube video for the Happy Feet 2 Dance -
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_t18yXE7BI4&feature=g-upl
Link to you tube video for hindi song -
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=btV2npllAyI&feature=g-upl

Arya telling mommy the importance of journaling

07/27/2012

Arya came back from school and was coloring at her table. I was finishing up some work before getting ready to take the doggies out. Arya sits at her table and starts talking and making up stories as she colors. After a few mins, I started paying attention to what she was saying since it seemed like she was having a conversation with me.

Arya was telling me how important it was to journal. She tells me: " Mommy you work on your journal while I do my work.."

She was explaining it very well and said " if you get stuck while working on the journal and need help, then ask your parents." I ask Arya who her parents are and the conversation was as follows"
Arya - my parents are in my school
Mommy - Arya your parents are your mommy and daddy, so that means I am one of your parents.
Aray - mommy you are a girl and you are my mommy. You cannot be a parent.

Link to the youtube video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ZFOFRBrvig&feature=g-upl

You are a bad boy daddy!!!

07/29/2012

Arya was walking around in the kitchen telling stories. she comes up to daddy and the conversations goes:
Arya - You are a bad boy, you are the baddest boy daddy
Daddy - why?
Arya - Because you are a bad body and you are mean
Daddy - Are all boys bad??

After saying a bunch more things..
Arya - No, all boys are not bad.
Mommy - Who is a good boy then.??
Arya - Aja (Maternal grandfather), Dada (Paternal grandfather) are good boys..

Daddy was perfectly happy being the baddest boy :)

Gymnastics

Second  gymnastics class today (once a week), same problem as ballet...  Doesn't want to go at first and fights it all morning long. Once she gets there though, she has fun and doesn't want to leave. At least today she didn't run out of class like she did last week.

Arya can count

07/18/2012
Daddy has been trying to get Arya to understand math and start doing additions. Today while Arya was showing daddy the zucchini from our vegetable garden, she very clearly says " 2 here + 1 there = 3 zucchinis" Daddy was thrilled but to make sure that it was not a fluke, he asked her to add 1 + 1 and Arya said 2..

Yeah... she is learning to count.

Is is the terrible twos or the terrible threes???

The last few months have been very hard - Arya's motto has been to do the exact opposite of what we ask her to or not to do... :( We had thought this was a phase that would pass, but I cannot wait for it to pass sooner than later. She very clearly comprehends what we do not want her to do and she will do it anyway..

But one of the funny things is how she repeats back what we tell her.. For ex. we tell her to not get frustrated and calm down when she is having a hard time with something - like putting on her socks or her shoes or shirt... One morning a few weeks back, I was having a bad morning and was clearly frustrated... So Arya walks up to me, looks at me with a very innocent eyes and says " Mommy dont get frustrated,.. calm down." At that moment I didnt know if I should laugh or get annoyed... It is just amazing how quickly she absorbs everything we tell her..

Last weekend we went to the mall to pick up a few things and Arya's rule in the store was "Look but do not touch and do not remove anything from the shelf." In one of the stores when she walked in with daddy she says very clearly, "I will look at things, I will touch things, and I will remove things from the shelf" in a very matter of fact tone...

So as much as I am ready to pull my hair out because Arya is not listening - she continues to amaze me by all the things she does...

Arya starts Ballet!!

It is true- on June 10, 2012 Arya started ballet class at her school. She had been asking about it for a little while after she moved to primary and saw a few of the girls in her class get ready for ballet.

So ofcourse, we rush to enroll her for summer, buy her outfit, ballet shoes, tap shoes.... The first week of class was great. She loved it, couldnt wait for the next class.. But for some reason, the 2nd and 3rd class have been difficult - she would cry in the morning while getting ready for school saying that she did not want to do ballet. Deepoo would have a hard time getting her out of the car and into her class because she did not want to do ballet.... So 3 out of 8 classes done and she is not sure that ballet is that much fun.

So I have enrolled her for a short session of gymnastics, which I feel she is going to enjoy more because it is more active.
I guess we will find out....

Arya's 3rd birthday party

04/07/2012

Arya's 3 birthday party was at home this year. It wasn't as bad as I had though it would be. Thanks a lot to Shannon for helping out with the 2 most difficult items for the kids' menu. Mom, Raj, and Hetel helped get the rest of the kids food ready. Menu for the kids was:

PB & J blossom sandwich

Fruit Tree

Energy bar

Easter basket cup cakes

Cucumber cups

The entertainer we got was really really god too. Arya was initially reluctant to get her face painted, but after she saw mommy get her face painted Arya gave it a try..

She looked great - although as soon as everyone left she went and washed it all off.

Will post some pics in a couple of days.

Arya locked me out!!

04/11/2012

Around 515 PM I was taking the dogs out one by one to go potty... After I got Zoey back into the house, it was Socrates's turn. Arya was inside sitting on the couch watching Diego, so I didn't think much about taking the key out of the door lock.

I head back towards the door after Socrates was done, and guess what ??? The door was locked. First I thought that I did not turn the knob properly, but soon enough I realized that Arya had locked me out of the house. She was standing at the door and smiling away at me but wouldn't open the door. Luckily I had my phone on me so I called Deepoo and asked him to hurry home. He was about 15 mins away and I was thinking that I would have to sit outside in the heat with my little girl locked inside the house.

After a lot of coaxing and telling her how to turn the key she finally opened the door. Lesson learned -- now every time I go out I take the keys with me.

Potty trained --- wooohoooo

So Arya is now fully potty trained. No more pullups during the day. She does still wear them at night but doesn't really pee in her pullup at night.

We had tried to do it a few times but she just wasn't ready. About 5 weeks back we started again and now she goes on her own and doesn't even need reminders...

One major step towards growing up...

I went potty all by myself!!!

We have been working on potty training for about a month now. She has been doing great. Today was the best though. I was out taking the doggies to the potty in the evening.. I popped in to check on Arya and she wasnt on the couch watching Diego - which is what she was doing when I stepped out to the backyard. I call out to her and she was in the bathroom going peepee all by herself. She even took a wet tissue and cleaned herself, washed her hand and dried them and went back to watching Diego.

She has also gone about 3 weeks without peeing in her pullup at night time. I am so proud of my little girl.

Week 3 of being sick

So this has been the worst beginning of a new year ever in my memory. Arya had high fever from 01/16 through 01/21. The week ended with fever gone and the onset of a nasty cold. She was feeling well enough to go back to school though. One of her teachers commented on how much weight she had lost. When you are only 34 pounds, losing 3-4 lbs is a lot of weight, her clothes and even her diapers were lose. But we thought that she will get past the cold and hopefully this is it for at least another month or so. But Sunday night 01/29 her fever was back.

So no school on Monday, but her fever did go down and kept lurking around 100 degrees for Monday and Tuesday. Wednesday - she still couldnt go to school because she has to be fever free for 24 hours before I can send her back. I was able to get Jessica to come baby sit for a few hours so that I could get some work done. Before Jessica put Arya down for her nap, Arya fever was up again to 101.6 and after that her fever stayed between 102 and 103.7 up until this morning.

Yesterday her it was about 11 hours before her fever came back, but it was back at 102.7 Now we wait and see how she does today. If her fever is not gone by tomorrow, we will be back in the Doctor's office on Monday - that would make it 5 trips to the doctor in less than 3 weeks.

I hope this fever ends soon and Arya bounces back to being healthy again and puts her weight back. I cannot imagine how painful this must be for her.

Really Bad week

01/16/2012 through 01/21/2012

One of the worst weeks ever. Arya started off monday night with a not too high fever and was sick the entire week with very high fever. Her temperature rose to 104.5, which had us rushing to the Urgent Care near home. Strep test came back negative and everything else looked ok. So we came back home with the possibility that she had a viral infection. That sucked because there is nothing you can do besides wait it out. Waiting it out with a 2 year old whose temp stayed above 102 for 4 days, was hard. My poor baby has lost so much weight and looks so exhausted.

One of the days, she did not eat or drink anything - next day back to her Ped.. Everything came back ok, except that she was very dehydrated. Doc said that she had to drink plenty of fluids or has to come back next day for IV fluids. I pretty much had to threaten Arya with a needle every few mins to get her to drink - it worked. I felt horrible for doing it, but that was much better than having to take her back to get IV fluids.

Her fever finally went away by Saturday morning after 4 days of haunting us. Her appetite is somewhat normal again. She will have to do some catching up on the weight now...

I hope this does not happen ever again....

Out Smarting a Two Year Old

Tonight Arya has woken up several times before I we were ready to go to bed.  On my last trip upstairs to get her to sleep again she says (as usual) "I don't want daddy, I want mommy!  Daddy is yucky!" To which I reply "Why is Daddy yucky?"  "Cause I don't like you!  Go Away!"  My response, "I will go away after you fall asleep."  She promptly laid down on her bed and fell asleep.

Who said you couldn't logic with a two year old?