I’ve been following Women’s Web for years now. They are a contemporary women’s magazine with articles on career, parenting, family and more. They’re one of my favorite online publications. I always felt that it was about time women had a good resource just like this!
Today I was honored to find my post published by them, on STEM toys and kiddos, which readers of this blog my find familiar. If you haven’t read it already, head on over here and catch up on the post.
Thank you, Women’s Web!
She’s probably going to kill me for this one day when she grows up, but oh well…
The kid has three pillars which are all required for support. Eat, sleep and poop. All three are required to function happily. Without any one, she is very cranky!
Just an observation!
A quick shout-out to Hebbar’s Kitchen for their recipe for Masala Dosa Mix! If you have a stove and a tava or a frying pan, and a few simple ingredients, you’re all set! Our AirBnB provides a stove and a non-stick frying pan, so that’s what I used. I also carried with me, from home, the prepared dosa mix (made with the exact recipe in the link), lime juice concentrate and Eno fruit salt. I bought a few staple groceries once we reached here, which included yoghurt (plain!) and salt. Honestly, the batter took less time to come together than the pan took to heat! I whisked 4 tbsp of mix with 1 tbsp of yoghurt, and then around 1/2 cup of water. I added a tsp of lime juice and 1/2 tsp of Eno fruit salt. Made the dosas, and they came out perfectly! Happy toddler, happy mommy!
Thank you, Hebbar’s Kitchen!
A shout-out to my mom and dad for inculcating the early habits of discipline, both before and after A 🙂 We have been very particular about A’s bedtime, nap-time and meals pretty much since she was born. We were taught about babies and their circadian rhythm in the hospital itself. Well, A is 16 months old today and I am pleased to share that the rigorous setting of routines has paid off! She is very particular about her schedule. Even if I try to take a day off, she ensures that I provide her with food and she is put to bed at her specific times. I realized this especially now as she’s been following her routines as per CA time, while in HI! She’s been getting cranky if her dinner isn’t provided within 5:30 PM, and 8:00 PM is like the middle of the night for her. I decided to allow her to eat and sleep early, not bothering too much about jet lag and such. The only difference it makes is that she is early to bed and early to rise, and that isn’t too bad in my book! As long as we follow her routines, she is happy but should we deviate too much, she brings the roof down!
I don’t like to dole out parenting advice, but one of the few tips I would share is to establish a routine very early in your child’s life. There is no such thing as an in-disciplined child, any child can be disciplined if this is introduced early enough in life. To say babies cannot have a bed-time for the first 3 months of their life is a myth, in my opinion based on my experience. By establishing healthy eating and sleeping habits in your child, you are setting them up for a healthy lifestyle. The best thing? A’s routine has reinforced a sense of discipline in me!
And that’s the end of my advice-sharing session. Suffice to say, this worked for me and I hope it works for you. I’ll add that just like anything else, there are good days and bad days. But overall, A is cool with her sense of discipline. I am a proud mom!
Tomorrow morning, we leave for our first family holiday! We’re off to Hawaii! Although we have traveled plenty before A was born, this is our first big holiday with a baby. We traveled to India when she was younger, but since that was to visit grandparents and more like going from one home to another, it was very different.
This time, we’ve tried to pack all that we can think of… clothes, diapers, wipes being the least of ’em. Toys that can keep her occupied for longer, beach toys, favorite books, items of comfort, basic medication and of course the biggest item on the list being FOOD. Let’s hope we’ve remembered everything important, and that if we haven’t, we can find it there locally. Let’s hope everything goes well! Excited and nervous. Fingers crossed! Yay!
I used to love sleeping in, 5-minute snoozes on my alarm were my favorite thing and the longer I slept the fresher I would feel.
If you’d told me then that my best days after parenthood would be by starting my day early well before A wakes up, doing chores while the coffee brews and enjoying a quiet cup, I wouldn’t have believed you then! And yet, today these are a few of my favorite things 🙂
I’ve realized that there are some amusing little things A has been doing of late, mostly at the park:
Just wanted to record these so that I could look back on them someday in the future and smile 🙂
A has been climbing stairs since she was 9 months old. We bought the IKEA Patrull gate soon after, only to have the product recalled. Although she’s capable of climbing up and down, we prefer she does not do so unsupervised. We try out best to block the entrance to the stairs, only to have her figure out a way to circumvent that.
Lately, she’s been climbing everything she can possibly climb. Sofas, beds, baskets, tables, chairs, you name it, she’s on it. I’m a tired mom!
Goodnight!
Read, re-read, internalize and follow!
Today we went to Deedee’s, Santa Clara for dinner. I love buffet style restaurants because we get to try out so many different kinds of food! It’s hard to order as much when the three of us go out otherwise. Deedee’s has some chaats, followed by a main course of rice, rotis and curry. Today the theme was “rajasthani”. We started off with some truly yummy bhel puri and pani puri. The bhel puri was the best I’ve had in a long time and had me going for more and more. We followed it up with a bunch of curries like rajasthani kadhi, dal, channa masala, mutter paneer with a couple of varieties of roti and rice. My husband says the Shrikand was awesome (I’m not a Shrikand person). There were a couple of other things, but this was filling enough and we’ll have to go back to try the rest another time! The best part of the buffet was that there are so many varieties that there is a higher probability of our picky toddler eating at least one item. 😉
All in all, a good meal and a fun family dinner!