Favorite Toy

Rohan's favorite toy is a German wooden thing-a-ma-jig that he tries to eat. And by eat, I mean, he tries to fit the whole thing in his mouth. But he can't. So he throws it away in frustration. And then 2 seconds later, you give it back to him and he is like, "Score! Let me at it so I can fit the whole thing in my mouth!" Lather, rinse, repeat.

Here are a few shots of my son, the genius. Video too. Enjoy!

Dinner Party!

For the big 2-8 (and my sister's 2-4), we opened up the house to a bunch of wonderful Indian girls, one of whom is a master chef. Although the night ran on Indian Standard Time (we ate the last course around midnight), I think it is safe to say that everyone had a blast. I drank for the first time since December (I know!) and (barely) made it til 2am. Lots of gossiping, laughing, shouting, and eating was done by all.

The recipes Pallavi chose were simple, yet elegant. For our eclectic group, which included a med student, a single girl on a budget, and a new mom, these recipes were perfect for a weekly or biweekly rotation. They are also very versatile, if you wanted to add your own spin to the dishes.

Below are some photos from the evening, with recipes from Pallavi. You can find a complete set of pictures here. I can't take credit for all of these; Parul and Sarika took some really good ones.

The recipe says it all:)

Tuna salad with grilled vegetables

Tuna salad:

• two cans tuna (I like dark tuna in oil, but you can substitute dark tuna in water or regular tuna in water. Dark tuna in oil has a slightly different texture than tuna in water.)
• approximately 4 – 6 large green olives, chopped
• ¼ C golden or regular raisens (can substitute almost any dry fruit, but a tart dry fruit would be best – so dried cranberries, cherries, currants preferable over dry mango, pineapple, apricots, etc.)
• ¼ C pine nuts (toasted if you would like – toasting nuts makes them a little crispier, but don’t let toasting them be a deterrent for making this salad. Better to have un-toasted pine nuts than no pine nuts at all, or worse, no salad.)
• Juice of half a lemon
• Black pepper to taste
• Optional: ¼ C fresh parsley, chopped; ½ C cherry tomatoes, sliced in half

Grilled Vegetables:

• as much zucchini, summer squash, eggplant, bell peppers as you would like

To make tuna salad:

1. Drain tuna of all water / oil. Place in mixing bowl.
2. Add everything else in tuna salad section and toss together.

To grill vegetables:

3. Preheat oven to 400.
4. Slice vegetables and place in large mixing bowl. Toss with a little bit of olive oil (enough to lightly coat veges), and sprinkle with salt and pepper.
5. Place on aluminum foil lined cookie sheet, and cook in over for about 20 minutes.
6. Eat!! JAlternative:

Instead of serving with grilled vegetables, you can serve with any kind of green salad. Also, when I made this, I added rinsed capers to the tuna salad. Feel free to do that as well, just watch the salt of the capers and olives (capers are tricky little guys – you need to soak them in water to get rid of a lot of the salt; otherwise they leak out salt, and end up ruining you food. Trust me. Its no bueno.)

This was a shot of the sage, which we used in a few dishes, but it was most prominent in the white beans and tomato dish. She said you can serve this dish with just about anything, or simply eat it as is. This dish really couldn't be easier and is much better than a box of mac and cheese or pasta and jar sauce.

White beans with a tomato sage sauce

• 1 can cannellini beans, drained and rinsed
• 2 cloves garlic (or two cubes Dorot yummy garlic!), chopped
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• Tomatoes of some sort – think anything tomato; 1 can chopped or diced tomatoes, or 1 can tomato sauce, or even 1 cup pasta sauce; could also use 1 cup chopped fresh tomatoes. Don’t go as far as to think of using ketchup. That would be gross.
• A few leaves of fresh sage, or a few sprigs fresh thyme or rosemary, OR 1 tbsp dry thyme, sage or rosemary

1. Heat oil in small pot, add garlic. Cook until garlic is starting to brown.
2. Add other ingredients, bring to boil, reduce heat and let simmer for about 15 minutes. Eat!
3. This dish goes very well with any kind of spice – hot sauce, red pepper flake, chopped jalapenos, etc.

Divya butterflied her first chicken! Yay! I'll get to the chicken later...

This picture really doesn't do this dish justice. Pallavi sautéed shrimp with some bold spices and served it over white beans and artichokes.

Spicy shrimp with white bean salad

Spicy shrimp:

• ½ lb uncooked shrimp, peeled
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 3 cubes Dorot brand frozen garlic, OR 3 cloves fresh garlic, chopped
• Red pepper flakes, cayenne powder, siracha or other source of spice, to taste
• Salt to taste

White bean salad:

• 1 can cannellini beans (can also make with butter beans, lima beans or fava beans)
• ¼ C canned red peppers, chopped
• ¼ C cherry tomatoes, sliced
• 1 tbsp either dry thyme, parsley or basil
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 1 tbsp any kind of vinegar (sherry is really good, or apple, balsamic, etc. I would use a flavored vinegar over plain white vinegar.)
• Optional: 3 green onions / scallions, sliced OR ¼ C small diced red onion

To make shrimp:

1. Heat olive oil in frying pan. Add garlic. When garlic barely starts turning brown, add shrimp. Cook shrimp until they have curled and turned completely pink (about 5 minutes).
2. Season with hot sauce and salt.

To make salad:

3. Drain and rinse beans, and place in large mixing bowl.
4. Add all other ingredients and toss together.
5. Enjoy!

These scallops were AMAZING. I think this was my favorite dish that night. Since we ate this dish around 11 that night, Josh gave up his serving and went to bed. So I had about 4 scallops. It doesn't sound like a lot, but after the 4 or so courses that came before this one, food coma was just around the corner.

Seared scallops with sauteed sweet corn

Sweet corn:

1 can corn

1 small red onion, chopped

1 carton pre-sliced shitake mushrooms

1 sprig fresh rosemary

2 cloves garlic (or, you guessed it, 2 cubes Dorot garlic)

1 tbsp olive oil.

To make sweet corn:

Saute garlic, add onion and cook until translucent, add mushrooms and cook on medium high heat until they are soft and have absorbed any liquid that they let out, add corn and cook over medium heat for about 6 minutes. Add salt to taste.

Sear scallops, seasoned with salt and pepper and enjoy!

And last, but not least, we roasted this chicken with a bunch of veggies and a lot of lemon halves. It was amazing, but we were all so stuffed, we were unable to enjoy it as much as we should have. Later that week, I sauteed some celery, carrots, onions, and potatoes with the leftover rosemary and sage and added the shredded chicken for a hash that smelled just like Thanksgiving.
Happy birthday to us!
The post dinner party morning meal. I was at baby class for a few hours that morning. If it weren't the first class, I would have stayed in a heartbeat - everyone was having fun with the Rohan and leaving the house full of friends in their PJs was not the top of my list. I was so glad they stayed.

We are planning on doing this again the day after Thanksgiving (Italian night!). More pictures to come!

1st day of school!

"Rohan had a fantastic first day at the Children's Center! He is such a happy baby and so smiley when meeting his new friends! Rohan loved watching one of the older infants crawl around the classroom. He kicked his feet and practiced his strong voice while playing with the lights and sounds gym. This activity will help his gross motor movement. Soon he will be crawling too!"

Yesterday, Rolo came to work with me, and I dropped him off at the back-up day care in my building. He had a very exciting day: new friends, more bottle feeding, AND a fire drill. I was on the 7th floor and he was on the 3rd, so as we were filing down the staircase, I tried to get into the his floor, but the door was locked. Inside I am frantic and screaming "WHERE IS MY BABY!" and on the outside, I am joking with coworkers on how we would all burn in a real fire because we are all moving so slowly. (I think my friend Kerri saw my crazy mom eyes, though...) The day care staff and kids were all in the lobby (they didn't have to go outside), so I made a bee-line for Rolo with tears in my eyes. He was totally unfazed by the alarm, just held on to my neck and watched all the people file out of the building. "Who ARE all these people and why aren't the fawning over me?" his face said.

The day went really well, no fussing, no crying, lots of playing. The night, however, was a different story. I was told that being away from home/mommy all day jars the baby a little, and that certainly happened here. He was up and feeding every two hours last night, I think just to make sure mommy and daddy were still there and would come when he called. This morning, he played with Josh for over an hour and was laughing the whole time I fed him this morning. Rolo is fine. I, however, am having an incredibly hard time leaving for work this morning. On one hand, I know he needs to get used to being away from me all day, and on the other hand I am thinking "why am I training my baby to be away from me!". Sigh.

To end this post on a happy note, here is a picture of Rolo hard at work at the office.

Downtime on the couch usually means Josh and Rohan get a little silly.

time management

I spent all day with him. Josh came home around 5:30, gave him a bath, and played with him. Then we put him to bed around 7, and with our precious free time... we spent about an hour cuddling on the couch and staring at his pictures on the computer.

Well, with pictures like this, we couldn't fathom doing anything else:)

The perfect storm

...of poop.

On Tuesday, I took Rolo into the city to run an errand at the RMV. We hopped on the bus, hopped onto the orange line and voila! Chinatown RMV. He slept until I was called up, but I knew that he was due to wake up soon, and as soon as he woke up, he would need to eat. I love my son, but breast feeding on the T was just not happening. It was a nice day, so I figured I would walk my way through the park and find a secluded tree or something so I could feed him when he woke up. and then we would be on our way back home.

Walked slooooowly through the park. Nothing. Ok, I'll wait out his nap in Starbucks. Thirty more minutes go by and I am wondering if this kid will ever wake up. Oh! He starts to stir! Success! Ok, now I just need to find an out of the way bench or something and set up camp. I walk up Charles, find a nice quiet side street, walk a ways down, settle down on a stoop, and pull out the Hooter Hider. Awesome. We will be on the T in less than 20 minutes.

About halfway through, he starts to squirm. Then squirm some more. Then the spit up eruption starts - digested spit up. Awesome. I try and deal with wiping that under my cover when I hear it.

Explosive poop that starts to leak out of his diaper. Oh lord. I balance him in one hand and reach for the diaper bag with another. I am technically still decent, the cover is doing its job, so I go to work on getting him changed and cleaned up.

I lay out the changing mat on the stoop and put on a new diaper. And he fills that diaper before I can close it. By the time I turn back with a second new diaper, he has gotten poop all over everything. Anyone who has experienced this before knows that getting a onesie with poop on it over the head of a squirming child means that you will smear that poop all over his back. Awesome. So now, I have a screaming, naked baby trying to roll off a changing pad on a concrete stoop off of Charles. Breathe in. Breathe out.

So finally I clean him up as best I can, throw a new onesie on him, strap him back into the stroller and then turn my attention to getting myself put back together. Oh, what's this? The construction crew working on the house across the street is coming back from lunch? Hey boys! Like the show? I'm so glad.

Finally, we are back on Charles, on the T and then waiting for the bus in Davis. I look at him lying there, perfectly unaware of the all the chaos that occurred just 30 minutes ago, and can't help but smile. How could you not?

No question here...

When he was born, my mom couldn't believe the resemblance between baby me and Rolo. It wasn't until she pulled out my baby pictures that we all saw how strong the resemblance really is. These pictures don't really do it justice. It is the overall facial expressions that really hit home. As I look through my baby pictures, I see how my face changed and how his is changing in the same way. The funny thing is, you can see the same smile in my dad's baby pictures. What can I say? He is his mother's son. (That chin is his father's though... can't take credit for that:) )

Dance of a 1000 Hands

My mom sent me this video recently. Here is the info from the accompanying email:

There is an awesome dance, called the Thousand-Hand Guanyin, which is
making the rounds across the net. Considering the tight coordination
required, their accomplishment is nothing short of amazing. All 21 of
the dancers are complete deaf-mutes. Relying only on signals from
trainers at the four corners of the stage, these extraordinary dancers
deliver a visual spectacle that is at once intricate and stirring.

Its first major international debut was in Athens last year at the
closing ceremonies for the 2004 Paralympics. But it had long been in
the repertoire of the Chinese Disabled People's Performing Art Troupe
and had traveled to more than 40 countries.

Its lead dancer is 29 year old Tai Lihua, who has a BA from the Hubei
Fine Arts Institute. The video was recorded in Beijing during the
Spring Festival this year.