Peek-a-boo

This weekend for the first time, Sarina initiated a game of peek-a-boo. We've been playing this game since the day she was born, but of course, we were doing the hiding and peeking. It took us a minute to realize what she was doing (playing peek-a-boo with us), but when we did, we all had lots of giggles with Sarina.

Fun with Aji and Ajoba

Sarina had a wonderful time with Aji and Ajoba in Whitby. They came up with lots of fun games and toys and Aji made Sarina some special daal and poli. Here are some pictures of her escapades...

More fun in Buffalo

There were so many good pictures from our trip to visit Buffalo, I had a hard time paring them down. We celebrated her 11 mos birthday there along with Neha's 11 year birthday! Enjoy. (btw, this is Smita posting for Sumeet)

Playing in Buffalo

Yes, we are woefully behind on posting pictures and we have so many great ones from our trip out east last month. Sarina had SO much fun playing in Buffalo with everyone and everything. Here are a few pictures to give you an idea of all the fun she had...from remote controlled truck chasing, to stair climbing, to playing cards, carum etc, she thoroughly enjoyed herself!

Radio Control Trucks and Cheerios

While home for thanksgiving, my nephew, Akash discovered a radio controlled truck in the basement. It soon provided hours of fun for Sarina as she chased after and pushed around the truck. Here, she's chasing after her cheerios in the back of the truck. Perhaps this was a bit cruel... learning about "carrot" based motivation early.

Licky Licky

We just returned from a nice trip to visit the grandparents. Sarina loved all the attention she got from Dadi, Dadu, Aji, Azoba, as well as her Booa, Bhaiya and Didi. There will be great photos from the week to follow but for now, just a funny video of Sarina enjoying a chair in Buffalo. For some reason she was obsessed with licking little emblem on the front of it. She must have done it 10 times before I even pulled out my phone to capture. Of course you get her charming smiles and raspberries too. . .

Daddy eats O's

Sarina has learned how to both eat O's (cheerios, trader O's etc) and more importantly has started sharing them with daddy! See the video below to see sweet sarina feeding daddy.

Brunch brunch our favourite meal

Sarina and the clan had brunch downtown with some of mommy's coworkers. She was very well behaved as always and had fun sitting at the table with everyone, and afterwards on daddy's shoulders, and crawling around the floor.

Her first tooth was followed only a week later by a second tooth! She now has one on the bottom and one coming through on top, and they make a little clinking sound!

Recent Playdates - a full barnyard

Sarina had a fun play date with Annika, Isha, Saachi, Ezra and Naveen recently. Since it was Halloween weekend, we got one more use out of the outfits! We had a cow, rabbit, giraffe, skeleton and a monkey! Sarina also got to hang out with Anya recently who impressed us all with her walking.

Matching Matching (Same same but different)

Sarina and I dressed up as twins on Friday. You can't tell in this picture unfortunately because we had to use a flash and it made Sarina's shirt look redder than it was. But it's close enough as they say in Thailand - same same but different. Mommy and me in jeans and a pink shirt! (and Sarina with her green blanket that she won't let go of these days)

Oh - and a newsflash for those who are wondering - Sarina sprouted her first tooth last week. It's still working its way out, but I've confirmed its (sharp) existence.

Fun with Boxes!

Mommy was thinking of buying me a new playhouse type toy when daddy appeared with another one - cardboard box! I love crawling in and out of the big box and playing "light! dark!" with daddy. The smaller box is even more fun. Yesterday, everytime I crawled in, Daddy pushed me all around the apartment. It's like my own cardboard car! Here are some photos and a video of me playing with various boxes. They are my new favourite thing.

Our little Giraffe!

I know you got a sneak preview of Sarina's Giraffe costume for Halloween, but here's the real thing! Sarina didn't even mind the costume and kept it on all day. We started the day at Nishane's 1st birthday party, and then went trick or treating on the famous Belvedere Street. Sarina met some friendly chickens as well as many other kids - but she was the CUTEST (and only) giraffe.

Highlights from Boston (late)

Apologies for being so late on this post. Between losing our battery charger, consolidating photos from everyone and life just being busy, this post got lost in the shuffle. We had a wonderful trip to Boston in late September. Sarina loved seeing all of her family on mommy's side - aji, ajoba, mangal aatya (all the way from india), shama aatya (all the way from san diego), samir, mahesh and arundhati (and littlest sohum, pappu and his family, sanjay mama's family (especially hanuman and saoirse!), tonu etc... she had the most fun with the littlest ones. Here are some pictures from the trip ...

One more...

I had to post one more swinging video... this time Mommy manages to swing Sarina, take a video, and tickle her (all with two hands.) The resulting giggles are too cute...

Swinging and Waving

Sarina recently learned a new trick... how to wave! She waves back, waves hello, waves goodbye - any waving at her and she is happy to respond. This Sunday while I was watching football, Sarina and Mommy went to the playground to go swinging; here she is having lots of fun swinging and waving back.

Eating puffs (and monkeying around)

Sarina has become very good at eating puffs (and other little things with her hands)... picking them up with her tiny fingers and getting then into her mouth. A lot of coordination to get it right. For a while she would pick up and somehow drop or lose them before getting to her mouth. She's an expert now...

Jackson over to play

This past Sunday we had brunch with the Koo's (John, Liz and Jackson.) Sarina had lots of fun playing with Jackson and showing him all of her toys. Jackson meanwhile showed off his skilled army man crawl. Here's some pics of their playdate.

Birthday at the German Tourist Club

For my birthday, Smita organized an afternoon with a group of my friends at the German Tourist Club on Mt. Tam. For those who don't know, its a German brewery in the wilderness in Marin. There are many short (and long) hikes to get there... we took a shorter one and slowly everyone piled in. Sarina loves playing on the deck and we all enjoyed some fabulous weather, food and drink.

Trying on her halloween costume

We thought we try on Sarina's Halloween costume. She's going to be a giraffe!! Very fitting for our tall girl. This is a sneak peak, more to come in a couple weeks.


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Sarina in Boston

We've managed to misplace our battery charger since our trip - thus the blog silence. However, Arundhati and Mahesh (Smita's cousins) took some wonderful pictures of Sarina in Boston that I thought I'd share for now (until we can get charged up and share more from our trip!) Here are some pictures of our favourite little monkey enjoying the festivities and attention:

Sarina and Daddy take over NYC!

Last week, I had a work meeting in Manhattan. Sumeet agreed to bring Sarina and take care of her while I was working. He did a wonderful job watching and feeding her, making sure she got her sleeps and most importantly, showing her a good time in Manhattan! He also celebrated her 9th month birthday there with her - unfortunately we don't have any pictures of it, but songs were sung and imaginary candles were blown out.

I got pictures from the adventurous twosome all day while I was working. We'll post more pictures from our East Coast trip, but for now I thought you'd enjoy seeing what I received every couple hours from Sumeet's camera phone. While I am very proud of Sumeet for being so self sufficient and such a good Daddy, I really wish I could have joined them in their escapades. . .

8 month photos with Ami Bruce

About a month back we had some photos taken with a photographer at our place in San Francisco. She is the same talented photographer who took Smita's maternity photos. She captured some great portraits of Sarina just as she started to crawl and stand....

Sarina and her Friends

Sarina has had lots of time to play with new people over the last couple weeks. She took a trip to Obester winery with Helen (Priscilla and Dan came along to drive her down and make sure she didn't taste too much wine); a short play date with Colin (that she slept through!); Jenn and Ashish's baby shower (she was disappointed that baby V wasn't ready to come out yet)... You'll also see photos of playdates with baby Naveen and baby Isha.

I can tell she is going to be a social butterfly already...

Crawling machine

Sarina's two favorite activities these days are 1) Crawling and 2) Climbing onto anything that gets her to a standing position. Here she is doing her hallway crawl early this morning... of course she crawled over to munch on her favorite toy - My blackberry!

The incompetent juggler "act"

Sanjay Mama made a surprise visit this week and stayed for several fun filled days. The other day, he tried his incompetent juggler act with sarina's big blocks and it illicited many many loud giggles, cackles and screeches. For the record, he can actually juggle quite well but doing it right never seems to be as funny as blocks tumbling and people stumbling.

Wine country trip

Sarina, Smita and I took a trip up to Bodega Bay and then to Russian River over the labor day weekend. We stopped into Bodega bay for breakfast - its a cute little coastal town about an hour and a half north of San Francisco. It was a bit chilly so we moved on to Western Sonoma and visited some of the areas we haven't to date spent a lot of time exploring. We visited some of the wineries in Forestville and Guerneville. Both areas were great, very mellow and low key with some fabulous wineries.. one of which is now on our favorite list.

Playing with her wooden Dowel

As we've all learned, often the simplest toys are the most fun. One of Sarina's favorites is a wooden dowel. She loves munching on it, banging on things with it and tossing it around. Now that she is crawling, her new game is drop the dowel on the ground and crawl after it.... then repeat until she finds something else more interesting. In this case she got distracted by the camera strap... Fun Fun Fun.

Helping with the laundry

Little Sarina found a way to be a special helper with the laundry. Looks fun!

I LOVE pears

One of my partners at work has pear trees and brought in some amazing (and very ripe) pears to share. I brought a couple home to share with Sarina as pears remain one of her favorite foods. She helped Daddy eat a raw pear and in the video below patiently watches and waits for her bite completely fixated on the pear at all times.

Mommy's day off!

I had the day off today, so I kept Sarina at home and we had a fun day together! After waking up at 5:30 (no need for an alarm clock these days) we both had a couple hours to play and spend a little early morning time with Daddy. (Sarina loves watching him brush his teeth)

Next, Auntie Cynthia and baby Kayla came over to play. Sarina had been looking forward all week to seeing Kayla! Kayla was happy and playful as always, and Sarina wanted to do everything she was doing. (even eating peas until she realized they were peas...) Later in the day, Sarina and I went out for a great walk around the neighbourhood, and to the playground, where Sarina played happily on the swings. (until she was mobbed by schoolgirls pawing her saying "she's sooooooo cute" at which point we fled fearing for the germs that they were bestowing on her) After that, we went home, splashed in the bathtub and waited for Daddy to arrive home early, so we could go to happy hour. Sarina had a nice nap during the beginning of happy hour and Daddy and I enjoyed a nice beer...when she awoke, she sat happily in her highchair, talking away and eating her dinner.

All in all a perfect day for mommy and sweetie.

Getting her toys

Why have one toy, when you can play with all of them... Here's a little video clip of Sarina crawling over to her toy basket, and tipping it over to play with all her toys. Sarina then gets some kisses from her little kissy bear (where she now anticipates kisses.) Cute little video with lots of her new skills.

Watching the pigeons

More standing - this time caught on video! An entertaining little video of Sarina standing staring out the window, talking (dadadada) and daddy making motorboat sounds trying to get her attention. Enjoy!

Inflatable bowling balls, baby chicks and great food

You may wonder what these all have in common... they were all present at the birthday picnic Sheewon did for Andy. Sadly we did not get the birthday boy in any photos. Sarina bundled up for a cold day in GG Park and had a great time.

Standing now

Look who is a stander now. Sarina discovered that she can stand using her arms up against the window or the couch to keep her steady. The window is still one of her favorite places to hang out.. she used to love being held in front of it, then sitting in front of it and now standing in front of it.

8 month birthday

As we do every month, we did a little celebration for Sarina turning a month older. Typically Smita and I have shared in a yummy dessert.. this time we thought it was time for Sarina to enjoy a birthday treat. We made her a carrot "cake" which really was just pureed carrot with quinoa. We also let her dig in with her hands and play with it... she got herself nice and sloppy playing with (and eating) her carrot treat - I think she had fun!

Look who is starting to crawl...

Over the last week or so we've seen Sarina get closer and closer to full on crawling. Some days she crawls a few feet and others she gets clear across the room. One thing she certainly does all the time is find a way to get into mommy's lap. There is no place she would rather be than Mommy's lap and that's enough incentive to start crawling...

More antics!

Jumperoo-ing, eating blueberries and hanging out with daddy - these are a few of my faaaaavourite things!

Sarina and friends

Sarina's had a busy social schedule over the last couple weeks. Auntie Ayesha (who does not like being called auntie) came to visit all the way from NY to play with Sarina. Nishane came to visit too - and showed Sarina all his fancy crawling skills. Lastly, Sarina had a playdate with Aya, Annika, Ariya and Safiya on a beautiful rooftop garden downtown. Enjoy!

Blackberry...

Someone is turning into a little blackberry addict (or at least a blackberry eating addict..)

Bath time with Ducky and Daddy

Here's a little video clip of one of Sarina's favourite past times - bath time with Daddy! Daddy lets her play as long as she wants in the water, splish splashing, chewing on rubber ducks etc. We seem to always miss her major splashing moments on camera, but at least we got some. I think her face lights up when she sees me at the end (but I'm extremely biased)

Enjoy!

Rolling rolling rolling....

This video is from last month but I thought it was worth sharing. It was taken in the peak of Sarina's rolling days. It's less of a novelty now as she is working on crawling skills and she's mastered rolling!

Here's our rolly polly...

I don't mind my crib as long as my monkey is here...

Sarina sleeps with her monkey (his name is Jalapeno)... she loves licking his fur and throwing him around

Smiley

Here's a couple photos of our little cutie sporting her irresistible smile. We're lucky to have such a happy baby!

Recent outings

Last weekend we were out for brunch with the Hu's and then enjoyed an outdoor day at Stern Grove. Sarina has quite a social life these days and has been seeing lots of her friends, aunts and uncles.

Sarina seems to understand...

Sarina loves to touch and play with other babies! Here's a video our nanny took of Miss cuteness "playing" with owen and getting a little (over) friendly. Owen and Sarina spend all week together so it's the beginning of a great friendship. Of course she gets a little overzealous at the end, good thing Tatiana was there to break it up!

Sarina takes Stern Grove by Storm

We went to the Stern Grove festival on Sunday for a concert in the park to see Kailash Kher's Kailasa and their opening band, Delhi 2 Dublin. What a fun concert. Despite the raucous tunes, Sarina had a one hour nap and then awake to dance the afternoon away. Needless to say she slept well that night. Here is she is dancing with our friend Harriet (who incidently is a professional dancer)... she sure did extract some laughs from Sarina!

Hanging out with Daddy

We had a great weekend with lots of fun outings. Sarina was in great spirits all weekend as we dragged her out to meals, concerts, etc. Lots of pictures to come...

Here's a cute smiley photo Smita captured of Sarina and I hanging out on the couch...

Jumperoo!!

We got Sarina a jumperoo over two months back mainly because she loves to keep her legs outstretched and likes trying to stand. Until now, it really has been more of a "stand-eroo" as she had not quite got the jumping part down. She still enjoyed playing with all the toys (and munching on the sunflower teether) but no jumping. Well, yesterday, all that changed. Mommy gave her another jumping lesson and she was off - jumping away. She's now a happy jumper... here is a video of her jumping around. She also seemed to have found something interesting on the ceiling - we still aren't sure what it is; and of course she still loves blowing raspberries. (Warning its a fairly long video - about 3 minutes)

How do I eat this cake without getting crumbs on your head?

We went to a 1 year old birthday party for baby of one of Smita's colleagues. They took this very cute picture of the two of them. The cake was amazing, but eating it above Sarina's head was certainly a challenge for Mommy.

There's few things Sarina likes more than hanging out close to Mommy in her ergo... like a little kangaroo.

Picnicking

We were out picnicking last week and caught some cute photos of Sarina hanging out in her little pink hat. We also have a great little video clip of Sarina playing peek-a-boo with mommy.

7-month birthday

Sarina turned 7 months old this past Friday. As has become tradition, we celebrate with a little song, dessert and candle. This month, the dessert was rice pudding. You'll also see that Sarina is becoming a lot more wily and finds a way to get "into" dessert.

Mmmmmm. Beets!

I wouldn't call Sarina a picky eater, but she eats what she wants when she wants and other times her lips are sealed no matters how much I sing, make spoon airplane, make faces or stand on my head. The other day she was in the mood for the beets we got from the farmer's market. Of course now everything is red...

New pictures...

We've been offline for a while, mainly because our primary home computer stopped working. We know the problem, we just haven't yet had time to get it fixed. In short order we will be back to posting photos and videos more regularly. In the meantime, our wonderful nanny took some photos of Sarina (and Owen, our nanny share partner) hanging out one afternoon. There are some adorable photos of Sarina that we wanted to share. As you'll see, she is now sitting up all by herself and enjoys sitting and playing with her toys. She is also eating lots of different foods and generally keeps adding new skills.

Swing!

We put Sarina in a Swing for the first time last week. She seemed to have enjoyed it, although it may have just been all the animal noises we were making to try to get Sarina to smile.

Lake Tahoe

We went to Lake Tahoe over the 4th of July long weekend. We stayed in a beautiful (and huge) house and were joined by our friends Sekhar, Monali, Meena and Naveen. Over the course of the weekend we spent lots of time soaking up the sun, swimming, hiking, playing on and around the lake, grilling, and of course just relaxing. It has been a while since I've been to Lake Tahoe in the summer and have a renewed appreciation for summer weekend getaways there. Here are some pictures from the weekend.

Swim-Swim!

We went to Lake Tahoe for the long 4th of July weekend (more pictures to come...) While there, we took Sarina swimming for the first (and second) time. She loved it... she kicked around, splashed up some water and enjoyed the pool like she would a big bathtub. Back in high school, Smita used to be swim instructor and used to teach babies how to swim... she had all the techniques and the proper holds to get Sarina to have lots of fun swimming and playing in the water. I think Sarina will grow up to be a water loving little girl like her Mommy. Here's some pictures and video:

Rolling Around

Sarina has now mastered the art of the roll. All day and night she rolls from front to back and back to front. She has even learned the "cork screw" where where she rolls from her back all the way around and end up back on her back. She now uses rolling as a mode of transportation and rolls from one place to another... often to find her toys. A couple days ago she rolled completely across the living and dining room... Here is one of her rolling sessions:

Picnic with Terry/Beejal/Saajan

Last weekend Terry, Beejal and Saajan came to San Francisco for the weekend. We had a fun picnic on a warm sunny San Francisco day in dolores park. Their visit also brought out some of Sarina's other aunts and uncles that she hasn't had a chance to meet yet.

Maestro

We sat Sarina in front of a little piano at Anish and Pia's place. She quickly got to work banging out some sweet music. It took her e few seconds to figure out that the keys were a level below the top of the piano but once she figured that out she couldn't be stopped.

Six Month Birthday

Sarina turned a big 6 last week... that is, six months old. The three of us celebrated over lunch downtown. Smita dressed Sarina in a cute birthday dress and we headed to the ferry building for lunch outdoors. We then picked up a strawberry chocolate cupcake from Miette for her birthday treat (which Mom and Dad ate on Sarina's behalf)

Mitul and Tanvi come to visit

This past weekend Uncle Mitul and Aunt Tanvi came to visit from Los Angeles. Even though Sarina was feeling a bit under the weather, she loved spending time with them. Aunt Tanvi looks like a natural holding a baby :)

Horsies!

Sarina is a very active girl. A very popular pastime is riding the mommy and daddy horses. Here she is going for a ride...

Sumeet's first Father's Day

Sarina has come to learn that daddy's favourite desserts involve bananas, and so she decided, to surprise daddy with a homemade banana pudding pie for father's day. Daddy had only asked for one gift on father's day - for Sarina to feel better - and she gave it to him by end of day. Despite being a bit tired as she was getting over a fever, Sarina spent most of the day playing with her favourite daddy, including rolling over every which way, giggling when daddy lifted her in the air, and catching the bubbles he blew towards her. Below are a couple pictures of the festivities.

Random set of pictures

We have been out and about a fair bit these last couple weeks. With birthday parties, casual get togethers, picnics and visitors, the three of us have been little social butterfly's.

Over the last couple weeks, we've also introduced solid food to Sarina (some of which she is starting to enjoy!) . Here's a collection of pictures from the last couple weeks.

Butternut Squash

After a few days of rice cereal, we started Sarina on a new food... butternut squash. Mommy lovingly took raw organic butternut squash and cooked and pureed it for Sarina and made lots of little containers for future use.

Butternut Squash was a hit... Sarina is much happier eating it over the tasteless rice cereal. Here's a video of her first time eating it for the first time...

First Solid Food

We started Sarina on solid foods last week. Her first food was rice cereal... I tasted it, it isn't very tasty so I can see why she isn't so excited by it. Good thing is that food eating is progressing well... more to come. Here is a video of the very first time Sarina tried solid food; we used a silver bowl and a silver spoon as per tradition in our families.

Proud to be an American....

Last week, Smita officially became a citizen of the United States. The citizenship process has been quite long (must be because Smita had been a citizen of the hostile rogue nation of Canada...)

Sarina and I were there to cheer her on! The event was quite grand at the Paramount theater in Oakland with almost 1,000 people from nearly 100 countries taking the oath at the same time.

Good times with Daddy

Though Daddy is a busy working man, he makes lots of time for Sarina! Here are some recent pictures of Sarina hanging out with Sarina. This is hard to capture in a picture or video, but Sarina smiles instantly when she sees Daddy smiling at her. He can be all the way across the room, but the instant he flashes a toothy grin, Sarina's face lights up. It's a bit self fulfilling too, because then Daddy grins bigger, and Sarina grins bigger and so on... and they both end up with sore cheeks from all the smiling at each other. A Daddy's girl indeed...

Don't Call Me Shorty

I was showing Sarina photos of everyone the other day, when she came across this one from Sanjay Mama's wedding. She noticed that Daddy is quite a bit taller than everyone else. Daddy claims he is standing on a bit of a hill, but none the less, Sarina took note that he looks a lot taller than Mommy's side of the family.



Since then, she has professed a preference for the Jain Family genes for height, and is now taken to wearing an outfit showing a small giraffe that says "Don't Call Me Shorty" in support of her cause. (thank you soni!) Perhaps the strangest coincidence is that since she started wearing it a couple weeks ago, she's grown to the point where the snaps barely do up at the bottom. Maybe her plan is working.

Sarina and Helen

Sarina has been having play dates with several of her friends lately. They are now getting to the point where they are curious about each other. Last week, Priscilla and Helen came over to play. Mostly they stared, played footsie and tried to size up how they could fit each other into their mouths but it seemed fun! Oh - and Sarina seems to be half naked because it was hot out that day and she'd decided she was done with her clothes.



This last photo is a keeper. Helen looks indignant that Sarina is touching her! Also, Helen looks like she's sporting Priscilla's long locks.

Bubbles!

Here's a little video clip of Sarina playing with bubbles for the first time. I think she's hooked...

A few pictures of Sarina

Here's a few random pictures of Sarina is all her wacky poses over the last couple weeks.

Scoot-Scoot...

Little Sarina is starting to enter the world of self-mobility. In the right set of conditions she will scoot herself over to her favorite toys. Whenever she does so, she always finished with a roll-over. I think its a little embellishment after showing off her new skills.

Sanjay Mama...

Sarina got to see Sanjay Mama during his recent trip to San Francisco. Looks to me like she remembers him from month one of her life...

Back to Sonoma

We went up to Sonoma with Sarina's friend Nishane (and of course Rahul and Tejal.) As the pictures show, I think Rahul was on a conference call the entire time we were there. Wine country is quickly becoming one of Sarina's favorite places to visit... Lucky us!!

Happy Five Month Birthday

Little Sarina turned a big 5 month old last week! We had our monthly birthday celebration. This time, Mommy made some YUMMY banana pie for the special day. Mommy knows that Daddy's favorite desserts are banana based... here's hoping that Sarina likes banana desserts as much as Daddy!