Love her more than anything

On my birthday in November, Ashni turned 9 months old (we were both born on Tuesday the 5th), and I distinctly remember thinking she was the perfect age. Her cues were much easier to read, so meeting her needs became way less of a challenge. She was more fun and engaging than ever before, full of smiles and laughter. And she could keep herself entertained for longer stretches of time. She was also just the right amount of mobile, crawling quickly and walking only when leaning against furniture. Sure I’d have to run and find her if she was being too quiet (never a good sign, usually meant she was getting into something she shouldn’t be), but for the most part she was fairly easy to deal with. Evenings were way better too since she slept soundly enough for us to have guests over without waking her up. And we could enjoy our nights out more too knowing that Ashni wouldn’t be up crying the entire time we were gone. Of course there were some bad days, but all in all, life was pretty great. I was even delusional enough to think (briefly) that another kid wouldn’t be so bad. No, I’m not actually ready for that, but I could see how some people could get suckered into spacing siblings around 18-20 months apart (like my parents did, ha!).

With Ashni being easier to care for, I found myself loving and enjoying her more. And now as she incrementally gains independence, I am better able to appreciate some of the things that I had been taking for granted. Feeding her was one of those experiences that went from frustrating to somewhat rewarding. A month after she started solid foods, she refused being spoon-fed and would only eat things she could pick up herself. This wouldn’t be so bad if she actually got some sustenance out of it, but usually the food ended up everywhere besides her mouth. Nowadays, she still wastes more than I would like her to, but she seems to be eating better for the most part. Although she turns up her nose at bland things like premade baby food, she loves anything with strong flavor and gobbles down fruit, chicken, and cheese. She also loves anything savory so a great way to get her to eat greens is to wilt them in hot chicken broth. She slurps them down one leaf at a time! I’ve also incorporated greens into smoothies for her, but I usually end up being the one to drink them since she only takes a few little sips.

Her low food enthusiasm might have resulted from her love of nursing, but thankfully that is going better too. There was a not-so-pleasant period of time when she would try fiercely to do other things while being latched onto me and would end up biting down and pulling with her hard gums. I was really scared of what would happen when she got teeth, but miraculously she stopped doing that at 10 months when her first tooth budded. Although I still have to wrangle her from time to time, she is much calmer than before and nursing is now one of my favorite ways to unwind with her. It’s very therapeutic to hug her close as she nestles against me. When she’s upset and seeks me out for comfort, I can’t help but feel really special. I like being needed and it’s nice to be able to make something better so easily. Granted this calls for difficult times when I have to be apart from her, but we’re still working on finding a balance.

It’s also been incredibly rewarding to watch her grow. She consistently astounds me with how much she understands. I’ve been using baby sign language with her and she’s actually signing back (rudimentarily, maybe, but still getting her point across). During meal times she will wave at me if she wants a drink or point to food that she wants to eat. She also signs for milk quite frequently throughout the day, but that’s because she associates nursing with a multitude of things such as hunger/thirst, wanting to be held, or being tired and wanting to snuggle and sleep. The greatest part of the milk sign is that she now does that instead of screaming and pulling my shirt down in public. Granted she’ll eventually lose it if I don’t act on her sign, but it’s wonderful to have some warning and to be able to offer alternatives if needed. Also, what really blew my mind the other day was when Ashni cued in on a conversation that didn’t involve her. As Chris and I were changing her diaper, he made a comment about the running water. On hearing “water”, Ashni picked up her little hand and signed for “drink” (we use “drink” and “water” interchangeably). We were quite surprised! Then the other day, after she crawled into Chris’s lap, he said he’d read to her if she went and got a book. She saw him sign for “book” and crawled over to her box of toys. After digging through it, she pulled out her book and crawled back with it, eager for daddy to read it. Clearly she’s smarter than we give her credit for!

As for life itself over the last few months, we’ve been super busy! Back in October, I had my first experience taking care of Ashni by myself for a multiple day period. Although Chris had left us for a night here and there before, this time was more challenging. Chris was out of the country for job training in Montreal, and while he was gone, Ashni got sick for her very first time! Consoling a feverish and congested baby all by yourself in the middle of the night is no easy task, and it made me admire all the single parents out there. As I stayed up all night with her, I worried about health care costs since we hadn’t yet transitioned to Chris’s employers’ insurance. It was difficult to reach him and I was beyond stressed out. Thankfully, Ashni’s fever broke in the morning and her congestion passed soon after. Chris went ahead and got our new insurance set up, but Ashni ended up not needing the doctor and was just fine for the rest of the month! 

As the weather cooled, we were able to enjoy lots of fall activities with her. From hiking to pumpkin carving to dressing her up as an adorable monkey for Halloween, we had a blast. Ashni’s first trick-or-treating experience entailed her happily grabbing candy out of our neighbors’ hands as we went door to door. We didn’t let her eat any of it, but it was hard to stop her from chewing on the wrappers! Then in November, we celebrated my birthday, spent a lot of time outdoors, and on Thanksgiving morning we ran our first race with Ashni in a stroller. The five mile Turkey Trot was a success and we hope to make it a family tradition. We ended up rushing back to our house right afterwards to start cooking since we were hosting the big family dinner, but it all went without a hitch!

Then just three days later, it was already time to start celebrating Christmas and we took Ashni to the Zilker Tree lighting. We also took obligatory pictures with Santa, admired gingerbread house exhibits, attended holiday parties, hosted a Christmas movie night, and walked the Austin trail of lights with our sleepy baby attached. Unfortunately, Ashni picked up some bad germs (we think from Santa) and she came down with a sinus infection. After a week of thick mucus and sleepless nights, the pediatrician had us give her Benadryl and put her on a ten day course of antibiotics. She didn’t seem to mind the syrupy medication twice a day, but I was so relieved when we were done with it. And Ashni was better just in time for Chris’s grandparents who flew in from Denver to join in on the festivities and spend some quality time with their great granddaughter. We spent most of that time relaxing at home or going out to eat, but one of those days we went to the Capitol steps and saw an outstanding performance featuring over a hundred tuba players! And then it was Christmas day. We spent a low key afternoon at Chris’s parents’ house and helped Ashni open her gifts. I’m pretty sure we enjoyed it as much as she did, if not more! After a delicious dinner and more gift exchanging, the holidays were over almost as abruptly as they started!

Now that the new year is here, we are getting back into the swing of everyday life. But it won’t be long before more big things happen. Ashni has her one year birthday coming up in just a couple weeks and it looks like she’s closer to walking every day. She took her first unassisted step yesterday, but hasn’t let us catch her on video yet. She’s also transitioning to one nap a day instead of two, but that has caused her to be a wreck during the times she’s fighting sleep. I don’t know what she’s going to be doing in March when we go to Japan for Chad and Nagisa’s second wedding, but I’m sure we’ll have a good story when the time comes!

Trying to Keep Up

Where to begin? I’ve been so busy these past couple months that this is the first time I’ve actually had a chance to sit down and write. Well, when I left off, we had just started enjoying the summer. We spent our weekends going to various places like the pool, outdoor movies, concerts, parties, and so on. Then in mid-August, we celebrated Chris’s 29th birthday at Krause Springs. Since then, we’ve been occupied with being a part of our friends’ wedding, traveling to Atlanta, going to both of our 10 year high school reunions, getting together with friends, and taking on a major patio renovation project.

Although it feels like we’ve been doing a lot, as Ashni gets older, it’s getting much harder to be as spontaneous as we used to be. A few months ago, she was perfectly content to nurse and nap in her carrier while we stayed out as late as we pleased. But she’s gotten too big for that now and it’s not pleasant for anyone when she’s up way past her bedtime. And yes we do have a bedtime for her as we’ve begun to loosely follow a schedule. Our previous system of nap/nurse every couple hours held up well for awhile, but as of now, she needs a bit more than that.

This shift started when Ashni turned 6 months old in August. With her being a super fast crawler, she was getting harder to share a bed with. Not only was she tossing and turning like crazy at night, she was also getting up and crawling around. I’d bolt up numerous times each night to pull her away from the foot of the bed. Also, we’d have to tiptoe around the room or lay somewhat still in an effort to not make the bed creak. Nights had turned into a tiresome game of waking each other up. Chris and I were ready for Ashni to move into the crib, but she didn’t want to go anywhere near it. In fact, regardless of how tired she was, she would refuse to fall asleep in it and would cry until we took her out. And if we laid her down already asleep, she’d wake up within an hour and be beyond upset about finding herself in there. Also, she hadn’t started solids yet and was always ravenous at night. During the day she would get too distracted to get a good feed in and would try to make up for it in bed. But she was no longer falling asleep during these night long nursing sessions so none of us slept as a result. We hoped that starting solids would help, so on August 18, we held her Annaprashan, or First Rice Ceremony. In Indian culture, a baby’s first time eating solid food is a pretty big deal, so we invited some friends over and made a whole bunch of Indian food. When giving Ashni a little taste of everything, we used the same silver spoon that my mom used for me 27 years ago. And at the end of the ceremony, we had Ashni crawl towards a blanket of objects to symbolize her future career. From the book, pen, cash, and potted plant, she chose the book. I suppose that means we have a little scholar on our hands!



From that day forward, in addition to breast milk every few hours, we would feed her organic baby rice cereal and mashed fruit three times a day. But contrary to what the pediatrician and parenting books said, tanking her up on solids did not make her a better sleeper. So the following weekend, we attended a seminar on baby sleep solutions. We were hoping for no/low cry advice, but were told it would do us no good. The sleep consultant and our pediatrician insisted on using the interval (or Ferber) sleep training method, something I was vehemently opposed to. Ultimately, Chris and I agreed to do it, but only halfway. The method basically involves doing some sort of bedtime routine and then putting the tired baby in the crib and leaving. The baby cries and after 10-15 minutes, the parents return to soothe the baby for a minute before leaving again. This is repeated until the baby finally cries to sleep (1-2 hours in our case) and then again when the baby wakes up however many times in the middle of the night. Supposedly after a week of this, the baby will fall asleep without crying when placed in the crib.




Well, when we started, it was instantly obvious why this is so controversial. It violates every natural instinct in your being. When your baby just wants to be in your arms, it feels beyond cruel to not let them. And I couldn’t stand to let Ashni cry for that long in a 24 hour stretch of time (it just seemed extremely unhealthy) so our halfway version of Ferberizing involved having her cry it out in the crib only at bedtime. Then when she’d awaken for her late night feedings, I’d pull her back into our bed where she’d stay until the morning. During the day, I would try the crib again, but if it looked like she was going to cry for the entirety of her naptime, I’d put her in the swing so she could get some sleep. Come eight or nine o’ clock at night, though, she wasn’t given that luxury and we fought it out. This went on for a few weeks, but we slowly got her acclimated to falling asleep and staying asleep in the crib. Also, I eventually started nursing her in her room for her night feedings, and she’d fall back asleep in the crib when she finished. I then started phasing out the swing for daytime naps, and as of now, with Ashni at 8 months old, we can finally say we have a crib sleeper.




The sleep transition isn’t the only big thing we’ve been through these last few months. As of September 13, I resigned my job of six years and officially became a full-time mom. Over the summer it became increasingly difficult to manage Ashni and I realized that she was only going to require more attention as time went on. It perpetually felt like I was falling short. Either I was neglecting work or my little girl or Chris or myself. It got to the point where we hired a nanny to help out part time, but I still wasn’t getting as much work done as I wanted to and I was constantly stressed out. For my own happiness and sanity, I reassessed my priorities and finally made the difficult decision to put in my notice. The hardest part of it all was leaving behind an amazing boss and good work environment. Not a lot of people have that and it kept me hanging on. But now that I’m done, I am happier than I thought possible. I’m finally able to appreciate what I have and devote my time to what matters, guilt-free.

The funniest part about this new job of mine is that I don’t really have that much more free time. Before I resigned, I kept thinking about all the things I could do at home. But the reality is that Ashni keeps me super busy. She gets up at seven in the morning and between feeding her and cleaning up and playing with her and putting her down for a nap and repeating it all, my day just flies by and I find myself wondering what happened. But I don’t think I’d have it any other way right now.

On the move at 5 months!

So in the blink of an eye, another month has gone by. And Ashni hasn’t ceased to amaze us. She now weighs 16 lbs 13 oz – just over double her birth weight. Also she’s moved beyond simply wriggling around on her belly. In the past couple weeks, she figured out how to pick her chest up off the floor, rock her entire body back and forth while on her hands and knees, and propel herself forward by flinging both arms out in front of her. She started doing this on cushioned surfaces about a week or two ago, but now even our hardwood floors don’t phase her. In fact, she’s starting to transition from rocking her whole body to moving just her hands and then pulling the rest of her body while scooting her legs. She looks like a cute little inchworm. 

Here she is at the beginning of the month when she first started rocking and flinging forward:

And here she is stalking Pepper just last night:

Another thing that Ashni enjoys immensely is standing and stomping with some assistance. She can completely support herself if she has something to hold on to. In this video, she is standing and jumping against the back of our couch:

The craziest part about all this is that she still can’t sit up unsupported. She’s almost there, but when you try to help her sit, she just leans forward onto her hands and knees and takes off (at inchworm speed mind you). She’s capable of sitting in a bumbo seat, but she doesn’t enjoy it very much. She’ll tolerate it while we eat dinner, but only because we entertain her and replace toys as she flings them off her tray. Once we stop distracting her, it’s usually a short while before she discontentedly whines and squirms. But no surprise there, she’s always hated being restrained. 

We took this video the day she first got her bumbo seat, and we were amazed at the way she played in it.

In other news, on June 15th, Ashni officially gained an aunt – Chad and Nagisa got married! The wedding took place right before sunset at the Oasis on Lake Travis. Ashni even got to be the flower girl.

Scattering rose petals (with some assistance) - wedding photography by LewChan

Mrs. Garyet(s)

Since then, we’ve been pretty busy with Austin summer activities. We celebrated Ashni’s first Fourth of July at Auditorium Shores where she was totally captivated by the fireworks. We also attended a number of outdoor movies, concerts, pool parties, boat outings, and more. With the Texas heat, it’s a good thing that Ashni enjoys the water. In fact, she might enjoy it too much. When she’s not kicking and splashing, we have to be careful to keep her face away from the water– otherwise, she tries very aggressively to drink it all by lapping it up like a puppy. But hopefully we can get her past that when it’s time for her to learn to swim! 

Watching fireworks the night before Nana's birthday and Ashni's 5 Month birthday

Papou is such a good influence

Slip n' Slide!

All in all, it’s shaping up to be a good summer. I’m really thankful that having a baby hasn’t slowed us down and that we’ve been able to partake in so many fun activities. Things may be a little more complicated than they used to be, but I wouldn’t change it. Sharing these experiences with Ashni has been good for us. And even though she won’t remember any of this, seeing the way she’s been taking everything in is pretty extraordinary and I hope that one day she'll come to enjoy what we enjoy. She’s been a good sport about everything so far and we’re pretty lucky – we couldn’t ask for anything more.

Baby Travels

Ashni turned 17 weeks old today and she has already been on a number of adventures. We’ve been camping with her twice and we’ve also successfully traveled with her to the east coast – more details on that trip in a bit. Ashni has also hit some amazing milestones. When people say that babies grow up fast, it’s truly an understatement. The way things are headed, I know I’m going to have trouble keeping up with this girl. It’s just a matter of time.

Hiking with our little adventurer

We took Ashni on her first camping trip in late April when she was 10 weeks old. We headed back to the same exact spot on Lake Travis where we camped almost a year prior. But this time at Arkansas Bend Park, there was no rain or lightening, just us and the same friends we were there with before. Also, despite the cold weather, Ashni loved being outside. She had a crying spell during dinner, but after getting her calm, she slept happily beside me, nestled in my sleeping bag. And the next day when it warmed up, she napped on the lake shore. She didn’t even stir as Chris, Jaidev, and Josh spent a good portion of the morning helping a stranded park ranger. The poor ranger got the wheel of her truck stuck on a tree stump when she drove out on the isolated peninsula where we were camped, but the boys successfully got her out.

Cooling off after some hard work

Our next camping trip was when Ashni was 14 weeks of age. This time we went to New Braunfels and set up on the shore of the Guadalupe River for our friend Krystal’s birthday. And on this trip, Ashni was a genuinely happy baby. She contentedly stared at trees and the people around her while she sat in her car seat protected by a mosquito net. Everyone remarked at what a good baby she was. And in the morning when we woke up in the tent, Ashni surprised me and Chris by rolling over completely on her own. Luckily I was prepared and caught it on video!

Enjoying the Guadalupe River Bank

Three days after we got back from camping, Chris and I embarked on a plane for Atlanta. Passing through security wasn’t too stressful, but getting there took longer than usual since you can only get a boarding document for a “lap child” at the ticket counter. But once we did that, everything else was okay. TSA officials were surprisingly kind – something that I wasn’t expecting. Also, Southwest let us check the stroller and car seat at the gate for free. And once we got on the plane, Ashni peacefully slept/nursed during the entire flight. We were expecting a rough time, but she wasn’t the least bit bothered by the whole experience.

After arriving, we rented a car and drove to Marietta so my parents could meet their first grandchild. They had never visited us in Austin because my dad isn’t in the best health. He’s coping with stage five of Parkinson’s disease and my mother serves as his caretaker, so they preferred that we come to them. And when we got to the door, we were greeted with much joy. My mom excitedly cuddled Ashni and cooed in Bengali before placing her in my father’s lap. And at that moment, tears streamed down his face. My father has never been the type to express any emotion, so this was pretty moving. It’s almost as if the illness makes him more human.

Ashni Meets Didima and Dadu

Ashni looks more like my mom than I do.

Hanging out with Uncle Ru

Three Generations

After spending a few days at my parents’ house, Chris and I drove with Ashni to the outer banks of North Carolina. We stopped for a night in Raleigh at a comfy Airbnb home before continuing on to Corolla for the wedding of our dear friends Sam and Sean. They had a beautiful little ceremony on the beach and everything was very baby-friendly which we appreciated. 

Karaoke at the Beach House

We stayed a couple more days to enjoy the ocean and even dipped Ashni’s toes into the Atlantic – her very first experience in a body of water. Also, on the night of our five year wedding anniversary, Chris and I slipped away for a bit to sit with Ashni in a gazebo overlooking the moonlit beach. My heart was full of love for our beautiful little family and I felt so very blessed and happy. Then Chris pulled out a gift for me – his great grandmother’s wedding ring. It was so sweet, but even without it, I know for certain that I would marry him again in a heartbeat.

After our getaway at the beach, we drove back to Atlanta, but this time without an overnight stop. Ashni napped a little in the car, but she also had a few meltdowns where she was absolutely inconsolable until I picked her up and held her. Despite this, given her history with the car seat, we found her to be much more tolerant than expected.

Once in Atlanta, I got a couple more videos of her. Ashni has gotten pretty good at standing up while being supported. She can also scoot around on her belly a bit, but I wouldn’t call it a full crawl. It seems like her legs go full strength, but she doesn’t know what to do with her arms – the end result looks like she’s plowing her face into whatever surface she’s on.

So like I said before, this girl is growing up unbelievably fast. On Saturday, I visited a high school friend who had just given birth three weeks prior and Ashni looked like a giant compared to her newborn! And when we got home to Austin on Sunday, Chris’s parents remarked that she was a lot more interactive than when they saw her a couple weeks before. So not much longer until our baby is cutting teeth, walking, talking, and driving off to college…