I ate rock!

Yup. It finally happened. Milind was playing with some decorative pebbles that I have in a vase - that's happened before, so nothing unusual there.

And about 15 mins later, we look around and he had TWO of those in his mouth!! :-O I reached in immediately and managed to get one out. But as I reached in for the second one, I saw him swallow. A very distinct and big swallow. Uhh ohhhh.

While we looked on in shock, he continued with his affairs with absolutely no acknowledgment of recent incident. While my first(and only) instinct was to bust out laughing, D was trying very hard to impress upon Milind the seriousness of the situation. Didn't quite work. All we got was him walking around saying "I ate rock!" all night long. After looking it up online(Google zindabad) and re-assuring ourselves that the editors of Wikipedia could be trusted with our son's health, we went to bed.

We did call the doctor the next day and supposedly, the only thing to do was to inspect any "output" with great dedication. Which D did. Nada next morning - just the usual contents, which parents are all to familiar with, so I won't go into much more detail here.

Upon Milind's insistence, we informed the grandparents that he had eaten a "rock". So now, we had 6 people eagerly awaiting pebble-studded poop. And without much ado, the pebble arrived that night - with a loud "clink" announcing its safe arrival.

We had a glass of wine to celebrate the occasion and reflect on how far we had come in life. Indeed.

'Appy HHHalloweeeen!

Milind's first Halloween. He wasn't quite sure what it was all about, but he had a blast! With 3 halloween parties in 2 days, I think he finally figured it out.

The season was kicked off with a trip to the local Pumpkin patch to pick a pumpkin. We went with Anjali and family. Here Milind is seen showing Naina how much fun pumpkins are:


Once he had the pumpkin picking under his belt, he was strutting at his school outing to Emma Prusch Farm - been there, done that. Confident enough that he had the guts to do this(with Kavana here):

With his BFF's - Eeshan and Reyansh - here:

Now, let the parties begin!

First stop - school on Friday. My lil' Pirate was "Arggh"-ing his way to school. And apparently all pirates say "I'm a pirate!" all day long.


Saturday morning, at Yerba Buena garden in the city with the iChild gang. By the time this picture was taken, half the costume was off and our un-cooperative pirate was trying to find someone who would give him more candy.


Last(& best!) stop: Halloween @Aanya's home. There was a "March of the penguins", with Aanya, Akhil, Arin, Milind and Naina all dressed as penguins - it was fanstastic!! Unfortunately, but not surprisingly, pics were pretty hard to get, so this is the best I have:


A very very memorable first Halloween. Or as Milind would say "Appy HHHalloweeeeen!"

Weekend at the beach

Very very late, but wanted to put this out there so we don't forget..

We had a lot to celebrate in October - Papa's Happy B'day(which went on for about 3 weeks, mind you) and Papa completing his second marathon, in "Chee-caa-go", no less!! We had also had a hectic few months with both of us being swamped at work, so we headed off to Pismo beach(Oct 17th weekend) and stayed at a fancy-shmancy place right by the ocean for a weekend.

Our "villa" had ocean views from almost every room - and yes, there were multiple rooms. It was ~1000 sq feet(bigger than the apartments we rented in the city!!) and Milind made himself at home right away. He had even packed his own bag, stuffing every car that would fit and some of his favorite books in there.


Went for a walk before sunset and made our way down the cliffs to the ocean. It was a really warm day, so the water was actually refreshing.
After a very satisfying dinner of Mac N Cheese consumed on the balcony looking out at the ocean, M drifted off to sleep to the sounds of the ocean.
The place had no A/C - just kept our windows open, which worked really well! Of course, M was up at his usual unearthly hour, ready to go play. But waking up to the smell and sounds of the ocean is such an amazing feeling - doesn't gets old. Had a relaxing brunch at the hotel restaurant(consisting of Oysters, no less):

And then we headed out to the beach. Or so we thought. But.. there was no beach!! The tide was still high and the narrow strip of beach by the hotel was ...well, missing. So we headed back to the hotel and jumped in the pool(a saline pool) and M loved it! We ended up back there again after lunch and an afternoon nap. Once the pool got a little cold, he discovered the hot tub. Or as he called it - "hot water".


Later that evening, we drove out for a little bit, got some wine and picked up some *really* good Pizza. M wolfed it down and went to bed at his usual hour - after new games which involved crawling inside tables.
We stayed up and before the day was done, D got a little "cake" to end the day on a high note.
Next morning, we checked out and decided to hunt for this supposedly great Clam Chowder place..and we drove smack into a Clam Festival! Which, it seems the whole world except us knew about. All of us wolfed down some really good chowder(& even got some frozen to go!!).

Tummies full and hearts content, we drove back home..