In Hindi...
As if it were poetic justice to the training Swathi has been giving me about watching my langauage ..Nikitha's first hindi words were "Shala"
She almost hums Jagjits' "Jhuki Jhuki si nazaar "(atleast I would like to belive so ) ..but most certainly she says "Aati Kya Khadala .." when asked "sun ...sunaa......"

There you go ...bollywood supercedes ..munshi premchand ...

Nagesh

"I said No!!! "
That was the first English sentence that Nikitha spoke yesterday.
She said that when she was caught picking stuff from trash can, which is a forbidden thing to do.
She loves to sneak out and do stuff that is strictly prohitbited and is a 'NO' for her. Nevertheless she does it with a mischevious grin and comes back running to us with the assumption that we never noticed her.
It is just truly fascinating to watch her - whether it is the words that she is saying or the gigles that she gives under the covers or the stomping around the house or chasing ants at the corners or even when she is just sleeping blissfully . It is a treat.
Like any toddler, she loves to imitate everything that we say or do.

Swathi

Month of May
The past month has been a blend of all the spices - we have had a little bit of everything from vacation, to birthday parties, to a close friend being admitted in emergency, to a scary insect bit to our lil angel , to our Nanny meeting up with an accident, to our friend's Mom being critically ill, to our favorite teams qualifying in the NBA western conference finals.Phew!!! Of course, the high point is always the All-time entertainment provided by our Nikitha. She just keeps adding delight to our daily life - gives us a whole new meaning to everything.
Not to forget the mention of our lobster party at the Hashems - Tony and JoAnn, generous as always, invited us to their home for a lobster cookout party on the memorial day weekend. Having a passion for the sea food, we were really looking forward to eating lobsters, which except for lobster chops at Red lobster, we have had none. Tony got around six live lobsters home with him and steamed it in front of us.

Eating lobsters is a whole new experience - it can never be a part of dining etiquette class - it is messy which means fun. we enjoyed every bit of it.And here are few pictures.
Talking about seafood, we managed a trip to Ocean's city for our fifth wedding anniversary - it was Nikitha's first experience on beech and sand, and man, it was a treat to watch her walk on those sands. First unsure as to what it was and refusing to walk on it, she then jumped on it and had a ball running around. We managed to get a nice hotel room beech facing (got lucky with that) that was very relaxing...The broadwalk was good fun too. As we were taking a stroll, we saw a palmist booth. Out of curioisty, I decided to show my palm to the lady.It turned out to be a big disappointment -she spoke of nothing but the usual stuff (good health, good life blah blah blah...). but what else can you expect...
When we came back, we found out that Tehemton had to be admitted to emergency for surgery - his doctors had messed up big time. It was hard on them, specially for Aban who had to manage two babies :-). But we were amazed to see how Tehemton kept his wits (and his PJs) inspite of all the pain during our visits.
Here's a picture of Nikitha and Zoish in one of our visits.

On another downside, Anita's mom was critically ill during the first half of May- she had stopped eating food and was not opening her eyes. It has been really tough on them. I really admire Anita , she is such a strong person - it is just amazing. It was difficult for all of us to see what she has been going through - no words could describe her pain.
To end it on a happier note,Saie's birthday was good fun- it was meant to be a surprise party for her, but the rest of us ended up getting surprised. It was nice and relaxing. Nikitha enjoyed it so much that she woke up asking for Saie and Aasif next day. And just the girls had gone out for lunch at Meriwhethers. To continue with the tradition, there were quite a few fiascos. There were no crabcakes (the whole point of going there) and then there was bacon in Anita's and Saie's sandwiches (special request to have them excluded), the baked alaska cake took forever to get baked and to top it with icing, the bills were messed up. But then again, there is no fun without all this.