Uma the wiggly-pants and Muppets.

"Jelly-belly giggling, dancin' and a-wigglin' --
Honey, that's the way I am."
---Dr. Teeth & the Electric Mayhem

The above quote, from the original Muppet Movie, could easily be little Uma's motto. From the moment she wakes up, until the second she gets stuffed into her much-maligned sleepsack, she Wiggles.

As if to make up for her otherwise rigid routine (she loved to go to bed at 8pm even as a newborn), Uma's arms and legs are in constant, stochastic motion. (see video above).

Roughly around the time that Uma discovered how to wiggle, the Muppets entered our lives. During Uma's newborn days, when Rohan was bored of being at home, he fell in love with the Muppet movie. After the first viewing, he reported that, at the end, there was "a big CRASH" when the ceiling fell in. I asked him if that was his favorite part.

But he shook his head. No. He liked "the frog, playing the guitar, sitting on That Wood."

This led to the Muppet movie soundtrack taking up residence in our car stereo, being played on repeat constantly. At one point, Mike and I were able to answer each other with Muppet Movie lyrics. And I found myself muttering for no reason, "Tadpoles don't have feet."

Uma discovered her feet at a very early age, (around 3 months), astonishing the pediatrician (video #2 below).

With all the wiggling, they were hard not to notice, i suppose....

Rohan's World of Racing: A Brief Encyclopedia and Vent.

Life at the Das/Gage house is currently incomprehensible without a short guide to Rohan's realm of car racing. Since roughly December 2010 (when "Santa" put 10 small Hot Wheels cars in Rohan's stocking by entering the house through the window where this stocking had been hung), Rohan's obsession, formerly focused on basketball, turned to car racing. Disney-Pixar's heavy-handed marketing of the Cars movies has not helped.

• Nasty cars: NASCARs
• Vertible: Convertible
• Formula One car: any car with exposed wheels and a single driver's seat with no roof
• Tinna-tinna-tinna: sound supposedly made by cars during a race
• Dirt-and-Sand: surface used for off-road racing
• Bean driver: a small, dry red mung bean taken from the kitchen and placed inside a toy car as if it were the driver.
  
• Nose cone: part of a Formula One car, also Rohan's diaper
• "Door flew out!" "Window flew out!" "Parts flew off!": Common events during a race
• Bonk-honk-honk: sound of a crashing car during a race.
  
• "Hoaxen-hoaxen", "Hoaxity," "Marcity," "Hoke-hoke", "Caboose," "Roll Cage," "Noisy white car," "Regular green car", "Very green car": Some of the names of Rohan's toy Hot Wheels cars.
  
• Gray gari: Our own Honda civic
• Other Driver: Anyone sitting shotgun
• Knobby tires: Tires required for Dirt-and-Sand racing (see above)
• Studebaker: large passenger car or van
• Monaco race: Rohan's favorite formula 1 track, featuring a tunnel and a hairpin.
• Mika Hakkinen: One of Rohan's favorite formula 1 racers
• "Canic": mechanic
• Gear shifter: the thing he is not allowed to touch until he is bigger.
  

For the last 8 months, our TV has been tuned to the Speed channel, a cable station seemingly designed for little boys who love motorsports -- NASCAR, formula 1, motocross, supercross, off-road racing, monster truck jam every morning at 7 AM, drag racing, etc.

I did not know what most of these things were before this year. I never thought my brain, once teeming with signaling pathway sequences, RNA-protein binding motifs, and developmental patterning genes in chick and mouse, would suddenly be straining to remember what is a monocoque, what does the yellow flag mean, and which driver (Button? Alonso? Vettell? Michael Schumacher?) won the Hungarian Grand Prix last month.

I never thought I'd be trying to get Rohan to brush his teeth by saying, "Your teeth need to be clean, like Mika Hakkinen's teeth! Mika Hakkinen has super clean teeth!"

As with any topic, Arlington's libraries have helped educate parents and son alike. Still, there's only so many times I can read racing books (glossing awkwardly over the part where Ayrton Senna dies in a horrible crash) at bedtime, longing for the classics I remember from my childhood. Last bunch going back to the library tomorrow!

Uma is real.

Uma's story is like the story of the Velveteen Rabbit.

There was first Abstract-baby. Being our second baby, we knew some of her potential cutenesses and qualities, and so Abstract-baby was loved in quite a concrete way even while she was abstract.

The stuffed Velveteen Rabbit was loved just as much, and then it transcended its stuffed life in a fire.

Almost exactly a year ago, I lost Abstract-baby temporarily in an early miscarriage, and it was extremely difficult to write about Abstract-baby, our wishes to realize her, or even the (arduous) process of growing her while parenting a very REAL and VERY energetic 2-year-old (Rohan).

Unlike Rohan's case, we didn't give the baby a name until she was in our arms. We had agreed-upon ideas, but only after the caesarean birth did I say to Mike, "Uma Kathryn?"

Uma= incarnation of goddess Durga, and loyal daughter of the Himalaya mountains.
Kathryn = Mike's maternal grandmother, Kathryn "Kay" Krouse.

Uma was born on June 18, 2011, and emerged squawking like a free bird, not crying like a baby. Immediately, she peed all over two receiving blankets, and the doctors and nurses marveled at the thickness of her umbilical cord.

Uma became Real, like the rabbit, in seconds, loved instantly by her family. Though this blog may not be updated as frequently as in the past, since parenting two is more than 1+1, this post is proof that we love our daughter powerfully, uniquely, and have loved her for far longer than she has been alive.

Waiting for Baby

For the last 9 months, Rohan has been dutifully growing up and discovering the world. However, his parents have been distracted by Rohan's imminent sibling, Baby Girl Gage. Not sure of his reaction to the news, we didn't tell him until after the second ultrasound (mid-January), when we knew it would be a baby sister. We were lucky to have "practice" siblings around -- he played with his twin cousins at Christmas, and solicitously fed "pancakes" (coasters) to then-4-month-old-T.

With the narrative help of Karen Kubler's books "Waiting for Baby" and "My New Baby," we broke the news with little fanfare. As he watched my belly grow, Rohan would say, "Ekhane?" ("in here?")
I'd reply, "Ekhane akta baby achhe." (There's a baby in here.)

Sometimes, he hides under a blanket and pretends to be the "baby in the belly".

Most amusingly, he hides his Duplo figure he calls the "bad noke" (bad guy) under his shirt, and has me pull it out. "Baby bad noke!" he giggles. (photo at right of "baby bad noke" after popping out of belly)

He'll pretend to drive a car. "I'm driving to the hospital to get the baby out!"

A Lost Post: Happiness at Aisha's House

For two years now, Rohan has been attending day care at the loving home of Aisha Abdel-Ghaffar, her husband Abdou, and her children, Yasmeen, Zizi, Hossan, Ehab, and Sharif. He loved it from day 1, which was January 5, 2009. "Aisha-r बाडी जाबो! " he exclaims as he puts on his shoes and coat.
Aside from all of Aisha's traditionally appreciated qualities (kindness, good cooking, patience, philosophy, consideration for parents), one of the things I appreciate is that she remembers and reports the funny things that Rohan says during the day.

1. Zizi was using the blender in the kitchen, when Rohan came in eating a waffle, his favorite snack.
Z: "Hello, Mr. Waffle!"
R: "Hello, Mr. Noise!"

2. Aisha: "Rohan, where is your poop?"
Rohan: "In my butt. I'm stinky boy!"

Basketball Obsession

The NBA playoffs are over, but you'd never know it here in Arlington, Massachusetts.
This morning, as I listened to Rohan's unstoppable monologue, I noticed that just about every other word he said was "Basket." Idly, I started marking every instance of "Basket". Can you guess how many times he said "Basket" in 15 minutes?

A) 15
B) 25
C) 40
D) 60

The answer is D.
Rohan's obsession with basketball grows daily. To ferret out the cause, we looked through our photo albums, and noticed the recurring theme, starting with the "Chhoto basket," a wonderful toy from my aunt given to a 5-month-old Rohan.

With Rohan's acute basket-radar, he can detect baskets from up to 2 city blocks away, and even when baskets are disguised as satellite dishes or pieces of toast.

In the last week or so, Rohan has begun to string words into sentences. Appropriately, some of his first sentences were:
"I see the basket!"
"I go to the park, basket."

Thanks to numerous library books about basketball, Rohan's basketball-related vocabulary now includes:
Jump / Bounce / Shoot / Court / "Noke" (i.e. loke=person playing)
Net / Pass / Slam...DUNK! / Oh-no-basket/Fall-down-basket
"Nei-nei basket" (i.e. basket without a net) / Unchu (high) basket
Boston (i.e., home of the Celtics) / Paul Pierce (#34 on the Celtics)
Chain basket / Basketball / Hoop / Throw

I was going to write about Rohan's other obsessions in this post, but I realize that Baskets are enough for now. So here are some of Rohan's other declarations to think about:
"I go in the hammock."
"I fly the plane."
"Nei nei basket, jabe."
"Mamma, Dadda, backpack trail -- GO there."
"Bye-bye gaan, bye-bye oboe, bye-bye double bass."
"I don't go to up-park, I go to the airport."
"Go to library!"
"This is the hose! I want the big hose!"

Who can resist orders such as these, even at 5:45 AM, when a little voice pokes you in the ribs and observes, "THAT'S the Dadda."

To India and Back

March 6, 2006
Agra, India

February 8, 2010 -- Aurangabad, India

Four years ago, Mike and I last visited the subcontinent. You can see us in front of the Taj Mahal, fairly newly wed, Mike looking gaunt after a bout of white-guy-in-India disease.

Four years later, we are with my parents in Aurangabad, where the last of the Mughal emperors died, and the "Baby Taj" built by his son for the late empress is the only memorial there for the once-vast empire. Mike and I try to recreate our original pose, but I can't remember whether I'd been on the right or the left.

Not that it matters -- we realize that anyone looking at the photo will only be looking at the little person in between us.

In 2006, Mike had been THE center of attention all over India -- whether it was my family commenting on his handsome features, his primitive Bengali, his love of hot chilies, or his appetite for sweets, or village children chasing him ("Sahib! Sahib! Give me one pen!"). In 2010, Rohan outperformed Mike in his ability to attract people with cameras, schoolkids, waiters in restaurants, you name it.

And to the family? Though still a great guy, Mike is Old News. Rohan met both great grandmothers and hordes of aunts and uncles, in general jumping into the arms of anyone who would either take him outside, let him climb stairs, or enable him to touch fascinating items/animals. Rohan quickly got used to India's rhythms, and VERY used to having his grandparents at hand 24/7.... we couldn't have made the trip without my parents for sure.

That's the summary of our two weeks -- but in India, the beauty is in the details. Visit our photo pages to meet our family and see highlights of Delhi, Kolkata, Aurangabad, oodles of ancient cave temples, and Mumbai.

And a few excerpts from my diary can help fill in the blanks:

January 31, 2010:
"What saved the plane trip was the bassinet. Obviously useless for Rohan sleeping, but a place of novelty, refuge, exercise, and independence. Mike did a lot of the "up-and-down" from the bassinet game."

February 1, 2010:
"We walked in Karol Bagh [the Delhi neighborhood we stayed in] with R. in the backpack. His reactions to most things were 'Whoa!'. Such things included:

• Lorries blaring down tiny streests
• Stray dogs running
• Roosters/hens in alleyways and on roofs of corrugated tin
• Roadside goats
  
• Cycle-powered carts carrying immense cargoes

Mike shakes his head, seeing a man carrying a pickaxe while texting on his Nokia. Things have changed in 4 years."

February 5, 2010:
"Dimmoni [my grandmother] had directed M&B to get Rohan a toy. To check for leaks, Bapik decided to inflate the giraffe in the parking lot. Fate would have it that [family friends] happened to encounter them in the midst of giraffe-inflation. Because the giraffe is spotted, Rohan calls it 'Moo.' Dimoni was pleased by the giraffe. Photos were taken with everyone, including Shima [the nurse] who made sure the giraffe was in the picture."

February 8, 2010:
"Our sendoff meal from Kolkata was one of [my aunt's] best. Mike cleaned his plate and even deboned his own fish. India transforms anyone."

February 9, 2010:
"Ajanta will live in infamy because of the papparazzi chasing Rohan. Our guide, Mr. Joshi, asked if we planned to put a black mark on Rohan to ward off the evil eye. I laughed at the suggestion, until my mother admitted that she had already bitten Rohan's little finger to achieve the same effect. One curious trend, or lack of trend, is the diversity of ages, classes, and marital status of people fawning over Rohan. Certainly teenage girls -- but also a fair share of single men, older men, little boys. At times, a nucleating effect at work."

February 11, 2010: (Mumbai)
"I can't imagine living without ever seeing the three massive faces of Shiva at Elephanta. Lined with a long-lost humanism, the faces are alive."

"While Rohan slept in Mike's lap, we explored Gandhi's room in Mumbai, where Gandhi learned to spin cotton. We saw the books he read, the letters he wrote to FDR, Tolstoy, Hitler. He owned about 16 objects. I will aspire to this level of detachment when I am old."

February 12, 2010:
"At the legendary Trishna restaurant, Mike and I had a dinner of springy, fresh king prawns in hot black garlic sauce, a stroll through the Kala Ghoda arts festival. Then despite a bad cab driver abandoning us in the "Muslim Electronics Neighborhood' we got to watch most of Three Idiots at the Alankar Cinema. Three Idiots and Three Cheers for grandparents babysiting."

February 13, 2010:
"As the trip wears on, Rohan becomes more and more attached to his Dimoni and Dadan. Bapik spoils him, taking him up and down stairs, to see pigeons at Gateway of India, feeds him breakfast. Mike jokes that we need to make a Bapik-mask so that we can wear it and have Rohan eat for us."

"A 2-day escape to Matheran hill station, to avoid the Mumbai opening of the controversial film My Name Is Khan. Threats of Shiv-Sena violence dominate the news. Cinemas are heavily guarded, TV crews line the Regal next to our hotel. So we take the narrow gauge rail to Matheran. Rohan leans out the windows to see the locomotive and the valley falling away beneath us."

February 14, 2010:
"Underneath the gazebo in the park in Colaba, we played Pop Goes the Weasel (Rohan hides behind the pillar and jumps out saying 'Pop'). An 8-year-old Muslim boy played with Rohan, and his uncle explained to Mike that he had a little brother Rohan's age at home."

"That evening we spent in Pawai, at Uncle Shubhai's apartment. My cousin Tin Tin is now 13, and plays soccer. Rohan was excited enough by their picturesque flat, fireworks from a nearby wedding, soccer balls, Tin Tin's guitar playing, that he stayed awake until our plane boarded at 2:30 AM!!"

February 20, 2010:
"Recovery. I return to Millipore Marcom to find major restructuring. [My boss] laid off [the other scientific writer]. I'm now alone."

I add this last entry to explain a bit of why I'm writing this ultra-long synopsis of our trip, 2 months after it's over. And I already can't wait to go back.