Vedika - Day 376

Today Vidhi took her first involuntary steps! She was made to stand upright and was left unsupported, then she immediately took 2-3 unsteady steps with her arms stretched to reach nearby adult, which was her Papa.

In days to come from today, she would have increased number of steps. And next milestone will mark her first voluntary steps.

Vedika - Day 375

Vidhi's first vacation!

Baby darling visited Andaman islands along with her family for a week long trip - and came back tired and tanned! But to her credit, she had fun on beaches and let us have fun by not crying too much.

Vedika - Day 369

Pictures of 11th and 12th month of Vidhi...

(it's easy to post pictures than actual content - also, another trend, as the baby grows up number of pictures per month decrease, not a good sign, we are becoming lazy)

Did you notice that she can stand unsupported for few seconds?

Vedika - Day 365

Happy Birthday Vidhi / Vidhu / Vedika / Golu / Goli / Rani....

Today marks the first year of your presence in our life.

We had small cake-cutting ceremony at our home sans guests. We went to an orphanage in the evening where we shared some snacks. This was followed by visit to temple and dinner out.

Vedika - Day 345

Today was second day of Pulse Polio drive for Vidhi.

(Yeah, it's a boring news but when you have decided to follow her life, you need to follow these little milestones too.)

Vedika - Day 336

As almost an year old baby, Vidhi still wakes up frequently at nights. Her mom narrates her experience in dealing with Vidhi at baby center :

I can so relate to you, as i have also started working when my LO (Vedika) was 4 months old and she was/is bad one at sleep. Sleep depreviation is too overwhelming  for Mom-dad and its bad for Kiddo too.
Few things that i can advice you from my experience are
- Follow a schedule, which is driven by Baby themselves instead of ideal schedules you want them to follow.e.g. if everyday morning they go for a Nap at 10, give him all the environment to fall asleep that time.
- Nap time schedules should be maintained so that Kids will not get cranky because of lack of sleep. I observed if my Kiddo gets full and as per schedule sleep she wakes up to be a Happy and energytic one e.g. Vedika takes a Nap of approx  45 mins around 7 PM after coming from Play area.
- For night time sleep, you need to get started 2-3 hours before the Night time schedule of your kid to give his night time feed.
- My Kid sleeps at 11:30 PM daily, i know its on late side but this turnout to be her natural time to fall asleep. She becames so tired till that time that she can fall asleep in 10 mins and some times on her own.
- Earlier i used to make her fall asleep at 10 pm but that was in vain, she used to sleep at 10 then wakes up at 11 then used to take BF for like 30 mins to fall asleep again then again she used to wake up at 01:30 ish which was very frustating for me.
- Regarding Night time feed, i am giving her a heavy meal like rice, Khichdi around 7 PM after she comes from Play area, post which she falls asleep for a Nap.
- Then i give her heavy meal of Ceralac or Suji at 10 PM.
- Then milk at 11 pm.
- Turn off/dim baby's room light after milk,change her clothes or give message/bath, take her for Su-Su.
-Then i lay down on our Bed, giving her signal that play time is over and now its time to sleep. She rides all over me for 15 mins or so, then she gets cranky for 10 mins as she wants to sleep and missing the soothing touch of BF to fall asleep. But after 10 mins she sleeps on her own.
I pray to God all Kids get good night time sleep, it makes Parenting so much fun as Mom has all her energy to play and do activities with the Kid.

Vedika - Day 323

At infantile age of ten and an half month, baby Vedika becomes youngest member of Gupta khaandaan to fly in the aircraft and person with youngest age when first flown.

Spice Jet flight on 10:30am today from Bangalore to Hyderabad had privilege of flying dear Vedika on aircraft when she decided to pay her Mama-Mami as visit. She will return on the 10th Feb by air.

Vedika - Day 311

Pictures from last two months...

Vedika - Day 310

Today was the first day Vidhi participated in Government of India's nationwide Oral Pulse Polio drive. She was given vaccination drops at nearby dispensary in morning and got herself a neat little blue mark on small finger of left hand.

Ignoring him would've been the best way

This post is summary of few life lessons. Lessons that we the people and media of this nation don't seem to learn even when repeatedly encountered.

When was the last time someone changed his opinion because of your convincing argument against it? If you are among the world's top most elocutionist and honest in your self-assessment, you probably have changed opinions of less than 10% of people you tried changing opinion of. If you are an average man, number will be less than one in hundred. Lesson: Someone doesn't just his opinion just because you have few choice arguments against it. Specially not if person had opinion on the topic to begin with and was not on the fence. Changing someone's view points takes (at least) months of words and action combination (among other things).

Every action has cost and consequence. Every action is motivated by incentives. What did one want when one do something? Are you giving him the very same thing even though you claim not to? Lesson: Focus on the root motivation.

I try to keep this blog free from news-dependent posts to focus on ideas and not events and people. But I just have to say this: Asaram Ji, you've won. Public of this country played exactly as you wanted.

What did he want when he stated unreasonable opinion? What did reaction of public and media gave him?

Let's recap current version: He said obviously stupid thing to small gathering in small town in Rajasthan. People and media reacted, criticized, made fun of, and made him retract his argument. He was instantly famous all over India. From the above life lesson we can be sure that neither he nor his followers really changed their belief: those who agreed with him wouldn't change the view now and those who didn't don't need to change. What will be gained by wasting resource and money on him? Say, really, unto his heart, he changes his mind, so what? Is that's best use of hundreds of media hours, lakhs of man hours, and lakhs of rupees?

Let's imagine alternative history in case people weren't stupid. He said obviously stupid thing to small gathering in small town in Rajasthan. Some of his followers who agreed with him, nodded in agreement. Those who didn't, disagreed in heart, and probably decided to not continue to follow him. End of story.

Freedom of speech is a tough concept to understand. We instantly align with freedom when curb is placed on freedom of press or public expression. Yet, we need to understand that very same freedom implies such bad statements too. And we need to have them their way. Criticizing others for saying what you don't agree with doesn't go hand in hand with demanding freedom to say what you agree with, be it good or bad. And until we have that maturity, we don't really want the freedom per se, we just want freedom for us.

There have been, are and will be idiots in the world. A wise man learns to ignore them. Rest are idiots in different category.