Who I am, What I do and answers to Qs like that

It has been almost 2 months since I watched (actually, slept through) a movie . I am growing up now, sleeping lesser with more intervals in between. Having observed me that well, Amma and Nanna knew better than to take me to another movie. Did they? It is just after Christmas. Chicago is colder than cold could be. Nanna had a couple of days off. He wanted to use this break to go to the Indian Consulate in Chicago to apply for my Indian passport. Since you already know the story of my introspection, I shall not bore you about that. Nanna thought it would be a great idea for me to go along with him. Since Amma goes everywhere with me, all of us started for the Consulate. By the time we reached the consulate, we were told that the consulate lunch break was extended by an hour - from 11:30 to 2 instead of 12:30 to 2. So we were outside the Consulate on a cold winter day - when most of the other businesses and activities were shut down because of Christmas eve. Nanna and Amma started discu...

4 months back I told you my apprehensions . They are turning real. A team (Ammamma and Tata) helped Amma and Nanna with "go-live". The first team transitioned support to another team (Mamma and Tata) and left the picture. Yesterday, the second team moved offshore. Yes, Mamma and Tata, left for India. The winter was getting too hard for them. And Tata got sick too. One day I noticed that he missed his usual morning walk. I thought that was an abberation. He missed his evening walk too. That was very unusual for Tata. The next day, Tata was still sleeping by the time I woke up. This was doubly unusual. What I suspected came true. Tata was not feeling well. The cold weather did not suit him. And the fact that Indu Atta was alone in India, nice warm India, did not help. They had to leave. That was how MY support project moved offshore. I can already imagine how things would go on from now. The client (Amma and Nanna) would send my photos 'offshore'. My health will be disc...

Thanksgiving - thats one of the most important holidays for Americans. People travel long distances to spend the holiday with their family. And have Turkey. Stuffed Turkey. Tata and Mamma went to Venu Tata's house for Thanksgiving. Ofcourse, without the turkey. Ravi Mama and Rama Atta flew to visit us. A family get-together, you could say. I haven't seen them in almost 3 months - and wow, they HAVE changed a lot. They seemed shorter, atleast to me. Not sure if it was a case of me growing taller or they getting shorter. Does that matter? You could very well imagine the excitement this small get-together caused. Rama Atta brought me a gown that she stitched herself. Here is a picture of me in that gown. I was fussed over and fussed over. Good Ravi Mama and Rama Atta. I love your gifts. I love you too. As if this excitement was not enough, I also had to deal with the Black Friday fever. Well, not fever in the literal, thermal sense - but figuratively. In the US, Thanksgiving is ce...

I started this blog wanting to give all of you an insight into "Who I am, What I do and answers to Questions like that". But how can I do that when I myself do not know the answers for these questions? Who am I? The simple answer is that I am Lasya Dhulipala and I am the daughter of so and so. But beyond that? Am I Indian? Am I an American of Indian descent? These questions might appear philosophical. But I have been hearing Nanna and Amma discussing these so much that I cannot ignore them any further. Since I was born in the US, it seems I acquired US citizenship by birth. Since I was born to Indian parents, it seems I acquired Indian citizenship by descent. No problems till here. But the problems started when my parents wanted to get me a passport - because we want to go to India next summer. If I get myself an Indian passport, I can go to India fine - but cannot return to the US. Why? Because I will not get a US visa as I am a US citizen. If I get myself a US passport, I w...

I achieved something! I mean yet again!!! I managed to achieve locomotion. In other words, I managed to move from one position to another without anyone's help. I know, I know. It might not seem like a big thing to all of you. But this is a huge milestone for me. The first of my many steps (or should I say, rolls) towards independence. I rolled over from my back to my tummy. I have been trying to do that for a long time. But my hand kept getting stuck under my tummy. So I was not able to complete the process. But I guess with the cereal and all that, I am now strong enough to pull my hand out of my tummy's way. Once I rolled over from my back to tummy, the next step was to roll over from tummy to back. After a couple of failed attempts, I managed to do that too. During this process I found something interesting about me. Looks like I am a rightie. I can roll over only to one side (as of now) - right. So, I roll over from back to tummy to back to tummy and so on. A little labori...

Cereals. Everyone likes cereals. Cornflakes, wheat flakes, oatmeal, porridge, Cocoa pebbles. There are so many varieties that you all know about. You might have seen all of them. You might have tried atleast some of them. There is something that you have missed - and that I have tried. Gerber Rice cereal . Well, do not worry. You have not missed much. In fact you will be glad you did not try this one. This rice cereal is nothing but finely ground rice, just a little finer that rice ravva. I am sure this cereal was invented by another grown-up. This joins car-seats, diapers etc as inventions by grown-ups with no complete disregard for the comfort of children. If you want to know how much I liked the rice cereal, here it is. Now that I have confided my feelings about rice cereal, I am sure you would not be surprised to know that a) It takes me almost 30 min to eat a couple of spoons b) I give Amma a hard time whenever I see a spoon in her hand So much so that, Amma and Nanna have fully u...

After an exciting morning, I was looking forward to an even more exciting evening. After I woke up from my afternoon siesta, it was time to get into the other costume. This one was a "Little Angel" dress - complete with wings, aura and a wand. Nanna returned from office, I was strapped into my car seat and off we were to his friends' houses. But what Nanna and Amma did not account for were my wings - actually not MY wings, but the wings of my costume. They weren't flexible like the ones on my Tulip Fairy costume. Instead they were hard and made it tough for me to fit into the car seat. Most of you who have been following my blog are well aware of my feelings towards car seats - so what happened wouldn't come as a surprise to you. The house that we were going to was a good 15-20 min away. So, by the time we reached our first stop, I was already a crying angel. The wand went away and the halo followed. The wings still remained - and my crying continued. It wasn'...

Halloween , as most of you know, is celebrated on the 31st of October. The money spent for this day is second only to Christmas. Halloween has its roots in the West European (W-E) belief that evil spirits like sweets or candy. And fear of evil spirits is, of course, universal and culture-independent. Children, being as smart as we are, try to make the most out of this situation. We dress up as evil spirits (sometimes due to logistical reasons we might not appear so funny. More about that later) and try to scare the living daylights out of adults. Having been indoctrinated by the evil spirit - candy relationship, adults give candy to anyone/anything who/that resembles an evil spirit. In the spirit of this tradition (pun was intentional), my non-Western-European (n-W-E) parents decided to make the most (candy) out of this W-E belief. As an initial investment, they went to the local BabiesRUs shop and bought me 2 Halloween dresses which were on sale. These dresses didn't look bad for ...

A lot of you remember Chak de India as a great movie. Cricket fans will remember it as something that inspired the Indian cricket team to victory. A lot has been said about the movie... but you will all forget it. But I wouldn't. I will always remember Chak de India as my first movie in a cinema. I wasn't even 3 months old when I went to this movie. Now now, don't start asking me the story and all. I told you that I went to the movie. Not that I 'watched' the movie. In fact, the only thing I remember about the experience was that it was dark and loud. Nanna chose a good time to take me to this movie. He chose Sunday morning - a day that most people like to spend at home or church. So when we went to the cinema, there were 1002 people in the hall, give or take a thousand. So with Tata, Mamma, Nanna, Amma and myself, the hall occupancy increased 350%! We chose a strategic place to sit which allowed Amma an opportunity to slip out of the auditorium without much fuss. J...

I desperately need someone to translate my feelings to amma and nanna. They seem to out of their depth to understand my needs. I recently said, "Amma, the sky is blue". Looks like she thought I was hungry. I told Nanna that he needs a shave. He thought my diaper needs changing. I told Mamma that her saree looked cute. She thought I wanted to be lifted from my swing. I asked Tata to take me with him for his evening walk. He said, "Sure, the Central government in India wouldn't last full term". Just check the below video to see if atleast you understood what I was saying. If yes, then maybe you can play the role of translator for my parents. If not... well, let's get to that later. P.S: Turn your speakers on

I found out an interesting statistic recently. Actually, one of the many interesting ones. Stat-1, I am the youngest person amongst my family to travel by air. I was just 58 days old when I first flew. Stat-2, the average age of my paternal grandparents when they first flew was a shade over 58 years :-) Enough of my bragging. I travelled to New Jersey to my mama's house. It was a 2hr 20min flight. Not too long, but long enough to get Amma worried about. Though, she knew that I was a very very good girl... she wasn't sure if the pressure difference would hurt my ears. Even I wasn't sure if I would be able to stay put for such a long time. Let me tell you all about my experience. Severe thunderstorm warnings were issued on the day of our travel. So we started early to the airport and reached there about an hour before. The thunderstorms didn't materialize, but our scheduled flight was late by an hour. So by the time we got in the plane... it was already 3 hrs since we lef...

Nothing to worry about. I am fine and doing fine. It is just that I have been a little busy learning new things. Sooo busy that I gave up a few 'old' habits. One of them being updating my blog regularly. Now that I am back, do expect more updates soon. A lot has happened in the last few weeks and I am raring to tell you all about it. In good time.... Love you all. Oh by the way, I have uploaded some more pictures of me. You can follow the links on the right of this page.

Once again to customs and their fallout. It seems, I had to be taken out before I turned a month old. So what better place to go than to the temple? So we went to Sri Balaji temple at Aurora, IL. It seems Amma and Nanna were praying very hard that I behave myself during my first outing. Consequently, for no apparent reason, I fell asleep during the trip. All the while when Amma, Nanna, Mamma and Tata were having their Darshan, I was asleep. Little did they know that it was just the calm before the storm. As soon as we started from the temple.... I mean AS SOON AS we started from the parking lot, the storm broke out. For those of you who did not understand what I meant.... I started crying. I wasn't sure if it was because I was hungry... or because my diaper was full. More likely it was a combination of the both. Doesn't matter. The end result was that Nanna had to perform a U-turn and bring us all back to the temple parking lot. Decision making could be tough even in the easies...

Before you get naughty, I am referring to an infant swing like this . It seems it is customary for children to be put into an 'uyyala' (roughly translated into a swing) either on the 21st day or on the 29th day. Since Nanna likes postponing things till the last minute, he decided to put me in a swing on the 29th day - which happened to be the 25th of July. Actually, between you and me, let me tell you a secret. Ravi Mama said he was sending me a swing as a gift... and Nanna took that opportunity to avoid buying me a swing. Now you know the actual reason why my Swing ceremony was delayed, don't you? :-) And yes, I forgot to tell you something. Today also happens to be Mamma's 54th birthday. She celebrated it with a cake that I baked and decorated. Isn't Mamma's birthday more important that my Swing ceremony? Am I becoming egocentric? :-( And I didn't even get a piece of the cake. Ok, ok... I lied about the baking part. We bought the cake :-)

Am I a ' project '? Atleast that is what Nanna talks like. So, my birthday was 'go-live day'. And Ammamma-Tata came here for 'Production Support'. Hey, but where are Ammamma-Tata now? They have gone to Ravi Mama's house in New Jersey. They have handed over my responsibility to Mamma-Tata. Probably this is what Nanna would say 'Production Support Transition' from one team to another!!! Time for Nanna to change his profession?

Eureka... That was what some old Greek said when he found something life changing. I am saying that now because I found something that will change my life. I hope my dear readers will remember what I said about Nanna's cooing and singing abilities . Just to recap, Nanna's singing (and cooing) is one of the three things that I can't bear. It's outright hilarious. So I started smiling whenever he sang/cooed. That seemed to encourage him to puruse this act even more vigourously. I asked for advise to tackle this and got some great advice. It was simple. First of all, I had to dispel his notion that his singing was amusing me. So, I stopped smiling. And then I started crying... crying HARD. That scared the living daylights of him and he handed me over to Amma, who smiled understandingly. I continued this every time Nanna sang. Just as Mr.Pavlov predicted, this was enough to stop Nanna from singing anymore. For those of you thinking that I found an easy way out... think har...

Hurrah... I did it!!! I did something that Nanna, Amma, Atta and Kanna Mama couldn't do. Tata and Mamma are here. They came here on the 10th of July, almost 2 weeks after they became my grand parents. After travelling for more than 30 hrs, you would expect people to be tired, don't you? But these old people didn't seem to be tired at all. They came, they hugged me, they kissed me and I fell in love with them. They played with me as if they were of my age. Of course, the fact that they brought a lot of gifts for me also helped :-) On the flip side, flying for so long disrupted their sleep timings. So thety started sleeping like me :-) A few hours now, a few hours then. A little food now, a little food later. I was so thrilled that there were others who slept and ate like me :-) But then Tata said that they will be here only for a while. Too bad they are going to be here only for a few months :( Nanna, can't you make them stay longer?

Now that I have come home... I am free of nurses, doctors, injections and the like. But then, the flip side is that I am stuck with Mom and Dad all the time. Of course, there are Granny and Granpa too. Hold on, let me tell you something that I have been asked to do. In my home, Mommy becomes Amma. Daddy becomes Nanna. Granny becomes Ammamma. Granpa becomes Tata. So, the characters haven't changed, only the way I call them has. Where was I? Yeah, so I am home with Amma, Nanna, Ammamma and Tata. But Amma being as protective as she is, wouldn't let Ammamma handle me enough. And Tata being who he is, is relegated to being the standby-support person - the one who holds me when Amma is having a bath, Nanna is in office and Ammamma is busy in the kitchen. So bottom-line? I am with Amma most of the time. For those of you who are asking me if I wouldn't get bored spending all day with only one person, here is my answer. I found a way around that. I sleep. Yes, you heard me right. I ...

Before I was born... when I was playing with those angels, I was told - "There are two kinds of people, the good ones and the very good ones". I still haven't had the time to check that, but I do know this - "There are two kinds of people - the champions and the verrrry good champions". Needless to say, I am a verrrry good champion. I am a Champion KICKER. Actually, Nanna says that he isn't sure if it is kicking that I am good at or cycling. Tour de France effect, n'est-ce pas? Here is a picture where I kicked a pillow off my tiny bed. There is something else that I am good at. Just take a look at this picture and tell me if you think otherwise. I am a very good champion SCRATCHER, am I not?

After spending two long days and nights at the hospital, I was eager to go home. God told me that home is a wonderful place where you can eat, sleep, play, pee pee or poo poo wherever you want. It also has people like Mommy and Daddy. The morning of 29 th June dawned, though a little late for my liking. I couldn't brush my teeth - remember, I am just 2 days old and do not have any teeth. I couldn't take a bath - my umbilical cord hasn't fallen off yet. So, I had little to do, except for waiting for the doctors to come and okay our discharge. But, as Capt. Edward Murphy would know, the doctor will be late when you are waiting for him and longing to go home! So, I waited and slept, slept and ate, ate and waited.... and waited. Finally, the nurses came and wheeled me into the nursery so that the pediatrician could take a look at me. They took some more blood, put me under one of those huge blue lamps and discussed their July 4 holiday plans. Poor dad. He kept shuttling back...

I was still resting with my mom when Akhila Aunty and Sarma Uncle came to see me. The brought me some nice flowers which Mommy conveniently said was hers :-) And then Narayanan Uncle and Rathi Aunty came to see me. Narayanan Uncle wouldn't hold me. I am angry with him for that... but I think his moustache is kind of cute. I rested well that night. God told me that nights on earth are dark and long. But this night was not-so-dark and short. I spent some time with Mommy and Daddy who kept cooing in my ears. How much I wanted to say - "Enough, stop acting like babies!" Then Daddy went home to bring Granny and lunch for Mommy. Once Granny came, Daddy left us and went home. I suspected it was because he had a little too much of me.... but he later told me that he went home to fix the car seat so that we could go home. And then Mommy's friends - Kalyani Aunty, Shashank Uncle, Sujana Aunty and Jeet Uncle came to visit me. They brought me a nice cute doll.... it was only late...

I am Lasya Dhulipala. I came into this world on the 27th of June, 2007 at 14:32 CDT. For those of you statistically inclined, I weighed 7 lb 9 oz and measured 20.5 inches at birth. For those of you medically trained, I was delivered normally with Apgar scores of 7 and 9. The neonatologist had to check me because I pooped while in mommy's tummy. I love my mommy because she really really wanted me to come out early. But I was cross with daddy. He did not leave mommy's side to kiss me when the doctor with big spectacles and blue coat took me to check and clean. And what a cleaning it was. I was scrubbed clean (yuk, I hate that), made to wear one of those white shirts with a pink lining. How did those people know that I liked pink? Anyway, as soon as that was done, one of the nurses carried me and thrust me into daddy's arms. Did I see a tiny tear in the corner of his eyes? Poor daddy.... maybe he was worried about mommy and that was why he didn't kiss me as soon as I ca...