In Which Saavan Celebrates His 5-Month Birthday, And Feels the Pain of Losing to Ohio State...

I'm five months old! Fortunately, still too young to be scarred by a lifetime of Michigan football fandom. But just barely.

This post is a day late. Saavan turned 5 months old yesterday! Which is pretty crazy. I still remember frantically trying to catch a cab from work to get back home to drive Neha to the hospital, thinking I was going to miss the birth of my child, and that the fact that I was in danger of neglecting my child before he was born, sealing my status as the world's worst father. Good times! Five incredibly fast months later, he's here, he's huge, and he's doing some pretty impressive stuff. He can hold his head up like a champion. He grabs his toes and puts them in his mouth (which is awesome). He rolls over constantly. He's not quite sitting up yet, but we're working on it. He is slowly getting adjusted to daycare, and talking up a storm. He's a little man, and he's absolutely amazing. I get excited just talking about him. That may be irrelevant to the fact that he's five months old, but it's worth mentioning.

On an unrelated note, today was Saavan's first Michigan-Ohio State game. Unsurprisingly, we lost (Michigan is suffering through the worst team in its storied football history), but perhaps that's okay, because I'd hate to have Saav get too optimistic unnecessarily. After all, we lose to Ohio State pretty regularly these days. He needs to have his heart broken by the team immediately, so that it doesn't hurt nearly as much when he's older. Tough love, I say.

Of course, having his heart broken every time Michigan loses will mean I have sucessfully indoctrinated him, and he will be indisputably a Michigan Man. I'm not entirely sure how one raises their child in a manner than appropriately conveys the importance of Michigan fandom, but fortunately I found this video that provides a "how-to" on the necessary levels of Ohio State hatred:


Yeah, I'm totally teaching Saavan to kick a Jim Tressel doll down a flight of stairs. I'm the world's best dad.

Picture Dump!

I found my toes!

This morning Saavan's poop got on my hand. It was a vibrant reminder that it had been a while since the last picture dump.

Pictures from Saavan's first trip to New York City (aka "the city that smells of pee") and other miscellaneous adventures:

Some older photos, from Saavan's trip to the park at Georgetown:

Handing Him Off...

Ophelia takes charge.

We started Saavan in daycare this week, at Arlington's "Kindercare" facility. Daycare is many different things all at once: exciting (because it's a brand new advenure!), sad (because he's getting older, and it's all happening so fast), harrowing (because who are these people taking care of our child?), and adorable (because daycare is a bunch of infants, all hanging out together, oohing and aahing and playing and sleeping and pooping and crying all day long). More than anything, daycare is overwhelming. For both Saavan and for us.

The hardest thing about daycare is the huge leap of faith required to leave our child with a bunch of total randoms. For the first four months of his life, Saavan has constantly been with us, and we've always been cognizant of everything and everyone around him. But on Monday, we left him in a tiny room with 3 teachers we'd never really met, and a bunch of other infants whose parents may or may not be serial killers. In reality, they probably aren't serial killers. But you never know.

What's even harder about daycare is actually leaving Saavan there in the morning. I am charged with dropping him off before I go to work. Saavan is typically in a good mood when we get to the center, but as soon as I hand him off to his teacher (Ophelia, pictured above), he starts howling. This morning the tears were streaming down his face as soon as I passed him off. It's one thing when he's crying and appears to be faking (he does that a lot), but when his face is covered in tears, that's hard to handle. My understanding is that he stops crying as soon as I leave the room, but still. It's no fun. Neha, on the other hand, gets to pick him up in the evening, and he's usually THRILLED to see her, smiling and kicking his legs with excitement. This division of labor appears to be skewed.

The weirdest thing, though, is that we don't know what happens during the day. Is Saavan being read to enough? Is he getting enough tummy time? Do they sing him his ABCs each day? These are the pressing questions that we cannot answer. At least without a nanny-cam. We hope and pray that he's happy and stimulated during the day, but who really knows. Each evening when we pick him up he appears happy, clean, and well-fed. That's great, but it doesn't really provide much insight into his day. Nonetheless, we're okay with the place for now, and willing to give it a chance. And you know what, more than anything, provides us the piece of mind we need to continue to take Saavan back to Kindercare each day? His buddy Saajan is in the same class, and definitely has his back. Check out Saajan displaying his crazy sleeping skills below:


Idli and Sambar in the same class together? The ladies of Kindercare don't stand a chance.

Yes We Did.

The first President of the United States that Saavan will know is the history-making Barack Obama. I could not possibly be more excited.



Saavan's Mama vote[d] Obama.

The Infected...

Saavan ships the virus to Chicago.

In one of my all-time favorite, movies, "28 Days Later," a group of stupid animal-rights activists release a bunch of monkeys that research scientists have infected with a man-made virus known as "Rage." As a result, in 28 days, the Rage virus wipes out the vast majority of Great Britain, with infected humans (cleverly referred to as "The Infected") having turned into zombies that prey on the flesh of the living (the movie is far more serious and awesome than it sounds). Stupid PETA. Anyways, "28 Days Later" is beyond amazing, and you must watch it. Check out the trailer here.

Saavan appears to have brought a somewhat-less virulent version of the Rage virus (the "baby Rage" virus?) into the Vohra household, rendering all of us not flesh-eating zombies, but close. Saavan has been suffering from a runny nose and a wet cough for over a week now, and although he and Neha went to Ann Arbor for a week, has passed it along to me before he left. I've spent the past week coughing my way through the work day, half-asleep and in a total daze. It's been awful. Neha survived the first week and a half of exposure without getting infected, but yesterday, she started displaying the umistakable signs: the sore throught, uncontrollable cough, and vague fever. There's no turning back for her at this point. Our household needs to be quarantined. Which is a shame, because it wasn't. My parents were in town visiting this weekend, which means that the baby Rage virus is likely flying back to Chicago even as we speak. I just hope it doesn't interfere with Tuesday evening's Obama party.

I was explaining the situation to a co-worker this past week, who assured me that it would only get worse once we got Saavan into daycare (which is a whole other headache). Apparently daycares are pools of virulent strains of coughs and colds, none of which have yet been classified by the CDC. Which is nice, and something to look forward to.

In search of sympathy, I turned to Neha, and mentioned to her that since Saavan has been born, there has not been a day where I have been either fully healthy or fully well-rested. Without missing a beat, she reminded that me that she was in the exact same boat, but that for her, that had been the case since pretty much the day she got pregnant.

I no longer complain about being sick.

Also, this past weekend was Saavan's first Halloween! Check out his first-ever costume (a dragonfly?):