It's the 1-Year Birthday Post!!!

Saavan celebrates his first birthday with some bubbly.

Holy crap! Saavan is officially a 1-year old. Saavan's actual birthdate is June 21, meaning he turned one over a week ago, and I'm guessing all you readers are rolling your eyes and thinking to yourself that I'm once again late putting up the birthday post. Are you kidding? Do you think I'm some sort of deadbeat dad? I'd never be late on the 1-year birthday post. I simply held off on putting up this post until we'd completed Saavan's whirlwind three-week birthday celebration event, officially known as the Saavan First Birthday Party North American Tour ("SFBPNAT"). Check out the dates:

SFBPNAT 2009
June 14: RAINFOREST CAFE, Chicago, IL
June 21: HAYES PARK, Arlington, VA
June 28: GRANDPA'S HOUSE, Ann Arbor, MI

I'll bet you didn't know about the SFBPNAT, did you? So see? I wasn't late. You owe me an apology.

Go ahead. Apologize to your computer screen. I'll wait.

You thought daddy forgot to post?!? He's just slothful.

SFBPNAT kicked off with a joint birthday party for Saavan and his cousin Sohum at the Rainforest Cafe in Chicago. The restaurant was pretty cool in that it was covered with fake rainforests, waterfalls, and tons of animatronic animals all over the place. Actually, if I was Sohum or Saavan's age, I might actually be kind of freaked out by all the craziness of that place. But since I'm not a toddler, the only thing that really freaked me out was the fact that there were people in the restaurant who didn't have kids, and who appeared to be on a date. What the hell?!? Why were they there? I found it all to be terribly upsetting. But aside from that, it was a great event (though Saavan slept through at least half of it), and a perfect start to SFBPNAT.

Sohum holds up well under intense gorilla scrutiny at the Rainforest Cafe. (Not pictured - Saavan sleeping during the birthday bash.)

On June 21, we celebrated Saavan's birthday at a public park in Arlington, VA (our current home town)), in which we fired up the Weber and grilled weenies. (The cuisine was inspired by the great Ignatius J. Reilly.) Though it turned out to be awesome, the party was nearly a disaster because the original party site was stolen by a group of people that presumably hate both babies and freedom. As a result, we had to relocate to a new, fancier park in Arlington, but this turned out to be a blessing in disguise: the new park had tons of activities for the multiple kids who showed up, and plenty of room for the weenie smoke to dissipate. So that was good. The party brought out a ton of little kids and, given the fancy park in the tree-lined suburbs, and young dads in plaid shorts, reinforced our yuppiedom in ways little else could. The highlight of the grilled weenie birthday bash? Saavan's total lack of amusement at being sung "Happy Birthday." Check it out:


(Special thanks to Nihar Mama, Manu Mama, Vikas Mama, Ananya Mama and Raina Mami for all their help with the June 21 birthday event.)

Finally, this past Sunday, we completed SFBPNAT with another party at Saavan's nana's (maternal grandfather) house in Ann Arbor. It was the largest party of all, with over 50 people in town from all over the greater Detroit in to celebrate and eat ice cream cake. It was hot out, so the ice cream cake was key. Because Saavan was an expert at birthday parties at this point, blowing out the candles was breeze:


It's still difficult to comprehend that Saavan is already 1. No matter how many times I say it, I just can't get over how fast the first year went by. I mean, compare the Saav-man on the day he was born:

June 21, 2008 - Weight: 6 pounds, 5 ounces; Height: 20 inches

to him on his his birthday last week:

June 21, 2009 - Weight: 17 pounds, 12 ounces (too tiny for the percentile chart!); Height: 29.75 inches

It's not even close to being the same baby. (I am reasonably certain that it is in fact the same baby. It would be pretty crazy if it wasn't.) One year old Saavan is no longer a blob that only eats poops and sleeps; he's a walking, talking (babbling), Sandra Boynton book-loving little boy. He's fricking awesome.


Happy birthday Saavan! It would be an understatement to call this past year the best of our lives. We love you.

Happy Birthday to the Sohmster!

Sohum is so awesome he gets TWO brownie-ice-cream-birthday-cake thingys.

We bring you this brief blog post to wish Sohum, Saavan's older and just-as-handsome cousin, a happy third birthday! Though Sohum and Saavan celebrated their birthdays at a joint birthday blowout this past Sunday at the Rainforest Cafe, today is Sohum's actual 3rd birthday (he's such a big boy!) and Saavan would be terribly upset if we didn't use this public (and hugely popular) forum to send our best wishes. More importantly, wishing Sohum a happy birthday gives us an excuse to post this ridiculously adorable picture of the cousins Vohra:

Sohum is unfazed by Saavan's attempts to eat him.

Just because...

Just because the blog is being neglected, and this photo is awesome.

Saavan is slowly getting the hang of walking, and while I'd hoped to get the walking post up by now, the only actual video I have of him "walking" is him taking a step and a half and falling flat on his face. It's awesome in no many ways, but not the video footage we were hoping for. He c an walk though! I swear. People have seen it. Saavan's ability to walk is like the Loch Ness Monster or Bigfoot. The anecdotal evidence means you know it's true.

Still don't believe me? Yesterday morning, while hanging out at my parents' place in Chicago, I asked everyone who knows how to walk to raise their hand. And check it out:

We were in Chicago this past weekend to celebrate my parents' 40th wedding anniversary. For the festivities on Saturday evening, we put Saavan in a shirt and tie, which were adorable (photos - taken by a professional - coming later this week). Because the party ended well past Saavan's bedtime, Saavan ended up passing out in his clothes. Which means this morning, he took those old records off the shelf:

Fortunately, Saavan hasn't yet driven a Porsche into Lake Michigan. It's really only a matter of time.

Speaking of time, this Sunday is Saavan's first birthday, which is exciting for the boy, but terribly stressful for the parents. Our plan is to keep it simple: a picnic in the park where we plan to grill up some wienies. Unfortunately, we own neither a grill nor wienies, so the plan isn't actually all that simple. (Full disclosure - I think calling hot dogs "wienies" is hysterical.) Plus with the whole "entertain children" aspect of the party, coupled with the need to distribute "goodie bags," this has turned into a high pressure endeavor. I miss the birthday parties that didn't involve infants, when I could ask all my friends to meet me at a bar and buy me shots.

Yeah, actually, we're totally doing that for Saavan's birthday.

I'm pretending to be excited, but a birthday party that consists only of shots and hot dogs will be the worst thing ever!