Aayush turned 2 this year and following his cousins' example we decided to do a "Two Year Old Interview." Enjoy!
He still loves to be outside, spend time with people, sing songs and dance. He talks A LOT, as he always has, and asks lots of questions about everything. He is a very empathetic person and he will always try to make sure you are feeling ok if he notices that you are sad/upset. He is also very excited to be turning 2 (as you'll see in the video!)
Aayush loves music and is always requesting that we play certain songs on Youtube for him to listen to. A favorite is 'Baby Shark,' accompanied by hand movements. I recently came across a recording of the song on Youtube, played on loop for 10 hours and (silly me) thought - who would want to listen to this song on repeat for that long?
Answer: Aayush
He listened to the song for 16 minutes straight, excited EVERY TIME the song started over. Here it is, for your enjoyment.
It's here! We were so excited to celebrate Aayush's 1st birthday with family here in Dallas! We had a lunchtime party at SeaLife Aquarium in Grapevine and then went bowling in the evening. We are so grateful to everyone for taking the time to celebrate this wonderful milestone with us.
Oh no!! An octopus!!
Thank you Krishna Foi for baking the amazings sea-themed smash cake!!!
Aayush has changed so much in the past month - physically and mentally! He is pulling to stand on everything and loves to try to balance on his own. He enjoys walking with assistance of us or by holding onto one of his walking/rolling toys. As a result he has also lost some of his baby fat :( Though we miss our pudgy thigh rolls and droopy cheeks, we are so excited to see him exploring the world around him! Now that he likes to walk with assistance, he has really enjoyed going for walks. He pushes his elephant down the sidewalk and can't stop marveling at all the things which are within reach. He points to trees, picks up leaves and crunches them and waves at people walking by.
Aayush has also increased his vocabulary dramatically this month. He now says star, truck, duck, ball, bubble, button and lots of other words in Gujarati. He can also identify lots of shapes, animals, vehicles and foods. He signs to the songs 'Itsy Bitsy Spider', 'Open Shut Them' and 'Twinkle Twinkle Little Star'. He knows how to identify his body parts (eyes, ears, nose, tongue, teeth, hair, hands, feet, eyebrows, cheeks, forehead) and loves to point out Ami's nose ring and earrings.
He shows excitement about most things by babbling loudly or clapping his hands. He also greets people by waving hi or putting his hands together to do Namaste/Jai Shree Krishna. He also says 'bye-bye' and waves if he is ready to go home. He can now identify the letters A, K, O, B, S and W and likes to point them out on signs and on the t-shirts we wear. He also enjoys dance parties in our apartment and bounces up and down and raises his arms to the music :)
He is mostly a happy boy, but does show his frustration by crying. He will cry if he needs help with something or if he is getting tired. He also does a dramatic flopping over and crying if we do not understand what he is trying to tell us. We are practicing how to be quiet and gentle - both concepts which we know will serve him well as he begins to interact with other children.
He still loves his books and could sit for hours turning pages and pointing out things he recognizes. He also loves to play peekaboo, but now he does it by crawling under things (his play structure, coffee tables, his high chair) and waiting for us to find him. As you can see, his hair continues to be out of control but he will be getting his first haircut in just 1 month! Can't believe this little man is almost 1 year old!
This little guy just keeps changing! This month's biggest milestone - crawling!! It started from a first few timid scoots to full out movement. Now he is incredibly efficient and loves going all around the apartment. He is also learning that there are certain things he can and cannot reach when he is crawling, so he is curious about pulling to stand.
This month he has also transitioned to consistently saying words - duck, dada, star and ball, to name a few. He loves to make animal noises (tiger, dog, elephant, snake) and to listen to music and has started doing the hand motions to songs like 'Itsy Bitsy Spider'. He still has 4 teeth but chews on his fingers a lot, so we think he might be getting more. He has gotten very good at identifying everyday objects (clock, curtain, ball) and knows the capital letter 'A'. He is still a lover of all food and now that he can crawl he enjoys interrupting our mealtimes and coming over for a bite of our food too.
We were so lucky to have Dada and Dadi come visit us this month and Aayush had so much fun spending time with them! His favorite part was going on walks and now he gets especially excited about any kind of signage (stop signs, yield signs, speed limit signs).
He really loves to knock down towers that we build all around the house since he can now crawl to them. He also likes to get under his high chair and pull all the bibs off from where we hang them. A whole new world of possibilities has now opened up to him! We are looking forward to seeing what next month brings :)
Binita Mami (and Neil Mama) live here in Dallas and Aayush loves going to their place. They have a great view from their apartment and the pool area is lots of fun too! Binita Mami recently had her birthday and we loved celebrating with her. Aayush really enjoyed the balloons and got to see birthday candles for the first time! He was a little confused by the trick candles and a little overwhelmed by the loud singing of 'happy birthday' but overall very happy to celebrate with her!
We know that we have been VERY behind on posts as we moved to Dallas and took some time to get settled. We are going to be better about keeping everyone updated, and what better time to start than today - Aayush's 9 month birthday :)
This spunky guy is so much fun and getting big fast! He has 4 front teeth now (top 2 are halfway showing and bottom 2 are completely showing) and his curly hair is always piled high on his head. He has a loving, loud and laid back personality. He loves to watch things moving (people, cars, birds, balloons, flags, planes, etc.) and will scream/yell when he gets really excited. He also does a scrunchy faced smile, as you can see below!
He has been babbling (mamama, dadada, bababa, yayaya, guh-guh, ssssss, thhh-thhh) for a couple months now and we think he might be saying 'duck' and 'ball', but not consistently. He loves to roll his big ball and throw small ones with us - there is lots of giggling involved. His most favorite thing is being outdoors. He loves watching the trees in the wind, the ducks, people, dogs and the cars. He is very good at identifying lots of things, mostly using the Gujarati word (car, dog, fan, light, Mummy, Daddy, stop sign, curtain, clock, tree, duck, elephant, plane, clap, the letter 'A').
Aayush loves bathtime and bubbles! As you can see in the picture above, Daddy also loves styling his long hair in various ways. It is long enough to pull back into a single ponytail! He knows how to "splash splash" in the water and loves his Nemo and Woody bath toys (thank you Keshav bhai and Vidya didi!) He is a little skeptical about swings, but he loves slides! He will even go down on his own, and usually balances pretty well :)
Ones of his favorite games is playing peek-a-boo with us. He usually starts the games on his own by pulling whatever is close by on top of his face and waiting for us to notice. He is content playing with someone or playing on his own. He hasn't learned to pull himself up yet, so if he doesn't want to sit anymore, he will whine until you help him up. You can get a glimpse of his complaining at the end of the peek-a-boo video :) He also loves songs (in English, Hindi and Gujarati). Sometimes he hums random sounds, but we haven't caught it on video yet. We are having so much fun with our little guy and can't wait to see what else he learns!
