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A few weeks ago, I was on the subway with Kavya, whose curiosity would be alarming if it weren’t so charming.
A man sat down next to us and, as she babbled in his direction, put down his book for a chat. He said he’d like to offer me one piece of parenting advice, the best he’d ever gotten. “Don’t blink,” Randy, the man, told me. “Before you know it, she’ll be all grown up.”
I didn’t realize how right he was. Even in the few weeks since that …

TweetThe other day, I was on the phone interviewing a TV star when Kavya, hanging out with her papa in the background, let out a laugh-out-loud squeal. That’s one of the perks of being a work-at-home mama: your office chatter tends to veer toward baby babble. Generally a fun thing, but it can be inopportune at times.
Anyway, the celeb, a dad himself, commented that I sounded like a young mama. Which I probably do. I have a young voice, and had it been an in-person …

TweetSo Kavya started daycare this week. And we both survived. Well, sort of.
Of course, there were tears involved. But I have to admit, it was mostly me who was doing the crying.
Luckily, it was a short week.
She officially started daycare on September 1, so that meant Wednesday. She went for two days, and Friday and Monday we’re off for Labor Day. This is great because it meant we could ease into it. But it also kind of sucks, because it means next week it’ll be like starting …

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Kavi is almost 7 months old, and I know it’s a bit early to expect her to be crawling. But it seems like she may get there sooner rather than later. She likes to hang out a bit on all fours and she tries to move around — but she ends up pushing herself backward instead of forward.
It’s all happening so fast. Almost too fast. I don’t even know where six months went. And before we know it, she’ll be a year old already.
It’s funny, …

TweetNext week, little Kavi starts daycare. She’ll be 6 months old.
She’s been a happy baby from the start, but lately she’s been getting a bit clingy. It’s almost as if she knows the fate that is about to befall her. (Which still makes me really sad.) And she’s been showing some signs lately of separation anxiety.
This should be fun.
We’ve got a lot of family nearby, and she gets along swell with her Nani and Nanoo, Meena Masi, and even my brother Tarun. …

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So this is it. There’s one week left before my little Kavi, at all of seven months old, goes off to day care. And one week left before I put on my work clothes — or maybe some student version of them anyway — and head to grad school.
One week left of the cozy little world Kavi and I have built at home, cuddling in bed, trying new foods like mashed potato and mango and peas, playing on the floor with the Cookie Monster and Xylophone her …

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This is what Kavi’s baby book looks like. Isn’t it cute?Before Kavya was born, I had big plans to commemorate every significant moment in her baby book. Her first smile, her first giggle, the first time she tasted avocado or bananas or mangos, her first trip to the park.
My husband and I made sure our camera was functioning, splurged on a video camera, and, of course, picked out the baby book, customized just for Kavi.
We spent hours before she arrived filling out the details of the pregnancy, my …

TweetLike many new moms, I’ve let my daily beauty regimen slip.
And when I say my “beauty regimen,” I mean some face cream, maybe a little blush, and, if I’m feeling really fancy, eyeliner.
I’ve never been particularly high maintenance, but there is one beauty treatment I splurge on — thermal reconditioning. Yes, that Japanese hair straightening thing. And yes, it’s permanent.
Last year, as my hair started to grow out, I found out I was pregnant. So I skipped it just in case. Who knows what these chemicals could do?
By …

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Kavi had her first solid feeding yesterday — and boy was she ever ready.
We’ve started her on a brown rice cereal, which is organic and therefore a bit pricier than the usual baby cereal. And later this week, she’ll start on some kind of green veggie. Which begs the question: How much of what she’s eating should be organic? And is it all or nothing?
Given how much organic foods can cost, I’m rethinking making all of Kavi’s food at home, which was the original plan.
I’ve read all …

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The stories of moms flushing newborns down airplane toilets or babysitters shaking a 6-week-old until they have brain damage bring me to tears. I. Just. Can’t. Handle. It.
Is it just me? Or have people seemed to have gotten so much less, well, human over the past few years?
I guess it’s true. Being a mom has made me fragile in ways I’d never imagined.
Since I had Kavya, I’ve become so hyper-sensitive to the dramas and traumas inflicted by the world around me. Stories I would have brushed off in …