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So it’s Kavya’s first Christmas. She’ll be 10 months old, and we’ll be in California, sans snow, sans tree. Sans celebration? Christmas has always been an odd holiday for my family. We’re not Christian, by any stretch of the imagination, yet since we got to this country when I was all of 4, we’ve celebrated. Growing up, we had a tree — fake and white, with silver accents, bought for five bucks at a garage sale — and presents and even Christmas cookies. Of course, then there was the signature masala …

TweetWhen we first booked our semi-annual trip to California a few months ago, I was worried about how baby Kavya, now 9 months old, would handle the flight. After all, it’s nine hours across country, trapped in a disease-ridden box with barely enough space to wiggle your toes. (And our return flight is a red-eye. Yikes.)
I hadn’t been thinking about the plane as a death box, though.
Now, thanks to continued controversy over whether babies should be required to have their own seat on a plane, I have been. Lovely.
My husband …

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Jack Black gets nutty on Yo Gabba Gabba. (Here, sans camel toe.)We all know TV is NOT recommended for kids under 2, right? Right? At least, that’s what the American Academy of Pediatrics has been mandating for the last few years. That doesn’t actually stop parents from letting their little ones watch TV. Heck, Kavya gets plenty of small screen exposure, given the fact that I make my living working from home in my pajamas, writing mostly about TV. It can’t be helped.
In fact, lately, at 9 months old, I’ve noticed she pays …

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Kavi and her little half-tooth grin.Last week, after months of teething, baby Kavya’s first toothfinally erupted. It’s really cute, half a tooth really, sitting primly on the bottom of her little smile.
And boy does she love to use it. To take a “bite,” she snags her cookie or other random food on it, then pulls to tear. Or she gnaws on her carrot for half an hour, really working that little tooth like she’s sharpening it for future use.
I know, now that the first tooth has arrived, the teething is only going …

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As we count down the days to Thanksgiving, one thing looms large in my mind.
It will be crazy. It always is. Literally dozens of relatives descend upon my mom’s house for her signature masala turkey and my homemade macaroni and cheese, Indian-spiced green beans, and jalapeno mashed potatoes. Cousins, aunts, uncles, even Tarun mama can be counted on to show. We’re a loud, boisterous bunch.
So Thanksgiving, well, it’s just too much. Too many people, too many commitments, too much craziness.
But I’ve realized …

TweetThis Thanksgiving, Kavi will be digging in with the rest of us.With Thanksgiving coming up, we’re all excited to give Kavya her first taste of my mom’s signature masala turkey. It’s hearty and spicy, a classic in our family — really, it makes the whole meal.
So far though, Kavi, at 9 months, hasn’t had any meat. I’ve been wondering if we should start giving her some here and there to prep for the big day.
But that got me thinking, what if my baby’s a vegetarian?
My husband, a voracious carnivore, scoffs at the very idea. …

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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 …

TweetAfter being sick for nearly two weeks, baby Kavya’s on the road to recovery. And since we’re still hanging at my parents’ house, where she’s got space to be all over the place, she’s been crawling up a storm.
But one of her favorite — thankfully more mellow — activities this week (and every week, actually) has been reading, because she’s got quite the library stashed away at nani-ma’s place.
Kavi loves books. Not only does she love eating them (and everything else, really), but she also loves hearing …

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Kavya started crawling last week, and things have been chaos ever since. She’s so uber-curious, she gets into everything. In a way, it’s really charming. But it can also get a bit problematic, given our small space. So I find myself chasing her around, stashing every little thing out of sight, and prying things out of her little hands when she does get a hold of something.
And then, when all else fails, I find myself saying, in a stern (but not unfriendly) tone, “No, …

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 …