Introducing Taj

It's crazy to think that my due date was yesterday and that this little person who has been with us for 2 weeks already should only just have been born!  With the bed rest and the 2 previous trips to the hospital, we were actually somewhat prepared even though he was early.

We were blessed to welcome Taj Cameron into this world on October 26 at 6: 21 am at 8 pounds 4 ounces and 21.5 inches.  He was actually born on Diwali, which is the Hindu festival of lights, one of the most important holidays.  It signifies the triumph of light over darkness, so very auspicious.  That makes us a family of holidays, Jeff, Nikhil and I were also born on holidays.  Taj means "crown" in Hindi and Persian.  We're also going to have a Chinese name for him, which my mother-in-law is figuring out as we speak!

The only reason that I'm even semi-coherent now is because of my parents.  They have been phenomenal.  My mom came out to Hawaii early when I was on bed rest because she retired at the end of September.  My father came out a week before Taj was born and they've been so great with helping out with Nikhil.  They totally take care of him, dropping him of and picking him up from school, getting him ready in the morning.  It's so nice because I can spend time with Taj and catch sleep when I can.  Jeff and I really could not do this without their help.  And, did I mention that my Dad has been doing all of the grocery shopping and my mom has been cooking and cleaning every day?  Yeah, I know, we're totally spoiled.  I feel bad because they haven't done anything here in Hawaii for themselves yet, but they want to spend time with their grandsons which is nice for me!

Here are some hospital pics of Taj.

Taj with his Popo.  He's her 9th grandchild.  Should we make it an even 10?  Don't tell Jeff!!

Big brother, Nikhil, looking on.

My parents with Taj.  This is their 3rd grandchild.

Right now, he looks pretty Chinese and very similar to the way Nikhil looked at this age.

On the 11th day of Taj's life, we had a Hindu "Naming Ceremony" .  I posted the wikipedia link there, which describes the different types of Naming Ceremonies in various religions.  I guess in the olden times, they didn't want to name the baby before he was 10 days old because of the high infant mortality rate.  So, to ward off evil eye, they avoided naming the baby initially.  We had my mother-in-law, Jeff's sister and aunt come over for a quick little ceremony which my father conducted.

And, last, some pics of Taj at home.  Nikhil is a good big brother.  If Taj is crying, he runs to the bassinet and tries to give him stuffed animals or play music for him, saying "Don't cry baby Taj."  Very sweet.  Though he does get a bit jealous when Jeff carries Taj.  He doesn't mind when I do.  I guess somehow, he kind of knows I need to hold the baby and as a result, Jeff has been spending more time with Nikhil.  So, when Jeff is unavailable, then he sometimes gets a little more territorial.

The hardest part so far is trying to work from home to continue doing the admin work for our practice with a 2 week old.  There's not much time between the nursing and diaper changing to be processing payroll and other fun admin issues, but I'll figure it out and of course it's well worth it!  Jeff has been great, seeing patients and doing what he can at the office too and we're lucky to have a wonderful staff.

Baby Shower

My very dear friend Hope threw me the most wonderful shower last Sunday.  It actually was cutting it a bit close, since I delivered just 2 days later, but I really wanted my Mom to be at the shower since she missed my shower when I was pregnant with Nikhil.  Originally, she wasn't going to come in until just a day or two before the shower, but when I went on bed rest, she came 2 weeks earlier to help out.

It was so amazing to be surrounded by such amazing friends and family.  It really made me realize how blessed I am to live here in Hawaii and have developed such close friendships (and luck into having a great family and married into one as well).  And, of course, Hawaii is small, so a lot of my friends knew each other.  What an awesome day to spend a couple hours with my girlfriends, uninterrupted by kids!

My friend, Jules made this adorable watermelon baby carriage fruit salad.  How creative is this?  Just the amount of work to scoop out that watermelon is more than I could have ever done!!

Here's my Mom and I.  (she wants everyone to know that I'm wearing heels)

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Hope organized this cute game where I was asked 20 questions and told to answer them the way Jeff would.  But, instead of just telling us what Jeff answered, she had videotaped his answers.  It was so cute to see his expressions and it made the game so much fun.  Types of questions she asked were:

-What qualities in Rupa has pregnancy brought out?
I thought for sure that Jeff would say my obsessive side, but instead he said "nurturing".  How sweet.

We did get a bunch of answers the same too though!

And, since I already had pretty much everything I needed since this was boy #2, Hope came out with this awesome group gift idea.  It's for a personal chef to come to our house and cook us a 4 course meal (groceries included ).  How neat is that!  With all of my awesome friends who contributed, Jeff and I are lucky enough to be able to enjoy 4 dinners!  No need for a babysitter and we get to talk to the chef to decide upon the menu!  I'm really looking forward to using this gift.

My "Food Board"

If you're into home decor/design, you know about Mood Boards.  Boards that designers put together with all the design elements - chairs, fabric types, art pieces, etc when redesigning a space.  I love scouring the internet for them.

Here's an example of a mood board from one of my favorite DIY blogs Young House Love.  Kind of a wish list/plan for the new room.

So, for 9 months, I've been craving all different types of foods which I can't have.  After the birth of our first son, my poor husband had to return to work the very next day (thankfully our clinic is just up the hill from the hospital where I delivered), so he wasn't really thinking about satisfying my food cravings.

In an effort to make things easier for him (he says I expect him to read my mind too much, so this should be real clear!), I created a "Food Board" for my plan for what I want post-pregnancy.

Granted, I don't really want him to bring me a bottle of wine to the hospital room, but a nice half glass of Riesling for when I return home (and when my milk hasn't come in yet, so I'm not endangering my new baby at all).    Prosciutto and melon, Mountain dew, caramel machiato (of course, you can't get that decaf from Starbucks, so even though I'm not a huge coffee drinker, I really want this!), sushi, spicy poki and eggs benedict.  I realize some of these things don't exactly fit in a gift basket and are a little difficult to get to a hospital room, but at least all my cravings/desires are laid out here, so hubby has no excuse!

Other than that, I just had the most fabulous baby shower thrown my dear friend Hope.  I am so blessed to have so many awesome friends who were able to make it to the shower, it really was exactly what I needed.  I'll post pics of that soon once I get them off my camera and another post coming also of some small DIY projects I completed when on bedrest (i was totally stationary I swear!)

I Get By With A Little Help From My Friends

Bed rest...not all that it's cracked up to be.  When my OB put me on bed rest 2 weeks ago, I argued with her.  No way could I cancel patients for 2 weeks, especially when I was so booked up before I was to go on maternity leave.  But, thankfully, Jeff was there to talk some sense gang up on me with my OB (with his iphone app in hand which times contractions and showed her the history of my every 5 minute contractions I'd been having the night before) and they convinced me to go on bed rest.



So, I thought, wow, I'll finally have time to get all these projects done that I've been wanting to do before Baby #2 arrives.  How wrong I was.  Everytime I stood up, I got contractions, so I realized trips to the fabric store and Home Depot were not in my future.  But, as anyone who knows me realizes, it's extremely hard for me to stay still with feet propped up for long periods of time.  My mom said that I used to get bored of summer vacation after 2 weeks when I was little and would ask her "What's next?"  Even Jeff was suspicious.  He would come home from work and ask if I went somewhere like Ben Franklin (he knows my love of crafts and sadly there's no Michaels or Hobby Lobby out here in Hawaii), because the car looked like it was in a different spot. 

It's hard being on bed rest.  I'm not bored.  At least I finally have the time now to finish writing the textbook on strabismus surgery that I'm collaborating with my former colleagues and chairman from Boston.  But, I'm not even supposed to clean my house or cook.  It's crazy.  Thankfully, I have awesome friends, hence the title of this post.  So, here's a shout out to all of them (do people still say that or am I dating myself?)

My friend, Hope, who has a 2 year old and a 4 month old of her own, was kind enough too cook us dinner and bring it over to our house.  How did she find the time and how awesome is that!  And, my sis-in-law and another close friend Abby, know my penchant for all things sweet (thank goodness I passed that 3 hour glucose tolerance test after failing the first one) brought me cupcakes and cookies.  Our friends, Erin & Jon brought us dinner last night as well and the boys had some time to pound out some tunes on the piano! 








Another awesome friend, Daphne who is a talented photographer (see pics below) brought me a much needed chai latte and some good old company!

Speaking of Daphne, thankfully she took my maternity pics 2 weeks ago before I went on bed rest.  Here a couple shots.  We loved them.  Of course, Nik who usually loves to see the baby, it's the first thing he asks when he comes home "I want to see the baby. Hello, baby"  I think he believes my belly button is like a periscope.  He tried to feed the baby a cracker through my belly button and puts his Thomas trains right up there so that he can see them.  It's all very cute.  But, he did none of that for the photo shoot - of course, right?  Well, thankfully, Jeff came prepared with all sorts of bribery snacks to at least get a couple quick shots in.

So, all in all I'm surviving.  I make 35 weeks on Wed and my OB said I can return to work on Thursday, because I'll be term then and can deliver at Queen's.  So, of course I've scheduled surgery and full day of patients.  I figure if I go into labor at least I'm in the hospital, right?

Pizza and Running

Last night, our friends, Deborah and Andy invited us to their house for dinner. They have the most adorable 15 month old twins. Here's Reese, their daughter who had a little smoothie accident which is why she isn't wearing clothes! That's Nikhil in the background.

She looks more Caucasian and her twin, Maddox, pulls a little more Korean. Here he is with remnant of smoothie on his face. Can you tell the kiddies had a good time enjoying the labor of Deborah's Vita Mixing?

We enjoyed an awesome meal of home made gourmet pizzas - with fresh mozarella, Canadian bacon and organic tomatoes and basil grown from Andy's rooftop garden. Yum! He actually cooked it out on the grill and it turned out great. And, Deborah whipped up a delicious brownie a la mode for dessert. So, we all over ate. I didn't remember to take a pic until we had demolished most of it! Thanks Andy & Deborah!!

So, we woke up this morning, feeling like we had indulged too much. Our alarm clock (Nikhil) gets up at 6 am on the dot every day, even on Sundays, so I was feeling motivated and thought it would be nice if we all got some exercise.

So, we got changed and headed up to Diamond Head for a little jog. I know, everyone keeps asking me "Are you having twins?". I always look big, but that' s not my fault that I'm only 5'2'' and Jeff is 6'1'' and weighed over 10 pounds when he was born. Nik was 2.5 weeks early weighed 8 lbs 1 oz, so we'll see how big bay #2 is. So, perhaps that's why I was so motivated to get some exercise.

Before getting pregnant this second time, I used to run and Zumba (can Zumba be used as a verb?) all the time, but I've been more scared this time around since I'm older and don't want anything to happen to the baby. So, I haven't been as active - occasionally swimming when we get a chance to hit the beach and of course running around at work, but I'm not sure if that counts. But, I figured a fast walk/light jog cannot be too harmful as long as I stay hydrated.

One thing I love about running in Hawaii is that there are literally hundreds of other people also up at the crack of dawn, biking, running, walking and surfing. Here are some bikers we passed.

And, here we finally made it to Cliffs. If you look really closely, you can see some surfers in the water, though the waves weren't great. This is where Jeff likes to surf.

I know this is probably what our friends and family think our life in Hawaii is like every day and I wish I could say it were true. It should be true. No reason we can't do this every day, even if we have to put work on the back burner for just a bit!