When I posted the pictures from tabi’s 1st birthday party here, I had mentioned that we planned to do another grand party later. So we did and it was quite a party for a one year old.

Tabi’s mom had planned this party for months, including how to decorate the apartment, how the cake would look like, and what to include in the goodiebags.

The theme of the party was hugs & stitches which both of us liked a lot. We had bought all the themed items many weeks before the party. The cake was also based on this theme and after talking to a bunch of cake makers we placed our order at one of the shops with our fingers crossed. He did a pretty good job.

Here is the picture of the cake along with other goodies.

Oh and we also decorated the apartment quite a bit. Here are some pictures of how our little place looked like on the day of the birthday.

The area around the TV

The dining table

This is the table with birthday caps and goodie bags

The wall banner and balloons

The front door of our apartment

And here is the birthday girl. She looked very happy without a doubt.

After the party it was time to open all the gifts.

Tabi sitting in front of the wrapped gifts wondering what’s inside.

And here she is with all the opened gifts.

Hope you enjoyed the pictures as much as we enjoyed organizing the party.

Related posts:

1. 1st Birthday Pictures
2. Happy Birthday to My Wife

Welcome to the new and existing readers of A Father’s Diary.

After experimenting with this blog for over an year, I am glad to announce the official release of my parenting blog.

Your comments on how I can make this blog better, and what would you like to read here would be highly appreciated.

Please take a moment to subscribe to this blog through email or RSS. You can also follow me on twitter here. I never tweeted about my adventures as a father, but I plan to do so from now on.

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1. Are you ready to be a father?

I predicted in my last post that tabi would start walking soon. I was right. Just a couple of days ago she let go of the furniture and took her first steps.

It was like magic. Just one day before she couldn’t dare to leave her support and next day she managed to walk away in the middle of the hall. To make it more philosophical, it seemed like a small boat mainly used to sail along the shore just ventured out into deep oceans.

What can I say, it’s one small step for our child, but a giant leap for us parents!

Now we’ll have to chase her all around the place.

No related posts.

Tabi just turned 13-months and here is the progress.

1. She is on the verge of taking her first steps. She can walk confidently holding on to furniture and walls but still unable to do it independently. I guess in few days she will be walking around the home without any support.

2. She doesn’t say any words clearly but occasionally tries to repeat what she hears and often talks in bablish which sounds very cute to us.

3. She has attitude. She clearly expresses herself when she is angry, dislikes something, feels like hugging you, or wants to play with you. You can’t really predict what is she going to do next.

4. She has a hard time sleeping at night. Most nights we fall asleep before her. She keeps playing on the bed hopping around from one edge to other over our sleeping bodies. And then randomly falls asleep.

Related posts:

1. 4 months later

Dear Sweetheart,

It’s your birthday, your special day. And I want to take this opportunity to wish you a very happy birthday.

I remember the time when we used to celebrate your birthday before Tabi was born. It used to be just you and I, a romantic dinner, and carefree night.

Things are different now. Much different.

Gone are the days when we could spends hours in each others’ arms, driving and wandering around town, singing our favorite songs, and not worrying about anything else.

Now Tabi is part of everything we do. We have to make her sleep before we sleep at night, keep it quite when she is asleep, make sure she is well fed, dressed up, and clean before we go for an outing, try to rectify the reason she is crying.

Today your life and my life revolves around our child. I am sure it’s more cumbersome for you as she is with you 24×7 and I am there only for few hours a day. But the fact remains that we don’t get any time to sit and talk with peace, share some precious moments, enjoy life.

But that doesn’t mean the importance of your day, your birthday, has decreased any bit. It still matters the most. Even if we don’t celebrate it the same way, even if I don’t get a chance to give you a greeting card, even if you spend the entire night and day of your birthday attending to tabi’s needs, it’s still your birthday.

So let me revive and renew my feelings by saying that I will always love you and you will always be in my heart. No matter how cold and boring our world may become, the warmth of our love will always ignite our lives.

And some day, when there will be no more distractions, we will be together again like we used to be.

I wish you a very happy and joyous birthday, my lovely wife.

With all my love,

A father

Related posts:

1. 1st Birthday Pictures
2. The first few days after baby
3. More Birthday Pictures

Tabi turned one on August 26. We invited some friends over for a small birthday party. Since we have lots of friends and a small apartment, we decided to celebrate the birthday multiple times so that everyone can attend. So on August 26 we invited very close friends. We will do another party in few weeks. Here are the pictures from the birthday party.

This is the cake that my wife baked. It tasted really yummy.

And here is the birthday girl. She loves being around people so she was very happy, even though she had no idea why there were so many people around her.

Here is another pose. She learned to stand up holding on to furniture and stuff ever since she was 9-months old. So she tries to stand whenever and wherever she can. Oh, and the reason she is not wearing any shoes is because they don’t last on her feet more than a few minutes. She is like allergic to shoes. She takes off her shoes and throws them away as soon as we put them on her.

Related posts:

1. More Birthday Pictures
2. 8 months later
3. Happy Birthday to My Wife

Until now we had a traditional four-wheel stroller that we bought before tabi was born. It was fine for a few months but as she started sitting up the stroller proved to be less attractive and desirable to be used and enjoyed by the little infant girl. As a result we ended up pushing an empty stroller while one of us carried the baby. This was obviously not a fun thing to do as it negated the purpose of having a push cart for the baby.

In the mean time we noticed the strollers by Quinny and were fascinated by the way children enjoyed “riding” it. So we decided to give it a try, hoping our daughter would like the look and feel of the three wheeled stroller and maybe spare us from carrying her everywhere.

But there was one problem. The Quinny was expensive. Way too expensive. So buying a new Quinny was not a possibility. So we started looking for used ones and luckily found one in a good condition and at a great price. We purchased it immediately.

The effect of Quinny on our baby was magical. She “adapted” it with no trouble it all. It was just amazing when we first sat her on the newly purchased stroller and she didn’t complain at all. We couldn’t believe it was happening.

From then on our experience of going out has been totally different. Even when she falls asleep while we are out it is very easy to make her lay down on the quinny and she can continue sleeping peacefully. This was impossible to do in her old stroller and she would always wake up as soon as she was put inside it.

We believe our daughter has an appreciation for expensive and stylish things. It’s going to be fun raising her up.

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1. 4 months later

1. The way she falls asleep on my shoulder while we are out. It’s magical. One moment she is up and next moment is deep asleep.

2. The way she reacts upon seeing me when I come home from work. It’s like she saw her best friend after years.

3. The way she is always calm and peaceful when I am carrying her. When she is with her mom she is all hyper and rebellious (we still don’t know why).

4. The way she likes to go out and meet with total strangers. It’s such a blessing. We never have to worry about how she might behave with new people and it has never been a problem leaving her at friends place for few hours.

5. The way she plays games with us and learns new tricks every day. Who needs a pleo when you have a baby!

Related posts:

1. Stranger Anxiety
2. We found a babysitter
3. 1st Birthday Pictures

Taby is one of those kids who don’t like to sleep. She enjoys the world so much and gets so excited by looking at all the interesting things around here that she doesn’t realize that she also has to get some rest and sleep. So at nights when we are all tired and going to bed, she is wide awake and active, looking forward to more action. Unless she had a very eventful day that made her really tired, she takes a very long time to sleep. She hardly sleeps during the day as well. So in order to make her tired we take her out and let her meet with new people, look at new things, just do something to stimulate her mind and get tired and sleepy. This works out pretty well and she sleeps relatively easily after that. Another thing we have noticed is that she sleeps easily in the car. But on the days when we don’t go out and taby doesn’t do anything to get tired, making her sleep is a difficult task.

We are hoping that as she grows into a toddler and starts walking, this sleeping (or sleeplessness) problem will be solved. She will be stimulating her mind a lot by walking and exploring, resulting in both physical and mental exercise, and as a result fall asleep easily. This is just our guess let’s see what really happens.

Talk about sleeping, the thing I adore the most about taby is when she falls asleep on my shoulder. This usually happens when we are out walking in a mall and taby is already feeling sleepy. So I carry her, put her head on my shoulder and gently tap her on the back. Within a few minutes she is deep asleep. It gives me a great feeling to know that for her I am a secure place where she can peacefully fall asleep. However, it only works when we are out. At home she always wants to sleep with her mom. I am still waiting for the day when she will sleep on my arm all night long, and let her mother sleep peacefully as well.

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1. Can’t sleep on my own
2. Baby is back
3. 13 months

Ever since Tabi turned 9-months, we have been noticing some major changes in her. Firstly, the stranger anxiety is gone and she is back to her social self, so that’s a good news.

But what’s significant is that she has started developing a personality. She can now express what she likes or dislikes. If you take a toy (or whatever she thinks is a toy) away from her hands, she will start protesting. Couple of months ago she stayed indifferent of whatever was snatched away from her hands. But now, if she is holding something and playing with it you dare not take it away from her, else you are gonna wish you were deaf!

She is a keen lover of chocolates. I don’t know how she detects the other person is having chocolate. How can someone, who has been in the world for less than 10 months, know there is chocolate inside this wrapper, even when she sees it for the first time. She just WANTS to have it, and nothing else.

Same is the case with ice-cream. We try to fool her by making yogurt look like ice-cream but she’s smarter than that. Bring in real ice-cream and she is game.

She has also learnt to tease people. When she sees somebody, she reacts as if she wants to go to that person, but when they come close to pick her up, she turns around and hugs the person originally carrying her, leaving the other person embarrassed.

It is very exciting to see her grow up and learn new tricks every day. We are always curious to see what she is going to do next.

Related posts:

1. We are the ice-cream lovers
2. 8 months later