Just a few of Ethan’s performances this year…

Winter Concert at TPS

Kindergarten play – The Seven Blind Mice (Ethan is the green mouse/narrator)

Spring recital – Perpetual Motion

There is only one thing that Sajan can boast to having done earlier than Ethan – learning to ride a bike without training wheels!  He spent a few days in Collegeville with my parents and decided to surprise us with his mad bike riding skills!

I found a picture of myself at 6 months and 3 days.  I looked back at old photographs of Ethan and found one of him at 6 months and 5 days.  There’s no questioning the resemblance…

Every once when the time is right, we get around to cataloging our memories, so here you go – some highlights since last June…

June 2008 – Our trip to Forth Worth to visit Rita and family

July 2008 – An enjoyable “Sajan-only” weekend at Fairytale Land (Ethan went to Boston for a long weekend with Nana and Nani and his cousins from Texas, so we decided to have our own fun in and around Philadelphia.  It was really the first time that we ever had Sajan by himself – he was quite easy to be with.)

August 2008 – Myrtle Beach with the Kalaria cousins

August 2008 – Ocean City, NJ (We thought it would be nice to take Sajan to the beach since he was miserably sick at Myrtle Beach)

August 2008 - New York city to visit Milan and Sweta

September 2008 – Ethan’s first day of Kindergarten

September 2008 – Steve, Ethan and Sajan at the Philly Distance Run

October 2008 – Halloween with an Eagle and a Dime (Yes, Sajan came up with the dime idea himself – he was actually flip-flopping between a dime and a quarter.   He better want to be an eagle one day – most definitely not a single-use costume.)

December 2008 - Christmas (The Blum side came to visit with us for a week.)

January 2009 – New Years Eve (at noon) at The Please Touch Museum

February 2009 – Snow Day!!  (I hated snow days as a kid, but have decided that they’re not so bad.  Not when you’re spending them with good friends, anyway.)

February & March 2009 – Birthdays (6 & 4 – I can hardly believe it!  This year, we had a joint birthday at the Skating and “Fun” Center in Cherry Hill.  We also had an informal something on their actual birthdays – Sajan we took bowling and Ethan had some friends at the house.)

March 2009 – Tonsillectomy (Took him 3 weeks, but Sajan recovered quite nicely.  Sleeps so well now.  Eats marginally better than he used to, too.)

April 2009 – Karate (Sajan needed an activity, so we collectively decided on Karate.  Now Ethan wants to add Karate to his list, too – surprise, surprise!  Seeing as Sajan does not need one more thing in his life that Ethan is better at, we’ve said “no” to Ethan for now.)

We are finally in the UK – a highly anticipated time away from home.  The month preceding our trip was pretty busy with Steve traveling for work and my managing an overwhelming workload, but we’re all finally here and together!

We arrived in the UK on Wednesday, May 13th, and travelled straight to Leicester to visit family.  Steve did a fine job getting us there given the opposite-sided steering and driving.  We arrived in London on Friday, May 15th.  So far we’ve taken a London city tour on double-decker, seen Big Ben, the Tower Bridge, taken a river cruise on the Thames, visited the local science museum, successfully navigated ”The Tube”, and enjoyed the playground at Hyde Park.  We are having a fabulous, albeit CHILLY and stereotypically DRIZZLY time.  The plan for the next two days is to ride the London Eye, see the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace, and visit the Tower of London.  We’re also going to visit with our friend Asumi (currently studying in London) who lived with us in Philadelphia for 10 months last year – a very special treat!  We decided to forgo our trip to Paris, as it would have felt rushed.   We will leave London on Wednesday, May 20th.  Below are some pictures of our trip so far…one of the highlights has been an encounter with an anatomically correct suit of armor at the Tower of London…imagine the creative names that the kids have come up with for “him”.

We  travelled to Brighton on May 20th to enjoy Amit’s pre-wedding and wedding festivities.  Ankur, Milan, Sweta, Radhika, Vipul, Hiten, Sonal, and Smita were also there from the States to celebrate - most of us were last together in August 2008 in Myrtle Beach, SC, so this was a nice family reunion.  Wedding went off without any major problems – only 3 minor fires that the appropriate parties were able to put out.  And yes, I mean fire literally – but we are talking about Amit, after all…

I was looking back through old pictures of the kids and thought I’d post them on the blog so that I can look at them whenever I want to!  If you can’t tell, the first 5 are Ethan and the rest are Sajan.

I took Ethan on an overnight date to go skiing on Monday and Tuesday.  I highly recommend Bear Creek Mountain for anyone looking for economical, family fun near Philadelphia – we certainly had a great time.  That first night, we skied a bit and swam a bit.  When it was finally time for Ethan to go to bed, he asked me to lay with him to keep him company.  Of course I did – it’s not as though hes’ not in our bed every other night.  He put his arm around me to hug me and he said “Mommy, this is my favorite part of the day”.  Just a gentle reminder to me not to overlook the potential for greatness in ordinary moments – ones that can be had here, there and everywhere for free, and absolutely no planning necessary!

We met with ENT on Friday and they confirmed that Sajan would definitely benefit from having his tonsils and adenoids removed.  He will also be getting a new set of ear tubes.  This will all happen on March 9th – and if you ask me, the sooner the better.  There’s no guarantee that this will solve some our eating woes, but it should definitely help with the breathing difficulties.  And certainly, the ear tubes should help with the mild hearing loss.  They say the recovery period is about 1 week – not so bad, since I’ll have help with that.  Sajan did have some trouble breathing when he came out of anesthesia last time, but they know to expect that now, so it shouldn’t be a problem.  I’m just thankful that we’ve finally made a decision and are no longer in a holding pattern.

Is it really any question tht the tonsils needed to come out?  This is what they looked liked in a steady state…

I haven’t quite figured out where 2008 went – probably because it was marked by absenteeism on my part.  For the unfortunate ones of you who experienced the Blum “madness” in 2008, you know that I was an absentee wife, absentee mother, and absentee friend.  Juggling family, friends, work, outside of work commitments, while maintaining a level of sanity necessary for basic life function was not so easy – my guess is, 2009 is not going to be any easier in this regard.  But I am hopeful.  Certainly, I’m not about to throw in the towel 3 days into the new year!

E has been taking violin lessons for a while. Midway through book 1 he hit a major road bump, because I started working again. There was little time to practice and it was hard for me to commit to a regular lesson schedule for him. We eventually switched teachers so that lessons would be conveniently located one block from home, but by the time we switched, he was starting at the beginning again – how discouraging! He had almost completely lost interest until a friend mentioned that he, too, plays the violin. Many thanks to this special friend for sparking E’s interest again . He’s not quite where he was when he switched teachers, but he’s almost there. I’m only slightly biased, but I think that his performance in the recital this evening was GREAT! Mom B, I’m hoping that you eventually get to come in person to one of his recitals – it seems that you’re always missing them by a week.