Remembering Currin's Milestones

April 14, 2009
Goa, India

One of the things I am kicking myself for now is that I never really wrote things down when Currin was small. I have been total crap at keeping his baby book up – I’m not sure I have even looked at it since we moved to India! Most of the big ones, I have banked in my head, but some day they will go away, so I want to make sure I write them down.

Currin was born on May 18, 2006. My water broke at 6:15 that morning. I had no contractions until we were coming down the elevator to go the hospital around 7 a.m. (We had to stop in the Embassy House store – Embassy House was the name of our apartment complex there – to buy some honey, since Indians give their babies honey before anything else at birth. We only faked that mostly because it’s on the “no-no” list of things to give babies. Gives them botulism or something…)

Anyway, my contractions started at 7 a.m., we got to the hospital at around 7:30 a.m., and Currin was born at 8:50 a.m. It was shockingly fast – no time for drugs, which is a real shame because having a baby is pretty darn painful.

We watched the American Idol finale in the hospital (I love that show, although I never started watching it until I moved overseas.) I think it was the year Taylor Hicks won (I assume no one will know who that is – he was a weird choice and I don’t imagine will ever go very far. Sorry if you read this, Taylor. Or was it Fantasia who won that year? I have to look it up.)

He was born in Beijing, and we had a very good experience there (except the giant cockroach on the ceiling one night). Beijing United was a great hospital, the birth was smooth and quick, and there were fortunately no complications. After he was born, the doctors handed him to us, and he laid on my chest while Sameer and I looked at him and cried. I am crying even now, writing this – what a miracle. Truly a miracle.

We had no idea whether he was a girl or a boy – no one had looked on his way out. So after a minute or so of admiring him together, I finally said, “What is it?!” Someone looked under the blanket he was wrapped in, spotted the evidence, and said, “It’s a boy!” We really didn’t care one way or the other. But I had known for certain he was a boy.

I always knew we would have a boy first actually. Sameer is the only boy out of eight first cousins on his mom’s side, and given that “golden boy” status, I always figured we would have a boy first (although I would love to have had a girl, just on principle).

Right before we had gotten pregnant, I had had a dream that I got pregnant and it was a boy. (In that dream, Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher had also gotten pregnant, so I was wrong on that front. But not on ours!) And – this is surely TMI – but with Currin, I knew the instant we conceived. I actually said to Sameer, “I think we just made a baby.” I just knew. (Interestingly, we spent New Year’s going into 2005 in Goa, here at the same property where I am sitting now. And when the clock struck midnight and Sameer kissed me, he said to me, “Let’s make a baby this year.” We didn’t decide to think about trying until later in the year, but it is still interesting how that thought process came about.)

I have no idea when Currin rolled over. I’m thinking maybe four months, but I don’t remember that one. I am sure I was sitting there with him when it happened, though. (Poor Maya – I have found her on her tummy several times, so I know she has done it, but I have not seen it happen! It’s not a regular occurrence, though, which is quite OK with me. I rather like her staying in one place!)

He definitely started sitting up (wobbly-ish) between six and seven months, and he was quite comfortable with it at seven months.

We went home for Christmas in December of 2006, and when we got onto the plane in China en route to the US, I reached into his mouth for some reason and felt that his first tooth had popped through! One of his bottom two. So he would have been about seven months old.

That was our first Christmas in the US, and although Santa did come, Currin was far more interested in the paper than the presents. He was very strong in the legs and liked to “pretend” walk. He also loved sitting on the floor with me behind him bouncing a ball against the wall and watching it bounce back to us. He would giggle for as long as I would sit there doing it!

Currin’s first word was “book”. He was about ten months old, and he said it while on his changing table. He just looked at me while lying on his back and said “book” (very matter-of-factly, with a funny “k” from the very back of his throat). And he smiled mischievously, like he knew something cool had just happened. I said, “Did you say ‘book’?” And he said it again. He has been talking ever since. (My dad always said I was born talking, so maybe this is genetic!)

He was a rather later crawler – that also started around 10 months. Again, I was quite happy about that. To me, there is no greater curse than having a very mobile child before the age where they can understand “no” or really have any idea about what’s right or wrong.

He walked shortly after we moved to India, when he was about 13 months old. His first steps were in Sameer’s parents’ bedroom in Delhi. (Of course, they attributed it to our having moved to India.) And I stopped breastfeeding him around the same time. He was always a good eater and sleeper. I had only been giving him one feed a day for quite some time, so when I stopped – quite by chance, not at all planned consciously – he was totally fine. I just one day didn’t do it, and then also didn’t the next day. And then the next day, I realized I must have weaned him.

I am just now reminding myself of the “sign” for milk. I did lots of sign language with Currin. He loved it, and so did I. I have started with “mommy” with Maya (I need to learn “brother”). I always did “daddy” with Currin, and he said “dada” way before “mama”. So I’m going to give myself one now!

Currin started play school at 20 months in Gurgaon at a school called Pumpkin House. He still goes there and quite likes it. Not a lot of momentous things have come out of it to be honest, but he likes it, and because there is little else to do with your kids in India, schools sounds like a good idea much earlier than it might have at home.

The head mistress of the school is a crotchety old bitch, but the teachers are really nice and have always taken a liking to him. Just this month, he has moved into a new class upstairs, where the “big kids” go. I can’t believe he will be starting “nursery” in another year. (That is a big deal in India – pre-kindergarten. Getting your kids into school here is very, very difficult and competitive even at this young age. Parents feel so rejected when their kids don’t get into their school of choice, although I hope most kids are completely unaware of what’s going on.)

Sameer and I are already having a debate about where to send Currin. Sameer would like to send him to the American Embassy School, which is in Delhi and quite a hike. I can’t get out of my American mentality that I really don’t care where my 4-year-old goes to school. My friend Kristin is sending her daughter to an Indian school in Gurgaon this year as a 4-year-old, so I am curious to see how that goes! I would be fine doing that – my biggest concern is Currin’s increasingly Indian accent! I think he has started mixing up v’s and w’s, and that will drive me completely insane! (He already points with his palm up and arm in the right direction, sort of like Vanna White, rather than using his “pointer” like Americans!)

OK, signing off prematurely, still from the bathroom floor. Flying back to Delhi tonight. More memories to come. (Uploaded May 8, 2009, from Gurgaon, but written April 14, 2009)