I had my six-monthly checkup today. My pediatrician, Dr. Vora, is leaving at the end of this month. I am going to miss her hugs, and her admonitions to Papa-Mummy to "do not worry". I obliged her with one of the rare fanshots of my shirtless torso.

It was celebration time again, as Papa had his first ever Father's day.

I gave him one of the first products from my merchandising tie-in.

Looks like I'll have to give him some modeling tips as well. He does tend to go all prison mugshot sometimes.

We lunched out at Kabab Corner to celebrate.

Those damn shots again.

It was Mummy's birthday today (no, I'm media-savvy enough not to drop her age. Maybe if I get a commission ... ). I reckon looking at me makes her increasingly wistful of the birthdays gone by.

To celebrate, we had dinner at Mexicali Restaurant, and then went to see the movie "Mr. & Mrs. Smith".



I decided it was time to endorse my celebrity by throwing a strategically-placed tantrum, and created quite a fuss at both places. The move might have backfired as Papa is considering cutting down on the movies.

Another plus of moving to this home is I'm closer to my fan base. Sonal uncle and Mamta aunty are practically neighbors now. They came over today for dinner. As a surprise they brought over a cake to celebrate my half-a-birthday. As another surprise, my gift was a squirt gun. Next time I know where to drop hints ...



Papa also decided to get me a high chair recently, seeing the budding love affair between my mouth, my fingers, food and the carpet. I was overjoyed, and banged away to my heart's content.

I'm loving it in my new home! The parks are real nice. It sure beats the old neighborhood. Papa-Mummy have been taking me for walks pretty much every day. Mummy's finding other mothers to bond with on the walks, and I get to impress the other babies with my wit and charm! I can't wait to get old enough to ride the swings. I'm practicing by trying to arch myself out of my stroller, and it's keeping Papa-Mummy justifiably scared.



Papa-Mummy also set up a room all for me, with all my toys, and lots of crawl room. The only catch is, any time I try to redecorate - and I have some strong opinions, mind you - they keep putting it all back!

As a true-blue child of the internet generation, I think I owe it to myself to crack the high-tech code as early as possible. To that end, I am eschewing the soft toys and the blocks for all things gadget. I have worked out that pushing buttons on the phone creates sounds much more unpredictable than those toy music makers (sometimes the sound coming from it is Papa's voice!). That buttons on remotes are meant to be pushed, and sometimes the TV agrees. That banging on the laptop keyboard has lots of interesting effects, not the least of which is that Mummy gets all frazzled.



Papa, the maudlin' old fool that he is, saved a screenshot of the first IM that I lent a creative hand to.

The milestones, they come a rollin'! Yesterday, with Mummy's hand propping me up, I was sitting up for barely half a minute. Today, I am sitting up unassisted for minutes on end.




I have also gained enough sense of object permanence to know that when Papa gets off from his driver's seat in the car, I can turn my head around and see him approach me from the other side to pick me up from my car seat.

Another milestone of sorts, that Papa was awaiting much more eagerly than I was. After months of bitching about bathing and what it did to my hair, I've begun to see that it could be fun after all. Mummy actually encourages me to splash and hit around, and the duckies are cool.



Papa can't hide his glee and is going around mumbling about kiddie pools and pool diapers and water guns.