Today I turned One and a Half years. Papa despairs that I still am not picking up as many words as he would like. But as I say, show me the cost-benefit analysis.

After I cut this half a cake for half a birthday, Papa-Mummy took me to The Jungle, which is like a huge playplace. Gobs of balls, carousels and jumping castles. And lots of tunnels and mazes. Actually much of it was quite scary, so I kept to the tot section, and promptly lost myself in the balls.

After a long and difficult 5 years, including a hiatus that she took to welcome me into the world, Mummy completed her post-baccalaureate degree and graduated today. The graduation ceremony was a huge affair, held at the Spartan Stadium with over 8000 new grads.

Arora uncle, Sonal uncle and Rajesh uncle and family all attended the graduation ceremony to congratulate Mummy on this milestone.

I'm proud of my Mummy. With all the distractions and tribulations that she had over the years, cute and otherwise, she still managed a quite high GPA.

As Mummy heads into the home stretch of her Bachelor's degree, she's caught up with her studies. That leaves me more and more often in the care of Papa. I'm not complaining, because that usually means more trips to the park, ice creams and other goodies Mummy would deem too hot or junky for me.

I had my offical baptism into the cult of junk food today with my first Happy Meal at McDonald's, a 6 pc Chicken McNuggets. And bagged my first Happy Meal trophy, Curious George!

Of course, real contentment is in feeding yourself, and I insist on it these days.

Summer's here, and Papa finally got around to taking me for a wade in the swimming pool.

I had been waiting for this for a long time. Water and I get along swimmingly, pardon the pun, and I had a whale of a time, pardon another pun.

And when I like something, I let it be known.

One interesting aside of having an extended family tree is the unusual mixes it throws. Bulbul Nani and Jaideep Nana had come over from Minnesota for a quickie trip, and I present to you my youngest Mausi, Anoushka.