Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving to all our friends and family. Christine and I are in Hyannis, MA (Cape Cod) for Thanksgiving. We are with Christines Dad and step Mom. We'll be joining Christine's Aunt and Uncle for a true Cape Cod dinner where all of the ingredients come from Cape Cod. We are looking forward to it! YUMMY! On this day of thanks, Christine and I are truly blessed with loving family and friends. And we especially give thanks to our new little one that is growing inside Christine. It has been 9 weeks and 6 days and everything looks good. We went to see Dr.Tocce yesterday for a sanity check on how things look. We were able to see another Sonogram where we actually saw the little one break dance! Ok, maybe it wasn't a full blown head spin, but it was definitely a leg kick and a hand wave. She/He definitely knew he was on TV and broke it down a bit. Maybe we have a showbiz baby! :) In any event, all looks well and our next major appointment is on December 7th (happy pre bday MOM) where they use the super duper sonogram to check for down syndrome and to check on the development of all the parts. Then, we meet Dr.Tocce on December 17th or so. Keep us in your thoughts! Did you Know...that at 9 weeks the baby is about the size of a medium green olive (about an inch). eyelids are forming. hands are webbed. feet can reach the midline of the body. ears are evident and well formed. and as indicated above, the baby is dancing! Also, everyone needs to help me out and remind Christine to eat the following foods: Milk, eggs, peanuts, whole wheat bread and beef. These foods have what is called Choline. Also, she needs to eat fish (only the safe kind) poultry, beef, canola oil, walnuts, and wheat germs. You're probably wondering why I'm listing these foods... Well, these are brain cell building foods! The Choline and docosahexaenoic acid (dha) help build brain cells during fetal development and after birth. Let's give this baby a head start! Take care and thank you for your support!

Our Baby (dog)

As most of you know our dog Loki (American Eskimo) passed away last December, 2004. He was an amazing companion for almost 12 years and helped me get through some tough times. Here is a picture of us sitting by the firepit in our backyard in Savage, MN. We are in the process of burning Christine's Psychology Masters Thesis. The second picture is of Christine and Loki in the park behind our house. Our house is in the background. It was a great place to live for four years before we moved to New York City. On March 12, 2005 our new dog, Sadie (an Italian Greyhound), was born. Here is her first steps off the plane! We found her on the Internet and had her flown to us from Missouri when she was eight weeks old. She has had quite an adventure in her short life. She has flown on two planes, traveled to Vermillion, SD, Lamoine, ME, Boston, MA, and Cape Cod. Quite an adventure for a puppy that is now only 8 months old! Oh, and of course all of the adventures in New York City and the Mean Streets of Brooklyn! She has been to Central Park twice, Prospect Park in Brooklyn, and two local dog parks near our apartment. She also walked in her first Halloween parade where her sister, Celia won first prize for most original costume. Sadie as a Hot Pepper! Celia wins first Prize for Original Costume! Yeah Celia! As I mentioned, our roommate, Sara, has an Italian Greyhound named Celia. As you can see, they love each other! J Actually, they really get along great and keep each other company like true sisters.

9th Week and Broadway Show

Today is our 9th week and everything seems to be going well. Christine is still very tired but she is hanging in there and looks beautiful! Every time I see her, I get this warm, butterfly feeling in my heart. It’s amazing to just put my hand on her belly and think of the future. She makes me smile. Last evening, on Thursday, November 17, 2005 we saw the Broadway show, Phantom of the Opera. It was Christine’s second time seeing it, but my first. I felt that the overall performance was very good. It is truly amazing what they can do with the stage and set design. The lead role (the Phantom) was amazing. His voice and acting was superb. I wasn’t so impressed with the entire cast, but the two or three top roles were great. This was our fifth Broadway play since we have been in New York, which is pretty good. So far, we have seen The Producers, Avenue Q, The Phantom of the Opera, Hairspray, and GoodNight Mother (with Edie Falco). The Producers and Avenue Q were fantastic. Phantom was good. Hairspray was a disappointment and GoodNight Mother was way too depressing, although the acting was great. We are looking forward to seeing more shows with Spamalot and Wicked on our “wish list”. Both of these shows are sold out and probably the only way to get tickets is through EBay. I stopped by the box office of both and they don’t have weekend tickets until May or June 2006 and weeknight tickets until March or April.

Contact Information

Ok, apparently people are having issues with the comment feature at the bottom of each blog. I have now included my e-mail directly in the "My Profile" section. If you click on "View my complete profile" it takes you to a screen that shows a "Contact" on the upper left sign of the screen. In that section, if you just click on "Email" you will be able to Email me directly, or at least see my email address. For those that don't know it, it is Arvant@Gmail.com. I also figured out how to post pictures, but only how to do it one at a time in each blog. I'll start posting pics once I figure out how to post multiples. Also, I again strongly recommend Picasa as a picture organizer and then Hello as a process to share pics with friends and family. Both of these tools are available on Google's website. Or you can follow the link directly to Picasa and to Hello.

Blessings

Hello everyone, It’s been a while since I posted anything and a lot has happened since the last post. So, here I go… In my first post on October 20, 2005, you may have noticed that I had a P.S. at the end of the message that said “What a wonderful day it is today!!!!! :) I am so happy! Tears are in my eyes!” You might have been thinking… Has he gone bonkers? It’s just a stupid Blog! Everyone has them now! Why would he have tears in his eyes? It just doesn’t make sense! Well, I’m here to tell you that the reason I was so excited and had the tears was Christine and I found out that we were pregnant on that day! If you know our history, it’s been a very difficult road in our quest to add more little Navrat’s to our family. Because of this, we have not told anyone but our close family. It has been a very emotional, exciting, and downright frightening time since that date! We’ve had ongoing concerns that have taken us to the Doctor’s office four times since October 20th. Those have been scary but amazing visits as we have seen our little ones development and heartbeat. Christine is now 8 weeks and 3 days along. Our first trimester ends on December 9th, which typically means your chance of miscarriage, goes WAY down after that date. Our next appointment is not until Week 11 on December 7th (My Mom’s Birthday) at which time we will have another Sonogram, which will provide a clearer picture of the little one than what we have seen on the small sonogram machine that Dr. Tocce uses during our past visits. In the meantime, we are trying to stay healthy by walking Sadie and making sure Christine eats right and gets plenty of rest. She has been going to sleep around 9:00 each night. She will also be starting Yoga and Pilates classes this week and I’m going to join her at the YMCA and start my own regimen. Notwithstanding all of the Baby emotional rollercoaster, we have been very busy with our work and visiting guests. Work is crazy busy for both of us. Not so much fun when you have too much work to do! The fun parts of the past few weeks have been a visit from our friends from Minneapolis, Brad, Bradley, and Carrie. They visited from October 26th to October 30th. Christine and I weren’t able to spend as much time with them as we wanted due to work and pregnancy tiredness, but we had a great time when we did. We saw Avenue Q, which was an amazing Broadway play with actors on stage that used puppets! Sounds strange, but it was fantastic! This past weekend (November 12th) we had the apartment to ourselves as Sara flew back to Minnesota to see her friends and family. Christine and I used the time to watch some movies: House of Wax – average – it was entertaining; Hostage – good movie; Devil’s Rejects – most would hate it, very gory but entertaining in a sick sort of way; and Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory – I fell asleep after going to the bar to watch the Packers beat Atlanta and imbibing in too many beers so I can’t comment on how good the movie was. On Sunday, we took Celia and Sadie on a long walk over the Manhattan Bridge into Chinatown and Little Italy. I tell you what, if you ever want to take an Italian Greyhound to a place where she would be appreciated…its’ Little Italy!! Many people don’t know what an Italian Greyhound is, but they sure know in Little Italy. We had all kinds of people (mostly Italians) stopping us and saying how beautiful our dogs were. The day was gorgeous and the skyline was very nice walking across the Bridge. The Brooklyn Bridge has a much better view, but it is frustrating when walking dogs because there are so many people and cyclists. The Manhattan Bridge has a pedestrian only footpath, which is useful for us dog-walkers. . I’m still working on how to add pictures to my blogs and should have it figured out when I get some time to look into it. In the meantime, I’ve downloaded Google’s media organizer (pictures and videos) called Picaso. It is very easy to use and makes online picture organizing a breeze. An alternative that I have heard good things about is Yahoo’s Flicr program. Both are good for sharing pictures with friends and family. That’s it for now. Take care P.S. I think I corrected the comments section so that it works now. Feel free to leave comments or just say hello! P.P.S. Bear with me on the comment ability. One person was able to comment but two others couldn't. I have now added my e-mail to the blog so it might make it easier..