Rajasthan Trip for Shaadi dhok and Jarula (Baby's hair)

The long awaited trip which was being planned in the family since a year, but either due to Covid or due to timing etc, somehow it was not getting finalized! We had done our bookings for May'21 via flight, but it got cancelled due to the lockdown for 2nd Covid wave. 

We booked the tickets nearly fortnight ago via Train for 28th Aug'21 to 2nd Sep'21. We were 14 people altogether, including two toddlers below 2 years.

Train tickets from Kolkata to New Delhi costed around 2800/- per person. 

Day 1: 28th August 2021 - Kolkata to New Delhi 

We started our journey around 2 pm, boarded the train for 3:50 and reached Delhi the next day around 10 am. The train was right on time. Although it was Rajdhani, no food and no bedding was provided due to Covid. We had got packed food from a local vendor for dinner.

Food packed for train journey

Day 2: 29th August 2021 - New Delhi to Sardarshahar

We had booked a tempo traveler for all the days for our trip from Kolkata itself. (Driver ashok- 8383894022). He was waiting at the station when we arrived. We boarded the tempo and started our journey for Sardarshahar- our ancestor's village. En route, we stopped for lunch at the highway at Mannat hotel. We had plain simple food and it costed around 3500/- for 12 people. We stopped for tea at a place and reached Sardarshahar Agrasen Bhawan around 8:30 pm. We booked 5 rooms ( each room had a capacity of around 3) there for night stay. Since it was our native place, they dint charge us, but we paid 2100 as donation. Dinner was arranged by them. Plain simple food, delicious, costed us 500 for 12 people.

Inside tempo traveler

Inside Agrasen Bhavan, Sardarshashar

Day 3: 30th August'21 - Sardarshahar to Jhunjhunu 

We started our day by visiting the Bayla Bayanjee Mandir. We visited the temple, did puja, first shaadi dhok and then mundan (baby's hair). Beside the temple there were two other temples - Ujli and Maili temple and Bhairav's temple. In Bayla's temple, for jarula 5kg wheat, jaggery and prasad. Krishna Nai ji assembled all the things for us including prasad and it costed us around 900/-. He visited with us to the temple helping in the route and procedure for the puja. We had cut the baby's hair before the trip, the same hair we gave there in Bayla's temple. We did puja with dry roli and dry mehendi. We gave 5kg wheat and jaggery and Maili mandir as well. We gave baby's hair there also. In Bhairav's temple we did puja and the rule is not to turn back after stepping out of the temple. 

Inside Bayla 

Entrance of Bayla Mandir

We proceeded to Ichhapuran Balaji Mandir. Visited the temple and moved for lunch to the nearby location of Agrasen Bhawan which Krishna ji arranged for us. It costed us around 1300/-. We took some rest, started our trip to Jhunjhunu.

We reached Jhujhunu approx. 7pm. Booked our stay in the mandir premises of Rani Sati Daadi. It costed us around 1000/- per room. We booked 5 rooms (each room had a capacity of around 2 pax) there. We had dinner there, ordered thali for us, costed us around 100/- each plate.

Day 4 - 31st August'21 Jhujhunu to Salasar

We did shaadi dhok puja in the room as it was not allowed to do any puja in the temple,  and went to the rani sati daadi temple, gave baby hair there as well, had breakfast in the canteen and started for salasar. We reached Salasar. Booked our night stay in Agarwal Seva Sadan hotel, costed us 700/-. We stayed there for the night.

Jhunjhun Shaadi dhok puja in the room

Day 5 - 1st Sep'21 - Salasar to Khatu

We visited the temple early in the morning, gave baby hair in the temple, shopped for delicacies, sweets etc, had breakfast in some random place and proceeded for Khatu. It was 2 hours journey. We reached Khatu, had lunch at a hotel called Shyam Sakha Sadan. Each thali costed us 100/- . Since it was raining  incessantly, we decided to stay in the same hotel. It costed us around 1200/- per room with capacity of 4 people in each room. We booked 3 rooms there.  We visited the Khatu temple, bought sweets and did some shopping.

 Day 6 - 2nd Sept'21 - Khatu to New Delhi to Kolkata

We started our journey to New Delhi early in the morning 6 am. Stopped for breakfast at a nice place King's highway which was huge and fancy and nice, kind of a mall with lot of shops and food court. En route, we had lunch at the famous old Rao dhaba. It was also huge and good food. We reached airport at around 1 pm. We had a flight to Kolkata at 7:40. We spent our time at the lounge. Flight tickets we booked for 4 people at 2500/-, luckily we got some discount + 2 toddlers below 2 years ( 1500/-) . For test 8 people, came by train. Train tickets costed us around 2100/- for 3 tier. 

Inside train, while returning to Kolkata

Flight to Kolkata, while returning

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Paisa wasool toys for 0-1 year old baby - Must have!!!

 Children toys are costlier than you expect. With lot of research, following mom bloggers/ amazon reviews I bought some toys keeping in mind not to burn a hole in my pocket. 

Sharing some toys which my 1 year old utlitised it to the max as possible. She is 20 months old and still loving it.

The very first toy I bought for her was stacking cups.

1.  Stacking cups : I bought this for 153/- when she was around 6 months old. From that day till this date, she plays it.  Around 6 months she used to love destroying the built stack. Around 1 year she stopped playing, but now again she hides stuff in the cups, and picks one by one to find where is the hidden object, stacks it.

I will recommend to buy cubic ones stacking cup as they help is forming firmer grip for the kid. 

2.  Nesting eggs : Bought this for 236/-. Around 8 months old, She used to open the nested eggs and throw aside. Now she is 20 months old and enjoys closing the eggs, choosing what would fit to close the eggs.

3. Wooden Hammer Case Toy : Oh boy, one of the best thing i bought only for 270/-. Prisha used to wake up ealry in the morning like 5 am. After she was a year old, i used to give her this, and go back to sleep. She would play with this for good 30 mins or so. Not only did she learn color sorting with this, but still plays with this in her own way. She never missed to map the correct balls in the correct case and pushes them inside the hole.

4. Shape sorter: I have couple of shape sorters for her. But the one shared below is the best one, as it has big blocks, easier for the kid to hold it and push it. She was around 9 months old when she could easily pick up and try to push it in the shape. She would randomly pick the shapes and try to put it inside and try till she succeeds and clap happily.

5. Plush Toys:  My mother got the crochet teddy bear from a local fair. She pretend plays with them, trying to make them sleep, feed them or take them to places along.

First year monthly pictures of baby Prisha

18 months milestone

• Likes doing color matching, pattern matching and her activities sheet.
• Coloring doesn't interest her much except for first 30 secs may be.
• Loves playing with pom pom and stickers. Sticks stickers on her face and her dad's too! 
• Knows people well by name and can point rightly when asked.
• Light goes off says bhoot. :D
• Able to say potty susu, after she is done. Not yet potty/susu trained.
• Can name whose clothes it is
• Knows her hunger and asks for milk when she is hungry 
• Repeats almost every word you say
• Loves listening to Lakdi ki Kathi and Baby Shark
• Loves holding phone 24*7 and watch instagram  or any videos in phone :D
• Gets very excited for park and doesnt want to come back home.
• Loves sweet. Add gur to each spoon and she will have a little else wont show interest in her meals.
• Loves eating chips, cake, chocolates, basically everything she is not supposed to eat.
• Wakes me up with 'Utho', holding near my neck, trying to pull me up. 
• Sleeps only with bottle in mouth and keeps the bottle in mouth for hours before sleeping, even at night times.
• Given any opportunity runs to her sister's room. Loves playing with Dhwani.
• Enjoys watching cat and dogs videos and gets very excited.

Pregnancy Tenure

I was always curious how many tests would happen, what am I supposed to do each month, what medicines should be taken etc. Hence I noted it down, if anyone is curious what pregnancy journey is like. 

1st month - Unaware! 

2nd month - The start of the month, you will feel nausea, morning sickness. I had slight pelvic pain ( might be due to constipation, so keep this in check). Had yeast infection due to summer temperature, I guess. Went through a scan in 5th week, doctor suggested to take scan after 2 weeks as baby development was not there. Went again to see in 6th week. Could see the heartbeat of the baby on the machine, however doctor said that it was early and need to do scan in the 8th week for viability scan. My recommendation is don't go for scan early. Wait for 7-8 weeks before scan. Folic acid started for two months. It is advised if you are planning, start taking folic acid. It doesn't help you get pregnant but prevent any neural damage for the fetus.

3rd month - Nausea was a little better, I was more relaxed and not tensed like the 2nd month. Doctor asked to go for 7-8 tests which included like blood test, HIV, thyroid, double marker test, urine test. I went for NT Scan at the end of the third month.

4th month - Doctor started giving Iron and Calcium supplements and suggested to eat healthy food.

5th month - Midweek doctor asked for anomaly scan. Gave a tetanus injection. No baby movements yet. Frequent washroom trips.

6th month - Normal. Went for Gestational diabetes test (Sugar test - one blood test with fasting, early morning 7 o clock, then nurse gave glucose immediately and took blood after an hour, then again blood test after an hour) at the end of 6th month. So controlling sugar is very important in 4-6months as if its detected at the end of 6th month, the next 3 months are spent taking lot of meds and frequent sugar test. My friend had to test sugar after every meal for next 3 months which was a very bad experience.

7th month - Started feeling light movement and kicks very light.  Doctor gave a tdp injection and asked to go for 8th month growth scan.

8th month - Growth Scan

9th month - Waiting waiting and waiting for baby to pop out :D

Phonics Group

Why it's important to teach through these groups??

If you will look at the first group it has s,a,t,i,p,n now wat do you think how many words will you be able to make out ot these sounds to read? The answer is sooooo may. For ex at, in, sit, nap , pant, pan, tap , sap and the list goes on... So you don't have to wait for your child to learn A to Z sounds first then blending. You can teach the first 6 sounds then teach the words with these sounds and then move to the next group. So the child can learn the blending simultaneously.

Now think if you are teaching A to z in sequence how many words you will be able to teach with A, b, c ,d ,e ??? Hardly any. That's why the these groups has been designed . I hope it will be helpful for you all.