Following the tradition ( 2006, 2007 , 2008, 2009 , 2010 , 2011 , 2012 , 2013 & 2014), here are my 2015 highlights.
High point of the  Year: The birth of our son Tanay in July of this year. After another tough pregnancy –complete with bed-rest, frequent doctor visits, gestational diabetes , and borderline IUGR,  this pregnancy was filled with enough drama.   Annika was super excited to be a big sister —she was all set to teach him to walk, talk, eat and write! Annika is an incredibly protective elder sister and makes sure that we are taking care of her baby brother.
Lowest Point of the Year: My maternal grandmother died just about a week after Tanay was born. She was 92. My mother had to rush back to India soon after Tanay’s birth but she did get a chance to talk to her mother and spend one day with her. My grandmother who had been slipping into almost a coma like state awakened to talk to my mother before passing away.
Achievement of the Year: Newborn care. Taking care of a newborn without any support was a huge achievement for me. Despite being a second time mom, this was the first time I was doing a lot of the hands on newborn care tasks since my mother took care of most of Annika’s early responsibilities.  I returned to work when Tanay was 7.5 weeks. We hired a nanny to help us out with childcare and lucked out in finding an amazing nanny from Gambia. Haddy was helpful, sincere and incredibly meticulous about Tanay’s needs. Tanay was a small baby measuring less than 5 and half pounds at birth. Haddy was fastidious about feeding him frequently and carefully recorded his weight gain every week. By the end of the year, he had easily doubled his birth weight. And as a bonus, we enjoyed Gambian food for a couple of months.
Can Do Better : I wish we could have done some more travels this year but unfortunately I was on bed-rest for the better part of the year. We did manage a visit to the local Renaissance festival and to visit DC with friends . This was possibly the first year where we haven’t travelled out of the state — in the last 15 years!
Books This Year : The focus this year is on Food. My reads included Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain, Heat by Bill Buford, Anything that Moves by Dana Goodyear, A Moveable Feast by Mark Kurlansky, Don’t Try This at Home, Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser, Proof, The Story of Sushi by Trevor Corson , The Man Who Ate Everything by Jeffrey Steingarten
Overall Summary: Exhausted garnished with sleeplessness but with a side dish of fulfillment.
