About Me

what it looks like when 2 adults hold 2 kids and 3 puppies (one on loan from my parents, we had a shortage ;))

I have five kids of all different ages - the 30 year old is the one I married, my 8 year old Coco and 2 year old Tizzy have 4 legs and love to play fetch and my human babies Riaan and Kiara are 3 years and 11 months old respectively. Each one has brought with them learning experiences and a whole bunch of love.

I spent most of my adult life in New York City after graduating from the University of Pennsylvania and completing my Masters of public health at Columbia University. I studied there, worked there, played there and fell in love there too (and not just with Manhattan), but life is all about change and we turned it all on its head by moving across the world to India in August 2014. As crazy as it seemed, it was the right move for my family and my career, and so it was for me.

Raising a baby on your own isn’t easy, particularly if you have never been a stay at home anything and routinely set the microwave on fire, and I’m fortunate my mother was able to take time off from her life to be there from the day my son was born (she landed two weeks before my due date to find me in the hospital starting my 26 hours of labor), till he turned 3 months old. I learned a lot with her here but probably even more trying to juggle it all into place after she left. There have been moments of joy, love, stress and laughter and at the end of the day there’s no better way to sleep than knowing your family is all around you and is happy. 

Moving countries with a colicky husband, an active infant and a pup was even harder, and I went back to work soon after I moved, very grateful to have a support system around me to help with all the chaos. We just about got settled and before we had human baby number 2.

I believe – strongly – that experiences should be shared for those who want to learn, take a break from their lives to read something interesting or those who just want to laugh (with me or at me, I’ll take either). 

To my brother Shaun – my rock, who would come home after a crazy day and try to study, sleep or be a single man in Manhattan, with barking, crying, shushing, giggling and arguing in the background, words cannot describe how much I miss you and miss living with you, and how grateful I was to have gotten to see you everyday for 3 years. We will always have our amazing father to thank for that and so much more. 

Even though I like to think I know it all, I'm sure I do not, and I make no claims to be a parenting expert. However, I have amassed enormous amounts of information through my love of reading absolutely everything, that I am happy to share.  I will also post interesting pieces of health information as I can, since that is my field of expertise.  Please feel free to reach me if you have particular things you would like to know or any stories that you would like me to share on my page.

Hope you enjoy reading about my journey as much as I love writing about it,

Tanya Khubchandani Vatsa

Last updated: July 2017