Being there (without a camera)

Some of life's most precious moments are only captured in memory.

This morning, Shreya was playing on the bed, while I was combing my hair, getting ready to go out. My cell phone was lying on the bed near her and she suddenly abandoned her toy, picked up the phone, cradled it to her cheek, and clearly and unmistakably said "Hi" into it.  I dropped the comb and scrambled to find the camera to shoot some video, but by the time I had returned with it, she had lost interest in the phone and was happily playing with the comb, and I could not coax her to repeat the performance.

Aquatic Delights

Yesterday, after over a month's hiatus, we were finally able to take Shreya to the pool again. Back in February we had been going there regularly, but then a series of unfortunate events occured. First Shreya had a bad cold and we thought it inadvisable to take her, then the pool was closed for spring break weekend, then it opened again, and we were planning to go, but there was a mishap involving some exploded steam pipes and some damaged filters and some not-locally-available parts, which caused the pool to be closed indefinitely due to "mechanical failures'' . In fact the larger Olympic pool is still closed for that reason, but this week, the small and warm and shallow "therapy pool" to which we take Shreya finally opened up again, and yesterday we went there. I was worried that after such a long gap, Shreya would have forgotten all that she had picked up, but she had not. Emerging from the locker room all attired in her swimsuit, she walked straight to the pool, sat down on the edge, and jumped in, into my waiting arms. (I was already in the water.) Then she spent the next thirty minutes swimming a couple of feet back and forth between Tom and me, and splashing about vigorously. She was very excited to be there, and we're happy that we can add this fun activity to our regular routine again. Here are some pictures of Shreya in the water. These were taken in early February, and are reproduced here courtesy of William Gruner Photography. Thanks, Bill! The other people pictured are Bill's wife Prisca and daughter Mireille, our frequent co-conspirators in aquatic adventures.