We survived, redux

Once again Shreya and I have made it through four days (3.5, actually) by ourselves, while Tom was away in Columbus, OH for a conference. This time it was a little more interesting, as on Saturday Sunday and a good bit of Monday, I was rather sick, with a temperature that fluctuated between 99 and 101.5 F (with medication) on the weekend, and a headache that would not respond to the maximum allowed doses of Tylenol on Monday. Under the circumstances, it was rather difficult to look after Shreya, who was quite well and frisky and showed a marked disinclination to take naps when I really wanted to just lie down and sleep. Still, we got through somehow. On Saturday, she somehow picked up on the fact that dropping Daddy off at the airport was different from dropping him off at the office, and she was really mad. To try and pacify her and cheer her up, I took her to the Botanic garden and Aquarium (which are in the same complex). At first, since it was a beautiful day we went to the garden, but neither the blooming flowers nor the model train there produced a smile or squeak out of her. She resolutely maintained a frowning, stony silence. So I gave up on the lovely outdoors and took her to the Aquarium. Inside, standing in front of one of the tanks, she remained sulky, and although she knew that she had to stay with me (or be lost in a strange place) she periodically gave vent to her displeasure by giving me a little push away from her (but making sure I didn't get too far.) If I weren't so anxious, it would have been quite funny. (If it were someone else, it would be quite funny, yes, you have my permission to laugh!) And then, quite suddenly she realized: Never mind about Daddy, there are FISH here! And she thoroughly enjoyed the rest of the visit, pointing at the fish and shrieking with delight. When we got home she was quite tired, and went right to sleep after dinner. And so did I. That was Day 1. On Sunday I was sick sick sick! I was miserable and feverish, and she just wanted to play. She ran rings around me all morning, as I feebly tottered around behind her. Somehow, I managed to get her to take a nap in the afternoon. If truth be told, she fell off the bed while rowdily playing, yes, I am a bad mother :-(.  Then of course she needed to be cuddled and comforted and while doing so, I fell asleep (Bad mother!). When I awoke I was pleasantly surprised to find that she was sleeping too. In the evening we went to the playground, and she frolicked in the sand, while I slouched around and watched. On the whole, I'm not entirely sure how we got  through Sunday, but we did. On Monday, I got to send her off to daycare, where I was later told she had a really fun day. Normally I would use this time to do some work, but this time, I squandered it just recuperating from the previous day, and nursing my inexplicable headache. Then I picked her up, and we spent the evening playing and taking a walk around the neighbourhood. I took these pictures of her, to send to Tom, because maybe, just maybe, he missed her.

Here she is, jumping off the bed. She really is jumping-- the next picture I took (not posted here because it is blurry) has her midair.

And here we are.

The first thing Tom said when he saw the pictures was "Wow! She looks so old! Was she so old when I left on Saturday?"

Today was a good day. We went to a playgroup and celebrated the birthday of one of the other kids. Shreya had fun. And later we amused each other at home. And in a few minutes, Daddy will be back (though Shreya won't see him until tomorrow, since she has gone to sleep). Phew! We survived. Hurray for us!

Funky Hairdo

Perhaps because we are reluctant to cut it, Shreya's hair has become quite long.  In order to keep it out of her eyes I try to either use hairclips or gather it up into a ponytail. This however is quite hard, because Shreya does not want to sit still while her hair is combed. The overall effect, therefore, when I  have finishes trying to fix it, is that her hair hair has kind of a pulled-through-a-hedge rumpled look. On the days when she goes to the preschool, she returns home in the evening with impeccably combed hair in ponytails.  So one day, when I dropped her off, I asked the teacher how she gets Shreya to sit still for her hairdo. She replied that she combs all the kids' hair after their nap (yes, Shreya takes a nap there!) and that none of them ever try to wriggle out of it. (An answer that doesn't really help me in my attempts to comb her hair at home!) Perhaps to prove her point, she (the teacher) outdid herself that day, and Shreya returned home looking like this!

Some Musings on the Camera as a Historian

Last week, looking through the pictures from our trip to India for my "collage" I realized a curious thing. There are precious few pictures of my parents among them. In three weeks that we spent in India, the two people with whom we spent the most time were my parents, Shreya's Aji and Ajoba. My mother spent hours tempting her with tasty treats: bananas, papaya, home-made idi-appam, cake. My father took her for walks so often that within a few days of our arrival she would go and grab him by his knees every time she saw him near the front door. Both of them amused her with various toys, some bought specifically for her visit, some saved many many years, from when my sister and I were children. Shreya was very happy spending time with them. Midway through our visit, Tom, Shreya and I took a short trip on our own, to Pune. When we returned to Mumbai, Shreya was so delighted to see my mother that she leapt out of my arms into hers and started hitting her face affectionately! (She meant to be petting, but didn't yet have a concept of being gentle...) None of these heart-warming day-to-day events seem to have made it into the photographic record. Somehow the people pictured most prominently in the photos are people with whom we spent only a few hours or a day or two. This saddens me. I certainly did not have an inkling of it at the time, or I would have made it a point to get more pictures of my parents with Shreya. As it is, the only picture of my mother actually holding Shreya is this one which I posted earlier,


while with my father, there are the two below. I wish now that we had got our picture taken, as Baba suggested, when we took Shreya to Gateway of India to chase the pigeons...

I think an explanation is that we are too busy enjoying life's most precious moments to whip out the camera. The same way that we have no videos of one-month-old Shreya burping right after Tom had held her and made a ridiculous fake-burping noise to show her how it was done. Or three-month-old Shreya making her first babbling sound. Or her first attempts at crawling. Or her first interest in food when she watched the progress of a pear from my hand to my mouth. None of these are recorded either.

In Windhaven, one of my favorite books, towards the end there is a passage where a dying old woman (who had been the main character, and a "flier") sends for a bard and asks him to write her a song about a great flier who at the end of her life flies away triumphantly into the skies, never to be seen again. The bard, perceiving the song to be about the woman herself protests that she is still alive. She retorts that her life is as the song says it is, and so he should take care and make sure to get it just right. (Aside: It must be fifteen years since I read this book. Wish I could find my copy, so I could put in the exact quote)

So even if we missed our chance to get photographs, let this post set the record straight. Shreya adored spending time with Aji and Ajoba, and she missed them when she got back home. When we later saw them on skype, she squealed with pleasure! Aji and Ajoba, we love you! Please visit soon!

Indian Collage

Somehow or other, it got to be March! And I'm still back in our New Year's trip to India, as far as the blog is concerned. I've realized that the difficulty with blogging is that sometimes one has lots of interesting things to say (at least, I find them interesting, and if you continue to read them, I suppose you must too) and then, at other times, thinking of what to write is holding up the posting of the pictures, and putting it off does not make it any easier! With that in mind, I'm just going to post a bunch of pictures of relatives, friends and sights today and be done with it. That is to say, this may be my last post on the trip to India, or if I am inspired later on, it may not. I've called it a collage, and if these were paper photos, it would be one, but as it is, blogger is not very cooperative about letting me lay out pictures however I like, so here they are, just one after another... If you get bored part way through and decide to stop looking, do at least scroll to the end and look at the last picture.

Chalisgaon folks. Shreya took this picture. What? You don't believe me?!

Chaafa flowers. (Does anyone know an English name for these?)


Shreya and Viraj-mama. He was a big hit with her when she saw him in Chalisgaon, and when she saw him a week later in Mumbai, she recognized him immediately!


Giddyap, Prahladh



Mumbai folks.


With Vinay-mama.


My Chicago friend Amol now lives in Mumbai with his family.


Shreya simply adored four-year-old Bela. So much that when Bela held out her hands as if to pick her up, Shreya almost leapt into her arms, causing them both to topple over. No, a four-year-old cannot carry a fourteen-month-old.


Shreya and Ragini, whose mother I've known since I was five. We took more pictures at their home, but the light wasn't right. Shreya was also really excited about Ragini's dog, a black labrador named Lassie. Shreya spent a large part of the afternoon following Lassie around, but all our attempts to capture that in pictures were met with the blur! I wonder why?



Shreya and Daddy on the roadside near Nashik. We were waiting for our hired car to be repaired!


His fourth trip to India and Tom is still fascinated by the alternative transport!


And finally, at a mineral museum near Nashik, we saw a rock that was strangely like India itself.

Our Little Cousin

Three of my cousins had kids in the last year, so Shreya has three young second cousins. Three weeks is a short time and India a large place, so we weren't able to see all of them, but we did see one.

Urvi was born in October and was about three months old when we saw her. My, I had forgotten how tiny they are at that age! Here she is, with her mother.


Nice to be outdoors


Shreya was very fascinated by the baby, but was also quite jealous of any attention that either my mother or Tom or I paid to Urvi (particularly my mother -- Shreya may feel a little more secure in her possession of Tom and me).

Oooh look! It has toes!


What? Another picture?

Great-aunts Galore and a Great-uncle

Shreya has a lot of great-aunts and great-uncles. This is by no means the full complement of them!

Kunda-mavashi-aji


Rekha-mavashi-aji


Jyoti-mavashi-aji


Nilima-mami-aji


Somehow Shripad-mama-ajoba did not make it into the photographs, but here he is playing "Lemons" with Shreya.

Four Generations

One of the first things we did on our visit to India was to take the overnight train from Mumbai to Chalisgaon, to see Shreya's great-grandparents.

On the train, Shreya was fascinated by the handbag of another passenger.


We arrived at my grandparents home extremely early in the morning, but the household was up and awaiting us. Shreya received the traditional ceremonial welcome!


My grandfather is 90 years old, and my grandmother 84. Shreya is their first great-grandchild (and for her first eleven months, during which she never saw them, their only great-grandchild, but not anymore.) They were very happy to see her!




Tom captured this picture of Aji as she grated a coconut.


Some time ago a friend posted a picture entitled "Four generations of first-born daughters" on her blog. I realized that that is what we are as well, so here is my own picture of four generations of first-born daughters.



Afterthought:
I should have called this post Five Generations. This is a painting of my great-grandmother.