Highlights of Amma's Trip

Amma will be leaving in just 2 weeks... the time has gone by too fast. She's been here with us since the end of August and we will miss her a lot when she goes home. There are so many friends and family back in India waiting for her return, so we must let her go. During her visit we have run the gamut from spending lazy days at home to shopping all the local thrift stores to sight-seeing out of state.

She visited New Mexico, Niagara Falls, Denver and the Rocky Mountains. She reached the summit of Pikes Peak by train and immensely enjoyed the view from 14,000 ft. She met and became close with several Indian families from our town. She engaged herself in a few heated, but fun political debate sessions with one of our close friends. She ensured that we celebrated all the Hindu festivals properly... which sadly we do not do when she is not around to help us. She entertained three groups of my friends by teaching them Indian cooking, making them laugh and quizzing them afterwards. She invited and has been invited to several dinners with a variety of friends, each time wowing them with her fabulous cooking. Although she had a lot of fun with all these activities, they are not among the top entries in her most memorable experiences.

On Monday night this week, my neighbor took her finally to a place which she'd been asking to see since her arrival. Unfortunately, I had something else going on so I could not join them, so imagine my disappointment when she came home talking about what a great time she had and how it was her favorite thing from the past 4 months. They went downtown to the local soup kitchen to feed the homeless. My mother-in-law, who really cannot stand the smell or even the sight of any meat, served pasta with beef in it to those in great need. She asked a lot of questions of my neighbor about the shelter and I can only imagine she was as curious as a child with her eyes wide open observing the whole night closely. She is in her element when she is helping people. It is her passion and it's very inspirational to me and everyone around her. Luckily, she traveled with her camera and we have a couple of pictures from the night. Thanks again Laura for helping make these memories for Amma!





Turns out that this morning I had the good fortune of being with her when she added another thing to her list of "most memorable moments". Together we worked out the details of a slideshow on Indian culture and she presented it to a classroom full of first graders. The kids called her Paatti and were thrilled to have a real visitor from India joining them. Amma talked for almost an hour and the kids were engaged the whole time... of course, she'd promised them a yummy Indian sweet after the lecture. :)



I really admire Amma for stepping out of her comfort zone and making these fun plans during her visit this time. She really knows how to keep herself busy... one thing for sure, Amma doesn't have a lazy bone in her body.

Happy Holidays

Still haven't put together a holiday card, but I did squeeze out this video last night. It's more fun than addressing and stamping all those envelopes. :)

First Weekend of December

Wow, it's been so long since I've posted that I actually had to log in this time. Geez, I gotta make more time for this. Anyway, there are some older things to post, but I'll get to that later.

Saturday was filled with all things Christmas. First, we went to a museum where the kids made far too many ornaments to add to our family tree. One of the stations with foam cut-outs was so irresistible, that I even had to make one myself. They spent a lot of time there working on several masterpieces. Some of them turned out fantastic and others, well, they fell apart before they even reached home. While the kids were busy writing letters to Santa and making ornaments, some adults were dressed up in silly costumes and putting on performances in the main lobby.



After the museum event, we headed over for the Festival of Lights parade. We should probably make this an annual family tradition, but there are some years where the weather just doesn't cooperate. It looked like it would be warm this year, but actually it was quite frigid and a bit windy. Amma managed well considering the circumstances. Because of street closures and the crowd, we had to walk about 2 blocks to get to our special viewing area, conveniently located just outside a nice Mexican restaurant downtown. Luckily, we grabbed a table inside that we used as "base" during the parade. Every once in a while, we peeked outside to see the various high school bands and lighted floats passing by.

Waiting for a table in the restaurant, Amma is keeping all the winter gear on because people are continuously coming and going through the front doors letting all the cold air inside. It doesn't look like she's having fun, but that's because she is still thawing out from the long walk to get here.



Most of my parade pictures turned out like this:



But I did manage to get a fun video of one of my favorite entries, the Transportation Department of one of the local school districts:

Birthday Morning

While delivering the kids to school this morning we avoided a couple of times ending up in a fender bender. The roads here are treacherous before the sun has a chance to start melting it. I'm convinced that the only thing that can effectively melt snow is salt and it makes up such a small percentage of what they dump on the roads here. Therefore, we get a lot of practice driving on ice, and let me tell you... the minivan doesn't do well on that stuff.

After dropping Priya, this conversation ensued:

Sanjay: Mom, how many years are you today?
Me: Thirty-nine
Sanjay: Well, we can just put 5 candles on your cake then.
Me: Why 5?
Sanjay: Because thirteen is way too much.

To an almost five year old, I guess thirteen does seem like a big number. However, I draw another conclusion from this and that is that Sanjay has the listening skills of his Daddy. Poor fellow.

Star Performers

This year Sanjay was old enough to join Priya on stage for the annual Diwali Show put on by the Indian Community here. It's always a spectacular event with grand costumes, fantastic music and a nice peek into Indian culture. We spend many weekends leading up to it practicing at a local church. A lot of volunteer time goes into the show from the participants and the many people who organize it each year. What I find amazing is that no one takes any money for their efforts... 100% of the ticket price gets donated directly to that year's chosen charity. It is the policy of the man in charge that each participant buy a ticket as well. He wants to make sure that A LOT of money is donated and each year he manages to give more than the last. If you are a local, I would highly recommend coming out to see the show next year.

For a slideshow of some of the pictures, click here or view the embedded Flickr slideshow below.



I also have uploaded a video of Priya's group dance, which was recorded by an amateur videographer, as you will clearly see. It took him a while to figure out where his daughter was on the stage. :)

Welcome Home Paatti

Last night Paatti returned from a trip to Canada to visit friends and to see the famous Niagara Falls. Thank goodness she's back in the house with us. After 8 days of taking care of Bartee, I'd had enough and my sympathy for him had dried up. Besides, his Mom is much better at it than I am. Last night, it was homemade cough syrup and this afternoon, hot tea delivered directly to his office desk. He's eating it up. In fact, tonight he already started with the subtle hints on which meals she should prepare. I suspect within the next day or two we will be feasting on Bisi Bele Bhaath.

Besides myself, there were a couple of other little faces excited to have Paatti back home.

Sick Days and Snow Days

A few weeks ago, someone I knew came down with the swine flu and subsequently the rest of her family also fell sick. Shortly after that, I noticed a new sign at Sanjay's preschool that read "We have a confirmed case of the H1N1 flu". A week later, the sign read "We have confirmed cases of the H1N1 flu". Three days later, Sanjay had a fever of 103 degrees before noon. That fever hung around for at least 2 days before it dropped down to 101ish for three more days.

That's when Priya came home from school crying, achy and cold. She'd been like that for nearly the whole day and didn't bother letting her teacher know. Poor girl. Thus far in my parenting, it was probably the most guilt I've ever felt. That morning she had a bad cough and a headache. I should have known, but she insisted on going... it was "Fun Friday" after all. Every Friday they get to "spend" their behavior-earned money in the teacher's shop. Anyway, as I'm sure you have guessed by now, she had a high fever.

Two days later, it was Bartee's turn. He is still suffering from the effects, especially in the evenings. I have become an expert in making an Indian home-remedy cough medicine, the ingredients of which include turmeric, cumin and pepper. Thankfully Amma shared the recipe with me before heading off to Canada on Friday. The timing for her trip couldn't have been better, as it's best to keep an uninsured 64 year old lady away from the sickies this week.

So, the kids are basically fully recovered and we get dumped on with an Autumn snowfall that results in school closures... for two days! Does the superintendent not realize that we are going stir crazy in this house? We were anxious to get back to school, but it looks like that might not happen until next week. Let's see... I'm expecting at least a 2 hour delay in the morning.

In case you wonder why I've slipped under the radar this past week or so, it's because I've been busy sanitizing the house and taking care of the crew. The only one in the house, besides me, that seems to have escaped the flu is scheduling playdates in the backyard and has decided that it's suddenly ok to pee on the deck.