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.

Happy Deepavali

In India, you can hear Deepavali (the most popular Hindu festival) coming a week before its arrival. It starts with nightly bursting of firecrackers making it nearly impossible to sleep. In all hours of darkness you will hear cracking and see the lights of people celebrating. The regularly crowded markets will be even more crowded with shoppers looking for the best deal on new clothes for each member of the family.

I had the privilege of experiencing Deepavali in India back in 2003. Celebrating it here doesn't even compare, but with Amma in town we give it our best shot. This is the second time she has been with us for Deepavali and this time was even more grand than the first. We spent most of the week making snacks and sweets. In India, these would be traditionally shared with neighbors and other guests that visit on the holiday. Here, we are just enjoying them all to ourselves... but we did send a small batch to Bartee's sister in Atlanta. Sorry Anna, if you had a postal address we would have sent some to you in Kuwait as well. :) Also, if we had been in India we would have enjoyed a large lunch with friends and family. Here we just cooked a grand lunch and enjoyed it ourselves. We enjoyed so much that it's very possible we will be skipping dinner! Amma brought new clothes for us from India and although the kid's outfits were a little big for them, Sanjay wore his anyway. He's practically swimming in it. In a few years, it'll fit him perfectly. Priya refused to wear the big one and instead chose something in her closet that we brought home the last time we visited India. If you drive by our house and know a little bit about the festival, you would recognize all the kolum drawings that Amma made in our driveway and on the walkway. In India, they would be full of color, very intricate and much larger. However, we are perfectly happy with how Amma's turned out. She drew them with rice flour soaked in water and as long as we can keep the rain away we will be enjoying these for days to come. Thanks Amma for reminding us again how much fun it is to celebrate Deepavali.

For all the pictures of our festivities, see the pictures on Flickr.

From 14,110 feet

Today I took Amma to the top of Pikes Peak via the Cog Railway. Pikes Peak is the eastern-most of the more than 50 14ers (mountain peaks higher than 14,000 ft) in Colorado. Although the weather was chilly but pleasant down in Colorado Springs, it was a different story at the top of the mountain. When we reached the summit, the temperature was 17 degrees and after factoring in the wind chill, it felt like -3 degrees. As this is not the first time I've taken visitors to that altitude, we were prepared with our winter jackets, hats, gloves and scarves. Amma has only a few times in her life worn socks and shoes, usually she's in sandals, so donning all this winter wear was sure to be an adventure.

While sitting in the "holding room" before boarding the train, I look over at Amma and she looks particularly uncomfortable with the fuzzy gloves on her hands. Upon closer inspection, I find that she has the right glove on the left hand and vice versa. Not only that, but in a couple of instances, she had more than one finger sharing a sleeve. It was really hilarious and we both had a good laugh. When using something for the first time in 64 years, there's bound to be a learning curve. :)

We did finally make it to the top and we have photos to prove it.



Here's a short video clip from the mountaintop. The sound in this clip is coming solely from the wind, and any noticeable camera shake was from the wind as well. I had a tough time holding the camera still.

Devi Navaratri

Last time Amma visited she introduced me to this 9 day Hindu festival which she translates to the "doll festival". We set up a display of toys that we snatched from the kids. Here is the display from 2005 (Amma's last visit):



This year the kids had a lot to do with the setup. Amma, Priya and Sanjay planned it out and had a fun evening putting it all together. Sanjay created what you see on the left side, complete with his toy airplane flying over the entire scene and Priya set up the "jungle" of animals on the right side. They did a great job and we have been enjoying turning the lights on and seeing it every evening. Click on the photos for a larger view.





As part of the celebration in India, women will invite their friends over for some singing and dancing as well as dinner. So, in keeping with tradition, Amma had me ask some friends to stop by in the evening for dinner. They all decided to raid my closet for a salwar kameez and they even obliged when Amma asked us to sing and dance. In keeping with the theme of 2005 we chose to sing another John Denver song. Once again, Tisha was struggling to follow along since she is lyrically challenged when it comes to John Denver favorites. We all had a blast and very much enjoyed the stories and great food from Amma. Thanks for sharing this tradition with us all.

Amma's Birthday

For Amma's birthday, I made an egg-free cake so that she could enjoy it. Until you make a cake without eggs, it's hard to realize the necessity for this ingredient. The cake was really a bunch of crumbs. The flavor was the same, but this birthday cake was best eaten with a spoon. In the evening we ventured out to one of the 3 Indian restaurants in town and enjoyed the dinner. Even though the birthday girl didn't crack a smile, I think she still had a good time. Bartee was trying to get her to show some teeth, but with the waiter looking on, this was the best we could get. Happy Birthday Amma!!





And this family frame is her birthday gift. It is a family tree of photos containing the wedding day pictures of her and Appa as well as those of each of her children. Also, the four grandchildren each have a place in the frame.

First Day of Preschool

Today was Sanjay's first day of the last year of preschool. He'll be going Mon/Wed/Fri mornings and this year he'll have the opportunity to eat lunch at school with his friends. He is really looking forward to it. He met some new friends with some of his old friend's names, like Matthew and Alex. And, he told me about the 2 kids that are "a little bit chubby". He came home singing the school welcome song and informed us of all the day's activities. It seems the school playground even has bikes, which he was particularly excited about. It should be a fun school year.