Invasion of the dolls

Yep, this holiday we were invaded by dolls! Disney dolls, crocheted dolls, fisher-price dolls - the cuteness is terrifying. Our favorite ones were the hand made dolls. L crocheted a Chu Totoro and a Sho Totoro for A-chan and they are so incredible! My mother crocheted her a Hello Kitty doll with changeable dress and ear decoration which is just too cool. A-chan was delighted with all of the above.

The Totoro dolls got to go on a trip to see M,F & E and she hugged them the entire time we were in the car (an hour each way). Hello Kitty got to go to the grocery store and ride on the big girl cart with A-chan who had to make sure that I remembered to belt Hello Kitty in tight. The Fisher-price castle-dwellers and the Disney princesses are enjoying life in the castle together (or alternatively on the windowsill where they can see the deer who come by every day.)

And don't forget the R2 figure that Santa left for her...he's always saving the princesses, the poor prince never gets a chance! Ketu had to deactivate the button that made R2 make sounds cause they scared A-chan (why did they have to put the screaming on there?!). Now A-chan has Han Solo, Chewbacca, a Stormtrooper and R2. Not sure who's next, maybe 3PO. In any case her play table is a multicultural tangle of dolls, that's for sure.

Holiday in Review (PG Day 5)

Some things went really well and some went horribly bad. I'm going to give my performance this holiday a 5, Ketu gets an 8 and A-chan gets no rating because she's way too young for me to be worrying about things like that! The fact that we were all sick during the entire week of the holidays made everything polarize. The good things were brighter and the bad things were so dark that they depressed us. My worst failing this year was trying to do too much and not being organized enough. Ketu did a great job of playing with A-chan and keeping her occupied while I did major cooking streaks. A-chan refused to eat or drink for three whole days during which we panicked and got entirely too frustrated over trying to make her get enough fluids, etc. Next year I need to be more organized and less chaotic. We need to remember that if we're pressuring A-chan too much then no one will have a good holiday. It's up to us to relax and chill when she's in a bad mood...who cares if the presents get opened a day later if it means we're all happier during it!

Family things are pretty confusing for us. We're both the black sheep of our families and don't feel that we fit in. I think this year highlighted that issue in very strong tones and makes us wonder what we need to teach A-chan about family stuff at holidays and how. Issues like: we don't understand when to give presents and when not. People that we've never exchanged presents with have suddenly shown up with presents for us in hand and us going, 'huh? but...wha?" Family that we thought were only giving presents to A-chan gave us presents too, leaving us feeling like cads for not having anything for them. Other family gifts are tantamount to exchanging cash in envelopes (they give us cash, we give them gift certificates) which leave us baffled about why we're still doing it. How do we talk to family and friends about giving gifts so that we know for sure what we're doing instead of wandering about blindly? We don't want to be rude or to offend people, but we're clueless! And we don't want to pass that uncluefulness on to A-chan. She deserves to know the societal rules and mores that govern gift giving and other holiday traditions.

Exclusion (PG Day 4)

One of A-chan's christmas gifts from friends made us stop in our tracks and begin to analyze some of our decisions about what she can and cannot be exposed to. The present was a set of Disney princess figures. Their girls were delighted with them and started playing with them immediately whereas A-chan went, "hmm. Here, you can have them." That was because she had no idea what they were - she'd never seen a Disney movie, had no clue who any of them were and though she thought they were pretty she couldn't tell why the other girls were so fascinated with them. Her obvious confusion sent us a very clear message. Although we have a very strong aversion to Disney and almost all of their products, it's not fair for us to keep A-chan totally ignorant of something that is pivotal in the culture of America's children. We don't want her to feel excluded from the things that other children are excited about, even though we personally can't stand the things...

So we sat down and watched Mulan with her (or rather Ketu did while I cooked) so that she would have some frame of reference for the gift and be able to socialize at least in some part with the other girls. We might eventually introduce other Disney films (and I'm sure that at some point we will have no say in everything that she watches...) but for now we are going to stick with the one where both parents are alive and together. However, so as to provide more culturization for her we will probably be reading the books about some of the other princesses. But we want to avoid most of the films for as long as is humanly possible. Our objections being that A) in most of them there is no true sense of family and not even both parents, B) the violence inherent in these films is abhorrent and gratuitous, C) they are waaaaay too loud to be broadcasting in our house and shouting at our two year old.

In the same vein we have a Midwinter tree, which is a christmas tree that we renamed :) Even though we are not Christian and do not wish to participate in Christian holiday traditions...I don't want her to feel excluded from something that all of her friends and acquaintances from here on out will be experiencing. So we intend to keep some of the more secular parts of the American midwinter holiday such as the tree and santa while we also celebrate Pancha Ganapati. I hope that this will give her a sense of belonging when the traditional decor comes out all over the country instead of making her very very confused. There is also a personal reason to keeping the tree and santa/snowman decorations - that I remember them fondly from my own childhood and I don't think that I could give them up. There is nothing better than a beautiful lit tree in your living room during the darkest part of the year.

Pancha Ganapati Day 3

Some wonderful things happened today! A-chan succeeded in putting on her shoes all by herself for the first time. She also learned to climb up on her rocking unicorn all by herself after watching a friend do so. She'd never tried before cause I don't think she had any idea it was possible. We finally got to go see the Holiday Lights thingy at the park tonight. But the best part of all was having P, C and their girls come for a visit. We had a great time and A-chan did too! I tried another experimental recipe and it came out extremely yummy. I didn't really do anything for today's 'goal' as it was related to co-workers and professional relationships which don't apply in my case as a housewife and weaver. Although in some respects I suppose Ketu is a co-worker since he cleans all the catboxes and takes out the trash, all the icky stuff that I can't do. Hmmm. I made him a yummy dessert, does that count?

Another happening today was the cancellation of my family's holiday visit which I have mixed feelings about. I'm glad not to have them coming because A-chan and Ketu are still sick and she gets very upset and stressed around them. Warning: rant ahead. All the nice things that happened today were a very needed balm to the continued fighting between myself and my mother. She deliberately did something with A-chan today that I had specifically asked her not to do and given her reasons why I didn't want her to. Not only did she not respect my wishes but she tried to keep it a secret and then argued with me about it when I found out. And she wonders why we won't let her babysit?! When she won't even respect us enough to do as we ask about minor things, how can we trust her about larger things? My relationship with her was not exactly perfect before, but after I got pregnant it went downhill fast. It's like becoming a grandmother short circuited her brain or something. Another example: I mentioned on the phone last night that A-chan hadn't been eating well because she was sick, that she was only interested in eating raisins. This morning my mother had gone to the grocery store to buy citrus fruit that she knew A-chan liked to help her get well. I thought it a nice gesture and so agreed to let her drop it by. What confounded us was that she didn't just drop by, she stayed for over 2 hours! Didn't ask, just came in and took over. And then the incident I alluded to earlier happened. I got angry but was still civil. Ketu applauded my self-restraint.

The questions in my mind: Have any others had their mothers go bonkers when they became grandmothers? Am I just being too sensitive and should let it all go? Is it better to try and work things out or ignore things that make me mad...or is it more harmful to A-chan to continue the relationship without at least trying to stand my ground on important issues?

Pancha Ganapati Day 2

Today was just as miserable as yesterday :(

Instead of family strife we had The Funk. Some horribly insidious cold-like infestation has taken up residence in Ketu and A-chan, and no one has been happy today. Other than that it wasn't such a bad day, just unpleasant.

I tried to keep to the 'goal' for day 2 of the holiday and for the most part did a lot better than yesterday, but not as good as I'd hoped. I got side-tracked trying to call a friend that I haven't heard from in about 8 months only to find that her phone had been disconnected. And since worrying is not only a preoccupation to me but an art form...I spent the afternoon trying to track her down to no success.

A-chan enjoyed an outing to the grocery store with her Da, chattering about seeing bicycles and riding in the buggy before they left and being pleased about both of those things on her return. Being very sick and not at all happy this morning she didn't want to help with Pancha Ganapati celebrations. She was, however, extremely interested in the sweets. I'm not going to worry too much about one day of unhealthy eating where she refused almost all of dinner (Her Da got her to eat a whole thing of green beans, the fruit she ate on her own) and gobbled up the desserts. That's what holidays are all about, right?

Pancha Ganapati Day 1

Yesterday was the first day of the Hindu midwinter celebration Pancha Ganapati. It is a five day festival that celebrates the god Ganesh in Pancha Muhka form (Basically that means 5 headed.)

Here is a lovely photo of our holiday shrine. Unfortunately both Ketu and A-chan were sick and not feeling up to much in the way of celebrating. A-chan helped decorate the shrine and had a good time carrying the grape fruit from the kitchen and putting them in place.

So far this year I haven't set a very good example for A-chan...the 'goal' for the day was to resolve family issues and resolve strife in the family to make the coming year a better time for the whole family. I think that I did pretty much the opposite today, getting into a small-ish fight with my mother over the holiday gathering and later on getting mad at Ketu. She definately seemed to notice that there was extra tension between my mother and I when she came over last night and I feel really guilty about that. Oh well, there is always next year to be a better role model?

At least she got a huge kick out of the Indian sweets that I made, particularly the Shagarpare (the diamonds in the picture) which is basically flattened out donuts and very yummy! The funny thing is that I think she will enjoy the grapefruit more than the sweets.

Waking up to music

A-chan woke up while singing the abc song this morning. It was the cutest thing ever. I think she actually awakened around v & w, then clapped at the end. Ahh, what joy a happy morning wake up can bring to your day!

Today was also the first day that she took ornaments off the tree (other than candycanes) to play with them. A pipe-cleaner wreath that we'd made at the Humane Society's open house was the first victim, then a snowflake. The most fun thing was the little red elephant. It's actually a keychain that we bought in Thailand, but I thought it would be a neat midwinter tree ornament. She really enjoyed bouncing it on the floor and saying "e-phant go walking" or "run fast!".

The Lecture

Mata's glasses have been borrowed for a lecture. We think it was about better methods of pacifier protection, but we're not sure. It was very complex. :)

Counting to 40

Our evenings are probably pretty boring to anyone else. We don't have cable or any TV hook-up though we do watch 1 hour of a DVD with dinner each night. We don't have an x-box or anything resembling one, although we are considering getting one. Of course we've been considering it for about 3 years now...

The nightly routine generally includes either 1 hour of anime or sci-fi, something that isn't too scary or disturbing for the munchkin to watch. Lately this has been Star Trek which she seems kind of bored by unless Q shows up and then she's riveted. So when boredom struck this evening we fell back on an old favorite: the count & jump game.

The game consists of A-chan jumping and the two of us counting her jumps. Tonight we got all the way up to 40 jumps at a time! I think we counted to 40 about 20 times, though, during the course of the hour that she wanted us to continue. It was very silly and lots of fun. We clap and yell yahoo whenever we get to 10, 20, 30 or 40. We speed up the higher the count and she tries to keep up, but ends up giggling too much and has to stop.

Has this game helped her counting skills? We honestly don't know. But she loves it! She gets so excited about it and kept asking us to count when we'd gotten all tuckered out and tried to stop. The amount of giggling from the count & jump is almost equal to being tickled!

Words of the week #4

Very tasty
Delicious
be careful, dada, fall off get broke-it
draw last night, snowman lights
watch out

The Power of Positive Suggestion

On friday we called to make a doctor's appt for A-chan whose eye was all puffy and itchy and red and icky. All weekend we worried about it and how it looked and how much it was bothering her. Also of note was the night I gave her plastic candy canes to put on the midwinter tree and the gigantic amount of glitter that came off on her hands requiring emergency hand washing every five minutes so that she wouldn't get glitter in her eyes when she rubbed them. (Ketu eventually moved them up to toddler un-reachability)

Most of Sunday we spent telling A-chan that tomorrow morning we would go to the doctor. He would look at her eye and make it all better. Amazing enough she held still and let him look not only at her eye but in her ears and nose and mouth with no fighting or struggling. We got medicine and came home happy campers ready to medicate at the first notice of rubbing and itching. What has been very interesting is that there has been no such activity since we returned from the doctor. It's not red, it's not puffy, she's not rubbing it and in fact seems to be in such a better mood that we can't keep up with her.

So now we're wondering: did we not need to go at all or did having the doctor look at it fix everything just like we'd said it would? Should we just try and wait it out in the future instead of making an appt? (assuming there isn't a fever or other obvious doctor-needing symptom of course) The same thing seems to happen to the cats. We make an appt for whatever problem that is occuring but by the time we get to the vet it's disappeared!

Here is a picture of one of A-chan's activities on Saturday: The Blaze Hat.

Vegetarian rant.

"Star Trek is boring, guys. Hey, what can I get into over here? Look at me, wheeee!"

This is going to be a vegetarian rant. Because we are vegetarians and I received an email today that made me feel very disappointed. And I worry about A-chan being a vegetarian child in the future and being discriminated against. Yes, I really did say discriminated against for being vegetarian. Not in any overt way - certainly nothing like asian americans or other ethnic ancestored people experience. (for examples of what i'm talking about visit Mama Nabi's Hwe blog or The Lotus Life blog) This is more of a 'gosh, vegetarians want to be able to come here and eat too, fancy that!' type of discrimination. An almost unconsious non-recognition of vegetarians and their lifestyle is way too common. Perhaps it's just that way here in Georgia, but come on - our town even has two dedicated vegetarian restaurants!

Let me get back to the point...I received an email today about the upcoming Burns Night Dinner. Last year we had worked with our scottish country dance group to create and host the Burns Night dinner: it was a potluck affair and very low key. We were delighted at the chance to join in the entertainment but be able to bring our own vegetarian renditions of old scottish dishes. (We were not the only vegetarians in attendance, either) This year's Dinner is a high-class affair ($25 a head) with authentic scottish dishes catered. I read the announcement about 3 times, hoping that "vegetarian alternatives available" might magically appear somewhere on the page. I feel...disappointed, left out, sad and discriminated against. I might feel a little different if the people involved had not been our friends for a while and knew last year how we felt at being able to enjoy Rabbie Burn's b-day celebration with everyone else. This year it seems that they deliberately didn't include anything vegetarian. of course, it probably isn't intentional, but more of the unconscious, "you wanted to come? but we're having haggis" attitude. Yes, we could go and spend $75 for all three of us. But if we're not eating any of the meal that's a pretty darned high price tag for a two hour gig.

I'm extremely sad about the whole thing. For a year I've been looking forward to going to this celebration. We had so much fun last year! And A-chan enjoyed the heck out of it last year. She loves bagpipes, she loves to see other men in kilts besides her da, she loved the dancing and the harps and the fun. And she won't get to enjoy any of it this year. What other things will she be unwelcome at in the future? Are we being bad parents for raising her vegetarian, against the grain of most of the populace of this country? Heck, you can get vegetarian food at Burn's Night celebrations in Scotland! But not here.

Okay, rant over :)

Oh, the pain!

It was my folly to let A-chan pick out a book for storytime this evening. Storytime preceeds bedtime and was already late because of the grocery store run, then bath time. So at 11:30 A-chan picks out the "Happy Baby Words" book. And then wants us to spell out each and every word in the whole book. And tell her the color and name of everything in the book. By midnight we were both yawning our heads off and she was still going strong. I kept telling Ketu to skip a page, please! But she knew what was next and would get upset if we skipped anything. I swear it was a trap to bore us to death!

Don't get me wrong, I'm glad that she is so bright. I just couldn't handle the spelling bee at midnight after a long day. Our schedule is kind of strange since Ketu and I both work from home. Technically Ketu works for a company in CA, but I think we live on Hawaii time instead of CA time. We usually get up at 9:00 am, A-chan gets up at 10:30 am. A-chan usually goes to bed at 10:30 pm (with a 2 hour nap around 3pm) while we go to bed at 2:00am.

Words of the week #3

I love you
is!
bye bye dada, miss you, see you get home
christmas tree
movie (instead of video which she's known for a long time)
what time is it?
wednesday bath night is!
fat, fat, FAT! (from Kiki's Delivery Service)
oh, I see, yes
right now
Oh hi there, good morning
pickle scarf, I make ( in relation to her snowman lunch with a pickle for a scarf. she ate one piece and replaced it with another pickle.)
Dada make christmas tree
Mata, a-chan, dada kiss after hug
Oh no Purrpurr, I sit on you
do tai chi (pronounced tai cheep), yahoo!
Hi there, good morning, how are you?

Unspoken codes

The singing jawa
Originally uploaded by natakiya.

It's interesting how we have sets of silent codes with A-chan. She knows that if she wakes up early in the morning and Mata is still in night clothes that it isn't time to wake up. Generally she will recognize this and go back to sleep easily, or be ready to get up if I'm dressed in day clothes.

She has a code for us, too. If her stuffed animal lovies are on their tummies in her bed she is ready for a nap. If they are face up, however, it means she doesn't want a nap. Sometimes her code can work against her, though. We can ocassionally turn over the lovies to the 'sleepy setting' and convince her that they want to nap, wouldn't she like one too?

What's in the basket?

What's in the basket?
Originally uploaded by natakiya.

When I cleaned out the closet yesterday I found the perfect toy for both cats and toddler! The simple basket may look humble to most, but the amount of fun that can be had from one is exhausting. Aha! It's also the perfect thing to sleep in. At least, if you're a cat it is. But if you're a toddler, it is an even better toy with a cat sleeping inside. Because then you get to play the 'how many things can I pile on top of the kitty before it wakes up and leaves' game!

A-chan & the umbrella

A-chan & the umbrella
Originally uploaded by natakiya.

A-chan loves to play with her dragon umbrella. Particularly to jump with it like Totoro does at the bus stop.

The Stuck Syndrome

Today was such an incredibly better day than yesterday. There was a nap taken by a certain little girl and that made my day for certain! My mother came for dinner this evening and as always A-chan was enthusiastic about the idea until Amma actually showed up when A-chan became all shy and clingy.

Later in the evening A-chan decided that National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation was rather more boring than was advertised and went on a lie-down protest in the middle of the dining room floor this evening. For about 10 minutes she chanted "no video" to the house at large and kept asking Ketu to come and pick her up.

Finally, her protests were effective and Ketu was dragged down onto the floor with her. He was on the floor in the living room, though. When next she asked for him to pick her up he replied with, "I can't right now, I'm stuck. Maybe if you come and help me up I can help you up."

With that she happily said, "'kay!", jumped up off the floor, ran over to give him a hand up. Once he was on his feet she ran back to her spot, promptly laid back down and waited for him to come help her. It was just so cute! We couldn't help laughing. She was in a much better mood after that too.

Daycare vs. Stay at home

There are days when having both of us work from home and being able to keep A-chan home with us is absolutely wonderful. And then there are days when our work schedule gets interrupted and I get really frustrated and almost wish that she went to Daycare. Almost.

I usually plan my "serious work sessions" for during her nap everyday. But the days when she doesn't take a nap (like yesterday) or if her nap is cut short by something, I can't get much done and end up being frustrated and feeling resentful about it. The fact that I get so frustrated is a mystery to me - it's like not-sleeping is a trigger for me to get all upset and it makes no sense. And at the end of a long day of stress & anger & tantrums from a sleepy toddler I end up questioning our decision to keep her at home with us.

Daycare is a necessary and wonderful thing for lots of parents, I know. Yet I just don't like it. Looking back on my own daycare days I am filled with horror. So I feel incredibly fortunate to be able to keep my daughter home with us.

It seems like all the kids I know who are in daycare are always sick. A-chan so far has had only two illnesses in her two year old life and we hope to keep that number to about the same ratio as she grows. That is a huge reason I don't want to send her to daycare. And the added caveat that we know all her bad habits will come from us instead of from other kids is...well, I don't know if that's a benefit or not.

So why am I writing all of this? Mainly to have something to convince myself that daycare is evil when I'm extremely frustrated and tired and grumpy and A-chan refuses to take a nap.

The Preciouses: Pink and Purple

Our pediatrician has recommended during our last few visits that we cut A-chan off cold-turkey fashion from her pacifiers. After some hemming and hawing we tried to take his advice and at least get her to cut back.

It backfired, badly.

What had been a 'paci' and a spare have become a matched set which she expects and requests now together. Thus the legendary team of "Pink and Pohple" was born - two jewel-tone pacifiers, one ruby and one amethyst, are her frequent request if she is stressed or wants comfort.



She will tolerate being deprived of one for short periods so long as we continue to put her off. Otherwise she expects to have one in her mouth and the other in her hand, often being used to touch her lower lip and usually switching back and forth from one to the other every few minutes. On occasion she'll manage to have both in at once, a practice I find inexplicably schrecklich.

Trying to use one paci and carry a spare has its problems. For instance, if someone hands you a cup to drink from, what are you to do? You can't remove your current paci without putting something down first, but putting down the cup seems counterproductive and putting down the spare is counter to the desire to have a spare. Poor A-chan will often stand there waiting vexedly for Nata or I to intervene and remove a paci, and will sometimes even hand over the spare as well.

We are still working on her paci use, and would like to get it down to none. Aside from the double-paci use *shiver*, her need to have both when sleeping in my opinion disturbs her sleep. The spare doubles the chance that one will fall overboard and land with a clatter on the wooden floor and wake her up, or at least plant in her subconscious mind the idea that Something Is Needed. This additional chance of loss (neatly turning the idea of a "spare" on its head) played out poorly twice yesterday, as she dropped the spare while riding in a shopping cart in Target and none of us noticed it immediately (resulting in an immediate paci search-and-rescue mission amongst the toddler clothes) and again as I carried her in from the car that night when the spare was knocked from her hand into the leaves on the ground (requiring me to round up a flashlight and go back out for more S&R).

On the positive side, I can usually get her to surrender both to me first thing in the morning, and conveniently misplace them until her nap time ("No, I don't know where they are"), and then sneak them away when first discarded after her nap until bedtime. Not all of the time, however, and the fervor with which she takes them back has lead to Nata and I refering to them as "the preciouses". She's not _quite_ Golem-like in her obsession for them, but we skirt around saying "paci", "pink", or "purple" while she is doing without lest we risk triggering her desire for them.

Broken

We decorated the Midwinter tree yesterday. Which went pretty well except for one unfortunate statement on my part. A-chan was helping by putting candycanes on the tree. She dropped one. It broke. She was distressed by this. I said, "That's okay. If it's broken that means we can eat it." Immediately thereupon she wanted to give it a try and thereafter spent most of the day either dropping candycanes 'accidentally' or mangling them by hand and asking to eat them afterwards.

We also found out that my allergy to mint is still going strong. After years of not eating candycanes I decided to try and see what happened. I regretted it verily. A-chan complained of having her tummy hurt but didn't have the same type of reaction that I did. Hopefully the allergy didn't get passed along because not being able to eat or touch mint just sucks.

A Day with Friends

Not too much to say tonight cause I'm exhausted. We went to "the city" today to visit with some friends who have 3 little girls about A-chan's age; M,F and E. They were very patient with us and took us to JumpZone and ToysRus and dinner, nevermind the fact that we totally derailed their daily schedule and didn't let their girls get a nap.

Whenever we spend any time with them I always get inspired to be a better parent. They are quite simply the penultimate parents in my opinion. I always wonder where they get the patience, the energy, the endurance to deal with three toddlers all the time while I can just barely deal with my one! It's simply amazing to watch them. And I don't think I've ever seen them get angry. Not once. I want to be just like them.

A-chan had a great time (and so did we) and played and giggled and played like she never gets to at home. That's one of the problems with stay at home parents like us - she very rarely gets to see other kids. I think perhaps most stay at home parents get out a bit more than we do. Usually once a week we leave the house. For groceries. Occassionally, like this week, we leave the house multiple times but it's a novelty and we try not to let it happen too often.

JumpZone was fantastic. It took her a while to get okay with the noise and the other kids and the new place, but once she figured out how much fun it could be she didn't want to leave. Ketu had the honor of taking her on all the playscapes, and thank goodness that his utilikilt has the modesty snap!!!

Sshhh, quiet.

Quiet storybook time after a busy day.

This was the first year we've ever participated in the Black Friday shopping madness. I found it interesting and invigorating. Ketu found it a bit tiresome, I think. But then he had to do the driving and the dealing with people who had no thoughts for others and had to have what they wanted now now now. A-chan just wanted to run around the store in delight. She enjoyed the tapestry throw with a dog on it at Best Buy very much. As always her squeaky shoes were remarked upon many times and got quite a lot of attention. One fellow remarked, "I heard it, I just didn't know what it was." They are so wonderful!! Several times she just took off on her own and we were able to track her down in the huge crowd within seconds.

It saddens me how people disregarded others so completely during the commercial extravaganza. (Not that I was that thoughtful myself as I ran around the store after A-chan) How are we parents supposed to teach our children about being nice to our fellow humans and politeness if there are so many rude people out there? I was under the impression that this was officially the beginning of the christmas season, but there was very little holiday spirit to be found other than perhaps greed. Again, it's not as though I was completely apart from the frenzy since we did go to the store for the same sale as everyone else...

On another level, however, we were quite apart from the crowds around us since we don't celebrate christmas. I've been reading a lot of blogs lately and come across some interesting ones that have a lot about being a minority in America. Although it is usually the case that a white person will be surrounded by other white people, that doesn't necessarily mean that they aren't a minority. To be Hindu, particularly a celtic hindu, in a small southern town is to be alone albeit in a different way than minorities often face - unless I'm wearing a sari and bindi. I am hoping that our differences will be a good thing for A-chan and that she won't be ashamed of us, at least not for following our hearts in religion. We are worried that being set so apart from mainstream america will be difficult for her. I'm sure that will be a recurring issue here from time to time. :)

Unturkey

We don't celebrate Thanksgiving day. Mainly because by the time we get through Con season in september, A-chan's birthday and Halloween we're desperate for some time-out before the Midwinter Holidays clomp us over the head. Also because we're vegetarian and it causes more trouble to join my family for the holiday than joy. The vegetarianism has always been a source of bad feeling between me and my family and it's so nice just to ignore the whole thing and not get into fights and recriminations about something that doesn't really matter. (Why can't I bring my own food to family celebrations??? It drives me nuts that they get so angry when I bring food with me, but they don't want to cook things that we can eat...) And I most definately don't want my daughter to get caught up in the family politics over something that is supposed to be a pleasant holiday. I want to keep her as far away from it as possible. Another reason, though mostly an add-on to the others, is that we aren't so sure the arrival and subsequent survival of the first americans is something to celebrate with wild abandon. I have mixed feelings about it. Obviously if they didn't arrive and live through the first years of settlement then I and my husband, daughter, cats, et al wouldn't be here and enjoying this beautiful 70 degree thanksgiving day weather. But on the other hand the new americans did slaughter and displace thousands of the native peoples and completely destroy large parts of their cultures. We have yet to decide how we will tackle these issues in the future. What exactly do we want to tell A-chan about the first immigrants and such? And how do we go about explaining that we don't eat turkey when the rest of the nation is so enamored of the idea?

So here we are not celebrating but instead doing hard manual labor with huge boxes full of midwinter decorations and strings of tree lights so that we can celebrate another holiday later. Ketu put together our fake christmas tree to the utter delight of A-chan and all the cats. I'm not sure if A-chan had more fun carrying the branches to him or chasing away cats when they tried to eat the fake needles. She loved the "Christmas in the Stars" CD that was the first holiday music of the year - Yes we all love R2 and 3PO singing carols. We are teh g33ks! Our food today consisted of all american staples that have absolutely nothing to do with Thanksgiving: grilled cheese sandwiches (lunch), pizza (dinner). For dessert, however, we totally caved in to the delights of pumpkin pie (for Ketu) and pecan pie (for me). A-chan insisted that the cool whip was ice cream and refused to eat any pie in favor of the "eys cram".

When the empty boxes of holiday decorations go back into the attic we are going to send up some old baby toys too. We decided this a few days ago and somehow A-chan found out about it. She went out of her way to convince us today that her exersaucer was still a well-loved and wanted toy even though she hasn't fit into it in almost a year. It's just been sitting in our office for that long, waiting for an excuse to banish it to the attic. But now we are second guessing our decision. Should we leave it out? Or put it up and hope that she doesn't notice the lack of a huge circular entertainment device. And of course to make things even more difficult, the cats love to sleep in the gently curved and vaguely cave-like bottom. Oh yes, we are weak and I'm convinced that they have all banded together with some fiendish mind-control device!

Words of the week

meowing
and
needs hug mata
what happened?
watch out purr purr
grandma amma
bed all messy
snowman santa
all filled up
too big
I miss you, dada

The Most Dreaded Words

They have come. We are filled with terror. Yes, our daughter has said THOSE words. "I want a doggie." More horrifying than any four letter word she might learn inadvertentely. It is this sole phrase that has us quaking with fear. It's not that we don't like dogs. Okay, well maybe it's more like I'm fine with dogs but Ketu doesn't like them. We are intrinsically, without a doubt as far from dog people as you can be.

Our house is filled with cats. 16 of them to be precise. And one feral kitty lives outdoors and deigns to let us feed him. There are cat pictures everywhere, cat statues, stuffed kitty toys - we just love cats!! Cats wash themselves. And (except for one notable autistic kitty) they go potty on their own. No baths, no walking in the rain or at 5 am. Cats can pretty much fend for themselves with a small bit of intervention and supervision when we are on trips. (They wouldn't agree, of course and would prefer never to have us further than 10 feet away at all times...)

So what's the problem, you might ask. Just don't get a dog if you don't want one. Right. If only it were that simple. See, we were both born with the word sucker painted on our foreheads. How can we say no next saturday when we go past rows of puppies and doggies at the adoption site? The pull of those sad eyes and wagging tails is a strong one even though we aren't dog people. With the added pressure of baby blue eyes and happy giggles will we be able to stand strong? Even worse that this same trial will take place at least once a month when we volunteer at the rabies clinic.

Speaking of the rabies clinic, it's been about 4 months since we've

been to one. The last one that we went to Miss A-chan was beginning to get antsy about sitting still for 3 hours. I'm a tad bit wary of going next weekend because it's been so long and we have no idea how she is going to react. (Her first rabies clinic was when she was 2 months old. We've skipped a few here and there in the intervening 22 months, but never so many at a time...) We're going to have to come up with some solution to help keep her occupied and out of trouble.

Pajama Girl!

A-chan in her pajamas sitting on Dada's pillow for our bedtime story. Hugging her two lovies. Note one pacifier in the mouth and a second in the hand. Just one isn't good enough. We're working on breaking her of that habit and have gotten her to not need paci's during the day. She still needs both at naptime and bedtime though. Our pediatrician recommends the cold turkey method of taking the paci's away, but we just can't do that.

Words of the week

"good job, mata"
"no diarrhea"
"bluejay flew away"
"pinkjay flew away" ( we thought that she knew what a bluejay was until she said this one later the next day...but maybe she does but likes pink better?)
"Hey guys"
"Hey dada come here please"
"seventeen"
"apple, pear, two fruits"
"every day"
"I want"
"cute"
"chewbacca, han solo" (already said r2, stormtrooper, yoda & "dark vader")
"new game"

An open house

The day started off poorly when religious spammers drove up and knocked on the door thereby waking up the baby early and scaring her at the same time. This pretty much set her mood to tantrum girl for the next 6 hours: I was not happy. Ketu was not happy. A-chan was incredibly unhappy. I have to wonder if they have any clue just how absolutely rude and annoying they are?

We went to an open house party yesterday for A-chan's godparents. (We use the term loosely because we couldn't think up a better one at the time and everyone pretty much has an idea of what this means, but to us it has no religious connotations...) Oh wow, was the food just incredible! S is a fantastic cook and we ate ourselves silly. AND we got to bring lots of it home with us, woot!! We'd never eaten tamales and we loved the frybread which was just like poori.

At first A-chan was very sleepy and not wanting to socialize, in fact did a fantastic sulky face that I wish we'd thought to get a picture of. After eating a ton of blueberries, some cornmeal cookies and chocolate covered cherries she finally started smiling. Her red winter squeaky shoes had stopped squeaking about a month ago, so we thought that they were safe for letting her wear them in the confined space of a house. Almost as soon as we got there one shoe started squeaking again! At least it wasn't as bad as with both squeakers going and it definately helped keep track of her. (Except for the time that I was weaving and not paying attention and Ketu was eating chili and came into the hallway and saw her about 8 stairs up. We don't have any stairs at home so anytime she can climb stairs she wants to desperately, but she's not very steady at it since she doesn't get to practice much. Heartattack time!)

The arrival of M,F & E also helped with her mood. Soon the four girls were flying around the house in a game of follow the leader. Her pants are too big for her and despite the belt kept slipping down. (teeny-tiny baby butt) Every time A-chan would run around the corner she would stop and let M,F & E's dad pull up her pants! It was so funny - she wouldn't let anyone else do it and she stopped every time!

Apparently she became quite enamored of L's non-digital clock (how often do you see those these days?!!) and tried to take it with her. She asked for one this morning at breakfast.

She fell asleep on Ketu's shoulder around 9 pm - something she's never done before. Well, not since she was like 10 months old anyway. If it's not a bed with her lovies and special blanket it's not for falling asleep on. It was soooo sweet :) And Ketu sat there with her on his shoulder for about and hour as we talked to people, isn't he a great dad?

The Cutest Ham

A-chan has decided that she loves to have her picture taken. This evening as I was cooking dinner she thought she looked cute sitting on the largest stacking box and asked her dad to take pictures of her.

She also loves seeing the pictures on his digital camera right after they are taken. One picture will turn into half an hour of her striking a cute pose and then running over to see the picture. It's amazing that she even knows how to work the buttons on the camera to see the pics!

Today was a very tantrum-filled day, every little thing got her worked up. We aren't sure why. The pictures episode was one of the high-points of the day where she was smiling and happy.

Inspiration

I've been playing around with my blog about our 17 cats for a few months. And looking at other blogs here and there related to my bento obsession. Then I found a blog that inspired me to create this blog. www.thelotuslife.net Why did her blog inspire me so much? I'm not exactly sure. But looking at the pictures of her children and of the lunches that she makes for them...I realized that I was letting so much of life with my daughter slip past. That I haven't been making an effort to cherish each day the way that I should be, the way that I want to. The realization that we mainly take pictures of her only on special occasions and not just everyday-having-fun pictures came as a shock. Where are the pictures of her just being my wonderful little girl?? So I've decided to change my ways and start cherishing each day and this blog is the start of it.

Like today - she thoroughly enjoyed her lunch. Baby tomatoes first, then pickles, then blueberries (she has to tell me the size of each blueberry before she eats it...). Next came tomato soup, but she put her noodles into the soup first. What a mess!! But she had fun and that's what counts. It seems so ordinary, so I don't really tend to take note of how she eats. However, it's the details that make things special and I want to try to remember them. Hopefully soon I will figure out how to put up pictures!