Brand New Squeaks

The new squeaky shoes arrived this morning! She had grown out of her last two pairs (in 3 months, can you believe it?!) and we hadn't worried about it too much since she only needs to wear shoes about once a week on average. Yes, that is how often we leave the house in a usual week - scary isn't it? But the new pairs arrived today and I even planned ahead: one pair is the next size up, weeee!

As soon as she knew that there were new shoes to try on, A-chan was delighted. One of the new pairs is sneakers instead of maryjanes and thwarted her attempts to put them on "all by self!" But once they were in place she went happily squeaking here and there, round about and back again. We finally convinced her to take them back off with a team effort of reason (let's not get your new shoes dirty, okay? please take them off now...) and distraction (look at the game on the computer, doesn't that look like fun? but you have to take your shoes off first...).

The pair that she enjoyed so much today were actually defective shoes which meant that we bought them for $2.99. The defect was backwards embroidery on one shoe. It reads A2U instead of USA as the other shoe does. I think it's amusing and cute. A-chan couldn't care less and we're all happy not to spend a huge amount on shoes that she will outrgow in 3 months.

The squeaky shoe revolution happened because of the difficulty in finding shoes that don't have leather on them but are not too slippery to wear on our tile floors. We have 3 different shoe types that we rely upon: the squeaky shoe for winter and crowd conditions, the Teva for summer and backyard wear, and geta for fancy shoes (although her current pair of geta are pretty small and I need to order more of them too). A-chan absolutely loves the squeaky shoes. I think that she would wear them all the time if we let her.

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. :)

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?