Air Travel with N - nice people exist

Air travel has to rate as one of the most traumatic experiences for parents ( and baby too). It is a surefire recipe for disaster - enclosed space, no distractions, same scenery = wild cranky baby! At such times, it is so nice to actually meet co-passengers who are not shooting you arrows of disgust.

Today it was this youngish man, travelling to Seattle for work - N was howling her head off, but the guy was actually smiling at her - wow! I said to myself, either this guy has kids, or he is a really really nice guy. Then there was the good looking chap who was sitting next to us on our flight to Phoenix - this guy even played with N while she was sitting on my lap! Last, but not the least, the elderly Korean lady ( grandmom really) who came over and hummed lullabies to N on the flight back from India. She kept calling N "Harmoniga" - I can only assume it means something ( baby?) in Korean. But I was so touched by her kindness - walking over to talk and soothe somebody else's cranky baby? Not everybody will do it - but Hey! Nice people do exist.

Offroading in the Canyons

What a nice trip this has been so far. Friends, food, drinks.. sigh...

So we are all at S's place in Phoenix, AZ. N is being pampered and there's somebody to play with her all the time. She seems to be enjoying the trip as much as any of us.

We all went on trip to Sedona, Canyon Country. Amazing scenery - and awesome place for the adrenalin seekers.

Went on a Jeep trip - would not have believed that a Jeep could go over rocks so easily. A pic to capture the happy moment.

N is a fighter

I discovered this the other day at the day care. I went to pick up N one day evening- from the Toddler class (yes,she has graduated from Infant class to Toddler). As I was collecting N's jacket and bag, her teacher casually remarks "N beat a kid in class today". I was not quite sure how to react. My first reaction was to laugh out loud - I was imagining the scene,and could not help but find it funny for a one year old to try to whack another kid. Now there are folks who will chastise me for this - I should be teaching her manners etc etc. I have only one defense - I would have found it equally funny if another kid was hitting N. Anyway, I had enough sense to ask the teacher why? Apparently the other kid was taking N's food - so she had to whack her! What else could she do-I think there is nothing my little baby hates more than having food taken away from her.

Now I can rest assured that she will survive in thisdog eat dog world. I am not sure about her manners though!

Its HOT in Seattle

And I am hotter! So says N - so what if the sunglasses are a few sizes too big - they still look hep, dont they?

The last 3 days were HOT - temperatures went upto 90F ( thats about 32 C I think, I had to open up calc and think of conversion formulae even after 3 years of being in the US). Thats an interesting thought - why do I still think in Celcius, Kgs and Kms? When somebody tells me the temperature is 90 deg, I am like -ya, thats hot! But do I have any inkling what that really means? You bet I don't - so somewhere in the background my mind is racing to do the calculations so that I can make the right social response.

Anyway, back to the heat in Seattle. It is so hot that we are all wearing shorts - and there is a crowd near every water body available. Since SEattle has no dearth of water bodies, no fear of not finding a spot. One of the things Ilove about this city - parks and waterbodies abound. Once the sun comes out, no place likethis.

We got up early today, played tennis at greenLake - followed by Ultimate Frisbee. That was fun. As usual, my cheeks are red and sunburnt. N enjoyed playing in the grass. Sujeet (hep hep Sujeet) had new sunglasses - and N stole them from him. She's rocking in them.

What a great day! If every day waslike this, well, life would have been justperfect.

My Mother's Day Blog - a Day Late

I am not a person given to thinking about "Days" - it seems too much like selling out - to commercialization . But when Mother's day arrived - what did I do? I kept telling AppaPappa Noyonika wants to get me a mother's day gift, she really does.. until he actually went and got me a lovely pair of earrings and beautiful bangles. What I will do for gifts!!

Noyonika made me a card wishing me for Mother's day.

I remembered the cake I baked for my Ma last mother's day when I was in Guwahati. I posted about this on that day.

Sigh.. she's so far away this time. I was jealous of my neighbours - they'd come to wish me and got me a lovely potted plant, and had to leave in a hurry as they were visiting their Mom. Why do we have to stay so from our parents - is it worth being so far away from family? Appa pappa and I are having such existential questions these days.

Oh no, this is quickly turning into a blog about something other than Mother's Day. Or maybe not. If Mother's Day is to celebrate Ma's and Moms and Mother's and Maters and Mommys then can I be blamed if my thinking goes to my own Ma and how far we are from her?