rLife

With these seven steps. . .

2010-07-19T11:51:00.002-07:00

We just celebrated our fifth wedding anniversary. It is sometimes hard to believe that we have been married for five years already. It feels like I was just planning all the chaos of that three-ring circus. But in those five years we have done so much together. We have traveled to India twice, the Dominican Republic twice, Canada, Mexico, Indonesia, and loads of places in the US. We have brought two amazing little boys in this world. We gutted our apartment, then sold it, and then bought a house together. We have cried, laughing, screamed, and loved each other through all of it.

The seven steps (saptapadi) that are part of the Hindu wedding ceremony are symbolic vows that every Hindu couple makes.

Here's what Vivaah.org said:

With God as our guide, let us take :

the first step to nourish each other

the second step to grow together in strength

the third step to preserve our wealth

the fourth step to share our joys and sorrows

the fifth step to care for our children

the sixth step to be together forever

the seventh step to remain lifelong friends,

the perfect halves to make a perfect whole.

I don't think we were ready to make these kinds of commitments when we first got married. These are the things that come with time - time that we have had now.

Recently, I found myself wishing that I could marry the Rohit I know now and that he could marry this version of me. We both have changed so much and almost all of it is for the better. It seems that every year of marriage has been defined by a specific set of challenges that we have to work through.

2005-2006 Obviously year one is all about learning to live with each other. Our very first argument was about where to put our laundry hamper (bedroom or closet). We learned about compromise something that neither of us were good at (and still struggle with today). Rohit learned that I need to have order in the house to reduce my anxiety; I learned that he needs 20 minutes when he comes home from work to just wander around the house before I start talking to him. Both of us learned to never get into a serious discussion in the morning because we both hate early mornings. I remember at some point during the year, we were in a deep argument and I thought to myself, "omigod. This is it. There is no breaking up. We're MARRIED for LIFE. I am never going to leave this man; he will never leave me. We can either suck it up and compromise or just make each other miserable for the rest of our lives." Divorce, a necessary option for some folks, just wasn't even on the radar for us. We decided to stick it out and compromise - which is something that we are still working on how to do well.

2006-2007 Year two was learning to live with the in-laws. I learned that RC is not the type of husband that will always come to my defense with his family. I also learned that I am okay with that because I can talk for myself. RC's family has been an incredible support to us the entire time we have been together but as with all in-laws there have been things that are different from my family to his. I started to talk to his mom and sister freely as though they were actually my blood and life became much less stressful. By the end of the second year of marriage, I took a two week trip through China with my mother-in-law and it was great! I have friends who have stronger relationships with their in-laws but most who know us are surprised how easily our families blend together.

2007-2008 The third year was when we learned how to be parents. We got pregnant and we learned that we are even more different that we originally thought. Where I am high-anxiety and list-making, he is completely laid-back and casual. I got over having to wait for him to build things; I just started to do things on my own. But then he actually started doing things ahead of time because he could see how anxious it was making me. My first pregnancy was a tough one. I was originally considered high-risk and was constantly having ultrasounds, blood tests, and various other poking and prodding. Then there was The Sick. The Constant Sick. RC totally stepped up and was the doting-dad-to-be. I don't give him enough credit for what I put him through when I am pregnant, but he does everything.

2008-2009 We really became a family with the addition of Q to our lives. He made us work together as a team to raise him. One thing that is essential to any relationship is communication. I think after years of being together, we forgot that we needed to talk to each other more. All of the sudden, it was, "Do we Ferberize or go with the Pantley-method" "Should we feed him kichidi everyday or can we do pasta now?" "Who is picking him up, putting him down, feeding him, etc?" My friend once forwarded me this email about a fake show called "Daddy Survivor" in which a dad would be dropped on island with their kids and have to take care of all the household responsibilities. When I got that email, I immediately forwarded it to RC and said, "Thanks for all that you do." Our division of labor really is pretty even in the house. This is not to say that we don't score-keep all the things that we are responsible for. That's just in the heat of the moment. I think when we really think about our household, there is so much that the other person deals with. When we got pregnant again, it further reinforced our Team. A Brand New Colony.

2009-2010 This is the year that we became friends. Really good friends. I don't know what else to say but I think now more than ever, we really enjoy each other's company. This is not to say that he doesn't make me crazy and vice versa. I think many people think that we are on the verge of separation the way we fight but they don't know that that we make each other laugh a lot, that we discuss current events when we are sit down to dinner, that we share books with each other, that we glow when we look at our kids play and at the end of the almost everyday, we hold hands in bed to fall asleep.

We fight and when we fight it's a tough go. I always thought people who said it just gets better the longer you're married were sentimental and slightly crazy. But five years later, I am even happier that I married him than our wedding day.

WWGS?

2010-07-07T06:20:00.001-07:00

What do you do when some one you thought was a friend doesn't consider you a friend?

Recently, I found out that I wasn't invited to someone's wedding. I told myself that I probably wouldn't get the invitation, but when I found out that a more distant acquaintance was invited but I wasn't, I felt (and continue to feel) hurt.

I am not an easy person to live with. I have learned this fact and I have accepted it. As I get older, the more cantankerous parts of who I am just get more irritable. When I was growing up, I was always known as the black sheep of the family. My brother and sister were lively and charming; I was brooding and dramatic.

In high school, I had two best friends and some how that sustained me and I didn't care about what other people thought of me. They were always honest about their feelings about me and didn't hestitate to tell me when I was screwing up.

In college, I raged. I pissed off everyone at some point and hurt the people that were the nicest to me. Today, I recognize that but today is too late to make amends for things I did 15 years ago. I was so manipulative, self-serving, and of course dramatic. Some how, those two friends that I had in high school still remained my friends (probably because they didn't live near me) and I managed to acquire some other friendships along the way. Why those girls forgave me, I don't know but I am grateful for their open hearts.

Then came my 20s. You would think the adolescent idiocy would have ended in college but it didn't. By my mid-20s, no one wanted to live with me and I had to move back to my parents' house. I started to notice that people would talk about events that I wasn't invited to. Was it that they forgot to invite me or is it because they didn't want to deal with the drama that comes with having me around? It made me feel bad but I tried really hard not to let it bother me. But it did. I understood why they weren't inviting me and it made me hate myself that much more.
What ended up happening is I became even more self-concious than I was before and even further socially akward. Making friends became harder and harder. This past Diwali, I was at a friends' house for a party and after making small talk with the aquaintances there, I had a full-blown panic attack because of the anxiety involved in talking to people and trying too hard to make them like me. I had to leave the party in hysterical tears because I couldn't calm myself down. Very embarrassing and guess what? It made me more anxious.

So here we are today. I am once again left out of the group because of who I am. What my personality was and is. I have tried to make amends with people that I have hurt. I try not to be so dramatic when I talk. I try to avoid controversial subjects that make people feel bad. I am trying not to be such a selfish girl. When someone tells me I am doing wrong, I do try to change it but I guess I should try harder. Despite these efforts, I am still a person that people just don't like. This kind of rejection makes the work that I do to overcome my self-loathing really difficult and the only person to blame is me. It's not them. It can't be. The world is made up a variety of people.

So. What Would Greenberg Say? Greenberg is my therapist and he has done wonders to make me feel better about everything. He would say, "So what if this one person doesn't like you? Take a look around and see the people in your life that DON'T reject you. People like RC, whom everybody loves. People like your best friends (yup, from high school) who despite your differences, still care for you. People like your family who have put up with your BS for your whole life long but will still come through for your when you say, 'help'. These are the people that you should worry about."

It's hard to ignore the opinions of the people that reject you. It's easy to look in the mirror and see no worth. Fighting against every natural instinct that I have, I am going to try to not let this get me down. I just wish I knew what I did wrong this time.

Home

2010-06-28T18:40:00.000-07:00

First, a clarification on the previous post: while I enjoy the anonymity of writing to no one in particular, I do love getting feedback and reading comments! Thanks Nina for hanging in there with me. And if you're lurking around, please do say hi once in a while.

Today I bought a home. For the first time in my 31 years, there is a piece of paper with my name on it that says that I own this piece of property. Technically, I owned our condo too but RC bought it before he met me so I wasn't on the deed. It never bothered me so we didn't change it.

My sister moved to Dallas today. The last time we were seperated by this many miles was exactly 10 years ago when I moved to Dallas in August, 2000.

Ten years.

I hate to be all trite and nostalgic about this big moment in my life, but it's hard not to when it's wrapped up in a pretty little package like a decade. I'll try to limit this in the future but today was a big day for me so give me this.

When I packed up my life ten years ago, I was 21 and had just graduated college. I was in a quasi-relationship that ended first real love and every thing it came into contact with after that. I decided to leave Chicago (and him) to try to get a new start on every thing. Many people thought I was moving to be closer to some one who lived in Dallas at the time, but we were barely speaking after the drama (it was always drama in those days) of the previous summer. I enrolled myself into paralegal school, transferred my waitressing gig to Maggiano's Dallas, packed up all my stuff into my Nissan Sentra and left with my dad for Dallas.

Did you catch that last part? All my stuff in a Nissan Sentra. Everything that I could lay a claim to in this world and some stuff that I really couldn't, fit in a subcompact car plus with enough room for my father. I had no money in my bank and an income that relied on how much a smiled at people. I was responsible for only myself and I barely did that right. This was only ten years ago.

When I think about that - it's difficult for me to comprehend that was me. Today, I walked into my house in one of the most affluent neighborhoods in the Chicago area, with my two sons and felt perfectly at ease at who I am. I am responsible for those two boys and some how, they have managed to make it this far. I can't even fit the two boys plus their double stroller in my Sentra. If 21 y/o me was watching this whole thing, she would be feeling one of the following things

a. happy that my life seemed so normal
b. disgusted that my life seemed so normal
c. surprised that my life seemed so normal

Normal. It's normal. Life is normal. I never thought I would get this far. I used to live by the quote ". . .live fast, die young, and leave a beautiful corpse" but that's not what's happening here, is it? That's not where my life is going. My life, as boring as it might seem to other people, will go on and I will enjoy it.

Whoda' thunk it?

absence

2010-06-21T20:23:00.000-07:00

No one reads this blog anymore . . .and I'm okay with that. My last post was almost one year ago. I am not apologizing. My life has been blissfully busy with my satisfying career, my husband who challenges and dotes on my all at once, and my sons. Q and QT are growing up so fast and I have just been trying to soak it all in.

But something has always been missing.

I fancy myself a writer. I like to put my thoughts down on paper, er, screen. I have kept journals since I was 10 and until recently, most of my life has been documented by some sort of reflection by me. Recently, you know, when my life got really good? So much of what I used to write about was about my fears, anxiety, and depression. I just don't feel that anymore so it came to feel like, "what do I write about now?" So I stopped.

But it feels blank. Like parts of my life are missing all because I didn't jot down my quick notes.

I have a lot to say. I am one of the most opinionated people I know. I need to say some things so that I cant stop annoying those around me with my feigned sense of authority about nonsense. So, I am reclaiming this blog as my sounding board. Maybe I won't get around to saying something again for a few more months but I am hoping to come back regularly. The fact that I think no one is actually reading makes this even more liberating.

And that's a strange feeling, right? I want this to be public but I want some anonymity too? I can't explain it.

Well, that's all I have to say for now.

Milk

2009-08-18T19:16:00.000-07:00

If isn't already obvious, let me be very clear, Rishi makes my world go around. When I think about him, tears well up in my eyes. Some times when I hold him, I have to restrain myself from squeezing him until he can't breathe. Other times he does some thing new and I think that my heart might actually explode.

Motherhood has been very good to me.

I found a clarity in my thinking throughout my entire pregnancy with Rishi. I was able to freely admit my flaws and am trying to take ownership for my failures. I don't know what it was about having his little person inside of me but each swift kick calmed me further.

When he was born, I was convinced that I was going to have horrible post-partum depression considering my previous history with it. I even paid out of pocket $300/hr to see a psychiatrist who specializes in maternal issues (I only went once). She told me that she highly recommended that I get on meds the last few weeks of my pregnancy and stay on them. My psychiatrist felt the same way but he didn't push it as hard because he knew how much I hated taking them. I decided not to and take my chances.

I was lucky to have a fabulous husband, sister, best-friend, and most importantly, a mother-in-law who held my hand for a whole month after Rishi was born. I was convinced that once all these people left, I would be surely in for the blow that I had been dodging. But instead, I felt calm. Sure - there were moments that I thought I was losing my sh*t but overall, the feeling was calm. All the methods of self-medication I had used in the past couldn't dare compete with this high.

I have been getting a little frustrated and worried about Rishi's cognitive development. He wasn't showing signs of receptive language and I was thinking about maybe getting an Early Intervention Team to take a look at him by 15 months. We have been trying to teach him sign language since he was six months old. Now, I know all the books say that most babies don't start signing until they are a year but I thought that if we started him early, then he would surely catch on. He wasn't. I would make the sign for milk every time I gave him his bottle but he would just laugh and grab the bottle from me. Then, today at lunch my friend was giving her son a bottle of milk and Rishi sat in his high chair staring right at them making the signs. Absolutely amazing.

Not only has he pushed aside my decades long battle with depression, he makes me a better person by teaching me valuable life lessons like patience.

And he's not even 13 months yet.

The First Day of School

2009-08-16T07:49:00.000-07:00

This is a post that I put on my class blog

~*~

I'll admit it - I am a school-junkie. I am a teacher after all. There is a reason that I chose this profession. My fascination with schools started in kindergarten - I loved erasing the chalkboard. My fascination with all things school has continued for the past 26 years (I still love erasing chalkboards).

I joke that I will never stop going to school. My husband thinks that this is an expensive habit.

The first day of school is always an exciting time of year for me. The first day . . .the opportunities . . .the chances for failure . . .it is all waiting on the other side. Most women love splurging on fancy shoes or clothes. Me? I get dizzy when I walk into an OfficeMax. Shopping for school supplies gets me so excited. I used to love coming home and looking at the empty pages in my notebooks and wondering about all the ideas and information that would fill up those pages in a few short months. I loved the smell of new textbooks or looking at the list of names on the inside cover of the people that had the book before me. It was a club - a small group of people that had shared in the experience of possessing Biology textbook 7877383 for one year. I would think about what I was going to wear for a week. What kind of impression did I want to make? It was the first day! You can't take back first impressions. I still remember what I wore on the first day of freshman year. I wore a cotton salwar chameez (a traditional Indian outfit) to school. That made an impression.

As a teacher, I still get excited about the first day. I spent all of last week in my classroom: putting things away, cleaning up the dust, thinking about the students that would soon fill those empty seats. I have really enjoyed the opportunity to get to know some of you through the summer assignments. But putting a face to the name - that's exciting. I still get butterflies in my stomach every time one period ends and another new group of students walk into my classroom. It's those same opportunities, the same desire to make a good impression, as I had when I was on the other side of the desk. "Will my students trust me?" "Will they think I am fair?" "Will I be judgmental with my students?" "How can I give them the respect they deserve?" "Will they do their homework?" "How will I get the respect I deserve?" "How can I make this a rich learning experience?" "What do I wear???"

In seven days, I will know all of your names and faces. The first week of school will be over and we will hit our stride and break into our routines of "school-dom". But until then, I am going to just relish these moments of anticipation, chance, and hope.

Nice to Meet You

2009-08-07T07:30:00.000-07:00

I realized that I haven't updated in months. This little one is only pre-natally 18 weeks old and already missing out on some of the things that I did for Rishi. I am going to try. . .

Week: 18
Weight: 124
Belly:
Next appointment: August 19 (the 20-week Level II ultrasound)

Almost 1/2 way already? That went by so fast!

Let's talk about some of the things that have been going on with this pregnancy. First, many people have asked if it was planned. RC and I have always thought that we only wanted one biological child. After Rishi was born and seeing that post-partum wasn't as awful as everyone said it was going to be (quite the opposite really), we thought one more would be fun. We didn't want to wait too long because in case I couldn't get pregnant again, we wanted to start the ball rolling in the adoption process quickly. I thought we could start trying again in the summer and have another summer baby. But we've accelerated the schedule by 6 months and that's just fine with us.

Another thing that everyone has been asking is if I hope it's a boy or a girl. We have six nephews and one son. I know the aunts and grandparents really want a girl, but from the get go, I thought it would be fun to have a boy. With Rishi, I always had dreams that he was a boy. I have had many dreams that QT is a boy too - with a few girl dreams here and there. Will I be excited if it's a girl - of course! Will I be thrilled if it's a boy - certainly! The only thing that I am hoping for is a smooth pregnancy experience, 1 trip to L&D, and a healthy baby in the end. Boy or girl - this baby is a gift just like Rishi.

Already this pregnancy is much more smooth than #1 in many ways. The morning (all-day) sickness is not bad. Rishi is a good distraction from all the fatigue that comes with first trimester. I also know what's what when it comes to the aches, pains, and other weirdness that happens with pregnancy so I don't feel like I have to bother Didi or my OB every two seconds. Also, I have transferred my care to a different OB and she isn't as worried about the fibroids or ITP that were such a source of concern with #1.

We have opted NOT to get genetic testing done this time. With #1, I was really torn up about getting genetic testing done. It made me very uncomfortable. RC and I both decided that no matter what the tests would say, we would still love and care for this baby. We are delivering at Prentice Hospital with a great NICU staff so if something is wrong with this baby, then s/he will have the best people with great resources. I would rather just tra-la-la through this pregnancy than to sit up at night thinking about what is waiting for me at the end of the gestation.

One thing that really surprised me with this pregnancy vs. #1 was the horrible moods that I have been. Those who follow the blog know that I have had depression since I was young but I was the complete opposite of depressed at the end of my pregnancy and post-partum. Even when I was back to work and still nursing twice at night, instead of looking at it as a chore, I relished one more moment with Rishi. For the past few months, the exhaustion and hormones have made my emptiness come back in a hurry. At the end of the day, I often lay in bed at night finding no joy in anything in my life. Then, Rishi's smile fills my mind and I feel guilty for feeling that way which just ends in this horrible spiral of thoughts. I am not sure how to get over this in a healthy and productive way but I am trying. RC has been a champ through all of this. I know that I have taken my frustration out on him repeatedly but he has mananged to still keep loving me and hugging me when I am at my craziest. How he does this - I do not know. But as Che always tells me, "Fake it unti you make it." And that's what I have been trying to do.

I have felt terrbily guilty for blaming this baby for my moods and then - a shift last night. RC was out with some friends and I couldn't sleep. I was feeling in one of my more vacant moods. Black. I started to think about QT and his names. We have decided to keep names a secret this time (Side Note: if someone tells you a name that they are thinking about naming their baby, the only good response is "that's a nice name." the parent-to-be doesn't want to hear about how you knew someone named that and they broke your college roommate's heart.), but like last time, we have managed to find a girl name right away and are again stuck on boy names. I dreamily thought of what I would call this potential little-man and then for the first time, a swift kick right where my hand was laying on my stomach. I continued thinking and then a few more kicks. Was QT saying that he's a boy after all? I am not sure, but the blackness that was filling my body became bright again. I smiled genuinely for the first time in a week probably.

Can't wait to meet you little QT. We're going to have a blast.

5 months!

2008-12-28T08:54:00.000-08:00

Amazing how big he got so fast. Our friends brought over their 5-week old baby the other day and I was amazed at how teeny tiny she was. Also funny is the fact that my strange fear of newborns returned.

These days Rishi can sit up for upto 15 seconds at a time. He still doesn't roll often but I know that we need to be giving him more tummy time. I know you're not supposed to compare kids but my friend's nephew is rolling both ways and I got nervous/envious. Didi (who is a mother to four and a pediatrician) says there is nothing to worry about but that's what first time moms do, right? He is still just a happy, wonderful, and cuddly little monkey.

Here's a new video.

Rolling rolling rolling

2008-11-23T13:59:00.000-08:00

"Life moves pretty fast.

2008-11-16T18:22:00.000-08:00

If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it."

Ah, Ferris. The wisdom that you had at such a young age. I wish I could heed your advice these days but with all that life brings, I want to savor it all! Birthdays, brunches, dinners, and drinks - rLife has been full these past few weeks.

All the while, a little man has been doing a lot of growing. He's 15+ lbs now and 24 inches. Hard to believe at this time last year he was no bigger than a sesame seed. He had four more immunization shots and he was so sad. I think it was harder on me this time than the last. Probably because I had to go to work the next day and not know if he was doing alright. But he was. His Papa takes such good care of him. The next two weeks will continue to be busy but here's a video from last month. It is so amazing how he changes so quickly.

I am going to try to knit him a hat for his bald little noggin. And we're trying to get rid of the swaddle at night. I think we are in for some long nights ahead. Fortunately, I am getting used to making it on very litte sleep.

3 months

2008-11-09T16:31:00.000-08:00

Rishi has been so busy in the past few weeks that we've been having a hard time keeping up with him! He took his first long car trip (to visit Mom in OH) and then to NYC to surprise his Jishamma. He was a perfect little Banzo Bean throughout the whole trip. He and I watched the election returns come in together. It is amazing to know that he will never know a time that a President had to be Caucasian. His new tricks include rolling over (he only did it a few times on one night but we're hoping that he keeps going), grabbing for things (especially his toes) and laughing. We're going to go see Dr. H on Tuesday for some more shots but I am sure he'll be a brave little soldier just like last time. =)

Here's a video from his 3 month birthday.

2 month upate

2008-10-08T09:57:00.000-07:00

Rishi is tracking and smiles too!

2008-09-12T09:53:00.000-07:00

My Talented Chechi

2008-09-01T09:47:00.001-07:00

drew this for us!

He is five weeks already!

2008-08-31T08:09:00.000-07:00

I can't believe that my little guy is already five weeks old. This week (Tuesday) we celebrated his one month birthday. His Dadima (Mom) and Amamma (Amma) were both here to kiss him on his big day. Unfortunately, after one month away from home, Mom had to head back to Ohio. She was such a huge help for the past four weeks that I was a little nervous to have her leave. Fortunately, my mother was around to help me out. She doesn't have nearly the amount of babysitting experience that mom has but she was also a huge help. It was also really great to see Rishi bond with her. He flashed her a HUGE smile on Friday before we headed back to the suburbs. We aren't exactly sure if that was a smile or gas but we're counting it as a smile. Anyway, this week is the first one that I will be on my own entirely during the day. Yowza! Yes, I am very, very nervous that somehow I am going to break the little one but I am sure it's just more unncessary worrying.

Speaking of which, before I had the baby, I was very nervous about post-partum depression but I have to say (knock on wood) I haven't felt any of that since he was born. I am not sure if it is just because I have had so much help and haven't felt overwhelmed since he was born (other than the breastfeeding saga), or just because motherhood feels so good because he's so sweet, but things are going really well. My friend told me that maybe I just needed to have a baby all these years. Maybe he's right. Since I got pregnant with Rishi, my emotions have been so much more even. And he's just so great. Easy-going and cuddly. What more could a new mom ask for? Well, I guess some more consistency with the feeding would be great but we'll just have to keep at it.

We will be moving into a house in two weeks (September 14) so our apartment is the the throes of transition. We have met with three real estate agents and have picked the Mario Greco Group. He walked in with brown leather sandals (man-dals as my students would call them) and seemed really unassuming. Then after my quick tour through the house, he sat down and started his sales pitch. He went from normal guy to fast-talking Ari-Gold-esque (no use of the f-bomb) sales guy. We liked him though. His presentation was by FAR the most professional of the three that we saw and since we called to tell his office that we were using him, they have been in regular contact with us to set things in motion. I am very impressed with them so far. We are hoping to list on September 29 so wish us luck!

Packing with an infant around has been a challenge, especially when recovering from a c-section. We have some stuff moved over there already but the majority will be done by movers since I still can't lift much without pain. We are also doing some remodeling to the place before we move in. We hvae to get the cabinets raised three inches to accomdate RC's culinary needs, the floors on the main level need to be re-done, the carpets in the upstairs has to be replaced, and I really want to get the basement and the upstairs painted before we move in. We are also buying a new modular sectional for the basement.

One thing that we will not be lacking in this new place (at least initially) is space. I am really looking forward to having people over again. I feel like with last year's travel schedule, this winter's, uh, pregnancy, and this summer's, uh, pregnancy still and move we haven't had the opportunity/will power to entertain nearly as much as we used to. I hope the new home will be a place that people will feel comfortable just dropping by like they used to. Though as our family has grown, so have our friends' families and the ol' college-drop-by now involves diaper bags and some serious planning.

Wow. What a random post. This is what sleep-deprivation does, I suppose.

Over heard at the Roti House

2008-08-26T07:44:00.000-07:00

A conversation between Didi and Roti #2 (age 6)

Roti #2: Is Mamiji's [mine] milk for Rishi full fat?

Didi: Yes because the baby needs all the fat for his brain to grow properly.

Roti #2: So the farmer doesn't take ANY fat out of his milk?

For those who need some animation. . .

2008-08-03T15:11:00.000-07:00

Didi and Jijaji bought us a zippy Canon HD camcorder. We have been playing around with it here and there but haven't worked on a complete project. Well, here is the five-minute project of Rishi's first week celebration. I know many of you from around the country/globe won't be able to see Rishi in these first few weeks so hopefully this will do!

Brutus continues to ward off Wolverines

2008-08-03T13:24:00.001-07:00

rishi strobist-114
Originally uploaded by snapshot chandra

more piks after the jump.

24 Hours with Rishi - July 31

2008-08-02T13:03:00.000-07:00

12 am - 1 oz pumped milk
2:45 - 1.25 pumped milk
3:50 - wet diaper
4:20 - 1 oz pumped milk
6:45 - wet diaper
6:50 - 1 oz pumped
8:05 - Nursed for 15 minutes
8:20 - Nursed for 15 minutes
11:25 - diaper change
11:30 - 1 oz pumped
12:45 pm - 1 oz pumped
2:00 - wet and soiled diaper
2:30 - soiled diaper
3:00 - Nursed for 20 minutes
5:30 - Jim Uncle comes to hang out with Rishi
6:00 - 1 oz pumped
6:10 - Chechiamma comes to cuddle with Rishi
6:45 - Melissamma arrives to play
8:05 - Nursed for 45 minutes!!!
9:00 - wet and soiled diaper
9:30 - Chechiamma says bye
10:25 - Mel and Jim leave
10:30 - 1.5 oz pumped

He's so cute, I just want to take him home!!

2008-07-28T17:56:00.000-07:00

Thursday night, July 24, I went for a haircut and strolled over to my friends' house to hang out before heading over to Didi's place for some QT with the Rotis. The older Rotis had mentioned that things were going to change dramatically when the baby came so they wanted some Mamu/Mami-love before that happened. We were happy to oblige. When I left their house that night at 11:30, I was convinced that I still was not going to be holding a baby until the following weekend.

Boy was I wrong!

I woke up on Friday morning feeling like (forgive the TMI) that I had peed but I knew I hadn't. I just thought it was one of those late-in-the-pregnancy things so I told myself I would just talk to my doctor about it during my 10 am appointment that day. I was NOT going to call her and make my 5th trip to Labor and Delivery to be sent home again. As I walked out of my apartment that morning, I locked the door thinking, "Wow. The next time I open this door, I might be a mom already!"

I went to the appointment and my doctor indeed confirmed that my water had ruptured (but not fully broke) and she told me that I needed to be admitted to the hospital to be induced. I walked to my sister's office to tell her that I wouldn't be needing her help with an Excel spreadsheet but I would need her help to push and she just started jumping up and down. Usually, it's the other way around but this time, I was the calm one and she couldn't stop squirming. Then we walked over to Didi's office (all on the NMH campus) and told her. Her reaction was priceless - she was just in complete disbelief. My sister accompanied me to the Women's Hospital and we checked in at around noon.

The induction started at 3 pm. No internal exam was conducted because they didn't want to introduce anything to the birth canal until we were sure of active labor. My blood was collected to check my platelets but the blood got lost in the tube system so at 4 they had to draw blood again. We didn't get the results of the second platelet check until later that evening. We were all holding our breath to see if I could get an epidural. Well, I wasn't holding my breath. I was breathing pretty heavy as the contractions started to come in harder. We were also trying to wait for Mom to arrive but she didn't arrive until 7 pm. I finally got the epidural around 8 pm and the doctor said that nothing was going to happen until 3 am at the earliest. We decided now would be the time to sleep but the challenge was getting all the women (Mom, Amma, Didi, and Che) to go home and get some sleep too. I think they wanted to camp out all night at the hospital but that just didn't make any sense. We asked our sweet nurse, Kristy, to be the bad guy and she got it done! Unfortunately, Mom and Amma just kept Didi up all night at home instead of at the hospital.

At 3 am, the doctor told us that the pushing would start soon so we got everyone back there. We pushed and pushed from 4:30 until about 7:45 am. It was hard but that epidural is truly a miracle - I hardly felt anything. Unfortunately, RRC's heartrate kept dropping during/after each contraction. The doctor was a little worried and so she suggested if it continued to happen a C-section might be the best option. I told her whatever was medically necessary to keep everyone safe was fine by us. But his heartrate continued to drop and then it was decided at 7:45 that we would for a C-section. Again, not an emergency. Then, all the sudden some one said the words, "We have a crash." Now, I am not in the medical field but I have watched enough episodes of House to know that is a bad thing. The peaceful L&D room was flooded with 10 medical professionals within a few minutes - to me it seemed chaotic but they all had their jobs and purpose. I was terrified that they were going to put me under general anesthesia and I yelled out to RC that I loved him as they wheeled me to the OR. I could hear the panic in his voice as he told me that he loved me back.

In the OR, I was further doped up which made me horribly ill on the table. It was disgusting because they have to strap you down and I ended up almost choking on the sickness in my throat. The urgency of activity in the room continued and with it, my anxiety continued to escalate. Rohit was scrubbed in and even though all I could see were his eyes, the fear was clear and I knew that he had been crying outside. They had me opened up in minutes and the doctor annouced, "It's a boy!!" We were relieved when we heard his scream. Rohit was unable to cut his cord because he was rushed to the NICU doctors but they delivered the good news that his APGAR scores were 8 & 9.

We headed to recovery and he was scrubbed and Rohit finally made it outside to tell everyone that both Rishi and I were okay. I was almost completely unconcious as I made my way up to the Mother/Baby floor. It took me most of the day to come out of my anesthesia fog. Fortunately, Brutus was there to keep an eye on Rishi (picture above).

We had loads of visitors at the hospital over the weekend and it was absolutely fabulous to see Rishi get showered with so much love from so many friends and family.

We came home on Tuesday and the ups and downs of the first week home have been interesting. Our first night at home was something out of a sitcom. We couldn't figure out how to console him or get him to sleep in his bassinet. We tried everything and at around 4 am, I just started to laugh because just how much we fit the stereotype. We have struggled with the awfulness of learning how to breastfeed. If you want details, email me and I'll be happy to share. Last night, I think RC finally got some sleep because we decided to use a bassinet that actually goes in the bed. It was a night without much screaming and that was a relief to everyone. Then today, Rishi had his first doctor's appointment. He has lost 6 oz of his birth weight so now we have to try to pack on that weight over the next seven days. Unfortunately, he is a sleeeeeepy baby and we have to wake him up for his feeding most times. But I determined to avoid formula.

Well, that's our week so far. I have been trying to return phone calls and emails when I can but the every two to three hour feeding schedule has me tied up quite a bit so apologize to all those that I haven't returned their contact. It will happen sometime, I promise! More pictures coming to RC's Flickr soon!

Our colony now has three!

2008-07-28T07:19:00.001-07:00

DSC_0060
Originally uploaded by snapshot chandra

more pictures after the jump.
We are doing well and expect to be heading back to uptown tomorrow morning! Can't wait to take Rishi Rajendran Chandra home tomorrow!
He's perfect!

In the past 39 weeks. . .

2008-07-21T10:59:00.000-07:00

With a week to go until our due date, I decided to compile a retrospective on the past few months.

Day that I thought I was preggo:
November 22 (Thanksgiving)

Day that it was confirmed by home test:
November 23

When we told our families:
November 25

First time we saw a heartbeat: December 5

Appointments since then:
OB appointments - 17
Hematology appointments - 6
Other - 2 (1-genetic counseling; 1-anesthesiology consult)
Blood draws - 22
Ultrasounds - 6

Trips to Labor and Delivery with no labor or delivery:
March 30
May 26
June 14
July 9

Approximate amount given to to NMH parking: $234

Platelet counts
Highest - 120,000 (December 5)
Lowest - 65,000 (sometime in April)

Cities visited (outside of IL):
St. Louis, MO
Atlanta, GA (RR)
Cincinnati, OH
Oxford, OH
Madison, WI
Kettle Moraine, WI (RC)
San Antonio, TX
Austin, TX

# of weddings attended: 2

Baby Showers:
May 10 in Ohio
June 21 in Chicago

Movies seen:
Enchanted (Theater)
Wall-E (Theater)
Becoming Jane (Apple TV rental)
Rescue Dawn (rental)
The Dark Knight (theater)
The Incredible Hulk (RC - theater)
Wanted (theater)
I Am Legend (library rental)
Charlie Wilson's War (library rental)
National Treasure: Book of Secrets (theater)
Juno (theater)
P.S. I Love You (RR - theater)
(there might be others but I can't remember anymore)

Gadgetry purchased:
Canon HD camcorder (gifted from Didi and Jijaji)
Catchlight
many many many SD cards
the Fiddy (50" LCD from Costco)
2 iPhones

Knitting projects completed:
hat
Anya's baby blanket (finally - it only took a year!)

Baby's movements felt by:
RR - early March (but I thought it was indigestion)
RC - March 13

Names considered:
Boy Names
Keshav (curly - Krishna)
Madhav (Krishna)
Udaya (sunrise)
Vinayak (Ganesh)
Rishi (sage)
Ayaan
Raman (god of love)

Girl Names
Alka (lock of curly hair)
Radha (Krishna's consort)
Satyavati (speaks the truth)
Savita (sun)
Saroj (lotus)
Revathi (star sign - wealth/prosperity)
Tara (star)
Suparna (lotus)

almost there!

2008-07-20T20:46:00.000-07:00

We decided take another pickture of Ranj and the baby this afternoon. I'm spelling it like that cuz it's fun.
She's at 38.5 weeks!
i think the lighting is probably at it's best now. I'm now on disc 3 of the strobist DVDs.

Random thoughts

2008-07-18T16:19:00.000-07:00

Week: 39
Weight: 150
Belly: 42
Next appointment: July 25

I went out to lunch with RC last Saturday. We have been eating out non-stop knowing that pretty soon, going out to restaurants maybe a difficult endeavor. The waitress at the restaurant asked me how I wanted my burger cooked. I replied, with a sigh,"Well to medium-well" but then I perked up because I realized one fantastic fact: in a matter of weeks, not months, I will be able to enjoy a medium-rare steak or sushi if I want to. And believe me, I want both of these things so badly, I am drooling just thinking of it. (cute picture, I know). These past few months really have flown by in a sense. I know I have done nothing but complain on this blog but it truly has been a roller-coaster of an experience. I started to re-read some of the posts from the beginning of the pregnancy and look at the belly pictures of when I finally started to show - how hilarious to think that I thought that was big! There were days when I couldn't stand to be pregnant for a second longer and other days where I couldn't believe my luck in having this opportunity. Now that I am at the end of it, which one do I agree with more? Uhh, both! The sacrifices that a woman has to make to create a life are many but the privilege that a woman is given by nature to create a life is tremendous.

Anyway, I had another doctor's appointment today. I officially crossed over the 150 mark which is now just amusing to me, that is, until I climb the stairs of my third-floor walk up. Dr. D said that everything seems to be just fine but that there is absolutely no progression as far as labor is concerned. The baby's head is down but not quite into position so I might try some dromedary drops as a way to help the baby move into the right position. I have been watching a Baby's Story on TLC and one of the mid-wives recommended it. I have been having some Braxton-Hicks contractions but nothing serious. She asked me if there was a particular place where I felt the most movement and I had to laugh. RC has always said this baby is going to be a soccer player but I think it might grow up to be a kick boxer the way he moves around. He clearly doesn't feel restricted by his tight surroundings. She is predicting that the baby will move into position closer to the due date and that will finally begin the fun of contractions. I am hoping that the baby arrives closer to August 1. I don't know why - I just think that August is a good month to be born in.

My friend, Jim, came over for a little tandoori bbq yesterday and he helped me assemble the bassinet. It was actually Roti #1's bassinet so it's about nine years old. I threw all the washable parts in the machine but then couldn't figure out for the life of me how to put it back. Together, Jim and I, wreslted with this impossible contraption until after a good half-hour it all clicked and snapped into place. Leave it to baby stuff to make a person feel totally dumb. Tonight, we are getting together with the Crew for dinner and are going to have Chandy install their old infant seats in our cars. I can't believe little Ava is already 10 months old and out-grown her seats. We are very lucky to have so many friends with baby stuff that they don't mind passing down to us. The Guptas just dropped off their crib to us today. Our apartment is starting to take on a whole different shape and decor. It's hard to avoid allthe baby stuff that has infiltrated our space. The second bedroom is definitely Rishi's room already. I am trying to imagine what it will be like when there is an actual human filling up all of these spaces and clothes but it's hard when you can't picture them yet.

Gosh - but in just two more weeks. . . Wo!

All Star Shower

2008-07-10T19:12:00.001-07:00

All Star Shower
Originally uploaded by snapshot chandra

Finally posted from pictures from Ranjana's baby shower. It was a ton of fun from what I can tell from the pictures. click to go to flickr

Pre-partum Anxiety about Post-Partum Depression

2008-07-05T17:26:00.000-07:00

Week: 38

Weight: 149

Next appointment: July 19

For those who don't know me, I have struggled with depression on and off since I was 8 years old. It was the worst when I was 16, 20, and 25. Two years ago, my sister, RC, and I participated in an event called The Overnight which is a fundraiser for the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention. This event along with finding a psychiatrist who has given me tools such as guided imagery and breathing techniques has really changed the way I approach my anxiety and depression. I haven't taken any medication in almost two years and haven't really had a funky mood since last June. The anxiety is still there but so much more manageable that in years past. I think most importantly, it made me realize that mental health is something that has so much stigma associated with it and is never discussed. Since the walk, I have tried to be more vocal about what depression is for me and why it should not make you think any different of me. I think that step has been the biggest contributor to my mental wellness - acceptance of the disorder and a willingness to seek help.

The pregnancy has done some strange things to my mood. Many women have commented that they became irrational and highly emotional when they were pregnant. I kind of went the other way. My sister has even commented at how relaxed and laid back I seem, and if my sister is saying something positive about me - you know its true (little sisters - you know what I am talking about). I have had a few breakdowns and certainly my hypochondriasis has taken hold throughout the pregnancy, but overall, I think I reacted to most things with a much more level head that in years past. I am not sure what has contributed to this: my age - perhaps; my breathing techniques - yah; my abstinence from alcohol (it is a depressant after all); or maybe it is just the realization that there are things that I can change and things that I have to just accept. How does that quote go? "God, grant me the courage to change the things I can and the serenity to accept the things I cannot change and the wisdom to know the difference." Pregnancy has been an exercise in losing total control over my body. At times, I am so frustrated by it and will likely never do it again but at the same time, in the past I used to get so worked up over medical issues. Now, my attitude has been more of it will resolve itself in due time.

Well, that is - until recently.

The anxiety regarding the birth of the baby is increasing. Throughout the pregnancy, I have worried that something that I did or ate (or didn't eat) is going to mess up my child. Until now, I consoled myself by telling myself that no matter what the baby looked like or cognitive issues that they had, I would love it regardless. This, of course, has not changed. What has changed is my feeling of guilt. I tried to explain this to RC but he said that I was being ridiculous but I think other moms know what I am saying. For nine months, you carry this baby around and you are their only source of protection and sustenance. While my ultrasounds have revealed no abnormalities, things like autism don't show up on a prenatal test. I know, there is no known cause for autism yet so I can't blame myself even if the child DOES have it but what if something I did made him predisposed to it? RC says that we'll just have to wait and see but in the meantime, I can't help but remember that I forgot to take my prenatals half of the time, I never ate my omega-3 pills, and I have had several half-beers on numerous occasions since the middle of 2nd trimester. And I dyed my hair! My vanity over my kid. Surely, nature will have its way of punishing me for that!

A friend recently told me that having a baby really changes your marriage. I thought that this was obvious but then he went on: you and your spouse are married and are living a life. You have ups and downs but you work through them together. Then, after you have a baby, it's like an asshole, drunk roommate moves in to your house. He poops and vomits everywhere, you have constantly pick up after him, and he doesn't have a job so you have to support him! It starts to take a toll on a marriage. I worry if our marriage can handle Dupree from hell.

I am also very nervous about post-partum depression. My diagnosis of MDD makes me predisposed to post-partum depression. I have talked to a few of my friends who are moms and they told me about their experiences with it and it makes me so anxious. These are well-adjusted, normally healthy women - if they were feeling that bad, what is going to be like for me? Throughout the pregnancy, I have been constantly asking RC if he thinks that I should go back into therapy. I have monitored my moods so carefully but now I feel like they are getting out of control again. And because of that I have decided to go back to Dr. G starting Tuesday to make sure that I don't relapse. I have also made decisions about what I should expect from me after the baby is born. I think one of my biggest problems is that I set extremely high expectations for my behavior and then become upset when I can't achieve those expectations. I punish myself for "disappointing others." For example, we are so lucky because there will be a lot of people in our lives that will want to meet Q right away. Normally, I would try two options: 1). push myself to be social when I am screaming on the inside or 2). withdraw entirely and piss off everyone. What I am realizing is that there is a middle ground and I have to find it. Q. is lucky to have so many people wish us well and I don't want to deny him of their love and affection. At the same time, I don't have to try to play hostess to the guests if I am a mental mess. People will understand and if they don't, I will just have to try to apologize to them when I am normal again.

This is also another comforting realization: Many people who experience depression feel like it will never end; I know that it is finite. I guess it is the benefit of having depression for 20 years; you know it is temporary and you just have to get through it. So I am armed. This doesn't mean that I am ready but at least I have a plan.

The Last Suppers

2008-07-05T17:00:00.000-07:00

Week: 36
Weight: 148
Next appointment: July 8 (with my therapist)

The baby showers are done. The shopping is almost complete. Now it's just a waiting game. What has been really funny is all of our friends asking us out to dinner for one last meal as R-squared. It has been really fun catching up with friends that I haven't been able to see for sometime. This past week we met up with the Raghavans and this week we will hopefully catch up with the Abadies, Nair/Pillais, Nangia/Raos, and the Crew! I love it!

Meanwhile, RC has continued to kick booty in his Get Healthy Challenge. He's lost 9 lbs which puts our weight within 6 lbs of each other. Hee hee hee!! I have given up on denying myself my sweet tooth. Ice cream every night, bananas foster for dessert, Cinnabon from the mall - I am relishing this.

I Dream of Rishi

2008-06-10T17:40:00.000-07:00

Week: 32.5
Weight: 139
Belly: 40"
Next appointment: June 13

School ended officially on May 30 but because of my maternity leave, curriculum mapping, and a literacy workshop, I still haven't been able to sleep in.

The past few days have been particularly stressful because I am running this workshop for 19 teachers. I have been getting some decent feedback from the participants (mostly teachers from my high school) so that feels good. Something that I noticed that both my sister and I do is we *shred* our performances in our own minds when most everyone else thinks that we did an okay job. Perhaps this comes from years of critiques from Amma, Papa, and each other of various music and dance performances. There is always room to improve and we will always focus on that. I remember sitting in the car ride home after a show and we would dissect every part of our performances. It never felt like I was being broken down but it certainly didn't build me up either. It is something that I have struggled with as a teacher because I constantly have people in my class observing me. There have been post-observations when I am tearing up when I think of my performance when my observer thinks that I did great. I don't know why I have such a hard time being just satisfied with how things went. I guess this is what makes me a good teacher but sometimes I wish that I could just sit back and enjoy success instead of always criticizing myself.

Anyway, when I first got pregnant people would tell me that my dreams would become much more vivid. I have always had very vivid dreams so I wondered how much more they could be. So far I have had several dreams about the pregnancy and most of them seemed very real.

The first one that I had was back at the end of February before we took our Great Expectations - Labor and Delivery class. In the dream, I went into labor early and I had to deliver the baby. As I was checking in to the hospital, I realized that I had never signed up for the tour and I didn't know anything about what to do. Despite this initial panic, I was relatively calm. There weren't enough beds so they were delivering babies in the hallways! They put me in a room because of my high-risk status. One of my co-workers in the English Department was moonlighting in L&D as an OB. She told me that it would probably be a while. Meanwhile, RC was no where to be found but I wasn't looking for him either. I was perfectly content there by myself. I got bored laying around so I started to walk around. I found this cube-like elevator that you had to scrunch down to get into. I took it to the top of Prentiss (my hospital) and there was a small roller coaster through an outdoor park. I sat in the little cart (think: cart from Gringotts) in my backless gown and felt the cool wind in my face. After I got off the cart, I noticed that my oral surgeon, Dr. Schwarz was in the lobby. I then spent the next part of my dream trying to convince him that he should deliver my baby since I loved his care when he removed my sublingual cyst the year before. He didn't think it was a good idea.

Ya. Vivid.

Then after my Great Expectations class, I had another dream that I was in labor. I drove myself to the hospital since RC was at work. He joined me later but the baby (boy) came in the early morning. The doctor tried to wake up him up for the delivery but he was sleeping and said, "O - she's doing fine. I am not worried. She can handle it" and went back to sleep. The next day, when people were visiting, I was up and moving around. I remember thinking in the dream, "Wow, the recovery process for this delivery is a piece of cake!" Rishi was a BIG baby with tons of curly hair and a drooly smile. Again, very little anxiety associated with any of it.

A short time later, I had a dream that I was actually performing Ceseareans - in my bedroom. And I wasn't grossed out at all. This from the girl that had to watch the CGI video on C-section through my fingers.

I also had a dream that again the baby was born early but it was in stable condition. It was really small and bald with HUGE RC kind of eyes. It was also Caucasian. The baby wasn't noisy either. It was just laying there looking around and looking around, assessing everything. I tried to feed the baby and it hurt - A LOT.

As you know, we don't know the gender of our baby. As the day grows closer, this is becoming more and more a source of concern for me. I have always said that it really doesn't matter what I am going to have as long as it is healthy. We have six nephews so I think it would be fun if it is a boy because they could all play together - not to mention the hand-me-downs. But if it is a girl - well - Princess Q. would have everything she could ever want. In a dream I had last week, I went for an ultrasound and found out it was a boy. In the dream, I was so disappointed that we were having (another) boy in the family. I was really shocked my reaction in the dream because maybe I do care after all. But in all the dreams I have had, the baby is always a boy.

Finally, last night I had a dream that kind of disturbed me. We brought the baby home and the baby didn't want to feed initially. So I didn't feed it. Then I got so caught up with other stuff that I totally forgot to feed the baby entirely - for a full day! RC thought I was feeding it and he thought that I was was feeding it. When we finally realized it and I went to try to feed him, he was so mad at me and wouldn't even look at me. I had failed him as a mother and he didn't want to have anything to do with me anymore. I was so depressed.

So what do all of these things mean? I am not sure. I should ask my psychiatrist friend to analyze them. I think one thing that I am gleaning is that I really do think that I am carrying a boy. Also, I think when the time comes to deliver this baby, my subconcious thinks I have some inner strength that will kick in. And finally, I think RC is an absentee father. hee hee. No. I am just kidding. I have no idea what his role in all of these dreams are. What do you think?

Nine weeks and counting. . .

2008-05-29T19:01:00.000-07:00

Week: 31
Weight: 141
Belly: 39.5"
Next appointment: June 2

I just found out that one of my good friends is pregnant! I am so excited for their families. She is 14 weeks along and I had a nice long conversation with her about the highs and lows of pregnancy thus far. It made me realize that I haven't done one of these updates in a while. We have been better about taking pictures of the belly every two weeks but not so good about updating the blog. The last time I did one (February) I was 118 lbs, 8 inches smaller in the waist, and barely four months along. I don't even remember the 120s or 130s. My weight shot up pretty rapidly, to me anyway. Most people are telling me that I still don't look pregnant from the back but I hung out with Che yesterday and no one tells it to you like it is like a sister. She said my face is definitely more round as are my legs and bottom.

What I do find annoying are the men in my life telling me how HUGE I am. Just a word of advice gents, don't ever tell a woman that whether they are pregnant or not. It just isn't a great thing to hear. They try to back track by saying, "O please - you're still so small." Well, I don't feel that way and I don't need you pointing that out constantly. *You* try gaining 20 lbs. in three months and see how you feel after that!!

People also tell me that I am too vain - that I should be focused on the fact that all these nutrients are going to the baby and that's why I am gaining the weight. I should just enjoy this time in my life. As much as a control freak that I am, it is hard to hand over your body to someone else for a few months. Weight gain aside, you have absolutely no control over anything in your body. The baby is moving around constantly and I can't stop it. She (odd day remember??) wakes me up in the middle of the night with her swift kicks and punches. I still get dizzy spells in the morning that make it really hard to get things done sometimes. The sleepiness is sometimes overwhelming. And I know everyone goes through it but it doesn't make it any easier when it is happening to you.

Speaking of things happening to me - I had a fun trip to Labor & Delivery again yesterday. I wonder how many times I'll actually end up at L&D before I actually am in labor. If you remember, I was admitted at the end of March because I was having contractions because of a degenerating fibroid. This time, I had no contractions but I was having some bleeding so when I went to my doctor yesterday for an office visit, she got nervous because of my idiopathic thrombocytopenia (low platelets) and sent me to L&D. I was there from 3pm until 6pm and all I had done during that time was a CBC (blood draw), pelvic, and an ultrasound. Fortunately, Che was there to keep me company like a good Chechi so I wasn't too anxious or bored. All tests showed that Q was active, healthy, and in no mood to make an appearance on this side anytime soon.

Godh Bharai

2008-05-17T05:17:00.001-07:00

Godh Bharai-246
Originally uploaded by snapshot chandra

Mom threw Ranj her Godh Bharai last weekend in Chicago. I was wonderful to see so many of Mom and Dad's friends come out. We were showered with gifts for the baby.
Click on the picture to view a gallery of pics from the Godh Bharai.

Catchlight

2008-05-15T18:02:00.001-07:00

shootthrough catch light
Originally uploaded by snapshot chandra

My lightstands came in today. Together with an sb28dx strobe a shoot through umbrella, and a poverty wizard I was able to tool around and get some self-portraits in. This one was fun b/c of the very clear catchlight. Now that pretty much everything is here, the portraiture practice begins.

Happy Mom's Day!

2008-05-11T17:35:00.001-07:00

I hope that everyone has taken the time out today to recognize the woman in your life, (biological or otherwise), that is your mother. On this day, I am always reminded of the book "The Giving Tree" by Shel Silverstein. For those who are not familiar with it, it starts with the line, "Once there was a tree...and she loved a little boy." The apple tree provides the little boy shade, a place to play, protection, and most importantly, unconditional love. It is a sad book at times, but I look to it as a source of inspiration, reminding me that my own mother has given so much of herself to raise me and to appreciate her everyday. Now, I have also been blessed with a mother-in-law who would sacrifice herself to give me what I want and more importantly, what I need. I hope that I can provide Q with even half of the love that these two gorgeous women have given me.

Long time no blog

2008-05-05T18:45:00.000-07:00

I haven't been blogging recently mostly because there has been so much going on! In the past few weeks, we:

1. celebrated X's bday in Austin

2. took a trip to NMH's Labor and Delivery room. I was having mild contractions due to a degenerating uterine fibroid. It was holy pain but I am glad to have a little more room for Q to grow.

3. The pain pills they gave me made things worse because I can't take Norco or Vicodin. I spent two days in bed not eating anything because nothing would stay down. I got different pain meds (mmmm Darvocet) and started feeling better after a few days.

4. Met my sister's fiance's family. That was fun.

5. Started and finished our four week Great Expectations class. It was a class offered by NMH for patients to get acquainted with the hospital, learn about the different types of labor and delivery and some comfort measures. I have to say that prior to this class I was actually getting very comfortable with the idea of giving birth in any one of the multiple ways that it could go down. Well, that class made more anxious than before which I am sure was not it's intended purpose. Labor sounds really hard. The idea of doing it without an epidural sounds crazy. During the video about epidurals, one of the women talked about how it was really important for her to still feel her baby come out of her. I was thinking, "am I crazy for specifically NOT wanting that feeling?" After talking to some folks, I decided that it was not an abnormal sentiment. I watched the C-section video through cracks in my fingers becase even though it was mostly CGI, I was completely creeped out by the idea of the doctor taking their hands and moving my inerds around to yank the baby out. Creeps you out a little too, doesn't it? The last class was all about the post-partum fun. Wow. The fun doesn't end when you give birth. It keeps coming for weeks and weeks later. Well, I guess it's too late to turn back now and one day this baby will come out one way or another. I have three months to get comfortable with this idea.

6. Saw Roti #2 perform at the Best of the Best show at McCormick place. He did such a great job even though there were thousands of people in the audience. The show itself was fantastic. It puts the stuff that we were doing in college to shame. I was so impressed with these kids that clearly were raised in this country throwing down some straight up traditional bhangra/raas/garba. The costumes were bright, colorful and fun. The dancing was sick. Check out the videos if you don't believe me.

7. Went to see my Hem/Onc. Platelets down more. Bleh. Dr. Williams was, as always, really optimistic. She isn't worried yet which makes me relax more. She was a good find. When I went to my next OB appointment, Dr. D was not so optimistic. I have decided that when it comes to blood related issues, I am going to follow Dr. Williams' lead instead of my OB. I get to meet with an anesthesiologist before the delivery because of all this bloody drama (oh yea, pun totally intended). One more thing to settle my mind.

8. This past weekend was my BFF's bday party. Her hubby did a great job organizing a fabulous surprise weekend for her. I think she loved every minute of it. I know I enjoyed my part because it involved four very stressful (ha!) hours at Tricoci getting a massage, mani and pedi with the bday girl and six of our friends.

9. RC celebrated Roti #3 & 4s' bdays on Saturday back in Ohio. Three already!!

10. Yesterday, I boarded the plane to come to the Internatial Reading Association's annual convention in Atlanta. It is 25,000 teachers of reading coming together for four days of intensive conferences about how to improve literacy. Today started at 8:00 and I just got back to my room now (10 pm!). I am exhausted but exhiliarated by all the things that I am learning.

11. Meanwhile, yesterday RC went to the Cincinnati Hindu temple to conduct a pooja with his family in honor of his father's death anniversary. I spent the evening with Dad's younger brother and his family here in ATL.

12. I head back on Thursday and we turn around and head straight to Ohio on Friday after school for my Seemant Sanskar/Godh Bharna (Hindu baby shower) in Cincy.

Whew! We took another belly shot this week but I don't think RC has posted it yet. It's getting BIG. I can now see it when I look straight down. Weird.

So what can you do with $4.76

2008-05-01T10:33:00.001-07:00

No, that's not how much gas costs in chicago - although with the hebrew national, i must say, i'm not as familiar with gas prices. smirk.

So Ranj has really been craving her BaskinRobbins ice cream recently. Usually we have two flavors in the fridge b/c she thinks that the quarts of ice cream taste better than the stuff at the store. Last week, when we were at our local BR we saw a sticker for $.31 scoops on 4.30. I made a mental note and we went back there yesterday.
There was quite the line there and it was as exciting as BR gets. Four people scooping and one at the register. The donuts looked lonely. Initially, we had each planned to get a scoop and walk home. I saw somebody walk out with a sack of scoops so i had to ask if there was a limit.
"10."
We proceeded to buy 14 scoops! Ranj got some doubles of pistachio and strawberry cheesecake and I selected two individual scoops of everything chocolaty. We walked out happily holding our rocky road sugar cones and a sack of ice cream for the next couple of weeks.
And you can prolly guess the total.

Air Guitar Hero

2008-04-24T18:58:00.000-07:00

Tonight was a beautiful night here in Chicago. It was warm, dark and drizzly. I decided to go for a walk to get to my 10,000 steps (more on that next week). I went out the back door and headed towards the lake with my ipod.
One of the reasons i like rem so much is that no matter how many times i listen to an album, i hear something new with almost each new listen be it thematic, lyrical or instrumental. Accelerate just came out earlier this month and i've listened to it many times but this was the first headphone, walk-in-the-rain, dark listen.
I felt like i was a 15 year old again walking around in a drizzle listening to his music so intently that the air guitar and air drums just flowed.
I made it to the lake and continued listening, singing aloud and doing my strange combination of air guitar, air drum and stipe dance. Long hair flapping the air and rain. It was wonderful. I shot some vid on my treo and added a track to help readers understand.
I returned from the lake listening to the pumpkins' siamese dream. I felt myself walking around like a 17 year old in college with all sorts of sticky sweet confidence... playing my six string electric in the air.

21 weeks @ alamo hdr

2008-04-22T18:11:00.001-07:00

21 weeks @ alamo hdr
Originally uploaded by snapshot chandra

The pic is a bit old but it's still fun. The baby will be a traveler if we can help it.

Leftover flowers from Vishu

2008-04-16T17:03:00.001-07:00

Leftover flowers from Vishu
Originally uploaded by snapshot chandra

I got home a bit early to let somebody to onto our condo property and i've been reading and playing with off camera lighting a bit. I had some time and didn't feel like doing something truly productive for this Wednesday so I set up shop in the dining room aka our project room. My current projects are off camera lighting and a macro or product box that I made based on instructions from strobist.com. more pics after the jump.

We Wish U a Happy Vishu!

2008-04-14T04:37:00.000-07:00

Happy Vishu!
It's early but here's some high dynamic range fun.
More on the celebration later - i'm still wiping the sleep from my eyes.

Spring is in the air!

2008-04-06T17:01:00.001-07:00

dead planters
Originally uploaded by snapshot chandra

Spring is so totally in the air in Chicago this weekend. On Friday at work, everybody was already talking about Saturday's forecast. True enough the forecast held and it was beautiful 65 and sunny. Nuthin but blue skies.
I took a walk midday to the library and toted along my 24mm f/2 that is finally back from repair. (Yes, 24mm f/2!)
Each spring, things start green. Each spring, I realize that we didn't quite put everything away the fall before. This year is no different and the plants that were in there died a slow cold death. I can't even remember what was in these planters - perhaps mint judging by the multiple sprouts.
Later that afternoon, i walked down Chicago's frat row - Sheffield - after the Cubs game let out. Everybody was out and about and lovin life while drinking cans of beer and playing bag toss (corn hole if you're from Iowa or Ohio).
I ended that second walk at the Cubby Bear to help celebrate our friend, Jim's 30th birthday. His wife, Mel, had set up quite the surprise having 20 friends show up to the Cubs game and prolly thirty to the bar to watch the final four. Happy Birthday Jim! Happy Spring to everyone else!

Everything is closed on Easter in Texas

2008-04-03T07:17:00.001-07:00

theater outside of fredrickstown hdr
Originally uploaded by snapshot chandra

There is a town 90 minutes away from San Antonio that I can best describe as Galena of Texas. It's a cute basically one street town that has many boutique and knick knack shops lined up on each side. There are cafes, ice cream parlors, bed and breakfasts and the like up and down the street making it look really quaint - especially compared to San Antonio and many of the suburban mainstreets popping up seemingly everywhere.
We, Ranj, our friend Meera, and myself, went there our second day in TX. This happened to be on Easter Sunday. On the way there, we looked for a cord for my ipod to play in our rental Cobalt. Target, Best Buy and others were closed for Easter - who knew?
We took out time and drove on to Fredricksburg/town taking in the hills and such. Just before we got into town, Meera and i spotted this old drive in movie lot and noted that it would be a cool place to take some pics. Nonetheless, we continued into town.
What we didn't realize was that even this town would be closed for Easter. All but about three shops were closed. We were bummed but out purses were happy.
To top it off, it happened to be a really cool and windy day and there wasn't even a cafe to step into to grab some coffee or hot chocolate. There we were walking around on a sunny but cold day lamenting that everything was closed on Easter Sunday in Texas.
Does this happen everywhere? In all of my years, i don't recall things being closed on Easter but I can't recall ever trying to anywhere on that day specifically.
After a a couple of hours tooling around, we went back to San Antonio and of course stopped by the drive in for some pics. This one was done on a tripod through a car dealership opened up wide and then some HDR and tonemapping.
More Texas pics in Flickr soon and after the jump.

X's Ninja Party begins!

2008-03-29T11:48:00.000-07:00

So we're in Austin preparing for X's 6th birthday party. He actually turned six a few days ago but birthday parties for younguns generally work better on weekends. He's excited.
The theme for the party is NINJA. It's not attached to a particular cartoon or disney character so it allows for more originality in the the party production.
Chetathi made a tray of brownies frosted it, sprinkled it, candled it, found some small ninja ornaments to put on.
The balloons have been blown up and stringed together. The chips are out. X and Bunzer are napping and the party begins in an hour....

Can't beat this. . .

2008-03-27T19:31:00.000-07:00

Major love from X & D on X's 6th bday. This Appachi was in heaven. So far, our trip to Texas has been a series of unplanned events. Most of the things that we have planned have not worked out but we are having blast anyway! More later.

Baby, I Got Your Back

2008-03-25T09:39:00.000-07:00

According to Elyse Rubenstein, a Philadelphia psychiatrist who counsels new mothers, the term refers to "an inborn tendency to want to protect and nurture one's offspring." Almost all mothers (human and animal alike) eventually come to feel this way after they have a child. (from BabyCenter.com).

It has been my experience that some women are born with this instinct to protect the young. I wasn't programmed that way. Don't get me wrong, if a kid is hurt, I will do my best to help it (unless it is bleeding - then I would just pass out). But I don't think my behavior would change dramatically if the injured person was 1 or 60; I would just help in the way that I could. Some people however, get really protective of young children. They are always watching out for it and making sure they don't get hurt. I always thought that I am too selfish this way and wondered if it would change once I became a mother. People kept telling me that it would but I wasn't so sure. When children cry for small injuries, I don't become sympathetic and tender - I get annoyed and want to tell them to suck it up. Che used to make fun of me for it because I was so cold with little kids. RC is much better at this which is why he was often asked to babysit and I never was. I remember the first time Didi asked me to watch Roti 2 on my own, I asked her, "Are you sure??" Then, when I babysat all four Rotis at once, I actually invited my friend who is a mom of two to come over because I didn't trust myself. Fortunately, no injuries occured on my watch so I am still allowed to play with them. =)

But then I became pregnant and nothing really changed. There is some book that I read that said that women become mothers when they get pregnant and men become fathers once they finally see their baby. I didn't notice any change in thinking so I began to wonder if I would ever feel this thing called maternal instinct. Well, then Revathi (odd days we are referring to it as a girl, even days we are trying out all the boy names) started to move around and I started to feel a little more connected to her. Then RC started to talk to her on a regular basis and that also started to make me feel more like a family but not quite maternal.

Then because of an event in my family, it clicked. I was being asked to leave her for a few hours with Mom to attend an event in the middle of August. Our due date is at the end of July so even if she was born two weeks early, that would make her only a month old. A few months ago, if I heard about this situation as an outsider, I would have thought, "What is the big deal? That mom is such a freak. It's only a few hours." In fact, I respected new mothers who would leave their kids after only a few weeks; thinking that they were not letting this motherhood thing cramp their style. But I couldn't commit to the event. I called Didi to see if I was overreacting. Since she is a pediatrician and a mom, I thought that she has heard of situations like this and would give me an honest answer. She told me that if a infant gets a fever in the first six weeks that the usual course of action would be hospitalization. Tears blurred my thoughts when I thought about Revathi in a hospital with tubes sticking out of her. I remember visiting Roti 3 in the hospital when he was five months and that was horrible to see. All the sudden, I felt it - the NEED to protect this baby from any danger out there. Also, I plan on breastfeeding and I thought, who else can feed this child if I am gone for a few hours? Newborns nurse every three hours or so. RC, Didi, or Mom can certainly provide outstanding care for her and will make sure she doesn't get sick, but I am the only one that can give her food. Perhaps it is my pregnancy hormones but let's be real - the post-partum ones won't make me any more rational. For that reason, I am making the decision now so that I won't feel guilty later. Even though making that decision has been agonizing, one good thing that has come out of it was that it has made me feel so close to this life inside of me.

I think I am finally ready for this motherhood thing.

O Baby!!

2008-03-18T17:20:00.000-07:00

Wow. In two days, Spring Break is here. Until then, I am living at school. On Thursday, the students are turning in this massive project that they have been working on for two weeks. Last year, I had the students work on the whole thing at once. Knowing that my freshmen couldn't handle that this year, I modified the lesson plans to make parts of the project homework. That meant that in order to complete the project, I had to grade and return all the components so that they can revise them. FOURTEEN components. 105 students. Loads of bad grammar. The good news: the students are turning in some incredible work product; the bad news: I have been buried under paper for two weeks. I will have to take most of this work with me when I head to Texas on Saturday but hopefully, since I have read most of it already, it will go quickly.

In other good news, the ACT test prep class I teach ends tonight. The bad news: I have to proctor their last practice exam until about 8:30. I really should just sleep on the couch that I have in my classroom.

Strange pregnancy cravings for sugar this week. I can't stop eating cotton candy, Starburst and drinking Sprite. I guess it's not really sugar as is a craving for high fructose corn syrup. So much for all those healthy cravings for fruit.

I haven't measured my belly in a long time but it sure it getting bigger. I forgot to blog about how I am finally feeling the baby move. It makes this whole thing way too real. I have had conflicted feelings towards pregnancy long before I was ever thinking about getting pregnant. When it finally happened, I was a little spooked, anxious, and grossed out. These feelings melted away in one moment.

I was laying in bed last Thursday not sleeping as usual because there is no such thing as a comfortable position anymore. Plus, Q was in one of her squirmier moods. Rohit was dozing comfortably. He had been trying to feel the baby move for about two weeks with no success. At around 2:30am, I pulled his hand to my belly. He still didn't stir. Then, one swift kick, eyes flew open, a broad grin, and a whisper, "Was that it?" In that moment, it suddenly didn't gross me out to think that there was a parasite sucking the life out of me. That moment, I was superhuman - or rather, exceptionally human - I was creating life. Dramatic, I know. It is obviously the way we all got here so there is very little that is exceptional about it except I have never done it before. Regardless, it changed my feelings towards this experience entirely. I am looking forward to all these other new, wonderful things that pregnancy has in store for me. Especially the big show in the end!

More later. I have to get these kiddos to finish up their Science Reasoning test.

Shamrock Shake is like melted ice cream!

2008-03-12T16:28:00.000-07:00

In other words, a McDonald's Shamrock Shake is heaven. Even the small (337g) is delicious and should be considered a meal substitute during this time the year. I, RC, just downed one in about ten minutes - pure delish!
Try one yourself and you'll have just consumed:

530 calories

77g sugar

13g fat (20% of the recommended daily intake)

340g sodium (14% of the recommended daily intake)

94g carbohydrates (31% of the recommended daily intake)

0 fibre

11 grams protein

35% of recommended daily calcium intake (thank golly for small favours)

--yah. That's a SMALL.

Dairy Mix	Modified milk ingredients, sugar, glucose, soy mono and diglycerides, guar gum, dextrose, artificial vanilla flavour, carrageenan, cellulose gum.
Triple Thick Shamrock Shake Syrup	Sugar/glucose-fructose, water, colour (beta carotene (containts sunflower oil), FD&C Blue #1), natural flavour (water, propylene glycol, vegetable gum, plant extractives, essential oils), sodium benzoate, citric acid, dimethylpolysiloxane (antifoaming agent).

courtesy the mcdonalds.ca nutritional calendar (http://www.mcdonalds.ca/en/food/calculator.aspx)

McDonald's disclaimer: "Percentage Daily values are based on a 2,000 Calorie diet. Your Daily
values may be higher or lower depending on your Calorie needs.

just hanging around

2008-03-08T12:52:00.001-08:00

cls fruit-1-Edit
Originally uploaded by snapshot chandra

RR took a nap after work yesterday before we went out to dinner for Papa's 62d birthday. While she was napping, I was snapping.
We went to the Blue Water Grill - yummy yummy yummy.

Curly's pic at 20 weeks

2008-03-06T17:28:00.000-08:00

As mentioned already in our non-live blogging below, we had a successful pulaski day that included getting to see Curly's organs, face, etc. Curly is a cutie though some of the face shots are a bit scary cuz they look like skeletor! Creepy fo shure!
My favorite part other than our moms' being there was when we were able to hear Curly's heartbeat with RR's substitute OB. The OB was great and Curly stepped up to the mic fluttering away!
20 weeks up 20 to go! I'm picking out my oven mitts!

RR vs. Mango

2008-03-05T18:10:00.000-08:00

Awhile back, I posted about RR's cravings. They really have only gotten easier to handle. I'm really really surprised. I thought if there was anyone that would want me to run out and get different types of food it'd be her. Nope, she's easy peasy that way.
So on the way back from the doctor's office last week, Amma, Mom, RR and I stopped by Stanley's fruit market on elston/north. That place is the best. A few days before we drove by it at some point and RR saw that it was selling mangoes for $.50 a pop. We grabbed a bunch of fruit for the week that i think i wrote about already.
Last night, RR attacked one of the mangoes. She eats them differently than most. She'll mush them up and squeeze out all of the fruit. In a way it's cleaner, and in a way it's a big mess.
I was tooling around with my 105 f/2.5 and love the shots.
RR loves her mangoes!

It's a. . .

2008-03-05T15:48:00.000-08:00

Yah, right! You didn't really think I was going to tell you, did you?? Despite our mother's best efforts, we were able to get through the entire 1-hour ultrasound without finding out the baby's gender. But the most important organs seem to be developing well so I am assuming those other ones are just fine. We were able to see several pictures of the babies heart, spine, bladder, stomach, kidneys, and brain. All seem to have appropriate development for the baby's size as well as good blood flow. I was also able to cross off spina bifida and Down's syndrome from my list of things to worry about thanks to the ultrasound. I am not sure why I was so worried about neural tube defects since I drink orange juice every day and have been taking a women's multi-vitamin for almost a year. Ah, if only the pregnant mind was rational.

This past weekend was a lot of fun because I was actually able to host people at the house without feeling completely exhausted. I spent the day mopping the floors. It had been about two months since my last time on my hands and knees to get the hardwoods shiny because I was feeling so awful. Other than my tummy getting in the way and being a little out of breath, the scrubbing went well and my floors were shiny (Thanks Murphy's!!). My current cleaning person doesn't like to use Murphy's Oil Soap because she says it dries out my wood and uses vinegar instead. But the vinegar makes the whole house stink and leaves my floors looking dull. AND she didn't dust/mop under the furniture. AND because she uses the same mop water throughout the whole house, the living room floor (the last room to be cleaned) was actually still pretty filthy. I have to have a talk with her about it but not quite sure how to say it tactfully. I dunno'. I think now that I have this energy back and feeling okay, I am going to try to keep up with my own scrubbing regiment as long as Q will let me.

The rest of the evening was great. Two couples we know came over and one couple brought their two adorable daughters (2 y/o and 3 months). It was fun hanging out with them especially since we haven't seen either in a while. Then we headed over to Hot Chocolate for some dessert. If you have never been - what are you waiting for?? It's not just a dessert bar but their desserts are definitely what they are known for. I had a banana bread pudding that just brought me to tears. Our friends had a granny smith apple dessert (no chocolate) and a peanut butter dessert, and RC ordered our favorite - brioche doughnuts served with caramel popcorn and hot fudge. Yum. yum. yum.

20 weeks in...

2008-03-03T13:20:00.000-08:00

RR had the 20 week sonogram today. Both Amma and Mom were in attendance. Everything went well. We'll post more later along with a few pics.
Curly is at 50% growth which means average. I think it means above average b/c we are kind of small. Everything else is on target.
On the way back, we all stopped off at Stanley's Fruit Market and picked up some Mangas (2/$1), organic Kiwis, Juice Oranges, Nectarines, and an Apple-Pear or Pear-Apple b/c those are neat.
More later as the live blogging this Pulaski day continues...

btw, that's Kazimierz Pulaski to the right despite the Maluu stache!

last snow in chicago?

2008-03-02T10:52:00.001-08:00

last snow in chicago?
Originally uploaded by snapshot chandra

I really hope this is the last snow that we have this season in Chicago. I read somewhere earlierz this week that this was our 35th measurable snowfall this season - yikes!
I didn't feel like going outside for this shot, i stood up near a window and took a bunch till i liked it.
Then of course, i did have to go outside to shovel!

Continuing on this vein . . .

2008-03-01T08:59:00.000-08:00

Our blog friend, A N N A, recently wrote this hilarious post about disciplining children. I had to put my two cents in there and since I was just talking about the same topic on this blog, I thought I would just keep yammering away -

One comment said the following:

the post just reminded me, as a new parent, of the huge change in perspective one experiences, seemingly in an instant, once baby comes. And cmon, you are going to try and defend that "Well then let me step in and discipline your uncivilized beast-child" or "if you parent well, it's imperceptible to the naked eye and nearly impossible to remember." etc does not in any way suggest that you, as a non-parent, believe you know more about parenting than some actual parents? pa-shaaa.

I don't think that anyone is saying that anyone is better at parenting but rather better at disciplining. Parenting involves many other things beyond just discipline just as teaching involves many other things other than educating them on a specific content. In teacher education programs, they speak at length about appropriate classroom management skills. We have to create these classroom management plans that outline how we are going to handle our little darlings in our classes. Of course, much like parenting, these ideals go out the window when you are actually standing in front of 30 kids. But those of us who retain some of that research and ideology benefit a great deal as a result. There are some teachers with no ability to control a classroom unless they are AP angels - there are others who can take a group of ADHD, oppositional-defiant children and help them learn and create. Are they a better teacher? Not necessarily; they are just better at discipline. When it comes to disciplining my students, I have never had a complaint from a administrator, parent or student (okay, one student) that I have been unfair or unreasonable. But do I lay the law down? - HELL ya. My rules are clearly stated (only two: 1. Treat everyone with respect and 2. Don't make me lose my trust in you), evenly handed, and rarely given during a moment of anger.

As a teacher and a non-parent, it is easy for me to say to tell people that their children are out of hand. But as a product of a very disciplined upbringing, I can also easily say how thankful I am to my parents for not letting me be an annoyance to everyone around me. It isn't about corporal punishment. My parents rarely spanked me. It was just a withering look, or a few stern words, and our understanding of how to behave. My parents were still telling us we were the most misbehaved kids on the block but I remember overhearing other parents comment at how incredibly well-behaved we were. As a future parent, I resolve to not give in to my child's whining (just as I don't give into my students' whining) or tears just because I want them to like me more. What many people don't understand is that children love rules. They may fight you every step of the way but rules mean that someone is looking out for them. Rules mean someone cares enough to establish some boundaries. Kids crave consistency even if it means that they don't get everything that they want. Q will love me BECAUSE I discipline her. Feel free to point to this in a year when I am crying about how she is making me crazy. =)

A New Attitude and P/T Conferences

2008-02-28T18:04:00.000-08:00

Tonight we had parent-teacher conferences at school. I met with about 19 students' parents. I always enjoy meeting the parents because it gives me such a back-story about their lives. I have heard horror stories of parents coming in drunk or coming in and screaming at the teachers. Fortunately, that has never happened to me and the few times that they have come in upset, they usually walk out understanding where I am coming from. I do get frustrated by parents that say, "I just don't know what to do with ____." I know I will probably eat these words later but to me, if you're a parent - you have to lay the law down. My friend whose baby is only 7 months old, disciplines her child now. I think that's awesome. I grew up in a very strict household and while I do think that my parents were a little harsh with their rules sometimes (no more than 10 minutes on the phone a night - remember that, J?), I also think that if I didn't have that discipline, I probably wouldn't be where I am now. Some of these parents just let their kids make all the decisions and get frustrated with them when they don't make the right ones. Ummmm, they are 15! Of course they would rather hang out with their friends than do their homwork. They are going to sit online all night before they study for their test. Ok, not all kids need their parents guidance. But it is the kids whose parents are guiding them gently that are the ones making the good decisions. I know. I am going to end up with some hellacious child that never listens to me and all parents everywhere will point and tell me what a bad parent I am.

Speaking of the pregnancy . . . update time.
Week: 18
Weight: 118
Belly: no measurement but I feel LARGE
Next appointment: March 3

Great news! I feel GREAT! I almost don't even feel pregnant anymore. I am still tired and have the appetite of my young, male students but I don't feel sick all the time. The headaches have subsided. For the most part, the round ligament pain is gone also. So THIS is what second trimester is supposed to feel like!

Oscar Party Summary Part 2

2008-02-28T05:13:00.001-08:00

Every year at the Oscars, there is a red carpet show. Our party is no different. We have our red carpet entrance filled with papparazzi and everything. We don't have live interviews but we do admire each other's clothing, jewelry and props. Of course, our clothing is also not designer. We all show up dressed in costume based on a character from any movie release the year before.
And every year during the show, rr painstakingly compiles the photos from that year and often from years before and puts together a slide show, or a power point presentation. Because of her experience with imovie and our new year's show, she decided to do it imovie style. We recently got an appletv and hooked it up to our fiddy so we were able to stream the imovie directly to the audience. here's what what seen...enjoy.
Don't worry winners will be announced soon.

r2 5th annual oscar party summary part. 1

2008-02-25T17:52:00.000-08:00

This year's Oscar party was a first for many and the 5th for most. Everybody shared in the glory of the new fiddy inch on the wall. The actual awards were good though this year, more than any other, everybody had seen even fewer movies. Perhaps, it was because the number of blockbusters nominated was so low and perhaps it was because most of the movies nominated were dark flicks. Jon Stewart was good but not great. His novelty has lost it's charm as a host for the Oscars - despite the obvious wii and iphone plugs. He should stick to his day job.
Our weighted ballot is included in this link. The customization of the ballot - in detail - is designed to give more weight for choosing the more difficult to pick winners as well as some of the more important categories.
It used to take forever to get it done but with a .pdf writer it has become a cinch and truly a replica of the oscar.com version (except for the fine print).
It was sent out along with the invite and normally, i've got lots of copies floating around. This year however, i neglected to make copies and once everyone was over, i couldn't figure out if our printer was plugged in or where the driver went. ah well.
We had to free hand it...

imdb

2008-02-24T18:59:00.001-08:00

now we're imdb'ing the goonies; inveriablym, imdb comes out.

red carpets arrivals

2008-02-24T18:33:00.000-08:00

So we've had about 13 or 14 folks roll in on the red carpet. we'll get em up on flickr later but check us out here... as bleecher and juno from juno

The countdown has begun....

2008-02-24T09:38:00.001-08:00

Only 6 hours till red carpet arrivals!

Don't want to speak to soon

2008-02-23T15:48:00.001-08:00

Wow. Maybe I'm over the hump . . .TODAY WAS AWESOME. I woke up not feeling sick. I ate some spiiiiicy pau bhaji for brunch with no reflux. I had the energy to tidy up our place and do laundry. Yes!!! (I have also managed to procrastinate grading some essays that I've been putting off for a while too.)

My friends who are scattered throughout the US have been asking to see my "bump". Since I am feeling so good, I'm going to flaunt this today.

I also recently found out that I'll be heading to ATL for the first week of May for a reading conference. I am very excited since two of my friends from work will also be going on the same trip. AND I get to see Rohit's cousins who live there. I have been trying to convince RC to join me during the first weekend so that we can all hang out together but he is still undecided.

And tomorrow is the Oscars! Yay. I am in a totally different mood than I have been over the past few weeks. I'm not going to get too excited yet but this is so great.

Is it over yet?

2008-02-21T17:44:00.000-08:00

Week: 17
Weight: 118
Belly: 33"
Next appointment: March 3 (20 week ultrasound AND a Hem/Onc appointment)

Ok - NOT the pregancy. I get that that is going to go on for a while but this ickiness needs to just go! I had another dizzy spell on Tuesday. I was teaching my first hour class and the room just started to spin. I dizzily doled out a group assignment quickly and I could see in their eyes that they could see behind mine. I ran out of the room with a trash can and charged into the faculty lounge (thankfully, across the hall). Another teacher helped me out and watched my class as I tried (fortunately successfully) to keep my breakfast down. I was sweating like crazy and I know that all the blood was out of my face. But I couldn't just leave my kids so I headed back there. When I came back, they were so sweet and concerned. Then I had two students that were asking, "Ms. R - Mario wants to ask you something." "No, you ask!" "No YOU ask!!" "Well, we don't want you get upset." "It's kind of personal." "We don't want you get offended . . ." They danced around it for a while and then finally, "Are you pregnant??" When I said yes the whole class erupted in cheers. It was really cute. I started to feel better. Now, they ask me how I am feeling every day. Cuties.

I had another doctor's appointment last week. Nothing spectacular - not even an ultrasound. We heard the baby's heartbeat on a Doppler. That was pretty cool. I have been having some abdominal pain but of course, the doctor explained that it was normal and all was well. I had two vials of blood drawn for some labs. My high-risk OB wants to monitor my thyroid as well as my platelets plus I had the second component of the genetic screening to finish. I am very nervous about those results and I am trying not to think about it too much. She also told me that I need to get back in touch with my Hematologist. I left a message with the Hem/Onc's office yesterday and within 45 minutes I got a call back from the doctor! Amazing. She told me that I need to come see her in the next few weeks so I guess it's more blood draws for me!

This past weekend we were in Ohio to visit Mom. It was a nice relaxing trip even though I spent most of it on the couch (ya, sick again). We went maternity clothes shopping and she was nice enough to buy me three new shirts! I am getting so tired of wearing the same old things. A plea to all the readers: if you have any old maternity stuff and you think it might fit me, please shoot me an email because I would love to borrow, rent, or maybe even purchase it. I don't plan on getting pregnant ever again so buying new maternity stuff seems like a waste. And why can't I buy stuff that is a few sizes too large? Because of my weird proportions, my waist is too long and regular clothing is cut too short: you can still see my tummy if I wear it. Maternity stuff seems to be the only thing covering it all. I have also moved all of my super-fitted clothing out of my closet because it was making me frustrated that I couldn't wear them anymore. All in due time I guess.

Oscar Countdown

2008-02-20T13:07:00.001-08:00

Everybody needs to get their costumes ready b/c the 5th Annual R*2 Oscar Party is this Sunday. The weighted ballots are out and people are busy coming up with costume ideas. We'll have a weighted ballot posted here shortly and everybody can play online.
This year, we'll have a new feature in that we'll have live blogging during our red carpet entrances and through the ceremony including the awarding of a the golden oscar statue for the winner of best costume of a character from 2007's movies.
Stay tuned....

Lincoln's Birthday

2008-02-14T21:28:00.001-08:00

So working for the county is definitely nice in February. I get both Lincoln's birthday and President's day off. This past tuesday, Edgar and I decided to spend the day snow shoeing in Kettle Moraine state forest in Wisco. Well, Abe must have been mad at us for leaving the Illl b/c we spent 3 hours getting up there fighting traffic and snow, and 4 hours getting back fighting even more traffic and snow.

While up there, we snow shoed through some beautiful, silent, dense, snow-filled, forest. It was great. I took a bunch of pics whilst there and Edgar was patient as i took my gloves off and stopped the progression each time i saw something neat. To the right is some treatment in lightroom.

Oh yeah, after hiking for almost 4 hours we came back and the hebrew national was stuck in the ditch/shoulder on the side of the trailhead and it took us an hour to get out! 100% worth it.

... More pics to be posted later on flickr.

The Name Game

2008-02-09T17:56:00.000-08:00

Week: 15 (maybe 16)
Weight: 116 (lost another pound!)
Belly: 32"
Next appointment: February 13

This week was another rough one. On Wednesday, I almost passed out during my 5th hour class. The rest of the day was spent spinning. I fell asleep at 5:30 pm, woke up at 11 and ate a potato, woke up at 1 and ate a kiwi, woke up at 5:30 and almost fell down as I was getting ready for work. I called in and slept until 9 and got sick. I slept again until 10 am and spent the rest of the day trying not to fall over or get sick. I called my doctor and she didn't call me back until 3:30! I know they are very busy but it would have been great to at least hear from the nurse. She said it was normal for women to feel dizzy during pregnancy and that they would check it out at my next appointment. It seems like any weird medical issue can be explained by the pregnancy. "Arm fell off? O, that's because you're pregnant."

In other news, I decided that now would be a good time to start thinking about names. Here is the list that we have come up with so far. Let us know what you think.

Boy Names
Keshav (curly - Krishna)
Madhav (Krishna)
Udaya (sunrise)

Girl Names
Alka (lock of curly hair)
Satyavati (speaks the truth)
Savita (sun)
Saroj (lotus)
Revathi (star sign - wealth/prosperity)
Tara (star)
Suparna (lotus)

3a PB&J

2008-02-05T11:31:00.000-08:00

So you've all been reading the past few posts about how RR has been feeling recently. I'm not doing any of the gestating nor is my body changing for reasons out of my control but in my perspective, I think RR is starting to feel better. If not actually feeling better, she is better able to cope with things. The first 14 weeks or so have been pretty miserable for her starting with nausea, not having her clothes fit, some nausea, fatigue and finally rounding it out with some more nausea. Most of all of those feelings still exist but I can see a change in her energy level and her ability to cope with the afore-mentioned symptoms.

A lot of folks have been asking about any cravings that RR might be having and I must say she has gone through a few but nothing at all out of the ordinary or outlandish. So far, RR has wanted pistachio ice cream from B&R, lots of fruit, sushi, and a few hamburgers. Not too bad.

One thing I have noticed is that she's starting to eat like a 14 yo. She eats several small meals a day now. She wakes up and needs to scarf down something before she can even brush her teeth. For instance superbowl sunday, we had some friends staying with us and she woke up and had two frozen waffles 2 hours before anyone else ate as we were all full from the night before. More telling, is that she woke up at 3a this morning for a PB&J - which i'm happy to say she made by herself! (Told you she must be feeling better).

This past Sunday, Roti 1 had another gymnastics meet in Arlington, Hts. Because we had some folks over and i had to get chili started i got to the meet towards the end. The last meet i went to went on for a long long time so i figured i'd be fine. Unfortunately, I was only able to take in one event - the high bar. Roti 1 did fabulously and ended up with 2d place over all standing contributing to his team's overall 1st place finish.

Another great part of the meet was that a lot of Didi's friends and their kids came out to support him. All-in-all, Roti 1 had 13 folks come out to cheer him on. It was really special.

To the right is Roti 1 chaulking up before the high bar.

Gender Bender

2008-02-04T15:26:00.000-08:00

Week: 14 (maybe 15)
Weight: 117
Belly: 32"
Next appointment: February 13

As many of you know, RC's sister has four sons (Rotis 1-4). The eldest is 8.5 and recently lamented to his mom that he reeeeeeeeeeeally wants me to have a girl. He was asking if there was anyway to ensure that. I thought that was really cute. I could totally see him watching out for her when she got older and starting to date. I guess if she was 16 - he would be 24! Wow. It's hard to imagine him as a 24 y/o. Anyway, RC really wants to wait until the *magic moment* to find out the gender of the baby. I was not so sure but I think as I think about it more, I am more open to the idea. My friends who are planning the baby shower and of course the two moms are chomping at the bit to find out the gender of the kid. I feel a little bad for them because I know how frustrating it was for me when my friends were having kids and I didn't know but I guess it is my turn!

What has been kind of fun is hearing all the different predictions that people have for the gender of the child based on randomness. So far, I have heard that I am having a boy because I haven't really gained any weight in my face (or I just naturally don't gain weight easily). I am pretty moody so I must be having a girl (or I am just normally irritable). There are so many more it is amusing. Personally,I don't really care but I think it's a boy. I know, I know - everyone (with the exception of Mom) is hoping for a girl since all we have are boys in the family but it's just what I have been feeling. Then again, many parents did the same thing and ended up with the opposite. Well, I guess we'll just have to wait until July to find out!

My only fear of not finding out is that there is a small chance that I might have to go under general anesthesia to have the kid (because I might not be able to have an epidural). RC would not be allowed in the room either which means that the baby would be coming in to this world with no one to greet him or her. And I wouldn't even know if I had a boy or a girl until I woke up! RC would have to wait to find out until someone came and told him that a) I was fine and b) what sex his baby is. And that just wouldn't be cool. But I guess we'll cross that bridge. . .later.

In other weird baby news - my kid is bigger than a lemon and can now pee inside of me. Awesome.

Belly Blues

2008-01-24T18:04:00.000-08:00

Week: 13 (maybe 14)
Weight: 118
Belly: 31"
Next appointment: February 13

Since the last time I posted I had three visits to the doctor, gained five pounds, and popped my belly (I guess the belly popped out of me!). There has been other things going on but apparently non-pregnancy world doesn't seem to interest me anymore.

Let's talk about three visits to the doctor.

Visit #1 - January 14. This was just a blood draw for my genetic screening. The doctor's office was on Lake Shore Drive and the parking rates are just ferocious. But because their last draw is at 4:30, I had no choice but to drive there. I barely made it there on time. The nice receptionist was going to do the blood draw and she completely missed my vein. It hurt so much and she wasn't even getting any blood. Then the other receptionist came. She finished so fast I didn't even know she had the needle in my arm. It was the least painful blood draw I have ever had. I walked back to the parking garage 10 minutes after I showed up. They still charged me $9. Grrrrr.

Visit #2 - January 21. This was the follow-up to the blood draw. The doc had reviewed my blood results and I also had another ultrasound which is where we saw this:

Q is officially over 3" and developing normally. Do you see him waving to you?

I was surprised at how nervous I was before the ultrasound. I couldn't sit still. I thought I would be okay no matter what they would say but that is when I realized that if something was wrong with my baby, I would probably be very upset. I know you are saying a collective "duh" but I really did think that it wouldn't matter to me. I have another round of testing to do to rule out neural tube defects (like spina bifida) in a few weeks. I guess I have plenty of time to work myself into a tizzy until then. The good news is that for now, the doc thinks that Q is perfectly healthy.

Visit #3 - January 23. Just a regular check-up with my OB. For the first time ever, she saw me within a half-hour of my appointment time and I was out of there within an hour. She answered some questions, did another ultrasound, and sent me on my way. It was great.

***

Gaining five pounds - that has come from being able to keep food down again. I have mastered the foods I just can't smell or eat (sadly, chocolate chip cookies are one of those things) and I think the nausea is finally starting to go away. That was not before one last weekend of hell. Last Thursday (yes, the day it was all supposed to magically disappear), I actually had to call in sick to work because I was so puk-tastic, dizzy and with a throbbing headache to top it all. Normally, if I called in with those symptoms, one would just assume I was hungover. In fact, that is exactly what it felt like - the worst hangover ever but without any of the fun. I spent the entire day in bed wondering what I had done to deserve this. Friday was (slightly) better but I couldn't afford two days away from my little guys so I went back.

The good news is I really am feeling much better. The nausea is designated for just the morning and is usually resolved by the time I am teaching my first class. I have an enormous appetite for just about everything so I am enjoying eating it ALL. I am also not feeling as grouchy as I have been which is good news for one RC. The one thing that I still can't shake is this exhaustion. It is kicking my booty and I am too tired to fight back. I am ready to sleep by 8 pm every night. I am teaching my ACT prep class on Tuesday evenings again so that probably isn't helping matters much. But I got two weeks down, eight more to go!

***

And last, my pants don't fit anymore! This weekend after a traumatic Saturday night trying to squeeze into clothes that just weren't working anymore, I gave in and went shopping for maternity clothes on Sunday. My friend who is a mom twice over took me to Motherhood and Gap. Both had good selections in the clearance sections and other than the trousers that I bought, everything was under $15. I also got some belly bands to use with my regular pants. What an awesome invention! It is stretchy cami material that pulls over unbuttoned/unzipped regular pants. And it looks like you're just fashionably layered. Brillant! Though today, I just used a safety pin to keep my pants up and that worked too but hey you gotta' have choices! My problem is that every morning I look longingly at my yoga pants and wish my high school was a little more lax about the teacher dress code. O well. That is what the weekends are for I guess.

But I guess the bump is here and not going anywhere. That being said, please don't ask to see it or touch it. When it is visible you may oogle but until then, I am not going to flash my expanding waistline. My mother and sister keep touching it as though rubbing it will make it grow faster. I don't understand the fascination. I also don't understand what would make anyone think that it is okay to touch someone else's stomach in public - especially without permission! I have always been a weirdo about personal space and I think this experience is going to test my limits.

Your thoughts on this?

Waiting for January 17

2008-01-13T15:58:00.000-08:00

Week: 11
Weight: 112 (lost 3 lbs)
Belly: no change
Next appointment: tomorrow! (blood draw for genetic screening)

I know there is no magic number for when the morning sickness goes away. Most people see some relief between weeks 12 and 16. I recently talked to a friend whose sis-in-law is three weeks ahead of me and she hasn't been sick once! This just makes me so jealous as I am totally done with feeling this sick all the time. I am truly making cuisi- into an art. My week 12 starts on Thursday and that is the day that I have mentally assigned to when I am forcing myself to not give into this anymore. What happens if I don't? I am not sure but I am pretty sure nobody wants to be around on Friday if I'm not feeling better.

Generally my food has been staying where it is supposed to, but the feeling that it isn't going to stay that way makes life very uncomfortable. My friend who was pregnant last year swears that the way to get over morning (ALL DAY) sickness is by working out. Seeing as how my energy level is usually only enough to get me through teaching four of my five classes, I am not sure the gym is in the cards for me right now. I have looked into some prenatal yoga but again 1st trimester laziness sets in once I get home. One of the other frustrating parts about this sickness thing is that I have no appetite for much of anything these days. I can't eat anything with tomatoes as that will result in serious reflux and even RC's and Amma's Indian cooking haven't been much of a comfort these days. On Friday night, I got sick after eating chocolate chip cookies!! The only thing that I love to eat pretty much all the time is fruit: the tarter, the better. Favorites so far include Granny Smith apples, raspberries and cataloupe (because they're so juicy). But even that you get sick of after a while.

Whiiiine. I know it's terrible. I am going to stop right now.

In other news, I have a genetic screening test tomorrow. It is kind of an interesting position to be in. RC and I started to discuss what would happen if Q had some sort of abnormality. It's not something that you think about while you're in the happy "Wow. We're pregnant!" stage. People just assume that if they are healthy and treat their bodies right that their baby will be born like them. I don't know if we have decided what would be the end result if something came back that there was something wrong. One thing that I am discovering as we go through this is how much RC and I really do agree on many fundamental things. It started when we were getting ready to get married as we discussed our finances. It continued when we remodeled our apartment. And now that we are here, the process continues. I am really grateful for that I found a partner in life that I don't have to argue with about the big stuff. The little stuff we still argue about all the time. =0) But hey, that's marriage.

BTW - the reason that I call the baby Q is because both RC and I have very curly hair. Since the moment that we got engaged, people have told us that our baby is going to definitely have very curly hair. In fact, on our first date, we talked about kids and he said that he wants to have one biological kid - just to see what all that hair would look like on a kid. I also wanted only one biological kid and I always pictured them with ferociously curly hair. (We agree on the big stuff.) Personally, I think we have jinxed the probability of the kid having curly hair at this point but thought I'd call it Q anyway. RC calls it Curly. (But we disagree on the little stuff.)

Let the updates begin!

2008-01-05T06:57:00.000-08:00

Week: 10

Weight: 115 (no change)

Belly: no change

Next appointment: January 14 (blood draw for genetic screening)

Well, here it goes. It's official. If you couldn't tell from the holiday video, the black and white blur at the end of it was an ultrasound announcing our pregnancy. I am officially 10 weeks and no that's not the end of the first trimester so yes, things could still go horribly wrong (not that I'm a pessimist). But things could go horribly wrong at any minute for any number of reasons in anyone's life, so might as well enjoy what is here for right now (told you I wasn't a pessimist). There have been very few changes up until this point as far as my actual shape and size but I look forward to looking like a pear very soon. I will do my best to update this every Friday.

Many people have asked how I found out and how I told RC. I am and always have been a girl who is very in-tune with her body. When things are going a little hay-wire, I know. So, the weekend before Thanksgiving, I was thinking, I should take a test. Things just weren't . . .right. But then, I got scared of telling my family and what would happen if they got their hopes up and then we lost it. So I didn't. Instead, I drank two glasses of champagne at Thanksgiving and tried not to think about it. But when RC sat next to me the next day with a cup of coffee and it was all I could do to keep my breakfast down, I was pretty positive of what was going on. We went back to our apartment and he was busily unpacking the car. I ran upstairs and opened up a test and took it. But this is when the shaking started. I started to panic about, "What if it is negative - how will you feel?? WHAT IF IT IS POSITIVE - HOW WILL YOU FEEL??" So I turned it over and decided that even though it would only take 3 minutes to show the lines, I would wait for 10 - just to be sure. Then I started to clean frantically. Anything to keep my mind off of what was happening on my bathroom counter. When I finally turned it over, I just about dropped it. RC was still unpacking and I was thinking of how I could tell him. I walked to the kitchen and said, "I went to the bathroom. . ." and he responded with, "O no. Is there something wrong with the toilet?" I told him no but just to follow me anyway. I showed him the stick and he whooped it up in delight and gave me a huuuuuge hug. It was one of the best moments in my life.

But then the real panic started to kick in. We both started looking around our cluttered apartment and thinking we have to fix this and that. Then my big fear was telling people. I didn't want to tell people too early and then lose the baby and have to explain it to everyone. But I didn't want to hide it from my family either. It was a big dilemma that was eventually resolved during a conversation on Sunday with a friend. She told me, "If something bad did happen, wouldn't you want the support of you loved ones to help you get through it??" That kind of logic made sense to even the wildly-hormonal me so we told our families on Sunday.

And that's the story of how Q (as in Curly) was introduced to the world.

Happy New Year!!

2008-01-02T17:18:00.000-08:00

We hope that everyone had a wonderful New Year's eve celebrations! We wish you the very best for 2008. Here is a video montage of R past year.

40 oz of Caffeinated Bliss

2007-10-17T17:32:00.000-07:00

In the efforts to continue with the "Get Health Challenge" doing, I have tried to cut out my high fructose corn syrup in take. Easier said than done. I was going a week strong but then yesterday hit me. On Monday, I got to work at 6 am and didn't leave work until 8:30 pm. By the time I came home and hit bed it was well after 10. The 4:30 wake-up call hit me like a ton of bricks on Tuesday. All day long I was dragging and dragging. During 4th hour, I decided that I was just going to break down and buy a Coke because othewise I might just fall asleep while talking about the Executive branch with my 5th hour class. And I say break down because the mental decision to drink this Coke was weighing heavily on my conscience.

I went to the cafeteria during lunch and walked to the Union vending machines. If you don't buy from those, members give you dirty looks. Not really, but kinda. The machine was not taking my dollar. Despite my whimpering and pleading, it was not having it. I walked over to the cafeteria line to pull one of the cooler - only DC and CokeZero. BLEH. I walked all the way to the gym where the student vending machines were but there was some crazy error message. Have you ever seen a vending machine with an error message? I thought the student cafeteria surely had some. I braved the rough and tumble lines shoving students out of the way to get to my HFCS. But once again, no - only the DC and Zero. I was starting feel like a fiend looking for a fix. I stormed through the kitchen and got some change from the lunch lady and headed back to the Union machines. When I fed the quarters, I was so jittery that I accidently hit the "Coin Return" button and had to do it all over again. When my sweet 20 ounces of nectar finally dropped, I snatched it so fast I bruised my hand. I started to walk away but wait! I heard a second thud-thud-THUD! Another 20 ounces all for me! Someone appreciated all my hardwork.

45 CENT TACOS!

2007-10-11T17:17:00.000-07:00

So... we were at our friend, Lisa's wedding (to Jeff) in Dearborn. It was wonderful and we are honored to have been invited. More on that later though.
B/c the 'get healthy challenge' began right after we came back and b/c we were both craving some taco bell, we decided to stop by after picking up our friend Amy.
Lucky for us depending on how you look at it, we walked in on a celebration - a fiesta if you will. This taco bell was celebrating the 45 years of the restaurant, i think. I normally don't eat ground beef away from home and I never eat meat at taco bell or haven't since i worked there but i couldn't resist.
So the sunday before our challenge began, i ate the following:
egg and chorizo burrito coffee with cream,
1 beef taco, 1 7-layer burrito and two cups of real dr. pepper,
a gyro some fries and some mozzarella sticks and some cookes in the middle i'm sure.
ranj ate similarly.
congrats on 45 years!

get healthy challenge

2007-09-26T12:58:00.000-07:00

So.... the other day, we were over on Devon for an engagement party for a Cincy kid. The wedding will be in India and the family wanted a big party so we all went, sans kids, to a banquet hall on Devon. Ranj, Mom and Didi wore saris and looked great. Jijaji wore a new suit bought from costco and looked smashing. The weather was a bit cool the day before so I thought I'd get away with a jodhpuri suit. I've got a tan one made of thick wool that is perfect for the occassion. The only problem was that it was soooo tight in the seat and waist - so tight that it heard and was beyond hugging my curves. It was definitely pure comedy.
We realized that Mom, Jijaji, Didi, Ranj and myself all have fitness goals for ourselves but that we cannot seem to get our butts into gear. Some of us want to loose inches, some percentage of body fat, some just want to exercise more, some want to shed pounds and various combinations of it all. Of course we need external motivation and some friendly competition. Thus, we started coming up with point schemes and so forth.
Our wonderful Jijaji sent out and email today with the following list as a start to how are points will go. It'll get tweaked and there are some paramaters that need to be discussed but it's definitely a good start. It's going to be fun and if we achieve some of our goals then it's be healthy too!

1)  10,000 step days-- 1 point for each day you
reach 10,000 steps on a pedometer.  The average
adult walks about 4-5,000 steps in daily
activities.  So to reach 10,000 in a day you would need to
add a 30 minute walk or so (also about 5,000
steps) each day.  This category encourages daily
walking, using the stairs, etc.

2)  30 minute workout--1 point each.  You cannot
count steps during this workout toward category
1.  Workouts can be at the gym or at home
(aerobics, cardio machine, yoga, strength training,
etc.).

3)  weight loss--1 point for each pound lost

4)  body fat percentage--5 points for each
percent decrease in body fat percentage

5)  Breakfast--1 point for each day you have a
proper breakfast.  This is universally considered
the most important meal for health and weight
loss.  I think a proper breakfast needs to be defined
by all of us.  I would say it needs to contain
at least 400-600 calories (about a third of the
daily need). 

6)  Penalty points/Indulgences-  This category
also needs to be defined better.
    -1 point for fast food (burgers, fried food,
Taco Bell, other ideas...)

I propose that the competition run from 10/1/2007
to 12/31/2007.

Each participant puts in $100.

We will award $50 for most weight lost, $50 for
most body fat percentage reduced, and $400 for
overall winner.

Everyone needs to keep a diary-  I can put
together a spreadsheet to help with this.

Everyone will need a pedometer (I have an
Accusplit (Yamax) Eagle 170 Digiwalker Pedometer, about
$20 from amazon- it is accurate and fairly
inconspicuous). 

Everyone will need (or have access to) a scale
for weight AND body fat percentage.  We should use
the same method for body fat analysis.

Everyone should get a starting weight and a body
fat percentage (averaged over 5 days since it
will vary with hydration).  Write it down on a piece
of paper and seal it in an envelope and then we
can keep them in a safe place to compare to the
final weigh in.

So, what do you think.  This will require use of
the honor system.  Let me know what you think of
the categories and how to better define #5 and
#6.

Ready for the "get healthy challenge"!!

roti#1's new glasses

2007-09-25T09:04:00.000-07:00

This is my first post, finally!
Roti #1 is finally one of the family. Of course, he's always been part of the family but now he wears glasses - just like the rest of us. The eldest of our nephews, 8, got his first pair of glasses last week. I finally saw them last night. He was wearing his spiffy new bronze colored metal frames laying in bed and reading his latest library checkout. He looked quite cute and content and excited to be reading.
Congratulations to Roti #1 on the new frames - they look great!

Home Sweet Home

2007-08-06T05:32:00.000-07:00

I left my apartment on July 13 at 4 in the afternoon. I got back on August 6 at 7 pm. In those 25 days away, I visited:

1. Cleveland
2. Columbus
3. Oxford (1 night)
4. Cincinnati (airport)
5. Minneapolis (airport)
6. Tokyo twice (airport)
7. Beijing
8. Xi'an
9. Chongqing
10. Feng Du
11. Yi Chang
12. Wuhan (aiport)
13. Huangzhou
14. Huangshan
15. Shanghai
16. Detriot
17. Naperville (just a visit)
18. Aurora

(unless otherwise indicated, I spent at least two nights at each place).

I am a restless individual but even I am just so happy to be back here blogging at my own computer.

Jet Lag Fun

2007-08-03T00:07:00.000-07:00

Can't sleep.

It's 3:08 am Eastern time. More time to blog.

July 21 - After a quick breakfast at the hotel, we headed out at 9am. This was after a frantic night of packing after our trips to the pearl, jade, and silk factory and of course, our trip to the fake market. Chinese domestic flights only allow you to take 20 kilos of checked baggage and 1 carry-on. We weren't going to make it (or so we thought). We weighed, shifted, re-weighed, re-shifted, etc until finally we said, "well, I guess we're going to just have to pay the extra charge."

That morning we visited the Temple of Heaven built in 1420. It is a lovely place but I was weary of tourism and took the "free time" sneak a phone call to RC. At this point, it had been five days since I had seen him and I was really starting to miss him. The aunty that was staying in our room brought a SIM card-ready phone to China. She let me buy a SIM card and use it while we were there. It was really nice of her. It cost about RMB2 per minute ($0.30) to talk to home so I only called RC and Amma while I was there. After a few less-than-10-minute conversations and a lively email exchange, I was craving to see his face. Knowing that I get like this, I wasn't allowing myself to wallow in it. It was trying to stay positive but crawling into bed alone was the hardest part. I diffused that by reading "The Devil Wears Prada" everynight until I couldn't keep my eyes open. But there, at the temple, I couldn't resist calling him and telling him how much a missed him. We love to travel together and in a few short days, I had seen and done things that he would have loved to do. I guess we'll just have to plan a seperate trip out there at some point.

After the trip to the temple, we made another stop at the fake market. Travel tip: shop in Beijing for this stuff. The markets in Shanghai were either too expensive or the quality was way too cheap. Since we were so worried about our weight already, we didn't buy much while we were there.

We hopped back on the bus and headed to the Beijing aiport for our flight to Xian.

But first - one more reason to shop. Our guide took us to a traditional Chinese medicine school where were escorted to a room with 30 chairs lined up against the wall. Before each chair was a wooden tub of steaming hot water with tea bags. We were getting a free foot massage! After a brief introduction to Chinese medicine, the eager young students that started to work on our weary feet. After days of trekking through Beijing, we felt like we really deserved it. Where's the catch? It's coming. While getting our foot massage, we got a "free reading" from one of the professors there. I was a little disappointed in my reading because the woman right next to mie got the same one as did a few others. A elderly man assessed Mom and from what I overhead (yes, I was more than slightly eavesdropping) he was right on about Mom's issues! I was amazed. At the end of all the assessments, they recommended some herbs that were conveniently available at their own dispensary! Some of our group actually bought the stuff, but Mom and I just tipped our fabulous masseuses and went on our merry way.

The flight to Xi'an was only marked by the stinky food-service that served some crazy fish dish. What airline serves fish on the plane? Eastern China Air I guess. I was hungry and it satiated me for the time. By the time we arrived in Xian (9 pm), I was an enormous crank-monster. We went straight to (another) Indian restaurant. I just wanted to stay on the bus and sleep but Mom insisted I come inside. Since I was so hungry and I had eaten on the plane, I couldn't eat anything that was being served. We got to the Diamond International Hotel, checked in and hit the bed around 1am.

The wake up call for the next day was 6 am. Zoinks.

Back home

2007-08-02T05:39:00.000-07:00

Despite my efforts to blog while actually in China, busy touring schedules and obscene charges for Internet usage at hotels prevented me from doing that. So here I am back-blogging about the trip.

I still have things to say about Beijing! That seems like a lifetime ago.

After our day in the Forbidden City, we headed to a silk factory where I actually got to see real worms making silk. Ew. But still fascinating. After a brief tutorial of how Chinese silk is the best the world, we were ushered in to their showrooms to - you guessed it - spend our dollars! They showed us how they made silk comforters and because of the group-think mentality as sooon as one person decided to buy one, everyone started to buy them also. They had these gorgeous silk duvet covers also but those were just too expensive. I bought one for R place and one for Didi's.

After the silk factory we headed to the Summer Palace - a magnificent lake and beautiful surrounding grounds. It was the summer resort for the mother of one of the Qing emperors. I can see why the imperial family chose to make that their summer home - it was several degrees cooler there than in the Forbidden City. The breeze off the lake was so refreshing after a miserable day in the sun (temps were in the high 90s). Because of the time that we lost in the Forbidden City due to my wanderings and the time that it took 24 people to buy approx. 40 kilos of silk, we didn't have that much time to tour the grounds of the palace. Also, we couldn't go to the actual palace because it (like the rest of Beijing) was being renovated in preparations for the Olympics next year. But nevertheless, a worthwhile stop during the tour.

Our next stop?? The pearl factory. Here we got a tutorial about freshwater vs. seawater pearls (seawater is better) and how to spot a fake pearl. I had read a little about it in my Frommer's guide. Wanna' know?

Rub the pearls together. They should grind a little. If there is no friction - you got some plastic.
Ask the salesperson to shave off a little of the pearl - it should come off like a white powder.
Run the beads through a flame. A genuine pearl should be fine - a fake one will turn black.
While round pearls are obviously more valuable, completely spherical pearls are very hard to find - a string of them would be impossible or fiendishly expensive.

After the tutorial came the feeding frenzy of shopping. I took a hilarious picture juxtaposing the men at the pearl factory vs the women. The men: casually sitting around drinking tea. The women: jumping from one glass case to another followed by over-eager salesgirls. Mom and I bought two sets (neckalce, earrings and bracelet) of pearls: one black and the other white for Didi and myself respectively. If the tour guide was getting any commission for these shopping excursions, he was making a killing with this group.

Lost in Translation

2007-07-22T05:57:00.000-07:00

We arrived in Xi'an late last night. I was cross-eyed tired by the time we made it into our rooms. I have been in China for five days now and I have yet to eat any substantial Chinese food. Amazing isn't it? We have been going to Indian restaurants for dinner. I think it's pretty funny. We also hit a Pizza Hut in Beijing on the first day. I really wanted to try the KFC in Xi'an but we are leaving in the morning tomorrow.

But first, there is much more blogging to do about Beijing.

On Friday morning, we hit the ground running from the get go. After an arduous trip to the Bank of China to exchange money (note to future travelers: you get a better exchange rate at the Bank if you use traveler's checks. And they will change your money back at the thend of the trip if you keep your receipt), we piled onto the bus to head to the Forbidden City which is in the center of Beijing.

We first started looking at Tiananmen Square. It was enormous and FILLED with people. The square is 880 metres south to north and 500 metres east to west, a total area of 440,000 square meters, which makes it the largest open-urban square in the world (from Wikipedia). It is the open square where the Ming emperors used to address their subjects. A short walk away is the Forbidden City which was built in the 1400s. It has over 8700 rooms and is enormous as well. The tour books all said that it was really amazing and they were right. Outstanding.

The tour itself was going to take three hours of walking. Yowza. It would be exhausting for anyone but the heat was insufferable and many of the people wanted to take breaks along the way. I felt bad for them because the guide was NOT accomodating to the ages of our group. He just grew frustrated when they asked for breaks. Annoying.

Anyway, we headed on our way and were snapping pictures all along (or trying to anyway because the guide barely paused at each place). However, it was absolutely impossible to keep track of everyone in our group. There were literally millions of people in this place and over 80% had darker skin and black hair. I was with the group for the first hour and a half but then I stopped to take a picture of this engraved wall. When I looked around not 10 seconds later, everyone had gone. There was a gate that I realized that they passed through. I crossed the gate and remember those 8700 rooms that I told you about? Well, this was one of the open spaces that led to many of those rooms. The group was no where in sight. I utterly panicked. But then I was set at ease when I saw an Uncle from our group. I ran up to him to see if he knew where everyone went and he was as lost as I was.

At this point, I was scared - but not for myself. I had money, I had a business card with the address of the hotel to show to a cab driver, but I knew that Mom was going absolutely nuts at that moment. While she is aware that I am 28, fairly worldly, and have my head on straight most of the time, she felt like I was her responsibility. Uncle and I ran back to where I last saw them and we stayed there for a while. But since we didn't see anyone, we decided to continue to keep going. We were totally at a loss as to what to do. I was cursing myself for not writing down our tour guide's mobile number the first day when he gave it to us. I also thought about calling the hotel to see if they knew it or could help me somehow but for some reason I thought that wouldn't do anything. Dummy girl.

Meanwhile, Mom HAD realized I wasn't there and just broke down. She said that she wasn't moving from the spot until I came back. Somehow, she was convinced to keep going but then the search began. Now, this is another thing that I feel really bad about: the group spent a solid hour searching for me instead of enjoying this magnificent palace. People were running from one side to another trying to catch me among the millions of other tourists that were there that day.

Back to what we were doing. I remember that the guide had said that we were going to exit to the North Gate so we headed that way. We also remembered that the bus was supposed to meet us on the other side so we decided to try to find the bus. When we exited, we didn't see our party nor did we see our bus. We couldn't get back in so we were kind of stuck at this point. I asked a few workers where I could find the bus but of course, they didn't understand me. Finally out of total frustration, I stood at the exit and just started shouting, "Does anyone speak English?!" People walked by and looked at me like I was nuts but finally, a man with his son stopped and patiently listened to my story. He said that he would translate for me to talk to the officials. They suggested that I go make an announcement overhead. I said I'd rather go find the bus. Little did I know that if I had just gone to make the announcement, I would have been reunited right then because they were doing the exact same thing at that time.

We found out where the bus was and headed in that direction. But we didn't see a bus stand like there was at the Great Wall. The buses just kept moving along this one street. We walked up and down and didn't see anything and I saw a police car. I approached them but they didn't speak English either. Since I was losing all sense of public decorum, I once again started shouting for English speakers. Finally, a group of Caucasian folks came along and I asked them if they spoke English and they said yes. But they were Russian and their tour guide spoke only two languages: Mandarin and Chinese. So the conversation went like this: me in English to Russian woman; Russian woman in Russian to Chinese tourguide; Chinese tourguide in Chinese to Chinese police officer and back again. What did I learn? The buses were not allowed to stop there; they could only pick up their passengers.

We headed back to the North Gate.

Once there, I became restless for them to walk through the door again so I shouted my now almost-mantra to the exiting crowd and a teenage boy stopped to help me. I decided to get my announcement over the PA system but didn't know how to get the officials to say it over the system. I decided that it would be good for me to have someone write it in Chinese so they could understand what I was saying. The boy didn't know how to write Chinese but his dad did so I wrote it in English, the boy dictated what I wrote to the dad in Chinese and the dad wrote it in Chinese. Or I thought he did.

I headed to the officials that I talked to before and showed them my sign and trying to charades "announcement" the best that I could. They set me down the hall (I was back in!!) to a woman worker and did my little dance again. She pointed me down to the exit again. Obviously, my years of Bharatanatyam training was not paying off. Instead of listening to her, I decided to try to find the the thing myself. Feeling no sense of shame or timidness anymore, I found the first group of Caucasians I could and asked them if they spoke English. Then to avoid the aforementioned scenario, I asked if their guide spoke English and the guy said yes. I asked him to point her out and as he was doing that I saw Harris, our tourguide.

His first response, "Omigod! I TOLD you to follow our flag." What I wanted to say: Dude. Had you been doing your job, you would have noticed that two of your group members were gone sooner that you did. Beyond that, if you weren't RUNNING through the Forbidden City with a group of elderly (very tired) visitors, I would have never seperated from the group. The aunties and uncles were so happy to see me and told me that Mom had been crying for a solid hour. I ran to her and she just broke down again. I can't tell you how awful I felt at that moment (and for several after). We grabbed Uncle from the otherside (he was the lookout in case they came through the exit) and moved on to more important things - like lunch.

The rest of Beijing when I am in Shanghai. No more posts for a few days because tomorrow we are heading for our river cruise. How am I going to live without my daily fix? No one is really sure but it many not be a pretty sight. Until then. . .

The hike.

2007-07-20T06:11:00.000-07:00

Ok. Since I (still) can't read my previous posts or comments, I am going to start where I think I left off on yesterday's post.

The Great Wall. I think I talked about how the stairs were all sorts of weird. The other really difficult thing about the climb was that some of the stairs were so narrow that I had to put my feet sideways in order not to fall backwards! There were four forts that you can climb to in the Jyong Pass. One aunty, two uncles and I made it to the fourth one. We climbed up this really sketchy staircase to see the few from the top of it. Absolutely amazing! Only problem was coming back down. I wanted to imitate my 2-y/o nephews and scooch down the stairs since they were SO narrow and there was a solid 18 inches between each stair. We made it all the way down without incident (mostly because we were holding on to the railing for our lives) though I think I flashed plently of people. Word to the wise - while it is really hot in July in Beijing and a skirt might seem like a great way to stay cool - as you climb these uneven stairs, one medium force breeze will be enough to show your chuddies to the folks below.

After the Great Wall, we decided to skip lunch and head straight to the Ming Tombs. We didn't spend much time there since the tombs are under renovation in preparation for the Games. It was pretty cool seeing some of the really ancient and fabulous stuff that the emperors rocked back in those days.

We then headed to what is known as a fake market. And here my IAA came out once again. I was so mortified by the high-pressure sales and without my master negotiator, RC, with me, I felt a little lost. I shouldn't have worried because I soon realized that RC learned to negotiate from his mother. I got suckerd into looking at some fake purses and while I tried to walk away, I got pulled into another store. For a solid five minutes, I "negotiated" this woman down from RMB600 (Chinese money) to RMB200. But since I had not gone to the bank yet, I didn't have any money. I went to Mom and asked her for the money and she refused to pay that much for the purse and about 1 minute later she walked away with the purse for RMB100 ($25). The leather on this totally fake Tod's purse feels like my baby nephew's bottom. Not too shabby, right? Then I wanted to buy some souveniers for my friends. The woman was trying to sell it all to us for RMB900. Mom walked away with all of it for RMB300. I was laughing hysterically along with Mom because it was just took funny. I never had respect for haggling until I saw this Aligargh girl in action!

Our dinner last night was at a restaurant called Mallika. Yah - Indian food for the second night in a row. So far, despite being in China for three days, I have yet to eat one Chinese meal. I have however, had Pizza Hut. =)

After the dinner, we went to this Kung Fu show. It was so amazing but unfortunately, since we were all exhausted from the heat and physical exersion, we were falling asleep while watching the show. We came home and I literally dragged myself to the Internet cafe to post last night and send some emails to people.

Today I am equally tired but it's earlier and tomorrow is an easier day.

This computer however, is making me feel like I am back in my university dorm computer lab lab with the crappy keyboards so I think today's events will just have to wait until Sunday. Tomorrow, there will be no post because I am heading to Xi'an via airplane tomorrow night. Terracotta soldiers here I come!!

Spoiled

2007-07-19T07:03:00.000-07:00

For those who don't know, I am traveling in China with RC's mom and 24 other fifty-plus-somethings. It was a little intimidating at first, but I have to say that being the same age as most of their children is definitely working to my advantage. They all treat me like their own daugther and are constantly looking out for me. It really is very sweet. They also tell Mom what I great kid I am. See Amma, I am not so bad afterall. =)

Today - ABSOLUTELY exhausting.

We woke up (Mom, Aunty and I) at four am -myself with girlie cramps; Mom and Aunty just because. We lolled around for a while and then decided to just get ready. We headed down to breakfast and thought we'd be the first ones there. To our surprise, half our group was already having breakfast because apparently they couldn't sleep either. We finished our food and headed out to our bus that departed the hotel at 8:30 am.

Our first stop was a jade factory where we saw how they carved and polished jade. And ofcourse they had a showroom of their products. We wandered around for a while and I was suckered into buying something because I wanted to make sure my sister's bday gift was high quality jade. You're going to love it Che.

Then came the Great Wall. I got off the bus and could not freaking believe that I was looking at THE Great Wall - the one that I had read about in books since I was a grade schooler. The climb didn't look so bad but holy coly was I wrong! The steps are all uneven heights and widths. Some are so narrow, you have to turn your feet sideways to make sure your heel doesn't slip over the edge! Mom couldn't make the climb so I went on by myself. I ran into another uncle from the group and then at another landing met another couple. We some how egged each other on until the 4th tower. We found out later that had we gone just a little further, we would have reached a gorgeous temple and could climb down in another direction away from all the crowds. I'll do that next time I guess.

Alright, I am actually wiped out from our day. I'll have to blog about all this more tomorrow. Tomorrow's plan: Forbidden City and Summer Palace.

Welcome to the jungle

2007-07-18T05:56:00.000-07:00

I read my Frommer's, Lonely Planet, and Fodor's guides but nothing quite prepares you for the sheer "urban-ness" (yes, I am a Social Studies teacher) of Beijing. Despite being a 4000 year-old city, the skyscrapers betray the city's true age. In India, there are still loads of scooters and bicycles that mix in with the auto and bus traffic. Not the case here. And the roads are so nice. I know that much of this might be in preparation for the Olympic Games next summer but it is still amazing.

I am also a little weirded out about how lost I feel here. I know that it is an ignorant American attitude (hereinafter IAA) to assume that everyone speaks English but really - NOTHING is in English and even getting this computer at an Internet cafe was a ordeal in translations. We feel a bit helpless as a group of Am-ree-kans.

And the smoking. Everyone smokes all the time, everywhere. The guy sitting next to me is puffing away and blowing smoke in my face as I type this. My IAA is missing the smoke-free public spaces of the West.

But enough about all my complaining. . .

***EW. He just spit on the floor next to me. . .My IAA is freaking OUT.***

Ok. I'll move on. . .

We went to the Lama temple today. It is the largest such temple in Beijing. Did you know that Lama means "teacher"? It was once afforded only to the high ranking monks but now refers to all monks. The temple itself is amazing. Apparently, it had fallen into ruins but the government took great steps in the middle of the 20th century to restore it. Inside one of the pavilions there is a huge (18m) statue of Maitreya Buddha. More astounding is that it was carved from a single piece of white sandalwood. Check out the link above for some really good pictures.

Tomorrow - the Great Wall. It is a little surreal that I am going to see the Great Wall tomorrow. I am unable to see my comments right now so I have no idea if you are leaving me any (but you should!). I could change my Preferences to notify me if you comment but since this entire site is in Mandarin (other than what I am typing), I am unable to navigate through. I will catch up on them as soon as I can. In the meantime, if you have a question, please feel free to email me.

***btw-more hacking from the young man who is next to me. On that note, I bid you good night.***

Omigod. I am in China.

2007-07-17T16:30:00.000-07:00

These are the initial thoughts that ran through my head as I looked at the huge tower that read "Welcome to Beijing" in small letters in English but big letters in Chinese. Even this Explorer window everything is in Chinese but fortunately, I remember what most of the links say. I am glad I didn't wait until I actually got here to set this up.

As an Indian growing up in America, I grew weary of people always making my culture more exotic than it was/is. It is a cool culture and I wear my pride blazing on my forehead but I sometimes became annoyed when people got all starry-eyed when they talked about India. I realized now that I have done the exact same thing with China. It is a truly exotic location but people here live just like everyone else lives in their own countries. Not everyone knows kungfu or practices Confucianism. It is going to be interesting to see how my own perceptions of China change throughout this trip.

Anyway, we arrvied late last night with no incident. The flights were long - the longest being between Minneapolis and Tokyo. I have inherited Amma's knack for sleeping through long flights so I was asleep for 7 of the 12 hours. The remainder of the time, I read some Fodor's stuff that Y. Uncle printed out and "The Devil Wears Prada." Very funny book and I am afraid that I am going to be done with it in the next few days. Well, "The Deathly Hallows" comes out soon enough. . .

Our room is small but not what I was picturing. There are three of us in there each with our own slightly larger than twin bed. I, of course, had painful jet lag and didn't fall asleep until 2 am but I did sleep until 7 am. I think this is going to be the key to not waking up at 4 am every day.

We also met our nice tour guide yesterday. It sounds like he has a lot of experience in dealing with Indian-Americans because he even spoke some Hindi and knew what his name, Harris, would mean for a bunch of Hindus (Harish-Vishnu). He seems nice enough and speaks English really well.

That's all for now. There is nothing going on today and the weather looks pretty gloomy so we'll probably just go to the mall that is right behind our place. Don't worry RC, I am not buying anything just yet. This is just to understand how the prices work because it is a government shopping center and there is no bargaining.

Leaving on a jet plane

2007-07-15T03:58:00.001-07:00

I thought I would start our new blog off with blogging about our trip to India. Well, that came and went with no launch. Then I thought, well, surely I will start it on our two-year anniversary (last Monday) but again, it came and went with no fanfare. Tomorrow, I am leaving for China and I have decided that this will be the medium that I use to communicate with you while I am there. Who knows, I might even do some backposts of India and the anniversary.

But I need your help with one thing: convince RC to also contribute to this blog. He said that he might but I am sure with a gentle push from our friends, he will be more likely to contribute.

~*~

Tomorrow I leave for China with Mom. I am really nervous/excited to go. Our trip itinerary includes the cities of Beijing, Shanghai and Xian. I recently talked to someone who was there for three weeks and she said that it was a whirlwind tour. And we only have 2 1/2 weeks. Yikes! I have a feeling my Keens are going to get abused while I am there. Here is the itinerary:

17th Jul Beijing: (No meals) On arrival, meet and transfer to hotel. The room is booked by yourself. There is two person by separate tranfer.

18th Jul Beijing: (D) Today is free for you without transfer and guide. In the evening have dinner in Indian restaurant with transfer.

19th Jul Beijing: (B/D)Today you will visit the Great Wall at Juyong Pass and Ming Tombs.

20th Jul Beijing: (B/D)Full day visit the Tiananmen Square, Forbidden City and Summer Palace.

21st Jul Beijing/Xian: (B/D)Today you will visit the Temple of Heaven and Yaxiu Market, and then transfer to airport for flight to Xian.

22nd Jul Xi’an: (B/D)Today you will visit the Terra-cotta Warriors and Huaqing pool, Big Wild Goose Pagoda,Ancient Style Street and Ancient City Wall

23rd Jul Xi’an/Chongqing: (B/D)After breakfast, transfer to Xi’an airport for flight to Chongqing. On arrival, meet and take Century Star Cruiser.

24th Jul Three Gorge: (B/L/D)Full day visit the Fengdu Ghost City.

25th Jul Three Gorge: (B/L/D) Full day visit the Qutang Gorge, Xiling Gorge, Wu Gorge and Shennong Stream.

26th Jul Yichang-Wuhan/Hangzhou: (B/D) When you arrive in Yichang, will take coach to Wuhan airport, and then take flight to Hangzhou. On arrival, meet and transfer to hotel.

27th Jul Hangzhou- Mountain Huang: (B/D)After breakfast, take coach to Huangshan. Take the cable car go to top of the mountain. See Brush Pen Peak, Begin-to-Believe Peak, grotesque pine trees, Lion Peak, and Xihai Grand Canyon.. Paiyun Pavilion, see Flying Rock. Guangming Ding until Hundred foots Yuti, overlook Lianhua Peak, Yuping Peak and steep and limited Gorge.

28th Jul Mountain Huang: (B/D)Catch the glorious sunrise. And visit Yingke treet, Songke treet, Peike treet and so on

29th Jul Mountain Huang-Hangzhou: (B/D)Today go down Mountain by Cable Car. Transfer to Hangzhou. On arrival, check-in, then visit the West Lake, Santan Lake and Leifeng Tower, then visit the Liyin Temple, the Flying Peak, Six Harmornies Pagoda, Gushan Island.

30th Jul Hangzhou-Shanghai: (B/D)Drive to Shanghai, on arrival visit People’s Square, Century Street, Cruise Huangpu River and enjoy the Acrobatic Show in the evening.

31st Jul Shanghai: (B/D)Full day visit the Yu Garden, City God’s Temple, Nanjing Road, and the Bund.01st Aug Shanghai Departure: (B)Transfer to Shanghai airport for back flight.

Ok - so I was very ambitious when I started this post by doing all the hyperlinks. However, now I am in Small Town, Ohio and only have dialup and it keeps booting me off so the hyperlinks ended there.

I am nervous about this trip for several reasons:

1. It has been a long time since I have traveled without RC. We have been around the world twice and all over the US together. We have always traveled well together and now our routines and habits are deeply engrained. I know that he carries certain things for me but now I have to do it all myself!

2. I am traveling WITH Mom. While I love her like my mother, she is still my mother-in-law and I don't have the same liberties that with her that I do with Amma. I am certain we will get along but the uncertain will always bring about apprehension.

3. Speaking of the uncertain - China! I have been to India so many times but China is a whole different ballgame. Even Bali was different because we were staying in resorts the whole time, not traveling quite as much.

I think that is about the extent of my major concerns. Sigh. I look forward to reading your comments.