The Clara Conundrum

Is she a girly-girl or a tomboy?  With Clara, it's hard to tell.  One minute she's fully embracing her strong interests in women's fashion and in the next she's walloping on Joah with a light saber and throwing bugs (mostly plastic ones) at her mother.  I suppose I shouldn't even mention her foul habit of spitting I suspect she's acquired from our daily interactions with the tobacco-chewing, auto-rickshaw drivers.

Her current favorite game?  Pulling all my clothes out of my closet and dressing up.

"Why yes, Mom.  I do think I'll need my flashlight and whistle with my ruffle shirt,
alligator clutch, Michael Kors wedges and my sun hat."

 On this stormy day, she was walking around with the flashlight saying,
"I am a-lookin' for my shadow."  :) 

Hathis and Jungly

Visits to Nepal always bring back floods of memories from my childhood.  I love that over this last year in India, we have been able to take several trips there.  It's so fun to get to share with my kids and with Corban, some of my favorite things from the country I grew up in.  On this last trip to Nepal we celebrated Easter with my family and some friends, I got to go rafting (SO FUN!) and we joined my mom and Hannah and Michael on a trip to down to Chitwan, which is in the terrai or the jungly region of the country.  My mom had been promising for years to take the kids to ride elephants and so she persevered through some extreme cold/throat illness to make this adventure happen.  Way to go, Mom.  So much fun!

Elephants have long been used as beasts of burden.  They are STRONG and can move heavy things easily, clear paths through the jungle by tearing trees down with their trunks, and.... it turns out, they are pretty good at giving people back-rides.  :)

Before our jungle excursion, we had fun petting this little 7 year old elephant, or "hathi" as they are called in Nepali and Hindi. Hathis have very tough, wiry hair all over their bodies.  It reminded us of wire bristle brushes.

Getting on the cool elephant saddle thingy. It didn't take us long to get used to the funky rhythm of the walking elephant.   For a solid 45 minutes, Clara talked non-stop.  

"Mommy ride-a da hathi... Daddy ride-a da hathi... Joah ride-a da hathi... Michael ride on da hathi... Hannah on da hathi... Grandma ride-a da hathi... And ME TOO! I ride-a da hathi!  And I wook-a for da rhino...  Wook! (Look).  There is-a peacock!"

She talked and talked and talked.  She talked til the cadence of the elephant's footfalls put her to sleep.  Then she slept for an hour as my arms also fell asleep trying to hold her as we swayed.  Then she woke up and talked non-stop til the end of the trek.

Hunting for rhinos.  Joah saw something... but it was not the elusive "gaida".

Our tour guide's personal preference always seemed to be to "take the path less traveled by".  We frequently cut through spider webs, hanging vines, small trees... exciting!

After an hour of walking our "hathi" was thirsty.  Into the river we plunged.

The "momos" or dumplings the elephants snack on.

Mom, Michael and Hannah emerging for a moment from the jungle's dense foliage.

The pretty lodges we stayed in overnight as a huge monsoon storm pummeled the region.  That was loud on the tin roofs!

Hannah, Michael and Clara chilling in the hammocks at the lodge.

Aww...

"Splish, splash,  I was taking a bath..."

Finally.  The end of this post.  I have never experienced so many challenges in trying to format pictures and text in a blog.  This was a really difficult process to get this up on the blog.  Our hosting site: blogger.com, has made a bunch of changes to their system and boy, they have NOT worked out all the bugs yet.  Sorry for the inconsistent look throughout.  I am not very happy with blogger.com at the moment.

Delhi By Cycle

Today we toured Old Delhi by bicycle with the fabulous guides at Delhi By Cycle. It was FUN. We started at 6:30 am as the sun was rising and ended by 10 am with some delicious breakfast dahl, curry and turkish bread at Karim's. We cut through some harrowing alleyways, rode along the 350 yr old wall of Old Delhi, coasted by the Red Fort, and stopped for chai by the Yamunah River.

I wish I was better at getting pictures of all the people that watch our kids EVERYWHERE, EVERY MINUTE, EVERY DAY. Here's an attempt.... Joah checking out the puppies, the man checking out Joah. He's saying, "Look son. This boy has blonde hair." If they had had a cell phone on them, they would also have been taking his picture like almost every other person in the city does. I don't know if it's because they have blonde hair (which is what I suspect) or if it's because of the day and age we live in, with digital cameras everywhere, but our kids get so much more attention than I remember my siblings and I getting when we would come to India. They are such troopers to put up with all of it so well.

In a cropped photo (I cut out the surrounding trash piles) and without the accompanying smell of sewage, or the sounds of people wailing as they cremate loved ones a couple hundred yards away, this moment looks pretty peaceful, doesn't it?

I wish you could experience it all with us. So loud. So stinky. But also so full of kind people shouting "Hallloooo" at the kids and smiling and pinching cheeks. Joah and Clara were very tolerant today. And we all had a great time.

I'm uploading a video below. I couldn't take any footage while I was riding in the narrow alleys, but this one shows where we stopped for tea. Please forgive the really crummy filming..... I need to remind myself to move my phone camera more slowly.

Dr. Seuss Day

Dr. Seuss would have turned 108 this week. Joah's school remembered him with a fun day full of Seuss things. :) He came home reciting Green Eggs and Ham and insisting we make our eggs green too. I made it even better for him and let him make the eggs all himself... (well almost all himself).




Here are some interesting facts about Dr. Seuss:

• Born Theodor Seuss Geisel in 1904, the writer produced more than 60 children’s books before his death in 1991.
  
  
• Before he started writing children’s books, Geisel was an ad man, creating satirical advertisements for General Electric, Standard Oil, NBC, and others. He was also a World War II political cartoonist, and joined the Army as a Captain, making educational and propaganda films. Two documentary films based on works he created (Hitler Lives? and Design for Death) won Academy Awards.

• Dr. Seuss practiced what he preached: his first book, And to Think I Saw It on Mulberry Street, was rejected by 27 different publishers before it finally got picked up. “Think left and think right and think low and think high. Oh, the thinks you can think up if only you try!” Seuss once wrote. Try, try, try again, he did.

• Though he knows how to write for children and their wild imaginations, he never had kids of his own. “You make ’em, I amuse ‘em,” he once said. His wife said in an interview once that he “couldn’t just sit down on the floor and play with them,” and was always a bit uncomfortable and afraid around them.

• He had a bit of a dirty mouth, and would try to sneak in some PG-13 language into his works. The first version of “Hop on Pop” that was sent to his publisher included the word “contraceptive” in one of the verses.

• Geisel considered his greatest achievement to be killing off the Dick and Jane books, which he said weren’t challenging enough for children, and were boring. Dr. Seuss’ books became the new standard in children’s publishing—expanding the imagination through brilliant illustration, social issues, and clever rhymes and vocabulary.

Read more: http://newsfeed.time.com/2012/03/02/happy-birthday-dr-seuss-9-facts-to-know-about-the-famed-author/#ixzz1o7FKkToF

Quotidian Mysteries

Corban's traveling at the moment and the parenting and household responsibilities rest solely on my shoulders (or perhaps more accurately on my legs as I carry children and groceries and swimming gear up three flights of stairs). I miss him. A lot. But at the same time it's during these trips that I find myself alone and thinking some medium depth thoughts (not deep, not shallow). I can't help but analyze the minutia and look for the grand, for the divine design (Ha. I just realized I used the name of the Candace Olson's HGTV show. Maybe my sub-conscience is playing traitor and reminding me of how much I miss that show).

Anyway, in the midst of the daily grind of alarms going off, dressing two sleepy kids, shuttling little ones to/from school... (uh-oh there is an auto-rickshaw driver strike, walk for 20 minutes to find a taxi while dragging a sleepy Clara along behind me who is dragging her stuffed dog along behind her), diapers, dishes, laundry, clean-up, bedtime routine, breakfast-making, lunch-making, dinner-making, security checks at every store, haggling over prices of groceries... in the midst of all this (plus all the stuff I'm not listing), I find myself looking for the WHY. I can't help but think that there is some great purpose for these mundane 24 hour constantly repeating cycles.... some grand goal I am slowly inching towards.

Maybe it's the goal of raising little ones to become semi-responsible and functioning adults, maybe it's the goal of making friendships with people that will last for eternity, maybe it's the goal of living out a life of obedience, loving the people I come across in the moment our lives intersect, maybe it's about being faithful to reach the mini-goals. And maybe one day I'll look back and see each mini-goal was part of a pattern; a series of events strung together in cool ways to create a life of beauty, faithfulness, obedience, love, grace-giving, kindness-extending, hoping, darkness-defying, joy-embracing. A life that fulfilled the grand purpose of worshiping the Creator who is worthy of it all, who sees it all, appreciates it all.

I'm often reminded of these two books that pointed to a purpose in the midst of the mundane. I recommend them. They are good.

The Quotidian Mysteries: Laundry, Liturgy and "Women's Work" - written by a poet, it "draws on her life experiences, her poetry and her love of the Benedictine tradition to discuss the mysterious way that the daily or "quotidian" can open us to the transforming presence of God." I read it years ago, but was recently reminded of it when I spontaneously felt prompted to capture what I thought was a moment of beauty and reflected my day's attempt to live faithfully. I call it "Back Balcony Laundry"



Another book I read this year and frequently think about, I've mentioned on this blog before. It's One Thousand Gifts. The author has an interesting website with an ongoing blog here. It has some (I think kind of cheesy) contemplative music playing... but you can turn it off at the top of the site if you want. Definitely worth checking out.

Another person who has me thinking about our roles and purposes as women, and specifically as mothers, is JK Rowling. I watched her interview on "The Role of Women in Harry Potter" and I loved everything she had to say. I was moved to tears as she discussed the role of a mother's love in a child's life. It's good. You can watch the interview (broken into 2 on you tube) here - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UR2u3A1duFQ

More thoughts to come on this at some point. But that's all for now. What do you think about mothering? What were your favorite moments as you look back on your life and time with your mom?

Ash Wednesday?

art by: Jennifer Khoshbin

I am a pretty good person, maybe even a very good person. I work really hard to be kind towards others, to pay my bills on time, to focus on my children's needs, to recycle rather than tossing, to reach out to people when I'd rather crawl into bed. I'm honest. I'm responsible. I'm generous. I so strongly believe in my principles and values that I CHOSE to move my family to a very challenging country so that we can help the poor and disadvantaged here. I could go on for a while with my list of characteristics I find admirable and think I have... (and sometimes I do go down the list when I spout off one of my self-righteous rants at the world). So I was somewhat surprised when last night, while learning about Ash Wednesday, I started weeping as I read the Litany of Penitence (a small excerpt included below).

... We confess to you, Lord, all our past unfaithfulness: the
pride, hypocrisy, and impatience of our lives, We confess to you.

(Oh man. Did the authors of this prayer watch me in secret and write this with me in mind? With my above paragraph I remove any doubt of the existence of my pride. I have children I am constantly correcting, chastising, commanding to do better... all the while failing in the same ways they are... Hello hypocrisy. And impatience? A constant state of mind I fight to escape from as I raise a 2 and 4 year old in a culture that I rarely understand and that I often respond to in frustration, anger and regretfully, usually impatience. "Why is it taking so long to get the coke I ordered 30 minutes ago? I can see the glass, the coke bottle, your lazy hands doing nothing...." STOP. Free your mind, Neo.)

Our self-indulgent appetites and ways, and our exploitation
of other people,
We confess to you, Lord.

(Oh geez. I plead the fifth.)

Our anger at our own frustration, and our envy of those
more fortunate than ourselves,
We confess to you, Lord.

(Yes. Beginning with envy of Corban who leaves for San Francisco in 2 days, where he will get to walk down a spit-free, feces free sidewalk, and who will be eating Chipotle and In-n-Out. And where Target and all of the inexpensive beauty within will be utterly wasted on his unappreciative eyes.) *Corban just read this and balked at the use of "unappreciative" so please replace that with "semi-appreciative". But you and I know the truth.

Our intemperate love of worldly goods and comforts, and
our dishonesty in daily life and work,
We confess to you, Lord...

Hello intemperate love of coffee, chocolate, facebook, pinterest, words with friends, chocolate, CB2, long hot baths, clothes, cars, A/C's, chocolate, days spent reading and not cleaning, fluffy pillow not shared with husband, chocolate.
(Corban's contribution to this list as he reads over my shoulder is simply a quietly muttered: "garages", which initially I roll my eyes at. But then I remember long ago days (ok. 6 month ago days) when I pulled the car into afore mentioned garage, both kids asleep in the back seat. I would leave them there while I got 15 minutes of silence. Those days are gone.... I now shake them awake in the back seat of the auto rickshaw and drag them crying (that would be me crying) up three flights of stairs.) I confess to you, Lord, the intemperate love of comfort and worldly goods.

... Accept our repentance, Lord, for the wrongs we have done:
for our blindness to human need and suffering, and our
indifference to injustice and cruelty,
Accept our repentance, Lord...

(Oh how I regret the cavalier and indifferent choices I've made. The deliberate turning away b/c I don't have time to stop, to see, to acknowledge the suffering. Jesus, forgive.)

I'm always amazed at the paradoxes within Christianity. There is such an emphasis on good works (we are created for them) and yet... we are not saved by them. We are rescued by Jesus, not through our efforts (Ephesians 2). I need this season of Lent, need the humbling, need the bowing of the knees, the reminder to reflect, repent and u-turn from the bad, need to re-engage in the good. U-turn mid-stream like drivers here do in the midst of traffic. Hello 40 days (46 if you count Sundays!) of remembering anew that it's not about me or my supposed goodness.

My friend wrote a succinct summary of the why and what of observing Lent. It's worth taking a moment to read if you're at all curious. It's good. Really. Why are you still on my blog? Go read it. :)

Clara's Birthday

My baby just turned 2! Family tradition dictates that we wake up the birthday girl with singing and presents to open.

The fun she and Joah had opening them made the 2am wrapping storm worth it.

"Here, Daddy. Do you want to open one?"

Ooo! A battery operated, real air blowing, hair-dryer! So fun!

Instead of a big birthday party, we decided to spend the day doing all the things Clara loves... from eating Mickey Mouse shaped pancakes to going to the American embassy playground, eating ice cream, digging into a doggy decorated cake and repeating the Happy Birthday song and candle blowing out a bazillion times. It was such a fun day!



LOOK! Pigtails! Her mother's joy - her hair is starting to come in. Finally.

Joah being silly!

Auto ride to the playground.

Too bad Clara is blurry! But we sure had fun singing to her. This picture is from our first round of Happy Birthday singing and candle blowing. Notice in the video below how very many matches we used as we re-lit and re-sang Happy Birthday. Over and over and over again. Apparently THIS is a Bryant birthday tradition. :)