Big Weekend

Anna had a big weekend. After the party on the 4th, there was another work party on Saturday night. This one was bigger, catered and had a lot more people with their families. There were games and it was outside. Again Anna did great. I almost didn't go because she fell off the bed again and had a shorter late nap. I wasn't sure she would cooperate. We went anyway and were prepared to leave if necessary. It wasn't. She was passed around and did great with all the new people. There would be times when I would look for her with the person who had her last and she wouldn't be there but wouldn't be far off with someone else. Such the social butterfly. Must be from her daddy because it is sure not from me.

With these two late nights in a row, I think it broke her of the habit of waking up in the night to eat. She has been waking up once in the night around 2 or 3 or 4 ish to eat and on Sunday night I was all ready to start cutting down on how much I feed her each time so we could gradually stop eating (I didn't think I could just let her cry). But then she didn't wake up until Monday morning. Granted it was a little bit earlier than usualy but it was morning. She did it again Monday night so I'm hopeful that the habit has broken without any effort on my part.

Then on Sunday, I was reading through What to Expect the Frist Year at the list of developmental accomplishments. One thing it said she "may possibly be able to do" by five months is sit without support. This is something she has been working on and can sit really well with something behind her. She has started sitting on my lap without something behind her so I thought I would check to see if she could sit on the floor all by herself and she did! It generally wasn't for too long before she would start to reach for something and start to topple a little bit but still.

And since she showed she was such a big girl with her sitting up all by herself, I decided to cut her hair. This is something I've been meaning to do for a long time but just haven't gotten around to it but since she was sitting there all by herself I figured I would try. So I cut off her baby mullet and around her ears. It was a little bit tricky, even with a toy to distract, because holding one's head still is boring but I got it all in the end. She looks so different. Jason pointed out that she looks like a boy and she does a little bit but now her neck is bare which has to feel good. I decided to keep the hair in a baggie. I was going to just throw it away because I didn't have an envelope but when the time came to toss it, I couldn't. So, it's in a ziplock baggie labeled with her name and the date of the cut.

Stop being so silly

(Veggie Tales) I never would have thought of myself as an alarmist. Nor would people who know me. I'm sure I always come across as so even keeled. What people don' t know is what goes on inside my head. Whenever something little happens, I have a habit of taking it to the extreme. Such as my thought that Jason had malaria when he had a fever (a common occurrence for him). Another example is when Anna falls, I'm immediately worried that she has cracked her skull or has some kind of brain damage. In my defense, we do have tile floors.

So while I have these fears, I recognize that they are usually unfounded and don't get too outwardly worked up about things. Outwardly being the key word here. I can keep these fears alive in my head for days. The concern I have about that is, what if something were to actually be wrong? Would I be able to tell the difference and act accordingly or would I just try to write it off as me overreacting again and not get the proper medical attention and thereby making the situation worse?

I also suffer from the fear that when I do get medical attention that it won't be anything and I will look/sound silly to the professional. Who knows why I have such a fear of looking/sounding silly but it drives a surprisingly amount of what I do. Fortunately Jason doesn't seem to have that fear. He'll ask people almost anything. I would quasi-jokingly say I'll stand back and act like I'm not with him when I send him to ask.

This is where I rely heavily on prayer. I pray that my family will be protected, that I will know when to act and (most importantly) that I will be able to stop dwelling on things that are not as big a deal as I want to make them out to be.

Taken Care Of

Last week when Grace came by with the doctor, she noticed that there were some things that we could use some help with. Naturally we had noticed that we needed help with these things too and were going to ask but just hadn't gotten around to it. Namely, getting out to go shopping and cleaning our house. So when Jason went back to work on Thursday (he is feeling much better now) she instigated arranging to have one of the work drivers take us out to the grocery store and the meat store once a week. We decided on Saturday afternoons so Jason could go too. (When Grace came over, we were shockingly out of food. We had arranged to go shopping with someone from work on Sunday but then he never called us to let us know when he was going so we didn't go. As frustrating as that was, I was glad that we didn't go shopping on Sunday.)

Then she arranged to have someone come by once a week and clean our place. This is something that I had decided I would like. People kept asking to make sure we didn't want someone to cook for us. My thought was that the cooking I can do, it's the cleaning that I would rather not. So on Friday, a nice guy whose name I never did catch came by to clean. He was here for a couple of hours and did the whole place top to bottom. It was wonderful even if he did keep laughing at how dirty the place was.

Here is the guy who came to clean. He thought Anna was great and wanted a picture with her. She is wearing her 4th of July outfit that is actually size 12 months and was a little bit big but was doable.

When he first came it was a little funny. I had already started sweeping the floor when he came by with lunch (Grace sent lunch to me for a couple of days while Jason was still recuperating). I thought he was just the lunch guy (I hadn't turned on the computer yet so Jason couldn't tell me he was coming) and was a little confused when he wanted to continue with the cleaning I had started. We were finally able to figure out what was going on and that Grace had sent him.

So now we have someone to clean and a weekly ride to the grocery store. I'm sure this will keep us in food and hope it will help me keep the place cleaner. I find it's always much easier to maintain.

4th of July

This was my first 4th of July out of the country. Oddly enough, it didn't feel like the 4th. Jason went to work and I dressed Anna and I in quasi-patriotic outfits (we don't actually own any stars and stripes gear so Anna wore red and white and I was all about blue). The Americans from work then all got together and had a bar-be-que with some of the Indians. Jeremy marinated some pork in mango puree with chili powder and grilled it. Bindu also had a bunch of veggies that she grilled and had things like chips and a salad and Indian rice. They also had some so-so corn on the cob, watermelon, peaches and mango. I tried to make a potato salad. We were able to get mayonnaise without eggs in it for the vegetarians, the problem came with the pickles. We had some homemade pickles but when I opened the jar, they were sweet. I was totally bummed so the salad just had the potatoes, mayo and garlic that I had sauteed in butter ( I didn't have garlic powder or salt). Unfortunately, I kind of overcooked the potatoes so they were more mashed than I would have liked. They were still good but it wasn't like potato salad. Oh well.

Anna had a blast and was a hit (naturally, especially with the pig tails). She took a late nap so she was able to stay awake late and still be happy (I'm very glad that she is flexible with her naps. At one point I was trying to get her on more of a schedule but I decided that with our life at this point, a little flexibility is better). Later in the evening, she started talking a lot. It was hilarious. Everyone there was saying how impressed they are with her disposition. Apparently they were really worried about us coming out here, particularly about the flight. There were numerous lunch time conversations about us. Jeremy said he knew we would be ok when she was awake and happy as we came out of the airport. He was afraid we would come out with a screaming child and just be wiped out. We have definitely been blessed with Anna's ability to go with the flow and observe the world around her. She even doesn't mind going to other people yet. With her cooperation, this trip has been possible; without it and I would probably have had to stay in the States.

Will you look at that!

Yesterday morning I happened to look in Anna's mouth and this is what I saw:
I felt around and sure enough, she has teeth! The two bottom ones seemed to have come in at the same time. I have no idea when that happened. Other than drooling and chewing on things (which she has been doing for a while now) I hadn't really noticed any extra fussiness. The previous two nights she did start fussing but wasn't really waking up so we just put her binkie back in her mouth and she went right back out. Wether that was related to the teeth or not I can't say but that seemed to be the only indication that there was any trouble at all.

This morning they are bigger and can kind of bite. Jason's response was that feeding her will never be the same again.

The rains came down

Not here but a cool picture that could be here.

Well it looks like the monsoons have come. It's rained at least once every day this week. And I'm not just saying little showers. It will be a full on deluge. I'm amazed at how well it cools thins down. Generally the temperature will be in the nineties but last night after the rain but before the sun went down it was in the 70s! Jason even put on pants.

This would be a great time to leave the doors open and keep things cool except that we have no screens. The first night after it rained we left the doors open while we were up and were inundated with bugs. They weren't really big bugs but there were lots of them and they were kind of creepy and annoying. So since then we have learned that when the sun goes down, the doors need to be closed. Unfortunately this still doesn't keep all the bugs out. We still have some coming in through the bathroom windows (which don't really close all the way) and under the non-sliding doors. The past couple of nights I have seen a cricket on the floor.

With all of this rain, we don't have it as bad as Mumbai. Before Jason got sick we were thinking about going there this weekend what with the holiday and all (even though the 4th of July isn't a holiday in India, we think Jason gets the day off because it's an American company). Naturally with his recovering we have decided to stay home. I was looking online yesterday and it said that Mumbai was flooded with water up to people's knees. Lookes like we dodged a bullet. Of course I don't know when we will be able to go to Mumbai now. I don't know if it will just get worse or if there we will be a less wet time or if we will just have to go and be wet. We'll have to see.

Be a man, take some Pepto Bismol and get over here.

(Ferris Bueller's Day Off) If only it were that easy. Jason has been sick this week (hence the lack of post yesterday). It started on Sunday night he started feeling achy and his tummy was unhappy. Then came the fever with more stomach upset. So he stayed home from work on Monday and slept all day. That night he had chills and I was a little worried he might have gotten malaria. This was not an unrealistic fear. While the rains haven't really started yet, and there is at least a week incubation time, the risk is low but I know I have had some bug bites already. Also, while he does have an anti-malarial (we wouldn't dream of coming in the country without it) he has been known to forget it. So I was worried. Also that night came the diarrhea. In the morning, he called Jeremy from work and Jeremy said he would talk to Grace once he got in the office.

Around 10:30, Grace came over with the doctor. That's right, a house call. I was surprised. I thought we would have to go to the hospital and was really glad that we didn't (it sounded like quite an expedition with a sick husband and a baby who was running low on diapers again). The doctor listened to his symptoms and took his blood pressure which was apparently low. He wrote us out some perscriptions and gave some instructions for keeping him hydrated and nourished and went. Grace then went to the store for us and bought some fruit and bread (we were going to go shopping but didn't get a chance) and the medicines. She told me how he needed to take the drugs and gave some advice on feeding him and made us some soup before going to work.

Jason then slept for a lot of yesterday. When he was awake I made sure he ate little bits of things like bananas and bread and rice to "bind his stomach" (as Grace put it) and got lots of fluids. Then last night, his fever broke while we were watching a movie. The diarrhea has slowed but I don't think it has completely stopped. He is feeling better but is still weak so is staying home today. Last night when Grace brought over some food for us she said he wasn't to come into work today so he could build his strength.

So it looks like we have gotten through our first set of illnesses (I was sick briefly the first week we were here). While I'm glad it wasn't malaria, I'm resolved to be more consistant with reminding Jason to take his medicine (even if I do sound like I'm nagging, it's better than malaria). We really appreciate all the help and I guess we can just keep being careful with what we eat.