A Quick Note on the Teeth

Today, Luis's top right tooth broke through. Or, maybe it was breaking through Saturday night - which would explain why Luis was up, crying terribly, every hour or so. Anyway, I felt it for the first time tonight. This is the first "upstairs" tooth to come through. I imagine it will be ages before I can get a photo of it, so you'll just have to take my word.

Another Great Use for the Ergo

This weekend, we went back to Lonavala for a quick weekend getaway. Diego and 7 other guys played golf at Aamby Valley, a very swanky, private city about 90km southeast of Mumbai. The accommodations at Aamby Valley are for property owners, only. So Erika & Skylar (you can see her here in this picture, behind the high chair) and Luis & I hung out at a nice hotel/resort while the boys golfed. The Fariyas Hotel was very beautiful - indoor pool and outdoor pool with multiple water slides. I was pleasantly surprised to learn that they had high chairs available; but not so surprised to see how unsafe & unclean they were. I described it to Diego as a "1950's Death Trap High Chair". Erika had the brilliant suggestion to use the waist strap of my ergo carrier to hold him in. I did, and it worked wonderfully!

On Wednesday, we are all on the road again - heading down to Goa for the wedding of two of Diego's co-workers, Frans & Surbhi. Pauline asked if the wedding was "love marriage" or "arranged marriage". When she heard the names of the bride and groom she said, "Oh, definitely love marriage!" I should have lots of great stories from that trip. The wedding is a full weekend of traditional Hindu events. Erika and I, in an attempt to embrace some of the culture here, bought Sari's to wear to the ceremony on Saturday (and our husbands will be in Kurta's). Friday afternoon, all of the ladies will have henna painted on their hands. Frans, the groom, will ride an elephant in to the ceremony. Should be a great time.

My Sun Baby

The last week or so, the temperatures at night and in the early morning are cool and breezy. It's been wonderful. In the mornings, I open up all of the windows and the patio door to the balcony. I leave everything open as long as I can (i.e. until it gets hot or sticky or both). Some days I close up at 9a and some days not until after lunch.
Ashley likes to go out on the balcony and take little cat (dog?) naps in the sun. She doesn't stay out to long. I'm not sure if she gets hot or just gets curious about we're doing inside.
(You can also see in this picture that we have a bunch of plants on the balcony. They came with the apartment - and they do so much to make the balcony feel inviting and homey.)

Price is (not) Right

On Wednesday, Erika and I went up to HyperCITY - which is the fancy grocery store. Fancy may not be the right word... It looks the most like a US grocery store and by comparison to the other places I buy food, it is fancy. It's kind of like a Target Greatland because it also sells household goods, kids toys, sports equipment, electronic equipment and appliances. I really have no far how many kilometers it is from our apartment, but not in traffic, it takes 45-60 minutes to get there. It has taken more than 90 minutes sometimes. But it is worth it for a few items.

For instance, it is the only place in Mumbai I've found (or even heard about) that sells whole bean coffee. You can get ground coffee from Cafe Coffee Day (Mumbai's version of Starbucks). But it seems that most people drink instant coffee. Let me rephrase. Most people drink chai. Those who drink coffee, tend to drink instant. Diego's Colombian roots do not allow him to drink instant coffee (unless we are camping). So coffee was high on my list for things at HyperCITY. I also got cream of celery soup (for making a casserole I like a lot), mosquito repellent (these funny things that you plug in at night - Diego swears that anyone from Latin America knows what they are), a vacuum cleaner, taco seasoning, and a few other things.

While I am good at math, I am still slow on learning the metric equivalent of things. So when coffee is priced as rupees/gram, I can't instantly in my head convert that to USD/lb. Of course, with pen and paper - no problem. But in the market, I tend not to bother. For the things I really want, I almost don't care how much they cost. Almost. Let's just say that the coffee turned out to be AMAZINGLY expensive.

Wanting to have some fun this morning, I took pictures of five things for people to guess the price. See how you do.

Cheerios:

Coffee (1lb)

Eggs (one dozen)

Yogurt (250mL)

Slim Milk (1L)

Answers:
Cheerios: $6.00
Coffee (1lb): $40.00
Eggs (one dozen): $0.75 (yes, I realize there are 15 eggs in the photo)
Yogurt (250mL): $1.50
Slim Milk (1L): $0.82 (1 Gal - $3.40)

I don't have a picture of limes, but I can get 6 limes for $0.25. But a mango (at the end of mango season) cost me $3.50. It's crazy.

The dollar is currently dropping against the rupee. I didn't actually take economics in college, so all I can really say is that the rupees we get on payday buy a lot more dollars each month. That's good. And it seems to make things more expensive. When I first arrived it was about INR 46 = USD 1. So that box of Cheerios used to cost more like $5.60.

But there isn't much that the dollar can do to make it OK to spend $40 PER POUND for coffee beans. For the same money I could either by 1.5lbs of coffee or a vacuum cleaner.

I will do another post about the inexpensiveness of things (like courier fees of less than 20-cents to send something across Mumbai - more than 1 hour by train). Because there are lots and lots and lots of inexpensive things as well!

Toast w/ Jelly for Breakfast

Luis is Ten Months!

On Monday, my friend Erika's sea freight arrived from the US. Like us, she brought all of her baby stuff. And like us, she was having a tough time finding a place to stow everything. So, she sent a few things over to our place - like this exersaucer (her daughter, Skylar is two, and is a bit old for this). It's been over two months since we left our exersaucer at Mom's house. Luis didn't show any signs of remembering what this was. He did, however, show lots of signs of liking it. Several times a day, he crawls through the base like he is doing here. It's pretty funny to watch.

Monday was also Luis's 10-month birthday. And it was the day we took him to see the pediatrician for conjunctivitis (which, by the way, has cleared up completely). He weighed 9.6 kg - which is roughly 21lbs 3oz. This keeps in him in the ~45% for weight (for US babies, clearly not for Indian babies!). Luis is now officially out of all of his 9mo clothes. They measured his length to be 74cm (about 29"). That's only an inch longer than he was at 8mo. Being as the reason he can't wear 9mo clothes anymore is that they are too short, I think he's grown more than an inch.

He's picked up a few new tricks lately. Every time he comes into contact with Ashley, he grabs a fist full of fur. And every time, I release his hand, say "Gently, pet the dog gently" and show him how to stroke Ashley instead of grabbing her. Well, on Monday, he petted her properly for the first time. Boy was he proud of himself!! He's done it several times since - each time looking up at me with proud eyes. Then, Luis was reaching up to touch one of the indoor plants we have. Wanting to teach respect for the plants, I said, "Gently, gently." He paused, looked at me, and then looked around the room for Ashley!!
Luis likes to stand up next to a chair and then push the chair around, like a home-made walker.
He is more aware of the idea of 'over', 'under', and 'around'. He frequently will get down on his hands and knees to look under the living room table. Then he sits up to look over it. Then back down to look under again. I find it to be a very fun cycle to watch.
Luis is currently learning how to wave bye-bye. We have lots of people to help him with it: now when Pauline, Pavarti and Shabina leave, they all very dutifully stop and wave and say Bye Bye to Luis. He looks and smiles, but that's it. What he does like to do is to shake his head from side to side. It's as if he's saying "no", but he's not. He's just shaking his head. I think I have a video clip of it. If anyone is interested, I can email it to you.

Moon Set

Sorry the picture is a little blurry, but I think it's still cool: this is the moon setting this morning. I have long enjoyed the harvest moon rise. But I've never seen a moon set like this before. It was stunning!

Guess Who's Got Conjunctivitis???

A Quiet Afternoon

An Afternoon Swim

This afternoon, Luis took a dip (al fresco) in his new pool. He loved it!

Luis's Fan Club - Shabina's Family

Sunday was Eid - the end of the month-long Muslim festival Ramzan (or Ramadan). It was a holiday for Shabina (who is Muslim). But she came over Sunday evening with her children to bring us some Chicken Biryani that she had made for her family. Zed, her son, has been here several times and is always very sweet with Luis. (He also loves to play with the magnets we have on the fridge.) This was the daughter's first visit (I didn't get her name...), and she too was very kind with Luis - carrying him and cooing at him and making him laugh. Almost everyday I feel blessed by how kind everyone is with Luis.

A New Style of Dinner

Two nights ago, I was a little unprepared for dinner and didn't have the right kinds of pureed foods available. I didn't think that sweet potato, chick peas and kidney beans would make for a well-balanced dinner. So I decided to try something new. I cut up some pasta, some cheese and some chicken and put it on the tray for Luis to feed himself. It was a very long dinner (almost one hour), but he did a great job of feeding himself. From time to time, I did help out with a spoonful here and there. But I'd say that he did 80% of the food-to-mouth work.
(And in case anyone is questioning the nutritional balance of the meal he DID get, he had a peach yogurt w/ cut up bananas for desert.)

Two Teeth

Luis smiles and laughs with a great wide-open-mouth style, which allows me to see his two little teeth all the time. It is, however, very difficult to capture Luis's two teeth on film. This picture is the best I could do. You have to look closely.

(There is currently no evidence that he's going to cut any more teeth any time soon)

Laughing in the Tub

One of Luis's new "tricks" is laughing. For a while now, he's been good for a chuckle here and there. But now he laughs. From his belly. For a long time straight. Sometimes he has to stop laughing so he can catch his breath. It's so much fun to watch - and to laugh with him.

This video was shot about a week ago. I bought Luis some new bath toys, which he seems to really like. The video is almost a minute long ... and is about 25 seconds too long. Sorry. Haven't yet mastered editing video.

Vacation Pictures? Third Try...

If this posting doesn't work, than I'll email pictures to interested parties. I deleted the last two posts b/c the pictures weren't showing up.

A Vacation!

This past weekend, Luis, Diego and I headed out of town for a weekend getaway. It seemed a bit odd to be taking a vacation, because, to some degree, life in Mumbai feels like a very extended vacation to me - as if I'm just on holiday from my normal life. But it was nice to get out of the city (I thought only people from NYC said things like that...), to see a different part of India, and to have some family time with no distractions.

We went to a town called Lonavala, which is east and south of Mumbai, and is 2,500 ft above sea level. Lonavala is about 100km outside of Mumbai and it took us about 2 1/2 hours to get there by car. Of course, almost an hour of that was to drive across Mumbai! Once we were out of the city, the rest of the drive was along a 4-lane divided highway. Except for the occasional sign in Hindi, it felt a lot like driving the interstates in the US. With Anwar driving, both Diego and I could watch the scenery go by. The view out the window was so green and lush and hilly and free of people and building.

The expressway we were on was a toll-road. Two things that cracked us up were the signs that requested you have exact change at the toll booth - but there was no sign telling you what the toll was. Then, we got to the booth and the toll was Rs. 71! I'm guessing that not many people actually had exact change. The second thing was that all of the toll booths were positioned the same - meaning that when we were headed East, the toll collector was on the right side of the car (same side that the driver is on); but on the way home, headed West, the toll collector was on the left side of the car. At these booths, there was an extra guy standing there, outside of the booth, who could lean in and across your car in case you didn't have someone in the passenger seat to hand over the toll.

We arrived in the town of Lovalana around dusk. The website for our resort, The Upper Deck, indicated that we should park at a school parking lot and they'd send a car. We did that. But as we waited for the car to arrive, we decided that we'd rather just have Anwar drive us to the resort. We didn't want to unpack the car or take Luis's car seat out only to have to install it in their car. When the driver arrived, he said that Anwar could drive us up - that we should follow him. About 5 minutes later, we were driving on a very narrow, gravelly road that had an intense incline. Turns out we were basically driving up the side of a mountain on what could be compared to a poorly-maintained Fire Road in the US. As it got darker and darker and the road got steeper and more gravelly - and the drop off got bigger and bigger, I just stopped looking out the window and instead gazed at Luis.

We got settled into our cottage and put Luis to bed. Diego asked at the reception desk if there was a babysitter available, so that we could go up to the restaurant and have dinner - there wasn't. Diego and I have learned that there is an amazing list of things available here if you are just willing to ask. So I walked back up to the reception area and asked if there was someone available to stand outside our cottage to listen out for Luis (and, presumably, come and get us at dinner if he started to cry). That, the guy at reception said, was available. Ten minutes later, a guy showed up. We went to dinner and he stood - the whole time - while we were gone.

Saturday morning we woke up (rather, Luis woke us up) at about 6:30. It turns out, he was just in time for the sunrise. It was beautiful coming up between the hills. Having arrived after dark, we weren't quite sure where we were. On Saturday morning, we realized that we were someplace very beautiful. We were nestled in a bunch of hills/mountains (depending on your perspective), sitting almost on the top of our own hill. During the monsoon season, the rain water just pours down the side of the hill and over time has eroded all vegetation. The raw rock reminded me a bit of Sedona, AZ - though it wasn't very red. For a moment, I actually wondered if we were still in India...

After breakfast for Luis, we had a bit of a walk around the resort. Diego was pleasantly surprised by the dew on the grass - something we haven't seen in a long time.

I loved the fog that was coming up between the hills to the south of us.

They had a small observation deck that kind of made you feel like you were standing on top of the world.

Saturday was spent leisurely napping and swimming in the pool and reading and walking about and eating and napping and swimming in the pool. The last time Luis saw a pool was early August - and he cautiously loved it. This weekend, he had a great time splashing around in the water. In the morning, looking out at the pool, it had the look as if it hadn't actually been swum in in a long, long time. It was clean and beautiful and pristinely maintained. But not used. Diego and I were joking about this as we headed off to the pool in our bathing suits with hats and floats and towels in hand. As soon as we were in the water, all kinds of things came to life: the waterfall at one end of the pool, the jacuzzi at another end (though it bubbled a lot, it did not have hot water), the towel boy arrived. I told Diego that I wouldn't be surprised if the manager came out to take our picture. About 10 minutes later, he did!

We let Luis crawl around on the grass - a first for him. He liked it and spend several minutes marvelling at the green stuff that he pulled up by the fistful. We also let him crawl around on almost every other flat surface we could find outside - and even the stairs. Luis really seemed to enjoy the fresh air outdoors. Diego and I DEFINITELY enjoyed it.

That evening, we took another walk about to enjoy the sunset. It actually set behind the hill, but still gave us a very nice view. Dinner on Saturday was much like the night before - we enjoyed the buffet dinner up at the "lodge" while a man stood on the porch of our cottage and listened to Luis sleep. There was a radio station playing at dinner, mostly love songs from the '80s. It was fun to hear old familiar music that we hadn't heard in so long. When Air Supply came on though, Diego thought it was time to head back to our room!

Sunday, Luis was up at 5a and we were up by about 5:45a. Luis seemed to shave about 15% off of every sleep time he had (naps and nights). Which meant that Diego and I didn't get quite as much sleep as we had hoped to get. But, since Luis was his fun, cheerful self, it was hard to complain. We met Anwar back at the car at 10a and were on the road to Mumbai shortly there after. The trip home was easy. And despite showing every sign of being tired (yawning, eye rubbing, fussing, etc.), Luis managed to stay awake the whole time. Of course, Sunday evening, he was in bed, asleep before 6p (and then slept until after 7a on Monday).

It was a great weekend. Getting away was nice. Seeing a different side of India was great. Having all of that time as a family with no distractions was a gift. But the most unexpected thing that happened was how we felt when we got back to Mumbai: that we were home. It was wonderful to have that feeling about our apartment here.

Morning Pictures

Got out the camera this morning to snap a few pictures of Luis. Luis is just beginning to get the idea of "under" - as in the bear was under the crib. He spent several minutes trying to figure out which would be the best way to get to the bear.

Luis is doing a lot of standing up these days. I tried to get a picture of him solo standing, but he wouldn't hold the pose for the camera. Yesterday, a couple of times, he stood on his own for more than a minute. He hasn't tried to move from the standing position, but I imagine it's only a matter of time.

I particularly like this last one, because you can see Luis checking out himself in the mirror. He is big into mirrors these days. There is one in the elevator in our building. He loves to make faces into it every time we ride in the elevator.

A Special Happy Birthday Post!

I used to be spectacular about sending people birthday cards. Those of you who were friends with me back in college may remember those days. Lately, well, I'm not so good. I wish I could say it's because now I'm a mom, but I dropped off before Luis was born. I'm not sure what happened. If it's any consolation to all of you who don't receive birthday wishes in the mail from me (or emails or phone calls), I do think about most of you on your birthday. I do consult my birthday calendar pretty regularly.

But today, I want to give a special shout-out to my THREE McDow relatives who were born on this day: Marie McDow, Maggie McDow Gumbinner and Anna Quin (McDow) Elder. Three special ladies share one special day. Happy Birthday to you all!!

Ashley Lounging

Just two quick pictures of Ashley... Mostly so that in case it's a couple of days before I post again, you aren't all stuck looking at my Pink Eye.
Though while I'm on the subject of Ashley, I will add that she's doing well. In the beginning, she was very hesitant about her walks with Babu. Now, when he comes, she gets almost excited to go out. Also, I think she may be in the best shape of her life. Ashley has a great bounce to her step, and has a lot more endurance when we do play frisbee in the courtyard. Ashley also is enjoying the addition of rice and rice dishes to her menu. Overall, she's doing quite well.

Conjunctivitis, An Update

Diego is four days into his "acute conjunctivitis" and I am coming up on day three of just run-of-the-mill conjunctivitis. This picture was taken this afternoon. My eyes are MUCH better than they were yesterday; the swelling is almost gone and the redness is considerably abated. And not very much stuff is coming out of them anymore. I have a picture of Diego from his Day Two. I'm not posting it because of it's graphic content. Anyone who is curious can email me to request the picture. Again, I caution, it is not for the squeamish.

I think that we both have turned the corner on this and are definitely feeling a lot better. Yesterday, we were both in bed for most of the day. But today, we've had considerably more energy. Pauline has pulled Yeoman's Duty with Luis. Friday, she stayed through bedtime. Saturday, she was here from just before 8a until 7p. And again today, she was here at 8a. Luis, thank goodness, is still symptom free.

I am hoping that by tomorrow, I can interact more with Luis. It's been hard to be here in the apartment with him but not able to play or cuddle with him. I'm a bit surprised at how much I miss him.