Ready for Hawai'i

howzit

Digger PJs! 

where's the paper man? 

Rise and Shine

From the first day that Kaia came home with us from the birth center—and it was within hours after the delivery (3:57 am) that we were home (7:30 am)—he has slept in our bed with us. Sleeping together is something that we do as an important part of our approach to parenting, and while it has had its challenges from time to time with perpendicular sleeping and night waking, the pleasures of night cuddling and the intimacy that you share with your child during sleep cannot be replaced. I am sorry for parents who miss out on this time. Space here should not be wasted on my opinion about the conventional (how did it become so mainstream when it is a truly radical method!?!) western “cry-it-out” approach to children’s sleeping that isolates children from a young age in another room. This is for another post all together. But back to co-sleeping with Kaia, we have slept in all sized beds in many conditions. In Japan we spread out over the 8 mat tatami floor with three full-sized futons every night that dwarfed any king-sized bed. Here in India, we have a king mattress, but since we’re still waiting on a bed frame and bedroom furniture that we’re having made here in India, the bed is on the floor and perfect for a 2 year old to jump on and roll off of.

Generally speaking, Kaia goes to bed at 9:30 pm and wakes up around 7:00 am. It is a good 9½ hours and, while he used to wake up numerous times over the night, he will only get up for a drink of water now and then. It is a nice routine, frequently interrupted by evenings out, but quite regular. I have found that there is a direct relationship between the time that he gets up and the time that he goes down for the afternoon nap, which is usually around 1:30 pm. Anytime after 7:30 am, and its 2:00 pm or later. Anytime before 6:30 am, and he’s falling asleep in his lunch.

Before the lights go out, there is a good hour of reading to be done. In the photo above you can see the mess of books that we wake up to every morning. One of the ‘little rules' that I have for myself with him is that, if he ever asks me to read to him, I must stop what I am doing—whatever I am doing—and sit with him. I know that this time will pass so quickly, that, while it is great for his development, it is maybe more for me not to miss out. Anyway, my wife will read some Japanese books to him and I’ll read the English, and usually later than sooner, he’s ready to go to sleep….but this post is about waking up…

One of the great pleasures about living in the country are the sounds. Every morning, at about 7:00 am, a man on a bike rides through our neighborhood droning “peaahpaah, peaahpaah”. First thinking that he was saying something in Tamil, it took me some time to figure out what he was saying—paper. He is calling for people who are throwing away cardboard and other heavy paper items to give it to him, and then he can take it to recycle and collect the return. Anyway, this has emerged as Kaia’s alarm clock—the paper man. In the photo above, he has just heard the call for recycling and is easing into the day.

Like many children, Kaia has developed an attachment to particular items of clothing. During the day, the piece in demand is the “surfer tanktop” that my sister recently gave him, but during the night it is one of two “digger peejays” that you just cannot peel off of him before breakfast. The only way that I can get them off of him is by telling him that we need to keep them clean for sleeping. For some reason this makes sense to him in a way that “nighttime clothes” and “daytime clothes” does not. Again, he’s modeling them in the photo above.

After some rolling around in the bed and some stretching (I’ve been up for 2 or 3 hours by the time he’s up) its off to pitter-patter and see what’s for breakfast. Recently he’s been crazy for curd (yogurt) and jam.

Why I Love this Time: He recently said his first true sentence—“Kimi brought this jam”—in reference to some jam that our friend Kimio brought from the Asian Rural Institute (the community in which we were living before coming to India) in Japan.

Bathtime!

Bathtime

As anyone who has spent time in Japan knows, Japanese love baths. The evening ritual of scrubbing clean the film of the day and sliding into a deep pool of hot water is truly one of life’s great pleasures, only bested in bathing experiences by the Japanese onsen. Even from the time when we were living in Seattle, Kaia has enjoyed his bathtime. Some parents (and doctors) would be surprised to hear that we bathed with him from the time he was only a few days old (most folks would be surprised to hear lots of things that we’ve done and do with him) and it was one of Kaia and my regular activities—to take an evening bath together. Once we moved to Japan, when he was about 9 months old, the whole bathing thing, of course, got taken to a new level. Touched by the bitter chill of a Japanese winter, the ofuro together was a perfect way to transition the day and prepare for a chilly evening tucked into a warm futon. In some ways we desecrated the purity of the bath experience with Kaia’s bath toys and such, but of course we always entered clean and never allowed a drop of soap or shampoo into the tub.

Now, once we came to India, things changed. With year-round heat, there is little temptation to sit in a pool of hot water, that is, if you could even find a place equipped with a bath that actually looked appealing to sit in. In many ways it was a bit sad for me to pass on from our bathing ritual, but the thought of continuing it made easier to move on.

Kaia, however, is not yet at the age where he can take (and enjoy) a shower, and this posed a bit of a problem. Oddly, our bathrooms (like the rest of the flat) are tiled with marble that rivals the icy pathways I used to tiptoe through on my way to class during the bitter Michigan wintertime. It is as if they wanted to increase the already high odds of injuring yourself in the bathroom. Here, you don’t have to be 85 to slip in the shower and injure a hip. Anyway, we didn’t want him standing and walking in the bathroom, so at the recommendation of our maid, we purchased a large plastic bucket—the kinds that I used to use to carry compost in the garden—for him to sit and bathe in. At first he was a bit hesitant, but now it has become his little, personal ofuro. The size is just right and, in the end, we can use less water—particularly good since this city is in a perpetual state of water deficiency.

Why I Love this Time: Evening walks in the neighborhood, passing by the ironing stalls, stray dogs rummaging through dumpsters, kids playing cricket, and all of the friendly, smiling people sitting on their front steps.

Puzzles at Kids Central

Puzzletime at Kids C

Can I Ride the Bus? Yes!

All Aboard

No, Part II or No, from the other side

Last week I posted about using the word ‘no’ and trying not to do so too frequently. Well, of course, there is another side to this issue with a 2 year old, and that is how frequently they say it. For Kaia, just in the past few weeks, it can come like rapid fire (no, no, no, no, no, noooooooo) or in response to just about anything:

Indiapapa: The weather is nice today, isn’t it Kaia?

Kaia: No

For all of the concern that I have about controlling it myself, perhaps I am bearing witness to the power of instant karma and the impact that parental behavior has on our children. Or perhaps it is just Kaia growing into a personality that is too terrifyingly close to his old man…either way, it has me a bit spooked and irritated. I am hoping that it is just a phase, but somehow I anticipate that I am going to be hearing more ‘no’ than ‘yes’ over the next 16 years or so.

In an unrelated item, there was a rather funny exchange that happened today at a hotel that I usually goto when Kaia is at his pre-school. Because I go there 3 days a week to do work in their large lobby area, many of the staff members have come to know me and we chat regularly. Today, I was speaking to a security guard and this was the exchange:

Indiapapa: It is getting much cooler recently, isn’t it?

Security Guard: Yes, it is. You know, you are very handsome and strong looking. You are like Yul Brenner.

Indiapapa: Oh. Thank you.

Why I Love this Time: Three little toes that are all the same size and length.

Carpool

5 to a moped!

Minding the Child

Naturally, one of the things that I struggle with the most here in India is the massive gap that often exists between what I can/do provide Kaia and what many Indian parents are able to offer their own children. Here I am not talking about middle-class Indians and their choices between schools, toys, etc., but those of the working poor and destitute that one frequently encounters on the streets. For example, almost everyday on our way back from Kaia’s school, the same mother (at least that is the way that she is presenting herself—there is a wide assumption among Indians that these folks are exploiting these babies for added sympathy and are not even their own) and young child rap on our window, asking for money. Through many experiences of traveling and living in poorer countries, I have developed my own approach to addressing street beggars—I don’t give money, but try to give food as much as I can. Everyone deals with the intensity of this inequality in a different way, but for me this is what I am comfortable with. In the case of this woman and baby, because we’re coming back from school, we typically do not have food with us, but I am trying to make it more of a habit to carry around a small bunch of small bananas for these kinds of occasions. Anyway, when we stop at the intersection that they frequent, it is after about 30 seconds that there is a rapping at the glass and there I am gripped by the sight of a, probably, 18 month old with dirty nose, pussy eyes and well established hand-to-mouth begging motion in coordination with the mother. I always make it a point to make eye contact with them if I have nothing to offer and utter a ‘sorry’ that I hope will translate across through my body language. I often wonder what Kaia is thinking as he watches and, as I know that he is taking it all in, am reminded of how important it is for me to treat them with as much respect as I can. I cannot imagine or assume the conditions that have led this woman to regularly beg for small change by this dusty intersection, but I can try to show Kaia that you can still try to be human about their plight….

Yet, even more illustrative of the chasm of inequality is found next door to our apartment building, where they have been renovating a home for the past 6 months. Over this time, Kaia and I have watched a crew of pencil thin, but wildly strong men tear down and re-build this structure. Of course, Kaia loves it because they have a cement mixer on-site, but he also loves to watch them carry heavy pans of rocks on their heads from one place to another. We can sit there for about 30 minutes and watch the process. I marvel at the cruelty of some of the tools that they are using—short handles that require deep bending, for example—and that they are all working in bare feet, while Kaia gets smiles and attention that all children should receive…which brings me to the little girl who also frequents the work site. While most of the workers are men, there are a few women who also move and carry the heavy loads of rock, sand and gravel. One of these women has a small child, probably about Kaia’s age, and she spends the entire 12-14 day there with her mother, sifting through the rubble for shiny colored wrappers, tossing stones and generally keeping herself entertained. Of course, the mother doesn’t have the time to keep full tabs on her and I am amazed that this little girl can just hang around. I am so aware of the dozens of stray dogs and vehicles coming and going on our street, and I don’t feel comfortable when Kaia is more than 5 feet from me. The thought of him cruising around while I worked…I just can’t even imagine it. But this is not to say that how this girl is being raised is a bad (or good) thing, but rather how incredibly different her and Kaia’s lives are. We go to watch them construct the home as a form of entertainment, with the dozens of smiling Indians, and this small girl, as a part of the experience. But, when we get too hot or bored, we retreat to our penthouse apartment and grab a cool drink from our refrigerator and plop in a DVD….

Why I Love this Time: Walks on the beach finding sea shells amidst the wrappers and ribbons.

Driver

Today we had to let our driver go. It is a rather sad day, as he was with us for a good four months, but due to his personal problems, he driving had become so rash, that there was little choice. Just in the two weeks since Kaia and I returned, he got in a small collision, almost seriously hit 4-5 people, and with each day became more and more angry behind the wheel.

However, a stroke of fortune has allowed us to find another driver right away. His name is Sekar and, for the past 4 years, has been working for an expat family who recently moved back to Ireland. They posted his information on a local list that I’m on and with the glowing recommendation that they gave him, it should be a great improvement for us. This new driver is fluent in English and knows the city really well, two things that the former driver was not….

Why I Love this Time: The consistent challenge of being appreciative and mindful…

Happy Day 

Independence Day

On this date 57 years ago, India gained its independence from the British after nearly 200 years of colonial rule. Today the volume in the streets gets amplified even more than normal as, just yesterday I witnessed an inordinate number of speakers being propped up in public places. The people are ready to rock. Child street vendors peddle miniature Indian flags and even in our home we have one prominently affixed to our glass-topped dining table. Last Friday Kaia was instructed to attend his school wearing orange, green and white to celebrate the holiday and he filled a jar with colored sand in the bands of the Indian flag. Perhaps he even learned a few national songs to add more flavor to the day.

On days like today I realize what a special opportunity this has been to raise Kaia in this country. Here he is celebrating Indian independence with a typical meal of idly and uttapham without a care in the world. Even though we are half a world away from the people we love and who love him, this unique experience has been truly remarkable. Indians love children so much and to walk with Kaia down a street or through a shopping center, is to be on the end of so many kind smiles and extended hands. Just the other day, for the 3^rd or 4^th time, a stranger asked to take a photo of Kaia. I don’t know what he planned to do with it, or how he was going to explain it to others, but somewhere in Chennai there is a digital image of Kaia that will mark this time.

Why I Love this Time: He knows his way around this city—by remembering landmarks and areas—better than most expat residents!

As a parent, I think that one of the most challenging this is to not settle into patterns that offer short-cut solutions to raising your children. I am talking about things like plopping them down in front of the television so that you can check e-mail or giving into repeated cries for a cookie over lunch—not in themselves wrong moves, but a challenge to resist when they are so easy, so damn effective. But for me, the biggest test comes in the quickest form—that is, saying “no”. When Kaia was still pre-two, the word rarely came out of my mouth for, really, a gentle distraction just about always does the trick for most little ones. But now that he’s the tornado of activity that he is, getting into and climbing just about everything, I find myself saying no like I was getting paid $1 for every utterance. I didn’t know that I could say no ten times fast, but it just pumps out of the undulating tongue when you see him dumping sand from the sandbox on the bed.

I used to be able to rationally sit with the idea that I did not want to be one of those parents who just told their children “no” and never offered an explanation. I know that Kaia is able to partially understand my explanation of why he shouldn’t climb up the cabinets (‘boom boom’), and I feel a bit better about things when I do. However, when you mix in fatigue, heat and the day-to-day annoyances of having the power supply fry various electrical appliances and cleaning the washing machine filter a dozen times for each wash due to the high sand content in the water, “no” and an explanation can be hard to come by. There is a part of me that knows that Kaia’s exploration into the more dangerous things (and the associated tantrum when taken away from the activity) is a phase, so I’m hoping that my reliance upon the simple “no” is as well. One thing that I am certainly realizing is that we parents go through phases as well.

Why I Love this Time: Long one-sentence speeches calling our everyone that he knows, “papa, mama, baby, grandme, grandpapa, auntie, baby….”

King of the Beach 

Our So-Called Life

So we came home to news that our driver has left his wife and family (for a good reason), the man who sold us our car and found our flat is a bigamist, our maid is in crisis, and the voltage in our flat is in alternating states of deficit and danger…par for the course for life in this country. Still, it feels very good to be back. While our sleep patterns are still completely whacked (getting up at 11pm and going to bed at 430am) and crankiness rules the day, Kaia is very happy to be back here with all of his books and comforts. To be sure, this place is ruled by him and his things, so maybe it is just good for him to be back in his castle.

A friend in Seattle asked me what I would miss about living in India and I responded, “the people”, but it was tinged with a “I’m looking forward to moving back to the States” kind of confusion. For a few days after that I was thinking about really what I will miss once we move back, and I think it will be mostly the intensity. The intensity of the experience of being with Kaia, the intensity of mid-day in the city, the intensity of fumbling through previously simple tasks, the intensity of humanity. I love the fact that I am able to feel this with my son and, while it often pushes the boundaries of my patience and tolerance, it is this growth that makes it all the worthwhile.

Why I Love this Time: A chaat cart illuminated by kerosese lamp at dusk.

Sandbox!

Sandbox

Back Home

After 50+ bleary eyed hours of constant supervision, over multiple time zones, in cramped quarters, Kaia and I have returned home. Perhaps it was the wave of odor that hit us coming off of the airplane—a cocktail of sweat, jasmine, hazardous cleaning agent banned in most of Europe and North America, with a pinch of lime—or the familiar shortcut through the Directorate on Deviance and Anti-Corruption, or the way that nothing (ever) travels in a straight line, but it is an odd feeling to experience the comfort of being back in India.

The trip back was, well, not nearly as bad as I had been prepared for. In fact, the only meltdown came 5 minutes into our solo trip, while walking through the main security checkpoint in Los Angeles International airport. Kaia had it in his mind to watch one of those carts that transport the elderly and handicapped through the terminal, and we needed to get through the metal detector and x-ray. In addition to the 30 pound bundle, I also had a stroller (which he didn’t want to sit in), a large car seat bag (with toys stuffed in), and a 20 pound diaper bag (filled with dozen of distractions to ease the first leg of the flight). All told, it was about 90 pounds of stuff to ‘wear’ on my person from LAX to the final destination in Chennai—some 10,000 miles away. No one told me how powerful your arms get as a parent.

I think that, when you attempt something like this, it is most important to be mentally prepared. Not to the point of incapacitating terror mind you (like I was nearly!), but to anticipate the challenges that you might encounter: spilt orange juice over both of you, annoyed passengers, alternating boredom and frustration… To know that they will come, you can at least have some prepared solution near at hand. Oh, and if that fails, there is always Benadryl.

Yes, I am not ashamed to say it, but I acquiesced and, 3 hours into the (11.5 hour) LA-Tokyo leg, when it was clear that he wasn’t going to sleep, I served up some of the wonder syrup. Within 15 minutes he was out with long strands of drool and I was being oddly entertained by Miss Congeniality 2 on the cabin’s movie screen. It actually kept him asleep for 6 hours and, in retrospect, it probably was my saving grace. He woke up with a few hours left to go, we played happily and the next thing you know, we were shuttling through immigration and onto our over-priced hotel (what hotel in Japan isn’t?) near Narita. Amazingly, we get a bite to eat from the nearby conbi (and who doesn’t love the Japanese conbi?), I had a beer, and we both were in bed and asleep by 8:30 pm, Japan time. Of course, our body clocks were feeling the 4:30 am lag of western standard time, but it still led to an 8 hour (albeit shallow) sleep…the first leg was successfully completed.

The next day, I awoke to a screeching pessimism that, if yesterday went so smoothly, then today is going to be the opposite reaction. Being a committed devotee to the power of karma and universal balance, and having experienced the ‘blue moon’ of considerate flight attendants on Northwest, I was certain that there were dark clouds on the horizon. But leave it to the hospitality of Singapore Airlines to make all days sunny—there really isn’t a comparable experience for flying in the Asia-Pacific. From the grace and beauty of the flight attendants to the good food to the personal video screens to the care and concern given to young children, it really made the time fly by…well, of course that was helped by Kaia sleeping most of the time in the air (by himself, and without the aid of Bendryl). A 3 hour layover in the Singapore airport and a good deal of running around and all that was left was the final 4 hours to India.

The last leg was without incident. The flight from Singapore to Chennai is rarely packed and many folks have an entire aisle to themselves. As the plane started into its final decent into the Chennai airport, and I gazed out the window over the lit-up city, I realized that what I was seeing was no longer a foreign place, blurred through uncertainty and fear, but something altogether surprising. And as I held Kaia’s hand and winced as the flight attendants passed through the cabin spraying a “non-toxic” pesticide, it became clear to me that this place had become home.

Why I Love this Time: “digger dump trucks” and “torapusya”

Fear of Flying

There are irrational fears, like being tied down and covered in honey while red ants nibble you to death, and then there are true, solid terrors that can anyone to tears: traveling to the other side of the planet on three different planes, over a 48 hour period, alone with a 2 year old, well there can be no disputing that. It sits somewhere between eating maggots and a long weekend with my mother-in-law, and my pre-trip jitters have me sick with anticipation. About two days ago I started to obsess about the schedule and thinking about how, 12 hours on a flight staffed by the old-guard, crusty, and thoroughly unhelpful Tokyo-LAX Northwest flight crew might make my life really, really hard. Fortunately, the later legs back to India are on Singapore Airlines—which couldn’t be more of the opposite in terms of service and amenities—so, if I can make it through the leg to Japan, I should be OK.

If I can glean anything from the 2.5 hour flight from Seattle to Orange County, it is that traveling with a small, crying child allows you to see the worst and best in people. For the awful dirty looks that I received from people (“can’t you control your child?’), and the temptation to lash back with all kinds of venom, it was a kind older woman who came out of first class to offer her uneaten fruit salad that I will take with me….I can only hope that there are more folks like this in the coming days.

Why I Love this Time: How many people, much less fathers have the opportunity to do something like this, alone and by choice, with their children?

Party's Over

We had a wonderful time visiting family and friends over the past month. It was a terrific reminder of how much we miss and cherish these relationships…Here are some images.

Will and Cole

Auntie Brynne

Auntie Trissy and Uncle Jon

Baby Audrey

Grandme and Grandpapa at Disneyland

Pony Ride at the Fair

Densha

Ojiichan