A flower is so beautiful when it blooms. As a bud, it glows full of promise and pushes you to wait another day to see the beauty within. When the petals are in full display, you cannot help but know that everything in the world is good even if you take that second for granted. Anjali was a bud when we brought her home. Beautiful, sweet, innocent and she is still is all of that and so much more. So pure in her laughter and mischief that I cannot help but realize that this world is full of good. She's changed but in essence is still herself.
Anju's world is one that I am lucky to be part of. Her address has now officially changed to 'in mama's arms till 5 p.m. on week days.' After 5 p.m. on week days and on weekends, I consider myself to be off-duty. Janardhan has to do the heavy lifting with Anjali after that. I tell him, it's part of the package that comes with being the favorite! It is funny as during the first few months home, I was filled with agony when Anju ran away from me to her dad and now, I jump with glee at the same thing. :) Life is a lot funnier when you look back.
Life seems to have settled down into a good rhythm (touch wood). Sometimes having no real exciting events apart from the usual routine feels like a welcome change. Adoption changes so many aspects of your life. The long wait, the first few months of being a family, establishing a routine and peeling the layers off each other leaves you in a very different place from where you started. Of course, I am only talking about my experience and don't mean to be preaching. I am so much more humble and grateful for everything. I feel guilty when I grumble these days.
Now, back to Anjali. A few things that had me worried have now kind of been smoothed out. A big one was Anju's eating. She is so active that she cannot sit through a meal. Despite entertaining her, getting to sit through a meal was impossible. She would literally jump out of her high chair and there were a few days where she would just hoard food in her mouth and take hours to chew. The main reason we even pushed so hard was so that she would gain weight. She was absolutely tiny when she came home. I finally decided that we had would get rid of the high chair and Anjali would eat lunch and her snacks by herself (with a little help of course). She tends to start playing with her food if not observed and will make a mess which she will eventually lose interest in tasting. I am glad to say that I think eating by herself and being allowed to run around and come back between bites have really helped her. There is no more stress as mealtimes. She has steadily gained weight and height since she came home so that is a big relief. Her speech also is improving rapidly and she has become quite the chatter-box. Her cute baby voice can be heard all day long. Our pediatrician seemed really happy during our 6 months health check and said Anjali appears to be thriving. A lot of her behavior seems to be pretty typical for a two year old. Music to my ears.
Going back to talking about food, Anjulily has also become a chef-in-training over the last couple of weeks. Ever since Dhruv started cooking with me, she brings her little stool to the kitchen and observes me cooking. Then, heads over to her play kitchen and give me lot of pretend food to eat. It is adorable!!!! Dhruv is getting more interested in food which is great as he is a very picky eater. Anjali is definitely opening doors for him. There is no cuisine that Anjali doesn't like. She is happiest eating Indian food. Make her idlis or dosas and she has the biggest smile on her face. Her spice tolerance has improved. I've made chicken curry for the kids a few times and Anju has gobbled it down every single time. I think my fantasy of being a vegetarian home is going to be just that (a fantasy)! Both the kids seem to love their meat.
We had a couple of amazing experiences with Anjali this summer that we did not capture in pictures. The first one was our trip to the beach. The Pacific NW coast is breathtakingly beautiful and Anju agrees. I've never seen her so quiet and peaceful before. She loved playing in the sand and jumping around in the freezing cold water. Nothing seemed to matter. It was her first time at the beach and to see her react to the soft sand was too cute. She was so scared of it at first and then when she saw Dhruv and his friends playing with it, she decided to join in. I thought she was almost in a meditative state that day. So calm and happy. The second first for Anju this summer was camping. We went to Champoeg State Park with friends and stayed the night. I was honestly really nervous since Anju is hard to keep in one spot. What if she touches the fire or what if we lose track of her? Also, she only sleeps in her bed and usually cannot even go down for a nap outside. I had all these horrid scenarios playing out in my head. Thankfully, things went smoothly and Anjali ate the whole time that we were there!!! We were gone for lesser than a day but I was not ready for our first time to be any longer. Janardhan came back super exhausted because he had to take Anjali to the bathroom about a 50 times while we were there. She is potty trained (another milestone achieved this summer) but sometimes likes to go to the potty just for a change of scenery. I have to admit that it was a lot more fun for me as I only took her to the bathroom once during our camping trip. Poor Janardhan! But, hey what can I say? It's part of the package that comes with being the favorite!!!!
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