Birthday baby!

Anjali turned 4 in March. Tiny, sweet Anjali celebrated with three birthday parties! Anjali really looked forward to her birthday and all the planning that went into it. My in-laws flew in from Florida to celebrate her birthday with her.  She had a party at school with her friends. In the evening we had a small celebration at home with Anjali's close buds (from outside school) and our family. We wanted to keep it small to keep the focus on our birthday baby. That weekend we had another intimate gathering with extended family. Anjali soaked in every moment of her glory. :) She loved the dresses and noticed every detail of the decorations, cakes and presents. When Anju smiles, the world dances with her. I call it the Anjulily effect. Dhruv, Janardhan and I have totally succumbed to it.

Bonding and attachment, these are heavy words in adoption. I didn't spend even a second thinking about it with Dhruv. I just took it for granted with him and have always stayed so connected with him. When I look at my relationship with Anju, we took love, time and work to get to where we are today. Mother and child wrapped in a world of our own, feeling each other's emotions with it's ups and downs, seeing words without needing to hear them and calling each other's bluffs. I know if I play a game of poker with either of my kids, I will definitely win!

The cycle of emotions and the push-and-pull that Anjali experiences are part of our daily life. Anju is taking in so much into her 4 year old brain. Processing the world through her past and present experiences. I see that her past impressions still color the way she reacts to certain situations. I went for a 4-day silence retreat a few weeks ago. I did it for myself! I have given every ounce of my being to my family over the last few years. I really wanted time to sit and feel grateful. I get caught up in the daily craziness of life and wanted a pause to grow spiritually, I need to feel less guilty about trying to carve time for myself and keep moving forward in life. Anjali had a tough time dealing with my being gone. As I was in silence for two of the days, I could not talk to her. I did leave voice messages for her and Dhruv as I missed them terribly. Anjali being herself, survived but when I came home, she told me that she was scared I would not come back! My poor baby. Anjali had her grandparents, dad and brother with her constantly reminding her that I would be back and counting down the days for her, but she still thought that I was gone. She was happy to have me back and after a few rough nights with her crying for me and needing to be reassured, she settled down. To make matters worse, our doll has had to constantly deal with teachers leaving her class as well as her best friend B leaving the school. :( The push is her dealing with it on her own, her independent streak and defensive shield coming up. Wanting to cross the road without holding hands, saying 'no' to things to cry next second because it is actually a 'yes,' not sitting in one place to eat and pushing boundaries. The pull is her crying in her sleep, crying, whining and talking non-stop to get our attention, needing to be carried and constantly reassured about parts of her day that she knows never change. We keep Anjali's life as vanilla as possible. We do whatever it takes to keep her informed of daily schedules and changes that we foresee. We put down cushions when we see her falling. Change is inevitable and Anjali is grasping this concept at an early age. I hope that our little angel knows that one that will never change is how much we love and adore her.

Now for some cute moments in the last couple of months. Anjali has realized that playing games with Dhruv is a whole lot of fun. She is suddenly interested in learning chess (Dhruv is obsessed with it and quite good for his age) and she sits and watches Dhruv play and is actively taking lessons from him. He is of course thrilled out of his mind and has come up a cool way of enticing her to play by asking her which of his chess pieces she would like to 'eat' so that she grasps concepts of how the pieces move. Anju is also starting to allow Dhruv to snuggle with her these days (something she objects to as he cannot stop kissing her cheeks and hugging her super tight when he gets the chance). Honestly, I don't blame him as J and I do can't stop squishing her too. Anjali is quite the artist these days and is listening well enough to make only a small mess while creating masterpieces. :) The big messes being that the walls become her canvas. Her obsession with stickers has been replaced with painting cupcakes and rainbows. Most of her creations are of course only for her dad. For me, Anjali's biggest victory is that she keeps her hair tied in pigtails for a few hours at a time these days! I think she has finally realized that she looks super cute in them and secondly, that  keeping her hair out of her face allows her to focus on more mischievous pursuits!!

Smooth ride into the New Year

When I wrote my last post, we we had just hiked up a very tall mountain and were standing on the top, exhausted from the journey and glad that we had survived. With God's blessings, we had a smooth descent downhill to normalcy. I am so grateful for resilient kids who fought through the tough days. I re-read my old post and cannot believe where Anju is today.

Little Anjulily is a trooper and no matter what happens to her, she will survive. I believe this is a secret ability God gifted her with. One day she came back home from school and announced that she had a best friend. I was delighted and so was she. Her buddy (let's call him 'B') and she seem to be inseparable. Usually when I drop Anjali off in the morning, she just doesn't let go of me. She cries and holds on so tight. Now, with B in the picture, she runs into his arms and is lost in a flurry of giggles and affection. B and Anju adore each other. Who knew! Her teacher and I tried everything to ease the morning drop-off. Looks like all we needed was B. :) It is so cute that Anjali has made her first best friend. I hope she makes many more.

  Anjali's relationships with everyone has really matured. With me, she is calm, happy and responds well to instructions. With Janardhan she is more willing to share him when others come home. With Dhruv she has really accepted the little sister role and likes to just sit and watch him play. The two of them do a lot with each and help each other too. Dhruv helps Anjali wash her hands and Anju keeps Dhruv company (he's going through a 'I'm scared of being alone' phase). They seem to be more in sync these days. Even when they fight, they comfort each other and apologies seem easier.  Earlier when we had company at home things were quite hard for Anju. She would not allow Janardhan to have a conversation without being all over the place. She seems more at ease now and is joining the other kids at play rather than sitting with the adults. We have been to a few social gatherings in the last month and Anjali has done so well in all of them. I don't have to follow her around anymore!! This is a big achievement for Anju. Seeing her independence and confidence grow has been so gratifying. I guess, this is what attachment looks like. :)

Of course, the biggest milestone of all is that ANJALI  HAS BEEN HOME FOR TWO YEARS!!!! I can still remember the tiny little baby we brought home from Bangalore two years ago and the first few days as a family. I am not sure how much Anjali remembers. Her interest in hearing her Bangalore story has gone away for the moment. She did go through a phase around December where she had to hear her story everyday. It was so cute to watch Dhruv tell her his version of our trip to India and how he tried so hard to cheer her up on that first day. Meeting Anjali and seeing her sweet face for the first time is the happiest moment for our family. We are finally complete and whole.  I am very humbled and grateful. People tell us how lucky Anjali is to have us. All I can say that is that we are so lucky to have her. She took us into her heart and accepted us as her family. It is a big and kind act from such a young child. I have learnt a lot from her and from being her mother. My heart still dances with happiness when I kiss her sweet, soft cheeks and hold her tight. Anjali is my baby. She always has been and always will be.

 I know a lot of you reading my post must be waiting to bring your babies home. Before you know it, you will be celebrating milestones and your children will be blossoming in all the love. I write this blog to thank the universe for my beautiful daughter and to share the joy that is this journey.