Recovering Noah

We made it back home yesterday. I have some blog posts to out up later. I'm just going to copy Sandwich's posts that she blogged about the last few days of the trip. I was too tired emotionally to blog about meeting Naveen and court, so she blogged it. Naveen is a dream. He's fantastic! I blogged a little about him while we were waiting in the airport in Mumbai, but I wasn't able to get wifi access until we got home, so nothing's published yet. I find it very hard to talk about him without crying.... I'm a sensitive fool on my best day, so you can only imagine how I'm doing right now. I'm terribly jet lagged. The flight back home was brutal. 15 and a half hours from Dubai to Dallas, plus we sat on the tarmac for 2 1/2 hours waiting for take-off. That doesn't even include the flight from Mumbai to Dubai. And it turns out my stomach wasn't prepared for American food once I got home because I've been pretty sick this morning. All in all, I...

I'm still trying to figure out how to blog on the iPad. I'm sure it's something that my 7 year old could handle, but I just can't wrap my head around it. Anyway, we made it to Naveen's town, and we're having a pretty low-key night. Sandwich and her daughter are in the room sleeping and I'm in the lobby waiting on chai. I know that if I take a nap now then I'll be up all night long, so I'm holding out as long as I can. Maybe the Chai will perk me up. Earlier while they were asleep, I ventured out on my own. Who is this brave girl that's taken over my body? Have you ever tried crossing the street in India? It's a bit like playing frogger... You get across as fast as you can and just pray you don't get squashed. Or you just attach yourself to someone who's about to cross and do what they do. And sometimes, they'll be really sweet and go all boy scout/girl scout on you and hold your hand. I guess I'm officially an old la...

Mumbai Day 3-- A Busy Day We were busy beavers today. --I'll have to ask Meredith how to say beaver in Hindi. Anyway, today we---- -ate toast or idli and sambar or Mysore onion rava masala -walked 2 km to Colaba Causeway for shopping -crossed the road 80 million times (you need help crossing an Indian street? Call us, we are your experts!) -haggled, bargained and bartered our way to a LOT of souvenirs -got pooped on by a vulture -shared a McSpicy Paneer Burger and fries -disagreed about whether the ice in the coke at McDonalds was safe (I'll let you know tomorrow!) -ate chaat masala Happy Corn (Molly, remember Happy Corn?) -ate Masala Chips -held hands with an Indian man -cleaned black smog out of our noses -didn't get pickpocketed -drank coconuts -bought a disposable cup (2 Rs.) and had fresh- ...um, squeezed? Ground? Crushed? Anyway, it was sugarcane juice -got invited to be in a Bollywood movie (too bad it's for tomorrow!) -stepped...

I don't even know where to begin. Yesterday was a fabulous day. But before I start, I want to explain something first. We've  had some wonderful friends bless us with some money for our adoption and the last thing I want is anyone to think that I'm here in India traveling high on the hog and wasting money. Having said that, we did go on a tour yesterday. But I promise that any money that was given to us went toward the flight or is going toward the hotel. And the hotel in Mumbai is really cheap, about $15 a night and we're eating two meals a day, so I promise we're being really frugal. But we did do a tour yesterday and I'm so glad we did because we saw so much that we never would have seen  on our own, and we learned so much history that we would never have learned on our own. It was well worth it.  Well worth it! We booked with a company called Mumbai Moments.  Sandwich found them on Trip Advisor. They had excellent reviews and it's a small company start...

More tips 1. Canvas or reusable shopping bag to hold your loot. Makes you look like less of a tourist and you can stuff your water bottle in it, too.  Nobody really bothers you if you're empty handed, but as soon as you step out of a shop with a couple of plastic bags under your arm, people know you've got money and you're willing to spend it.  2. This one is kind of petty, but you might want to bring a  reusable  water bottle. You can buy  water and fill up your own bottle in your hotel room. It's smaller to stuff in your bag and makes you look less like a tourist. Of course, that sort of thing might not bother you bc, after all, you are a tourist, but tourists can be easy targets. 3. If it's your time of the month, bring all your stuff with you. You can't rely on being able to get the same kind here. 4. Bring a prescription antibiotic with you just in case. You never know when you might get a case of the runs or an insect bite that gets infected. See b...

Tips We're just hanging out right now for another hour or so and then we'll be meeting someone who's going to take us around Mumbai for the day. Anyway, I thought I'd take a few moments to jot down some things that might help other families who'll be traveling soon. 1. Take flip flops with you. And not necessarily the ones you'll be wearing with you.  You're not taking tennis shoes are you? Okay, so I don't wear tennis shoes in my everyday life, but I can't imagine taking them to India. Unless you're trekking or something. But I think a good pair of hiking sandals would do the trick. Unless you're staying in a nice hotel, you don't know what kind of shower you'll have. It might be a bucket bath (just a low faucet with a big bucket for you to fill up and wash with) or you might just have a simple shower head next to the toilet. If that's the case, water will get everywhere and the floor will be sopping. So you'll need a p...

First of all, let me apologize for the format of my blog posts. They're all running together and I know that makes it difficult to read.  Second, I am bone tired. Bone Tired. I might fall asleep while writing this. Third, I suffer from an incurable disease that I contracted here in India. It's called "I want to pick up and hug and squeeze all the children I see". I have a feeling this disease is going to get me in a lot of trouble. I'll have to exercise extreme restraint in order to keep my hands to myself. Fourth, I also suffer from " I love Paneer Muttar Masala so much that I don't want to try anything else". Fifth, the hostel/ hotel we're staying in is not so bad after all. It's sparse...a bed, a toilet, and a small TV. It's perfect for staying in and is a ten minute walk to all the sights. It's a bit like a dorm room.  There's a great, cheap vegetarian restaurant about 3 minutes away and we can walk everywhere.  And ...

First of all, let me apologize for the format of my blog posts. They're all running together and I know that makes it difficult to read.  Second, I am bone tired. Bone Tired. I might fall asleep while writing this. Third, I suffer from an incurable disease that I contracted here in India. It's called "I want to pick up and hug and squeeze all the children I see". I have a feeling this disease is going to get me in a lot of trouble. I'll have to exercise extreme restraint in order to keep my hands to myself. Fourth, I also suffer from " I love Paneer Muttar Masala so much that I don't want to try anything else". Fifth, the hostel/ hotel we're staying in is not so bad after all. It's sparse...a bed, a toilet, and a small TV. It's perfect for staying in and is a ten minute walk to all the sights. It's a bit like a dorm room.  There's a great, cheap vegetarian restaurant about 3 minutes away and we can walk everywhere.  And ...

Greetings from Dubai! I thought about being really clever and saying hello in Arabic, but since I don't know any Arabic, I had to resort to "greetings". Whoops, never mind. It turns out that my travel buddies, Sandwich and her daughter, Daisy, know the answer... those home schoolers, they know everything. Salaam from Dubai!!! We're here for a four hour layover and then it's on to Mumbai. After a fourteen hour flight it feels good to stretch our legs, drink a $10 cup of coffee and contemplate whether or not to buy a hookah pipe on our return flight. Although I also have my eye on a magic genie lamp in the airport gift shop. If I get three wishes, one of them will be that our 16 hour return flight to Dallas be magically transformed into a 2 hour one. I think it might take days for the swelling in my knees to go down. Speaking of the flight, let me just say that Air Emirates rocks! Oh my gosh, please do me a favor and book a flight to India just so you can try ...

I thought I'd give everyone an update on Naveen's adoption, because if you're like me and you're currently in the process to adopt from Ind*a, you are also currently stalking every single Ind*a adoption blog that you can find. And I can assure you that if you're currently adopting from Ind*a, then I'm currently stalking your  blog, too. We can be adoption stalkers together! So, here's my big, mega update post on Naveen's adoption. 1. NAME CHANGE I can't mention Naveen's birth name on here just yet, but when we started the adoption process a year ago, we decided to keep his birth name as his middle name and give him a new Indian name for his first name. Sim has really regretted not keeping Noah's birth name "Partha" as his first name.  Eli's name is actually Elias, and is Spanish for Elijah, and, of course, we kept Nandini's birth name and can't imagine her as anything other than Nandi. So, we went back ...

I know I've only posted one blog post in the last six weeks... and here I come on with a rant (well, not a rant. More like an online therapy session), so if hearing me complain for the next ten minutes isn't your cup of tea, I apologize. I'm pretty non confrontational and will go out of my way to avoid conflict, but there's a couple of things that have been on my mind for awhile and I thought I'd give Sim's ears a rest. So here we go... Things That Get On My Nerves 1. People wearing scarves with tank tops. Now, Jennifer Anist*n could give a hill of beans what I think about her wardrobe and I normally think she's spot on, but really? What drives this fashion choice? I thought maybe it was just a California thing, and you know, maybe I can kinda understand because the weather near the coast is a bit temperamental and you never know when you might get a gust of wind and need to wrap a scarf around your shoulders. But now I'm seeing people doing i...