Saturday in Pune - Sandwichs's Views
Pune, Saturday
Leslie did not sleep at all Friday night in bed with her little wiggle worm. I didn't take anything, plus I stayed up til 11:30 writing a blog post (if I don't write it out every day, it all swirls together with the jet lag in my head and becomes a blurry mess). I woke up at 2:00 and couldn't get back to sleep until 4:00. Fireworks at 6:00 woke us both up.
Not Naveen, tho. He finally crashed at 7:00 and slept straight through until 8:30! And he woke up happy as a lark. He and Mama played a little game on the iPad to wake up, then she got him dressed and we went down to breakfast. After eating nothing since lunch the day before, he was ravenous and ate idli, chapati (actually, it was paratha, I think) and poha. He didn't like the milk and he loved drinking the water out of the glass glass. No steel cups when you're in a fancy restaurant!
After breakfast, he stripped down and played with his bucket and cup in the bath for an hour. He poured water, washed his stool with a bath puff and refilled over and over. Near the end, I was out in the room and Leslie had come out for something when he rattled off a bunch off words in Marathi. She went in to see what he wanted a nd he did a little squat and pooped right on the floor! Which is what they do in the little toilet room at BSSK. Leslie started gagging and screaming (which is what I would have been doing if he had barfed!!!!) so I swooped in with the diaper he'd had on before his bath and dropped it into the toilet. A little wiping of the floor with the diaper and a lot of water poured on it towards the floor drain, then I dumped some shampoo on the spot and swished it with my foot. All done,
Next we bowled with the empty water bottles.
Next we tried all the toys.
Daddy called and he talked to Daddy on the phone. He says Noah, Nandu, Eli, Mommy, Daddy. It's so cute!
Next he got out all the snacks but wouldn't eat any.
Next he danced to Bollywood videos.
We ordered room service for lunch. Plain dal and rice for him (although we shared it), Paneer reshmi, curd (which he didn't eat but I did), roti. The food is very good and comes quickly (if you order it during room service hours!). The sauces served on things in restaurants seem to be all variations on a theme within each restaurant tho. At our Mumbai restaurant last trip, every sauce was heavily tomato based with different flavorings. Here they are all cream-based, flavored differently. Naveen didn't eat much, but Leslie and I are eating VERY well. Sigh.
Leslie was beginning to feel cooped up and wanted different shoes for him and underpants, so we caught an auto to Pune Central, the big department store across the street. We found shoes (tho they've since seemed to be too tight maybe) and had a long non-conversation with the non-English speaking teenaged floor clerk boys about underwear for boys. The had them for girls, and had some knit baby shorts that looked like pajama shorts, but once they finally understood we wanted underwear, no, for the baby, no not for girls, boys! They didn't have any. Where can we buy? I don't know, madam. MG Road perhaps. So we bought the pink flowered ones for girls. Also one tub of play dough, 30 Rs.
He didn't like the rickshaw, BTW, and wasn't crazy about shopping, but did ok. I'm sure it's frightening each time we go out, but it's part of the process, to see that we go out, we DON'T take him back to BSSK or give him away to anyone else, and then we come back to our same room and Mama is always there.
While at the store, a lady clerk put out her arms to him and he shook his head no and buried his face in Leslie's shoulder. He is doing SO well!
Thursday when we met up with Sarah and Roopa, Sarah had invited us to their house for Saturday. We left it in the air, not knowing how Naveen would do, but when he was so much better sat. morning, we agreed to come. You can only spend so many hours in a hotel room before everyone goes crazy!
Naveen, by now, had completely potty trained himself and was stripping off his pants and pointing, either to himself or the bathroom and grabbing Leslie by the hand to drag her there, every 30 min. M&Ms are a miracle! When he goes, he says "chocolate!"
The car should have come at 2:00 but didn't arrive until 2:30. In that time he went to the potty 3 times and back to the room for clothes charges twice (once from spilling a whole cup of pani on himself and the couch in the lobby and once because he overshot the toilet)
He fell asleep in the car immediately. The driver spoke excellent English as he comes from 4 generations of Seventh Day Adventists (his "great grandparents were converted, Praise God," he said). He keeps his Bible next to him in the front seat and was educated at the SDA college here in Pune. Arvind, his name is.
Leslie asked him to translate a word Naveen keeps saying, and Arvind paused a long time, then said, "It's slang." Leslie asked what it means and he answered, "It's just a slang word, Madam.". We talked about some other things, then abruptly, he said, "actually, it's a bad word.". Leslie asked again and he said he didn't know how to translate it to English. We talked more about other thing and again suddenly, he said, "It means to shame your mother.". We exclaimed a little bit, trying to figure out what exactly we were dealing with. And we laughed a lot.
Later, when he picked us up from Sarah and Jose's (it's pronounced joze, rhymes with Rose) the first thing when we got in the car, he said to us (must have been thinking about it all afternoon, this devout Christian man, how to explain this to these ladies!) "The word is a very bad one, madam, like the F-word."
Oh, Lordy. Leslie's been crooning to him, "Mommy's sweet little Mother******!".
So then we kept saying it, trying to be sure we had the right word and practicing it and laughing, until we imagined a bunch of foreigners in our car trying to pronounce MF. Then we let it go already!
So, our visit to Sarah and Jose. They are so nice! They have 5 kids and they are very American. Jose is from Kerala. He speaks some Hindi and a little Marathi, and the kids are taking Hindi lessons, but they mostly speak English.
They are the sweetest people with a great story! Sarah, Leslie and I talked about homeschooling (I met Sarah on the Sonlight Forums), adopting, parenting, being married--typical girl talk.
Naveen sat next to or on Leslie's lap the whole time and drank water and went to the bathroom. We had a tour of their house, which they own, and ate cake with custard and strawberries. Wonderful!
Her husband loves to garden and he grows tomatoes and persimmons on the roof and bananas (Naveen had one), plantains, coconuts, mangos, papayas, vanilla. He gave me a tour of their yard.
They also have one of those portable BBQ pits on their roof and for dinner they grilled chicken (killed that morning, much to Leslie's dismay. She likes to pretend her chicken is manufactured at the store!), a fresh salad and rolls. Everything was delicious.
As the afternoon wore on, Naveen got increasingly fussy. He was afraid of their dog and hadn't napped long. I'm sure he also didn't understand what we were doing there. He also didn't like for Jose to talk to him in Marathi.
By the end of dinner, which they graciously served a little early, Naveen was crabby, Leslie was really tired, and we were ready to go. We apologized for eating and running, but they were so understanding!
He fell asleep almost immediately in the car and Leslie dozed, so the driver and I had a good chat about driving in India and how many people can legally ride on a motorcycle. (2 or two parents and one child. I saw 3 men and he said in the villages there may be routinely 5! I also often saw two parents and 3 children )
When we got back, Leslie called Maina on the phone to see if he normally urinates so often and he also had been crying a little beforehand. She thought maybe he was getting a UTI. but Maina assured her this was normal for him, and he perked up as soon as we got back. They sang songs and read a book (he sings E-I-E-I-O so cute! I got it on video). After about 10 minutes, he rolled over and went to sleep!
He is just the best boy, and really, SO easy and laid back.
I fed Leslie a melatonin tablet and took one myself and we crashed. We do a lot of crashing!
What a day, but we're so proud of Naveen! He's responding to his name, repeating words Leslie says, telling when he needs the potty. He plays by himself, is curious and observant, and quite smart! He's just darling!
Leslie did not sleep at all Friday night in bed with her little wiggle worm. I didn't take anything, plus I stayed up til 11:30 writing a blog post (if I don't write it out every day, it all swirls together with the jet lag in my head and becomes a blurry mess). I woke up at 2:00 and couldn't get back to sleep until 4:00. Fireworks at 6:00 woke us both up.
Not Naveen, tho. He finally crashed at 7:00 and slept straight through until 8:30! And he woke up happy as a lark. He and Mama played a little game on the iPad to wake up, then she got him dressed and we went down to breakfast. After eating nothing since lunch the day before, he was ravenous and ate idli, chapati (actually, it was paratha, I think) and poha. He didn't like the milk and he loved drinking the water out of the glass glass. No steel cups when you're in a fancy restaurant!
After breakfast, he stripped down and played with his bucket and cup in the bath for an hour. He poured water, washed his stool with a bath puff and refilled over and over. Near the end, I was out in the room and Leslie had come out for something when he rattled off a bunch off words in Marathi. She went in to see what he wanted a nd he did a little squat and pooped right on the floor! Which is what they do in the little toilet room at BSSK. Leslie started gagging and screaming (which is what I would have been doing if he had barfed!!!!) so I swooped in with the diaper he'd had on before his bath and dropped it into the toilet. A little wiping of the floor with the diaper and a lot of water poured on it towards the floor drain, then I dumped some shampoo on the spot and swished it with my foot. All done,
Next we bowled with the empty water bottles.
Next we tried all the toys.
Daddy called and he talked to Daddy on the phone. He says Noah, Nandu, Eli, Mommy, Daddy. It's so cute!
Next he got out all the snacks but wouldn't eat any.
Next he danced to Bollywood videos.
We ordered room service for lunch. Plain dal and rice for him (although we shared it), Paneer reshmi, curd (which he didn't eat but I did), roti. The food is very good and comes quickly (if you order it during room service hours!). The sauces served on things in restaurants seem to be all variations on a theme within each restaurant tho. At our Mumbai restaurant last trip, every sauce was heavily tomato based with different flavorings. Here they are all cream-based, flavored differently. Naveen didn't eat much, but Leslie and I are eating VERY well. Sigh.
Leslie was beginning to feel cooped up and wanted different shoes for him and underpants, so we caught an auto to Pune Central, the big department store across the street. We found shoes (tho they've since seemed to be too tight maybe) and had a long non-conversation with the non-English speaking teenaged floor clerk boys about underwear for boys. The had them for girls, and had some knit baby shorts that looked like pajama shorts, but once they finally understood we wanted underwear, no, for the baby, no not for girls, boys! They didn't have any. Where can we buy? I don't know, madam. MG Road perhaps. So we bought the pink flowered ones for girls. Also one tub of play dough, 30 Rs.
He didn't like the rickshaw, BTW, and wasn't crazy about shopping, but did ok. I'm sure it's frightening each time we go out, but it's part of the process, to see that we go out, we DON'T take him back to BSSK or give him away to anyone else, and then we come back to our same room and Mama is always there.
While at the store, a lady clerk put out her arms to him and he shook his head no and buried his face in Leslie's shoulder. He is doing SO well!
Thursday when we met up with Sarah and Roopa, Sarah had invited us to their house for Saturday. We left it in the air, not knowing how Naveen would do, but when he was so much better sat. morning, we agreed to come. You can only spend so many hours in a hotel room before everyone goes crazy!
Naveen, by now, had completely potty trained himself and was stripping off his pants and pointing, either to himself or the bathroom and grabbing Leslie by the hand to drag her there, every 30 min. M&Ms are a miracle! When he goes, he says "chocolate!"
The car should have come at 2:00 but didn't arrive until 2:30. In that time he went to the potty 3 times and back to the room for clothes charges twice (once from spilling a whole cup of pani on himself and the couch in the lobby and once because he overshot the toilet)
He fell asleep in the car immediately. The driver spoke excellent English as he comes from 4 generations of Seventh Day Adventists (his "great grandparents were converted, Praise God," he said). He keeps his Bible next to him in the front seat and was educated at the SDA college here in Pune. Arvind, his name is.
Leslie asked him to translate a word Naveen keeps saying, and Arvind paused a long time, then said, "It's slang." Leslie asked what it means and he answered, "It's just a slang word, Madam.". We talked about some other things, then abruptly, he said, "actually, it's a bad word.". Leslie asked again and he said he didn't know how to translate it to English. We talked more about other thing and again suddenly, he said, "It means to shame your mother.". We exclaimed a little bit, trying to figure out what exactly we were dealing with. And we laughed a lot.
Later, when he picked us up from Sarah and Jose's (it's pronounced joze, rhymes with Rose) the first thing when we got in the car, he said to us (must have been thinking about it all afternoon, this devout Christian man, how to explain this to these ladies!) "The word is a very bad one, madam, like the F-word."
Oh, Lordy. Leslie's been crooning to him, "Mommy's sweet little Mother******!".
So then we kept saying it, trying to be sure we had the right word and practicing it and laughing, until we imagined a bunch of foreigners in our car trying to pronounce MF. Then we let it go already!
So, our visit to Sarah and Jose. They are so nice! They have 5 kids and they are very American. Jose is from Kerala. He speaks some Hindi and a little Marathi, and the kids are taking Hindi lessons, but they mostly speak English.
They are the sweetest people with a great story! Sarah, Leslie and I talked about homeschooling (I met Sarah on the Sonlight Forums), adopting, parenting, being married--typical girl talk.
Naveen sat next to or on Leslie's lap the whole time and drank water and went to the bathroom. We had a tour of their house, which they own, and ate cake with custard and strawberries. Wonderful!
Her husband loves to garden and he grows tomatoes and persimmons on the roof and bananas (Naveen had one), plantains, coconuts, mangos, papayas, vanilla. He gave me a tour of their yard.
They also have one of those portable BBQ pits on their roof and for dinner they grilled chicken (killed that morning, much to Leslie's dismay. She likes to pretend her chicken is manufactured at the store!), a fresh salad and rolls. Everything was delicious.
As the afternoon wore on, Naveen got increasingly fussy. He was afraid of their dog and hadn't napped long. I'm sure he also didn't understand what we were doing there. He also didn't like for Jose to talk to him in Marathi.
By the end of dinner, which they graciously served a little early, Naveen was crabby, Leslie was really tired, and we were ready to go. We apologized for eating and running, but they were so understanding!
He fell asleep almost immediately in the car and Leslie dozed, so the driver and I had a good chat about driving in India and how many people can legally ride on a motorcycle. (2 or two parents and one child. I saw 3 men and he said in the villages there may be routinely 5! I also often saw two parents and 3 children )
When we got back, Leslie called Maina on the phone to see if he normally urinates so often and he also had been crying a little beforehand. She thought maybe he was getting a UTI. but Maina assured her this was normal for him, and he perked up as soon as we got back. They sang songs and read a book (he sings E-I-E-I-O so cute! I got it on video). After about 10 minutes, he rolled over and went to sleep!
He is just the best boy, and really, SO easy and laid back.
I fed Leslie a melatonin tablet and took one myself and we crashed. We do a lot of crashing!
What a day, but we're so proud of Naveen! He's responding to his name, repeating words Leslie says, telling when he needs the potty. He plays by himself, is curious and observant, and quite smart! He's just darling!
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