Sam the Singer, Take 2

He was very put out at having to stop going through the kitchen cabinets to sing for the camera (and almost rolls his eyes during the song), but still cute:

Sam the Singer

Sam sings all the time. He recently started singing himself to sleep (last night for a full hour), and happily breaks into song at any occasion. Um, unless there is a camera pointed at him. Then, he becomes somewhat reluctant, and decides that the camera lens is a button he needs to push:






It should be noted that he also turned out to have a fever today, I blame that. :)

Video Attempt

OK, we've just discovered that our awesome digital video camera is lacking the cable to connect it to a computer (??). So, while we track down a cable, we're exploring other options. Today we went to lunch at Sparky's, the American Diner in Chennai (run by a real American, chef Thom Petty). Sam discovered that he can now open and close the high chair tray himself, and while he was doing that Mark tried out the video recorder feature on his cell phone. So, here's a snippet of Sam:



He says "namaste" and shows how to put his hands together, then says "I want a paci, Daddy," and laughs because we've been trying to wean him from pacifiers by telling him he doesn't need them.

Soon, higher quality video...

"More Weemaway?"

Sam is a big music fan, and one night Mark played "The Lion Sleeps Tonight" for him. Oh, man, it was a dance party, ranging from some silly swing hustle (with Sam being held between the two of us) to freestyle American-Bandstand-type frugging. Ever since, Sam has requested "More Weemaway!" every evening after getting into his PJs. He even puts down his beloved bottle to dance all over the living room with his goofy parents, and is doing his best to sing along. Here's a little taste...

The Mango

Back when I was pregnant with Sam, before we knew his gender, Mark had a dream that we had a boy and that I insisted on naming him "Peachy." We both thought that was pretty funny, especially since we were living in Georgia at the time (the state, not the republic). So for the rest of my pregnancy, the developing baby was known as Peachy. Lori's daughter Anna, four at the time, weighed in that she didn't think Peachy was a very good name for a boy, and was relieved to hear that he wouldn't be called that after he was born.




Once we knew we were going to India and that our time in Chennai would coincide with wanting to have a second child, Mark and I decided that its in-utero name would be The Mango in honor of one of India's native fruits (the kind that will hopefully grow on the tree in our courtyard come May!).



Ladies and gentlemen, I give you The Mango:

Here s/he is in a close-up:

In other words, I'm pregnant and the baby is due at the beginning of September (the actual due date is September 7, my parents' 40th wedding anniversary). :)

If all goes as planned, Sam and I will fly to California in July and stay there for at least three months. Mark will join us for several weeks of that time, and when The Mango is six weeks old we'll all fly back home to Chennai. Incidentally, if anyone reading this has an OB you like with admitting privileges at Cedars-Sinai or UCLA, let me know!


Stay tuned for more Mango developments, and we look forward to seeing many of you this Summer!

We made the paper...

Sam (along with several of his friends) goes to a brand new preschool in our neighborhood called Alphabet. It's a great place; the founders Kavita and Anil are dedicated educators who gave up half of their property to build a fabulous facility, and they have a staff of newly-minted, enthusiastic teachers who are just so happy to be there. Sam loves his Mommy and Me class (he graduates to preschool in June) and talks about "Afabeh" all the time.

Before classes started, there was an official opening day, with an open house at Alphabet, a luncheon in Kavita and Anil's garden, and a fancy dinner with speeches at a nearby hotel. Sam and I went to the open house with our friend Paula and her sons Jeremy and Jonathan. There were a lot of people taking pictures, and a nice woman with a notepad was asking Paula what she thinks of the school.

This past Sunday, a picture of the five of us (and some of the other moms we were talking to) appeared in a local edition of The Hindu newspaper. A very, very local edition, the particular version of the "Downtown" section that only covers the five neighborhoods closest to ours. :) Seriously, even the copy of the paper they get at the Consulate didn't have the story, and it's certainly not on The Hindu Online.

In any case, Kavita saved copies for Paula and me. Here's the full article:

And here's a close-up of the photo:

(Mom, that was before I got a haircut.) You'll be happy to know that despite the photographic evidence, Sam does not bring his pacifier to school. :)

What did you do for Valentine's Day?

We went dancing!


Well, really we went to our friends Michelle and Mark's wedding. But there was dancing!


I was trying to figure out what was so different about V-day this year (aside from the India thing) and realized that it's the first time since 1998 that I didn't get a shoebox or paper bag full of "To my Teacher" Valentines. Weird. :)

We're going to Kathmandu!

The week after next, Mark and two colleagues are going to a conference in Kathmandu, Nepal, and Sam and I are coming along! So are the husband and kids of one of the other attendees. It's pretty exciting, and will be our first trip out of India since arriving in November. The only firm item on my agenda is to capture a small yeti, other than that I'm flexible. :)

Seriously, we are thrilled at the chance to explore the city, maybe take in some Mt. Everest-related sites, feel cooler temperatures (40 F at night, wow!), and hopefully push Sam around in one of the strollers that's mothballed in stroller-unfriendly Chennai.

When we found out that we were going, I thought that Cat Stevens' song Kathmandu was playing in my head, but it was really Bob Seeger's Kathmandu. I like Cat's better, but Bob's works pretty well as a way to sing the title of this post.

I promise to take lots of photos, and to blog.

Radio Silence

Hello!

So, many of you have noticed (and complained to me via email, Facebook, and blog comments) that there have not been very many posts to "Near... far!" in the last, oh, two months or so. There are several reasons for this, including settling into life in Chennai, my utter laziness as a blogger, the way that Facebook is a big vacuum of my Sam-is-napping-I-can-go-on-the-internet time, etc. But one of the biggest difficulties I had with blogging was that our internet connection was so darn slow. Uploading photos took forever and usually the system would crash mid-upload. Since so many of my (already saved as draft) entries were about the photos, this was beyond frustrating.


Our DSL also went out for two weeks and the repairman that was sent out (from the phone company) was a phone repairman, not an internet guy. His solution was to re-wire our entire phone system so that our phone line now comes in through a window (!), and our internet was still down after he left. Um, after he left because we had an argument about how he kept taking breaks after not, you know, fixing anything. So he went on break and didn't come back. :)


As a solution, we have installed a second, high-speed connection! This required four separate visits from the second internet company (including one in which they acknowledged that they just didn't know how to configure their own signal to a router), and one amazing private contractor. We're keeping the DSL as backup, because when things go down here, they tend to stay down. Just as an example, our side of the block has had power outages every ten minutes for the past two hours, just for fun. Yay for generators and UPS (uninterrupted power supplies- battery packs to plug our electronics into)!

In any case, there will be more blog posts coming in the next couple of days, totally out of date and out of order. I'll put them all in February so they're easy to find. And now, for your viewing pleasure, the 6" geckos that live in our carport (hopefully on a diet of mosquitoes). Enjoy!

Toddler Welcome

From the time we arrived in Chennai, our sponsors (Kristin and Tony) have been awesome. Even before we got here, Kristin had a social event lined up for me, Ladies' Poker Night:

Once we were somewhat settled, Kristin and Tony hosted a "get to know you" event for us, with most of the other Consulate families whose kids are around Sam's age. We ate, we shmoozed, we watched football. Now, Tony and Kristin are used to having their two kids (Holli and Carter) around, but they are well past toddler age. The chaos created by a herd of munchkins hopped up on toys and cake was something to see.

At one point the older kids started throwing a toy frog at the ceiling. And it stuck.

Yeah, it was that kind of party. :) Thanks, guys!