You Are Very Much!

I have been walking each morning on the treadmill, till I twisted my leg recently trying to do some new stretches....

with rubber bands that my husband brought home for me, upon my request. So I have been off the machine a few days trying to let it heal. I can go up the steps again finally, so I decided to try walking again this morning. I hopped on the machine and put in the key and went to push the lever up to start warming up. I looked at the lever and noticed that it was as high up on the machine as you could get, I don’t think I can even run that fast. For a moment I thought I was in trouble, but breathed a sigh of relief when nothing happened. Upon further investigation I noticed that the machine had been unplugged so a humidifier could take it’s place. I was thankful that I didn’t go flying out the window when the machine started . It didn’t take me long to figure out how the lever got pushed up so high, it even made me smile, it was easy cause I was still standing. This little one gets into almost everything, but it is also such a blessing to have her presence here. She tells me, “Mom, you are very much!” and it just melts my heart.
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Secure?

These days it seems our little one is into everything. We put a lock on our sink cabinet to keep her from getting into the extra hand soap bottles. Why don’t we want her to get to the extra soap bottles?

Well, she likes to pump a LOT of soap into her hand and rub it into her hair so she can wash it on her own. This wouldn’t be a big deal, besides the fact that we like to use shampoo instead and it wastes a lot of the soap , but to rinse she pulls the sprayer out and tries to rinse her own hair, getting the floor soaking wet and ruining the tiles, thus the lock. Recently we caught her sticking her foot into the lock and pulling herself up so she could reach the medicine cabinet above the sink. She reaches the fingernail polish and paints her finger and toe nails on her own. She tells me “Just like India, Mom”. How can a mom get upset about that, even when she gets in on our sofa. I guess I might have to take the lock off and move the soap somewhere more secure. I am just afraid that now she knows she can get into the medicine cabinet, where we also keep her hair bows and such, that she will find another way to get into it.
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Isn’t love selfish?

It was 2:20 AM, and my class had just returned from Taj Mahal. My roommate and I started to talk and during our conversation, he said that he loves his work so much so that he told his fiancée one day that he likes his work more than her. I decided to change my hat from a room mate to a counselor.

I asked him if he knew for sure that his fiancée loves him with all her heart. He replied and said “Yes” but then I countered him by asking “Why should she”? He wasn’t expecting the kind of conversation he became quiet to listen to what I had to say.

I point blank told him that it is offensive to tell his fiancée that there’s something that he loves more than her. It is an investment that unless and until he cares enough to nurture, it will wither and die. He kept nodding his head in agreement.

I gave him some pointers about nurturing his love for her and told him that they are bound to have problems and he should be prepared to handle with needed gentleness. I went on and on and he just listened. We both of us looked at our watches and it was 4:00 AM. In agreement, we decided to hit the bed.
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It wasn’t just another day.

On October 31st, since it being a Saturday, my entire class (attending the training with me in Delhi on Child Rights & Protection) decided to go to see Taj Mahal in the city of Agra. We decided to travel by a bus with other passengers and my classmates were 15 in number. It took almost 4 hours to reach.

First we reached Agra Fort. This is where some of the mogul emperors lived and ruled. It is amazing how intact and strong the structure looked in spite it to have been built about 400 plus number of years ago. One of the emperors had 1000 concubines and apparently he was a very caring man towards these women but he built a small prison to put them in when they fight among themselves.

Then we reached Taj Mahal. Because of the pollution and security concerns, we had to get off the bus about 0.6 of a mile (one kilometer) and take horse/ camel cart or a battery operated motor vehicle to reach there. I almost felt like the whole of India was out there that day to see the Taj Mahal. Easily, there might have been about 40,000 people when we were there.

It took us about an hour of standing in line to get in to see the structure. We were standing in concentric circles around the Taj and moving inch by inch. Actually that gave us an opportunity in the evening’s cool breeze of Yamuna River, to study the structure in detail. I was completely awestruck by the architecture.

It was built about 450 years ago when there was no electricity. Entire building was built manually and it took 24000 people, 32 years and 32 crores of rupees of those days. It was built entirely with locally available materials. Taj Mahal was built by an emperor called Shajahan in memory of his third wife named “Mumtaj Mahal”. When the first two wifes bore no children, he married Mumtaj who gave him 14 children and died at the age 34 during child birth.

With the kind of details I stated above swirling around my mind, I wasn’t impressed to call it a ‘symbol of love’ but certainly an architectural marvel. When we went in there, it was a bit dark as the dusk had already set in. I touched some of those colorful stones that were ingrained in to the marble and one of the tourists flashed a light on to those stones and they changed color. It was an absolute treat to the eyes. Before I knew it, I was pushed out of the Taj Mahal by the people standing behind me.

I didn’t want to go home empty handed from this symbol of love but I absolutely had no idea what to buy for my wife? When we went into one shop of local items, my eyes fell on one item I knew my wife will certainly like it. When I heard the price, I swear to God my heart skipped a beat but I wanted it so badly for her I gladly paid for it. You keep guessing till I show it my wife to surprise her on November 22nd. .

After all, October 31st was my birthday and it certainly wasn’t just another day. I got a call from my dear wife and the kids to wish me and I just knew that I am blessed.
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Book Blogging

If you keep a blog for a written record about your special adoption journey, to your child, and it has come to an end, you may be wishing you could have this all saved for them to view in the future without saving the blog.

I know of a few whose blogs are getting too big and they just want to put it into a book as there are too many pages to back track, but they want to continue to blog and print off. This would be a wonderful way to save your blog for a keepsake as well, but how to do it? There is a wonderful new site that I found that can help you do just that. www.bloggertobook.com is a place where you can get your blog posts put into files to keep and print later, just have on your computer, or printed into a book now. For those special people in your life, perhaps your blog book would make a great Christmas gift! Happy blog booking!
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