It's a Boy!

I didn't think I could go through it again for the fourth time - the feedings, the cleaning up and picking up after, the toilet training. The very thought gave me panic attacks causing me to wake up in a cold sweat some nights. I was just starting to feel like I was regaining some control of my life again. A. is mostly out of diapers and can go for prolonged periods without a tantrum, a full-blown one at least. There are mornings when I can pick up the newspaper and read an entire article without someone demanding to be fed, changed, or just noticed. In a pinch, my 12-year old can, with the able assistance of her sister and cousins, babysit her 3-year old brother. Without activities to drive the kids around to, my evening stress-o-meter on most days barely registers a reading after having hovered in the red zone for several years.
But the girls insisted that the family was incomplete and that they needed that one other member, that fourth sibling, to complete the picture! Before we left NJ, we had caved in the face of their unhappiness over the move and promised to think about a new addition once we were in India and now they were holding us to that promise.
And so, despite all our misgivings, B. and I decided to take the plunge. We knew we wanted to adopt this time around. I found out about a place in Hebbal, a home for abandoned babies. And so we set out for this place on a Tuesday morning - A. and I and my sister-in-law, the latter providing some much needed moral support.
The babies were in a large outdoor playpen. A few of them were napping, huddled in a corner. As I gazed at them, one walked unsteadily up to where we were standing by the gate and looked up at us with his large, brown, slightly mournful eyes. "I like that one", A. said. I put my hand in through a gap in the gate and was rewarded with a lick. "Hi, doggie*", I said, "do you want to go home"?
*Ringo is a five-month old pup of unknown pedigree that we picked up from CUPA, an animal shelter in Hebbal, Bangalore that provides refuge to several homeless animals including cats, dogs, and cows. They even have a camel!

That Place Called "School"

The first time I tried to put A. in a preschool back in NJ, I gave up after about a week. He would scream loudly, clutch my shirt and lash out wildly at the teachers who emerged to transport him inside. I would hover near the door for a few seconds as the sound of his wailing drifted up to me. But then some other teacher would gently but firmly push me outside and the door would close behind me, blocking out the sound. By the time I went to pick him up, he seemed happy enough. But there was just too much physical and emotional currency spent in readying him for it every morning. And he seemed unable to forgive his teacher transgressions such as asking him to "calm down" when he was bawling his lungs out.
So I decided to forgo the non-refundable deposit I had already paid and wait until we were in India when I could channel all my energy into the task of sending A. to school.
Once the girls were somewhat settled in in their own school, I started looking around for a small, cozy, friendly place where A. could embark on his educational journey. I thought I found it in a newly opened playschool close to our house run by a young woman with a wide smile and a child-friendly personality. Like a lot of new preschools in Bangalore, it attempts to cover all the bases when it comes to early childhood development, offering a "scientific curriculum" that borrows elements from the "Montessori, play way, theme-based, and multiple intelligence" teaching models. In between all of this, we hoped, A. might have a little bit of fun too.
But after about a week, B. and I started having our doubts about the place. A. and his classmates were closeted in a tiny room during much of their time there while the teacher ran them through a litany of activities. The teacher seemed inexperienced and insisted on political correctness from a three-year old. "Your son says that girls can only play with dolls while boys have to play with trucks and trains," she informed me in a disapproving tone one day. "Maybe you should talk to him." I wondered if it was appropriate to tell her then about his fascination with unclad Barbies.
So we started preschool shopping again even though again I had already written a large check to this school! We considered starting an "Attempts to Send A. to School" fund. Finally after weighing a few options, we decided that the girls' school might be worth a shot. It's not the small and cozy place we had aimed for originally. It's large and sprawling and possibly intimidating for a preschooler. But the classrooms are bright, the teachers are pleasant, and there's a new playground coming up to replace the existing one with the rusty equipment. And on their website, they don't waste time on abstract child developmental theories, citing training children to be "disciplined" and "to memorize" as some of the main objectives of their program.
Maybe this one will work.

So How Are You Really Doing?

It's been more than three months since we boarded that Emirates flight at JFK with one-way tickets to Bangalore. I remember sinking into a surprisingly spacious Economy class seat, my relief at having made our flight only slightly marred by the realization that I had forgotten some laundry in the dryer. Since we've gotten here, friends back in NJ have been eager to know how things are going and whether we're kicking ourselves yet for trading a perfectly good life in the US of A for a more unsettled existence in the country of our birth (ours, if not the kids'). And we have to tell them that the transition has been much easier than we imagined and that at a surface level, our lives have not changed dramatically. Dig deeper and you may uncover a few differences. One of us still goes to work while the other stays at home doing (or facilitating) sundry tasks to keep the household chugging. On the days that A. agrees to go to his playschool without creating a ruckus, I might be able to sneak in a morning yoga class at the clubhouse. Or I could possibly leave him with a grandparent visiting from Chennai which is a convenient train ride away. The girls come home and complain about assorted teachers and unfair practices in school. The seventh grader gets two hours worth of homework on most days while the fourth grader gets none. By 6 pm, they both disappear into the wilderness of the community to join the scores of other kids who are out playing. Their brother, of course, has been AWOL for quite some time by then, coming home only if the food and water reserves in his body dip too low. I look into the refrigerator for dinner inspiration and miraculously pull out some dishes of dal and sabji that Ramji, the resident cook of the neighborhood, had made in the morning. So that means I can go for a walk (or talk, as D. sneeringly calls it) with the other ladies in the complex. I might stop to buy some tomatoes at the makeshift vegetable stall outside the clubhouse. Having a vegetable vendor come inside the community is a new development and one that the residents are very excited about. Back home to heat up Ramji's concoctions and wait for the girls to come home from tennis lessons (no more driving them around in this world where most of the teachers come to where you are) and for A. to return to roost in a predictably cranky state. The kids' cousins across the street pop in to compare ipod contents, among other business of a pressing nature. B. comes home by about 9 pm making for a 12+ hour day for him. We settle down to dinner: Ramji's dal is too salty and he needs to tone down the garam masala in the sabji but at least I didn't have to make them.