Anticipation

For the past few months (and definitely till December), Anjali has been engrossed in the idea of going to Sri Lanka and India and especially to attend "Nandi's wedding". She went to my friend Dana's wedding on October 14th and thought this was a superb party that happens all the time. For example she will be having lunch and say "can we go to Aunty Dana's wedding?". I tried to explain at best that this is an event that we all wish would only happen once! So now the focus has been on Nandi's wedding. So I have been trying to prepare her for all that she is going to be experiencing on this trip, since the last time we went to Sri Lanka she was only 8 months old.

I am dreading the two 10.5 hour trips to Japan and Colombo, and scared to death about the types of germs she might encounter in India, although really its not too different from Sri Lanka. So I will probably arm myself with all sorts of prophylaxis for her. We have been talking a lot about planes, airports and trains as she will be using all these. She is really into the whole airport/airplane concept. I think she got infected with that this summer when grandparents and relatives came to visit 'through' the airport. She has memorized every line of Byron Barton's Airport book. And we have found some cool European train on pbase that we show her on the rare chance we are online (he..he)! This is an awesome site for any cameraphile like Ranjeewa.

I am also trying to get her psyched about the wedding ceremonies in all its glory. So I found this book about Saris. I thought she might be into it since this summer her Achchi wrapped one of my remnant pieces of long flannel around her to make a Sari and she was highly excited by it. She would walk behind her grandma begging her to dress her up again and again saying "Achchi can we wear sali (she still has the hardest time with her R's). This book is very colorful and reminds me of my childhood wearing my Achchi's sari's and Amma's high heels and pretending to teach all my dolls and stuffed animals. I am sure Amma remembers this! The reading level of the book is a bit advanced for Anjali but I love how she draws parallels and asks questions about what is a bindhi, etc.


The other preparation is getting her ready for all the dancing at the festivities. This has been a hilariously fun experiment! Ranjeewa got these Bhangra workout DVDs from the library as he thought I might enjoy them, and so would Anjali. Now we have a moratorium on Anjali watching TV (more on that soap box issue later) so this was a big treat for her, but the amazing thing was how much she got into what she called the "aunties dancing" she kept watching the moves and following them but only about two steps behind. It was so funny watching her that Ranjeewa and I snuck in a camera and video behind her.