Ikea Love

The other week I went to the new Ikea store in Portland for the FIRST time, and Oh, my! I was BLOWN away. I know its considered the WalMart of Europe (and yes everything seems to be made in China), but I was really impressed with the concept and all the cool and affordable stuff. One of the neat things we picked up was a red piggy bank for Anjali. I thought this would be a nice way to introduce her to some fiscal responsibility. But her relationship with the piggy bank was something I didn't expect. She started to baby the piggy bank to the point she lost complete interest in her favorite doll 'manike'. Here she is feeding piggy bank through its nostrils.
And the other day I hear her saying "dont cry, piggy bank; you have to be smart and beautiful and kind". She does get two coins every night from both Ranjeewa and I. Its amusing to see the gleeful expression on her face, and if one of us gives her a coin she makes sure to come and announce it to the other parent before carefully depositing it.

Morning routine

We have a pretty standard morning routine. Ranjeewa wakes up first and makes coffee (he and Anjali grind the coffee the night before). I don't wake up till I hear the five beeps of the coffee maker encouraging me to get out of bed. Usually this also wakes up Anjali. We take our coffee and Anjali her milk downstairs. Ranjeewa and I settle down in front of our side by side computers for our routine of reading email, news, weather, horoscope, etc. Anjali has a little play kitchen next to our work areas and lately she's been saying "hey, you guys, do you want some coffee-Chocolate-ice cream?" We think this is a breakfast food because she usually offers this to us in the morning. We have also been saying "we are not "you guys""; we are parents... so she has been saying "hey you guys parents"....! Can't win, but endlessly entertaining :-)

A first cousin

At 1:35 pm on December 4th Anjali was blessed with her very first cousin. We were excitedly waiting for the arrival of Ranesh Wickramatillake. Of course Anjali has no idea of what a 'cousin' is but she figured we were pretty excited about it, and realized that CD mami and Aseni nandi now have a little baby, when two weeks ago they didn't. I also realized that she took it to mean something special... when she started pulling things I had bought for Ranesh, I said 'dont pull, that its for your cousin' and she quickly put it away... so I abused the "its for your cousin" slogan a bit (anything for my toddler defense arsenal). Of course this has given me an excuse to buy boy stuff...Now she is waiting to see cousin 'wanesh' (she still does not say the R right!). CD and Aseni congrats...! We can't wait to see him...

As traditional as my brother is he called Sri Lanka with the time of birth for the 'akuru' for an auspicious name. When I spoke to my mother she asked me to write down the letters, I figured its just two and thought I'd keep it in my head, but as Amma rattled past the fourth letter I thought to myself 'wait this is half the alphabet'! Apparently if you live abroad you get more letters and 'better' letters so you can make more worldly names... another one of those Sri Lankan idiosyncrasies. But we love Ranesh... I told CD it sounds like a fast bowler... cant you hear it?

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.