Obama Mama Fever

Ok so just like half the population of the country, I am bitten by the Obama bug...! I have been hooked onto CNN, especially Anderson Cooper after Anjali goes to sleep. Poor Ranjeewa must think we've switched roles cause he's usually the one watching Law & Order.

I've been wanting to show my support by getting myself and Anjali Obama T-shirts from his campaign, but everything in our sizes are sold-out! Now that reflects why he raises a MILLION dollars a day... and mostly public support, mind you. So I have been thinking about making our own t-shirts, but haven't quite gotten enough 'get off the couch' enthusiasm with that, besides I might wait till he actually gets the Democratic nomination, so we can proudly wear it till inauguration :-)

The other day I saw this on ebay that says 'Bush makes me cry' ooohhh how cute. Now I want it to say 'Bush makes me cry' and in the back 'Obama makes me smile'. It would be supercute on my Anjali.

Edwina the Emu

This is one of our favorite books with a funny story about a 'shoulda stayed at home Emu mom' (we all know that story huh?)
While we were in Tampa this week we stopped by the Lowry zoo, which was supposed to be the top rated zoo for children; and it really was very child friendly and fun. We made our way to the Wallaroo station with all animals from Australia and Anjali was delighted to see a pair of Emus. She immediately recognized them and called them Edwina and Edward (like in the book). She went close to the fence and shouted "come HERE Edwina" and was yelling "yeek" (the sound they make in the wild I guess) to no response from the birds. They are great big birds who cant fly and apparently cant walk backwards.

Nostalgia

Yes we are back and all over with jet lag. I should be blogging about our traveling experiences (and I will get to that), but I am still trying to get my head around all of it. It was too much for words. And many changes and transitions have happened since then. One of them being that as of today Anjali is FOUR days into weaning from the boo boos (yes, my breasts!) I know... she will turn 2.5 years tomorrow and we decided it was time! Also, everyone in Sri Lanka found it very strange that I was STILL breast feeding her. So I was bracing myself for a long transition especially at sleep time. But surprisingly, a good chat with her about how she is now a big girl was all it took. She still asks for it when we cuddle and I offer her cows milk, juice or food instead.
She took to sleeping with some familiar songs (Doi, doi; hush little baby and Kumbaya). But I felt like I needed to expand my repertoire and sought some Sinhala songs that our parents might have sung.
The most familiar to me was 'Handa pane' although I was fumbling for words after the first verse. The logical next step was to google it. I found you can download the ring tone for it! But I like my ring tone as everyone with T-mobile has it too, if I don't feel like answering I can easily pretend its not my phone! Then I remembered this site where I go when I feel homesick or in need of a baila fix - http://www.sinhalajukebox.org
Turns out they also have lyrics for famous songs though I didn't find the ones to 'Handa pane', sung by Sunil Santha. I am trying to do my best to transcribe it. Anjali has grown fond of these too, and I am teaching her the meaning of them. I love it when she says 'Amma can you sing a Sri Lanka song?' When I was a child and visiting my grandparents, my Athatha would ask Aththamma or Ammi to sit at the piano and play 'Olu pippila', turns out this is also a Sunil Santha song. I hope Anjali will take at least one Sinhalese song through the rest of her life.

Back to the sewing machine

I LOVE to sew! But dont get as much time to do it as I'd like. But since the arrival of baby Ranesh I've found some excuses to go to the fabulous Fabric Depot (the largest store on the west coast) and ooh and aah at the fabrics. I rekindled my love with a project to sew a rather simple blanket for Ranesh, but while I was there I found more cool fabric and walked away with a bunch of patterns and fabrics to sew for Anjali.

Ranesh's blanket is really cute. I found this fabric called 'Rescue me' with fire engines and police cars, and the the softest micro fleece... I love the luxurious micro fleece available now. The combination looks so great and warm. I also sew them big as the standard crib blanket is really small when kids are beyond about 6 months.I also grabbed some corduroy fabrics to make a skirt for Anjali. I decided to do a three tier with solid red and red cherry print. This was really fun and quite easy. And here it is on my busy model!

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?

Thanksgiving

We are back from a well deserved family break in Newport, OR (if there is such a thing as a break from a toddler!) For the last few years we have been looking forward to getting away on this long weekend, and escaping the obligatory invitations to join family dinners. Really, whose idea was it to serve Turkey of all meats as a centerpiece at this rare American family gathering?

So we head off and our first 'you gotta be kidding' encounter was at a little state park campsite called Ellmaker, where we stopped for lunch and the needed potty break. An old couple on their way to TG dinner stop by, and the gentleman asks us where we are from, we say Sri Lanka, and he says with confidence 'subha udaasanak wewa' and as astonished as we were, we were able to mutter a 'esema wewa'. Turns out this older gentleman was stationed in Saudi Arabia during the Gulf war and the compound had a lot of Sri Lankan laborers employed (who knew!). We all agreed that it was INDEED a small world.

We spent the weekend walking on the beach and checking out the various tide pools and watching the waves. For anyone who has not seen the Oregon coast, it is just out of this world amazingly beautiful in a haunting way. Its not the 'lay on the beach with a margarita' kind of coast but a harsher, commanding coastline with two low and high tides each day. Anjali loved the water and the tide pools, and I realized that like some others in our family she is drawn to the ocean. Once, she just marched right up to the crashing waves and a few minutes later fell down in the freezing water as the waves dragged back to the ocean. The girl still didn't want to budge from her perch.
We topped off her beach experience with a visit to the Oregon coast aquarium supposedly one of the top 10 in the country. Its just amazing to watch Anjali absorb all the information in her little brain as she observed all sorts of weird sea creatures like moon jelly fish, sharks and Japanese crabs. I keep thinking that I had no idea what an anemone was until I was about 17 and here she is just 2 and probably can identify a dozen or more sea creatures. Its all about providing that experience.
Other highlights from our trip were a visit to the Rougue brewery for amazing beer, fish and chips, and chowder, Yaquina Head lighthouse, and the Zia restaurant in Corvallis for some yummy carne adovada (haven't tasted anything this yummy since being in New Mexico).