To Ruby on her First Day of Kindergarten

Dear Ruby,
This morning was so much fun, wasn't it?
There are far too many ways to be profound and self reflective and to mourn the passing of your baby years, but I chose today to embrace the beauty of the moments. The beauty of you and Gavin wandering up to my room at 5:30am because Gavin wanted to snuggle with you, you didn't want to, so somehow all of us ended up in my double bed. The beauty of discovering the alarm hadn't gone off and rushing to make it to school on time with less than 15 minutes. The beauty of getting completely ready in six minutes flat, only to realize when I grabbed my phone to take the "First Day of School" photo for posterity that Gavin had changed the time on the alarm and we still had another hour before we had to leave.

The beauty of holding your hand while you got up the courage to stand in line and make new friends, again.

The beauty of picking you up and discovering not only do you love your teacher, but you'd already made a friend you could hardly say goodbye to! The beauty of understanding that sharing your day with you as a spectator and not as the stage director is a wonderfully satisfying evolution of our relationship.

I love you forever and always,
Mama

Happy Christmas!!

">

Ok...we can take a hint...

Apparently Sina and I have been on the road quite a bit lately.

Lots and lots of rain

Remember that day last week when it rained 16 inches in 12 hours? Here's Gavin living it up the next morning in our yard.


Right after this picture I took him to the tub and scrubbed him down - it might be our yard, but it's still South Asia, after all.

Halloween 2010

Sina has decided that since it's very much an American holiday, we should do our best to celebrate Halloween to the fullest. Ruby has latched right onto the costume part of Halloween. Here is costume #1 - Dora and Diego.



But why should a girl stop at just one costume? Here's costume #2.


Costume #3 was an Indian princess - as in India Indian. By the time she put that one on we were well into the church Halloween party we had at our house, and she was moving too fast to get a photo.

Meanwhile Gavin had moved on to his Superman outfit. Superman, by the way, must be some sort of eternal, universal truth. Gavin had never seen the guy before we found him this costume at one of the random clothing outlet stores here in Colombo. He LOVED it the second we put it on him, and he somehow knew it meant he could now fly, and he spent the next hour flying around the house.

Road Signs

Here's one for my mom.

Yet another Sari

Sina and Ruby, all dressed up in matching outfits, going to a wedding.