Niranjana, Melissa and Andy Perdue

Not 30 minutes after the previous blog item, my daughter informed me she was hungry. Yes, it's 9:50 p.m.

For lunch she ate two hot dogs (no buns) and an 8 oz. yogurt. Dinner: Two entire pieces of pizza and a banana. And now she's asked for two hard-boiled eggs. Breakfast was a banana and graham crackers. And I know she had two healthy snacks at preschool.

Maybe I better exchange those shoes I just bought her for the next size up?

For the record, after being home for 10 months, Niranjana now officially is:

35.5 pounds — that's 5.5 pounds heavier (in her socks).

40 inches — that's 3.5 inches taller, although it feels like 4 inches! Niranjana says she's going to grow bigger and bigger, up to the sky.

I cleared out most of her 3T clothes the other day. Some 3T stuff still fits — and she's still discovering some of it, like a sparkly butterfly shirt — but we've been buying 4T for a while now.

I'm always on the lookout for developmentally appropriate toys that might actually be played with. So I noticed during the evening "free play" at preschool that Niranjana liked a marble maze toy. Sort of like Legos or Tinkertoys, except you build a marble run.

We went on the hunt for the "marble ball game" the other week. Couldn't find it at Fred Meyer, not at Target. A lesson in patience ensued.

We had two birthday parties Saturday. The first was at 11 a.m. at the Richland Fire Department's main station on GW Way and Swift. The second was a "bring your swimsuit for sprinklers" at 3 p.m. at a Richland home.

Leif's fire station party scored high for all the kids, but the surprise at Zoe's house overshadowed those big red trucks and friendly firefighters. It was a twisty water slide! http://www.toysrus.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2918314

Zoe's family had borrowed this from a friend. Given the price tag and the mixed reviews, I won't be investing in one of our own.

I've never been especially fond of or particularly diligent with my dental care. During my first 25 years, I skated by, doing the minimum amount of effort to keep my teeth from falling out. Since marrying Melissa some 13 years ago, those habits have improved, though I continue to pay for the indiscretions of my youth with a variety of fillings, crowns and quarterly deep cleanings.

Along comes Niranjana.

Over the weekend, the three of us stopped at Yoke's Fresh Market in West Richland for groceries. It's a great store for a number of reasons, including the deli. We ordered our sandwiches and selected some drinks. I chose something called Bolthouse Farms Green Goodness.

It contained wheat grass, spirulina, spinach, apples, kiwis, mangos, bananas and dragon fruit. It was a sort of soupy green texture. Melissa scrunched up her nose and looked at me like I was nuts. My brother-in-law, Kevin, would be proud, as he was my introduction to wheat grass juice many years ago.

Ten months ago today, we arrived home with Niranjana. Ten months later, she's excelling in many areas. Her vocabulary improves daily, and she is beginning to catch up in letter recognition, thanks to her new Montessori school.

All in all, Niranjana is progressing as well as we could have hoped after just 10 months. As it has for several months, we feel like a family.

Niranjana still likes Little Einsteins, but it isn't at the same level of obsession as it was two months ago. I am, however, tiring of her current interest in "bad guys," including Jafar and Gaston. There is something wrong with singing "kill the Beast" on the way to preschool.

Growing up, Niranjana will have every opportunity to be a newspaper reader. Her Daddy is a third-generation newspaperman, and her Mommy was a reporter. Both of us are authors. The morning newspaper is a central part of our morning - as it is in homes that care about current events and higher vocabularies.

Still, I'm rather surprised that The New York Times - that bastion of great American journalism - is soliciting Niranjana for a subscription. The direct-mail piece showed up this week.

One of Niranjana's best friends just got home from vacation in Alaska. While he was gone, she got stuck on a lame Disney home video "Return of Jafar," in which the Genie from Aladdin returns from vacation having seen the world.

So I shouldn't have been surprised this week when Niranjana's new teachers asked if we were planning to go to India soon. Thinking it was an inquiry into our future family plans, I hesitated.