Seven months

Today marks seven months home with Niranjana. In the past month, life has only progressed forward, as she becomes more comfortable in her new world and we continue to figure out this whole parenting gig.

In the past month, I have been taking Niranjana to school more often so Melissa can get to work earlier and tackle several projects. Ironically, I end up getting to the office earlier, even though it adds maybe 20 miles to my commute.

On Wednesday, I went into school to pick her up. She looked up from the games she was playing with a few other children and - for the first time - smiled when she saw me come in.

On Friday, we kept her home because she has a chest cold and an ear infection. Melissa went to work, so it was daddy and daughter one on one. When she woke up, she wanted to be held for several minutes - which I gladly did. She watched Little Einsteins, then we decided to go to Yoke's to pick up lunch to have with Melissa. As we arrived in the parking lot of the West Richland store, we saw two school buses parked along the back edge. Niranjana is fascinated with school buses (probably because of the Pigeon books), so we parked near them. She went and touched one, and we talked to the driver, who let her get on. She walked up two steps, turned to me and stated, "I want to go, Daddy!" That was the end of that little adventure. We picked up some sandwiches and headed to campus, where we spent about 90 minutes with Mommy. Blissfully, she fell asleep on the way home and slept for another 90 minutes. When she awoke, she wanted her feet tickled, then played with her big Lego-like blocks until Mommy came home. All in all, a great day for both of us, even if she was sick and on antibiotics.

Cats: For the first few weeks home, Niranjana was afraid of our two cats, Clancy and Mustafa. When she lost that fear, Mustafa went to live under the guest bed while Clancy held his ground and simply hissed at Niranjana when she came near. We'd see Mustafa only after Niranjana left the house or fell asleep. In the past few weeks, Mustafa has gained courage and come out of hiding. He'll even let Niranjana pet him and scratch his chin. "We're friends!" Niranjana regularly declares.

Milk: When we were in India, Niranjana couldn't get enough of milk. We were, of course, thrilled. When we got home, she stopped drinking milk within three weeks or so. She would still occasionally drink chocolate milk or a hot cocoa, but she didn't want straight milk, either in a glass or on her cereal. That has changed in the past two weeks. She now insists on having cereal with milk and is chugging the stuff fairly regularly.

Our journey to India doesn't seem as though it was that long ago. We've gone through autumn and winter and are now a third of the way through a cool spring. The sun is out, and Niranjana wants to play in it. She is happy most of the time and enjoys exploring life.

It's been seven months. That's difficult to believe.