celebrating our little bug.

"How old are you Everett?"  We ask.
"I'm five"  He says with a playful grin.
"No...how old are you?"
"I'M TWO!"

 shy. verbal.  athletic.  loving.  busy.

Daddy was at the party in a way.

It was a notable day.

for 43 hours.

Flying over the world.  Where is this?  Somewhere extremely north.

Our planning for this trip home was definitely not ideal for the family, but my safe pregnancy international travel window could not be extended another 3 weeks.  Graham is still in India on a project and had to leave a few days before we all left which meant that I had to pack up and travel back to the states with the kids and without him.  Ryan and Dannah took charge and helped the kids and me journey home.  They were a life saver for me, but even with their help, the trip did not come without quite a few bumps and severely stressful moments.  What can you expect when traveling from a Himalayan hill station to the middle of American with 3 kids 5 years old and under, no husband and a baby on the way?

We started at 5AM from Oaklands and got in a taxi.  The mountain road down to the train station is very unforgiving.  I was pleased when we almost made it without anyone vomiting, but then for some reason the nausea quickly hit me a few minutes before arriving at the train station and the taxi driver had to pull over and stop traffic so that I could spew out over Everett's head onto the road.  We boarded a crowded sleeper class train with all our luggage preparing for a 7 hour journey into Delhi.  Ryan and Dannah loaded all our bags so that I didn't have to carry anything potentially straining.

While on the train, it felt that I had to break up random wrestling matches between the kids hundreds of times.  They were bored.  The train was not the cleanest, especially the toilet room.  Everett said that he had to go potty so I took him.  This is a very small space that has a hole going straight down to the tracks.  When squeezing into the very small room, I soon realized that I had forgotten to put on his shoes, but it was too late to go back because of the nature of an almost 2 year old needing to "go potty".  Not a very large time window.  I cringed and put him bare foot on the already wet and soiled floor shaking vigorously as the train rocked back and forth on the tracks.  He ended up quickly spraying urine all over the floor and then squatting on the hole to do his other business Indian style.  It was a mess.  Luckily, I had some baby wipes back at our seats and gave him a very extensive wipes bath after the event.  Shortly after this, Hudson and Priya were eating some peanuts and raisons that I had packed.  I was not watching, but Priya told me that she had stuck a peanut up her nose.  I didn't think much of it as she has never been known to stick objects up her nose and thought that it was just a small fragment or crumb.  We arrived in Delhi and loaded into a non-air conditioned steamy taxi after the journey.  Suddenly, she began to get a bit uncomfortable and her eye and nose were watering.   We encouraged her to blow and sure enough out came a peanut half into the tissue.  

We boarded the plane at the convenient time of 12:30 AM and were upgraded to the bulk head right behind business class.  Very spacious.  It pays to travel with little kids while pregnant.  It was a pretty peaceful 14 hour flight.  Graham's mom met us in Chicago and we parted with Denver bound Ryan and Dannah.  Lark helped me manage three extremely exhausted and loopy children and we waited for our last league to begin.  Simple.  Omaha to Chicago equals a 1 hour flight.  We missed it.  We were not late or delayed, just sitting and waiting at the wrong gate both in a bit of a daze.  This added 3 more hours of waiting in the airport in order to get on the next available flight.

43 hours later...we arrived in Omaha.  I was pretty much speechless with fatigue as we greeted my parents at the airport.  I am relieved to be done with the journey.  Now, we are just waiting for Graham's arrival and for the middle of the night "I am ready for the day, I am ready to play" wake-ups to be finished.

Strawberry frap from Starbuchs...must be in America.

the leaving process.

Graham is now leading a project trip to an island in south India.  The team will be working on a flood mitigation design.  He will then meet us in Omaha in 17 days and counting.  Boxes and bags are in the process of being packed.  The kids and I will board a plane to Omaha on Tuesday with the help of Ryan and Dannah who are an eMi staff couple and dear friends.  I don’t know how I could do this big international journey alone.  Who knows if they will even let me on the plane with my big basketball sized tummy.  

In the meantime, we are living in a typical monsoon up here with all the inconveniences that come with it.  The lightning storms are destructive and have been successful in zapping all of our internet modems and killing the power for hours during the day.  Yesterday, the kids were dying to go out and swing.  There was a small break in the rain and the downpours had created large puddles at the base of each swing.  Regardless, Everett and Priya shared a swing and proceeded in their typical giddy, screaming and excited states when swinging.  Shortly after beginning, they both flew off.  Everett hitting his head and Priya falling straight into the mud puddle below, coming up looking unidentifiably like a mud monster.  I quick check to make sure they are both okay and then usher them into the house to our small round plastic bath tub.  I go to turn on our water heater, but then realized that it would not work without any power so heated the water for their bath with two kettles.  Luckily, there was water to wash them.  Today, we ran out of water in our tanks.  Every time I needed to wash someone’s sticky and dirty fingers, I would turn the tap on and not a drop would fall which left me scrambling to find a tap with even a trickle of water.  It is so funny that with all the water pouring from the sky these days the water shortage prevails.  Maybe I am ready for a break?

All is quiet with our pregnancy other than the kicks and tumbles going on inside my belly.  My friend and OB here gave the all clear this week to travel.  The baby is 30 weeks.  It feels a bit unfathomable that we will be coming back to India with another little Frank on our team.

Also, we are saying many goodbyes to treasured relationships...monkeys not included.