I love my husband.

Just really, really, really love, love, love.

Because most people think i dote on our kids, i surprise myself when i admit that in a non Ayelet Waldman sense, i love him more than i love our kids even. In a fire, i'd, obv, grab the tots first because they're so small and helpless and sleep so soundly and Big A jolly well save his own butt and a few others besides. And yes, my kids are delicious and funny, and so squeezy as to seem boneless, and their eyes are the shiniest orbs in the universe and their laughter is the trippiest ever...

But the best days are the ones when Big A is off from work and the kids are off at (baby or elementary) school and we get to go back to bed and hang out and get brunch and nap some more and lie in bed dreaming of big plans and undertaking huge house projects before the monkeys return at three.

The only thing ruining our "naptimes" is our proclivity to make babies if we so much as look at each other. Knowing how much i dislike hormonal contraception, Big A is getting a vasectomy this week. The "little snip-snip" as our friends call it. And the best part: I didn't make any suggestions, throw out any hints. He came up with it calmly, lovingly, by himself. No talk of sacrifice, just how very much he loves me, how my happiness is the most important thing in his life.

We do make exceedingly cute babies though, and there's an irrational part of me that's sad that i will never be pregnant again. But hopefully, there will be more babies--when our adoption papers come through.

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Cached up

Where I’ve been in the last couple of months:

*Knocking on doors for the Obama campaign.

* Reading e-mails from the Obama campaign. (And consequently, developing a bit of a crush on David Plouffe.)

*Attending Obama Rallies.

*Hosting Presidential debate parties (okay just one, no--two).

*Donating money to the Obama campaign.

*Making phone calls for the Obama campaign.

*Facebooking for the Obama campaign.

*Giving my internet time to the Obama campaign. (This was different from donating my time. No one asked me to do this and it benefited no one. It mostly involved me refreshing fivethirtyeight.com, and fuming every time another Palin story broke.)

*Attending an election-night dinner. 

*Watching the actual results with an impromptu bunch.

* Celebrating the election victory.

* Watching several self-congratulatory episodes of Bill Maher.

*Giving more internet time and leaving comments on a bunch of blogs.

Read a bunch of books when the election sent me too close to the brink of insanity. But everything else just had to wait. Including stuff like writing to the admin secretary at the university to figure out remaining paperwork, and unpacking my clothes. We moved here in August? That’s right.

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THREE WEEKS TO GO

Showing eyes phosphorescent

in fear, muddied with

dread lie our

heavy heads

our throats

are thunderclouds

for fear breaks

off—

flakes. And this October

is shrill silence

as bats cringe

inches from the skin.

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a new nickname

In the process of moving and packing I found of bunch of stuff I’d forgotten about. One of them is this greenish kuffiyeh that I‘d gotten a while ago and stopped wearing when kuffiyehs became less about supporting Palestine and more of a hipster badge. I’m wearing it now to keep the hair out of my eyes while I unpack our boxes and Big A likes to ask if it’s from my Baby Arafat line. Get it? Pretend it’s spelled with a “ph.” :)

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Sushila Atha

Sushila Atha, I think of you frequently. I wanted to name my daughter with your name. I would be thinking of you all the time if I had.

You’re not my atha, of course, you are my Amma’s. Her father’s only sister. Her mother has a sister named Sushila too, so I think I was nearly ten before I realized that mentions of you were different from conversations about Sushila Pinni.

You were the first girl in the family to attend college, but Amma was the first to graduate, a whole generation later. Because you were married before you could. Were married off. And then one day, Amma says, you returned to your parents’ house. Pregnant. Refused to return to your in-laws. Married women aren’t welcome at their birth houses without their husbands, you were told. You ran into the backyard, past the cows bellowing at the camphor flames, and jumped into the well. You were dead before they found a servant who could swim, who could save you. Amma says you were very beautiful. Hair past your knees. Accomplished. There are needlepoint pillowcases somewhere to prove it. Amma has never actually seen you either.

I’m sorry I wasn’t there. We could have gone to classes together, graduated, found jobs, brought our babies up together. (We’d do needlepoint or grow our hair only if we felt like it.) It’s not very difficult, they’ll let you bring your babies to class even, most of the time. They say your mother wanted to intervene but she was too afraid of her Gadadoss husband to do so. Gadadoss husbands still have that reputation. The Gadadoss women are, most of them, subversively feminist because of it.

Amma was horrified that I’d give my daughter your name. But it wasn’t to revisit your history upon her. It was the dream of reworking it, a chance to do your life differently. To let you roam the house raucously, gurgly, never expecting you to be demure. To let you be confident, independent. To keep you happy. To remember you always; you who are usually so secret, from tumbling further away from memory.


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Baby Immunity

Baby A is fascinated by kids, so instead of looking for a nanny here in our new town, we found her a place in a great group care for children under three. She seems to like it there. There‘re lots more people to boss, plus--extra walks, new toys, cheerios anytime she feels like it--the perks are great. But after three days there, she came home on Wednesday with a runny nose and has been running a temperature with a hacking cough and full-blown cold since.

And because she’s been trailing a toxic river of snot, her brother and father are sick too. And their coughing has led to some quality kneeling time at the commode, so the boys are barf-brothers now.

Me? I’m hearty as a gundu-rayi (the proverbial grinding stone). Despite frequently rubbing noses with the original and subsequent rivers of snot. Big A says: Not every one can be lucky enough to grow up in the “third world.”

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Baby Talk 2: The too tasty

Talking about baby talk with T reminded me of this.

Li’l A used to eat a kichri that I used to make him (with rice, and lentils and garlic and peppercorns and chicken and veggies, almonds, and olive oil, pressure cooked and mashed) every day for lunch. When I left him with my mom in Bangalore while I finished up a few things in Oxford, my mother made him this kichri (under my urgent request because this was the only thing in the whole world that would meet all his nutritional needs). Ammama probably futzed around with my rather no-frills recipe a bit. Because after the first spoonful, Li’l A smacked his lips and told her: Ammama, too tasty! Too tasty!

My mother took this as endorsement of her superior cooking skills. Whereas in fact as she found out when he refused to eat any further, he meant it literally. It was too tasty--there were too many tastes in it.

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