A Brave New World!

It has been ages since I last wrote but what better time to return to blogging than on the coat tails of an Obama victory! I am an ardent Obama supporter for those of you who may not know where I stand politically. I do believe he is the best person to unite not only this country but the rest of the world. He is the embodiment of change and of hope and that is what this country desperately needs. As I watched Surya play this morning I realized that the world will be so incredibly different for her than it was for my generation and the generations before me. Up until now there has been a painfully slow transition towards acceptance of "different". The women's movement, civil rights movement, gay movement, all of these movements have taken place over the last 100 years with the goal of arriving where we are today. My generation was probably the last to experience the shift and now Surya will grow up in a world that is so much more tolerant than the one I grew up in. There is of course a long way to go still (a woman in the white house perhaps) in truly being a society of equals but I am certain that it will happen in Surya's lifetime and she will be old enough to realize that she too will take part in history. I never took an interest in politics until this election. Now I feel like it has ignited a passion in me to protect what it is we have finally achieved, change, forward thinking, tolerance. There are of course those who call me an idealist and I 100% agree with them. I am an idealist through and through because I believe that without ideals there is nothing to strive for. Pragmatism is all well and good but we have enough of pragmatists in this world. Now it is time for hope, ideals and a belief that we can be better than what we are and be united in doing so. This is the world I wanted for my kids and it is finally here. Welcome to a brave new world Super Surya!

With that said, last night, the night that will be recorded in history books, I fell asleep at 9:45pm. Not even the effects of motherhood stop for history making events. When Dalip finally woke me up at 12:45am to bring me upstairs the first words out of my mouth were "who won?" When he told me Obama the best I could do was mutter a "yay" through my sleepy daze. I plan on watching the speeches on youtube later today since I heard they were both really good.

On to other news:

So we closed on a house last week and now Dalip and I are the proud owners of a beautiful 1.5 story cape cod home in Highland Park, IL. It is an old home, built in 1946, so there definitely needs some updating but it is cozy and beautiful filled with lots of character. It has 4 bedrooms and soon to have 2.5 baths. We have a big back yard that is home to many a species of bird (Nothing we can take credit for. The previous owners were bird afficionados and have equipped the garden with bird feeders and bath.) When you look out the windows into the backyard you feel like you are looking into Snow White's back yard with little forest creatures everywhere. It is really quite adorable. We are hoping to maintain the ecological wonder in the backyard as we redo the landscaping a bit next summer. I think we should be able to do it. Dalip and I will be taking a crash course in lawn mowing 101 (apparently we will be the only people in the neighborhood to actually mow our own yard), gardening 101 and home maintenance 101. The great part is that the previous owners left us a 3 page letter of all the quirks of the house we should now about and how to fix them so we are looking forwarding to putting the information to good use. I hope to post pictures of the house soon so that you all can see pictures of the new Puri-Shivpuri residence.

What I do have pictures of is halloween in our new neighborhood. After meeting one of our neighbors we learned that the best place for trick-or-treating was on the road running parallel to ours. "Barberry is the place to be for Halloween", she said. So Dalip and I decided to take Surya to our new neighborhood for her first trick-or-treating experience. What an experience it was!!! We brought my mom along with us and as we walked down Barberry street we were all in shock as to the number of families decked out in costumes and homes decorated to the nine's in halloween paraphenalia. It was like visiting a theme park! There were hundreds of people lining the sidewalks and front yards. Almost everyone was in costume from the grandparents to the newborns in strollers. Every house had at least some kind of halloween knick-knack in the front yard and boat loads of candy to distrubute to the parade of children flowing through. It was incredible. Surya, along with the rest of us was in awe. We dressed her up as a fairy with wings and all and she very diligently carried around her pumpkin bag to collect candy in. It took her only about 5 houses to get the hang of walking up to the candy bowl by herself, picking up one candy (towards the end she was trying to grab 2 & 3 candies), putting it in her bag and walking back to us. It was unbelievable. We were so proud she learned to pick up candy so quickly. We took lots of pictures of Surya with what we thought were some of the best spooky halloween home decorations. We probably visited about 20 homes and as we walked home Surya nearly fell asleep on Dalip's shoulder. We gave away most of her candy to trick-or-treaters who showed up at the house as we were packing up to go back to Barrington and the rest Dalip and I are attacking little by little everyday. It's hard, but someone has to do it :)

Well, I am hoping to write again before our departure to India this Saturday. We will be gone for 2 weeks but I will be back with stories and hopefully many pictures. I am looking forward to some good R&R while Surya's aunts and grandmothers entertain her endlessly while we are there. I am of course not looking forward to the disturbance in her sleep schedule but oh well, it is worth it for her to spend time with family. I will be sure to be back with updates! Until then, lots of love and best wishes.

What's a bruise or two?

Once you have a child you know that at around the time he/she will start walking that there will be bruises, many bruises to come from lack of balance and what looks like an 14month old wobbling around in a drunken stooper. After all, accidents do happen.

So this past Sunday Dalip and I decided to take Surya to this really cool farm right around the corner from my mom's house. The farm is hosting an autumn festival that will last until the end of October. They had all kinds of activities for the kiddos, haunted houses, pony and camel rides, sesame street, Disney, charlie brown life size wooden characters up everywhere for photo ops, jungle gyms, the works. Surya of course was in heaven when we entered and it showed. Dalip and I discovered that Surya in fact has a camera smile she puts on now. This new smile is demonstrated in the first picture above. Surya went on, at the behest of Dalip and I, to take MANY more pictures next to anything that seemed evenly remotely cute and would create a memorable moment on film (or memory card in this case). Needless to say, we were caught up in the novelty and excitement of this incredibly kid friendly, Surya will never want to leave, place.

As we swerved through the pumpkin patches, stopped at a kiosk to buy a bag of fresh kettle corn, we made our way to a jungle gym they had set up for little kids. Surya loved going down the slide. She slid down all by herself only to land on her bum half a dozen times, which she was fine with (read as no tears and a readiness to get back on the slide again). So, of course, being a mom and having an overwhelming need to document yet another once in a lifetime moment, I broke out the camera to video her going down the slide yet again. Everything started out okay as we sat her at the top of the slide and counted to three for her to come down. At the count of three Surya willed herself forward and down the slide. At the very last second the rubber sole of her shoe caught on the plastic of the slide and propelled her forward face first into the ground. Of course the tears started flowing, the crying pierced the air and the surrounding parents stares were heavily upon us as we tried to console/distract Surya from the obvious pain of the bump over her right eye. All the while the camera is still recording. So low and behold we now have a video of this tragic event.

In case any of you are wondering, Surya is absolutely fine. She had a small scratch over her eye that is now gone and the other bruise (that's another story all together) is almost gone as well. So she is in tip top shape. I have the pictures from the rest of the day's events at the farm to prove it! :)

My point in telling this story, other than to relieve the shame of watching my daughter plow face first into the ground by talking about it, is that while the guilt stays on in me for allowing such a thing to happen to my baby, Surya was over it as soon as she took one look at the camels. Of course we need to learn from our mistakes, in some ways I think that's why guilt exists, but perhaps I need to take a page from Surya's book and say, "it happens", dust off the booboo and move on to the next great adventure without any guilt or reservation (but with a bit more vigilence) so that I do not impart my fear or trepidation onto her and she is allowed to explore freely and be the super Surya we all know she is.

The many disguises of Super Surya

So who watched the presidential debate last night? Dalip and I watched it, at least most of it, and I must say it only reaffirmed my belief in Obama's ability to to lead this country out of the chaos that the past 8 years have dragged us into. I found so many issues with McCain's delivery and the substance of his answers. For one, he kept hounding on the fact that Obama did not get it and that Obama did not have enough experience but I do not understand, not even in the slightest, how in the world he can make that argument when his chosen one for VP met heads of state for the FIRST time in her life last week in New York City. Second, I really had a problem with McCain's delivery. Dear lord! Someone please tell me why McCain could not look at Obama even once during the ENTIRE debate? It was ridiculous. Lehrer first tried to engage both candidates and then Obama caught on and tried to engage McCain by looking at him and even addressing him directly by his first name. Now, normally if someone calls you by your first name and tries to talk to you you, at the very least, you look at the person while responding. Not a single glance. I had a serious problem with that. If McCain cannot make eye contact with an opponent who is a fellow American then what exactly is going to be his behavior when face to face with a head of state of a "rogue" nation? Just a little thing to make you go hmmmmm.

Now, onto more pleasant throughts...Surya!!! So as you can see, Super Surya has many disguises, sometimes as an Indian princess and other times as a Chinese martial arts expert. The first two pictures of Surya are from 2 weeks ago when we were going to an Indian wedding reception and the other two are from Dalip's congratulatory dinner when he got his promotion. We have been a busy bunch lately. The video below is from our trip last weekend to the Shedd Aquarium here in Chicago. We went there with our dear friend and Surya's appa Madina (aka Mushu). We had a blast! It was a VERY rainy Sunday last week and poor Dalip stood outside under an umbrella waiting to buy tickets to get in. About 30 minutes later we had tickets in hand and were off to explore the multitudes of fish the Shedd has to offer. This particular video is of Surya and Mushu in the Reef exhibit. There was a neat tidal pool that Surya was quite fascinated with, for all of 5 minutes, but interested none the less. Afterwards we met up with Sanjay and went to Chinatown for some good Chinese food. I was a little hesitant about going for Chinese since I wasn't sure how Surya would like all the spicy food but you would not believe that she ate EVERYTHING. The restaurant served something very similar to Kimchi, which was very spicy. Surya was asking for it and I figured, what could it hurt to let her try it. Low and behold she loved it. Mind you her eyes watered every time she put one in her mouth and drank boat loads of water but she definitely came back for more. She is on a spicy food kick these days which I am hoping will last but you know these guys change from day to day.

Well, I am off to watch a movie with Dalip. Please feel free to comment on any of the postings or to just come and look at the pictures or watch the videos of Surya. See you soon!

Introduction of Super Surya

For a long time now I have been toying with the idea of setting up a blog. For those of you who know me well this may come as a shock since you know how much I dislike documenting my thoughts. The catalyst for this sudden (or not so sudden) turnaround is the fact that I am a mother now and while motherhood is the most wonderful, rewarding experience, it can be a bit alienating. I am a person who loves to talk, about pretty much anything and everything and I find these days I have all these thoughts in my head and not much of an outlet so I decided that now is the time to create an outlet. A way to create a cathartic experience for myself and let my thoughts just hang out there in cyberspace for anyone to read. Now, you may be wondering why oh why did I name the blog after my daughter? The answer to that is that I am a mother first after all. The other reason for creating this blog is to share with all of you the adventures that Surya embarks upon everyday. Even as I write this sentence I am flooded with a million and one anecdotes of Surya's adventures. She is growing so fast and is changing so much day by day that is impossible to let each individual friend and family member know what is going on with her. I can barely keep it all straight in my head. This blog is my way of keeping all of you up to date and helping myself remember and create documentation of Surya's numerous adventures.

Oh, one last thing. The reason I called this blog "The Adventures of Super Surya" is because of my darling husband. Dalip worked in a comic book store for 11 years in Montreal. He knows almost all the ins and outs of all the comic book/graphic novel characters created during his time. It is fascinating to go to the Marvel and DC comic movies with him because he can provide you with all the background and details that the movie makers leave out (especially when they are tempting you with sequels). For the past year or so Dalip has been gently nudging me to really think about writing children's books and I, ever so pessimistically, have been pondering my own ability to be a success at such an endeavor. The only idea that I can bring myself to even write about is comic about the adventures of Super Surya, a young girl who is a strong (mentally and physically), independent, and vivacious in life and spirit, who journeys to foreign lands, meets new and interesting people and animals, as well as embarks on daily adventures in her backyard. That is my Surya.

Without further ado I present to you "The Adventures of Super Surya" and hope you enjoy reading and watching her grow as much as I do.