Now that the kids are in India, I am missing the daily Facetime sessions with them. Now that I do not have it, I realize how it was the highlight of my day. The first thing I would do on reaching home after work was to take out my iPad and start the facetime session - even before taking off my shoes. The session of story telling (although Kumar uncle is preferred for stories), playing hangman, spelling words, talking about school, singing songs, reading aloud, showing dance, crafts and school work - kept me involved in their lives.
Well, at least the kids are enjoying themselves, esp the big guy. He has a tough time speaking Hindi and was told that he would need to brush up his skills if he wanted to communicate with his family back there. He did his brushing up by going and saying Namaste to random uncles at the airport! He is so focused on his needs that the first thing he asked his 'dadu' was "Could you come on your scooter". He is really excited about the activa and plans to take it back with him to the US.
Talking about Simba's focus bring an incident to mind. They were supposed to leave for India in a few days and all packing was going on. I had applied for a Canada visa on 3rd Feb and was still waiting for my passport, getting increasingly sad and frustrated that I would not be able to see them before they left. (Of course, the stamped passport arrived on the day they were leaving for India - reminding me of my failed GRE attempt where I had to cancel my exam a week before the date I was supposed to take it because my passport had not arrived. The elusive passport arrived the day after I canceled the exam but I never took it, wasting all the efforts I put into the preparation). Similarly, all my efforts put into preparing for Toronto visit (read getting presents for the kids) was wasted as I could not give it to them. However, we had a nice time, looking at each present in detail during our daily facetime sessions.
Well coming back to the incident - Our conversations during the last week was full of "afsos" about my not being able to visit them one last time. To make up for the disappointment, I would show them their presents on Facetime, with the assurance that I would bring them over to Phoenix as soon as they returned. Generally Simba is not very interested in talking to me during our daily evening sessions except for seeing his presents but one day he took the initiative and very lovingly asked "Maiyu, can you please come to our house to meet us?" My heart was overwhelmed to get the rare acknowledgement of love. And then after a pause, he says "And can you please bring our presents too?"
Well, at least the kids are enjoying themselves, esp the big guy. He has a tough time speaking Hindi and was told that he would need to brush up his skills if he wanted to communicate with his family back there. He did his brushing up by going and saying Namaste to random uncles at the airport! He is so focused on his needs that the first thing he asked his 'dadu' was "Could you come on your scooter". He is really excited about the activa and plans to take it back with him to the US.
Talking about Simba's focus bring an incident to mind. They were supposed to leave for India in a few days and all packing was going on. I had applied for a Canada visa on 3rd Feb and was still waiting for my passport, getting increasingly sad and frustrated that I would not be able to see them before they left. (Of course, the stamped passport arrived on the day they were leaving for India - reminding me of my failed GRE attempt where I had to cancel my exam a week before the date I was supposed to take it because my passport had not arrived. The elusive passport arrived the day after I canceled the exam but I never took it, wasting all the efforts I put into the preparation). Similarly, all my efforts put into preparing for Toronto visit (read getting presents for the kids) was wasted as I could not give it to them. However, we had a nice time, looking at each present in detail during our daily facetime sessions.
Well coming back to the incident - Our conversations during the last week was full of "afsos" about my not being able to visit them one last time. To make up for the disappointment, I would show them their presents on Facetime, with the assurance that I would bring them over to Phoenix as soon as they returned. Generally Simba is not very interested in talking to me during our daily evening sessions except for seeing his presents but one day he took the initiative and very lovingly asked "Maiyu, can you please come to our house to meet us?" My heart was overwhelmed to get the rare acknowledgement of love. And then after a pause, he says "And can you please bring our presents too?"
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