OMY: 13 October - 12 November (W14-17)

After a lovely and lazy fall break in mid-October, we settled back into our hectic schedule of Chloe care and work. Several times throughout this month I've thought, "I should take a photo of this [insert event or activity here]." Almost every time I thought this, I forgot to follow through. Oh well.

Sat 14 October

Our poor, neglected Sadie. Weekends and breaks bring not love and affection, but brushing! I can barely keep up with the shedding, which is why all of us ingest about a kilo of dog fur each year...

Sun 13 October

At the end of Activity Week, all the kids and teachers took home a sweet paper lantern in honor of Chinese culture (thanks, Soneyaa and Tanya!). While inspecting it over the weekend, I noticed that it has just about the best "English" instructions ever.

Sun 13 October

Check out this writing -- especially #3.

Thur 19 October

My workout studio, thanks to fitnessblender.com. I vowed over break that I would work out three times per week. Yup, that lasted about a week...

Wed 25 October

Chloe developed so much strength over this past four weeks. She loves planking (and of course now she's a crawling machine).

Wed 25 October

More outdoor antics.

Wed 8 November

We have new desks in the English office (thanks, Andrzej!), and it finally feels like a nice space.

Thur 9 November

Sadie's always lazing, and Chloe's always moving.

Fri 10 November

Now that Chloe crawls, you'll notice that we need to barricade off all of our electric wires behind a bunch of random crap.

Sat 11 November

I took this so I could remember how sweet she looks while she naps.

Sat 12 November

Nobody puts baby in a box!

Have a great week,
love, mel

OMY: 1 September - 12 October (W8-13)

So my weekly blogs became bi-weekly blogs and have now become monthly. Such is the life of a working mom, toward the end of the first trimester of the school year. September was a complete blur, but now we're ensconced in a beautiful fall break. Anything seems possible! More on that for the next post. Below are just a few images from the last six weeks. Most of these are of Chloe -- apologies in advance. 

Sat 2 September

Sometimes monsoon is quite beautiful. I'll really miss this view.

Mon 4 September

Taking a selfie. Chloe's really good at looking possessed, apparently.

Tue 5 September 

Chloe's so advanced -- she's already *digesting* good literature at six months. (I couldn't resist.)

Wed 6 September

This was my last WS Cross Country Day. I ran with the Grade 11 / 12 girls for the last time, representing the Merlins (red shirts). It had been forever since I ran, because of Chloe, so it was good to find out I could still do it.

Thur 7 September

We gave Chloe her first solid food after she turned six months. She was very skeptical of this new taste and texture -- banana. Now she loves them and eats with abandon!

Fri 8 September

It's hard to see in this photo, but this tree was a sign that monsoon was on its way out. Many of the ferns growing on the trunk are yellow.

Mon 11 September

Where's that baby?

Wed 13 September

More first foods -- apples!

Sat 16 September

It's really difficult to keep anything tidy with a baby. I admit I'm a bit OCD about putting things back in their rightful places, so it's been tough to deal with all the physical stuff that goes along with parenting.

Mon 18 September

I swear this is the last "Chloe eating..." photo. But I had to document just how Indian this baby is -- she's munching on chapati here.

Wed 4 October

After a rough night, it was good to see a happy baby. I think she's saying, "Hey mom and dad, I'm seven months old now!"

Mon 9 October

This past week was Activity Week. I'm usually with the older kids, trekking or on a cultural trip, but this year I had to stay closer to home so I could feed Chloe. I was assigned to work with the ECP (like preschool) and Kindergarten kids, and we had a blast. Here we are learning about Korean culture at the Juns' house. 

OMY: 19-31 August (W6&7)

We somehow made it to September, tripping through the first seven weeks of this academic year! Monsoon is still raging, though the ferns are yellowing -- a sign, I hope, of the waning rains. I wasn't super consistent about taking photos this week... too much sleep deprivation.

Wed 23 August

I call this one "Aftermath of Co-sleeping." Chloe's been sleeping poorly for a bit now, so out of necessity I've returned to co-sleeping with her so I can easily feed her in bed and allow Chris to get some good sleep.

Sat 26 August

At least she's cute -- and getting stronger by the day! Chloe often does these Pilates-style lifts during playtime now.

Sun 27 August

Chris and I toasted the end of his last day at Proofreading Pal with some nice gin and tonics. No more Sat/Sun work shifts!

Tue 29 August

This is a tired momma, getting ready for another night of (maybe) sleep. I'm clinging to the "this too shall pass" comment I hear so often.

Wed 30 August

Chloe is getting better at taking milk from a bottle -- finally! What this means for me, though, is more pumping... Not my favorite, but I'm getting into a rhythm.

Thur 31 August

It was a big football week at WS... We had Interhouse competitions in the AMs twice this week, and Goalathon (a charity tourney) this weekend. More to come...

**

Also, here's a poem I've been tinkering with for a few weeks. Not "finished," perhaps, but a fairly firm draft...

Motherhood

Seeing you --

your skin tightly tired,

the slight thumbprint bruises

beneath each eye --

I grasp for words, pull at “diminished,”

“less than.” You seem a scanty echo

of your previous self.  

But this picture misses out:

the tender gaze you offer your daughter

as she stalks that painted alligator across the room,

clumsy, but determined.

your growing smile as she

pounds indiscriminately on your beat-up piano,

making something only she could call “music.”

that thrill of recognition you feel as she

wraps her plastic doll deep in her arms --

whispering “I love you, baby.”

**

Have a beautiful Labor Day weekend, America-friends!

love, mel

OMY: 5-18 August (W4&5)

Due to some technological issues, I couldn't post last week. Here's what we've been up to!

Sat 5 August

Chris spends most of his weekend days proofreading, so this is a common sight on a Saturday. However, soon he'll be all done with his required editing shifts, so we'll have more fun family time on the weekend. Yay!

Sun 6 August

Monsoon days... At least I didn't have to go to school...

Mon 7 August

I go a little nuts on amazon.in, especially since we now have a baby. What a random order this was: toy box for Chloe's growing pile of crap, real vinegar, and chocolate-flavored creamer.

Tue 8 August

We've been cleaning out some drawers with a look to the future, but for some reason every time I find these temporary tattoos of our friends' faces, I can't throw them out... :)

Wed 9 August

One perk of coming home to feed Chloe midday is access to fresh food from our ayah, Shanti. Here are some of her amazing aloo paranthe. So yum.

Thur 10 August

Now that she's into month 5, Chloe's been rolling from back to front like a boss. Unfortunately she still often gets stuck in this position and begins to cry, but she's getting better at rolling out of it.

Sat 12 August

Chloe's been more and more interested in Sadie these days. It's pretty cute.

Tue 15 August

It's my last Indian (and Korean) Independence Day, and Chloe's first. We got dressed up for a day on the town...

Tue 15 August

I spent a lot of the ceremony pacing around with Chloe near the table tennis area; parenting certainly changes my perspective on different events - literally and figuratively.

Tue 15 August

In honor of Korean Independence, our Korean staff/students shared this terrifying but fun game!

Tue 15 August

An unfortunately blurry photo of Grade 11, the class I advise.

Wed 16 August

Character diagramming with A Passage to India with my Grade 12 students. I have a lot of fun unpacking literature with these guys and gals.

***

Some other stuff happened, but I clearly didn't document it. It's amazing how quickly this school year is going...

Have a beautiful week,
love, mel 

OMY: 29 July to 4 August (W3)

We survived another week of work and parenting -- phew! Here are a few photo highlights...

Sat 29 July

Chloe looking hipster-ish for our walk around the chakkar! I really feel she looks like the captain from Jaws in this hat, for some unknown reason...

Sun 30 July

Chloe loves hanging out and squirming around in her diaper. Clothes are for losers!

Mon 31 July

I finally made one of those cheesy inspirational walls in my classroom out of abandoned student art. It helps brighten up our windowless room...

Thur 3 August

Chloe turned five months old today, and celebrated with a bit of flight.

Fri 4 August

Friday was advisor night. My ten advisees came up for dinner and some hanging out. As you can see, at my place, advisor night = junk food... 

***

Hope all is well out in the world beyond...

love, mel

one more year: 19-28 July (W1&2)

Many of you know that Chris, Chloe, and I are saying goodbye to Woodstock School and India at the end of this academic year. We're returning to the U.S. for a number of reasons, but mainly because we want Chloe to be closer to her extended family. Though we're excited for this transition, it's also bittersweet. I love teaching at Woodstock, and we've built a home here that will be difficult to unravel.

Because there's a lot we hope to remember about this place and our lives here, I promised myself that I would take a photo each day, and then post the results in a short blog post. I'm already sure that I can't maintain this goal, since I didn't even meet it for the first week! Oh well. Here's what I did snap: "issue" #1.

Wed 19 July

On the first day of school, we took Chloe to day care, a service we hope to use 2-3 times per week so Chris gets a break and can get more work done. It did not go well, to say the least. She was happy when Daddy was there, but after he left, she freaked out and screamed so much she gave herself hiccups for most of the day! We'll try again soon, but for now we're trying to get her through her first cold...

Thur 20 July

Prepping to teach In Cold Blood by Truman Capote and The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga. Re-reading the books I teach is a pleasurable part of the process!

Fri 21 July

Chloe's been pretty squirmy these days; it's hard to capture our active little girl!

Sat 22 July

I'm sure when we're back in the U.S. I'll miss grocery shopping like this! Each week I make a meal plan and then draw up a list that I call into a local shop. Later that day, my groceries magically appear at my house courtesy of a coolie. Though we can't get everything we like, it's certainly less stressful than battling the crowds at large U.S. stores like Wegman's and Stop & Shop.

Sun 23 July

Happy anniversary to us: six years of marriage and thirteen years together (we think). Celebrating has changed a lot since we had a kid. Instead of going out, we spent some time enjoying chai and banana cake.

Mon 24 July

Monsoon views from my office window. Since my classroom this year is window-less, my colleagues were nice enough to give me some window space in our shared office.

Wed 25 July (?)

Chloe looks like a possessed stay-puff marshmallow kiddo in her sleep suit. We shot this as we got her ready for bed. 

**

Have a beautiful week, xoxo, mel