President's Palace and Polo

Today we had a great adventure. We started out piling into the back of an auto-rickshaw. This is basically a three-wheeled golf cart that hits highway speeds. There are no doors, windows, or shock absorbers but they all come equipped with a very loud horn which is used constantly.

We survived the auto ride without Erin going into labor, and arrived at the President of India's Estate. A friend, General Shergil (the tall gentleman in the green turban) used to command the President's bodyguard and invited us for a "back stage tour" of the complex. In this picture he and two other soldiers pose with Uncle Charlie (visiting us from Pittsburg) in front of a horse drawn carriage.

This horse drawn carriage is special. This is the President's own carriage. All the metal is pure gold. It was built in 1911, and has carried kings and queens of England and many Indian presidents. Today, it carried Wesley!!

We weren't actually allowed to bring our cameras, phones or anything once inside the true palace complex. Fortunately, General Shergil thought ahead and had a photographer join us. Those pictures should be available in a week or so. Stay tuned for those, it was pretty amazing!

After visiting the Prez's place, we had a fantastic lunch then went to see a polo match. General Shergil's son is a professional player, and we enjoyed the game. Wesley liked the horses, we think, although he just kept mooing like he does when he sees cows.

Stepping out in Indian Finery

HAPPY BIRTHDAY WESLEY!!!!

It's the big #1 for Mr. Wesley, and this guy is ready to party!! He has heard something about this new thing called "cake" and he wants to know all about it. He also understands that there will be presents, like on Christmas but this time only for him. For that, he even agreed to wear a silly hat.First, his admirers and friends arrive. Here are a few of them. All together he had about 25 of his closest friends in attendance.
His grandparents were, of course, on the other side of the world. Lucky for Wesley Mr. and Mrs. Panjabi (our landlord and lady) have assigned themselves surrogate grandparents until the real ones come to visit.
Now, friends are great and all, but what about this cake thing? Don't hold out on me anymore! Ahh.. there it is! His friends the PTs brought it for him!
In India, there is a tradition of mashing the cake in the face of the birthday boy. When in Rome...

As in all good parties, this got a little out of hand. It was also our friend Shruti's birthday, and so eventually everyone smashed cake on everyone else. Here Garima is helping clean off Mamta.
But smashing on the face is only half of the fun. The really good part is to eat it!! Here is Shashi helping Wesley out in this department. The look in Wesley's eyes is utter rapture mixed with a serious sugar high.
And of course, the presents!! Wesley hit the Jackpot. Thanks everyone for a great first birthday!

Indian Wedding part 2

Wesley couldn't come out to play this evening, but we wanted to share these pictures anyway. We'll pick up with his adventures in the next post.

This is the groom arriving. The prince in his horse drawn carriage. What isn't shown here is the 30+ piece band and the hundreds of family and friends dancing in front of the carriage. The procession moves about 10 feet per hour because the partying is so crazy.

This is the groom himself (the one with the ornate turban, of course). Next to him in the red and gold is his sister Sakshi, who is one of the PTs that we work with. On either side are Shashikant and Jevene, who are also both PTs.

And finally, the only outfit that could outshine the groom is...

The bride, of course! Here she is pictured again with Sakshi. It was about 12:30 on a "school night" when she prepared to leave her preparation place and go to meet the groom. You can't tell it from the picture, but she is wearing about 20 Kgs of bells in addition to that bling covered saree, so she didn't move too fast. So we had to leave before the ceremony actually started. Sakshi took the next day off, and she reported that the party didn't end until 11 am the next morning. Then the next day's party began that afternoon! All told, it was three days and nights and cost approximately 2 years salary to host. And I thought Erin and I had a nice wedding!

Charlie borrowed some traditional Indian formal wear from Shashi, one of the PT's and purchased a pair of pointy toed shoes after much haggling of course. Erin relied on her Western maternity clothes for the Indian wedding. Wesley stayed home with his ayah, Anjana. We got to the wedding around 10:30pm and the party was in full swing, people dancing, the groom arriving slowly in a horse drawn carriage, lights and music blaring, kinda like Disneyland. Once we got inside there were hundreds of people in beautiful colors still dancing but now also eating all kinds of fried delicacies and drinking sweet tropical drinks. I'm sure it was not Orlando even though we did take a picture with the groom dressed like an Indian prince.

Our new place is HUGE (3 bedrooms, 3 baths)! Especially when you compare it to our tiny one bedroom in New York. No, we did not pick out the furniture. This is Erin passed out on the couch after the move. We have two balconies, one with our washing machine the other with our drying rack, several parks and markets in the neighborhood and it's a 10 minute walk from the clinic.

Saying goodbye to our friends at 6 SP (6 Sardar Patel Marg, the Jain guest house) was hard. Wesley had quite a few friends there but we try to visit once a week.

It's about time...

We have finally gotten our home internet up and running. Some things occur frustratingly slow around here. But now we don't have any excuses for not keeping the blog up to date. That is of course until we have a power outage which occur here on a regular basis. Scenes from our last episode include Wesley walking and kissing Mommy. Since then we have moved into our new apartment, opened the FMT clinic, attended an Indian wedding and had Wesley's one year old birthday party.

Walking tall

Wesley has finally deigned to allow us to video some steps! He stopped in on the tail end of a training day with the PT staff, so you'll see him heading towards his new friend Bhawna.

"Look Ma no hands!"

Wesley took 4 steps by himself yesterday towards Daddy before putting his hands down! Of course he won't do it when we're ready with the camera. Hopefully photos/video will follow soon.

Starting to assimilate

Erin's new friend Trishla gave her this beautiful Kaftan. Apparently it's very comfortable as well as pretty. Here she is wearing it by the windows in our bedroom.

This is the Lotus Temple, which is simply too beautiful for words. We weren't dressed appropriately to go inside this time, but we'll go back.

Sneak Attack Kisses for Mama

Unsuspecting Mama is trying to take a little nap, but Wesley is on the hunt for some kisses. He approaches her stealthily, and when the time is right he springs!

Only too late does Mama notice him coming, but she has nowhere to go...

It's a brutal kiss to the right side, with plenty of drool to spare. All Mama can do is to play dead and hope that Wesley will lose interest.

As he comes up for air, Mama thinks she may have gotten of easy with one sloppy kiss

But no, he's back in again. This time it's a punishing kiss to the left that leaves Mama reeling.

The sweet taste of victory!! Mama never had a chance.

Look Ma, No Hands!!!

Wesley has been standing without support for a few seconds here or there for a few weeks now, but usually it freaks him out. In the past day or two he started to have fun while doing it, and he can balance much longer! I fear that it's a slippery slope from here to walking to running and we may never again get a moment's rest.

MONKEYS!!!!

Wesley decided to wear his favorite shirt today, that says "Bananas over Mommy". Then we went for a walk in the nature preserve right across the street from the house we are staying in. Apparently Wesley isn't the only one who loves bananas!

First we saw the one, then another and then a family, and then we saw hundreds of them!! Our guide Kichan simply laughed at us because apparently they are as common here as raccoons are in the States. Still, we thought they were very cute!! (Especially the baby that this mommy is hugging on the right)

Wesley's first thoughts on India

Hey Wesley, How do you like India so far?

"Yeah, it's pretty nice. This is the guest house we've been staying in. There are nice people that will prepare whatever kind of food I'd like whenever my little growing stomach demands it, which has been pretty cool. All the food is amazing. The house is pretty cool, too, and there's a big garden to play in. Tomorrow I'll go over to the main house to go swimming!"

"Then this is the apartment my parents say we'll be moving in to. It's in a section of Delhi called 'National Park' and it's very near to where Mom and Dad will be working. The apartment looks really nice, but what I like best is that there are so many playgrounds and parks nearby"

"In fact here is a park just down the block. It was kind of funny to see these cows hanging out right next to where a bunch of kids were playing Cricket. We're not in Kansas anymore!"

"There are some really beautiful places to explore here, too. This is a nice park called Lodhi Gardens were Mom is standing in front of some really old tomb or something. There are too many things to see to try to say everything, but I'll keep blogging. Bye for now, Wesley"

Newest Adventure

Time to Go! We're leaving for India tomorrow for a year. Wesley is very excited, but started to get nervous about being shipped over in the cargo hold. Here he is getting out of his freight box. Oh well, I guess we'll have to take him in the cabin with us...

Next blog entry will be from New Delhi!!

Wesley greets his little sister (while in the womb)

That's right, for those that don't know Wesley is going to be a big brother!

Baby Girl King will be born this Fall/Winter while the family is living in

New Delhi, India!! We leave next week!

First Haircut

Well, we got the official okay from Lola Tuhod today (That's Wesley's Great Grandmother for those that don't know), so the big guy got his first hair cut. It's the new summer look...

Here he is before

During

Almost there...(Mommy is doing a great job!)

And voila! What a handsome guy! The ladies don't stand a chance!!

Wesley gets to meet his Uncle Dan! He booked a comedy gig in Connecticut and one in NYC so he could come spend some time here.

It's time for swimming lessons! Lucky Uncle Dan is visiting so we could get some of these great photos. Wesley's swim cap is too big, but we like the Pirate look that it creates!

He loves swimming so much it makes him want to give Mommy kisses! Or maybe he's clinging on for dear life...

Now he's getting used to it,

and now he's loving it!!

Big Changes!

Wesley is growing up so fast! This month he was baptized at the King Family's church in upstate NY, began eating solid foods (he loves fruit!) and has gotten really good at being on hands and knees. He hasn't started crawling yet (thank goodness) but we're sure that is soon to come!

I love tummy time!

Visit from Will and Soleil

Wesley loves having Soleil come visit, and when it was nap time she even rocked him gently in his chair!