Argh....August!

With another page torn from my calendar, I find myself staring at the month of August. I don’t where the time goes sometimes, other than to watch the two counters at the top of this blog tick away the days until Devi turns four and add up the days that we wait for the glorious news that we can travel to Treya. The freshness of this new set of 31 days finds me feeling more than a bit anxious. I don’t know if it is the sudden surge of questions regarding when Treya might join our family by our understandably impatient support group of family and friends or the length of time with no adoption news that has me feeling this way. Certainly after 4 weeks of silence while waiting for our NOC, it becomes hard to resist the urge to let your mind wander to doubtful thoughts of whether our paperwork is on the right desk, is being touched with expertise by the right people or being looked favorably upon by those who hold the credentials to make this determination. When you take away the borders and all the paperwork, she is just a girl who wants to be loved, and we are just a family with an ample amount of that ingredient to give. In it’s simplest terms, it is hard to fathom why an adoption takes so long even to us, having gone through it once before. Let’s just get on with it please!

Ambling along, a lot of idle time is spent talking about the up coming trip, what to expect, what we might like to do while in India, and how are union with Treya might go. Walking to have “coffee time and story time” at Cavanagh’s over the weekend, a local coffee house, Devi told us that while in India, she would like to catch a peacock and keep it for her pet. On first impulse, she named him Maccaw, but after further contemplation decided her peacock would be named Buttercup,

after a duck story we’ve read before. She would feed Buttercup corn and water, and if he walked to coffee with us, she might offer him a sip of her vanilla steamer, something we all decided would be kind. She also would capture a bunny in India to keep the peacock company, who would appropriately be named Bunny. I’m not sure just how she expected us to get two live animals and a sister home from India on the plane, but one of the wondrous things about being her age, is practicality is unimportant and all things are possible.

As a means of communicating with Treya,who has heard various dialects of Marathi, Hindi and some English for nearly two years, we’ve been boning up on our sign language. It seemed to be very helpful when Devi was first home signing phrases to inquire about daily needs such as “Are you hungry. thirsty, or sleepy?” or “Do you have a dirty diaper?” Devi’s first concern was being able to sign “no-no” to Treya, which spawned a lengthy conversation about who is in charge of putting an “offender” into the thinking spot. She was devastated to find the limited power that a big sister actually has over a younger sibling. As the cogs of her incredibly bright little mind began to turn, she replied in one run on sentence....When I am done being a big sister, I’m going to get married and be a mommy. I am going to grow a baby in my tummy and when it pops out, I’m gonna put that baby in the thinking spot when she has bad behavior. Guess that sums up her parenting plan!

In other news, we've learned that the VISA process in India is different for Devi now. Guess I never thought about it before, but Devi is an NRI (non-resident Indian). It means, although she now holds a US passport, she was born in India and so is not allowed to enter India with a tourist VISA any more, but rather, must hold an Entry VISA. This procedure change, the result of terrorist activity over the past couple of years, took place on June of this year. With all new procedures, it takes much longer to process an Entry VISA. Last I heard, it was taking 2 months. Doing a bit of quick math, if a train traveling at 80 mph....OH! I mean 2 months to process; VISAs are good for 6 months from the date of issue...add a little, subtract a little... that essentially means we need to start processing hers right now if we are to travel by years end! That is a bit exciting :)