After some tense waiting and great help from all the associated agencies, who went way beyond the call of duty to get us here, we are on the move. We fly out tomorrow night and arrive in Sydney at 8:15pm on Friday night. We have had Ankita at Matt and Liz's for for three days. She is sleeping upstairs with her sister right now and is doing very well.
She eats what she wants and tells you what she wont eat. She looks you dead in the eye and says "nahee" (no). Shakes her head and looks deep into your eyes as if to say ' do you have a problem with that?' and even if I do have a problem, I am not sure there is much I could do about it at the moment!
She has come out with us shopping and adventuring and is very confident but still looks to us to make sure she is not too far away or doing something she is not supposed to be. She loves her new clothes and the few toys she has. A plastic Barbie phone that Neelu got the last time we were here has become a favorite. We had to find and buy a new one for her so the girls walk around with these phones around their neck making a racket. The phones play bad versions of Hindi pop songs plus various other ear piercing sounds. Terrific for Papa. I have told them how much I dislike them and they mostly ignore my pleas to desist. I envision the next twenty years very clearly...
Ankita and mamma are already bonding like super glue.Three pees in a pods these girls. The three of them were in the back of a cab this morning - me in the front - and the two girls were sleeping on Mamma like they had been there for years.
Neelu and Ankita have got the sister thing happening big time. Neelu is amazing. patient, kind, understanding, generous to a fault. She has become the protective big sister and Ankita has worked out very quickly how lucky she is. The truth is, we are all realising, in a very short time, how lucky we all are; if luck had anything to do with it that is...
