Hitting the Ground Running

We have been back home for the last six weeks. Initially, tt was very disorienting to be back to where the streets are so empty and where there are no itinerant peddlers and vegetable vendors "bleating like sheep on a Welsh hillside" as Trevor Fishlock put it. But having to get S. to school the second day after we arrived put an end to undue wallowing in nostalgia. There were clothes to be organized, shoes and backpacks to be bought, the house to be organized. The workers who had slowed down their pace in our absence came back and once again, the house is full of noise and dust and the shouts of electricians to each other. So now, five-six weeks later, Kolkatta is a fading memory of washed coconut trees and uncomfortable car rides into the city. S. has been to many birthday parties already and whenever I see his cute little shape bobbing and weaving through a crowd of his peers, I am always struck by how grown-up he looks now. Not at all the little baby that I rocked to sleep in the glider that now sits in my office. But at least I can still recall the sensation when I hold baby or look at her face in the crib, so similar to her brother and yet so...her!
OK, I am overcome with maternal sentiment. More later.