Niranjana, Melissa and Andy

As I write this post, I am mindful of Auntie Christy, my sister-outlaw, who is a librarian in Southern Oregon.

Yesterday was Thanksgiving, and it was very exciting for Niranjana. Not only did Grandpa and Grandma arrive from Portland, but the neighbors came over for dinner. This wound up our little girl pretty tightly.

Niranjana received a package in the mail a while back. She didn't deserve a present that day, and it got caught up in a pile on my desk. Straightening for Thanksgiving, I unearthed it. Coincidentally, opening it on Thanksgiving marked the two year anniversary of the creation of the family that sent it.

My computer is sick. This is not good. I'm married to a geek, so he's been able to do a complete back-up, but it's still prone to crashing. And my delete key isn't working. Go figure.

I have a Mac iBook G4. It's maybe four years old and hasn't had what I would call heavy use, although I did let Niranjana start playing Disney web site Princess video games on it a few months ago. That accounts for the chocolate in the keyboard, but I doubt is responsible for what appears to be a hardware problem (according to Mr. Mac, my husband).

Without perspective and context, you don't always realize what you might be facing.

Within a few days of arriving home from India more than 14 months ago, we began to understand that Niranjana was a bright and energetic little girl. But we figured that comes with the territory when you're parents.

It wasn't until one of our friends - the mother of two little ones - proclaimed to us one day that "Niranjana is the most energetic child I have ever seen." And she's seen plenty of energetic children at preschools and daycares.

My sister-out-law's birthday is coming up and she's asked for a goat. Not for her, but to be donated to a family in a third-world country through World Vision (http://worldvision.org/)

This is a "make sure you're wearing waterproof mascara" shopping experience, even those of us who have traveled some of these countries. I haven't decided what to get Aunt Christy, but I'm leaning toward some soccer balls for kids in Africa and helping send a girl to school. Or some job training for women. Perhaps help for sexually exploited girls. Maybe care for two children orphaned by AIDS.

When you are an adoptive parent, you know you will get certain questions one day.

Questions such as, "Why didn't my birth mommy want me?" will be difficult to answer.

We thought we got one of those questions just a few minutes ago.

Ah, shopping. Such an important task and entertainment in my family. Niranjana is shaping up to be a good shopping partner. Not to jinx anything, but yesterday was a stellar experience.

Late in the afternoon, I gave her the choice of the grocery store or the craft store. She chose Michael's. We talked about how there was a lot of stuff and she needed to be gentle and stick with me. And she did! She even said "excuse me" when she bumped into people. Progress!

Last night, Niranjana was dancing around to Imagination Movers and avoiding bedtime (imagine that). Andy and I decided to skip the bath. Then she wanted a bath, but it was too late and whining was about to ensue.

Our technique in this situation is to smell her neck/hair/hand (whatever she offers) and declare that either she is “stinky” (if we want her to take a bath) or that she smells like a flower, sunshine, strawberries, chocolate, whatever — something good so we can say she does NOT need a bath.

In recent weeks, our parenting strategy has taken a somewhat competitive turn. It began innocently enough, but we aren't quite sure where this will lead.

Niranjana can be somewhat pokey in the mornings, but we learned a technique to speed her up when we want her ready for school. We've turned things into a competition.

As Melissa has chronicled, I've taught Niranjana the fine art of "Pull my finger."

Tonight at dinner, Niranajana presented her finger to me, so I pulled it. She waited for a second, looked around, shrugged her shoulders and said:

"Nothing happened!"