Fun photos

Here are a few photos from Diwali and Halloween!

Anya Rashi and I wore our favorite Indian outfits for our Diwali dinner. Unfortunately, the boys have long outgrown theirs. (Must be time for another trip to India to get some new ones . . .) Anya Rashi's outfit comes courtesy of our friend Priya, who visited her family over the summer and was kind enough to bring back a new outfit for our growing girl.

The strange creatures you see are Snow White (who must hold up her skirt in every photo, like the real princess she is), a Mad Scientist (wearing an old doctor's coat from Aunt Alicia), and of course, Darth Vader. Last year's trick-or-treat costumes were all homemade, but I ran out of steam this year! This will be a short post, because I need to go raid some candy buckets . . .

In honor of Diwali: book & recipe

Just in time for the first day of Diwali, I thought I'd post a book review and a recipe.

The book is Miss New India, by Bharati Mukherjee. The author is Bengali, which I appreciate since Anya Rashi was born in Kolkata and shares that heritage. It's been fun to learn a few Bengali words, especially family words (baba is father, didi is big sister, etc.) through her writing. Many of her novels deal with the experiences of Indians who have emigrated to America -- and are also thoughtful explorations of family ties, culture, and identity.

Miss New India, however, takes place within India. At first glance, it is a classic storyline about a young woman moving from a small town to the big city. It is deeper and richer than that simple description, however. The main character, Anjali, is also leaving behind a traditional life and exchanging it for a more modern (and much more ambiguous) identity. The city of Bangalore, where she ends up, is almost a character in itself -- dynamic, pulsing with technology, and fueled by the energy of young people pouring in every day to work in call centers and other new industries. But she also encounters the dark side of life in a large city, and finds that things and people are not always what they seem.

Prospective readers should know that Mukherjee is an author who allows bad things to happen to her characters -- and this book is definitely reading for adults. But it is a very rewarding glimpse into Indian culture which is changing and growing by the second. Ultimately, the book is about rebirth: the rebirth of Anjali, of her hometown and personal history, and of India.

Now for the recipe! I've posted more traditional recipes in the past, but this time I wanted to feature a chicken recipe that's Indian-inspired, rather than strictly authentic. Many of us have family members who can't eat spicy food, or are afraid to try new kinds of cuisine. This easy dish is very friendly to the uninitiated, and gives them the flavor of curry without the heat.

Easy Mild Curried Chicken

(and thanks for the recipe, Michelle M.!)

12 chicken drumsticks, skinned OR 6 boneless, skinless chicken breasts

(salted and peppered to your taste)

Sauce:

1/3 cup honey

1/3 cup lemon juice

2 Tbsp. dijon or brown spicy mustard

1 Tbsp. curry powder

Spray a 9" x 13" baking dish with non-stick cooking spray. In a small bowl, whisk together sauce ingredients. Place chicken pieces in baking dish and spoon sauce over chicken. Bake at 375 degrees for 1 hour, turning chicken pieces over halfway through baking time.

Happy Diwali -- enjoy!

Field trip "firsts"

Last Friday, Anya Rashi was very excited about her first field trip ever! Her Pre-K class went to a local apple orchard on a "real school bus! But it didn't have any seat belts." The children learned how apple trees grow, learned the proper way to pick apples, and loaded them into the apple polisher. Everyone snacked on dried apples and received an apple-shaped water bottle.

I'm happy to tell you that Anya Rashi is no longer crying at the start of the school day! After two weeks (and one agonized blog post), she turned on a dime and was just fine at drop off. She literally ran happily into her room without a backward glance. It was kind of comical -- her teacher, Mrs. R, looked at me and said, "What did you DO?", as if I had discovered some secret of the universe. :o)

Actually the answer is two-fold: that Monday, I used shameless bribery. Grandma had brought over a box of fruit snacks, a rare treat for her. I tucked a package in my purse, and said if she could muster up a smile at drop-off time, she could have the fruit snacks when I picked her up. And then, answer number two is that she is a little social butterfly now! As soon as she knew some of her classmates a little better, she couldn't wait to go into her Pre-K room and play with them each day.

The other field trip was for Peter and me. We were contacted by Show Hope about volunteering at a concert near us. Show Hope is the adoption grant agency started by Christian singer Steven Curtis Chapman and his wife Mary Beth. (We were grant recipients in 2010.) But Show Hope does so much more than just grants -- they've built a hospital in China to help children with special needs, and many of them have now been adopted because big medical barriers were taken care of. They also assist families in the US who do foster care and foster-to-adopt.

One thing that I hadn't heard about before especially moved me: part of the hospital is for palliative care. They give special care and love to children who are dying. When nothing can be done medically, the workers make sure the children are held, loved, and made as comfortable as possible every day of their too-short lives.

We were honored to be able to volunteer and give back in some small way. We got to provide information about becoming a sponsor for Show Hope, and assist people with making a donation during the intermission. One of the best parts of the evening was connecting with the other volunteers, some of whom were other adoptive families. One family had a teenaged daughter who has only been home for 10 months. Another family had siblings from Ethiopia who've been home 20 months, and they live near us.

The whole evening was wonderful. If you'd like to find out more about Show Hope, you can find them at www.showhope.org.

"Blah," said Toad

Anya Rashi and Eliza

Since Friday, I've been trying to decide if I feel like Charlie Brown when Lucy keeps pulling the football away just as he tries to kick it . . . or if I feel like Toad of "Frog & Toad" fame. I think Toad wins. BLAH.

Along with other families adopting from India, we have received some bad news. Again. All families from outside India were supposed to re-submit our dossiers and a few other documents by October 1, after which date we would be assigned to a particular orphanage -- and then be matched with a child.

On Friday, however, we learned that there is a backlog of 550 families within India who must be processed first. While we think it is ideal for children to stay in their birth country -- and we are praying that they find families soon -- it was so hard to hear that our adoption is delayed yet again. Our new deadline is December 31, and the Central Adoption Resource Agency in India is not guaranteeing that anything will happen then either. Needless to say, we were heartsick reading that e-mail.

We were actually sitting at a table with Anya Rashi at our favorite Indian restaurant when Peter glanced at a new e-mail on his phone. He decided to read it during our lunch, which told me it was something very important. (Later, he told me that he had thought it was going to be good news about our dossier arriving in India.) Then I watched as his face fell, and he shared the news about the delay. Our eyes filled with tears, and Anya Rashi asked us what was wrong. We explained that we were having a day when we were missing her little sister, just like she sometimes does. Trying to help us feel better, she chirped, "Well, you don't have to worry about me today -- I'm not having one of those days right now."

We never dreamed that this process would take so long. Anya Rashi's adoption took 2 years and 1 month, and now we're coming up on 2 1/2 years with no end in sight. It is very difficult and so painful to know that millions of children in India need a family, and we are ready and willing to love one of them . . . but we have no control over when that will happen. We can only ask that you join us in praying for something miraculous to happen to speed up the process.

On Saturday, Anya Rashi had this discussion with her friend Eliza:

Eliza: Are you sure your little sister is ever going to get here?

Anya Rashi: Remember those really old people in the Bible who had a baby?

Nancy: Do you mean Sarah and Abraham?

Anya Rashi: Yes! So if God says we're going to get our baby sister, then it's going to come true.

Aside from the slightly unflattering comparison to the elderly Sarah and Abraham (!), we are taking heart from that truth: if God says it's going to come true, then it is going to come true. We are deeply saddened right now, but trying to rest in that truth.

First day of Pre-K

Well, in the midst of the marathon fundraiser, the youngest member of the Appleton family experienced a very important "first." Our Anya Rashi began Pre-K, under the expert care of Mrs. R and Mrs. E, who also taught Aaron and Nathan.

She was very excited, and I was very nervous. Typically, Anya Rashi has not done well with new "group" experiences. Sunday school was a complete no-go for a long time, and we didn't push it. Many children who have been in an orphanage or institutional setting have trouble with group experiences, so we were in no hurry.

When she was 2 1/2, we decided to try again, and I volunteered all summer in her class, which helped a lot. Eventually, we found that she liked a particular teenaged helper, Miss Michaela, and then she was just fine. When she had to change rooms after her 3rd birthday, we went with what worked, and found a new teenaged helper to take Anya Rashi under her wing. Another thing that helped her was "helping" one of the teachers at the check-in/roll call table. Now, Miss Elizabeth is her special friend in the 4's class, and she goes with a smile on her face.

Wish I could say the same for Pre-K! After being very excited before arriving, she became clingy and tearful at the door. I thought it was just first-day jitters, and wasn't too upset. But now she's been there for 2 weeks, Monday, Wednesday and Friday mornings, and last Friday was the hardest drop off yet. One day, she ran and got a photo of me and Peter to keep in her backpack so she wouldn't miss us . . . but it didn't seem to help. There has been one day where she had no tears -- she was SO excited to tell her teachers about Daddy's marathon -- but all the other days have been teary. Once she's inside the room, she calms down pretty quickly (within one minute -- I am watching behind the one-way window!), except for last Friday. She was sobbing and it took her 5 minutes to settle in.

We will see how this week goes -- I hate seeing her upset, but I know we have to get ready for Kindergarten next year (not to mention the new sister in the mix!). I am hoping and praying that it becomes a fun, happy place for her soon. I think I will tell her teachers about Sunday school, and if they will let her be their "helper" right away in the morning, like she did at Sunday school.

Does anyone have any tips for making this easier for her? I'd love to hear them!

Marathon man

This is a long post, but it has a very happy ending, so bear with us!

I am pleased to announce that Peter successfully ran his first marathon! I am so proud of all the hard work he put in, and I fell in love with him all over again as I witnessed his perseverance and dedication. My sister Alicia joined him at mile 21 and helped make the last grueling miles a little easier. I have to say that he smiled a lot for someone running 26.2 miles -- he was smiling when we met him on the course, and other friends said the same thing.

Our relay team did their work without a hitch too, and everyone did a great job with the transfers (and clocked some pretty fast times too!). When our daughter is old enough, I hope she will be touched that Lisa, Colin, Aunt Mary and Aunt Alicia were willing to run for her.

My brother Matt joined the fun by volunteering for marathon safety patrol -- he and others rode motorcycles along the course to help watch for runners in trouble, or any other problems. So many people love this child already, even though they haven't even gotten a glimpse of her face yet.

But enough from me! Here are some observations from Peter himself:

First of all, let me thank Nancy and my kids for all of their support as I trained for this race. Their love, encouragement and gift of time allowed me to train slowly but surely for the race over the last 8 months. I will never forget how they cheered me on as I faced both success and set backs. Thank you, my love and my family, for believing in me.

It was a very satisfying race. I stuck to my game plan and only walked for 30-45 seconds or so at water stations every 2 miles, along with a few hills. Other than that, I ran -- albeit slowly! -- the whole time. At the last turn, Alicia and I were joined by relay team members Lisa and her son Colin. We crossed the finish line together at 6 hours, 21 minutes. As we crossed I shouted out "for our daughter!" and started to cry.

I talked briefly with a some amazing people along the course. There was a woman from Kansas in her 70s who was running her 110th marathon. Another man from Tokyo, Japan was running his 600th marathon. Wow.

Miles 16-21 were the most challenging for me mentally, and it was difficult to keep focused. I just kept thinking about our daughter-to-be, wondering what she looks like . . . her eyes, her smile.

It was very inspiring to see friends, people from our church, and family along the way, cheering me on from the sidelines. Thanks so much for supporting me and praying for me as I trained and ran the race. It was such a picture of what we should do for each other through all of life, all the way to the finish line. It made me think of Isaiah 40:31: "But those who wait on the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not grow faint."

And both of us must somehow try to convey the depth of our gratitude to everyone who donated to our marathon fundraiser. Too many times to count, we have been moved to tears by the generosity of our families and our friends. Your love for our child is humbling and so appreciated.

Friends from Oregon, Kenya, Chicago, Minnesota, Indiana, Michigan, and Ohio joined with us in spirit as they prayed and gave from afar. Our families, and many friends from church who are passionate about caring for orphans also astonished us with their generosity. The teachers at our sons' school took up a collection, and a relative put out a donation jar at her workplace. Any words we can think of seem inadequate to express how much we want to thank each of you.

And we keep on being surprised -- today, the day after the race, a few more people have given a donation. We are thrilled to announce that the total funds raised so far are an incredible $10,063.60.

Originally our hope was to raise $9,000 and that seemed like a pretty lofty goal at the time. I wish we could find some way to describe how much you have blessed us. Your generosity is a huge help meeting our upcoming adoption fees and travel costs.

Thank you. In the end, that's really all we can say. Thank you.

Almost race day!

Like the photo? Sorry to disappoint, but it's not Peter. Earlier this summer, Peter and my sister Alicia ran a half-marathon called The Cheesehead Half -- and one runner wore a cheesehead for the entire race. Now that's some Wisconsin pride.

Just doing a quick post to say that this is the weekend Peter and our relay team will run 26.2 miles! We will post photos from the marathon, along with our fundraising total. I truly can't begin to tell you how overwhelmed we are by the support of our family and friends. I'm tearing up just typing this . . . thank you so much, everyone.

Please keep Peter, Lisa, Colin, Mary and Alicia in your prayers as they run!