On a typical weekday, I take Monkey home from school on his scooter around a behemoth of a mall that separates my neighborhood from much of the city. The long walk around the mall is fine in good weather, but in bad weather I often duck into the mall and walk through it for a warmer route home. 

But there is peril lurking in the mall. It's not stores selling shiny new objects or the McDonald's by the exit (which Monkey seems to have noticed for the first time yesterday). No, it's a set of five brightly colored trucks, cars and trains positioned to suck every dollar bill out of a parent's pocket. The pint-size automobiles are changed every few months, but there is usually a train, a convertible and an odd car with a screen that travels through deserts or jungles. I can tell you that each car is carefully selected to tempt little toddlers with promises of fun and adventure driving their very own car. 

Every time we pass those trucks, Monkey runs excitedly to them exclaiming, "I want the trucks!" It's fine when I'm feeling energetic and most of my errands are done, but having to face those trucks when my patience is wearing thin is a nightmare. First of all, with Monkey's capacity to invent complicated scenarios with his own vehicles at home, you'd think he'd play on his own. No such luck here. There used to be an miniature ice cream truck which compelled Monkey to lean out the window and ask me which flavor I wanted over and over again. It was cute the first time he did it, but by the millionth time he said, "No, Mami, we don't have that flavor" I was ready to cover the whole thing in chocolate fudge and run out of the mall screaming. The ice cream truck has been replaced by a school bus, which would be great news if he didn't insist on being the bus driver and making me play a student going to school. 

Secondly, there is nowhere for parents to sit. It'd be easier to allow Monkey to entertain himself for 30 minutes if I could entertain myself with books or, more likely, by over-analyzing my long to-do list. Instead, I'm forced to hover around the scooter or sit on the car platform six inches off the ground because there is nary a bench in sight. The space on the platform only allows me to read my phone, which, of course, makes me look like a neglectful mother, willfully ignoring her son who wants to become the Donald Trump of ice cream. 

Thirdly, waiting around for a three year old to get done playing, while juggling his backpack, our coats and the magazine I wish I was reading is incredibly boring. There are a million articles about how to keep your kids from getting bored, but I don't see any for parents who are tired of the monotony of supervising playground visits. There are plenty of interesting parents with whom I enjoying sharing play-dates, but at the mall, I'm on my own. 

To prevent the car madness, I sometimes tell Monkey a little lie. Monkey has noticed that one entrance to the mall has a ramp and one doesn't. I use the latter entrance if he's on his scooter and can walk down the stairs and I use the other, less convenient, entrance if I'm hauling both kids in the double stroller. What Monkey hasn't noticed is that one entrance leads to the trucks and the other--the one by the McDonald's--does not. On days when we're rushing to another event or we have to get home, I use the other entrance and, when Monkey asks about the cars, I tell him they must be taking a break or napping. 

Of course, as most bad parenting decisions go, this one will probably bite me in the you-know-where. Yesterday, as we dodged the sleeting rain by going through the mall, I ferried the kids down the ramp and passed the McDonald's that Monkey has only been to once, long ago, when I was pregnant with Munchkin. As we went by, Monkey said, "Mami! Stop! I want THAT!" 

I'm going to need a new strategy. 

Want to vote on whether my telling a white lie is excusable or not? Vote here!

What do you do when faced with mind-numbing play time? Are there any white lies you tell to keep your sanity?

Two summers ago, my husband, son and I were walking around Greek Town in Detroit with my twin sister, Pamela. As we wandered, we started to notice people looking at us and surreptitiously giving us second glances. For a few minutes, I couldn't figure out what was going on, until someone looked at her, looked at me, and said, "Are you twins?" Ahhhh! I'd forgotten I was a twin.

I don't normally forget I'm a twin, but since we live in different cities, I forget that other people notice we're twins. As often happens, we were wearing similarly colored shirts, but since our hairstyles differed, and I was several months pregnant, I didn't think the shirts mattered. However, the waitress freaked out as she looked from one side of the table to the other and, after lunch, everyone who stopped at the same ice cream stand as us commented on our similarities. These things happened when we were kids, but I didn't think that 30 years later, people would still be commenting on our likenesses. 

People often ask what it's like to be twins and I imagine it's a little like being a small-town celebrity. Strangers used to stop us in the street and ask us a million questions; Were we twins? Who was older? Were we identical? Until we were 25, we didn't know if we were identical or not. This meant we had a lot of explaining to do or else people thought we were stupid. We looked a lot alike, but so did all four of my siblings and I. Pamela had allergies to everything starting at age 6 and I am still not allergic to anything. I'd been wearing glasses daily since I was 12, and Pamela didn't get them for another six years, and even then, she only wears them occasionally. Did that mean we were fraternal or identical? No one knew, though people always felt free to speculate. 

That speculation was the downside of being twins, as people never hesitated to point--with their fingers in our faces-- our differences and flaws. "She has more moles than she does!" "She has a bigger gap between her teeth than the other one!" "You're the older twin? But she looks older!" As if one of us was visibly aging 11 minutes faster than the other. Toss in the fact that we were the only Hispanics in town, (Are you Mexican? Is Bolivia in Africa? Do you speak Bolivian?) and the questions seemed endless.

There were other frustrations too. We went to the same small school for 12 years, but most of our classmates never learned who was who. We always answered to both names if someone was calling us from a distance, because chances were they had the wrong name. Because we had similar interests, it was a struggle to figure out what we each wanted to do for ourselves and what we were doing to keep the other twin company. We deliberately decided to go to different universities because, we craved having our own, singular identity. For example, in high school, Pamela was, "the writer" and I was "the artist."  Only after living apart were we able to pursue our passions without worrying about stepping on the other twin's toes. We've both done a lot of writing since then and Pamela has more of her own drawings hanging in her house than I do. 

Despite the ups and downs of twinhood, the great joy in my life has always been my twin. Even though we argued more than people would guess, we were always each other's greatest defenders. With Pamela, I always had my dance partner at school dances. When our parents worked late, and our siblings living on their own, Pamela and I would make up dance routines and laugh until bedtime. When I was at my lowest, Pamela was there. When we both struggled with the news of our infertility, Pamela was the rock that kept us sane. At mile 23 at each of my marathons, Pamela was cheering louder than everyone combined. Even now, every time I write a blog post, Pamela has been my editor. She is my best friend, not just because we're twins, but because she is a good, generous, thoughtful person that I want in my life.

Now that Pamela has become a mother, the joy in her heart is joy in mine. She has awed me with her ability to manage two tiny girls without complaining once about her lack of sleep and sudden change in lifestyle. I enjoy our early morning chats on weekends about diapers and onesies. I cling to the phone as I hear her talk to her girls and I agree emphatically as she tells me, in her sweet motherly way, how cute and wonderful the girls are. Sharing this experience has been absolutely incredible and somehow, brought us even closer together. 

In 2000, we found a website that did genetic testing for twins. After we each sent in our swabs--mine from New York City, hers from Michigan--we decided we didn't care if the results said we were identical or fraternal. Then we both laughed and said, "Actually, I hope we're identical!" It turns out that, despite our different college choices, different careers and different routes to motherhood, we are identical. We are of the same blood, same tissue, same heart. But then again, we already knew that, didn't we?

It was just over a month ago that I wrote my first guest blog for GoodMom vs BadMom about the thought behind my decision to become certified as a foster parent. I thought I was at least a few weeks away from being certified, but the very next day, I got a call telling me my home was open for foster care. Barely three hours later, I received another call asking me if I would be interested in being placed with two little sisters, ages seven months and 20 months.

Of course, I was aware of how much work babies and toddlers can be. I’d seen how, in dual-parent households, parents take turns watching the kids so that they each get a  break from child wrangling. And here I was being asked if I could take two children under two, by myself. Since my twin, best friend and number one supporter, Patricia, was out of the country, she wasn't available to talk to about this big decision. But that evening I got in touch with my high-school classmate Craig  who, together with his partner, have adopted a pair of twin girls from foster care and have a baby foster son as well. He was able to balance talk of normal parenthood with the real-life challenges of being a foster parent so I could get a sense of what I would be getting myself into. Some of my far-flung good friends were on Facebook that night as well, so I found plenty of people with whom to discuss the challenges and opportunities of foster parenting two little ones.

The next evening, I met D and J. Within fifteen minutes, I could tell they were happy, healthy little girls and though I knew it would be a challenge, I couldn't think of one good reason to not accept their placement. Thursday I told their social worker my decision and Friday the girls were brought to my house and we spent our first evening together, my first as a mom.  

Since that night, I have learned why people suggested I not take on more than one child. It can be maddening to have two kids crying at once, but only be able to soothe one child at a time. It is hard to put one baby to sleep while the other jumps up and down yelling in her crib. And it is a challenge to build trust with two children who have been taken from their parents (whom they may or may not have trusted) when you have to balance bonding with one with bonding with the other.

But I have also seen how the two make each other laugh, even at their young age. D is happiest when she can make her sister laugh by tickling J with her stubby toddler hands. When I walk into daycare to pick them up, D runs to me and J grins from her highchair. On Fridays, since they are too young for pizza night, we have a dance party. I put in a CD and take turns swinging each girl around, or put them both on my hips while I dance across the floor. Eventually I put J down on the floor, supporting her while she sits up, put D’s hand in J’s, and then grab each of their little hands so we make a small circle. Then we dance and move to the music and all three of us end up with huge smiles on our faces. Joy flows right through me and I am nothing but grateful that I can be a part of their lives.

One of the reasons why I wanted to be a foster parent now and not wait for the perfect situation (marriage, larger income, freedom to stay home with kids) is because I wanted to be able to share parenthood with my mother. I think my mom and dad did a great job raising my four siblings and me, and I admired how my mom was strict, but fair. Not to mention that she never had to utter the line “Wait until your father gets home,” because she kept us in line herself. I’d seen her help my siblings with their kids and I wanted to have the opportunity to share in that too.

When I told my mom that I had been certified, my mom reminded me that any child I raised would automatically become her beloved grandchild. Before the girls were set to arrive that Friday, she and my brother-in-law whipped my place into child-happy shape, rearranging furniture and toys. My mom wanted to put blankets in the girl’s cribs, but I told her that per foster care rules, I wasn't allowed to give them blankets. The next time I saw her, she had purchased several soft, warm, footed pajamas, guaranteeing the girls would never get cold. So this is what it’s like, I thought to myself as she handed over the pajamas, to have mom as a grandmother. My heart smiled.

It has also been a blessing to see how becoming a parent has connected me even more to my family and friends. One sister put word out about the double blessing and donations of clothes, car seats and toys came pouring in. Her husband delivered the donations and set up a play gym in my back yard. My brother and his wife got to work installing baby gates, cleaning up my kitchen, even shoveling snow. My sister who lives out of state helpfully had parenting books and much-needed bottles sent to my house. My friends and even acquaintances, have messaged me with support, shared parenting advice and given my girls wonderful books for us to read at night. It has been a warm surprise to see how everyone’s love for me has seeped into giant love for my girls.

As for my twin, Patricia and I used to wonder what it would be like to marry identical twins and raise our kids together. In reality, there have been days when she has woken up at 5:00 am with her kids, right about the same time I was going to bed after a night out with friends. Now with my two girls, there have been several weekend days when we are both up at 7:00 am, texting or chatting back and forth. A few times when she has called, I have said the words she has often said to me, “Can I call you back? I’m giving the kids a bath.” Maybe that sounds boring to you, but for me, it is thrilling. I finally am living a life that, as hectic as it is, is the life I want to live.

On Monday afternoon I had decided that having my unpacked suitcase lying around for a week was long enough. It was time to unpack everything, carefully fold the clean belongings and launder the not-so-clean ones. Instead, I did the logical thing and made spring rolls! Chicken, onion and mushroom spring rolls, and boy, were they were delicious. I also wrote out some holiday cards, played with the kids, made dinner, decluttered the toys and a million other things that did not involve my suitcase or the clothes inside. You could say I was extremely productive, which is true, even if my suitcase didn't get unpacked until that evening. 

I am very good at procrastinating certain chores. I'd rather pick up toys than clean the kitchen. I'd rather cook than put clothes away. I'd rather play with the kids than sweep the floor for the millioneth time. This past weekend, with my to-do list staring me in the face, I found reasons to make pumpkin bread, cook lentils, and make stuffed parantas  even though there was plenty of food in the fridge. I had done a lot of chores around the house, but I still felt guilty for  dedicating more time to cooking food than I had to cleaning up afterwards.

The good news is that I don't have to feel guilty for my procrastination anymore. Thanks to my procrastinating* perusal of Facebook, I found this article Positive Procrastination Not an Oxymoron. It turns out that most procrastinators aren't lazy, in fact they accomplish quite a bit! As the article says, "The psychological principle is this: anyone can do any amount of work, provided it isn’t the work he is supposed to be doing at that moment." That is a sentiment I can definitely support with my suitcase example. 

I've never been fond of unpacking and was not looking forward to distributing the various items in my suitcase to their rightful places. However, I love spring rolls and really wanted to use up the spring roll wrappers and mushrooms. Plus, the kids needed something to eat for dinner, to accompany some healthy, non-fried veggies on the side. So even though I did the work of chopping, dicing and frying the food--essentially taking care of various concerns in one fell-vegetable-oil-coated-swoop--the suitcase remained. 

Even though I delay some tasks because I don't like them, I often delay them out of fear. Writing brings me a lot of joy, but I procrastinate writing these posts because I'm not sure I'll aptly capture the sentiments I have in my head in a way readers would relate to. Instead of writing, I sometimes research articles that offer differing opinions which then help me focus my own thoughts. Sometimes though, that research allows me to read, click, read, click and read for hours instead of writing. I should follow the article's suggestions that when it's time for me to write, follow two rules: 

a) I don’t have to write.
b) I can’t do anything else.

As a mother of two, the luxury of doing nothing sounds fantastic, but not at the cost of writing. I should have followed this rule on Friday, when I started writing this post. (It's now Tuesday.) This article also reminded me of a few other golden rules: a) create a routine and stick to it  b) as the queen of fighting chaos, Flylady, says, "You can do anything for 15 minutes." Keeping all that in mind, I've started tackling my least favorite tasks everyday, 15 minutes at a time. I yearn for the day there will be no chores to procrastinate for.

But, if after reading this article, you want to procrastinate a little more, with the exuse of finding out how serious of a procrastinator you are, take this survey. I took the quiz and it turns out I'm an "average procrastinator." Living in a city  of over-achievers, being average is usually a bad thing, but in this case, it's something to be proud of. 

* I'm pretty sure that this is a grammatically incorrect use of "procrastinating," but it shouldn't be. 

What's the craziest thing you've done to procrastinate a task you were dreading?

The end of my career began with white-knuckled, vomit-inducing pain from a broken tailbone. Thirteen steps in a split second - thump, thump, thump, thumpity thump….bam!   It was like a frat house game of Slip N Slide, except instead of beer and college friends, I had whole milk and two screaming toddlers. The next morning I attended a client pitch meeting for “Client X,” a big fish that my boss and I wanted to hook. Big clients were a gold standard; they represented steady client charge hours, a large multi-national name on the year-end review, and positive exposure throughout the firm. Yet as I shifted in my chair throughout the three hour meeting and felt explosions of pain rocket through my backside, I was consumed by one over-riding thought:  “Get me the hell out of here.” The winds of discontent had started to brew.

The life I’ve tried to project since having my first child three years ago has been some variation of “I am a working mom…hear me roar!”  But you want the truth? I was too tired to roar. Too busy. Stretched in too many directions.  For so long, I just Got On With It: I went through the motions, pretended to roar, and kept up an image that it was all do-able. I fancied myself some kind of SuperMom.  

“Getting On With It” is an invisible hat that all mothers wear. It starts with pregnancy. First, you surrender to the peppercorn-sized alien in your belly who you love and fret over from the moment you realize she exists. Later, your body stretches, your feet pop out of your shoes like baked eggplants, and your bladder turns into the size of a medicine dropper. Then the baby arrives. You realize motherhood is, at times, a form of torture. Round the clock crying, perpetual diapering and burping, and irrational bouts of “is she still breathing?” when all other tasks have been addressed. For working moms, by the time maternity leave ends - mine was at three and a half months - you’re so tired that going back to work is a reprieve. Staring at a computer and talking with adults about anything other than a baby is a cakewalk. The baby is in good hands with the nanny or at daycare.  You have some semblance of your life back. Sleep is inching back to normal. Suddenly Getting On With It isn’t so bad.  

And then everything seems like it’s in balance until…until it’s not.

Getting On With It becomes a mantra you live with, and feel you should and can live up to. I had a Pre-Baby Life that I wanted to keep, so my calculus was to just suck it up and make it happen. If I can bounce back from a watermelon sized human in my belly I can certainly bounce back to work, right? But with time, I grew to realize that I was not the same employee I’d been pre-baby. I was not spending extra hours at night solidifying the PowerPoint deck for the client call the next day. I was less proactive in looking for new work, fearful that too much success might bleed into dinner time, daycare pickup, or worst of all, precious quality time on the weekends. I came to resent my colleagues who stretched above and beyond, just as I had done before having kids. My internal compass - the one calibrated to a pre-kids work/life balance - had shifted off-kilter. My own sense of self grew confused and muddied by conflicting priorities and messaging from all sides that “working mom balance” was possible. I found myself sniping at my kids when project deadlines approached. I was angry, irritable, and short-tempered with beautiful children who I had chosen to bring into this world. I would then be racked with guilt for my behavior, and question my own self worth as a mother.

I started to seriously consider my options as the “Client X” project was wrapping up. Surrounded by team members who could work nights and weekends, I found myself struggling in vain to keep up. I was forced to weigh decisions such as taking my son to the pediatrician or finalizing Client X’s year-end reports within a timeline that I had no control over. The choices I was stressing over were absurd and insanity-inducing.  

Quitting wasn’t a rash move. My husband and I had to make some serious decisions. We sold our condo and decided to rent, thereby lowering our monthly housing payment by a third. We took our kids out of the expensive daycare they were in, and we decided to live within a budget that was previously unnecessary given two incomes.  My husband adjusted to being a sole breadwinner. I adjusted to being dependent - in a completely new way - on my husband. None of these adjustments were quick, easy, or short-term in nature, yet they are working.  It feels natural.  It feels right. I feel like myself again.

I am a Mom who quit my career to stay at home with my kids.  Hear.  Me.  ROAR!!!!

I first realized that Monkey was closely watching my every move when he copied something I did. No, he didn't start folding laundry and stowing it away, nor did he cook up dinner for me and serve it on a plastic plate with matching silverware.  Instead, he wiped the seat. Yes, this journey of discovery started in the loo. 

Monkey was two years old and I, several months pregnant, was focused on potty-training him before his little sister arrived. His daycare had started taking him to the bathroom a few months prior, and soon after potty training started in earnest at home, I had the bi-annual parent-teacher conference. After we talked about his development and all academically-minded topics relevant to two-year-olds, I thanked them for teaching Monkey to wipe the seat. The two teachers looked at each other, and then looked at me, and said, "We didn't teach him that."  I thought, "What? You are the only other people who are helping him potty train, so who could it be? He wipes the seat so neatly after every use and I never taught him, I just....Ohhhh."  I was the one that had been wiping the seat during his potty training. Instead of thinking he could copy me, I assumed had to be explicitly taught to "please be neat and wipe the seat."

This wasn't a life-shattering realization of Einstein proportions, but it was the first time I realized Monkey was learning things from me that I wasn't teaching him. This meant I had to be more careful around him to not only say what I meant, but to do as I said. (I also realized I should not curse in front of him, but that came later.) I gradually noticed that the inflections he uses in his speech are very much like mine. As is the way he lists reasons he wants to do things and the manner in which he asks, "Mami, what do you want to do today?" as if I was his little charge. 

I always knew that, at some point, my own kids' speech would reflect mine and all its flaws. Even thought I dodged the peeve-inducing habit of saying"Okay" at the end of every parental request, I've recently realized I say, "Right?" with a little too much frequency. Monkey started saying things such as, "We have to pick up Munchkin now, right?"  or "I can have my lollipop after dinner, right Mami?" so often that I was forced to examine my speech. Of course, I was very relieved to realize my husband has the same habit. After all, there are few things that make a parent feel better than distributing the guilt. The funny thing is that Monkey has the same habit in Spanish, completing his sentences with, "Verdad?"

I realize that these verbal tics are nothing but a warm-up to the the good and bad habits my little mirrors will reflect back at me in the coming years; my temperament  my fondness for cooking and my dislike of certain household tasks. I know my job as a mom is to keep Munchkin and Monkey in line, but I have a feeling they'll be keeping my behavior in check too.

On a chilly Thursday morning in India, I woke up to an overcast sky and a pit in my stomach. This was the day we were going rafting in the beautiful, mystical, and sacred Ganges river. I had visited the Ganges in the city of Rishikesh on a previous visit, but I was excited at the opportunity to see the city and its steep cliffs and riverside temples from a different perspective. I was also nervous about tackling some of the rapids, but determined to enjoy the experience. We kissed Monkey and Munchkin goodbye and my father-in-law drove my husband, his cousin and I to the start site. 

As we started off in the raft, we joked about how we picked the coldest day to go rafting. The sun was completely obscured and, after tackling the first few rapids, we were soaking wet. I was so cold, my teeth were chattering and my barefoot feet felt frozen. While we rowed along the tranquil water between rapids, I examined the sites around us. There were other rafters, a few people in the temples and then I saw the little boy. He was probably a few months older than my 14-month old Munchkin. He was standing with his mother, about 10 feet above the river, on the rocky bank. His mother was washing something as he watched and spoke to her. What broke my heart though was that he had a long sweater on, but no pants, no socks or shoes. I looked at my feet and back at his and thought how cold he must feel on this gray morning.  

Seeing this little boy brought home the fact that our beautiful India of adventure, warm family gatherings and delicious home-cooked meals was very different from the India of streets lined with people, crumbling facades and small bonfires set to keep shopkeepers warm. Despite repeated trips to India, I still find the discrepancy hard to reconcile. How could I worry about Munchkin's attempts to climb stairs and eat rocks when so many children were dodging cars, maneuvering through slippery riverbanks and not wearing shoes on their feet? Here I was chattering in the cold in the name of fun and adventure, while others used the same waters for bathing and sustenance, without the luxury of warming their hands next to a toasty warm heater. 

I am hardly the first person to see this dichotomy, nor is India the only country that forces visitors to confront the reality of poverty. My family comes from the poorest country in South America, Bolivia. My travels have taken me all over Central and South America, where I've seen variations of this little boy many times over. What sets India apart--and what makes it so difficult to grasp--is the relentlessness of the poverty. Next to many lovely polished homes are shacks that have no running water or electricity. For every expensive car we see in Dehli, there are hundreds, if not thousands,of people commuting to work on the highway on a rickety bicycle or on foot. 

How dare I worry about my children riding without car seats in India, when I see so many babies held in the arms of their parents on scooters and little children clinging to the backs of bicycles or walking in the dusty, traffic-filled streets? I, who have loved city life for two decades, who have eschewed living an over-protective and sheltered lifestyle, sometimes want to stay behind the walls of my in-laws welcoming and beautiful home and never leave. 

But outside the walls, the other world of honking horns and roaming cattle awaits us. It is where we can find delicious treats, soaked in sugar water and fried right in front of us. It is where my father-in-law picks up the eggplant and lentils that my mother-in-law cooks up into mouth-watering meals. It is here life is lived and reality is faced. After all, no one can hide forever. 

My son, like many three-year-olds, asks questions non-stop. About cars, people, animals and things I would never dream up. He did ask why people had lit fires next to the street one night, but he equated it with the bonfire we had lit in a fire pit on Christmas Eve when we had eaten kebabs and delicious bread. I'm not sure how I'll answer the questions he and Munchkin will ask on future trips. I want them to love India and feel comfortable traveling and living there for the rest of their lives, but I don't know if I'll ever have the answers to their questions, as I still don't have answers to mine. 

Have you traveled to third world countries with your children?  How have you answered your children's questions related to the differences in surroundings? 

We're back! My husband and I have survived our outgoing 12-hour flight that was delayed 4 hours and departed at 4am. We breezed through a 3-hour flight days later and held it together through a 24-hour return journey that started in Dehli, included a lay-over in Dubai, and finished with Munchkin puking all over me minutes after we landed. 

Even though Munchkin repeatedly fought sleep like a champ (I think everyone sitting within three rows of us knows all ten verses of "The Ants Go Marching"*) on the outgoing flight, we arrived back in the US relatively unscathed. Considering how easy it was to distract  3 1/2-year-old Monkey (food! toys! hours of kiddie television!) and how hard it was to distract 14-month-old Munchkin (I want to walk! No, I want to climb stairs--Ooooo, cheerios--No, I want YOUR food!) I think there should be a ban on children traveling between the ages of 6 months and 18 months. It's just too hard to keep a toddling infant with strong opinions and poor judgement under control. We sat in one of several bulkhead rows and our seatmates with younger babies had a much easier than us: give milk, sleep, cuddle, repeat. Munchkin slept sometimes, but she also wanted to keep walking everywhere, touching things and asking baby questions. By the time we flew back, she had at least acquired the endearing habit of blowing kisses to everyone which surely saved us from dirty looks on the last 15-hour-leg. 

Besides the actual travel and jet lag, there were other changes to navigate. We had to keep Munchkin from breaking multiple items in non-baby-proofed homes. She begged us to give her pieces of everything we were eating--even the spicy food--but I don't know if letting her do so proved to be so smart for her tummy. The kids and I stuck to bottled water and we were extra careful to not to take any risks eating uncooked food. 

Since the kids had only seen their grandparents on Skype for the last year, we were a little worried how they would do when left with them only days after our arrival. However, the kids had a blast and didn't mention our absence once. In Dubai, Monkey was so enthralled with his four-year-old cousin, he barely noticed our presence. In India, Munchkin and Monkey's older cousins took them under their wing and played with them, patiently guided them and made them laugh throughout our stay. 

In contrast to the playground visits and casual play-dates here, Monkey spent hours outside, out of my sight. The property was walled in from the chaotic traffic outside, and I could hear him as he tried to play cricket with his uncles and learned to climb trees.  

Not only did my kids get a chance to know their cousins, we had the opportunity to reconnect with my husband's sister, brother-in-law and parents. His college-aged cousin joined us rafting on the Ganges and we all got to go out for a night out while the grandparents watched all four (mostly-sleeping) kids. The days full of activities and company were a lot of fun and so different from my more solitary existence at home.  

I'm enjoying being back in my home and, despite the travel challenges, I know I'm lucky to be able to make the trip and that everything went so smoothly. It was good for all of us to spend so much time with family. I only wish I could bring them back home with us.  

*Why no airline has created a sound-proof seating area for parents with young kids is beyond me. They could include a play area and both parents and kid-free travelers could breathe a sigh of relief.