We Have a Plan; Coco's Antics

So, I think we finally have a plan to get to India to get Flynn and Margot.  Ken made arrangements to finish filming in Los Angeles this Friday, a week earlier than originally planned.  He’ll be home on Saturday.  In the meantime, my last day in the office will be this Wednesday.  On Thursday, I’ll fly with Cornelia to Atlanta where I will rendezvous with Grandma Connie, Grandpa Roy and the Kennesaw Wingards.  I’ll stay in Atlanta on Thursday night and then fly back to San Francisco on Friday night.  Ken and I will have the weekend to get ready for the trip to India.  We’ll leave on Monday afternoon and arrive in India at 1:30 a.m. on Wednesday morning (about 24 hours after we leave).

On Wednesday morning, we’ll pick up Flynn and Margot from the hospital and get them settled into where we are staying.  (Okay, where we’re staying isn’t figured out yet, but Ken is working on it.)  We’ll also immediately start the process to get Flynn and Margot home.  The first step will be the DNA test required by the U.S. government to prove the kids have a parent who is a U.S. citizen.  This takes about a week.  Once that’s done, Flynn and Margot will be issued their U.S. passports at the U.S. embassy.  Then we’ll have to get the necessary visas from the Indian government to leave the country.  That requires a two-step process and visits to two different agencies..  If everything goes smoothly we could be ready to leave on or around Wednesday, September 25th.  We’re scheduled to fly home on Friday, September 27th, so everything really has to go smoothly. 

A lot of people have asked if Cornelia knows what’s coming.  No, she doesn’t.  Sure, we’ve been telling her for a few months that she’s going to have two little siblings, and we’ve watched the episodes of Dora the Explorer with Dora’s twin little brother and little sister countless times.  And we showed her pictures of Flynn and Margot when they were born last weekend.  But I don’t think at her age she really understands the abstract concept of siblings -- or the enormous upheaval that is about to occur in her life.  I fear she will not be pleased.

What's better than the refreshing feeling of cool water
dripping on your tummy from the planter on the deck above?

Meanwhile, she’s having fun just being Coco.  She’s fully embracing her two-year-old-ness.  Her vocabulary and language skills are really amazing (although I have nothing to compare it to).  She is now using lots of fun expressions like “I’m fine” (which clearly she learned from me) and “I be right back.”  A week or so ago she turned to me and said, “I have idea.”  I was amazed and waited with great anticipation for her to reveal this idea to me.  However, no idea was forthcoming.  No sooner had she uttered the sentence than she immediately turned her attention to something else.  She said it a few more times the following week, again without sharing with me any of her mysterious ideas.  Fortunately this week she started saying it and actually sharing an idea too, usually her directive for our next game.

A passion for Play-Doh.

And that’s what Coco and I do; we play a lot of games.  She likes to play scenes from Dora the Explorer.  Sometimes she’s Dora and I’m Boots, and sometimes I’m Dora and she’s Boots.  (She decides of course.)  On occasion we are Super Babies, which involves capes and running.  We’re Diego and Baby Jaguar a lot, and that usually involves rescuing Baby Jaguar from some imaginary emergency - like falling off a cliff (the bed) and/or falling into a body of water (the floor).  We are also quite often Little Blue Truck and Big Dump (not affiliated with Dora) and that involves imaginary mud and a lot of pushing.  Sometimes she decides that she’s Daddy and I’m Coco.  Like the other night in the bathtub she was Daddy and put the shampoo in my (Coco’s) hands.  That night she also dumped water on her own head after weeks of dumping it on my head.  “Close your eyes, Daddy!”

One of her new activities is jumping off the stools in her room and off the stairs in the entry hall.  First she jumps off, then I have to catch her jumping off.  Then all of her stuffed furry friends have to take their turns jumping off (she throws them off the stools) and then her friends have to catch her.  (I’ll just say that it’s a tricky maneuver to catch a jumping two-year-old while holding a stuffed panda . . ..)  She also likes to wave her wand and say some jumbled form of “abracadabra” usually turning someone (me) into a duck.  For some reason it’s always a duck.


 Her playground manners are coming along nicely as well.  She knows how to share sandbox toys (most of the time), and how to take her turn on the slide (most of the time) and when to say she’s sorry (whenever Daddy says so). 

While all this sounds lovely, she has her share of fits and tantrum like any two-year-old (who just spent four weeks with her grandparents) does.  Sometimes it feels to me like no one has ever said “no” to her.  So Daddy is saying “no” a lot these days.  “No, you can’t eat peanut butter with your fingers.”  “No you can’t wear your pajamas outside.” “No, you can’t put toothpaste on your toothbrush a third time.”   “No, you can’t roam around the house with ink pens and markers.”  “No, if you don’t eat your Cheerios (which you chose over the scrambled egg sandwich, Greek yogurt and fresh strawberries I made for you for breakfast), you cannot watch Dora the Explorer, or play with your Play-Doh, or go outside.”  (She still didn’t eat her Cheerios which resulted in a rather unpleasant morning for the both of us.)