S turns 1

A long delayed post- S is nearly 13 months now and I haven’t written about her reaching the big 1 yet. Happy birthday my little sweetie, Gubbi, Kabbu, this year has been such fun- watching you grow from a small bundle (very active even then) to a walking, babbling, naughty girl. Next year I shall try to be less fussed about how much you are eating , drinking, whether you are spending enough time reading books and just enjoy being with you. Will try to take you to the park at least 4-5 times a week (nowadays office timings are really bad) and also take you on at least one long holiday when you can have Dada and Mamma all to yourself and not going office!
We celebrated S’s first birthday with a small dinner at home just for the immediate family. My parents had come down for S birthday and the hubby’s mom was anyway with us (she was helping look after S while I went back to full time work). I had ordered a sunflower shaped cake for her and her Ajji had made carrot kheer and vadas. S wore a black and white frock which her Maami (my brother’s wife) had sent for her and was happy since both her Dada and Mamma were back early from work. Her Bua (hubby’s sister) had sent a bouquet of beautiful pick carnations which S tried to keep on pulling.
After blowing the candles and cutting the cake we all tried to feed S the cake (it was butterscotch and very creamy)- but she didn’t like it much. She preferred the KitKat stuck on top of the cake and chomped merrily on it until I had to finally pull away the half eaten piece from her mouth. I had put up streamers and a hanging decoration (difficult to explain but looks like a hanging lamp) the previous night while S was asleep, and S was quite thrilled with it. The only tricky part happened when S tried to swallow the ring which her Ajji (hubby’s mom) had put for her (it was my hubby’s as a baby)- luckily she saw it in time.

On the Sunday after her birthday we had a birthday party for S at a restaurant close to our house. The party was in the afternoon and we had called about 10 children- between 1-4 years and about 35 adults- mainly friends since we don’t have many relatives in this city. Both Ajjis and by dad were also there. The restaurant had put up balloons in the hall and we had arranged a games organizer who came with a stereo system and lots of popular dance numbers which he played loudly!! The older kids enjoyed the games which included-
crawling under a stick which kept going lower and lower,
dancing to music and arranging into groups of number called by the organizer – we were there till the second last round,
a really cute game where mom/dad and child had to dance to music together and then get into positions called by the organizer as soon as possible (such as putting noses together, putting elbows together etc),
a version of musical chairs where one half (that sounds strange doesn’t it) of a couple was standing in a line and the other half was circling them and when the music stopped they had to get back to their partner fastest- the hubby was disqualified for trying to break the line and squeeze through to reach me,
a kind of treasure hunt where children had to find random objects called out by the organizer (such as a sock, a rupee coin) as fast as possible
a jumping game where kids have to jump as soon as the music stops and the first to jump wins a prize

We had told the organizer to ensure that all kids win at least one prize so there was blatant rigging by the organizer – if for eg one kid was leading all the rounds of a particular game but had won prizes before then in the last round the organizer would say whoever wins this round would win the game, But the kids didn’t mind and had lots of fun. I accidentally bumped into one boy while enthusiastically participating in a game he fell down and cried for the next 10 mins. I felt damn guilty and kept apologizing to the mother, but I think the boy was not hurt.

And what was S doing during the party- most of the time she was hugging a big blue balloon which we gave to her since she was staring wondrously at all the balloons hung up. She participated in all the games holding the balloon tightly in her arms. I tried to take it away a couple of time so that she could move around more freely, but she protested loudly each time I tried to take it away! The only time she let go of the balloon was while cutting the cake (I had ordered an aeroplane cake, aeroplanes are her favourite, she makes the take off motion with her hand, and points to them excitedly when she sees them from our balcony or in the park). I tried to make her interact with the other kids- there was one girl who was born on exactly the same day as her and her mom and I were quite curious to see how they would interact with each other. Well they both pretty much ignored each other and continued to do their own thing.

The party finished at three and S took a long nap after getting back home. I thought the party was nice as the kids seemed to have had fun and S also enjoyed playing with the balloon (the main highlight of the party for her). Looking forward to the years ahead..