A's Namakarna

We had A's namakarna on the 8th of May. She is now Venkatesh Kamala Bhavani A Rao. The ceremony started at 10:30 in the morning so it was a pretty early start for us (just realised it takes ages to get two kids bathed, dressed and fed !) . Luckily we had the ceremony at home - we called the priest home, and we had the ceremony downstairs in the hall, and the lunch catering outside in the garden. Home makes is so much more convenient.
The ceremony was about 1 hour 15 mins. We didn't have a homa (fire) since A is so young and didn't want her to get exposed to smoke. It started with a small puja to our God at home (upstairs) and then we went down. The main parts of the ceremony is the writing of the child's name in rice, the whispering of the child's name in her ear- the first one to tell A's name into her ear was my mom-in-law and then me and the hubby. The grandmother only says A's main name, me and the hubby have to tell her all five of her names. The Nakshatra syllable was "Bha" so we kept Bhavani. Venkatesh and Kamala were kept by the priest. And A is of course her main name (and the only one on the passport!). Then we have the tying of the black thread by the father around the baby's waist and finally the mixing of butter and honey and feeding to the baby- i really freaked out on this at S's Namakarna also and here also i didn't allow too many of the people to feed her the honey-butter mixture, and we also just dabbed it on her lips. Its supposed to be auspicious which is why were ok with it being dabbed on her mouth, but too much butter/honey at this age can be bad for her.
Lunch was quite an elaborate affair- we had the full traditional banana leaf lunch, eight sweets (i still feel full) and lots of rice, sambhar, menskai (sweet and sour mango), rasam and so on. We have to give dakshina to all the people who come, and last time the hubby felt quite embarresed giving that, so this time we got S to give it to people. And if they refused, or passed some funny comment, she would just throw it at them, so they could not refuse!!!
I realised how awful i look in a sari after putting on so much wieght- agree i never looked very good in a sari because of my height, but the big tummy has just made it worse. Am in two minds whether to wear a sari for the nephew's upanayanas..
In the evening we had a small party to celebrate A's birth and naming ceremony. My dad had organised chairs and tables in the garden, and with the lighting it looked really pretty. Some of my cousins kids had come and S and they and S freaked out on the snacks, ice cream and sweets, - am going to rename S as Miss Gold Coin considering the amount of that snack she managed to polish off. S was quite off mood in the morning since she had to be inside for the function, but in the evening she had a ball - she was running inside the house and playing with the kids, and running outside and sitting on her daddy/ajji's lap. I was also pretty relaxed and managed to chat with most of the relatives and family friends who had come (unlike the last time when i was mostly inside the house). A slept on and off and was pretty cheerful throughout. All in all a tiring but enjoyable day.