Where were we? Drooling over the menu, right.. Soon enough, I caught the smell of roasted suji I left lying on the kitchen counter and came to senses that lady is not gonna give us samplers. Upma now sounded too bland, let’s just say we satisfied our craving by ordering chinese food from a nearby restaurant. Pretty good food even without MSG, I must say.

I had decided to involve D in the party preparations this time. For one, her interest in artsy party stuff. And two, I was carrying over a teeny bit of guilt from not celebrating her third birthday. I had been going through some rough patches, call it PND or whatever you might. I am glad to be out of it, more than happy to leave it behind and move on to meaningful and productive thoughts.

The Theme
I was looking for colors, lots of bright sunny colors. Spent some time surfing http://oreintaltrading.com for theme ideas and craft ideas for the kids. They have a lot of interesting activities that fit into my budget, but outrageous shipping costs. The more you buy, the less the shipping should cost. Wouldn’t you think. Some incentive to buy more?? Guess not!
Some of the activity kits like their sun catcher’s and sand art, I fell in love at the very first instance and was tempted to try them myself. They come as a complete kit, avoiding the chaos of a group activity. I also loved the hand painting and face painting kits, but knew they would get messy.

So, I kind of knew what I wanted but was hell bent on not paying that shipping. Surfed and surfed the net for alternatives, until my eyes popped out, but found nothing that would come close enough to this site. Some were plain shady, with contact numbers that don’t work. Some had no contact information and the check out/credit card forms creeped onto my super suspicious brain. The LH kept saying that I complicate things for no reason by self imposing futile conditions. His point was to look at the shipping cost as a percentage of time spent hunting them and as a percentage of overall party cost. He had a point, but little does he know the woman is just plain adamant. Some confidence that she’ll find what she wants without increasing the stock value of Fedex.

The following day I picked up D from school as usual. She gulped her snack in matter of minutes as soon as she heard we were gonna hit the party shopping store. Our first stop was at Party City. While I was looking around cluelessly, it took D less than 2 minutes to spot and pick up the Dora party set. I frowned and said.. D.. Very nice.. But how about something colorful.. Lots of.. I was amazed when she said okay and let go her Dora plates. Little did I know she had scanned the shop when we entered and had spotted the aisle where they had organised the cutleries in colors. Pink!! She saw Pink!! No wonder!!! She runs to the aisle and picks up pink plates, pink cups, pink spoons, anything and everything pink. See mumma! I got color plates. Pretty cute.. colors.. I should have been more precise in my requirements. Lesson learned! She was just so excited, I did not want to hinder her enthusiasm. Honestly, I was blissfully submerged just watching her, but there was no way in the world I would settle for a pink party. A little talk.. a little convincing.. lots and lots of bribing.. did the trick. Some people around were having a hearty laugh at the debate this mother and daughter were having over why pink is not suited for a party and we should go for one with multiple colors. We then saw a bunch of cutleries and tableware with bright yellow and orange flower. That was it! A bright and colorful flower theme!!

The same shopping strip had a Michael’s store. We decided to check it out before leaving. I enter the store and guess what I see? On Sale!! Make your own Sun catchers and Sand art kits. Individually packed, just perfect for a party. With a grin that I couldn’t get rid of, I picked them up. Michael’s is very addictive, I must add. Instead of walking out, we thought we should make one round of the entire shop just to check them out. At check out we had the following in our cart.

• A tired, exhausted, yet hyper 3 year old holding on to the hand picked items dearly.
• Individual Sand Art kits
  Each kit had 5 different colors of sand pouches. 2 pieces of 3 inch plastic bottles with lid[Various shapes and sizes]. A funnel to pour the sand and pack. Instructions.
• Individual Sun catcher kits.
  Each kit had 2 pieces of the shape. A use and throw 7 color paint kit. A brush. Instructions.
• Moon sand kit.
  This kit had 6 packs of 12 oz moon sand each. And 9 moulds. Packaged so beautifully, it was hard to resist.
• Aprons.
  These were on sale for a dollar each!! Bright red, yellow and blue colors.
• Ready to paint back packs. [Read more like tote bags, just stringed to go over the shoulder]
  Back pack made out of raw fabric, ready to paint and decorate.
• Brushless fabric paint squeezers to paint the back packs.
• 3D Water resistant stickers to decorate the back packs.
• Flower themed self stick foamies to decorate the back packs.
• Some glow-in-the night bracelets
• One roll of doodle paper.
• Crayons and color pens.
• Colorful work bags.

Ta-Da! We were so ready to hit the party table! Oh, wait, we do need the cake, don’t we!

I wanted to make a Pinata at home. It sounded like a fun and easy project to do with D. But, it got pushed to the last minute. Me and SIL finally ended up picking a nice bright purple pinata with the same flower theme design on the center. We then filled them with pens, pencils, crayons, sharpners, flash card sets, some fruit tarts, small memo style notepads, mini shoe shaped bubble blowers and some such adhoc items.

We also picked up some chart sheets to create our own Pin-the-Petal game[inspired by the Pin the tail game] to stay with our theme. We got all the needed materials, and my brother had volunteered to do this along with D. But, for all the fun we had the last three days before the party, we were extremely exhausted and decided to get some sleep instead. We were all already sun burned[read as free natural tan], we did not want to add to the misery of the guests by looking like zombies.. We had enough to entertain the kids, this wasn’t high on our priority list anyways.

to be continued..

PS: Thanks to all you showed interest in the project via comments and emails. It truly means a lot to me and adds to the confidence quo. Will send ya’ll details when the concept in mind takes shape.
And yes, I promise to break the announcement in the next post.

Dlittle’s burday party was a hit. The party was more for D, for my brother/SIL who flew from the east coast, and a few selected friends who matter. A low key casual party at a neighborhood park turned out to be fun and enjoyable.

The party enthusiasm started when Dlittle’s maama and maami announced their visit to celebrate her birthday. Maama hadn’t seen Dlittle yet, and D’s non-stop chattering on the phone only added to it. The party planning started with the saving of a new blank spreadsheet – DlittlesBirthdayPreps.xls.

The high level items on the sheet were
- Head count
- Venue
- Menu
- Theme
- Cake
- Entertainment
- The PARTY!!

Within couple of days, head count’s were close to final.

The Venue
Out of sheer laziness to think out of the box, I conveniently defaulted to my list of pre-packaged party options:
- Party at Children’s Museum.
- Party at Pump It Up
- Party at The Jungle [Similar to chuck-e-cheese]

I would have loved to celebrate at the Children’s Museum, but they were booked for that exact week. Maama and maami had booked their tickets already, so changing the date was not a possibility. Moreover, I had 8 kids in all and their package is for a minimum of 25 kids. The same issue with Pump it up. The jungle was a fall back option, they had various slots available, but they are way too strict with their timings. They would reserve the birthday room for exactly 45 minutes. This includes cake cutting, cake eating and food. Did not make much sense to me. It’s a kids party and kids are not predictable. Especially on days when you you want things to happen on time.

With the pre-packaged party idea busted, I had to get creative. I am one of those who would have everything muddled up inside my little brain, but won’t put them into tangible action until the last minute. Time was running out, it was high time I announced to the group the venue of the party.

I was catching up with a friend on a Sunday morning. On the phone, while the kids were enjoying the morning breeze in the park. She mentioned her son was participating in the Bollywood singing competition. Just then it struck, there are few kids in the invitee list who would love to sing. Other younger kids can blast away with Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. Idea was to have fun, right! Why not a Karaoke party, followed by a pool party. I surfed the net and found couple of rentals, some would even swing by and set it up. Much to my disappointment, I found that the HOA has a big procedure to rent the community hall and it usually gets booked couple of months in advance. But, this will be on my radar. The minute I get a reason to have a party, karaoke party it’s gonna be.

I finally decided to have it at a nearby park. With the promise that I would do something fun for the kids. If its at a park, purple park[As D calls it] it was without a doubt. A small park with two kids play areas and about 20 picnic tables. A large buffet area with barbeque grills. We all drove to the purple park, this time looking with a different lens.

The Menu
Was time to decide on the menu. The LH was very particular that I spare the guests, and my brother/SIL with my culinary skills. I consider myself a pretty good cook, by the way. It’s just that in these 9 years of marriage, he knows well enough that he would end up doing the cutting and the cleaning. And listen to my nagging that the veggies are not symmetrically cut, or that the beans were cut 1 mm less than the sample I had provided. And how that would spoil the aesthetics of the dish!

One of the birthday party we had attended few months back served lip licking food, was different from the typical Indian restaurant food. It was 100% home made by a punjabi lady who has been doing this for more than a decade now. The taste very much reflected that. Without a second thought I got her number and gave her a call.
Mein kuch fry kar rahe hoon. Busy hoon. 4 baje dena hai. Aap shaam ko 6:30 – 7:00 ke beech mein call kariega spoke a lady from the other side..
Sure. Theek hai I replied, though I had planned to finalize the menu with this one conversation.
Evening came by, I missed the 6:30-7:00 time line. Called her 7:30ish to hear her say Aap ko to 6:30 – 7:00 ke beech mein call karna tha. Followed by an forceful artificial laugh to ease the pain of the impact.
I was shocked and amazed at the same time.. hmm.. haan.. 2 bache hain.. time ka pata nahi rehta.. Aap busy ho to mein baad mein phone karoon? I replied.
Koi baat nahi. Main to mazaak kar rahe the. Bataye details. Mein note karte hoon she said and we went over the menu.

Her comment felt like a slap on my face. But then, realized I should be respecting her time as well. She’s a cook. So?? She should not expect an appointment OR a call at certain timings? She has a family, life and kid too. She runs this as a professional business. The LH did commentThis is Bay Area. What did you expect? Don’t be surprised if she drove by in a BMW, to drop off food to a Corolla owner..

Anyways, she continued with the options for starters.. bhel puri, samosa, chaat, batada vada, dhokla, dahi paadi.. x..y..z.. I had blanked out by then. Bhel puri aur Dhokla. I said.
okay.. Main dish mein aap ek choose karo. Paneer wrap, Veggie wrap, Chole Bhature, Naan with any gravy sabzi, Puri bhaaji... Chole bhature, I said.. drooling.. even before she could complete the list.
acha.. Rice variety mein app kya prefer karoge? Vegetable biriyani, Chicken mutton.. Peas Pulav.. Iske saath dahi vade dete hoon. hmm.. Raita nahi dete.. said the lady apologetically.
Veg Biriyani I said. Sure, why would I want raita instead of dahi vade. drool.. drool.. more drool..
Dessert mein ? She questioned. My mouth was unbelievably watering by now and I was this close to asking her if we could have samplers tonight??
Rasmalai, I said. And there, the menu was finalized.
Was about to hang up, when I heard Suniye, R. Mein apne North Indian style sarson ki tel se bani vegetable achar bhe detein hoon. okay. Sarson tel.. reminded me of my naani’s food..

To spare you, my readers, further yawns, I’ll continue the rest in Part Dos and Tres.
Until then, Ta! Have a nice yummy weekend!

It feels as though I gave birth to Dlittle just a few weeks back. I remember crystal clear lying in the hospital bed waiting for my turn to go under the knife. For once, I was a low risk patient and there were back to back emergency c-sections that took priority. I remember the overwhelming joyous feeling when I heard the baby cry, within few seconds after she was taken out of the womb’s warmth. I remember the nurse saying 20 inches, 7.2 pounds, apgar 9. Apgar 9, I screamed. Every bit mattered, after having craved to hear anything remotely close to it the previous time around. I remember D’s first reaction to seeing Dlittle@ 4 hours, all cozily wrapped up, eyes shut tight, sleeping blissfully inside the bassinet. I remember that Monday this little angel entered our home. While mom was taking aarty, I was misty eyed, missing D. Over the decision to send D to school, to make the transition from hospital to home smooth. I remember not being able to walk upstairs as I was low on blood count and could not stand or walk for more than few seconds. I remember D proudly introducing her sister to anyone who visited us to get a sneak peak at Dlittle.


This little angel is all of 53 weeks old. Going down the memory lane, some notes I jotted at her 2 month completion, another at 4, when she started on solids, at 7 months, her fascination with electronics, her 10 month update, an un-intentional mushy 11 month update..

She walks around the house, asserting her wants with her sister for the very same paper and crayon. The elder one obviously uses them to color and has no issues sharing with her younger sister, if only the younger sister would differentiate it from her finger food and stop munching on them..

She graduated to Dora without taking the purple dino aka Barney lessons, thanks to her sister..

The minute she senses change in tone, like, when her sister is being lectured on behavior, or when her sister gets a time out, she quietly goes to the other end of the room to indulge herself with a toy or a book..

She screams to enter the bathroom demanding a brush to clean all of her 6 teeth, while the older one is lost in thoughts with the brush in her mouth..

She is not talking yet, all she can say is daa daa.. dhis dhis.. paa.. paa.. paa.. paa.. But she can narrate a whole sentence, complete with action, with the ups and downs in tone and pitch, to suit the situation..

Any time she spots a passage in the play kitchen that is used to block the entry way to the stairs, she runs towards it with maximum speed, climbs on the first step and squeals with excitement. Waits to hear one of us running towards her, then climbs couple of more steps. She would then entertain us with her very own victory dance..

She takes any piece of cloth she can get her hands on, put it on top of her head and pull them down. Much to her amusement, it don’t cover her body, instead slips down on the floor. She is a fighter alright, she will continue to attempt few times until distracted with something else more interesting. Like an elevated object to climb up, her latest fascination. She has figured few toys and pillows that she uses as a stepping medium..

She runs all over the house, with that funny toddler style walk, wearing the diaper, and is being named the drunken sailor by her father..

She is natural with music and dance, as is her sister. Music is on, her legs automagically start tapping, body goes into wobbling, hands go into the accelerator movement..

She reacts, responds, squeals, plays differently with her sister as opposed to us parents. There seems to be an extra dose of love when it comes to her. I am not complaining..

She is starting to show character. The other day she was angry because I did not lift her in spite of her her attempt to throw both her hands up in the air. It was just going to be another minute before the chai came to a boil. When done, I went towards her to pick her up. This little one, just to prove her anger, walks away from me, making that ugly face, mouth open, holding the upper and lower teeth together. Takes few steps opposite to my direction and looks at me. I end up smiling at her, only to aggravate her anger. She hits her head on the carpet couple of times just to retaliate. This little angel of mine is sure growing up..

I can not end this post without thanking you all for the wonderful heartfelt wishes.

Or without the anti-jinx mantra.

And one day. My littlest daughter has graduated from an infant to a toddler! Happy birthday sweetie!

DD household is slowly transitioning from the non stop fun-only-second-life that started late Wednesday back into the balanced real life. Stay tuned for details and updates..

The mommy bloggers started off the week with a lot of enthusiasm. Kodi’s mom executed the plan flawlessly to hand deliver the printed messages we all put together for the loving lady. The loving lady as always swept us off our feet by connecting the experience with the divine. Speechless!!

While we are happily cozily wrapped up in the warmth, the positive energy virally spreading through this group, somewhere there some vicious ones are busy spreading venom. Well, we are a mixed bag, there are all sorts of people in the world, we are all different in some way or the other. Some are colorful, some are cheerful, some not so but sweet, some are both sour and sweet. But then, every now and then there are one or two that are plain rotten, there is no point trying to fix those, going near them will make us rot too. Its up to us to stay away from the rotten one’s and continue to do what we believe in. Its my view anyways!!

The positive energy surpasses the negativity, isn’t it. Such is the energy. It just got proved yet another time. As long as this equation holds true, this world will continue to be a good place to live. Every such incident only makes us more wiser, a little more cautious and gets the community a little more closer !

!! Here’s three cheers to all the mommy bloggers !!


Alright, coming back to the birthday bash, I had already sent an email to the birthday girl as my little one was sick and wasn’t sure if I would have the time to blog that day. She found mine in a glance anyways. Such was the clue. *wink*

This post is for you D, who helped make the card. When you grow up and are old enough to read, for you to know that you have always been mommies little helper. Thankyou sweetie. And for the records, here is T Aunty’s comments on your painting –

Page 11 : Man! This painting belongs in the Guggenheim. Seriously. The Dimple Girl and the nightingale’s sister really have serious talent! Thanks DDMom.

After impulsively proposing to do a hand written message, drawing, I was breaking my head as to what I should do. I tried drawing something depicting a mona lisa smile, well.. needless to say where it went. D just came from school and we sitting in the living room talking about the day. It suddenly hit me. Paint -> D -> paint. Oh sure, why did that not hit me? I had to talk D into it, as always she had a zillion question.

Me: D, can you help mummy paint a birthday card for my friend.
D: Who is your friend? Whats her name?
Me: T aunty.
D: But my friends are A, R didi.
Me: hmm… But if you paint for my friend, she will be very happy.
D: okaiy!

ok, ok, that was a 4 minute conversation compressed into 4 lines, but thats the gist of it! How much the kids understand happiness, ’she will he happy’ is all I had to say. Another friends birthday was around the corner. She painted 2 sheets one after the other and now has associated that set of sheets with birthday cards. Just the other day she sounded bored and I asked her if she wanted to paint. She immediately responded – Your friend’s birthday, mumma? hmm..

This is the original she painted.

This is after merging my hand written message and the painting.

This is after editing the second time as the first one was a little too squarish to fit into a 4 x 6.

I am having 3 parties today! I had a blast at the school party this morning, mumma says we are going to have a cake session tonight in the midst of Diwali celebration at a friends place. And I have an internet party!! Thank you!

Thankyou MNamma Aunty for hosting the party
Thankyou Moppet for the wishes, I love Dora. You too?
Thankyou Poppin, kisses right back to you.
Thankyou Timepass Aunty, very sweet of you to remember my liking for Thomas train.
Thankyou Chintu, I love the balloons and the stars.
Thankyou Tharini Aunty, Winkie and Thambi for the beautiful note. First thing I did today was to call Naani, and I am wearing the dress she sent to school today.
Thankyou for the hand drawn card? Madhu and Nandu?[Guess is because your card is right after]
Thankyou Madhu and Nandu for the hand written note.
Thankyou Kodi, you are an artist that was a beautiful rainbow.
Thankyou Ashu, love the balloons.
Thankyou Nikki and Anitha Aunty, the cake is yummm..
Thankyou COS Aunty and KT for the wonderful wishes.
Thankyou Shobana Aunty and Naren for the wonderful wishes.

Thankyou all everyone once again to make this a wonderful day!

Loads of love, hugs and kisses,
D-didi


[This a big day in the RB household. D turning 3, celebrating with the festive of light, adding to it the delight of Dlittle tasting her first solid Will write a detailed post when I get a breather from making sooji laddo, peda and chiwda. ]

Shobana[Naren]’s blog

Thank you, Thank you, fellow bloggers to take time off and create poppin’s and Kodi’s b’day card.

For Kodi’s mom: Both the invites were sent in response to the one and only Dog ate my blog post. Just that you got sent only one. And the date confusion, blame it on lilypie and my stagnant mind. Never once occurred that the month has more than 4 weeks. Hence the confusion. In hindsight, it turned out in favor of the surprise element.

For those who haven’t connected the dots, yet: No, the dog did not eat my blog. That post was an invitation to create an online birthday card for poppin and Kodi using the software vyew . Its an online collaboration tool, we used it to create pages of birthday wishes for the little ones

******

On a different note,
Thanks Noon and MNamma to check on me as I hadn’t posted for so long. You made my day, really! To feel loved and cared for is the best

All is well. My sister, her baby E and s-i-l were/are here visiting and the LH is out of country on a business trip. RBDans household was a full and fun house with 6 x chromosomes ruling the household. Me, heavily pampered with LH’s involvement in day-to-day parenting, had to accelerate my 60miles per hour speed to a 100 miles per hour. Hence the silence. The LH is back home tomorrow afternoon. And I am back all energized and ready to blog.

It has only been 2 weeks since hibernation and my google reader shows a count of 672. ok ok, 428 are comments(subscribed only to a handful of comment feeds), still good 150+ posts to read. One’s topping my list are : Kodimeow Kronicles – 13, Swati – 12, Dotmom – 9, Winkiesway – 8, Trishna, Babies Anon, ~nm – 7 ….

Finishing up this post with a double promise of taking up the tags soon and writing updates on D and Dlittle. Keep an eye! For now, hopping on to the post catch up game. See yaa’ll on the other side..

Caught your attention, didn’t I ?

Now that you are here and would like to have fun, leave me a hint in the comments section. Will send an invite[to keep the session private to the group] to the masti zone. [The software's invite is via email.]

Edited: Wordpress sends me your email address. Feel free not to mention it in the comments, just say if you would like to participate.

[PS: Swati, Moppett's mom, Mystic Margarita - Will take up the tag soon, I had to get this out first ]