a day of much laughter and few tears! :)

I have been blogging for maybe l'il over 3 years and in that time have been lucky enough to find friends where the jump from virtual to real world has been so easy and comfortable. We might not meet that often, but I know that these women are just an email or phone call away when I want to share a happy news or need a shoulder cry on.


I was a part of couple of baby showers we did in Bangalore for bangaloremom and later for CoS. It was so much fun to be a part of it and I would be lying if i said I hadnt hoped to get one of my own! :p And thats exactly what I got this Saturday. A baby shower that made me realize that friends become your family and then some more, that we could have so much fun within a span of coupla hours, that someone can take so much effort to make a day special for you. To say I feel blessed would be an understatement! :)


Saturday began like any other day with waking up late, wondering what to do about breakfast and then eventually stepping out to pay Cub's school fees. That done we went for a really late lunch to a Thai place close to home. Yummy lunch done, M insisted that we go buy a new phone for me. We did that and by around 5 we reached back home. Rang the bell, waiting for Amma to open the door. As soon as it was opened, we heard "Surprise!" And I saw our ghar gorgeously decorated and all these awesome women filing outta the room with their kids!


I was totally overwhelmed and all teary eyed, doing mad hugging rounds with one and all! :)


The organising committee spearheaded by Monika (lauuu you for that babes!) and ably supported by rest of the gang... some who could make it to the actual party and few who could not. Mon managed to make it even with her aching knee! :) And ofcourse the awesomest book with messages from whole lotta folks in the blogosphere that made me bawl and grin in turns! :) Guess that was Dee's effort in part! This was apart from goodies 2B, Cub and their very lucky Mommy got.


I would LOVE to write the whole thing in detail, but these other bloggers have done a fabulous job of it and I am just going to link their posts here. let us just blame it on last trimester lethargy, shall we?


Here Usha's post. I met her for the first time and i now know for sure that she could not have called her blog anything but Agelessbonding. Fabulous woman! :)


Here's the post by THE Artsy-crafty Shruti whose posts make me do something remotely creative at least once in a blue moon! :)


And the post by JLT, one of the oldest online dost became asli dost of mine. She painted me that super cute Snoopy tee saying Frens are best. I possibly cannot argue with that!


Thanks DD Mom for yummy pasta (recipe awaited as you well know), Preethi for the awesome games and those melt in mouth muffins we all are begging for! Ofcos, I never knew i could get grossed out by chocolate! :) Poppy, you took out time and came on your birthday. Need i say more?! Art and Starry for picking up really cool gifts for the kids! It was brilliant to see bangaloremom after HER babyshower. It did not seem like we had not met for that long, did it?! :) Anu who made it with both her adorable girls! I finally got to see the l'il one and K is already a very responsible big sistah!


And thank you to everyone who took time to send me those beautiful and personalized messages. That is going to be one of my most priceless treasures ever! :)


Here's some photos! There are a LOT of really nice pictures, but privacy issues meant I cant put most of em up. So pls to make do with these! :)



Hugging spree part 1 of 10 when i entered the ghar and was zapped beyond words! :)




Hugging spree part 2 of 10 when i entered the ghar and was zapped beyond words! :)




This is how pretty and festive the house looked! I still havent bothered pulling down the decorations! LOVE it! :)



The more controlled hug given to Usha when she gave me a gorgeous bunch of flowers!



A few calm moments before the madness began again! :)



That IS chocolate! As hard it is to believe!



And you thought we could never get grossed out by chocolate!



The pictionary. can you guess the rhymes?! :)



The super gorgeous cake! The bottle shaped candle was a brilliant touch! :)



THE Book! :) M and me very obviously zapped and shocked! and excited! :)


And i am wearing the snoopy tee JLT painted. Will put the pictures of that in next post!



Showing off my gifts! :)

of food for thought? Nopes! For Toys and Chips! :)

M has been traveling a little and that leaves Cub and me to fend for ourselves over weekends. Since I cannot drive and am still using my two wheeler, our radius for going out cannot be too far. WE did trips for story telling sessions at Crossword close by, vegetable shopping at grocery division in a mall, eating at a food court etc.


Now generally M and me don't go to malls unless there is some shopping that needs to be done. It really is not our idea of fun outing. How can it be when it takes forever to find parking and space to move without getting pushed around? Inspite of our not so often visits, Cub seems to enjoy the malls! He likes the lights, the noise and mainly the escalators!


The Central close to home has a McDonalds. Cub has been to a McD's maybe a total of 4 times, but if you hear him talk about it, one would think we take him there everyday! :p This weekend, i made the mistake of attempting to go on a Saturday evening. It took us close to 40mins to teach on a TWO wheeler! Phew! Then McD's hardly had any space. I actually made Cub sit by himself till i got us some food, telling him not to move and to scream if he needed me. Thankfully, he stayed put and i got our order quick enough.


When i came back with food, the first question Cub asked me was "Toy kidhar hai?!" HUH! I would have happily got him the errrr Happy meal if the toy had semblance of being even remotely nice or worthy of 5mins of play. So i was trying to explain to him how new toys come along as merchandise for movies etc. Duh!


Anyway, he did not insist, (guess the long winding explanation turned him off!;) had his burger and fries (minus the bun) and then we went up to the food court so that I could eat something that would fill my tummy. And our 2hours were spent just in eating at two places. Of course there was a potty session thrown in which meant i had to gulp down my food at super sonic speed. When does it stop? And we are gonna do it all over gain! Gah! ;)


By the end of it all i remember is a lot of crowd and sweat! and messy loo. Bah!


Sunday morning didnt start off too well. We fought over something silly. Then made up. When asked where he wants to go, the child said "I want to go to Ranga Shankara (the gorgeous theater modeled over Prithvi in Bombay) to eat that egg sandwich!". I was quite impressed. It's only a little later that it struck me that the child's attraction for the humble egg-mayo sandwich stems from the fact it is served with even humbler potato chips or wafers as we call them! :) Now, we rarely buy chips etc as a part of our regular grocery. Cub gets them only when we have guests or we are traveling. Poor kid! :p


But we did go there finally and what fun it was. They have a beautiful l'il cafe with wooden benches, granite top tables on terracotta bricks, paper lanterns, fresh flowers in metals tins that milkman carries and an over all nice and open feeling. The lobby for the theater is right there with its art work, posters for plays and masks. There is a small space outside completely covered by trees that has small stone stools and log benches, strewn with sand and pebbles.


So we ate peacefully... Cub his egg sandwich (running around and coming back for bites and trying to cheat by having two chips instead of one after every sandwich bite!;) and me a yummy kheema pav! :) I was wearing my "baby Under Construction" tee (last month folks!) and coupla women there told me how cute it was. One of the women then offered us a yummy walnut and banana cake as dessert and my day was made. Cute tee and cute Cub did it for us! hehe!


As we were leaving it started to drizzle and we decided to spend some time in tree covered area. Cub had fun jumping off the stone stools / slabs, throwing pebbles and practicing writing his alphabets on sand with twigs that were strewn all over the ground. He carried one pebble back as souvenir and was quite reluctant to go back home.


Cub thankfully said thank you to folks, but refused to tell his name to make up for it! Bah!


What a peaceful meal this was compared to the madness at the mall! :)


In the evening we went to the park close to home. past few weekends we have been going there regularly because it has more of jungle gym, bars to hang on kinda stuff than the colony play area. The doc reccos them for Cub's hypotonia as well and its anyway a really nice park.


Now Cub by nature is someone who would not try anything new if you don't push him a little. So we did to make him climb the jungle gym shaped like B. He refused and cried, wailed and stomped about. Then we started a game. he now loves saying what words start with every alphabet! So we picked a letter and said a new word for every step he took. He was now distracted enough to go without crying and now does it super easily. It was welcome change to see another father pointing to Cub and showing his daughter"See thats how it is done!", since usually we are the parents pointing to some other kid! :)


And the girl was behaving exactly the way Cub was just a few weeks back! :)


He played around on everything. It was super nice to see him get more confident and comfortable with physical activities. We took a short walk and went home. Dinner was had with a staple of stories and sleep after 10mins of pre bedtime TV.


Give me more Sundays like these i say! :)


Here's some old memories at Ranga Shankara with Cub's beloved Daadu on his last trip here to see our new ghar...



The uncle who man's the counter with a smile! :)



The Three Generations in single frame for pretty much the last time :(



One with his DiL! :)


and the light of his life... the Cub! :)