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! :)

Dostana - real and reel

Last week just flew!

Firstly, I didn't go to work on Monday because of slight temperature and bad cold. So that anyway made work week shorter and that improves my mood totally! :p

One of the days Chandni of Chandu Land had posted about being in Bangalore and I just left a comment asking will we see her in when she is here. And one fine day I see a mail from her in my inbox saying "Do you wanna catch up?" and I couldn't say anything but "Of course".

Many missed calls later, Monika decided to co-ordinate the whole plan and thank you so much for that girl! :) We kept changing the time and place till we finally settled down on doing dinner at Indi Joe, a very nice continental khaana place near old airport.

This was the first time I was taking Cubby without M who had couple of con-calls scheduled that day and had to take a 6am flight the next. To expect him to chaperon us was totally unreasonable. I managed to get us a driver and off we were.

Picked up Chandni and her lovely buddy P from their hotel. The conversation started pretty much immediately with standard what do you do and where do you live with regular and lotsa attention being showered on Cubby. True to his style, he made friends with Chandni only on getting chocolate from her.

We got a bit caught in traffic and Monika was already there by the time we reached. Another round of hi's and hello's followed and we settled down to chat our hearts away! :) The three ladies ordered Long Island Iced Tea, while your truly said cheers with a glass of water and had soup post that to nurse her bad throat.

Cubby after getting bored of being told don't touch this and that, walked off and went on to make friends with everyone who would care to give him a second look. Being a weekday, the restaurant wasn't too full and waiters not too busy and someone or the other kept entertaining him. Sometimes I would find him sitting on the bar, at another he was chatting up with a l'il baby in her pram. He was totally playing to the gallery and putting his best foot forward and best smile ready to be seen.

While he was busy, we also ordered some yummy and fattening starters and kept talking about this and that. The topics mostly revolved around husbands and babies and jobs and families and it went on non-stop. No one went on for a second drink and we ordered our khaana and spoke with our mouths full! :)

By now Cubby had started getting sleepy and restless and after sharing our bill I decided to take a leave, while Chandu and P had plans to meet some other friends and Monika had to drive back home to her l'il guy Ojas. Of cos Cubby left the resto with a gorgeous flower from a fellow diner who was watching Cubby prance all over the place and came to tell us that he is just about the cutest and happiest baby she had seen! Touchwood! She actually ripped open her bouquet and pulled out the flower he liked! :)

All in all, lot of fun was had and no one would believe that we were meeting for the first time! Chandni asked if she was the way we imagined her to be, and I said its too much effort to imagine and am happy she is nice n cool in asli life! :) And so is Monika whom I hope to see again in near future since we are in the same city.

Saturday, plans to meet Swati and family finally worked out. Hubby A, Aryan and Swati made it to our place Sat evening for chai and it was so much fun. I made / fried some burnt snacks (I have a feeling Swati will NEVER accept a dinner invitation from me!) and we sat, ate, talked and tried to keep kids from either loving or hating each other too much.

Cubby obviously wanted to have EVERY toy Aryan touched and is still alien to concept of sharing. Plus Cubby had a bit of fever too making him cry at the drop of the hat. But by the end of the evening they had almost made friends when it was time to leave. Thanks for that cute Duckie, Swati! :D

Who would have thought blog world will give so many new friendships that don't seem NEW at all but leave you feeling comfortable and happy?! :)

Sunday noon was lunch with bro-in-law (the birthday boy) and sis-in-law sans the kids. We went to Silver Metro. The buffet was quite nice except the dessert counter which was not all that happening. We stuffed ourselves and kept chattering non-stop. Came home satisfied and happy with the way the afternoon had turned out.

Last night went to watch Dostana and had a rollicking good time. The movie is fun and totally politically incorrect! So if you are looking for some "classic" cinema, give it a skip. But if you just wanna laugh at the double entendres, enjoy Abhishek's excellent comic timing, smoking HOT John Abraham and sexy Priyanka Chopra doing their bit for Dostana, I suggest go for it. I laughed hard, drooled over John, cheered for Abhishek and danced to the songs!! :D And i don't care if that makes my taste crass! :p

Ofcos a terribly weird thing happened while at the movie. We were sitting outside, waiting to be let in the hall. A guy came and tried talking to Cubby. Now the kid rarely instantly dislikes people enough to not even smile at them. The guy didn't look very respectable, but we try not to judge and thought Cubby was just sleepy.

There was another woman and a man with this guy and in a few minutes the woman picked Cubby up and they were trying to play with him. They were in our line of vision constantly and Cubby looked markedly uncomfy. We went to take him as the movie was about to start and then took our seats in the movie hall. The theatre is perennially empty and these people sat behind us.

The girl tapped on my shoulder and said "Aunty, bacche ko mere paas de do." I said no thank you, he will sleep now. She said he can sleep in her godi and I can watch the movie. By now, I was terribly suspicious and said that wont be necessary.

What seriously freaked me out was the fact that these people just walked out and disappeared within 5mins of our conversation. I am now quite sure that they were the kind of people who steal kids and I just thanked my stars that I didn't worry about me being judgemental and trusted Cubby's and my instinct.

But the whole incident was very scary and the only bad part of the week that was othawise filled with fun and friendship - real and reel variety!

How was your week?

Cheers!

Boy! AM i glad am blogging!

I never knew that just watching 10 kids run all over the place can make you feel all tired!

I never knew that meeting people whom you know just through their blogs or at times not even that can be so much fun!

I never knew that Cubby would actually love his first taste of mitti (mud)!

I never knew that someone's home apart from being wonderfully warm can have so many toys to keep kids occupied forever with one thing or the other!

I never knew you can go back from a party knowing you have found some new friends for keeps!

I am really bad at doing this minutes of meetings things, which is why I didn't even do a post about the last meet that happened. I am more than happy reading other people talk about it and just leaving a comment! :)

But just like last one this one left me with a big grin on my face and a lovely feeling of having found like minded people at an age where making new friends doesn't come easy! :)

Swati's blog post says it all and much better than I ever could. Except Swati, CoS, Aargee and Poppin's Mom whom I had met last time, everyone was a new place. I was obviously a bit apprehensive since I am fairly new entrant to this lot and not a part of any other online groups that these wonderful women have where they must have to come to know each other so much better.

As M dropped me to PM's place at around 3 o'clock and I entered a room with women who had warm smiles and guess who am I to offer, I felt at ease immediately. There was Tharini, Sue, D and PM already there with their kids having a blast already! Tharini's Winkie and D's l'il girl were getting along famously, while Sue's adorable Babhlet was running around the house. Poppin is so cute with her shy smile that it HAS to be love at first sight! From great bums to lenses to college and wedding stories the conversation flowed pretty easily!

Then akamonica walked in with her 9 month old bundle of masti N! N instantly reminded me of Cubby just three months ago and I was amazed yet again how much kids change every single day, week and month! :)

PM said we will now move the party up to the community hall on the 15th floor. We loaded all the food, toys and ofcos kids and took the elevator up. The community hall which till then looked all clean and serene was suddenly filled with sounds of excited kids and crazy mothers and smelling of yummy food to be had!

I called M saying come as soon as can because Cubby was missing all the fun. COS walked in with her daughter KT who was ready with her smiles and polite hello for one and all! :) Soon, M arrived with Cubby and Swati, her hubby A and Aryan (who is Swati's xerox copy and liked ME! yay!) 'coz they reached around the same time! M did give me a dirty look saying "Why am I in the minority?" I had conveniently forgotten to tell him that not everyone is getting their husband's along! But hey there was A and PM's hubby. And they gave him great company! :D

Cubby as soon as he saw huge open space with coloured balls strewn all over the place and loads of toys and KIDS, he just went crazy! From then on, he didn't even remember he had parents or could feel hungry etc. He was constantly on the move. Throwing a ball and crawling behind it to get it, using the chair as a walker and creating an almost unbearable racket and trying to observe what the older kids were doing! :) Ofcos this didn't stop him from his routine stinky potty and puke programme, but that didn't seem to register with all the fun happening! :)

D gave all the kids bubble maker. I still love making those bubbles. (I know it was for the kids, but Cuby is too small!:p)I did take it home, filled fresh soap water and been bubbling since as Cubby tries to catch the bubbles! :) And I am keeping those crayon's away at the moment! :p

Noodlehead came sans her Bonbon, but with yummy samosas and was sent back to get Bonbon along! God! She is just too darn cute! I LOVED her shoes, Noodle and you can be assured someday they shall get stolen! :D

Food and drinks were served. The chocolate cake was absolutely yummylicious as was everything else!

PM inspite of being almost 35 weeks pregnant was still running around and making sure everyone is comfortable. hats off to you woman! :)

The party moved to the play area where slides and swings kept older kids occupied, while the sand-pit offered unlimited opportunities to dirty themselves to the younger ones! Cubby even managed to eat some and thankfully I managed to pull the bigger pebble out! :p

What was really refreshing was none of the mothers were the overtly fussy kinds who kept following their kids saying don't do this or that or get your hands dirty! :)

M made a game out of Cubby trying to follow D's daughter(who is really pretty and smart), and they had quite a lot of fun doing that as Cubby tried following her and Winkie (a bundle of energy) with his crawl and they ran away from him screaming and laughing! :) Well sadly for M, instead of a regular chick magnet, he is a kid magnet! I have not seen a single child NOT responding to him when he works his magic! Thanx M for being such a good sport!

CoS got l'il return gifts for all the kids and Cubby loved his squeeze me Penguin!

The party then moved back to PM's ghar. She was brave enough to let all the kids run around her gorgeous home! I LOVED Poppin's room, PM!

Good byes were being said as PM, Tharini and Aargee (who came sans her l'il A, we missed him!) efficiently made small bags with extra food to take home. I didn't have to cook that night! Another advantage of the party! :D

As I said bye, I wished I could stay just a l'il bit longer, but I knew that it would never be enough!

Are there really enough of good times?! :)

As we went home, Cubby was constantly babbling and chattering with excitement and refused to sleep even, paying no heed to his pooped parents' heartrending requests!

Can't blame him though, can I? He just had too much fun!

So thanx all you wonderful ladies and the entire baccha company for making it such a special evening for Cubby and ME! :)