Blowing the first Candle, cutting the first Cake!



The month of August in India typically means long, hot and humid days, students heading back to the grind after their summer break, fabulous ripe mangoes slowly disappearing from the shelves, and a sudden rise in power shortage, of course! At home though, August heralds ‘Birthdays’ in the family. My original family of four has two August born, then cousins, close family friends, and later, brother-in-law, sister-in-law and nieces too made sure that the 'August Samaritans' club' keeps flourishing. Since this apparently wasn’t enough, my baby girl too decided to dodge the due date in September, and made her grand entry into this world in this blessed month a year back! So there, you have your answer to my winding tale of an introduction to shout out to the world, that, my girl has turned all of one year today!!  And I am on tenterhooks! Can u, can u believe she is all of one now? That’s exactly how this thought runs across my head – exclamations and more exclamations.

 

 

When this peanut of mine had finally arrived on the 23^rd day of August a year back, she brought with her happiness that knew no bounds, filled crevices in our hearts we never knew existed, livened us up in a way we never thought we were capable of. She gave us long tiring nights too, sapped us off all our energy and slept peacefully throughout the day; puked, pooped and peed in the most unimaginable times, and generally turned our lives upside down. From a sleepy baby to a cooing, responding-to-signs-baby, was a delightful journey for most, only if I had my quota of sleep though! *Yaaaaawn* I have figured that I am still not done yawning, sometimes just the thought of how sleep deprived I was makes me yawn, just to make up for all the lost sleep and restrained yawns for the fear of waking up baby. As weeks rolled into months, and she started learning new things such as, rolling over, listening to rhymes and songs, opening closed fists, gripping fingers, reaching out for faces and things, responding to tickles etc., I too checked boxes alongside.  For starters, I learnt how to sleep with one eye open during nights, dream prophesies about how many times baby would wake up the following night, could give sniffer dogs a run for their money at sniffing stuff, my flimsy arms turned into arms like that of an athlete’s in the process of putting her to sleep, I could dish out the most obsolete lullabies to latest Bolly numbers that vaguely qualify as lullabies (this, purely for my own entertainment), braved the world sans kajal (my equivalent of walking into a club in my night clothes), and did many such deeds which seemed undoable till a year back.

 

While my munchkin would sleep, I would stare with wonderment at the striking resemblance of her fingers with mine, would take mild offence at every other person’s declaration that she is her father’s daughter after all, and all I get are the fingers? I would send a tiny challenge at such pronouncements and think, just give her some time and you shall see. How utterly childish, I know, I know! But the very next moment I would be grateful for she makes the cut to a fairness obsessed world because she took after her father’s side of fairness quotient. She has hair that falls flat naturally – a sharp contrast to my freezy hair that need straightening to achieve a socially acceptable form, a stubbed nose - living up to her North-East Indian lineage, and stout legs like that of a soccer player’s. I would often try to picture her as a toddler, imagine her fussing with her hair in a frilly frock, flushed cheeks, carefree, oblivious to the world, lost in her thoughts. I also sometimes think of the day when her peachy cheeks and rosy forehead will break into stubborn acnes, and probably annoying pimples too. How she would hate every second person who would prescribe a solution followed with an anecdote without sparing a thought, how self-conscious that would make her feel, how acnes would become the most debated issue in her life right then and how hard she would laugh when she would reminisce about these milestones of early life as I do now. I also think of what kind of movie watch-list she would have on Netflix (or by whatever name it will be known then), if I will be able to influence her choice of films, and  the books(on her phone, of course) she would read over and over again, whether she would take note of interesting phrases and dog ear...err...I mean,  save pages on her phone, whether she would pay more attention to the words in a song or will be simply lost in its beautiful melody. Will she approve of the clothes I would pick for her, or would she put trends ahead of style. Will she assume complete silence while protesting, or will she be vocal, loud and clear about it.
 

 Lately I have also been thinking whether she would fight with me in her tricky teens. Now, before you put two and two together, let me put it down for you, that, even during the precarious teens, my behavior had been that of a very dignified and well behaved teenager. Ahem! But then if munchkin’s temper at this tender age is anything to go by, I might have to be dealing with a very opinionated voice of a potential bratty and unruly American teenager. Who has she taken after on this you would ask, well, let's just say both us parents have our weaknesses that we don't have control over. There! For now though, her tantrums, yells and demands are encouraged and attended to at her maternal grandparent’s home. And my raised eyebrows and stern voice to check her bad behavior are met with indulgent giggles from my parents. Granted, one can’t resist the hilarity of being baby-yelled at by one’s offspring who can barely move a thing without your help! So for now missy, keep them coming.

 These last twelve months of my life disappeared in the blink of an eye! Each new month brought with it new challenges and newer excitement, and learning, and some un-learning. I kept paddling hard meanwhile like a duck struggling to remain afloat. If I have to summarize her first year report card, I would say in a nutshell that she didn't make it seem like a task not doable single handedly, to be fair, with the help of a partner who was at my beck and call at most times. She had miraculously adjusted her poo times whenever we had scheduled travels. She holds a record for not throwing-up during any of the long or short trips we had made, even in not-so-baby-friendly terrains. Touchwood! Touchwood! She had been in her best behavior in places most dreaded by parents, such as airports, at the pediatrician’s clinic, random outings (that saw no end), shopping malls and most importantly, restaurants. Well, except once, when she grabbed the ceramic salt shaker and out of curiosity decided to smash it on floor, and smashed she did, and in a matter of seconds, it shattered into million pieces without  a trace. I would give her the benefit of doubt though, and think this was done just to honor the water spilling and glass breaking tradition in restaurants religiously carried out by her mother and uncle in their early years of life. But then again, she gave me several moments to swell my heart with pride while being complimented on her social behavior and people friendliness. However, what does not go smooth down my throat is that, even this particular quality is attributed to her father. Humph! Gawd! Do I digress!

 

Anyway, fast-track to today, her birthday, and my head is reeling in thoughts of  the time I was admitted to the hospital, to her birth, till the day we finally 'brought her home.' As I fight these thoughts to focus on the day’s plans, missy is rolling from one end of the bed to the other, in all her cheekiness, throwing a little challenge at me. I need to dress her up, get her birthday-girl-ready, but she, oblivious to the significance of the day! That’s how fun it is to be one I guess. While the whole world is fussing about your big day, and your parents are drowning in soap opera-ish sentiments, you lay there in your finery and then without a hint,  out of nowhere, decide that, you want to poo! Hah! perrrrfect!!

 

Not that I don't realize that the only way Miss-Birthday-girl is going to savor memories of this day is through the pictures and the videos of her first birthday cake, first birthday dress, the fussing and the kissing, and the lipstick smears, and the balloon fights, the candles, and the birthday song, and what not! But I do hope, that this little note will help her learn about all the high strung emotions  I am going through right now, and how jumpy, nervy and happy I feel as I see her take tiny baby steps (on her walker I mean) into the second year of her life. I might not be the life-quotation-churning idealistic mother you might expect me to be girl, but I will make an exception and leave you with this little thought, that -  'You are the bravest flower to have bloomed, don't forget that when the weather changes.' 

Here's to the promise of a beautiful life that awaits you, here's to blowing the first candle and cutting the first cake, here's to my seven-teeth-elf and to her endless antics, to the twinkle in her eyes and to her toothy grin! May you have a wonderful first birthday, sweetpea!

*Clink*