First Birthday

How Time Flies...

We celebrated the first birthday on 1st November. Had 2 parties, one for the 50 kids in the apartment complex. Surprisingly managing them was quite easy as we kept the duration very short. Just enough to allow the kids to play 2 games (delegated to 2 of the kids of the complex), participate in cake cutting and eat their chole, bhature, gulabjamun, samosa and cake. We cut the car shaped cake then. We had gift wrapped the return gifts - activity books/ colour pencils etc and labelled them with names of the recievers. We requested the kids themselves to distribute the books and they had a nice time doing so - pretending to be class monitors.

The 2nd party was for around 60 close friends. We cut the mobile phone cake at that time. Surprisingly Ojas (Aryamman) and Tejas (Eshan) were quite cooperative through out. The difficult part was keeping an eye on them while entertaining the guests.

Back home we are surrounded with a room full of gifts, mostly toys and absolutely no space in my home to accomodate them. Hell, I am not going to celebrate another birthday for atleast a year- I vow to myself. Some gifts like colour pencils, building blocks, alphabets, modelling clay are potentially useful, thoughtful and likeable. Among the pothers some are broken, some obviously passed on/ hand me downs, some useful for infants below 6 months, some horribly expensive, some road-side purchases, some totally useless. Without sounding crass and ungrateful, I would like to mention that I have realised that when there is a big party, everyone tries their best to give what they think would be useful to the receiver, who ends up with duplicates and not very useful articles especially where toys are concerned. I mean how many pull alongs, drums or battery operated toys can a child use. I have realised that no matter how one feels that one has selected the right gift for the receiver, a gift voucher or cash in an envelope is most welcome and easy to handle.
A lesson well learnt and I am armed with a gift voucher for the first birthday party that Ojas & Tejas have been invited to today.

Howlers

She- shall we take the fresh cream cake or normal cream cake?
He- Fresh Cream
She- fresh cream cake is more expensive and for the quantities we have to buy, it’s better to buy normal cream
He- no I want to take the best one. No compromises
She- ok, let’s take black forest flavour then
He- Cheee, I hate black forest, so light that you will hardly feel you have eaten anything
She- But you said fresh cream
He- Yes, you use the fresh cream to make cake at home, that’s what I meant
She- Well, black forest is fresh cream cake and more expensive so the best (as per your logic) and normal cream is the ordinary cake and less expensive. Since you said you want the best you should take fresh cream and so black forest (She did not mention chocolate truffle as that is even more expensive and he loves that)
He- Ok we will take normal cream cake


Kid- Aunty I did not get the (return) gift
Aunty- What's your name?
Kid- Akshat
Aunty- Realising that the kid was a guest to the complex and was therefore not invited to the party- Did you eat?
Kid- I did not come to eat, only to take the gift

Since some return gifts were activity books including colouring books and some were colour pencils, some kids came and said- Aunty I got only the books and not the colour pencils!

Aunty- Who won the first game
Kid- Rupa
Aunty- ok, chocolates for whoever won the game
All kids (including those who were not playing)- Aunty I, Aunty I won...

Aunty- Why are you not playing
Kid- I don't want to play
Aunty- Pulling her along- join the game, you will enjoy it
Kid- aunty, actually I am already out (of the game after playing one round)