Dear Eshan (Tejas) & Aryamman (Ojas)

Wish you a very Happy 2nd Birthday. From 00.30 am I was replaying in my mind, what the 3 of us and your Dadda were doing at this time, exactly 2 years ago. Going to the hospital!
To tell you the truth, I did not expect that you would be out of my tummy in less than 5 hours. I wanted to wake up at 5.15 am and wish you both silently but never got round to waking up. I would have seen you for the first time only after 9 am and surprisingly Ojas, you woke up around that time today!
At 00.00 am we cut your mini birthday cake. This year you had the pleasure of doing it yourself- mauling the cake with the cutlery knife and feeding yourself with hands/ spoon and even directly into the mouth! It was a cute sight and a sign of growing up! Wanting to cut your own birthday cake!
Dadda took you both out for a drive by the beach. For the first time Tejas, you said bye and walked away with Dadda without throwing a tantrum for me to come. I can't say that I was elated about it!
This is the 2nd time I was alone in the house after you both were born. You were out for just around 20 minutes but I missed you both dreadfully the moment you had gone out. The home felt shallow without your presence.
The last 2 years have been a humbling experience.
I have realized that it is not easy to be patient with you both when you are throwing a tantrum yet if I lose my cool, the job gets tougher. Bringing you up has taught me that anger is not the route to a solution.
You have taught me that even if you are running absolutely short of time, there is still time to squeeze in for a goodbye hug and a kiss each, to take me throughout the day.
You have taught me to let go and also cling on. There are times when I have wanted to have you back safely within me so that you are completely protected from all illness and pains and other times I have left you in the hands of the caregivers even when you were ill.
I have lost patience with you and smacked you in the backside and the next moment I have regretted doing it.
I have been proud of your reading/ puzzle making abilities and overall communication methods and despaired at you not being potty trained or not weaning off the bottle and not eating well.

A friend of mine today wished me "Happy Anniversary" - on my 2 years of motherhood! Very touching- Thank you AD. True, every parent should celebrate the birth of their child(ren) as an anniversary of motherhood / fatherhood also!

You are 2 today and I have lot of exciting things to look forward for you the following year.

• Foremost I want to look for a good school for you to take some time off away from we adults and enjoy the company of your age group.


• I am looking forward for a 15 day break where we take you to your native place and I get to spend "quality and quantity" time with you. With my job, and the pressures of running the home, it becomes difficult to give you both as much attention as I would like to.


• We will look at doing some swimming classes if time permits since you both love splashing in your private pool. I don't want you to grow up being mortally scared of water even after learning swimming.


• Another 4 months and we will start training Duggi together if you both allow it to happen.


• We will have more bookch to read from. We have to learn our colours yet. and more of nursery rhymes and songs


• Post Diwali we will introduce you formally to writing via the ceremony.


• We hope you will potty train yourself soon.


• We hope you will move to self feeding partially atleast. This year I want to be creative with the foods and snacks I do for you.

Kissie, Hugs and Pyaar Karo!

Mumma