A very chadstone Xmas

I took the day off for Xmas shopping. Sweet. Over work as a concept anyway. Here's the photographic evidence.

Posing with shopping catalogue. She really wanted a pair of new shoes.
Naina got confused between cultural traditions. Here's her doing namaste in front of a Xmas tree.
And Sarva was disinterested in the whole glowing ball thing.

Gecko Olympics

For keen followers of the Hampton East quarterly 4 year and under Olympics, N improved her ranking this quarter from 8th to 5th.

A sample!
Clearly beating up on some of the smaller kids


Medal winner


Indoctrination

Movements

We're coming to Perth and India.

Deepti and the kids are coming to Perth on Xmas day and I'm joining them on new year's eve. I think zoo trips, swimming lessons, shopping and overeating are generally in the plans. Due to impending India trip, we're coming back on 6th of Jan.

Then on Jan 21, the Naina, Sarva and Deepti are off to India. A long stopover in Bangkok will be a challenge, though the next flight is to Gaya and Deepti's family will be waiting for her. Times have changed and it is great to be able to sit on a plane in Melbourne (and say bye bye to sad ole me) and the next afternoon, be in Gaya (40-50 km from Patna), saying hello to Deepti's family.

The plan is a bit open ended; the tickets are booked for around Naina's birthday (April 20) but not quite sure of the exact date. I may join them at the end of the trip coming back. I think three months alone and looking at walls of the house and I will deserve a trip to see them. I might be a wreck otherwise.

The idea of being "bachelorlike" fills me with dread. I can't think of much worse now. This is going to be tough. How many pizzas and KFC can I eat?

Sarva on the grow

Sarva rolled onto his side today, for the first time. He's been attempting for the last few days. Quite graceful the second time. However, he got stuck on his side and let us know he wasn't happy. We try to get him interested in things, but he's not quite as flexible as N; for example, although he can put his big toe in his mouth, two fingers are much more tasty, or occasionally his whole fist to the point of gagging.

Sarva also appears to be moulting. I suppose that's an unfair term considering he's not a fish or canine type character, but he has amazingly bad cradle cap. This may be an Indian kid thing; Naina had it as well and it only settled when her hair was shaved off. Hmm, might be a plan. Whole pieces of his scalp seem to be ripe for falling off. Sorry, grotesque analogy.

He also has a massive baldspot.

Naina pillow hair

Sarva photos

5 weeks old

Classic panic photo

6 weeks

Two months old

Deepavali 2010

Friday was Deepavali. Wiki has enough information, but I will add that it is the biggest celebration in India for Hindus and is celebrated around the world, for all of us.

Growing up it's probably my earliest memories, 1978 or 1979 thereabouts at the Kale's house in Newman, lighting candles in the dark at our only Indian friends in town. I can think of years alone in Melbourne where it didn't mean much, but since N's arrival, its become more important. We intended to attend the Deepavali celebrations at Fed Sq this year, but it was a wash out, so will wait for next. Deepti talks of being at home for Holi (in March) and Deepavali and Chhat Pooja in October November. We hope one day to be able to achieve Deepavali in Patna but not this year.

This year, I took the afternoon off from work and came home to help set-up. Deepti prepared some food (puris which are a type of shallow fried bread, potato/cauliflower subzi which carried a kick and some sweets) and also did a rangoli using N's feet as the model.

Rangoli at front of house

Getting dressed up is part of the day so I wore a suit from my wedding and Deepti wore a sari. Naina got out her new lahenga from Anveeta bua and Sarva got baby clothes.

Naina modelling her new lahenga (skirt, blouse, scarf).
This took about seven attempts before N would stand still for more than one second.

We then did the pooja (badly, I'd forgotten most of the essential words) and then aarati and photos.

Naina doing Aarati, me trying to remember the words.

The family in portrait mode

Moody, note youngest child almost losing nappy

A photo based on a lie. Naina didn't want to share the
besan ladoo with me. I think she's thinking "Don't eat it all daddy"

First go with auto-timer - Naina requiring both of us
to keep her head pointing at the camera. And we still
were clearly not ready for the photo.

Second go with auto-timer. Sarva knew we'd
be concentrating on the camera, so he snuck in some solids.

Kung Fu baby

Tummy time ft Naina

Naina lends a hand. Not what the kid was looking for I think.

Gold!

Naina loves the song playing in the background - durga pooja song with chorus "Naa-mo, naa-mo". Sarva gets revenge while sister is distracted. Excuse my Horshack laugh in the background.

Sundays

Our Sunday schedule has been turned upside down by swimming classes starting at 8:30am. 7am on a Sunday morning is generally quiet in most houses. Naina was good at classes, some tears at getting into the pool but otherwise really happy the whole class. N showed distinct disdain for authority and generally ignored the instructors.

It's durga pooja time, the lead up to deepavali. So we also went to the temple today. N surprised us. Firstly she did namaskar/pranam to all the deities after being shown what to do. She then walked up to Hanuman (the monkey god) and said "Hi" in a casual teenager fashion and then did pranam.

Curious how she recognized him. She does listen to a lot of hanuman songs, religious songs about the ramayan. But the statue bears no real resemblance to what she sees on her daily breakfast video (she insists on it). That said, monkeys are her favourite animal. She's going to go nuts in India.

They might just be related part 2

Baby Massage.

Just some general photos of S

First month of Sarva. I think he really started stacking on the kilos in week 4.

Day 1 and already home

Day 3
10th day (at Chatthi)

Day 24

Day 28

Random awws

Naina occasionally calls us by our first names "Deepti-mummy" or "A-deet, A-deet". A-deet comes from dada and dadi calling me from downstairs. It's stuck, several months later. Deepti frowns and refuses required services until the correct terminology is used.

Without realising it, some connection are coming through. N's linking parts of the past with now. Above the dining room table, there's a hook. N points to the hook put in by the handyman (I've removed the picture) and shouts "Tarry, Tarry". This occurs everynight. Terry the handyman was around for the best part of 5 hours in mid-August.

Any insect that N spies and doesn't like (flies, ants etc) she shouts "Divya, divya" the name of the Indian girl helping out with the cleaning who once vaccuumed a dead fly. N also shouts Divya's name when food or drink is spilt.

And with Dadaji and his cup of tea or coffee, the link is particularly strong. When on webcam to Preth, N shouts "Gama" (Gar-mah, meaning hot) which is what dadaji would have described it as and warned N off of in August. She now insists on having a cup with her when she's in front of the cam and that he has one as well.

Grunter

Sarva's a grunter.

Going into sleep and coming out of sleep, he's a Monica Seles impersonator with the grunts, groans and whines. Feeds see grunts, rocker time sees grunts, being picked up and put down sees grunts. His flatulence and gas which may be related to aforementioned grunting is quite spectacular. Hopefully he'll control himself at the next work function.

His early morning grunting is so loud it's enough to wake me up and start rocking his cot, sometimes overly vigorously if it's a Saturday morning.

About to let one go (grunt that is)

Shambles

Having two kids puts so much in to perspective. Perhaps initially how shambolic our child rearing of N was and how due to the ongoing shambolicness, S gets um, neglected and is developing second child syndrome as the clock ticks. I mean statistically significant style.

Case in point, gas; we tried everything asofetida (heeng rubbed on stomach), gripe water and infacol (simethicone) regularly for the first few months for N and infacol still goes in each night. We're almost a little too scared to try her without now, as when we'd miss a dose a year ago she'd wake up without fail screaming.

Sarva's been manageable because we knew what to do and both know the ritual of counting to four burps/passes of winds before he's ready to be put down. He's been tried on gripe water and infacol but we both have our wits about us now that any gas related challenges are confronted with second child confidence.

Likewise, we've been there done that with getting put down either in the cot, in the rocker or just on a warm flat spot. He probably gets put down quicker and with less fuss. He also has to cry a little bit (a lot bit) louder to get the attention that would have seen us running for the hospital with N. This blog is going to be forever called N when it really is now about N + S. See he even get's a raw deal with the pram. Even Elmo gets a better view!


The net sum of this is he's probably going to be the well behaved and non-demonstrative second child till he's 10 and then complain that no one ever pays any attention to him.

Orders

N has become assertive.

Favourite phrases at the moment are "No, no, no, no, no, no, no..." and "Baas, hogya" (Stop, enough). She's even started telling us "Gwrabrabrebel erlekreere want to sleep" (the first few words are incomprehensible).

We're witnessing interaction at a superior level.

They might just be related

Medal winner

Our little Olympian. For coming ninth in the Gecko Term 3 Olympics.

(Class size, 10)

Sleep

Sarva fell asleep by himself tonight. I'm confused as to what I should do now. We've not had a child previously who could do that. I thought I should sit in the room with him in case he woke up. That got boring after 15 minutes. Feeling kind of pointless.

Swimming

Naina kind of likes water. When the words "kind of" are used I mean "not that much". When grandmother was here, N was taken swimming on and off for about 5 weeks with little progress or success. Naina would cry on walking to the swim school, cry changing clothes, cry as the teacher took her into the water, not let go of the teacher and generally be miserable. Even shower time after swimming wasn't that pleasant. The sight of me was enough to bring on more howls of protest.

The instructor advised I should get in next time. Deadbeat dad in the pool with a clingy two year old. Lol. This could be unhappy.

Play the film (last Monday):

N cried leaving home, cried getting out of the car at the pool and cried at the sight of the pool. But something happened. N was confused when she noticed I was getting changed as well. We got to the pool's edge and more tears and some more stunned confusion as I got in first. The tears dried up. N floated nervously by herself, grabbing me on and off. She played the games, she jumped in the water. Definite progress. Father daughter bonding occurred. When it was time to go back to change, N looked at me like "is that it?". She enjoyed the shower, she ate like a horse and refused to get in the car as she wanted more swimming.

All week N's been asking "swimming?". Good progress is being made.

Nayan Kailash

Most people chose a name before birth, a few months in advance or even on first sight of baby. Not us. We *thought* we had it sorted but turns out we didn't. Like Naina (Riyaa), we had decided early on in the pregnancy he would have both a school name that would be easy to pronounce and spell and a house name that all our friends and family would call him by. It took us about a week after birth to find and chose the name Sarva and then another week to find the name Nayan.

Nayan (school name) was born under the star sign, Jyestha, which is apparently not a good start for me! Jyestha children are meant to have names starting with N or Y. Nayan was chosen for above reasons of simplicity. It doesn't really mean anything, quite similar that respect to Riyaa. It's spelling and sound is straightforward, which we did like. Other runner's up for official name were Yash and Naman but neither really gelled for Deepti and I.

Kailash, this was my choice. In Hinduism, the most important mountain in the Himalayas is Mt Kailash. It is the home of Shiva the creator and destroyer of the universe. At its base is a lake called Mansarovar from which the three great rivers of South Asia originate from - Brahmaputra, Ganges and Indus river. We've got a couple of photos of Mt Kailash in the house now which we'd be glad to show. It's a stunning mountain, with some saying that the rock formation on one of the faces looking like the religious symbol of the swastika.

Finally Sarva. This was complicated! Deepti really wanted a name of Shiva for him as he was due to be born during a festival of Shiva. So Rudra was a name we really liked (roo-drah). However, we were advised that it wasn't a great name as it translated as "the terrible one" or "the howling". Determined, we hunted for similar names. It was hard, but the internet won. Sarva (pronounced Shar-vah) is a form of Rudra and is mentioned in several places as "The Archer" or "He who defeats the forces of darkness".

However, wonderfully, Sarva can also be pronounced as "Sar-vah" which means "Everything". So you may find Deepti and I swapping between the two.

So to surmise, he's got about four names - Nayan Kailash, Rudra, Sarva and Sharva. And a big sister that adores him (even though she keeps calling him didi, meaning elder sister, lol).

On Rakhsha Bandan (brother and sister day)

Hannibal and Omnophage

N proudly announced yestreday "Nancy kai-yan-gay" meaning she was going to eat the four year old girl next door for dinner.

S put on an astounding 50 g a day last week.

Positivity

Trying to stay positive with all the sickness and gum disease going around, Sarva's on the path to baby-zilla. He's been putting on 40 g a day for more than 10 days. This compares to N who struggled to get 15 g a day at best. Admittedly, baby-zilla is still only 3.5 kg, but in three weeks he's gained 25% of his lowest body weight.

I'll get my act together and post more photos and anecdotes soon, but everyone's so coughy and wisdom-toothlessy that its not priority number 1 at the moment. I'll be glad when spring arrives.

N

Keep it simple, stupid.

Some admissions. N still sleeps in our bed. I hear tut-tuts. Eh. N is devoted to her mummy but somewhat ambivalent to daddy. There's a time and a place for dads, but mums are universal.

This had caused some loud discussions on how difficult it would be come hospital time. No one could put N to sleep except Deepti. Tension levels rose accordingly twice a week.

Being dead-beat dad, I tried to get more involved, reading, talking to N, developing a routine of books, prayers, water and kisses before the lights went out. It would occasionally let N fall asleep near me.

So that first night Deepti was in the hospital was a battle. I managed to convince her to sleep but she stayed asleep for only 40 minutes and woke crying. My mum was alone to face the tears. Three times N woke before midnight. When I got home after Sarva's birth, at 2am, N was up, singing in bed and mum was asleep.

N finally slept that night at 3am and then woke at 6am meaning three hours of proper sleep in the whole night. Surely she couldn't sustain that, could she?

I'm happy to report that she could. Friday night was particularly painful. Deepti was discharged within 24 hours of birth and N went into freak out mode. Every time Sarva cried, N cried louder. Every time N cried, S cried louder. Duelling banjos if you like. They could not be in the same room together. I have no idea how we survived that night, but once again, N was deprived of sleep.

N then picked up a mouth ulcer, bad breath and possible hand foot and mouth virus. Sigh. We've been under a fair whack of pressure.

Deepti now sleeps in a separate room with S in a bassinette next to her and N sleeps in the bed with me. Substitution. From four or five wake ups per night and milk and Panadol, within 7 days its down to a wake up or two that are easily subdued by pulling N close to me. No milk either.

Deepti's feeling lonely though, she misses having N close to her in the bed and I do understand. I think kids sleeping on their own is cool and works great for some people, but within a week, I'm pretty happy that N grabs my hand whilst I'm sleeping to help her go back to bed.

Sarva!

Struggling to comprehend the last week of action, I'm going to itemize it.

Deepti went into a semi-labour without real contractions on Wednesday night last week (21 July 2010). We were asked to come to the hospital and wait for a check-up. You are going to give birth tomorrow. Those seven words were scary. At 38 weeks, who does that? Be at the hospital at 7:30 am and we'll start work. More scary words. The main memories of N's birth are how long it took and how exhausted we were at the end. And I didn't have to give birth. Nurses spoke of the odds of it being finished by 3:30pm on Thursday.

Sandringham Hospital's fairly quiet these days, amazed it is still open for maternity. Most of the Bayside set have private health insurance and insist on Cabrini I guess. Sandy's a bit run down, but cheerful and friendly. Miles apart from Monash. Deepti was the only expecting mum and she had a mid-wife and two trainee mid-wives looking after her. Sweet. At Monash I had to make the tea for Deepti; at Sandringham, the mid-wives made the tea. Even sweeter. I repeatedly got in the way of the multiple attendants.

Now, without contractions and a room full of mid-wives makes for little real action. The day sort of meandered along and let me underline meandered. (Actually can't in the blogging tool used). I popped out at 10am to see how mum and N were going at Gecko, then came home, played with N and then to swimming and then back home. Back to Deepti around 12:30, still nothing. Back home for a while to check on N around 4pm and then back at 6pm.

We took N to the hospital in the evening to help ease anxieties (Deepti and N) but it was like when the little boy met ET the first time. N looked through Deepti, at all the machines, and tubes and monitors and didn't rush to her, a silent acknowledgement that whoa, something's happening but not sure what. I expected tears and screaming when it was time to leave but with a wistful gaze through Deepti, N departed unmoved.

Meander. What a way to describe the day. At midnight, I was expecting to be told to go home and come back tomorrow morning. The day stopped meandering once it was over.

The nurse then said, your boy's coming in the hour. A small snip and out he popped. 12:37 am, 23 July 2010.

Emotionally, nothing in this world compares to the birth of Naina and Sarva.

When N met S

Photos

Imminent

On our way to Sandy tomorrow morning. Aiming for a 22 July finish.

Gymbaroo

Long videos from Gymbaroo. Naina attended two terms of Gymbaroo at Cheltenham. For N, the general excitability and screaming we noticed in October, November and December was channelled into jumping and better concentration spans by end of first term and hand eye coordination skills by the end of the second term.

Love the pirouette with belly flop.



It can all get a bit too hard.

Bus trips and June

For most of June, we were car-less. In fact the car was getting repaired for eight weeks. Eight weeks.

The first four weeks, I had a friend's car, which meant the routine wasn't shattered, broken. The routines were all similar. Then the friend's car had to be returned and it was public transport, everywhere. Inconvenient with Deepti being 7 months.

Somehow though, it just became good fun. Monday to Friday would be on the bus at 8:17, 8:30 train, 8:55 tram and at my desk at 9:30. And then walking back in the dark, invigorated but tired from the train station. Public transport all the way adds about 15 minutes each way to the travel time but reduces the stress.

Weekends were more fun; N loves bus rides, train rides, tram rides, even if it is just the novelty of seeing the world through big windows and not being strapped in. We'd do pointless things, like take an hour to get South Yarra just for Pacific Seafood House's average Saturday lunch. N loved the live fish though. We even did chips and hot chocolate in a fancy Sth Yarra restaurant that we'd never normally visit.

Getting the car back has been a hard adjustment. I long for long walks and I can feel the tightness returning. I deliberately got off the tram one stop early today, just to walk that extra while. We've been run off our feet catching up with eight weeks of missed shopping. And we haven't even got to Chadstone.

Jah mani

It's N's favourite phrase. When things fall to the ground, such as dropping clothes from upstairs, she cries jah-mani. It's a conjoining of jah - closely translated to gosh and mani - being a sound from "jameen" meaning ground.

N understands most things we say, in English and in Hindi. When instructed to come and brush her teeth, in hindi or in english, she immediately understands the routine of finding the stool, climbing up, grabbing her toothbrush and waiting for one of us to apply a dab of baby McLeans. A separate example is "Dada se baat karna" meaning lets go talk to grandfather on the computer (via Skype). She drops everything, runs to the computer room, climbs up on to the chair (or further on to the desk) and waits patiently for us to dial in.

But at the same time, we're noticing her falling a bit behind in expressing herself in more ways than just nods of the head or saying no or nah. On the phone, she can say bye, take care and change her loudness to mimic me and say it very softly. What we don't hear is phrases like "I want cake" or "Mummy's got a camera" or "I love it" or the hindi equivalents. We get jumbles. N knows what she's saying is nonsensical because she doesn't get frustrated when we don't understand her, just smiles and tries again.

So it feels a bit disorientating; trying to talk to her is a one way conversation, with her understanding but not responding. And then it comes back the other way, with jumbles of total non-words and phrases. We're at a bit of a loss to explain why its taking her so long to progress from one word to two to three.

Trunki

Look what Bua gave me... (N moves at hypersonic speed, this was the only photo of 6 that she wasn't a blur of excitement).

Likes and dislikes

Exhausted by pavement pounding, a short post tonight.

Likes: Brushing her teeth up to three times a day. I stress by herself. Eating the toothpaste, by herself.

Dislikes: Not being able to hold on to and play with everyone's toothbrushes

Likes: Anything Gymbaroo related. Has master the art of sitting on a ball, kicking a ball, and the latest addition, (haven't managed to get a picture of her doing this)


Dislikes: Occasional day care. Last week when we entered she was all shy like until she saw a phone, bolted and then whimpered when she realised we had gone. This week, started crying as soon as she saw the teacher and the next morning when she thought she had to go again.

Likes: Jumping. Obsessed. Especially on her bed.

Dislikes: Daddy telling her to stop jumping on her bed because its 830pm and to get into her pouch.

Likes: The Very Hungry Caterpillar, especially when he eats one piece of chocolate cake, one ice cream, one slice of swiss cheese, one piece of salami... and when he isn't a little caterpillar anymore, he's a BIG FAT caterpillar.

Dislikes: Giving the phone back.

Likes: feeding daddy his dinner with a shamash (chamach, meaning spoon in hindi)

Kids are amazing

After the fall; it's been tough. Naina has been bedbound, at times not able to move her right arm, clutching at her neck and always unhappy. Friday, lying down all day. Saturday, lying down, all day. Sunday, lying down, most of the day.

We gave up on baths yesterday as she screamed her way through it. Feeding was whilst lying down (dangerous) and drinking water was out of a soup spoon. Maximum doses of Panadol and Nurofen didn't seem to be making a dent in the pain.

With no tangible signs of progress, we began to despair that she might be this way for a few more days. Depressing. She had started to wriggle and use both hands freely yesterday, but any attempts at sitting upright were met with tears and screams. The words broken clavicle, broken clavicle kept ringing and ringing in my ears and a month of rehabilitation. This continued into today; but we raised her head a little bit on three pillows to get some sense of progress.

She's been normal in every sense apart from being on her back - screaming, kicking, reading, laughing, sleeping, chatting, although it's unsettling having a very big part of life changed from mobile and uncontrollable to bed-ridden and listless.

Deepti had a series of mother's day master strokes today. First she applied a cream to warm up the area and that seemed to go ok. As parents, we were probably neglectful in this sense for the next part. When all else fails, bribery. So out came the lemonade and some small drinking cups, left strategic distances from her supine poses. At 3pm, she made efforts to reach it and with coaxing she sort of started lifting her head and then with my support, sitting up without clutching and drinking. By 3:30pm, it was sitting unsupported, but not anything more. In fact, standing was surprisingly unsteady. More bribery, my (new) glasses and food on the coffee table. By 3:45pm standing alone and starting to walk around gingerly.

Deepti and I both felt like crying; within 3 minutes of the first unsteady walk without pain, N was in the pram and out the door and I was blogging about it. Life less ordinary.

The collar bone is connected to the rib cage

Yesterday, upstairs trying to relax, Deepti downstairs watching TV. Naina decides its boring with dada and heads down to Deepti. Negligent parent that I am, I watched her half-way. My second mistake in two weeks. According to Deepti, N got to the last two or three steps before tripping and landing on the floor with her hands held out in front of her. Couldn't actually hear the clavicle fracturing, but we might find out soon.

N was upset. Usually these are short outbursts of tears which last 10 minutes. This time she didn't settle and kept grabbing her neck region. We drove for a while to calm her down and came home again, but she started screaming again. After 30 minutes we decided to see a doctor. At 8pm on a Thursday night. A visit to the ED, sigh.

Unsure of which hospital, we headed to the maternity hospital. N settled in the car; that nervous settle; not sure to go home or keep going. We kept going. Arriving, she was still quiet; I expected to park the car and join them, only for Deepti to say, let's go home. We stayed.

N got attention from a stern looking triage nurse who silently scolded uneducated parent-types like us for not knowing that our daughter didn't have a major head injury or a minor head injury and should have been seen by the GP in the morning. This knowledge is imparted by reading a government website.

Waiting. 45 minutes in a public ED can be educational; a patient informed everyone that AIDS was invented by George Bush's father.

N was seen by a doctor who ordered an X-ray. This was going to be fun. Waiting for the doctor to finish talking to her boss, N emptied her bowels into our last remaining clean nappy. Mental note; keep spare nappy and wipe pack in the car.

So, now N was stripped of her clothes, cold, tired, had recently evacuated her bowels and was wearing hospital panties, there was a very large slightly deadly x-ray emitting machine hanging over her head, her head was resting against a hard metal plate, her clumsy dad was trying to pin down her head with one hand and her arms with the other and her mother had to leave the room because she was 6 month pregnant. I think that captures the scene well!

She got the knack the second time and lay still; the x-ray done N burst into tears again saying No no no no... remarkably resilient this one, there's a lot I can learn.

N's x-ray showed no fractures at the moment. There's no visible damage, but a fracture in someone so small may only be visible in a few days as it heals, but that will be only after five days of pain and decreasing use of her arm. And fractured clavicles can't be repaired surgically and two year olds don't like slings. So N's going to be in pain as she moves her arm for up to two to three weeks and shouldn't lift any heavy items like bricks or pot plants. That's what the government website told me Miss stern faced triage nurse!!

N collapsed asleep in the car and didn't wake till the morning. It was tense at the time; but like the car, it could have been a lot worse. For this we are grateful. Naina spent today lying down (not exactly sure why as her legs were working fine after the fall yesterday) being fed panadol and nurofen and chicken soup and watching Elmo and In The Night Garden. Not a bad lifestyle really.

The good part

The party was great! We all had a blast.

As with any good Indian kids party there was plenty of food: Hakka Chow Mein, Samosas, Veg Manchurian and Rasmalai (caterers). Deepti also prepared: Chaat, tomato chilli chutney, and pulao. Then there was the cake. A lot of food was consumed, but its probably true, half the food, twice the money.

Carnegie Day Centre is a day care during the week and hireable after hours. It's kind of cutesy; kids toilets with a glass door, (advice was given to me by Aadya that I should perhaps use a different toilet), a play pit, lots of oversized toys for small hands, outdoor wash area and securely fenced off. Fantastic recipe for kids to go nuts and parents to remember what pre-parenthood parties were like. Smash away kids.

Deepti informed me that balloons are the must have accessory at a two year old birthday. (Queue sudden moves towards Spotlight). And it was true. The balloons kept the babes amused the whole three hours till they wafted out of sight in the Melbourne gloom (the balloons and the babies I guess).

Naina's growing up. Didn't get shy or cry when everyone was singing happy birthday!

Cutting the cake

BalloonsShh, no one's looking.
N nibbling the samosas.

Harriet in oversized toy car.

Zara calling the shots.Harriet concentrating.... hard!

We were so happy with how the afternoon went; I would have melted down after the car accident if it wasn't for the opportunity to meet so many of our friends and their kids and enjoy a few hours. And big thanks to all who came and ate cake and then cleaned up for us! The perfect friends.