It's birthday time!

So reminds Babycentre in its newsletter for this mom of a 23-month-old.
It goes on: How exciting for all of you, as another milestone is reached. As your child attends parties and has his own party, you'll need all the help you can get! If your child is being a party-pooper and not sharing, don't panic. It's all part of the learning process. The experts advise you not to let sharing become a parent-child battleground. Let your toddler work out his sharing issues.

We are already gearing up for a big bash this year, to make up for the low-key celebration on Mira's 1st birthday last year. My inlaws are coming from Kerala, while my parents are in two minds about coming - the mosquitoes and lack of space in a small apartment being the deterrents. But I think at least my mother would attempt to come.
V still hasnt decided if he wants a big party calling all our neighbours or just our immediate friends and family circle in the city - the latter would mean we can hold it in the flat itself, the former would mean we'll have to use the terrace or the car porch. Only, I hope, we have a gala function for her this time round.
I have been feeling a bit guilty about the way circumstances have prevented special celebrations for her. V has told me that I stop harping about it, and give Mira the feeling that she was less important in the scheme of things. There I havent said it, right?
Unlike Ash, who was born in the classy MMM (the ambience of the place and the patient-doctor relations had made the pregnancy a fun experience save for my gestational diabetes), Mira was born at the modest Mehta's clinic 10 days ahead of her d-day.

At 2 months, on my brother's wedding day.

The midwife had been the same doctor who had been there for much of my previous treatment and pregnancy - in fact she had been the one who had announced that the strip had turned pink, and I had hugged her in my excitement. Dr. Nandita always put up a gruff and stern exterior but I have always felt very comfortable and safe with her. I regret that we could not buy her a box of sweets after Mira was born (since V went off on a Bangkok trip a week after she was born, and I never got round to going to her later).

At 6 months
Mira's first snap was taken a week after she was born, after she was brought home. But she had the privilege of having her maternal and paternal grandmas caring for her in the hospital room and for a while at home.
But I never thought I was going to give birth to a pretty little thing. I think we had fewer expectations when I was expecting Mira than when I was Ash.


And even as friends and family try to discern who she resembles most - me, V, my mom (top) or V's mom (above) - Mira continues to be in a state of flux - ever changing and mercurial.