Jan 25
A weekend with the girls. Enjoy the photos!
Jan 24
Akshara doesn’t need much prompting to pose for photographs and using props seems to come naturally to her 
. We had just got down for lunch at a road-side restaurant. I was commenting to Vidhya on how good the evening light was and there Akshara was, ready for an impromptu photo session along with the pot.
Laya also joined in and was initially pretty confused at what was happening. She needed a bit of reassurance from Akshara that all such twisting and turning was part of the “fun”.
Once Laya understood the purpose, her smile came out and the pair were up to what they do best!
Jan 11
We had been to Daman and Silvassa for the new year weekend. We stayed at Daman and the Jampore beach was a short drive from the hotel. I have never seen such significant low/high tides and the difference between the two here was more than a kilometre! So, that meant that there was lot of soft wet sand on the beach for quite a distance which added to the fun.
It didn’t take long for Akshara to realise that wet soft sand was actually a cool thing to play with. So, within minutes she started to do what kids love to do, get messy!
Seeing others around, i guess that she started feeling stupid being the only one with slippers on. Off went the crocs. Somehow, this delicate balancing act of getting her crocs off without tipping over made her feel very proud.
With Shriya for company, she began exploring the vastness of the shore. They were very curious about the reflection which made Akshara say “touch Akshara” (the reflection!), which made Vidhya say “Oh! No”.
We walked all the way to meet the waves. It was difficult to make Shriya and Akshara come back as they enjoyed the small waves hitting their even smaller feet. But, as always, the pretext of a photo session and some running around on the sand did get Akshara back.
All that running around on the sand did make Akshara tired. So tired that she wasn’t willing share a coconut and wanted one of her own.
Sep 24
Last year, it was the season of the swine flu in Pune and we had Akshara’s first birthday party in Chennai instead of Pune. This year, the media had more interesting things than swine flu to concentrate on and thus we could have a party in Pune.
On her birthday, we were in Chennai and we did a small family get-together and cut a cake. Vidhya wanted a cake with a 3d model of the characters in “In the night garden”, but finding cake shops (within few days) capable of making one based on a photo was tough. Cakes n’Bakes in Nungambakkam were ready to do it, but they wanted a colour printout A3 size! There was a shop close to our house (Cake point) and the guy said that they can put any photo on a cake and it would be an edile layout. Usually, there is a thin strip of plastic paper kept on the cake which is removed before the cake is cut. We didn’t want this, we wanted the photo to be edible and blend in with the cake. We chose the teletubbies photo and the guy did a good job.
We had filled the room with balloons overnight so that Akshara would see them as soon as she woke up on her birthday. She liked the balloons a lot and the entire day was spent in the company of one balloon or the other!
Our families (vidhya’s and our’s) also went to a dinner “party” on the occassion to GRT Grand (the same place where we had Akshara’s first birthday). Akshara and Laya had lot of fun at the dinner, which meant that more time was spent on controlling them rather than on enjoying the food. Before someone asks, yes, Askshara had a cast on for around 10 days last month, because she had hurt her elbow while playing.
Vidhya had been training Akshara for few days before her birthday on how to blow the candle. She was able to replicate the action perfectly albeit the flow of air! Sriram had also invited members of his apartment gang. Akshara was only too glad at the photo requests.
I dont know whether Akshara has been seeing too much of Jayalalitha or Mayawati on TV, but she suddenly decided to act “holy” after the crown went on her and went on a blessing spree!
Back in Pune, we had the birthday party in one of the community halls in Magarpatta. Vidhya wanted to “theme” the party on something which Akshara would recognise. Farm animals, it was then. So, we had ordered a farm theme cake at Copper Chocs and also had animal shaped cookies done at the same place. The cookies had come out better than our expectation. The decorations at the hall also included cutouts of farm animals and a small barn (with hay) at one corner. There was also a tattoo guy who gave all the kids tattoos of their choice.
We wanted to personalize the return gifts. So, Vidhya made the bags with chart paper and ribbons and got Akshara to imprint her hand on all the bags. It was a bit messy, but fun I had also made some thank you cards with Akshara’s photo and these were stuck on each of the bags. The teddy bears were cut out from a wrapping paper we had.
Akshara’s candle blowing skills didn’t improve much, but she was atleast consistent enough for the photos to give an impressions that she is blowing out the candles. Akshara enjoyed the attention she got from her friends and had fun during the party.
And, of course, she loved all the gifts she got!
