I can explain the long absence folks. Infant turned one last week, so we were celebrating with umpteen cake cuttings and we partied the whole week like crazy. Toddler bunked day care, we went out to Jungle, played the whole morning, had a quite afternoon, went to the temple in the evening, cut a cake and ordered pizza for dinner. Boo, Baby Boo, Big Boo and Mr.Big Boo joined us and helped us celebrate. I had baked cupcakes for all the three kids and they all cut their cupcakes with a vengeance. We did a webcast of the cake cutting for my parents, it was fun.

The next day we had a cake cutting and goody bag distribution at toddler and infant’s day care. All the kids had cake and vanilla-chocolate chip icecream.

Last Saturday, we had a big bash with all our friends. We had rented a community building in a park, we had about 50 adults and 20 kids attend the party. We had an entertainer who did face painting, balloon animals and a small magic show. We ordered pizza. I made appetizers, pastas and baked some cookies. I had really put my heart and soul in to every detail like goody bag, cake, hall decoration. I started to work after the kids were in bed and stayed up till 4.00AM every day for the past week – this is to implement the ideas I had sketched out. Time spent on conceiving the ideas – quite a lot, I was practically thinking about this 24X7 for the past couple of months!

We still have the religious celebrations on her star birthday, coming up in two weeks. I have the guest list and menu ready. I will be doing my crazy dance once more and after that we are all done with infant’s first birthday.

For me there has been no questions or doubts about how my children’s birthdays must be celebrated. A BIG BASH IT IS. Sure, it is mostly for me, the kid does not enjoy it a bit, but who cares? Hey, I spend 363 days of the year as a cook, janitor, housekeeper, mother, playmate, teacher, disciplinarian, nurse, constantly working in the background without any compliments. Don’t I deserve two days in limelight? It is not like I just stand there and expect people to oooh and awww me, frankly I work quite hard for it. It feels good to get compliments. It makes me happy.

Also, after becoming a mother, I hardly find time to express myself creatively, the way I see it these parties are a perfect outlet for my imagination. I put in lots of thought about what I cook, how the dish has to be presented, party theme, take home gifts, entertainment etc. I like doing it, I do it. Since it is quite taxing on the purse and a huge strain on the marriage(I snap A LOT at hubby and after every party I am quite surprised that the marriage survived it!), I have decided to celebrate every other year. Birthdays 1,3,5,7 big bash. Birthdays 2,4,6 quite ones at home. After 7, toddler and infant might come up their own ideas for celebrating their birthdays, I would go along with their wishes feeling very sad about missing my adrenaline rush and the good old times I controlled every single detail in their lives.