Ethnic Chic Mishti

Some Pictures of little mishti in traditional Tamil dress.

Little naughty Shahana in her element!

Shahana's first birthday!

Our little mishti celebrated her first birthday on the 27th of september 2008. Quite an occassion in our lives by all standards. Quite an eventful one too. Because Right after that weekend, I embraced a big career change. I joined my new employment and the the interesting fact about this new assignment is that, in about 3 weeks time, Anshu will also be joining me at the same place. But then one can read all about it at http://anandspeak.blogspot.com. Here, we will talk about Shahana's party.
This was one roller-coaster ride, right from the word go! We had some vague idea in mind about how we want this event to be. And we started off, with just that threadbare thought in our minds. The first step as usual was 'where'? Delhi was an obvious choice but due to the recent developments in our career fronts, it was summarily rejected. It became very apparent that we will be celebrating in Bangalore. Once that was decided, another thing stared right at our faces was that most of our families may not be able to make it here because we are the only branches of our respective family trees, swaying in Bangalore! Nevertheless, we decided to make the most of what we did have. And thanks to the current state of technology, I was sure that I could share those magical moments right here on Misthi's blog, for everyone to relive that momentuous occassion.
The banquet hall was finalized and we got to experience the power of outsourcing first hand. I, for one, was quite amazed at the availability of dedicated professionals willing to take care of end-to-end solutions, such as decorations, event management etc. All that we had to do was to choose the theme that we wanted and tell them the date......Voila! Taken care of. All that we needed to do was show up on the said date, all dressed up and all and everything was arranged and in-place. How very convinient!
Of course, as an afterthought, I feel that the romance of preparing for a birthday party, at home, doing all the decorations yourselves, getting hassled over not finding the right colored baloons, etc. is taken away. But then these are changing times. We are all the more time starved than the previous generation and if we have an opportunity to pay our way out of stress, we usually do so, without the guilt. And one has to agree that no matter how much effort one puts, it may probably never matchup to the professional results which an agency is willing to give you, for a consideration. All said and done, at the end of the day, it was a very happy evening and a memorable one too. And that is all that matters.

Click on the link below for the pictures. http://picasaweb.google.com/talk2anand/ShahanaS1stBday#

Shahana is going to be one year old, come September!

The countdown has officially begun. Although we have been anticipating the day eagerly, the 'official start' happened yesterday, when we paid a token advance to book a banquet hall. Little Shahana is on the threshold of entering into her second year.....And just about ready to have her first real birthday.

Wow, time does fly. The memory of my little baby, being handed over in a pink and red bundle, by the nurse, is still fresh in my mind. She was so small and frail. Over the last year, we have seen her grow and evolve from a tiny little infant to a cute & mischeivious baby. No matter what she does around the house, one smile and all is forgiven! Other than marvelling at our little darling and here feats, it has also been a moment of truth for us as parents. Parenting, truly is tough. Especially so on the mother. At times it becomes physically stressful. Kudos to Anshu for sailing through it all with elan.

So now we look forward to the celebrations (ofcourse, pictures to follow) and take a moment to thank the almighty to grant us the privilege of being parents of such an lovely angel.

Time flies......and how!

It seems like yesterday when Anshu and I were eagerly counting the days leading to the big event when we will be blessed with our very own bundle of joy.

Little Shahana came into our lives and weaved her magic. And suddenly she is now 10+ months old , looking forward to have her very first birthday! Man...that was fast! When she was born, she was such a quiet little baby who has transformed into a little lovable devil. There is nothing, that I can think of, in the house, that has not been a victim of her raging curiosity. One of the recent casualties was our Television Stand. We never knew that the decorative wood panel was detachable, until our darling Mishti yanked it right off :-).

Her latest milestone is that she tries really hard to stand and walk all by herself. And she does manage to stand for about 10-15 seconds, before plonking herself down.

The other little thing is that she was visited by the tooth fairy! Her two little lower teeth show when she flashes her 10000 watt smile. It only adds to her already high mischeif quotient!

It certainly gets more and more exciting being a parent – a feeling which both Anshu and I are enjoying to the fullest (although we do have our 'driven up a wall' moments sometimes...but what the heck?).

CLICK HERE for the pictures.. or copy paste the below link on your browser's address window.

http://picasaweb.google.com/talk2anand/NaughtyMishti2

The many moods of the princess...

Shahana is getting naughtier, with each passing day. Every day brings with it some or the other new mischief that she has been upto. Now that she has begun to walk around (in her walker) the house, we have to be extremely careful about anything dangling here and there. Because it is nothing but an invitation for her to pull it over herself.
Here are some of here myriad of moods, caught on camera.

Moonwalker Mishti....

The latest additions to Mishtu's arsenal of toys is a baby walker. We thought it was a bit early but what the heck? When we realized that Mishti was more keen on standing up than crawling, we went ahead and got her one.....And man! are we surprised?? She took to it like fish to water...and she now loves to moonwalk around the house in her newest toy, which has added to her mobility by a great extent.

On our part, we re-arranged the furniture in the living room, so that she has enough space to float around the room, as per her whims and fancies.. I must say that this new acquisition has added an immense sense of deja'vu to her little existence. And all of a sudden she is elevated 2 feet above the ground and almost every item around the house is suddenly "within reach". That is certainly causing a bit of a concern to us! Now we need to work towards keeping all the stray wires and other "hangables" out of reach of little Mishti, so that she doesn't end up pulling something over her head.

All said and done, it is certainly a delight to see her enjoy her new found mobility. That naughtly smile on her face, when she flits around the house, says it all. Worth a million bucks!!!!!

I am posting this from work so don't have any pictures. But will upload them soon and post the link right here.

Offlate there has been a little dry spell in our little girl's blog. That;s purely because, as she grows, she keeps us completely engrossed in taking care of her needs that we don't have any time left for anything else! Well, almost. Now that Mishti tries to engage a conversation in her own style of melodious gibberish baby talk, it becomes more and more enticing to play with her.And this girl indeed is picking up things past. At only 6 1/2 months old, she has become extremely mobile. She tries her best to crawl but looks like she will skip this stage and straightaway leapfrog into standing and walking, because that is what we find her trying to do most of the time. Yesterday, she had a nasty fall, while trying to stand. But then that's all part of growing up :). There are a ton of recent pics, so I will sift through the pile and upload the good ones soon. For now, have fun watching this little magazine cover sample (click to enlarge), which I tried to create for Mishti, using one of here recent pictures.
More to come....watch this space!