To Gauri - from Daddy (special post - Daddy first Post)

Happy Diwali my Love. This is your first diwali today with us and I am so happy and fortunate to celebrate it with you and your mommy. You have brought a huge change in our life, attitude and priorities, almost as if dust is cleared and we can see things clearly as to what matters in life. I think about the last 1 year of our life, your first birthday and exciting journey of planning your birthday party.
Your mommy started planning for your birthday more than 3 months ago, because we wanted to celebrate you coming into our lives with friends and family together, who have been incredibly excited about you. I know that we are lucky to have you in our life but in some sense I also believe that you are also very lucky to receive so much love from each and every person in our family and friends. Whenever you are with them, they talk about you, when they hold you, the love is oozing from their eyes, words and kisses.
We deliberated on the theme of the birthday for quite long. There was Elmo, Dora, princess Pooh etc. but we wanted to remember this year in a way that relates to you. We realized that "Strawberry" is your favorite food this year and it always give us immense pleasure to see you eat those. So what better theme than strawberry? This is how we came up with your Birthday theme.

Your Mommy created an invitation card with great love, and sent it to our friends and family. I am not sure how to thank all the people for the incredible effort of coming to the party despite not so favorable weather, and specially those who dove over 150 miles just for your birthday and others who flew 1500 miles for 2 days to be with you on this milestone.

I think the highlight of the party was the cake, if you can take one good thing from your mom then it should be persistence. She wanted a cake in a strawberry shape and that to something you can eat given that you cannot eat dairy or eggs. Long story short, after going to 5 bakers, tasting several toppings, creams, fillings etc, she finalized a vegan Strawberry flavored cake with strawberry Mousse from a custom baker. I must say that this is something that makes your mommy the incredible women she is.

Day before your birthday was really special as your mummy and I remembered this time last year, from the doctors visit, to Chinese food and how she was going through the labor and I was preparing the music to play in the delivery room from various CD to the i-pod from 10:00 PM to 5:00 AM at home before going to the hospital. How thrilled she was when she saw you for the first time and gave wonderful compliments to Dr. Simpson and the nurses Lestra and Alice on your arrival.

Day of the party started with calls from Nanu, Dadu, Bua, Mausi, Chacha and others calling to give you blessings and with Anubhav and Arvind, Abhinav mama (uncle) running around to prepare for decorating the place on the beach and getting other things ready. But the lord of rains and winds also wanted to celebrate your birthday just like janmastami and they came down with full force but it did not stop Harry chacha, Vipin Tauji, Supriya Mausi, Aarti Mausi and parents of your little friends to drive from New Jersey, Hartford and Boston etc to come and give you blessings.
You ran around in the party, danced with aunt Chantal, played with Shealyn, Brooke, Aryan, Tommy, Ethan and all the other kids and were happy the whole evening; you even clapped after cutting your own cake. Party ended with me making paan for the guests which Barry almost thought was a prank.

Day after the party was equally fun when you opened the gifts, I am almost certain that you enjoyed tearing the wrappers more than the gift and the best gift of all was the box of the telephone that you even took to bed with you that night.

This day makes me happy and sad, happy to see you grow and do new things but sad that you have grown 1 year in a blink. I do not know how can I hold on to all the memories that you have given us. Details of your smiles, cute little gestures, saying baba, papa, mum-mum and all the other things you do. Please don’t grow that fast, make the days longer, give us more time to savor each moment and better memory to hold on to all the things and bigger heart to keep all the love you have given us.

I love you my love.... yours baba (daddy)