Meera’s first birthday

Meera turns ONE today.

This last year has been an amazing journey with the new experience of raising two kids and working at the same time. I know lots of people do it, but it does not change the experience. If you think keeping up with one kid was tough, try having a second one. It doubles the pleasure and fun and quadruples the exhaustion. But, it’s very worth it in the end.

Incidentally, today also marks the completion of 2 months since Shivam got diagnosed with Leukemia.

Yesterday was one the busiest days for Shivam and Urmila. When both of them crashed late night, they were exhausted beyond imagination. The day started with Ms. Leah coming over to play with Shivam at 9 AM. They played untiringly till noon with Shivam going for his first round of sleep. Shivam is totally in awe of Ms. Leah and she is an equally amazing teacher and mentor.

After a good nap of around 3 hours, Shivam got up and was soon joined by Aniket for a play date. Aniket had brought 2 toy helicopters and they both ran around the house. This is where Urmila, the “power” mom comes into the picture. I was amazed to see her energy as she ran along with the kids, making sure they are safe and enjoying the games at the same time. She played legos with them. She made a full train set and drove trains with them. She ran beside them when they were cycling around the house. And the biggest challenge of all: How to keep Meera away who just wanted to be with Aniket all the time. Yes, it was a pleasure of see all 4 of them rolled into a ball moving, shouting and screaming with glee around the house. Aniket was fabulous with Shivam and contrary to his parents fears, he was gentle, kind and very understanding while playing with Shivam. Very well trained boy. And extremely smart like his parents.

Aniket left around 5:30 PM (after Anjan returned from his alleged “shopping trip”.). Soon Shilpa, Yuvraj and Jhanvi stopped by and Shivam and Meera again got busy with her. I was enjoying playing the devil’s advocate role and teaching the kids all wrong things and Urmila and Shilpa were trying to undo those them. By mistake, I opened the front doors and then both kids wanted to go out for a walk. This was a challenge as Shivam is not supposed to go under sun while his chemo treatment is on. After some superb delay tactics from Urmila, it was finally safe to take the kids out. On the way, Shivam met his Rutwick chachu who was coming from a whole day of the cricket field. The idea of walking was completely abandoned by Shivam at this point and he wanted a ride back with his chachu. We came back and everybody took a moment to rest.

Late evening, Girish, June, her mom and Rohan came over to visit Shivam. Shivam and Meera enjoyed the little baby and Shivam acted very matured with Rohan offering him toys and making sounds to keep him entertained. By 10:30 PM, Shivam was absolutely worn out and crashed in Urmila’s arms. She took him to bed and he slept immediately.

Mummy had a hard day also trying to keep up with feeding everybody and supplying a constant stream of tea and snacks. She, again, is an remarkable women with boundless energy. Like mother, like grandma.

Somebody asked on my previous post about Kaju masala. It’s hard to explain the “taste” over text, but in short, it’s cashew nuts soaked and simmered in rich gravy of tomato paste, finely grinded cashews, almonds and other nuts, milk, and tons of Indian spices. Unfortunately, it’s not available in most Indian restaurants because of the expensive nature of it’s ingredients. It’s generally eaten with some Indian bread (like naan or roti). Phulka again is a traditional Indian bread not generally served in restaurants. But if you bribe my mother-in-law enough, maybe she will make it for you :-)