Celebrate Good Times!

Holiday season is finally over.  From mid-October to mid-Jan I was in non-stop party mode.  Not the raging, at the club all night in my trashy outfit, drinking and dancing the night away kind of partying.  That kind of partying is a distant memory. I am talking about the kind of partying you do when you have a newborn and find yourself at home most of the time or at the home of other friends with little babies.

These parties go something like this.  First you try to get ready. You want to get out of the t-shirt and yoga pants you spent most of your day in (the same ones the baby spent most of the day spitting up on) and dress up a little, do your hair, wear some makeup. I mean you are going out and these days that alone is a treat.  So you give the baby to your significant other.  Somewhere in the middle of doing your hair or your make up the baby starts crying, the husband needs help. You go and take over and in so doing you have eaten up the little time you had to get ready. So now instead of leisurely doing your hair or trying that new eye makeup trick you read about in this month’s Cosmo you have to speed things up. For me, that usually means leaving the natural waves in my locks to air dry rather than blow drying them straight.  I call it my beach goddess look just to make myself feel like it was intentional.  The beach goddess look doesn’t require much make up so I do my five minute face in under five minutes and get dressed.

Once you have managed to pull yourself together, you then have the fun task of running around the house making sure baby is ready, the baby bag is packed and then begin you can begin process of getting baby in the car and finally you are off to the party. By that time, if you are anything like me, you are already hot and sweaty so a quick refresh (and I mean quick) is required. At the party, you meet the other mommas who faced similar circumstances while getting ready.  They have their hair in a ponytail or a bun.  It’s their sleek and sexy out of the face look.  It’s all the rage with new moms.

These parties have music, food and definitely drinks of the alcoholic variety.  But before the mommas can indulge in any adult beverages they need to get the kids situated.  Conversations are interrupted to change diapers, for feedings, and hopefully the final interruption is putting these little ones to sleep.  As the kids have gotten bigger, they are sleeping longer which means more time for mommas to have fun (usually talking about their babies, complaining about husbands or talking about people who don’t have babies).

For me, the best part of these parties is taking pictures of the kids. This was especially hilarious on Halloween.  We hosted a mini-Halloween party for our friends with new babies.  We had a darling little pumpkin, a crawling lady bug and a mini Darth Vader, cape and all.  We placed all three babies on the couch and then three sets of parents made gallant attempts to get their kids to look at the camera preferably while giving one of their fabulous baby smiles.  I have never laughed so hard looking at all of us parents trying so hard to get our kids to smile at the same time.  The kids looked freaked out and no wonder with six adults jumping up and down making various sounds and gestures in the hopes of getting the desired reaction from our babies.

Closely following Halloween was Diwali, the Indian festival of lights, where my baby decided to throw a wrench in my plans by screaming hysterically in front of the temple, so much so we never got out of the car to go inside.  We then headed to a Diwali party where my normally happy baby decided to throw up all over my new Indian outfit. We were so defeated from picture taking on Halloween that we didn’t even try to get a cute Diwali picture.

She did much better when it came to Thanksgiving and Christmas.  These were big celebrations at home with her Nani and loads of family and friends.  Many of these friends and family where meeting our little one for the first time.  By the time these celebrations came along, my little princess turned into quite a ham. I swear this four month old has learned to pose for the camera and now photographs like a champ. The moments are perfectly captured, including an awesome pic with Santa.

We capped the holiday season with a Lohri party at our house. Lohri is a bonfire party that rings in the New Year and is mostly celebrated by people in Northern India. We made it a traditional affair complete with popcorn, peanut brittle, jaggery and traditional Punjabi meal of saag and makki di roti. It was a small event but a fantastic one that I was determined to have. I really wanted to celebrate Lohri for all the new babies in our friends circle, and especially for my little baby.  Of course, my baby was asleep before we lit our bonfire and sang songs but she will have plenty of (sleepy) pictures of herself from the event.

Now that the celebrations have quieted down, I am excited to start planning her first birthday.  Only 7 months to go! Keep the celebrations coming!