My musings: 3 rd birthday

A week before R's birthday, I called up his Montessori and spoke to the principal there to know how many students are there in his class so that we could be well-prepared. In turn the principal told me that I'd receive a formal invite in R's diary about the celebrations and the details would be mentioned therein.

Sure enough I received the note written by R's teacher inviting us parents to the school on the D-day. Equipped with sweets to be distributed, the husband and I arrived at the school at the time mentioned. The welcome notice board at the school carries the names of the children who celebrate their birthdays in the current month and in addition, children who celebrate their birthdays on the particular day also have their recent snap pinned up. This, I had noticed on the earlier visits too. As expected, the board had R's name and snap:

Since there was another child sharing R's birthday that day, the parents of that child were present too. I had not really spoken to any other parent about what kind of celebrations are done at school, so I was quite clueless on what to expect. Even as we sat wondering, two cute (older to R in age) girls from R's environment (the classes in R's school are called environments and they have a mixed-age group in each environment- a Montessori peculiarity) came out to invite each set of parents. How cute!

We were ushered into R's class, where there was a huge cut out of the Sun was kept on a table.

R was called out and given a globe to hold. He then took the globe and circumambulated the Sun thrice as the rest of the class sang the following song:

Here we go round the sun

until the year is done..

The idea is to go around the sun as many times as the age of the child. Each completed round marks the completion of the year- just as the earth takes a year to complete a revolution- with the globe symbolizing the Earth. What an innovative way to teach the kid about Geography! Of course, R may not understand the logic and analogy yet, but the idea is definitely interesting. After the completion of each year/ round, the child was made to pause while the teacher with the help of the parents recounted the important milestone that the child may have crossed at that age. Then the mandatory birthday song was sung, at the end of which the class clapped for the child- the number of claps corresponded to the age of the child with one additional clap for good luck- again an unusual practice that I came across.

R was given a hand-made birthday card and a collection of photo-memories from his previous birthdays (they had requested for his year-wise photographs well in advance) along with an appropriate one-line caption for each of the photo.

The birthday card

The golden moments card

I was touched by the effort put in by the teachers to make a child's birthday special. There were no balloons or cake but the time spent to render a warm and personal touch by making such wonderful cards and capture the memories in a beautiful manner was far more precious- something that could be cherished by the kids and their parents for years to come.

After going over several times in my head and discussing it with hubby about whether we needed a birthday party for R, we decided that this time, we shall have one at home with all his friends over. Even after making a conservative guest list, I hit a figure of 35 odd invitees including the children and adults. Phew! all of them in my house for an evening had me in jitters. I had woken up to the party call just 10 days prior to the D-day, so that left me with just ample time to pull up my socks and hit the action button.

I was going to outsource all the food since I have neither the passion, ability or the resources to cook up a party menu for so many. It had to be all finger foods was something I was sure of. As a first order menu, I decided on Dhokla, some non-spicy kababs, finger chips, popcorn, cake and juice. Now, finding a good joint supplying these at a reasonable rate was a challenge. Most of the restaurants nearby were big names who would not undertake a relatively smallish order and also with their rates, even if I had managed a bargain, it would've still been a tall amount for a homely affair. Totally not worth it.

As I began my hunt for suitable eating joints in the vicinity, I realized how inadequate I was in terms of knowing my neighbourhood well. But, trust the internet and the blogosphere to come to the rescue. In the end, it was the typical case of overlooking something that was right under my nose. We have passed by this place practically every other weekend and I'd even taken note of the catchy name and made a mental note several times to check out the place. Obviously, that never happened and memory too failed to rise up to the occasion.

For those interested and lazy to click on the link above, the joint Chaipatty-a lovely name, right?- is a charming, warm and cozy place to have amazing snacks and kullad chai. Not a big place in terms of area (at least this branch- they are located in four branches around B'lore) but I'd recommend this place for anyone looking to have good food and a quiet conversation or even spend time alone with a book for company. They have a few books and magazines stacked up for reading. If you are still particular, there is even justbooks right next door.

We sampled and ordered paneer pakodas and cheese balls from Chaipatty- finger chips and kababs were dropped from the menu instead.The dhoklas were to come from a different place. With the food and cake ordered, I tackled the rest of the itinerary- decorations, props and the (uber essential) return gifts without which no kid party ever ends!-in the next couple of days. Despite starting on the preparations a tad late, I managed to put together the logistics well in time.

The party was quite a success with almost all the invitees turning up, food being appreciated and most importantly, the kids having a super duper gala time. For a moment I thought I'd go deaf with all the chaotic, noisy merry making all over. It's a different story that in the aftermath place looked like it was hit by Sandy. But, what the heck, we had a great time!

Leaving you with some pics...