Avyaan's First Birthday

Avyaan celebrated his first birthday last week, and while I wanted to write a detailed post about the celebrations, along with some photos, based on my experience from the previous photo-heavy post, Blogspot isn't very well suited to photo layout. So I pulled out Sway, something I have tried in the past, but hadn't used in a while. Here's the end result. Enjoy!

4 Month's Worth Mixed Bag

It has been almost a month since my last post, and close to 4 since a detailed one. So much has happened since then. A few notable days and milestones are: 

• A visit to a pumpkin patch
• Recreating Prajakta's maternity shoot photos with Avyaan
• First दशहरा 
• Prajakta's birthday and First visit to a National Park
• Transferring to a crib
• नाना नानी flying back and First Halloween
• Turning 9 months old
• Finally figuring out crawling
• First दिवाली
• First Thanksgiving and drive to Santa Barbara
• First time visiting a mall and looking at Christmas decorations
• Experiencing GLOW at the South Coast Botanic Garden
• Turning 10 months old
• First Christmas
• Snow (almost) at Grapevine
• New Year's Eve
• Turning 11 months old
• First Lohri

While each of these deserves an elaborate post to do justice, I have now realized that I lack the discipline to do that, so a few lines on each will have to do.

There's an empty plot behind the street where we live. During Thanksgiving time it turns into a Pumpkin Patch, and a Christmas Tree patch post that. We knew we won't be able to do much on actual Halloween Day since Prajakta's parents were flying back to India that afternoon, so we visited the patch and took some photos with Avyaan in his specially ordered Halloween onesie.

Back in January 2020, I had conducted a maternity photoshoot for Prajakta at the South Coast Botanic Garden in Palos Verdes, and ever since then, we wanted to create a before and after, or "8 months in vs 8 months out" set. So, when Avyaan turned 8 months old in October, we returned to the garden, dressed up in the same clothes we had worn during the maternity shoot.

अष्टमी was on October 24th and we had a small पूजा at home where we dressed up Avyaan in traditional Indian attire, ended the week-long fast. On October 25th, दशहरा, we worshipped our tools of trade followed up by a visit to the Hanuman Temple.

October 26th being Prajakta's birthday, we decided to visit Joshua Tree National Park. However, we failed to account for the weather and thus, could only venture out of the car for very few minutes. The only time Avyaan came out of the car was at Skull Rock and there too, he burst into tears within seconds due to the strong winds and the cold. We could only take one photo of him, that too without him looking in the camera. Eventually, we drove home post-sunset, in time to celebrate Prajakta's birthday with a cake cutting and dinner before calling it a day.

The pediatrician had been asking us on every visit to have Avyaan sleep in a crib, so we caved in and brought one home. The idea was to have him get used to the crib before the grandparents go back so that we don't have to hold him the whole time he sleeps. The plan failed miserably as months of sleeping in our arms and laps had made him accustomed to the arrangement and even after several months of training attempts, he does not sleep in the crib for long. If it is daytime, he has to be taken in the lap after 45 minutes or so, and at night, he has to be transferred to our bed after a couple of hours.

Halloween day was also the day the grandparents flew back home after spending almost a year with us. As a farewell gift, I made them a collage of their time with us which now hangs in their living room in India.

The 9th month birthday in November was the first time when it was just the three of us celebrating something, but we did video-call everyone.

Shortly after his 9 month birthday, he finally figured out crawling properly, with his head held up. Unfortunately, we don't have a video of the exact moment when he first crawled properly, but here's a small animation Google created from a video we took when he was enamored by Prajakta's दुपट्टा on करवा चौथ evening. Here you can see him getting the movement almost right, but at this time he was still taking only a couple of steps, getting tired, and then sitting down. And there's one more from a couple of weeks later of him chasing the ball around the house.

Diwali, the big daddy of all Indian festivals, is when it hits hardest to not have your family around. It being Avyaan's first, not being together was extra painful for everyone, but we still had some fun decorating the house, making laddoos, lighting up the lamps, and playing with sparklers.

Thanksgiving weekend this time was nothing like other thanksgiving. First of all, we didn't go into any stores, not that many were open this time. Secondly, we didn't even shop much, whatever little we got, was baby stuff. So we drove to Sepulveda Basin and Balboa Park one day, and Santa Barbara the other day. The Rose Garden opposite the Old Mission Santa Barbara was Avyaan's first time encountering grass and he simply launched himself in a crawling spree, forgetting that he was with us.

The moment Thanksgiving is over, it is of course time for Christmas decorations and we live very close to the Del Amo Mall, one of the biggest malls in the US. We didn't do a Santa photo, but we still wanted to show Avyaan the decorations, especially since he had never been to a mall. So, on a weekday, around closing time, to ensure there won't be many people around, we went to the mall and Avyaan was amazed to look at all the lights and tress and reindeer. We also walked around the Candy Cane lane, a neighborhood in Torrance famous for their outlandish holiday decoration. Sometime around Christmas, we also went to the Grove, another mall famous for its Christmas Tree, but it was super crowded, so we only spent a few minutes there.

South Coast Botanic Garden is one of my favorite places, in case you didn't already know that. So, when they announced their GLOW installation, and a discounted price for members, it was a given that we will be visiting. We went in early December and it was a sight to behold. They had magically transformed the garden into an undersea oasis. The cactus garden was especially dazzling as a coral reef. Avyaan did enjoy for a while but then became cranky as it was getting closer to his bedtime. Even though we could have spent more time, the couple of hours we did spend, were enjoyable.

For the 10 month birthday in December, we tried to do some fancy decoration on the cake since December is a pretty festive month. But Avyaan was sleepy during most of the cake cutting and photo session, resulting in drunk looking photos.

Come Christmas time, Prajakta breaks open the additional Christmas decoration, since the Diwali decorations stay up till the New Year. We also got a Santa Suit for Avyaan and visited the Santa Monica 3rd Street Promenade on Christmas Day. I have never seen the promenade less crowded!

Los Angeles is not a place one associates with snow, but we have ample high altitude areas within a couple of hours' drive that get plenty of snow. So when it snowed in the mountains, we wanted to visit. Big Bear is usually the first choice for everyone, precisely why we wanted to avoid going there. We had always heard about the Grapevine area on the I5, so decided to visit Frazier Mountain Park. Turns out we weren't the only ones with that idea and by the time we got there, the police had blocked off the area and entry was allowed to local residents only. We drove a few miles further north to Tejon Outlet where we shopped for Avyaan, got some coffee and headed back, stopping at Pyramid Lake and Castaic Lagoon for a few photos.

New Year's Eve was spent at home because by then California was well under lockdown again and all events had been cancelled. So we brought out our party gear from an earlier celebration and listened to the Justin Bieber concert which was free for T-Mobile customers, while Avyaan played drums on the table to his own beat.

The 11 month celebration featured another home made cake decorated with sliced almonds and cashews. By now Avyaan had started understanding that a cake means something special is about to happen.

Lohri being a major Punjabi festival, and this time being Avyaan's first, would have been a huge celebration had we been in India, but there wasn't much of a celebration because:

a) Not many people in the US are aware of Lohri

b) Fire regulations in SoCal wpuldn't allow for an open fire, except with prior permission in designated areas

c) Mom was hospitalized with COVID-19

So, we had a small celebration at home where we used an old cake tin as the enclosure and shredded papers as fuel to have a makeshift bonfire and take some photos while videocalling mom in the hospital and dad at home.

That brings us to today, Prajakta and my 6th wedding anniversary and 3 days before Avyaan's first birthday. With Avyaan's birthday around the corner, the anniversary has taken a backseat and we are getting a feeling that this is going to be a forever thing. I guess that's what being a parent means.

Hopefully my next post won't be 4 months in the making :)