Ritu turned TWO!!

This post is late by a month. Ritu's second birthday was on July 5th. Since it was a long weekend, we traveled with few of our friends. Ritu loves traveling just like we do. Her birthday according to Malayalam calendar was on July 14th. Arun and I took a day off from work.

We celebrated her birthday in the RV we rented out to visit Shasta lake and Crater lake. The trip was awesome and we all had lots of fun. We stopped at a Walmart and Ritu picked an jungle themed cake. She was thrilled to see a monkey, giraffe and elephant on the cake.

We celebrated her 'pirannal' ( birthday according to star and Malayalam calendar) with few of our friends and a grand sadya( kichadi, pachadi, koottucurry, thoran, avial, parippu, pappadam, pulissery, sambar, moru, palada pradaman). 

This happens to be the only good snap we took on her pirannal

Since we were on our trip during her birthday I couldn't write a post then. I used to write monthly notes till she turned 1. Here is the note to the birthday girl as she turned two:

You are a fun loving girl. You have a blast at any party we attend. You simply love being surrounded with people. You are now obsessed with birthday parties. You pretend the Popsicle making tray to be your cake and the sticks to be the candle. You blow the candles and give us each a piece of cake and pretend eating yourself too. How cute is that.

You are good at solving puzzles. Its fun to watch you sitting still and solving a puzzle because that rarely happens. You love to jump and run around. You want to go on all the big kid slides at the park. You already do all of them and now you are eyeing those big ladders and other stuff for climbing up. You can climb the ladder in the structure which scares me quite a bit but I try not to discourage you. You love walking on the almost 3 foot tall wall in our backyard that is just a feet wide. As if the whole backyard is not enough. Now lets just not talk about how much that scares me. Anyway what is the point when all you say if I try coming closer is 'Amma stay there' with a hand gesture asking me to stop coming any closer.

You love music and dance. It amazed me how quietly you sat down by yourself in front of a stage when we had a cultural evening and two ladies were performing an Indian folk dance. You pulled me to the front of the audience, placed your water cup down and sat down on the floor to watch the dance. You often ask me to dance with you 'lungi dance' and 'barso re'. You have learnt few steps of lungi dance when I was teaching joechettan. You enact happy, sad and angry Ritu. This one below is how you show us happy Ritu.

You start dancing the moment you hear a song. You stop everything you are doing and listen while your chitta sings.

You are compassionate. We have got many notes from teachers that you hugged a friend who was sad. We are so lucky to get so many hugs and kisses from you. Spontaneously. It is so fun. If we make up a sad face you hug us tight and kiss us abundantly.

Your current favorite animal is panda. You love splashing water in tub. You love playing rain while taking bath. You love bath times. You love all fruits, berries, ice cream and cake. You love books, puzzles, toy car, toy kitchen and scooter. You love Teletubbies, singing happy birthday song and ABCD song.

You mostly speak in English though you know Malayalam words quite a bit. That's because all your friends speak in English and you love interacting with all of them. It doesn't bother me. That is totally okay for now. When we return to India I am sure you will pick it up as fast as you picked up English. We try to speak always in our mother tounge Malayalam to you. Achan does a good job compared to me. But for now we are enjoying all those 'how are you friends?', 'please', 'excuse me', 'sorry', 'good night, sleep tight', 'that hurts', 'wake up', 'oh my Goodness', 'wow beautiful'(I get compliments on all of my new dresses) all said in with so much cuteness that we feel like hugging you tight each time you say those.

Love you loads! Hugs and kisses!