Picnic in the Park

Today was a wonderful day - the sun was out after a long time, the sky was blue and there were some white fluffy clouds floating by in the gentle breeze. Mihir was invited to a picnic in the park - it was a birthday party for three year old Anoushka (my sister-in-law's sister-in-law's daughter). We had a long journey to reach the picnic spot, and Mihir quite enjoyed the journey - he was babbling his baby songs in the tube - to the amusement of many commuters and also managed to have a short nap, just as we reached our destination. While Mihir loves people, he also gets a little flustered around older, noisier kids. But he surprised me today, and to my delight, really enjoyed himself. He's started sitting up without support a couple of weeks back and this is the first time he was in the park since he reached that milestone (for that i have this unpredictable English weather to blame and my laziness). So he was on this mat laid out on the lawn, and was wearing a pointy birthday hat and trying to launch himself into a crawl - much like a frog would leap from a water lily. How he enjoyed pulling out the blades of grass, and crunching up the dried leaves and picking up dried twigs. I had my hands full keeping everything away from his mouth. And all along he was babbling and screeching out with delight and everytime he caught someone's eye he had a huge beaming smile - showing of his little pearly whites. So after about an hour of enjoying all the party fun, it was time to return. On the return journey, he slept soundly and we reached home just in time as the raindrops came down thick and heavy. By the time he slept for the day, the sun was out again with a lovely bright rainbow, almost as if saying - ma, it was such a lovely day today, thank you so much and dont forget to thank Anoushka - wish you a very happy birthday.