With no plans for a full-fledged celebration, neither an ad-hoc plan happening, birthday would be made special with a trip to the Bannerghatta zoo where Niya would get a chance to interact with the animals that she has so far only seen on TV or in charts. I woke up early and went to play football with Thoma and friends.Niya had been unwell for sometime.Her cold and cough was still strong.Myself, Divya and Divya's parents got ready for the trip but seeing that Niya was still weak, we decided to cancel the trip to Bannerghatta and replaced it with a trip to our yet-to-be-occupied flat in whitefield
Birthday dress shopping had been done the earlier day.Niya herself chose a red dress for herself.We showed her various dresses and asked her which one she liked and she always pointed to this one.
For her toy gift, she received a set of Alphabet tokens.She was all involvement as she placed the letters in their placeholders on the board.
Grandma prepared tasty samiya payasam.After an early lunch, we left to the flat.Post lunch, Niya started showing signs of improvement.Her playfulness struggled to break through her sore throat and feeble voice.She kept improving.We went to Maniyan's home first where Adi vaava and Niya played.
Then we reached the flat where Niya kept playing with the switches in various rooms.As I was busy trying to get the key for the apartment,I could not spend much time with Niya.From the flat, we moved to the
childrens' play area where Divya helped Niya play.
On the return trip,birthday resumed limelight that had been temporarily overshadowed by the flat. We stopped at coffee day and bought the choco forest birthday cake.As Divya's friends were slated to come home, we stopped the car and ordered ghee rice , appam , pepper chicken , chicken varuththarachchathu from 'Tharavadu' hotel. The cake might not be sufficient for sharing with neighbors.So one more cake was bought at Sweet Chariot.Grandparents had brought birthday goodies - fancy candle and happy birthday letters.
As it was getting late , we decided to cut the butterscotch cake and share with our neighbors.So, the first birthday cake that Niya cut expertly after blowing the candle was of butterscotch flavor.
That is right, she cut a second one as well a little later closer to her birth time.(10:50 PM). Well , Divya's friends could not turn up as one of their friend met with a bike accident.So, chocolate was brought out , happy birthday letters were placed on the cake and lit.Lighting up the happy birthday candles took so much time that the first lit letters started melting down on the cake.Niya blew off all the letter candles as well as the age candle.
