Of pictures and gifts....

We (our family that had gotten together for few days) had a very blessed and fun weekend. We had lots of events planned, and although it was stressful and tiring, we managed to enjoy each event. The best was the daughter's second birthday party - it was an absolute blast - so much better than her 1-year birthday party where a few things did not go as smoothly as planned and there were other personal issues to deal with which had made me very unhappy from within during that time. This year it was just so relaxed and peaceful.....everything was taken care of and planned to perfection.....the venue we selected was perfect.....and even though I had made backup arrangements for things that could possibly go wrong, I did not have to resort to any of those. Most of all, everyone invited had fun, and was happy to be part of the celebrations.

With digital photography these days, we have the luxury of snapping every moment. We fill up lots of GB's of disk space to store these precious memories. As is evident from all the pictures I post on this blog, I love to click pictures too. I try to be good about discarding the ones that are not that great.....and these days, I try to stick to my own rule of not taking the camera at other people's events. However, when the babies are so young....they are changing everyday, learning new things everyday, it is hard to resist capturing these fleeting moments. So I don't resist much and snap away.

So what is the issue? What is bothering me since the party is the fact that so many people have asked me for pictures from the party already. They know I am very prompt at uploading them right away, AND sharing them with whoever attended the event, so they are eagerly waiting to see them. However, the people who have pinged for pictures are precisely the ones who never bother to share their own. Such hypocrites! I find it extremely rude when folks never share pictures of an event that I was a part of with me. And these days, it's not just my pictures. They happily pose with my daughter, or take pictures of their kids with my daughter, but they never bother to share. Most of the times, I don't ask, but when the person is close enough, I ask, and they still don't bother to email me a link.

This falls under the category of things that I am sensitive about (much like responding to emails, etc) but it seems others don't care as much.

Nothing much I can do about it - I now only share with folks who share with me.....and I put an occasional photo on Facebook for everyone to see. Rest all are my personal memories which are only mine to cherish for years to come!

I also took some time out after dinner last night to open all the gifts. We had specifically mentioned in our evite that we don't expect presents and had requested guests not to bring any. However, most of them got something. Our very close friends who meet us often, who come to play with our child, who truly and genuinely care for us, had either already given us a gift or would give something useful to us later. But the rest of the lot - what can I say? Except for our neighbor (who is non-Indian) and one other non-Indian friend of ours, the rest of the people got such crappy junk stuff. These are the folks who invite us to their kids birthdays, and we always give gift cards, cash or books. These are the folks who have kids of their own....most of their kids are older than ours so they should know what is useful and what is not. They clearly lack common sense and appropriate reciprocation.....they just feel its completely okay to transfer the junk they received to someone else, who has never given it to them in the first place. I should not be, but I feel hurt. I feel not respected. It is not something I will brood over for long, but I do get such feelings for a short period of time. Last year as well, the same thing happened, and so this year, we requested guests to not bring gifts. Next year, I will explicitly mention that we will refuse to accept any gift. I have done that in the past (before having kids) and it has worked. For my wedding as well, we did not take gifts from anyone.....not even close relatives. With kids, I don't like to hurt someone's sentiment of gifting something small to a child, so I am lenient. But after going through 2 years of this, I've had enough.

Alright - now that I've got the venting out of the way.....here are a few pictures of our 2-year old from her birthday party at MyGym :)!

Her daddy got her a sooper cool surprise gift - all our neighbors kids have it, and we can't wait for Ruhi to learn how to ride it....

She got several other useful gifts - Dr. Seuss's book sets (gifted by her maasa who shares her mumma's passion of reading), a backyard inflatable pool (which is big enough for adults too) for the water loving baby, books/bath toys/etc of her favorite cartoon Pocoyo (by her favorite maamu), board games, Legos, and so many wonderful outfits bought by her ever-so-fashionable maasi.

She is learning so much new stuff every day - she recites rhymes and songs, she is getting better athletically, she is showing crazy emotions, she is starting to ask difficult questions - we are looking forward to the next year of her growing up!!!!