The year gone by...

2018 has whizzed past…a lot to be grateful for as I look back at the year gone by…lot of lessons learnt...and another year to look forward to...

The little ones are growing up fast, which is always a bitter sweet emotion, but overall they are doing well, by God’s grace.

Raya loves school and continues to be the social butterfly she always has been…it’s quite a treat to see how she absorbs information about the "going ons" in the world and about different cultures and cuisines through her interactions with her friends and other folks around her. I finally introduced her to Enid Blyton. It’s lovely to see her enjoy reading some of the books I grew up reading. “Malory Towers” is her current Enid Blyton favorite. Reading, swimming and piano are currently her favorite hobbies . She does keep adding so many things to her list of “want to do” activities(singing, dancing, tennis and what not!!), that I often lose track and  feel like a really bad mom, when I have to ask her to pick between hobbies and activities .  Oh well, there is only so much one can do and do well at! Some of my friends tell me, it’s better to have a kid who wants to explore, learn and do stuff than not. But I guess, like everything else, there are pros and cons in this context too:) Ever since Raya was a toddler, when putting her to bed, I say a small prayer and ask her about her day. These days, with so many things going on, if I forget to ask my customary,”Raya…so how did your day go today?”, she is prompt to remind me I forgot to ask her something….and without much ado sets off on a prolonged monologue about her day. As exhausted as I generally am at that point of the night, this “description of her day” often has the ability to make all the exhaustion melt away and it's something I have really grown to look forward to. I have to say though, Raya’s sleep pattern has deteriorated over the years and she often wakes up multiples times a night. So we gotta work on that this coming year. Raya has also developed a love for  skiing, thanks to her dad. Last year around the Christmas holiday, when her cousins were visiting, we introduced her to skiing. This Christmas, ‘D’ and she made the most of the beauty of West Coast skiing with multiple cross mountain runs in the Park City and Canyons resorts in Utah. With my skiing skills , unfortunately I had to stay put at the lower slopes, but I believe and hope I will be ready for the more difficult “blues” next time around for sure!:)

Rayan has also grown by leaps and bounds this year…his vocabulary is exploding ...his newest obsession is cars!! He keeps us on our toes ,has become very expressive as well as naughty , and more often than not, he cracks us up with the use of words in the most unlikely of contexts. “Never mind” and “I didn’t mean to do it”  are his favorite phrases at the moment. To add to all the fun, he has quite the moves too:)He is super easy going and absolutely not as “high maintenance” as his big sister:) I have to say, for now, he is quite the mama’s boy!! ‘D’ always chuckles and reminds me that for  all the fun that I have made of “Mama’s boys” in the past(you know the ones one comes across in high school and college!) , I have one of my very own now :)….Oh well I am quite enjoying it while the cuddles, love and attention lasts. He is working on getting potty trained…and as you can imagine, I simply can’t wait to be free of lugging around the diaper bag, though I have a feeling, it may take him a bit longer than we would like! Oh well. He loves his preschool/day care, which is a blessing. We’ve been super lucky to have had a great child care center for Raya and Rayan, the teachers are affectionate and loving and the kids being happy makes it much so much easier for both of us to work and follow our passion. After all ,it takes a village to bring up a child!!

The kids also spent some quality time with the grandparents and their cousins this year. Both sets of grandparents visited from India and the kids made some wonderful memories with them. They also got to see and spend some time with their cousins over the summer. So that was great!

This year was also a terrific year in terms of satisfying the ‘wanderlust’ in us. Two ski trips(Snowshoe in WV and Park City in Utah ), a summer trip to visit family in Holland and then a road trip in the middle of “World Cup soccer fever” in “GOT” land, the  stunning country of Croatia (Summer of 2018), and then some smaller trips to quaint little towns(including Ashville, NC) on the US east coast. The kids seem to be loving the travel aspect of our lives, as much as we do. So fingers crossed that ‘that’ will continue. They however are not as excited about exploring different cuisines as ‘D’ and I are. I am hoping this will get better with age, or maybe it won’t…we will see!

On the professional front, it has been a mixed bag, but overall good! I have often observed, when ‘D’ is happy at work, I am not and when I am, “D” is not. While there have been various points of time when both of us have been  happy at work, fortunately so far there has not been a phase when both of us have been unhappy at the same time…as you can imagine, that could end up being stressful:) I currently lead a group of senior technologists at work, working at the cutting edge of technology and the rate at which technology is evolving, for me , at least, it leaves no space and time for boredom. There’s constant learning. So that’s really good!

On a more sombre note, there have been quite a few moments that have made me hold my family and friends closer to my heart…young friends diagnosed with serious health conditions, some of them gone way too soon…sudden deaths of family members and family friends, who have been a part of my growing up years…. all such moments driving home the point about how short and fragile  life is …how important it is to be grateful and content with what we have …and that nothing is more important than having and sharing, love, light, laughter and good health with all our near and dear ones, while we are around !

As far as resolutions for the New Year go, on the personal front I never really make objective/measurable resolutions for myself…my resolutions are always hazy ,more in the likes of read more, sleep less, write more, weigh less, dump the guitar, pick up the piano, work hard, party harder…you get the gist …none of my personal resolutions are such that I can look back at the year gone by and objectively declare their fruition/failure…it’s great that I at least have ‘SMART’ (in managerial lingo, 'Specific Measurable Achievable Realistic Timebound') professional objectives for 2019 …that will keep my life balanced as far as resolutions are concerned, for sure…a complete dearth of objectives for a new year could potentially deem life directionless :-) whereas too many ‘SMART’ personal and professional resolutions can make a year of life end up becoming one helluva marathon with no finish line in sight …robbing life of it's charm , of course, in the process … having said that, I do want to focus on fitness and writing , on the personal front.

As for what the year 2019 has in store for us…only time will tell…needless to say, it is a challenging world and environment to live and bring up children in …..Hopefully at this same time next year, I will have more good things to write about than bad ….fingers crossed!

For now…here’s a toast to the year gone by…to all the good times and beautiful memories shared with family and friends in the year 2018…no significant life events or changes, but good times nevertheless…

Wish all of you love, light, laughter, health and happiness this coming year!

Leaving you with a montage of the beautiful views and vistas from our ski trip this winter...the absolute wonders of nature!