We had planned for a baby shower with all our friends, actually scratch that, I had insisted on it, because when does a woman not need three baby showers. Well jokes apart, it was a long time coming. I had been wanting to have a party for the longest time and it was just not happening. First I wanted to do a house warming party at this pretty house of ours in around April. But that didn't pan out. Then I thought of celebrating my 30th Birthday in grand style, which I did in the end, but again couldn't do so with my friends. It felt like a long due event and this baby shower seemed like the right time to finally make this dream come true. When I incepted the idea in Vardan's head, I was fully convinced it was worth it, but as we finalized our guest list and booked the place my mind started playing tricks, making me second guess if it was all going to be worth it.
The party comprised mainly of Vardan's friends because, me in all my me-ness, invited my friends very late and that meant most of them had other unchangeable commitments by then. This added to me second-guessing if this was really what I wanted. But I did finally have my few special friends join us and of course, all of Vardan's friends are just as dear to me.
On the morning of the baby shower, I was feeling so nervous, I was postponing everything. I was taking my own sweet time with household chores. It was going to be all about me and I was feeling nervous about all the attention. Vardan headed out early in the morning to get me a surprise he had planned. It was the sweetest basket of gifts for tiny boo and alongside that he got some more cute stuff to set a baby shower theme for our party. Once he was home it was about getting ready and moving. He only needed 15 mins to move while what I
had planned for myself needed me an entire morning that I had conveniently wasted away. We got ready in a rush and reached the venue as we didn't want to be late to our own party. While the venue was a bit far off for us, it was pretty amazing. We figured out our party area and took about 15-20 mins to set up camp and then we were waiting for our friends to arrive.
An hour into our arrival the place started to fill up. The smell of yummy food started wafting from across the venue, people around our table started getting delicious and appetizing things on their plates. This was enough to get my hangry antennas out. I started messaging my friends as did Vardan, to check on arrival status. We realized it would be a while before anyone showed up, so while I broke into the food, he broke into the booze. The live band performing at the venue was playing very near our set up and the weather was the perfect Bangalore weather. Just as Vardan and I were getting into a good mood our first set of friends Vaibhav and Paridhi came in, Paridhi straight from the airport. They were expected to be the latecomers due to her flight but they came in first and then slowly everyone started coming in, one after the other, each with a gift in their hand which made me feel so many things.
I felt bad that a baby shower had obliged them to spend on me, like why did they have to!
I felt really special that they thought of me and got me something they thought I'd like, they spent time and effort into it.
It made me excited to see what everyone got me.
All in all, we had a great time having food, booze, clicking pictures, playing some baby shower guessing games, sharing my experience of pregnancy so far, all with a background of amazing music and beautiful weather. We left after they officially declared they need to prepare the venue for the evening guests. Did I mention this was a brunch? Well maybe not. It was a brunch that went all the way into the evening.
As everyone booked their uber and was leaving, our college friends made the sweetest gestures. First, they got us a cake which said - 'Welcome little one', then they also offered to stay until we got our uber to help with the gifts into the car, which they did end up doing. We were so moved. Finally, we headed home, very tired but very content.
Disclaimer: The Baby Shower story ends here, what follows is a memorable evening that happened on the same day and is part of my memory of this day.
I knew that on that day it was the cricket world cup final, another reason we had to push off from our venue because they had a full house evening, but I had no idea it was also the Wimbledon finals. Vardan got home and had the TV tuned in to the Wimbledon finals where Roger Federer and Novak Djokovic were competing for the coveted trophy.
At 6 PM the stage was just about getting set for a mind-blowing evening. I opened and gushed about all our gifts, post which I napped and I woke up to see the TV was on fire (metaphorically guys). Tennis between these two was raging and cricket was reaching its pinnacle.
I learned a lot about tennis that day as I had been learning and correcting over the last few months of French Open etc. So the sport comprises of games, a game has three points- 15, 30 and 40. The first player to reach 40 wins the game. A player must win 6 games with a lead of two games over the opponent to win a set (e.g. 6–3 or 7–5). There are 5 sets in a match. The player with more winning sets wins the match. Now for some special rules - in the 5th set of the match, the tie in the games can go on till 12-12 (unlike in the first four sets where a tie is only till 6-6) after which the player to win 7 points first wins that set and the match and in case of the game we were watching that day - the championship! These two gentlemen had played for a grueling 5 hours straight, giving each other a tough fight and it all came down to those last 7 points. I am usually very confused about the above scoring because I play table tennis and badminton too, which are similar games with such similar scoring. I hope I remember this the next time I am watching tennis and not bother my husband with all the questions about scoring which he patiently answered this time.
While this was happening in Tennis, at the same time in Cricket - England needed 3 runs in 2 balls to win the World cup and on the second last ball, they were down to their 9th batsman as they just lost a wicket to run-out. They now needed 2 runs in 1 ball and on the last ball, just as the batsmen were going for a second run, one of them was run-out. So England equaled New Zealand's score with an all-out, talk about playing to the last breath. The match then went on for a super over.
It was electrifying to watch two amazing finals in parallel. On the Tennis side, Fed and Djoko were fighting it out in the final tie-breaker game. These two players were playing at the top of their game and with Djoko emerging the winner it felt bittersweet because we both were supporting Federer but were happy for Djoko to take the deserved win. Then switching up quickly to see the exciting super-over in Cricket, we witnessed England win with a spectacular boundary. This win of England caused a whole lot of brouhaha in the world of cricket because England had won the game they invented after almost 43 years.
It was a momentous moment and a fulfilling end to our day. We slept quite happy and pleased.
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