Krishna Janmashtami

Janmashtami this year did not have any of the funfare it held in the last few years in our household. The year Aditi was born, we dressed her up as Krishna and last year as Radha, but this year I made no such effort. I could blame partly on the Swiss trip that had left me completely exhausted and we arrived just a day earlier. Or I could use another excuse that the internet told me it was on friday and I thought I had a day to 'prepare' for the festival, and found out on the previous night that it was on thursday and not on friday. But they are lame excuses I know very well. I had no plans to make any kind of sweet preparation this year, because we are both on a low calorie diet and Aditi does not like sweets. I had planned it to be a simple affair right from the start. No sweets or savories, just milk, curd, butter and aval I thought to myself.
But the Lord had other plans. I got up early that morning and Aditi woke up with me, so we finished all our morning chores well in time and had lots more time on our hand. Rather than settling with her book on the couch, I decided to do the padams with the freshly prepared dosa batter from the previous night. Drew a simple kolam outside and little padams all the way upto the pooja shelf. Aditi helped me by walking carefully around the little padams.She was fascinated by them to say the least. More time left, so I decided to do up the pooja shelf. A freshly blossomed tulip was plucked and offered to the little krishna statues. A little prayer was said and a bhajan sung and we left for our repsective locations to spend the day. On our way back, I picked some fruits and more flowers. The best part of this celebrations is that we can delay the festival until midnight, so I was in no hurry. After sorting out our dinners, I arranged the neivadyam plate with little cups of butter, milk and curd. We made a simple mixture of aval, vellam(jaggery) and pottu kadalai and offered it all to the lord along with some fruits. The daddy was back and he joined us in our celebration. And thus ended janmastami this year. Aditi still walks carefully around the padams, and instructs us not to stamp on them.
A part of me still thinks I should have made something sweet for little Krishna, but I think i'll make up for it by making something nice for Ganesh Chathurthi, especially since it falls on a weekend.