It feels like only yesterday when I posted my brief thoughts on 365 days of Fatherhood.  Today, when I review that post, I discover that it was written almost four years ago!  Time certainly flies when you have kids…

Last week, my second child – Tiger – turned one.  For several weeks before that, the wife and I discussed our options about how we should celebrate this milestone event.  The typical expectation from friends and family is that a child’s first birthday is a momentous occassion and deserves a grand party.  Our thoughts have always been a bit contrary.

On Pumpkin’s first birthday too, our reasoning was that, at that age, the child is too young to even understand the importance of the occassion, or make the most of the celebrations.  So we’d kept it a quiet affair, and called immediate family for dinner and cake.  The reasoning hadn’t changed much, but we also decided to do a little more, this time around…

We had, in fact, decided to keep it small: Just the family, some takeout dinner and cake cutting.  Tiger was now at an age where he would develop motor control, so we bought him a gigantic activity-box with lots of bells and whistles, as his birthday present.  (We were more experienced as parents now, remember?)

Ma was keen on buying him a dhoti-kurta, and she managed to get one in his size after much effort.  It turned out to be well worth the trouble, as he looked simply adorable in it!  Tiger’s aunt Reshma also bought him a cute sniffer dog pull-along toy which he simply refused to stop following around.  We even remembered to get Pumpkin a “return gift”, so that she does not feel left-out of the entire experience.

For me, one of the most exciting aspects of the celebration was an idea I hit upon, while googling some parenting/baby sites – a Time Capsule!

I asked BossLady to buy a little box which we would designate as the TimeCapsule, and then announced to the family that the TimeCapsule will be open for contributions all of this week.  Each one can choose to put in something small that is reflective of the year 2008 – the first year of Tiger’s life on Earth.  We would present the box to him, when he reaches ten years of age!  (If you’re reading this and would like to contribute, you’re welcome to it.)

One last thing: One of the most satisfying aspects of the occassion was also our decision to spend the monies saved from the “grand party” towards the benefit of underprivileged children.  We found a day-care facility – MobileCreche – that caters to nearly 80 children of construction workers, free of charge, in an effort to keep them off the dangerous construction sites where their parents work.  They provide them with a basic meal, some playful activity, and a little bit of education, to help them pass their day productively.

The children ranged in age from 2 months to 14 years, and the attendants were doing a mighty fine job with them.  We bought bags of toys, doodlers, crayons, educational charts, etc. and presented it to the Center, so that a hundred children could benefit from it, instead of spending the money on a party full of grown-ups.

Of course, you only have to hear their enthusiastic greetings once, or see their faces light up like a hundred candles, to understand the joy that comes from giving.

Read More: Why MobileCreches?