Brimming with pride as the year draws to a close!

It was Qatar’s National Day on 18th and Namnam’s school had organized a concert to celebrate the day. Namnam was quite excited as she was to perform in the event. And this being her first concert , R & I were equally charged up !

The children were asked to come dressed in a traditional dress for the event. They were to sing 5 songs.And much of my days were spent prepping Namnam up for the event. I was to also arrange for a Qatari dress for her. But the rains played a spoiler, hence couldnt go out for an extensive search. Thankfully the school was very forthcoming when R asked if she could wear a ‘Paavada'(traditional south Indian long skirt) instead.

Needless to say,Namnam was elated when she got to know she’d be wearing a paavada. Its her favorite attire. So much so that if given a chance she would even wear it as a night dress.

She was also asked to bring a red&blue T-shirt. By the sound of it,the colour-combo may seem the easiest to find. But let me warn you,it is far from being so. I could find every possible combination but a red&blue. I even went looking for it in the boys’ section.Anyway,after much running around the malls,we did finally get a red shirt with a bit of blue design on it.

On D-day, R & I reached the school, eagerly looking forward to watching our little one perform for the very first time. To be honest,I feared that Namnam would be hesitant to perform if she saw us. But, R didnt have any such doubts. He was confident that if she saw us,she would be as enthusiastic to perform as ever.And when I saw her coming out of her class along with other children, all my doubts were put to rest too.

Here was my girl,who used to go on a wailing spree at the mere sight of strangers till about a year back,now walking past them with not an inch of inhibition. Just when the program was about to begin, she saw us and waved at us with a blushing smile. I was so overwhelmed with emotions that all I wanted to do,at that point, was to run and tightly hug my little one. I was so proud of her !

It was amazing to see all the children perform with such confidence. I realized,as a parent,what mattered to me was that my child had the confidence to face anyone. It didn’t matter if the girl standing next to her looked better than her or the boy at the back was more audible. All I could see was my daughter giving her best shot. To me, she clearly stood out. And I’m sure every parent,present in that room that day must have felt the same way for their child.

I’m deeply grateful to the school and her teachers for helping her open up and bring out her confident self.I hope and pray she is always blessed with such teachers who will guide her in the right direction at every stage in life and be instrumental in shaping her future.

On that note let me wrap up my last post for this year with an image of the concert. No prizes for spotting Namnam though!

Wish you all a Merry Christmas and a Very Happy New Year! May the coming year bring you and your family, new joys,new hopes and beautiful moments to cherish forever.

ETA: Dear all, I’ve scheduled the post for auto-publish as I’ll be away from blogosphere for some more time. Please accept my apologies in advance for any delay in responding to your comments. Will see you all next year 🙂