Chunchu's first Henna

Whenever I go to the market for any purpose, Chunchu always accompanies me. Yesterday, I had to shop for her only; so she had to go for sure. My cousin wanted to apply henna to her palms and she went with us. Of course, Chunchu had to follow suit. To be frank, I really love to indulge my daughter in such girly things. So even she hadn't asked for it, I would have :-)
So Chunchu got her palms decorated with a beautiful henna design, and we took a rickshaw back home, me holding her hands all the way so that the henna is not spoilt! Well, as I said before, indulgence of this kind makes me swell with happiness and I do not take it casually.
Back home, she showed the design to everyone and of course, everyone said she looked pretty. But then, she washed the henna off pretty soon as she wanted to try her new dress. I tried to coax her into letting it be for another hour, but can you really tell kids what to do, if there is a brand new dress waiting to be tried? So she did what she wanted to, and I thought 'there goes the chance of getting a good color'. The indulgent mother in me wanted everything to be perfect. After all, it was Chunchu's first henna!
But just before I went to sleep last night, I looked at her decorated palms, having the perfect brown color of henna, and I kissed them. The small hands looked so pretty that I kept studying the pattern for a couple of minutes.I reminisced about my childhood days when we used to wait for 'karwa chauth' or 'teej' when we could get a chance to apply henna to our palms. Of course, the professional henna artists were not so common those days, so we kind of adjusted with the designs applied by mom, or one of us girls. My sister was the most preferred artist, as she had the natural talent. I, on the other hand, am not even able to hold the henna cone properly!
Though it might seem to be a small thing to an outsider, we mothers have this habit of dwelling over and rejoicing in the 'firsts' of our children ( I guess it is more often with daughters, simply because they have more occasions of this kind). So the need to record my daughter's first stint with the henna.