He has come a long way

It had been going on in my mind the past week to ask Vansh's teachers at ECFE about his behavior in class. I was pleasantly surprised when Miss Cheral looked at Vansh attending to his teddy bear cut out and remarked

"Vansh is such a polite little gentleman!"

The thoughts that went on in my mind were

" Are you sure you're talking about him/I hope you are not confusing him with someone else"

I managed to ask

"He is? Really?"

"Oh yes! He is prompt with his sorry's and thank you's and handles conflicts very well. Doesn't yell when some one wants to have what he is playing with. He's doing very well."

I told her I was about to ask her myself as to how has been doing in class because he's way too different in front of mommy.

"And that's going to remain that way for many years to come," she joked.

Glad as I was, this little conversation set me thinking.

At the beginning of the school year in September, after a couple of classes, I had asked Miss Nadi (she is the teacher and Miss Cheral is the early childhood assistant) about Vansh's behavior in class. I was quite concerned at that time because he was being extremely self centered and loud when with other children. He would shout a loud NO and/or MY as soon as he noticed another child coming towards him and push him/her when he/she got too close. I felt bad, of course, for the other child, especially when his/her intentions were to just watch Vansh playing with whatever it was that he was playing with or at couple of times even to hug him. At the same time I felt bad for Vansh as well. He was struggling hard with the huge changes in his life - arrival of a new sibling (Jiya was barely 2 months old at that time); going away of his grandparents after having stayed with us for 2 months, during which time he had grown very attached to them; immediately followed in a week by going away of his best friend Arnav to India with whom he spent the better part of his evenings playing every single day (he still takes the whole family's name in the same breath as he takes our own's - he was that attached).

All of us went through a pretty rough phase and it took plenty of patience, spending a lot of time with him reading books, playing games, dancing, being silly, explaining to him during jovial moods, how its hurtful to others when he shouts and generous doses of hugs and kisses to make him get over the insecurity he very naturally felt and which manifested itself in ways described above. In a way, I am glad that we couldn't know what exactly went on in his little mind because I shudder when I think - Could it be

"Don't be friendly with anyone because then he/she is going to go away or going to vie for my parents' attention!"

And its relatively easy for me to write about it now that the phase has passed but at that time we felt terrible emotions that are hard to put down in words. Even though everyone told us that its a phase, but it crossed my mind several times, when Vansh continually turned away one prospective friend after another by his loud gestures,

"Is he ever going to be able to make friends?"

Things got better as time passed. With increased opportunities of socializing with kids the same age as Jiya grew up a bit and we resumed meeting friends for playgroup, started inviting more friends on weekends, he started to become less wary of other kids and even made an effort to be-friend them. The first time I saw him doing that with one girl, he had met a few times before, in the park - speaking something to her and then holding her hand and telling her to "Come on, let's go!", my eyes moistened at the hearty development. Even now, he has his moments, good and bad. There are times when he screams at the slightest provocation but there are others when he's a truly charming little guy, being the entertainer for the entire group - laughing out his silly infectious giggle and making everyone catch on. I sometimes wonder whether Arnav going away actually helped him in the long run to become more open and friendly as he was palpably longing for company.

With all these thoughts going on in my mind, when we were getting ready to get out of the school building, I met a friend in the corridor whose 4 year old daughter and Vansh have met each other briefly a couple of times and stopped for a brief chat. The kids immediately started running after each other and laughing heartily doing that.

And I knew that he has indeed come a long way!

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Regressing ...

...has occurred at a couple of fronts with Vansh ever since Jiya came along. Cute at times, doesn't really matter at others and plain frustrating at some more is how I would describe it.

So while suddenly spending more and more time on his bouncy, lying down on his tummy under tables to play with his toys in an effort to be like Jiya is cute; imitating Jiya's babbling isn't quite as pleasant but doesn't really matter; when he starts putting in his mouth things like paper, coins and suddenly feels a need to experience what the table and even the bath tub feel like, it is just so maddening. And now that he has realized this is something that makes me mad and is sure to get a reaction, he does it to push my buttons.

Friends at ECFE offered a few ideas starting by ignoring him to offering him something to lick like a teething biscuit or a carrot and tell him while its okay to lick an eatable but not so to lick tables and bath tubs. I am hoping something works.

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The ruckus which is night time sleep with 2 young kids

When my in-laws came to us when Jiya was about to be born, Vansh was very happy to have company in the room even at night time. That was also the time when he used to move from one room to the other making sure everyone was asleep, including Jiya, once she was born, before he laid down himself for his repose, the cliched "यह सबको सुलाके सोता है."

Once they left, Ashwini started sleeping with him to help him recover from the sadness that overwhelmed him and to assist him adjust to life with a sibling. However the futon in his room is okay for a few days but starts aching your back if slept on everyday. So when Ashwini started facing that problem, we thought that we would wait for Vansh to fall asleep and then Ash would come back to sleep on the bed in our room. That worked fine until 2:00, 3:00 or 4:00 am, depending on what time Vansh woke up from his deep sleep. He would then come to our room, push me and Ashwini a bit to the sides and take his position between us, fidget lots, try to sleep sideways, forward, backward, his feet our head and vice versa, ask me to go and make something in the kitchen so he could have one side of the bed to himself and finally settle for a preferred position. And even then he would kick so much in his sleep, more often than not, the victim being me, that I would wake up feeling I had hardly gotten any sleep not because of the new baby who was being an angel at night but because of the 2 year old's night time fancies of having half a bed to himself. After a few days, I started going to his room to sleep on the futon while he slept on the bed. On some days, Vansh would then come and sleep with me on the futon! Why!?? Didn't he just ask me to vacate the bed he wanted to sleep on!!?? Kids!!??

But the kicking got better or may be I got more used to it and Vansh started sleeping on his own in his room to begin with (coming to us at 2:00, 3:00, 4:00 am continues to date) and nights became smoother. And finally all of us, except Vansh, stopped moving back and forth between rooms, trying to get our share of the 'oh so wonderful sleep'! The little angel was still the angel, well on most nights, if not all.

Digression

Sleeping alone, on the first hand, hadn't really been a thought about decision. But right from the beginning he had been such a light sleeper that if he slept at about 9:30 and we went in at about 11:00, pressing our feet to the floor hard so as not to make the slightest sound, he would stand up in his crib and look at us as if to say "Wow! So is it playtime now?" What began as an experiment day to sleep in the other room and was met with success, then became the ritual.

end of digression

In the meantime, the little angel was growing up and getting smarter by the day, learning all those principles of cause and effect you know. Angel cries, mom shows up. Angel smiles, mom picks her up. Nighttime practice of the principles is double the fun. Moreover, smooth nights with 2 young kids, now thats against Mother Nature!! Isn't it! So if the elder one is getting better, the younger one has the added responsibility on her tender shoulders to make sure the ruckus continues! And so the scene the past week has been something like this :

9:00 pm - Jiya sleeps in crib
9:30 pm - Vansh in his BR
10:30 - 11:00 pm - We in ours
11:15 pm - Jiya cries, at times mom's sight is enough to pacify her; at others she could do with a quick feed
11:30 pm - peace again
1:00 am - Jiya cries in full frenzy; mom paces the floor with her (no night time feedings, Vansh taught mom the VERY HARD way)
1:15 am - still crying, mother trying sip of water, rocking on rocking chair, OKAY a little feed would save everyone's sanity and SLEEP
1:20 am - peace again
3:00 am - Jiya wakes again, cries a lot, dad goes to Vansh's room, mom paces the floor
3:30 am- Vansh comes to sleep with mom armed with a flurry of questions "Jiya is crying? Does she want milk? Does she want to play? Is she 'buddhu ram'??
4:00 am - some degree of peace restored
4:10 am - Vansh realises he has too much space to sleep; Oh where's dad? In his room - why did I come here then?
Oh and before I forget, he has this habit of shutting doors, and not quite gently at that (equivalent to banging in the silence of the night), when he moves in and out of rooms. Enough to wake Jiya again. Exhausted mom gets her with herself to sleep and finally thats the end of it all at about 4:30 am, two hours away from waking up!!

Is sleep ever the same again after you have kids??

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How we are managing!

A lot of friends ask us how we are managing life with 2 kids (especially after my in laws left last week) and I tell them we are trying our best to manage time. Hats off to those who have been there and much good luck to those who'll be there at some point cos the journey has been far from easy.

Here's whats been happening at the Sukhwani household

- As of now, we have a low maintenance new born (any parent with a high spirited toddler will know what I am talking about) and a very high maintenance toddler at hand. Jiya spends most of her time feeding or in her crib. On the other hand, Vansh spends his time exploring his new sister - her hands, her toes, her reactions when he makes funny faces and does silly dances for her, as well as, when he shouts in her ear or even swats her.

- Tempers obviously run high when we see the latter happening. Its hard to see a child, who now seems to be so much bigger than the little baby at home hit her and then make a satisfied face on top of that.

- High tempers translate into a lot of yelling ourselves and as much as I hate to admit, even a smack on the hand or on the bum. This leads to even more unacceptable behavior from Vansh including more shouting, getting uncontrollably mad, banging doors, tantrums et al.

My intention is certainly not to scare away expectant or prospective 2nd time parents but rather narrate our experiences one so they can be prepared and two somewhere in their heart of hearts, they can find solace in the fact that they are not the only ones facing this. Well, of course we had to do something and we did and things are certainly getting better now. Here's what worked and what didn't :

- We really had to work hard on maintaining our cool. Come what may, we promised ourselves not to yell, not even raise our voices at Vansh. Of course, that didn't mean there wouldn't be consequences for something that he's not supposed to do, but it had to be without us losing our cool. The objective was to teach him gentle ways to deal with his own anger. The first couple of days he was really surprised to hear no yelling but he's getting the hang of it. I searched for articles on aggression, hitting, shouting and found excellent ones at babycenter.com and read and re-read them everyday with Ashwini to get answers to all our questions.

- Reading a book or working on a puzzle with Vansh while feeding Jiya works particularly well. It makes Vansh look forward to the feedings because he knows I'll be doing something fun with him at that time.

- I get up early to finish off the cooking (lunch and dinner) before the kids wake up so that I have the most important task out of my way and am able to spend more time with Vansh (my experience says you need to spend lots and lots of time with the elder one to make up for the divided attention now). Other chores like cleaning and laundry, I have learnt not to get stressed about and just accept that things will take longer than they used to earlier.

- We are having dinner pretty early at about 6:00 pm these days and then go out for the evening walk. Because what was happening was, when we came back from the walk at about 7:30, Jiya needed to be fed and Vansh too used to be getting hungry and I had to still make the chapatis. So basically there was lots to do with two hungry kids at hand ...too tough!!

- Sending Vansh with Ashwini to do grocery shopping on weekends leaves me with some time on my hands to clean up the house or just rest for some time.

- With getting outdoors being limited, indoor physical activities like hide and seek, or generally hopping around help Vansh burn off some extra energy and of course have fun as well.

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The instant hit - the new Fire Truck bed !!

Vansh was truly overjoyed to see his new Fire Truck bed. After many days of see-sawing between the decisions of buying another crib for him or a toddler bed, we finally settled on this one. For a strong headed 2 year old like ours, we knew we had to get him really excited about something new in order to try it. Its not very common for a kid to refuse trying even ice-cream or chocolates because they don't look like his regular food. Fortunately, Vansh took a liking for it from moment one and just couldn't get enough of it. He jumped and he rolled and he checked out all the wheels and the lights, giving sound effects of 'peep peep, zooooom' ad interim.

Check out his video here




The first night was kind of strange because when Ashwini went after about 45 minutes of putting him to sleep to check whether he was sleeping fine, Vansh just got up and out of his bed to accompany Ashwini out of the room. We tried a lot of coaxing to get him back to sleep but didn't succeed. Ultimately I had to lay him down in the crib for him to go to sleep. Honestly I was scared whether he had decided to stick with the conventional this time as well. But thankfully he did just fine during his nap and his night sleep yesterday. The good part is that he doesn't get out of his bed, even though he can when he wakes up. The habit of sitting up in the crib and calling out for us is sticking too and I am in no mood to show him that he can actually get out himself now cos I don't want to find him knocking at the door in the middle of the night.

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