Are they really 4 and 2?

Experts from a couple of conversations last morning and evening respectively, with the supposedly 4 and 2 year old residents of the household

Vansh took a long time to get up and out of the bed last morning, more than 20 minutes and considering that morning is really the time when 'every minute counts' lest you miss the school bus, it was a lot. After about 10 minutes of trying several ways to make him get up, it came to a point where I told him, threatened him would be more like it that I would now stop telling him to get up. He can get up whenever he wants to and then I'll ready him and walk him to school even if that means he reaches an hour late. And if after getting up, his taking a bath clashes with anyone else's bath time in the house, he would have to wait even further. And I actually intended to follow through. The boy still slept for a further 10 minutes as I strolled around the house, pretending to be not losing it! I don't know what ultimately made him get out of bed but when he did, we just had enough time to rush to the bathroom, rush through the daily 'motions' (I think I experienced the smallest unit of time yesterday as the one between the time I made him sit on the pot and the time it took for the potty to come out!) and rush with the bath and the dressing up before rushing out the door for the bus. We were late by about 5 minutes but there were still about 3-4 minutes before his school bus came and guess what this guy has the cheek to tell me, as I acted all angry with him for doing what he just did ...

"See, even after getting up so late, I can get ready in time for the school bus!" !!!!!

Later in the evening, Jiya was busy with one of her favorite things - doodling on her palm and wrist with a red pen claiming to be applying 'mehndi'. Her grandmother asked her to give the pen to her as she wanted to work with it. And this is the conversation that followed:

Jiya: I won't give this to you. You take another one!
Grandma: I don't have another one. Please give me this one!
Jiya: Then you can buy another one from the market.
Grandma: How can I buy another one?
Jiya: Are you a boy or a girl?
Grandma: You tell me!
Jiya: Girl!
Grandma; Then?
Jiya: Boys have wallets and girls have purses! So you take money from a purse and buy a red pen from the market. I will not give you this one!

Huh! I am actually amazed at the way these two think!

Share

Yay to a happy beginning at play school

Aah ..so it took Jiya to start play school to shove me out of the self imposed hiatus. Undoubtedly a big milestone! We went through tough winters this year in ways more than one - illnesses took away major chunks of time and energy but anyways that's not what I sat down to write about.

Jiya finally started play school today after us contemplating the thought for almost 5 months now. I expected her to cry and give me a tough time for at least 2-3 weeks, if not more, considering that she is often found 'charging herself on her charging pad' which happens to be my shoulder, several times in a day, refusing to go to anyone else in the house no matter what the bait; she refuses to let go of my lap in a new situation or even in a very familiar situation like going to the park, when there are good number of people around, even if they are reasonably familiar to her. Her reactions about going to school had been varied. More often than not, when asked whether she would go to school, she would say only when she grows up and it kept going on like that. She seemed keen to go but nowhere in the near future. Basically I expected there to be water works and tantrums and the like. But she just went. A little resistance to leave my hand but her teacher just picked her in her lap and took her inside her classroom where the kids were singing the 'ABC' rhyme. I resisted the urge to peep inside because the longer I stayed, the greater the chance of her crying became. We decided to start her with an hour today and at the end of the hour, she was just as fine. Her teacher told me she colored and gelled well with the kids and asked me to bring her for 2 hours tomorrow. Phew!! Goes on to show how well we assume we know our kids and how they just wait for their turn to prove us wrong :)

I waited, just as eagerly for the conversation between the siblings once Vansh returned from his school. They are getting more and more meaningful, retaining the innocence and the charm at the same time. He had been very excited since Saturday about Jiya starting school from Monday. He asked her what she did to which she said "I colored". He asked "What else?" "Nothing else" came the reply :)

I stop here right now ..there's lots to write and share with you who read this and with myself when the kids are all grown and I get back to this blog to read about what my days once used to be like. I often think about those days to come and I smile. To be honest at this point of time I long for those days when there would be no more tantrums, no more screaming and yellings, no more getting every request of mine being met with resistance, no more physical tiredness from tending to two young children. However, I look at some friends who are there already and sense in them a longing to be back in my shoes :) The circle of life ..as elusive as ever.

Share

Tidbits

Some days I really wish I had more time on my hands to jot down the bitter sweet hapenings of these early years of the kids. It is so interesting to hear them talk so much and get to know what they think, how they make sense of the world around them. Anyways let me attempt to ruffle up a quick post about tiny tidbits with one eye on the clock above me which shows they'll be up from their afternoon nap any minute and the other eye on them, one on each level of the bunk bed, a rare and a precious sight.

- We took the kids to pick out their shoes last weekend to a neighborhood market shop. Vansh picked out the most gaudy looking shiny red and black pair. I tried to (not so) gently encourage him to pick more sober ones but Ashwini told me to let him has his way rather than fighting everyday over making him wear it. Wise man, considering that just the previous night, we had spent over 45 minutes doing just that - fighting over what he wanted to wear at the birthday party and what we thought he would look 'dressed for the occasion' in. Ashwini learnt his lesson in those 45 minutes, the silly me forgot even after such episodes every other day.

- While on shoes, all Jiya wants to wear are her golden sandals wherever she goes. Even to the toilet, yeah! and the park. She doesn't mind being the only one even after I point out to her that all kids she knows there are wearing shoes. I am waiting for the 'conformity' factor to kick in. Right now she also likes to flaunt her picked 'color of the day' chunni with whatever it is she is wearing - skirt, jeans, frock! Why wouldn't she - after all she does manage to catch everybody's attention and often adulation. Churis and bindis are a regular feature too and nailpolish she brings thrice a day to me. I swear I have no idea how she got into it so thick because I am nowhere close to what she is aiming to be!

- Sibling love shines through many a times during a day these days. They still fight like cats and dogs, often making me nervous to even take that bathroom break. Friends ask me why I take them out so much even to nonsensical places at times and I tell them that's because I find it impossible to control/keep them entertained at home! Like I said it becomes hard for me to go use the bathroom, even. Anyways back to sibling love. These two have wonderful conversations when Vansh returns from school. Jiya tells him the highlight of her day and Vansh shares his. Today from a collection of goody bags he had got as it was three of his classmates' birthday, he took out a packet of Cadbury Gems and told Jiya he had got it for her because she likes it so much :) And when Jiya shows him her mehndi she has doodled on her hands with a pen or any such small thing, he responds with an "Arre wah! yeh to bahut accha hai!" I wonder how he suddenly grows up so much around her.

..... might be continued ... :)

Share

Dear Grandchildren

I write this letter to you as a mother to your dad, who is now 4 and a half and would be 30 something when u read this, with the exact intention of letting you know all that he did to me. I already look up to you to avenge me - the drama, the tantrums, the ignoring, the whining! Your grandma writes to you to give you ideas to do all this and more as I watch from the corner finally smiling that triumphant smile and waving my fore finger and nodding my head to say "See, life does come full circle!"

- Starting morning, as I give him his bed milk (yeah that's a 4 year old's equivalent of bed tea), he wants to drink it propped against one particular pillow, with one and only one particular teddy bear in hand, all the curtains drawn and the door shut with me outside. As I rush back after 10 minutes as the time demands for him to be bathed immediately to be ready for school in time, I see the glass still half full and him sleeping peacefully and he asks for some more time to finish that half glass which ultimately he still doesn't!

- After being bathed, he takes delight in taking off that towel and running naked all around the house making sure no one misses that visual often in front of the window as well for the outside world to see, after being told a thousand times its not right.

- When I call him to wash his hands/brush his teeth/go use the bathroom, he comes up with a hundred and twenty seven things to do that he just remembered on his way to the wash basin and that need his immediate attention. Why don't I just let him be you ask, well one that too is met by him flinging himself around my legs and shouting why I treat him like this and two, well who do you think would have to deal with stomach flu's and rotten teeth ..ah the price one has to pay to be a parent!

- When I tell Jiya, your bua, that the chocolates in the fridge are finished and the market is closed to get any more, he tells me not to lie to her right there in front of her and argues endlessly when I try to explain!

- On being told that we are going somewhere on a particular day, he asks me a hundred and thirty six questions on a typical day till the time we actually go which range from which mode of transport would we be going by, why can't we use any other, why we are going, when would we come back, when does tomorrow come, when do day and night come, what is today and what is tomorrow, but why isn't today tomorrow - you get the drift, right?!

Its a struggle kids, it really is ...so go ahead now's your time and now's HIS turn! I am here to support you!

Share

Conversations ...

...between the siblings - sweet, innocent, delightful, fill up our household with much cheer these days. Its sheer joy listening to their understanding of the complexities of the world and how it functions. One such conversation went like this

Jiya (to Vansh) - dhishkaaon, dhishkaaon (some gun sounds)

Vansh: Jiya aise nahin karo, main aapko chowkidaar ke paas le jaaonga. (Jiya, don't do that or else I'll take you to the guard) and goes on to pick her up by putting his hands under her arms.

Jiya: Nahin, nahin, nahin, nahin. Sorry bhaiya! (No, no, no, no, sorry big brother)

Vansh: Theek hai, ab nahin le jaaoonga! Mamma, Jiya ne sorry bol diya. Ab use chowkidar ke paasle jaane ki zarrorat nahin hai! (Alright, I won't take you now. Mom, I don't need to take Jiya to the guard now!)

Jiya (with a naughty twinkle in her eye) : Dhishkaaon, dhishkaaon

... and runs away with Vansh running after her, the house reverberating with their squeals. :)

And these conversations are the rays of hope and of delight in the tough times we have been facing for the last close to 2 months. Jiya has been catching one infection after another. It started with an ear infection. The ENT specialist that we went to prescribed 7 medicines for her including antibiotics. I read about it extensively on the internet and gave her only 2 - the acitamenophen and the ear drops and it went away. Some masty 9-10 boils followed all over her body. After the 4th boil, when they refused to subside and continued to pop up, she was prescribed a week of antibiotics. A week or so later when I took her to her pediatrician for a fever, which thankfully turned out to be viral and went away in a couple of days, a more serious problem was diagnosed. Her lymph nodes in the neck area were swollen, most likely because of the bacterial skin infections earlier and another week of antibiotics followed accompanied by medicines for relieving the fever. More medicines had to be added to counter the side effects of the antibiotics because she had developed blisters deep inside her mouth. I hate giving 5 ml of so many medicines when all you needed in the US was 1.6 ml of Tylenol sparingly but then I don't have a choice. A possible reason for the swollen lymph node could be that her ear infection never healed properly which is why this happened - I can never know. She cries and cries. I have to literally force her little body under my legs as I lay her down, force open her mouth and hold it open with one hand and hold her nostrils shut with the other as I put the syringe/dropper filled with the medicine and empty it there so that she can't spit it out. 3-4 meds at one time takes close to an hour which means the poor child spends close to 3 hours crying resisting the awfulness which is still forced upon her.

And then suddenly she started getting up in the middle of the night and howling like crazy. She would slither away from our hands and just cry endlessly. After trying a lot of things and watching her diet very carefully, on the third such night we just took her to the Emergency. The doctor there prescribed gas and colic drops. We called her ped the next morning and he asked us to get a urine test and culture and a stool test. Instinctively I knew it was a Urinary Tract Infection and I was right. The ped told us that it had been detected early and it could have led to much worse symptoms. So she is on another week of unavoidable antibiotics. Always a petite baby, she now looks more lean than ever and as a result everyone notices and comments - advices on what to feed her and how, what and what not to do follow - well meaning but it gets a lot at times. Unfortunately its become a vicious cycle I think - infections, antibiotics, low body resistance, more infections - yikes!!

I just pray to God to break the cycle soon. Very very thanfully she's a chirpy child throughout the day. And I am getting better at shortening the medicine administering and hence the crying time.

Share

Meal Times

...just got a tad bit easier these days. I keep my fingers and toes tightly crossed as I type this. Handing Vansh a worksheet he picks himself to work on - ranging from coloring to pre-reading, pre-math, mazes, basic crosswords has him busy working on those as I put in one morsel after another in his mouth.

The plus - he stays put and works.

The thrill - he is READING and doing a good job at it.

The bonus - Jiya wants to do the same and stays put for her meal too.

Sometimes you seem to have hit the JACKPOT while parenting!!! Amen to more such times!

Watch the video to get jealous if you have kids who run away when you try to feed them and just for fun if you are in the other minority category.



And tell me what are your tricks?

Share

Four years and counting

These are some of Vansh's thoughts on 'growing big', something he is currently obsessed with and talks about a lot -

- Mamma, you know I am going to be 5 years soon (7 months is soon enough, no), then I'll be 6, then 7, then 8, then 9, then 10, then 11, then 40, then 80, then 90 to 100 to 40 to 69 to 500. For once I thank God he doesn't know his counting well enough to say all the numbers till 100 in the correct order.

- When I grow bigger than you, then I will scold you.

- When will I become bigger than you? Then will I be bigger than papa also? And goes on to ask the same question about all the other members of the family including Jiya. And I'll be bigger than Jiya also?When I ask him 'But aren't you already bigger than Jiya?' , he has that part amused and part embarassed expression on his face at having asked a silly question which he voices with an "Oh!" :)

- Mamma, jab aap aur bade ho jaaoge na, tab aap doctor banoge, pata hai! (Mamma, when you grow up even more, you'll become a doctor, you know!)

Ok?! But I was a teacher you know and that's what I'll be when I return to work.

Nahin jab aap aur bade ho jaoge, tab bol raha hoon! (No when you grow up even more, then you will be a doctor).

As for hiw own career plans, they oscillate between a Metro Train Construction Engineer to a doctor depending on where he went that particular day.

Share