I wish Casper was real…

(This is an old article I had not gotten down to posting. The

conversation took place when G was 4 years old. She’s now 6.

Nevertheless, posting it here.)

“Nobody dies in Bangalore because there are no bad people here

with guns…”
Imagine the kind of shock I got when I heard my 4-year old

daughter tell me this. Whoa, little lady where is this coming

from? Die??…bad people with guns…? After the initial shock

wore off, I had no idea how to react let alone talk it out with

her. From what I thought G understood about death was that some

people go to God and become a star in the sky from where they had

come in the first place. Just like her little cousin sister, her

aunt’s dog-Sultan, and a friend’s father. Everytime she sees a

star at night (which is not so often in a place like Bangalore)

she says Hi! to them all…so sweet and innocent. I liked it

that way. Now we will have to go through some reality check and
come up with a more realistic, though softer, explanation that

the tender souls can make sense of.
Lessons are getting tougher as the years pass.
We have battled monsters and ghosts but Death is a tough one even

for Ma. Well, let time spin its own stories and I will try my

best to hold you in my lap if its anything scarier than you can

handle, my love!

Saving Private Ryan…nah..just ME!!

There’s a storm in my house! Its been 3 whole days since G has eaten a decent meal. Somehow in getting her to eat just anything has screwed up the entire routine. Seems like I am forever trying to conjure up a magic concoction that on a good day would have been her “favorite.” Ends in a 2-hour boxing bout between her and me and exactly 5 bites gone down. Its almost time to get back into the kitchen to start on more magic meals..this time it might work…abracadabra…nada, didn’t!
Times like these when I really appreciate that one day when she didn’t fuss or that one meal that she gobbled up completely on her own. If it i ever happening again, I promise to celebrate…yes, make a big deal out of that one meal over and out.

Have heard some strange advices that basic things which children do should not be acknowledged as good behaviour and over appreciated. Don’t make a big deal out of them finishing their task as its what they should normally be
doing…they are not doing you a favour by keeping their toys away or finishing their milk…its no biggie and treat it like that.

Well, what do they know how relieving it really is for a parent when all goes well without screams and tantrums. Today I totally believe I should have celebrated all those times…probably thrown a party and raised a toast to her! It only shows how desperate I am! But do I mind showing G…my desperation…my weakness…and hoping she will be kind enough to do that which pleases me no bounds? Days like these I wouldn’t even mind pleading to her. Oh, will I give her more ways to manipulate me, really? Who cares…? Should parents be only looking out for the child’s over-all development, inculcating values, ethics and what messages they are unconsciously transmitting to the child while their own sanity is on the brink of total annihalation? How come all the great things we want them to absorb take ages and ages of repetition but one day of ignoring your duties can leave scars for life…really?!I think not…

There should be legally “time off” days when I can just not be bothered about doing the “correct” thing for G’s “development” but instead just work on saving what is left of mine.

Damage control can happen tomorrow…but today I am “OFF DUTY!”

Truth and Cake

When is the last time you set out to fail? Fell flat on your face, looked like a fool, tried something risky and FAILED? Have you ever, even once, started something with the sole intention of failing?
 
My guess? No. We’re programmed from birth to succeed. From the cheer of our mothers as we take our first steps, to the straight “A’s” we strive for in school, all the way through our multi-faceted adult lives, we are smiling, studying, and sweating our way towards achievement. Yes, we sometimes fail. But it’s generally not purposeful. We’re so used to the idea of a grading scale that we internally score ourselves on such disparate things as work presentations and parenting skills. And the grade is usually dependent on the same criteria: how do others view our performance? Is my child screaming? Am I poised for a promotion? Are my parents proud…

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A must read for all!

tantrums galore…

Okay, so we are cranky today! ‘We’ meaning the Little Monster—not me…I am never cranky…I just PMS!

Well, the first bout of crying came first thing in the morning. She decided to “borrow” flowers from the neighbours to put at our altar. Obviously, I have to find an opportunity to drill good values into her and there we started off on a tug-off war of words. Her excuse, “I don’t want it…God wants it!” See? why I don’t want her to be like me?…I take out my PMS guns at the first sight of trouble and she took out her God guns now!  My ammo against me!!

Breather…an intermission of 2 mintues flat before the next tantrum begins…

This time obviously she’s sad, the holidays have started for all her friends in the building but she still has a week more to go.
“I want to stay at home and play with Joshua (her best friend
ever since he moved next door–he “hates” purple so G “hates” purple too, which by the way was her fav after pink.)
“You need to go to school to learn…”
“But I know everything…I know snake…I know Platypus..No, I don’t know Platypus because they didn’t teach me that in school…but I know everything.”
Well, all the way to school I got the silent treatment.
After school took her to the library to try and make it up to her somehow. Happy happy finally!
But how long do you think the rainbow stays…there we go again.

Rivers of tears suddenly and I had no idea what was happening…
“Are you hurt? What happened, sweety?”
“I don’t know what to draw on the card. I am making it for you.”  Awww…my heart melted…put her on my lap and tried asking her what she would like to draw…caterpillar, house, funny face?
“No…ok..SMILEY FACE!” Tears wiped, snorts cleaned and we are ready to go. She back to her card and I back to my laptop.
2 mintues already?…Intermission ends—second half begins…

“I coloured the smiley face with the pencil…now I can’t see the eyes and the SMILE!!”

The circus continues…

Well, enough is enough…I needed to vent now I figured and got onto the blog.  Hahaha…I am going to sip on ginger tea now while G is finally taking a nap and you guys read the story of my piss off day…not that I don’t appreciate it. Do come again and listen. Its truly therapeutic!

Urrghhh…not enough ginger in the tea…

STOP daydreaming about your kid’s life…

Yesterday, I was driving G back from school when she suddenly looks at me and declares, “when I am big, I will do Fashion!”
Awesome! I was delighted.  My little girl wanted to be a designer just like her dad and mom…hahaha..it’s all in the blood, I say! 

So I probed her a little asking how she wanted to do Fashion, what kind of lovely clothes will she make for people? I also told her it was a great idea…It would make me really proud. Well, though she listened to my ramblings calmly she had this look on her face which clearly meant “gosh, are you dumb or something?” Apparently, when she reached the end of her patience with it, she cut me off and said in a curt manner: “I want to do fashion…like i want to have longggg hair…wear beautiful dresses…and have lovely…awesome awesome big earrings all the time…THAT FASHION, Ma.” 

And there, you couldn’t have heard the sound of my bubble burst but surely my sigh of disappointment! I was over the moon one minute and dragged down like dead weight the next.

My daughter wanted to “do fashion” so forget ballet classes and prepare to walk the ramp, baby!

One more lesson learnt:  STOP daydreaming about your kid’s life…dream about yours!!

Metamorphosis

People told me life would change but nobody warned me how I would turn into a ticking bomb!

BEFORE                                             vs.                                               AFTER

My Vanity:  

• Mirror Mirror on the Wall…   vs.      Mirror cracks!! Its a horror story!!

My Belief:

• Logic and reason                  vs.                         “…because I SAID SO..!!”

My Lifestyle:

• “Let’s rock all night, baby!”   vs.   “Gosh, its 9 already…LIGHTS OFF!”

My Tantrums:

• “You don’t spend enough time with me!”  vs.  “Leave me alone, will u!”

My Leisure:

• long drives on quite roads  vs.  “Why aren’t there drive-thru
•                                                                   Super Markets??!!”

My yearly Resolve:

• “I’ll try to be a better human being”  vs.  “I will try not to let little G turn
•                                                                                    into me!”

100 things I want to learn:

• To fly a plane, pick a lock… vs.  Get the stench of baby puke off me

Conversations:

• “Its a lovely day today!” vs.  “Stop trying to smell your own fart!”

What a baby means to me:

• little bundle of joy vs.  “Little Monster who is out to get me…..HELP!!!”

New lessons for both…

Last couple of days we have been out at our coffee estate where Dear Hubby needed to take care of some work. For G and me it’s a regular holiday where I get to lie on the hammock and read (five minutes uninterrupted) while she gets to make mud cakes to her heart’s content. Far far away from city life! Sounds perfect, right?…think again!  Does that change anything for a parent…guess not!

Well, one day lunch battle begins. G is pulling at the last straw and I am a few seconds away from pleading insanity. Just then, she quitely slips off the dinning chair and ever so slowly walks off into the kitchen as if she needed a sip of water and guess what…she is out the back door!  Well, no biggie….my usual reaction would have been to shout at the top of my voice demanding she get back “right NOW!” But something amazing happened…I took a breath before that excrutiating exercise which was about to begin between us and I had a revelation!!  My Little Monster is scheming…at a microscopic level, yes, but nevertheless scheming it is.
As I see it, she pretends to go get something I wouldn’t object to, she calculates the back door would be an easier access and that she can get at least a few minutes away from the clutches of the PMSaurus…I was suddenly proud of her!I

Well, the point I am getting to is that in the earlier days of being a parent, it is easier to see them as cute little dependant babies but as they are a little older, we see them as “little people” and that is when the trouble starts.

I often feel like G is out to kick my ego out the window most of the times with her smart a** comments, cooked-up stories and some super smart and calculated behaviour.  But the moment I realised that what she was really doing is growing up…getting street smart and getting ready to handle the world in her own little ways, I learnt a new lesson!  G is learning and she is learning well!!  I ought to give her credit for that and not take it personally.  I believe now that she is not out to get me…lol…she really steps on my toes though!  I promise to let her explore more ways to see how she can go around things if not through them…to look at threats…to look at options to avoid them…or to take them head on!

I’ll end this post with one of her smart a** comments:

Yesterday, when I was carrying her through the field, I told her my legs were hurting as she was getting heavier now. Her reply, “If I walk then there will be…one..two..three..four legs hurting na?” Well, nothing much for me to say!

Little Monster G