Necessity, Thou ART the ancestor of creativity!

Parenting is about a lot of things- I will NOT touch upon patience (why break one's head about a quality that's been elusive and will continue to play hard to get for all eternity?) but that apart parenting has got LOADS to do with creativity.
Again, if you aren't totally off your rocker courtesy your kid's antics, you'll be able to harness it fairly well and when required.

MLM is at best a fussy eater. He isn't fussy about what he eats, he's just fussy about eating. Why bother to stop and eat when he could be playing, watching that cursed Chhota Bheem, smearing 'kalash' (colors) on everything from his hair to my nose?
So like it or not the telly becomes an accomplice during feeding time. He gets entranced by the yellow people aka The Simpsons or the goody-two-shoes Bheem and allows me to spoons what I think is an adequate amount of food in his mouth. Threats of turning the t.v. off work extremely well in getting him to open up. It's my personal 'Open Sesame' as it were.

Tonight was no different- he was refusing to eat and I was adamant about not mushing his food so I could almost funnel it down his gullet. And as ever, sighs, Bheem baba was displaying his valor for all the nincompoops like my kid. I made small balls of the rice and curry and kept feeding MLM each one saying they were Bheem's laddoos. He didn't notice each one got progressively larger and he ate till I could do the tummy metrics and deduce he'd eaten *enough*. Of course, in case I didn't get the message fast enough, MLM also told me by raising his palms- EMUFF!!

So a child fed, very little threats doled out and some imgaination was displayed. Plenty of pats on the back- all by myself but hey...you gotta take what's there. If I wait for a bravo I'll be waiting till the cow come home.

But the whackiest and most imaginative thing was done was Red a few minutes ago. We're supposed to get MLM to do inhalations with Vicks or Karvol and Red being all congested too it becomes a way to spend quality time as a family. But where do I come in? Ever watch those shows were those herpotologists try to track down and then measure those boas and anancondas? The snake writhes like nobody's business and the people have to fight to not get knotted up in its coils? Well, the steam inhalation process with MLM is quite like that. He pretzels himself and whoever else is holding him till he's as far away from the rising steam as possible!!
To hold him steady or to get the inhaler close to him while Red's got a grip on him is my main role.

Anyhow, this little squirmer has always had a thing for the red clothes hamper we have in the bathroom. His father had set him down in it once when he was younger and I think that had created a memorable memory in his freaky noggin. So while the fight between father and son ensued, the hamper was brought forth and aforementioned squirmer was released. He dumped all the clothes out of it and said PUT! We ain't stupid. Most of the times. We put him in the hamper and took care to place the lid on top. Now before anyone decides to call Child Care services let me interject that the hamper has holes all over it and allows for PLENTY of ventilation. So there he sat, crouched inside, thinking he'd outsmarted us and his father held the inhaler close to the walls of the hamper and let the smoke waft in.

And that's how you get a child to do inhalation. If you're (un)lucky. When I was his age I responded to the "or else" my mother used to dole out with unfailing regularity. No hamper-shamper for me.

I wonder what's next. I really, really do. And going by recent history I wonder if we have big enough containers for his Littleness when the next challenge comes along!