The Curse of the Bored Child

A bored child is a mother's worst nightmare. It's even worse than a child who is throwing a tantrum because at least a tantrum is directed at getting something or a result of something being denied.

A child who is bored is a dangerous element in nature and in his mother's life.

A child experiencing ennui will look at things differently and objects and ideas hitherto not in his scope of thinking will suddenly appear to him and make him do things that become the bane of his mother's existence and also put him in some amount of danger.

Take my very own bored child for example: He walks around half naked most of these because of the heat and suddenly took it upon himself to lash out at everything with his grandfather's belt. He liked the swoosh of the belt as it cut through the air and when I found him he was perilously close to whipping himself on his bare back with a belt that was being thrown about with a lot of energy and speed.

A bored child will also drape themselves over their mother in a manner that prohibits that poor woman from doing anything. I mean anything. A loo break becomes manna from the gods. A quick shower becomes a forbidden luxury. One that is disrupted every 2 minutes by a whine or a pounding on the door to give miscellaneous objects since the little emperor wants to be entertained.
All the while the bemused mother's busy trying to make sure the soap doesn't get into her eyes and hurrying so much that she almost ends up moisturizing with the conditioner in her haste.

When I see my son in these phases I am alarmed since I have NO CLUE how to keep him entertained. I think of cool, open meadows where he can gallop around like an unbridled horse or leap out of the ocean like a dolphin (make that a Great White with jaws agape after a hapless seal).

And I often feel sorry for myself because I sure as hell did NOT know WHAT I was getting myself into the day this chap was born.

It must be tough being a child, wanting to do so many things and yet having so many restrictions that the adults impose on the immediate environment; especially those which are inexplicable in a child's reckoning.

On the other hand, his demeanor and intensity makes me think he can make it big as a cage fighter. 
Maybe once he's in the cage I can finally put my feet up and read a book or sip an unhurried cuppa tea.

A mother can always dream.

In the Middle of the Night...

there's not a whole lot that goes through your mind when you can't sleep. You fight irritation, some amount of sadness that a you aren't burrowed under the covers and snoring your small pakoda nose off!

A chilling wave's hit Hyderabad of late. Don't know where it came from, don't know how long it's going to remain but wish the Met department had forecast it or even hinted at it. I was hosing down MLM's highchair after he fed himself dinner last night and when I went to leave it out on the balcony to dry, such a blast of cold hit me!

Am a winter person complete with enjoying sardi ki dhoop and the comforters at night but bursts of cold do more harm than good. I'm down with a congestion and sore throat after a perfectly fun play date with a friend and her son since Friday afternoon and for the life in me I can't figure out how or where I caught the damn thing!

And wouldn't you know it? MLM has a bit of congestion now too! He kept getting up, whining and finally I rocked him to sleep, with him snoring away in my ear. Mother love can be sorely tested at such times. The kid looks lean to me but sitting like a lump on my lap when I'd rather be horizontal, he was downright heavy! Finally eased him onto the bed and thought I'd blog for a bit.

I was wondering what to do while I was sitting with him. I wished my Kindle had a backlight. I haven't been able to read through the night sitting in my own bed since I got married. Red can't sleep even if a teeny, tiny sliver of light exists in the room he's snoozing in. So I'd get cozy on the sofas and read till the words would get blurred in front of my eyes or I'd be startled by my alarm and realize I'd stayed up the entire night.

Of all the things I thought I could do while monkey boy was using me as his mattress these were the few that made it to my top 10 (yes I make lists. For most occasions. I'm weird, I know.) :

1. play with MLM's play doh and make some more funny faces to stick up on the fridge.
2. iron all the things that I can't or won't give to the presswala.
3. make myself a cup of honey and ginger tea.
4. read some of the vampire fiction I've downloaded on the Kindle.
5. Watch as many episodes of the Castle S3 rerun.
6. Watch as many episodes of 24 S1. Yes, I'm a 24 newbie and haven't yet decided if I love it or if it's just going to be a watch and delete.
7. Go over MLM's baby pictures and rue over how chubby he used to be as opposed to now and how much life was easier again; as opposed to now.
8. Take out the old photo albums from college and just smile to myself at how we all were.
9. Tackle one of the looooong-pending tasks on my things-to-do list.
10. Shop online for stuff I don't need and probably don't want but what the heck?

I still don't know which of these am going to do since I'd like to be able to get to the gym without looking like a zombie. They already looked at me askance ever since they saw me work out one weekend in my Eddie the Head tee. It's almost as if it's totally incongruous that a chubby, short person could wear something like that. I've got that look from my obstetrician when I used to go for my prenatal scans. Once when I wore it during a breakfast with one of Red's friend's mom (that day I thought I really was an oddball the way the lady viewed me up and down). I could almost hear the words that she was not speaking viz "achhey ghar ki ladkiyan aise skull-shull waley kapdey nahin pehenti!"

The funniest reactions I've got to that item of clothing are from my father and son. The former just gave me a double take and made his typical moue about my taste of non-elegant clothing and the latter (when he finally noticed Eddie) thought he was a Swami. 

Quick Note: MLM has a major God fixation aka the graphical representations of IT/HIM/HER. He loves Durga because she has a funky maned lion with her, Ganesha also finds favor with him since he loves elephants (he thinks they moo when they lift their trunks to trumpet :D) and of late he's been chanting Sai Baba till my ears are ready to fall off. His school's van driver pointed out the Sai Baba temple in a lane and since then any pictures of the aforementioned gent have to be scrutinized, commented up and some amount of namo namo has to be done.

So when MLM spied Eddie on my tee shirt, he thought the grinning, cross-legged person with glowing lights in front of him was a holy person and he was solemnly anointed as a Swami.

Anyhow...It's been less than 20 minutes that I've been blogging, and barring a need and desire to blow my nose I'm still drawing a blank at my next steps.

I guess 24 it is till something better or more urgent comes along.

G'nite.