Fantasy

There's a trip (read numerous trips) that have been in the making for a few years. They exist on the huge, unending drawing board of my head and sometimes they come close to becoming tangible and at other times they are content to remain wisps of my imagination.

This is a glimpse of what they might've been (can be):

Tour De Romance

This would be a trip to Venice, Paris, Maldives and Napa Valley. This is how I visualize it up in the noggin-

 

The Fun (winks) Tour

This one's an out and out fun place with nightlife, laughs and just let-your-hair-down-kick-your-heels-up kinds. These are the places which feature here:

At this point my child came and dumped a big lump of dough on my lap and said he wanted to play NOW..I guess the travelling fantasies can be shelved for a little while longer...sighs..

Marking Territory

Everywhere I look, I sit the offspring's presence prevails.

The jar of Gummybears are usually within hand's reach although with the child-proof caps it's still a bit in our control when we want to hand the bears over.

There are clothes clips on the futon, tigers and lions (figures) under the sofa cushions and Play Doh and khakhra crumbs all along the path he's taken through the house. Very Hansel and Gretel and one can guess who the witch in this story is too :)

Point is- kids take over your life in toto! And when they sleep you reclaim it and the house which has their artwork all over the walls instead of the nice designs you and your husband picked out as newlyweds.

But then again they surprise you in the MOST UNEXPECTED manner. After a terribly taxing day when you've restrained yourself from leaving them on some unsuspecting person's doorstep they turn to you and execute a deep bow and say Thank You Very Much Ayu in the cutest manner ever and all's forgiven till the next transgression.

Damn! Check and mate to the offspring. Mommy's still figuring out her opening gambit!

Ode To A Team Lunch

Or what others might call...the Salt'n' Pepper Fiasco!

One of my colleagues is leaving Gymboree and we decided to have a nice leisurely team lunch today as a farewell for her. Yeah right!

MLM has summer camp and is back home just around the time that I get back from work in the afternoons. I came home, picked him up and freshened up a bit and went back to work with the iPad in tow since it's the panacea for all ills. Ever since I've joined Gymboree I've missed out on the team lunches for some or the other reason. Today being a farewell lunch I really couldn't avoid it although am pretty sure that after today, team lunches are something I won't have to be worried about being invited to.

The thing about having a hyperactive child is that if  they have something along the lines of ADHD its still understandable why they can't get their butt to stick on a particular surface for more than a second. But without an excuse of that sort it becomes very tough to understand WHY your child HAS to be THE ONE who's trampling over everything,everyone, emptying salt and pepper into the drinking glasses from the shakers and basically acting like he's a human demolition crew.

I'd like to think that in time he'll quieten down but till that day comes I'll be guzzling my food like it's the Last Supper and I'll perpetually be dodging waiters and other diners in search for that elusive munchkin who wants to peer into the food trays, other peoples' plates and seek out all the damn salt and pepper in the world so he can make them into piles and have his dastardly way with them.

In one word..AAAARRRRRGH!!

Letter To My Child

I plan to have MLM read this when he can link more than three words together and has attained the attention span of a human instead of a bee buzzing from flower to flower. So essentially I'll have to wait till he hits 30.

Dear Monkeyboy

1. When I sleep don't stick your fingers up my nose. I do that all by myself and in a far more efficient manner, thank you.
2. The moment I'm lying down don't assume I'm pretending to be a trampoline. The extra fat wasn't piled on keeping in mind your need to bounce.
3. If I bend down to retrieve my slippers or wipe the floor after you've trailed food on it; don't climb on my back thinking it's horsey time. It'll be time for a chiropractor if that continues my friend.
4. STAY ON YOUR SIDE OF THE BED or go in sleep your cot. This body was not meant to be squished into a tiny sliver of a space. If it was, my clothes would be marked XS instead of XL!
5. Don't beg and plead each time you want something. I grow immune. Learn to time your pleading...it's far more effective and you'll be surprised how far a sad face goes when it's used sporadically instead in a drop of a pin.
6. When I'm gesturing wildly on a phone call and don't sound all that perky, it is definitely not the best time to say, "Susu is coming." "Potty is coming is even worse". Use the loo by yourself as you are wont to do when you think am not watching.
7. When I ask you to go to the loo to do your business before we set out in the car, GO! Saying you need to go when am at a red light or in the midst of heavy traffic doesn't magically conjure up Port-a-potties all over the place.
8. Hugs and kisses are fine. In fact they are great! But when given after a calm and steady manner it's even better than attacking me like a herd of stampeding rhinos.
9. The powder either stays in the jar/bottle or goes on your body. Putting it all over the floor where I go careening all over the place is not what Johnson & Johnson made it for. If you really want me to go sliding off somewhere, ask your father to take us to Aspen.
10. You  biting me on the cheeks was fine when you were a drooly baby. Now with teeth like a barracuda, it hurts.
11. Don't chomp down on the toothbrush every time. I have to pry your teeth apart like I use the car's jack and while it gets the job done, I'm in danger of getting a tennis elbow without ever having lifted a racquet!
12. Your father and I like to watch the t.v every now and then you know. And that goes double for us using the iPad. Something about being able to enjoy the stuff we paid through our nose for.
13. My phone is mine. I give it to you when you're in the throes of a major meltdown but it's mine. You asserting ownership over it aint gonna help!
14. The sofas are for sitting on and their backs are not balancing bars. We'll put you in a gymnastics class once you're older. That goes for karate as well so stop chopping at me and swinging your toys like their nunchuks!
15. We have our taste in music when we drive. Dance Gymbo Dance looped for miles on end does nothing for us enjoying the long drive. 
16. The iPad charger, the laptop mouse are not pets. Stop dragging them around the house. We'll get you a pet once your allergies abate.
17. When I make the bed, for once forget the Parachute time from Gymboree. I can't fly the "parachute" for each bed I make.
18. What is this fascination for clothespins? I end up stepping on them or sitting on them at all odd places and can never find them when I'm hanging out the laundry. 
19. Watering the plants are fine. Drowning them is not. And no...they don't want to take a bath like you do for an extended time.
20. Don't take my gripes to heart. You're beautiful but try targeting more sleep time because when you sleep my world is a more serene place.

With Love Always,

Your Deranged Mother

3 going on 30

That's right! Monkeyboy's about to turn 3. That I've grown 3 strands of grey hairs in my own odd mommy- tally system is just another freakish coincident. Or so I try to tell myself again and again.

The little man in question has blossomed from the time he made his grand entry into this mixed up world of ours. Red and I took baby steps ( pun most definitely intended!) into parenting and I for one found that there were aspects of it I wasn't prepared for. It's not  merely the kissing-your-sleep-goodbye...actually being a zombie isn't so bad after a while. You find yourself staying up at nights looking at your husband and exchanging looks of utter relief that the monster...darling offspring is finally snoozing in the land of diapers and baby powder and that's a whole different kind of bonding altogether.

It's about knowing the way ahead most of the times, if not all the while. Routines are easy to fall into and easy to follow. The hitches come when the routines go awry (by no fault of yours most of the times) but it's knowing the right time to expose the children to new things, concepts, helping them form habits and also trying to teach them boundaries.

The last bit's got me so all over the place that half the times I just want to lie back and say, "do what you want, you will anyhow...I'll just catch up on my pimply sleep while you wreck the house for the 5th time since morning."

But kids are usually creatures of habits and it takes a lot for them to break one and take up another. And  while you try various aspects of conditioning on them the idea of a Skinner's Box takes root in your head where the image of your kid safely ensconced somewhere while you go about your own thing for a change, gives you moments of amused pleasure and you think, "what if" before realizing that you'd be inviting the wrath of the spouse, parents, in-laws and pretty much the neighborhood onto your rapidly-greying head by doing such a thing. However empirical and scientific and helpful in your cognitions.

But what I'm still learning 3 years down the line is that your kids teach you (BY FORCE GODAMMIT!!) about being a better person, a bigger person and also about keeping up appearances among other things. They teach you perseverance, patience; up your endurance, snatch your sleep, relegate you to track pants, bushy eyebrows, oily skin, turn your diet upside down, make the gym a distant dream, make you long for Mary Poppins, the days when you were single or newly married...oops...I think I meandered into another list I had in my head.

Ahem, ahem...back to the scheduled post- my child has taught me forgiveness. No matter how mad you get with them, no matter how many times you put them in the naughty corner, spank their bottoms, take away privileges, let them roll around on the cold floor crying their eyes out- they still love the heck out of you.
They still kiss you goodnight, they let you kiss them bye before they go off to school, they jump off the school van just by seeing a glimpse of your face and the moment there was boo-boos to be kissed they come and search you out in a room full of people because only you can get the job done.

My son, may he not turn out like me in temperament- is a doll. I don't like him all the time but I love him from the top of his head down to his toes (which are usually covered with his doodles). He invokes my creativity (even if it's to get him to get him out of my hair), he makes me laugh when we twirl around the room to jhinkchak songs and he makes me smile at the end of the day no matter how tough it's been throughout just because he sleeps with his mouth open and his lashes almost touching his cheeks.

All in all- toughest job I've ever held down (and I've been exposed to the criminally insane and the plain-vanilla variety of loonies) and I can't think of anything that I'd rather be doing.

Psst!! actually I have a whole big list of other things I could be doing but that's another blog. This is meant to be a feel-good-I-love-my-kid blog post. For a change.

Amen.

Theatrical Milestone

Yesterday marked the culmination of MLM's school's Annual Day function, after nearly a month of practising and God only-knows what kind of experiences for the faculty and staff.

I was thoroughly tickled to find out that he was going to play a Gummy bear and that too in costume. Since Gummybears have been watched and devoured by me and my ilk since our school days, it was an amusing notion that the offspring was going to be one for his debut performance.

Till the time we sat in the venue, it never occured to me that he might experience stage fright. My child isn't the brightest bulb in the box nor the most adventureous but I've never really known him to cry because of an unfamiliar experience or substance. Right from his infancy, he's just taken himself away from the situation that didn't catch his fancy or didn't provide the adequate amount of comfort.

And the program was everything a program of such young people is expected to be- funny, cute, bumbling, some errors here and there and not entirely to script all the way through. And that's USP for making it great!

There were 3 categories of children:

1) Those who'd understood, remembered, recalled and performed the skit the way it was taught. They ranged from the slightly older kids to even the play group ones who were just supposed to swing with the beats and twirl.

2) Those who came in and had fun and just did their own thing irrespective of beats and others around them. Happy to report that MLM belongs to this category. He isn't one for too much of structure and systematic functioning.

3) Those who were cast into the limelight a bit prematurely and had to face our glowing eyes and camera flashes in the dark; it wasn't a fun experience for them sadly.

It's a massive undertaking to have a child to begin with. If you're lucky, you can have a balance of a lively kid with one who sleeps and eats in a manner that fits into your existing life patterns. But to plan a skit full of songs, dances, costumes and 110 kids...that's just being a glutton for punishment and hoping and praying that the patience of Job is available 100 times over.
But that's the beauty of people who opt to work with kids. You don't necessarily have to love them to death but you do have to enjoy it to a large extent else you're apt to go bald from tearing your hair out in frustration and get a lumpy head from all the times you'll bang it against the wall.

And trust me, children can be infuriating. Their innocence, lack of comprehension and utter carefree outlook is so at odds with what we know and how we end up living; that it's a life-long task to keep them safe, teach them everything we feel they ought to know about and still make sure they end up being happy individuals.
Patience, above and beyond everything else, helps in this endeavor. Maybe it's a patience borne out of love but at the end of the day I find you can love your child endlessly but not really always like them minute on minute.

Last night's event was a milestone in my life. My child got up on stage in front of a darkened room full of people, with strong lights all around him, loud music and he remained happy, bouncy and enjoyed himself thoroughly.
He got his name in a souvenir (that I plan to stick in a scrapbook as soon as I can find one) and that's going to be a memory for me even if it doesn't end up being significant for him when he grows up.

As your kids grow up (yes, even at the ripe old age of almost 3 years), you grow with them. You see them take in their surroundings, deal with it to the best of their abilities and see facets that you may not always see on the home front. They amaze you with the depth of their expressiveness and also their resilience.
That, cheekiness is a constant factor in all this hardly merits a mention, eh?

Watching my son yesterday I was thinking far ahead and going into the dangerous territory that parents usually wander (and wonder) into- 'the future of their child'. I was actually anticipating more performances from him, more fun and who knows? maybe even a love of theater even if it's restricted to his formative years and not a life-long passion.

Parents can dream, can't they? And usually the child fulfills them. In their own way and in their own measure. For now am reliving a the images of a silky brown kid with whiskers and big ears, jumping around on the stage, dancing to his own tune :)

If I wrote a children's' book

I would write a book for the people who are contemplating on the contemplation of kids. It would be succinct and would be about the following:

• spending time with parents with kids of differing ages before actually beginning the process of parenting oneself [ the real time fun, angst, swearing, laughing and desire to use sedatives by the parents on the children are quite the eye-opener!]
• changing one nappy, potty preferably.
• feeding a child who has gained mobility. Something that is semi-solid and has a color that can and will stain a light-colored clothing; again preferably yours.
• bathing a child who is mobile and can lift himself/herself out of the tub. Whether the said child loves the water or hates it the result is the same- you will be drenched. Count on it.
• putting a child to sleep. Just once. One realizes that there's a gamut of things to explore starting from tussling the hair, patting the back, singing, cooing, walking, bouncing and yes, ultimately threatening too before the much-desired semi-conscious state is attained by the child.
• taking the child out to the park or any area where the following things excite the tot who has mobility- dogs, cats, birds, cars, PEOPLE...anything actually. Mine once watched a half-crushed slug for 20 minutes and clapped sporadically. So really, it can be ANYTHING.
• taking the kid to the supermarket for the first time. In an aisle which is particularly colorful and bright. And then what happens is no mystery...everything ends up in your cart.
• refusing the child something he or she really wants but you most certainly do not! What follows is the most intricate turns, bends, foot stomps and yelling- and that's just by you. What the child will do is anyone's guess...especially yours.
• watching a child sleep. The peace exuded by the child is so pervasive that you will just drop down and snooze on the spot. Amongst god knows what all. Yes. You will.
• hearing a child laugh. Everyday there's a new pitch, a new gurgle and a new tinkling sound that comes through. It's quite an art form actually. Especially one where it's not practised knowingly so au naturelle will bring out the best.

After all this has been indulged along with a few bites, nibbles, drools, spit-ups, hurling sessions most likely one will take the decision that I did- ride it out.

Everyday's beautiful and exhaustingly so. But then again, who knows how they view us...but that's another post. I have to rush...my lil cherub is yelling his head off and trying to hit new keys to show his impatience with his absent mother.

Salut!