Category: Parenting

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Babies still

Monday mornings are a drag. Since the husband moved out of the city for work, they’ve become worse. It’s sad when he can’t fly home for the weekend; it’s sadder when he does. He leaves early in the morning and the kids wake up to find him gone.
Today, N who seems to be extra sensitive to his departure, woke up unusually cranky and reluctant. Despite my efforts to cheer her up she seemed determined to pull us all down. With less than five hours of sleep I was
near snapping point.

 

However, when she said she was too tired to get up I simply picked her up and carried her to the washroom. It had been a long time since I had carried her and the ‘hug’ felt good. Mercifully, even at nine years, she’s yet not too heavy for me, this little one of mine. (H almost knocks me over when he clambers
on, which he does often).

She seemed to cheer up a bit and so I offered to give her a bath just like when she
was a baby. We spent a happy ten minutes in the washroom falling back into our old old pattern, splashing water on her while she tried to wet me and I pretended to be angry.

By the time I was helping her into her clothes laughing together, she had forgotten her crankiness and so had I. She finished her breakfast ‘even faster than H’. We went down to the bus-stop happier than I could have ever hoped for.

Sometimes children just need to be babies, to be pampered silly, their tiny whims catered to. We often find it difficult to come to terms with the fact that our children are growing up. However, just as often, we take their growing up for granted. Some days it helps to remember that grown up as they seem, they are babies still.

Disclaimer: A post like this in no way means I’m a sane centred zen mama. Most days I’m the regular harridan. It’s just that I blog about the good days because it is heartening to remember that once in a while I can avert the bad ones.

Linking up to Microblog Mondays. We’re talking about space travel. Do leave your thoughts there.

 

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The truth about lies

Dear H and N,

You remember the other day we were reading Matilda? The formidable Ms Trunchbull was yelling at her and Matilda tells a tiny white lie to save herself. You know what a white lie is, don’t you? It’s that small harmless lie that hurts no one but might actually save someone.

A question in your worksheet asked, “Did you think Matilda did right?” Both of you were in complete agreement with her, given that Ms Trunchbull was such a tyrant and she was but a child.

We talked about honesty and H, you were pretty accurate when you said, ‘If a lie doesn’t harm anyone, it is okay.’And N you had added, “When mamas tell babies to drink up their milk or their bones will break, it’s okay na, even though bones don’t ACTUALLY break if we don’t drink milk, right?’

Yes well you are right. 

Or are you??

Listen to this story before you make up your mind…

Imagine you have a friend; a special friend who is always with you. He talks to no one but you and no one can hear him but you. He’s a bit magical in that he always knows right from wrong. He has a problem, though – he cannot keep quiet when he sees any dishonesty – even the tiniest most harmless one. He’s a bit crazy like that.

Each time you are dishonest — even a tinny tiny bit, even when you’ve simply kept quiet when you might have spoken up — he bugs you and bugs you and bugs you till you feel really bad. Just when you are feeling relieved you’ve warded off a horrible yelling or a punishment he reminds you that you’ve done it dishonestly and makes you feel bad all over again.

And so you get angry and tell him to shut up. “I know it’s not the complete truth but THIS time it doesn’t matter. It’s just a tiny lie,” you say. But he doesn’t listen. “A lie is a lie,” says he, over and over again. Finally you’ve had enough and you’re so angry you tape his lips.

With each little lie another bit of tape goes onto your friend’s lips. 

Over the years it becomes a habit, this ‘shutting up’ your friend. His voice becomes more and more faint, till you can hear it no more and you’re lying without even thinking. You forget you ever had a friend. Finally there comes a time when you’re all grown up and you have a big complicated decision to make where the right and wrong is all mixed up and you cannot make out one from the other. “Aha!” you think then, “my friend can tell me, he has the magic that tells right from wrong”.

Then you remember, with a bit of regret, you’ve taped him up. “No problem,” you think as you start to painstakingly remove it all. Finally, the tape is off but what is this?? He still cannot speak. After years and years of silence he has lost his magic voice.

What do you do then? Of course, you might come to me or to papa but we might not be around by then. Besides, we haven’t been with you all along like your friend and may not have the right answers. What then? You’re quite stuck, right? It will be a hard hard task to teach your friend to talk again and by then it just might be too late.

We all have this friend inside us. It’s called the Conscience. The thing to do, dear children, is to keep your little friend up and fighting fit. Let him yell at you and bug you till he gets his way. Yes, he will make you confess you broke that plate, and get you yelled at too, but then he will also free you from endless days worrying about ‘what will happen when mama finds out?’. And that extra tight hug she gave you saying she was glad you owned up – totally worth it, wasn’t it?

Listen to your little friend with all your heart because honesty, complete honesty is, and will always be, the best policy.

Love and hugs always,

Ma.

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A rant

Do you have days when nothing seems to be coming together? When you wake up each morning with a fresh resolve for a cheerful day and watch the resolve done and dead within a few hours? When the kids just won’t stop whining? When every interaction with them is a struggle? When, just as you fix one situation, another one is upon you? 

It’s been a bit like that over the last week or two. The twins have been down with a bunch of real and imagined ailments. That I am not able to figure out which is which is driving me crazy.

First H complained of throat pain. Over the evening it escalated, and by night time he was wringing his hands and crying out each time he swallowed. After a panicked phone call to my doctor SIL I rushed out to buy medicine. As I got back I heard him singing, yes singing out loud, loud enough to be heard outside the house. And it has returned each night – the hand wringing and the moaning hasn’t stopped despite my threats and pleadings. 

Then it was N’s turn. She complained of a headache. Do kids have headaches? Anyway, since she rarely falls ill, I assumed she just wanted a day at home (since H had called in sick a few days back) and I went along with it. She stayed home, read, drew, coloured, crafted and cycled through the day and seemed all fine till evening. And then the ‘ache’ was back moving to her stomach accompanied with ‘nausea’ (‘every time I eat I feel like puking’) and loss of appetite. Back I was to the SIL wondering if the vague symptoms indicated jaundice till I ruled it out.

That’s how it’s been between the two of them.

Do I sound over-anxious? Yeah, I do, even to myself. But at that point their illnesses seem very real and very worrisome. I wonder if kids have any clue how their vague and casual complaints leave mums stressed.

And then there are mosquitoes….

Many nights in a row H has been waking me up because he hears a ‘buzz’. He’s mortally scared of mosquitoes – scared, not annoyed like the rest of us. I’ve tried everything – from repellent gadgets to creams. He has always been a mosquito magnet but I’m beginning to think the buzz is more in his head than anywhere else. Each night he walks into my room at ungodly hours, shutting doors and windows till I suffocate, screaming if he hears a buzz and then falling asleep leaving me waiting for the alarm so I can get on with my day. 

Mornings find me irritable with a body ache that refuses to go. I am unable to go to the gym which means hanging out at home feeling horribly fat and cranky (Ugh!). I resent every phone call, every knock at the door, even the maid – anything that comes between me and my shut eye, which just doesn’t happen. It’s a bit like I was back to their baby years with the sleep starvation.

I’ve been wondering if it’s that’s what making me over-anxious. After all the kids couldn’t have changed overnight. I should be used to their myriad illnesses.  I AM used to them. I could always figure out the real from the fake. Now I just cannot seem to.

This is unusual too – this rant. I do not usually rant unless I have a physical person sitting in front of me – when I bug the h*** out of them – someone from my list of ‘privileged’ few :-). Unfortunately  that hasn’t been possible and you have had to bear the brunt of it. 

On a positive note the discovery of the day has been that a good bath seems to wash away a lot of my crabbiness. Highly recommended for bad days when everything seems to be going wrong. That and a change in schedule seems to make me feel better.

As a new week comes up I have my fingers crossed.

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Of football matches and heartbreaks

Last week, one wet morning I found myself driving down a pathetically potholed road to the twin’s school to watch a foot ball match. All I know about football can pretty much be summed up as follows:
– World Cup matches happen at ungodly hours
– Players wear knee-length socks
– Said players are violent and often get hurt
– It is dangerous to referee a football match

The only players I know of are:

– Messi (not Messy, I just discovered)
– Ronaldo
– Maradona
– And Black Pearl, Pele (that one I learnt that from an Amol Palekar film)
However, with the son all over me to come watch ‘his’ match I had little choice. I wasn’t even sure he was on the team – he was a substitute. Does that count? I had no idea. For him it certainly did. It was a big enough deal for him to strut about for days bragging about how ‘cool’ his team was.
On D-day there I was – on the off chance that he would get to play AND manage to strike a goal AND win the game for his team! Yet I was there because since the twins came along I’ve learnt to believe in miracles.
It wasn’t too bad. The light drizzle was pleasant and I got to see first-hand how H managed to come home each day with mud-caked shoes and grubby clothes. The match turned out to be a draw with none of the sides scoring. The teams then took on penalty shootouts. Wonder of wonders H was called upon to play and to take a turn at the penalty kick (the last final deciding one at that) as the teams stood equally matched. He put all his might into that one kick. 

The ball sailed across, hit the goal post and bounced right away – far far from where it was supposed to go. Even as the claps sounded for the winning team I watched his face crumple. I watched him walk away dejected, shoulders down. I saw the tears he was trying hard to hold (This son of mine cries only too easily). I felt what he felt – that he’d let his team down. I wanted to run to him, to give him a hug. But I stayed put.

Finally the teams shook hands and it was all over and I could go to him. “We lost, mama,” he said in a small voice. I didn’t say ‘It’s okay,” because clearly it wasn’t. So I said the next thing I could think of, “You’ll do it next time.” And with that I had to be satisfied.
I was glad I went.
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Bollywood and kids

I love Bollywood and there was a time I could watch
pretty much anything. I don’t remember ever walking out of a film and I’ve gone
for some pretty lousy ones. I sat through one of SRK’s absolute pits of a film
(I’m telling myself it’s age-related maturity which makes me
admit this even while the heart feels a twinge of guilt at stabbing SRK in the
back). Anyway, all I remember of the said film is that he exaggerated his worst
mannerisms and wore a jacket without a shirt ugh!!! But then he IS SRK and I
WAS young ……. and I am so digressing, but you do get the picture, right?
When the kids came along I discovered to my utter
surprise that I’d turned into a Bollywood prude. I found I had this unexplained
desire to keep them away from all things filmi for ever and ever. I
never did have a fascination for toddlers mouthing film dialogues or aping the
Dabangg dance.
I quailed at the thought of H and N watching crassly
choreographed item numbers to even more crass lyrics, painfully long drawn out
‘come-hither’ looks and counter looks, the even more painful camera shots
lingering on various parts of the female anatomy as much as the gore and
violence. Sometimes they’d come to me with a string of lyrics they’d picked up
from a friend and ask me what it meant and I’d explain the best I could. I got
by pretty well but then those were early days.
The first time N gave me grief for a film, it was Karan Johar’s Student of the Year. She was all of 6 and I was sure it
wasn’t for her while she was equally sure it just was, since ALL her friends
had seen it. To my dismay the society kids took to enacting out portions of it
and I found N staking claim to a certain role without ever having seen the
characters! She knew each of them
through her friends. Still, I consoled myself, it wasn’t the same as actually
seeing the film. Even today the non-animated films the twins have seen can be
counted on their fingers.
However, I have come to realise that trying
to keep them away from Bollywood while living in India is silly not to say
completely impossible. The trick is to filter them and that I hope I can
continue to do for a long time yet. What I remain firm on, is NOT getting
swayed by the ‘All my friends have seen it’ line. I
have friends and cousins who have taken the children along right from the time
when the kids were babies. And I have to admit the children do not seem any
worse (or better!) for it. I put this down to just another parenting quirk the children have to bear with.
I’m learning to let go little by
little. The twins have graduated from KungFu Panda to Chennai Express and we
have begun to watch some really good Bollywood films together but more of that in another post. I still do get the occasional twinge when H and N pick up some bizarre action move or
a weird piece of vocabulary from a film or when I watch N singing Manwa Lage with a look of immense
earnestness and I wonder how much of that emotion she can actually comprehend. I
AM over-thinking this I know. The sane part of me tells me kids hardly
internalise songs and dialogues like adults; but what to do – that’s just how I
feel.
And the prude in me cannot but
celebrate when given a choice the kids recently picked Minions instead of a
popular Bollywood flick. Maybe it was alright after all, alright to hold them
back just that much. Parenting is about individual instinct, right? And then about
hoping and praying fervently that it all turns out right.
What do you think? Is it okay to let
the kids be? Do we end up pushing them towards something by trying to block it
out?
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