Tag little boy

Here Comes The Tough Stuff

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“Quite a few times it’s happened that I wrote something but couldn’t publish it because my inner crazy lady didn’t allow for anything to get sent out unless the requisite tags and categories had been ticked off. While cleaning up the blogging space, I’ve come across stuff I’ve left half-written, written but unedited or written with just the publishing bit left. This is one of them.”

The offspring is in Upper KG or Pre-primary-2. It’s the step before 1st grade commences from next year.

Last year, any homework he was given was just over the weekend and it was a rehash of the stuff done over the weekend. A minimal rehash. This year he’s getting homework almost everyday. Which isn’t a bad thing because 1st grade will come with homework assignments for multiple subjects irrespective of what kind of prior academic background the child may have.

Only, the problem isn’t with homework per se. It’s with *what’s* given as homework. It would seem that the little man is anti-Hindi handwriting practice and pattern writing.

I should explain that anything repetitive which seems non-fun from the beginning is entirely unlikely to hold his interest for more than a few seconds.

So we try to build up his interest by getting a fun pencil box, erasers, sharpeners…the works. Or rather as much as a kid in primary school is likely to require. And what does he do? He wants to sharpen his pencils down to nubs because the shavings can be made into flowers. He wants to scribble on his homework notebook because then he gets to erase and as all know how much fun that is!

When I tried to show him how to write his letters he stiffened his hand into near rigor mortis mode. Of course put a plate of cookies next to the same hand and Lo! and Behold! Resurrection occurs and a small hand reaches for the chocolate chips yummies at lightening speed!

Sheesh!

The Malady of Summer Holidays

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I’ve noticed that there’s a strange and inexplicable condition that happens to kids, especially mine over the summer holidays. They become deaf, louder, motor movements mimic being like marionettes with their strings cut or like mini Boomerang videos. Polar opposites but somehow they seem to be able to switch between them effortlessly enough.

The specific keywords that they don’t seem to comprehend are these:

  1. Get up.
  2. Slow down.
  3. Enough.
  4. No more (pool time, t.v., iPad, laptop, playing with water…till infinity)
  5. Get out of the pool.
  6. It’s late.
  7. Come home.
  8. Go away.
  9. SHUSH.
  10. GO. TO. SLEEP!!

Barring that it’s the same ol’ symptoms of childhood+boredom+curiosity all rolled into one delicious little buck-toothed package of silliness!

Reflections at 4:47 am.

FortunateCave Leave a comment

I’m up. Again. I’ll be useless by 11 am unless I have 2 super-duper coffees (one of them black) in the first half of the day.

I don’t mind waking up ahead of time. I like the near-solitude that the apartment offers. The offspring is sleeping in some odd modernistic dance pose and the husband is just blissfully asleep. People look very different when they sleep. You either cringe or look lovingly at them. No middle path there am afraid.

I am FILLED with love for my child when he’s asleep. The curl of his lashes, the pucker of his mouth and I notice everything about him; the crud in the corner of his eyes, a small spot of toothpaste he didn’t properly rinse off his chin and usually how his pajama bottoms are gradually heading north of his ankles.

A few days ago I was (yet again) deleting stuff from my email account because it was close to being full and I really didn’t know if I wanted to fork over money every  month for more space yada yada yada. I found some utterly delicious videos of my kid. Sadly they were taken with the sturdy, never-let-you-down-hardware-wise-but-otherwise-with-a-lame-ass camera Nokia I used to tote around before Samsung Galaxy came and changed my life for the better.

So there I was unearthing these treasures which I’d totally forgotten about…these grainy videos of him while still diaper-clad and with the requisite amount of baby fat when comes in the subject of those videos in present day avatar- lean, bucktoothed and with his run-of-the-mill dino t-shirt and asks me why am I going “awww” and smiling at my laptop so much. I tell him am looking at videos of him when he was a little(r) boy and it’s making me happy to remember those times. All sorts of maternally feelings are going on in my head with the past and present right in front of me and the world seems awash in those pretty shades from the color palettes which mothers apparently see when they feel a surge of love for their kids.

He looks over my shoulder, with his surprisingly pointy chin digging into my shoulder bone and says “I was a cute baby” and with the same breath telling me to move over somewhere else because he wanted to watch something on tv and my exclamations were too loud for him.

And just like that, in a snap, your maternal feelings evaporate and you longingly look at that diapered bum running around, chin all shiny from drool, making  bird and airplane noises and wish he was back just for a little bit. Instead you leave circa 2011 behind and face 2016 with semi-resignation and just plant your butt more firmly into the couch and say I was here first! And before the whiny and knee-jerk “Nooooo” starts off, you get your ‘talk-to-the-hand’ face and gesture in place and get back to viewing that chubby kid who ate everything under the sun and was cute as a button. This dinosaur-loving one could just do with cooling his jets for a wee bit!

Main Tenet of Dealing with Nostalgic Moms- NEVER mess with the nostalgia process…it brings forth the inner dragon; complete with fire and brimstone. And the claws.

Image courtesy-Pinterest

And We’re 6…

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Well WE aren’t six. We’re mid-30s and staying that way till the big 4-0 rolls over and flattens us into pancakes.

The brat is 6. And has a nasty case of sniffles and a hacking cough. Oh joy. A year older and about to be pumped full of meds. Which kid doesn’t want that?

We had a really small birthday party for him. Total stag. Last year he had more friends come over and then hid out in a spare bedroom and opened all his gifts while his little friends roamed all over and had fun (?).

This year, keeping his wishes and extremely large personal space in mind, Red and I asked him what he wanted to do on his birthday. After the gift list that he usually repeats ad nauseam a couple of times a week, he finally fixated on the group of little boys he goes swimming with. That’s all he wanted for his birthday party. 4 other friends who would come over, have cake, play some party games and have fun. Right? Of course right! Erm..not really.

They had fun. The hooting, hollering and racing around with voices raised confirms that much. The rest ranged from shiny-eyed munchkins who saw the chocolate truffle cake and said yummy to the ones who kept “encouraging” MLM to open his gifts and start playing with them.

I got requests for specific colors of cupcake frosting, flavors, juice and even inquiries about the goody bags to be taken back home.

By the time the partee was over there were happy, chocolatey kids who left with loud byes and fervent hand waves and we went back to a house that was still resonating with a kiddy party vibes.

Boy! Am I glad that’s over for another year.

Let’s see what kind of “fun” being 6 brings our way 🙂