parenthood

A Bloody Mary To End The Day

It’s been a while since I had a drink. A good one. A nicely made one. When I needed it. When I wanted it. When I longed for it. Wait…are we still talking about the same thing?

Some days are long. Some days are LOOOOONG. Everything seems upside down. Or downside up. And not many highs present themselves. The lows seem to abound and crowd the highs or rather the mezzos out of the picture.

On those days a well-made Bloody Mary hits the spot. It might be a pick-me up especially the tomato juice bit, for a hangover but sometimes, at the end of the day…it is just perfection!

I called the Significant Other home early today and it’s one of those rare occasions when he was able to oblige. Handed over the responsibility of the fruit-of-his-loins to him and made myself a cold one in the kitchen and for once had celery on hand to make it JUST RIGHT!

A splash of vodka goes a decent distance when you’re tired. Whiskey takes things into another realm altogether. But the beauty of vodka is that it keeps things light and yet allows you to just float away if you so choose to.

So here I am…watching the Big Brat feed the Small Brat his dinner and make funny faces while doing so. Am blogging and playing songs in my head because my shift is kinda over for the day. Or so I like to think. Another drink will make me believe it for sure.

Salut!

Bengali Parents: A Glimpse Into The Paaglaami

‘Paaglaami’ is a favorite word of the Bengali people. It means madness. The word paaglaami is derived from one of the uber favorite words of theirs as well…”paagol”. This word is never said in a droll, flat manner. Oh no..the word paagol is uttered in a manner which reeks of food being relished and tasted thoroughly before it goes down the gullet.

Why did I start the post with these particulars words? Well today at lunch at a restaurant we frequent, well…frequently…I eavesdropped on a youngish Bong couple who had a cute little daughter who was being a typical toddler. The father was incessantly trying to get her to behave…a losing battle if there ever was one. But the specific verbiage that he was using made me realize that Bongs really are a very peculiar kind of parents on the whole.

Right from the birth of the baby, the obsession with the kid catching a cold is apparent. Ergo the crazy knitting of booties, mittens and horror of horrors…the blasted monkey cap aka a balaclava. Each family will have legions of old women who have foisted these elements of torture on their own offspring (and will swear by it till their dying breath) and who voluntarily knit these caps for the newborns and toddlers and insist on pulling the itchy and scratchy wool onto their heads and don’t let go till the kicking and screaming kid (who looks like a banker robber in the making) is thoroughly uncomfortable!

As a Bong parent myself, I have to admit that the urge to discipline and have your kid heed your words is nearly an overpowering one. It’s almost as if it’s a motto- Am Bong. Must Scold. Loudly.

Take today’s couple for example. What the heck is a toddler to do at a restaurant but play with the cutlery and the place mats and basically turn things topsy-turvy?

The father, who clearly envisioned himself in the role of the Lord and Master, kept telling his wife rather pompously “ekta thaapod lagao toh”. Translation- smack her one! Now this wasn’t seriously meant. This was just for the kid’s ears. And that’s the oddity that makes the Bong parents who they are.

The child must be made aware of all the potential spanking that lurks in its present and future. This is parenting 101. Then come the non-verbals. The non-verbals are rather short-lived because Bengali parents can’t go too long without being verbal. It’s a disease. But they can’t be silent. Call it a gene mutation if you will.

Even if one of the parents resorts to silent treatments, the other circles the child like a hyena closing in for the kill and starts muttering what the immediate future will hold viz spanks, red cheeks, and threats of all shapes and sizes and in ever increasing theatricality.

The father I saw today was hilarious! He kept trying to give his daughter the “eye of shame” but clearly he hadn’t cottoned onto the fact that pre-preschoolers won’t really maintain eye contact especially in a public place where there’s so much going on all around them. Seeing that his daughter wasn’t responding well to the unspoken rebukes, he repeatedly told his wife how ‘dushtu’ (naughty) their daughter was and” uff bhishon badabadi” (another favorite word meaning something is being taken to its limits!) was taking place! His entire speech was highlighted in bold and he had clearly got a good deal on exclamation marks as well!

The mother placidly mentioned that their less than hyper daughter (Hey I know hyper…I have a boy) must be sleepy ‘eyijonye..,nahole eto paaglaami kothay korey’? Meaning…she must be sleepy else why would she be acting up this way.

The response from the daughter? Banging the fork and spoon together. Yeah…that’s lunacy for you! Someone get the Adderall!

So during the meal that was punctuated with “aar paarchhina re baba eyi meyeta ke niye” (can’t manage with this girl anymore!) I noted that more and more Bong parents tended to express dissatisfaction even if the situation wasn’t quite so dire.

Rationale? Maybe if things are envisioned as being tougher and more difficult but they fall short of the mark, the result is a happier situation for the parents. Who knows?

But Bongs will scold. And happily so.

Even if it’s a kid who acts like a mini-hurricane or a rather placid little girl who is behaving true to type, the paaglaami we see and express is truly of a ‘orey baba’ extent!

That’s how it’s been for generations and so it shall remain. For that’s who we are. Proudly so.

Eeesh!

Note: the author is a Bengali. Descended from Bengali parents and basically an affectionate observer of all things Bengali. Never a critique..oh no! Lokey ki bolbe?! (what will people say?)

Inconvenient Truths

The toughest thing I find at times is to explain to MLM what something actually is. Since he lacks the experience and often the vocabulary, it’s a bit challenging to think of ways to get him to understand it in a manner that satisfies him or makes sense to him. Some children accept a lot of things their parents tell them but MLM actually mulls things over quite a bit.

Little things like why he can’t be swimming in an unheated pool in the height of winter, how it’ll most likely cause a cold; why his father and I are using chasing him around the house to clean his nose when it’s runny and most importantly why t.v or other visual digital media is curtailed after a point. Usually there’s a villain in the story  viz moi but by and large there are questions coming up which I have to gloss over or fall back on euphemisms for him to stop his line of questioning.

Just today he suddenly asked why Littlefoot’s mother was sleeping and not getting up after the fight with the T-Rex. Till now he’s never watched anything where death has even been remotely implied and since he’s only 4, I haven’t even thought about how to explain those kinds of heavy concepts to him yet. Whatever cartoons he’s watched where the bad guy’s been defeated, he’s understood it as them having “gone away”. Whether that’s a permanent condition or not has not been touched upon. Come to think of it, I don’t know if such small children know and understand the concept of permanence either. Their little minds are usually so crammed with things in their immediate surroundings, their likes and dislikes.

So when he raised the query about Littlefoot’s mother I asked him why do you think she’s not getting up and he promptly replied, ” T-Rex did ouchie! Dinosaur got ouchie there and fall down. Now dinosaur sleep.”  Phew! That’s a good place to start. I wouldn’t know what to do when the “die” issue comes up.

With children what they see is what you get and I guess that’s why he can’t understand how it is when I occasionally put my contact lens on…he keeps trying to get me to put my glasses on…thinking I’m unable to see 🙂

When he was a baby, he’d go and check under the beds, behind the toilets, everywhere possible when he wasn’t able to locate his grandparents after they’d left. He just couldn’t understand how something was *not* there or was different or in an unrecognizable form.

All a part of growing up I guess…I just hope I survive the phase of “whys”.

Nothing Surprises Me…I’m A Mom!

Ermm…that’s a contradiction actually. Nothing does surprise me because a child’s mind is SO elastic that it works in ways I can’t begin to imagine and wish it didn’t.

And yet when the unimaginable (for adults) happens it’s also a surprise because the offspring chose to do (read destroy) yet another thing in his own special way.

This is what we call predictably unpredictable!

My child, who shall be referred to as Mommy’s Little Monster (MLM) hereafter, has always has a fondness for CDs. The round shape, the shiny surface and the fact when it’s put into a drive it emits sounds and images makes it totally magical for him.

He also has a VERY strong procedural memory (again a mixed blessing) and is ALWAYS doing what his father and I do. CD changing in our house is nothing short of a battle. And changing CDs in the car is CHAOS personified with one of us adults having to rescue the CD from being inserted upside down or with too much love (read FORCE)!

A few days back I tried to play one of my CDs, a rare occurrence, and found that the car music system was literally spitting it back out at me. Naturally I suspected that tiny hands of terror had been busy at work.

Today I finally got around to taking it to a repair shop for an estimate of whether the CD player was to be put to rest once and for all or if there was still life left in it. The technician opened the entire bracket to see what was wrong with the unit and out tumbled not ONE, not TWO but FIVE CDs.

Everyone was amazed. MLM was clapping for joy and chanting, “Look Look, so many CDs!”

And me? Well..am unsurprisingly surprised. And waiting for the estimate on the stereo. I have a feeling they’ll go by the DNR (do not resuscitate) instructions I gave them.

I have a feeling the remaining CDs will make  interesting wall decals until I get someone to keep their grubby little hands to themselves!

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