Tag Archives: parenting bloopers

Retroblogging#67

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For anyone who’s wondering about the sudden jumps in the numbers on the blog posts, let’s just put it down to outright artist license and move onto the good stuff. Here’s another post which brought a smile to my face because life has interesting ways of teaching us lessons..

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Vengeance is mine, and I will repay.”

Or something to that extent I imagine must have passed by an old chappie’s lips when four loud, boisterous kids from his neighborhood would filch his precious stack of clothes pins and make them disappear day after day..

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The more he complained to his neighbors (the parents of the brats) the more clips kept disappearing. They’d go off the clothes line and end up in the oddest places, like the water tank. Which after a point of time seemed to verily have more clips lying at the bottom than coins in the Trevi Fountain!

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Anyhow, he’d rant and rave and often cuss at them, not that they gave a hoot! It was fun to see the crusty old man finally move his potato sack of a body off the swing and lumber after them. Else it was the swing where he sat, day after day and made it squeak and squeak as if it was his life’s purpose.

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The brats didn’t know that the irritable man who always told on them was actually retired and wanted nothing more to sit on his swing and sip from his stainless steel glass of booze that would remain undetected in that wettest of dry lands. So the sight of children causing a ruckus put a cramp in his guzzling plans indeed! And if he stayed compliant and ignored them, he would have to face the task of answering his not so little woman who would wonder about the regular disappearance of her clothes pins.

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Cut to present day- one of the brats is grown up now. Somewhat. When she finished her laundry today and went to hang up the innumerable little things that her child goes through daily, she found that she was YET AGAIN short of clipsies..!
How she gnashed her teeth and wished that for once her beloved dumpling would throw something else off the balcony or find other things to confiscate instead of the oh-so important clips…

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And while seething and doubling up the clothes (since there weren’t enough clips to go around) she thought of a curmudgeon whose clips she and her fine companions would to love to chuck into the water tank or use as marks to get badams off the tree.

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And then it came home to her…what goes around definitely comes around. And there was plenty more coming her way…!

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Bloglet: Boomerang Bantering

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Every now and then I use slangs with TO and often it comes back to me in a very amusing way. He was using selective audition with me today when I was asking him to do a couple of things around the house. I rolled my eyes at him and told him not to be a doofus. And bang comes back the reply, “You’re a doofus!”

I walk off and mentally tell myself to wait for it and sure enough comes the query,”Ayu, what’s a doofus?” I tell him it’s a silly person and he mulls it over and says, “Ok..you’re a doofus Ayu”.

Ah..summer holidays..such a joy!

Blissful Calamity: November 2010

Nom Nom Nostalgia

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Whether it was because of my turning a year older recently or me seeing that my child is slowly getting into the big kid phase of his life; I have been nostalgic to the core. It’s a very visceral feeling for me.

For every parent there can be a near-constant contradiction when you see and interact with your offspring. On one hand you see them real time, the way they are now and who they’re growing into. And on the other hand your mind tricks you into believing that it’s still the same kid who laughed, drooled, kissed you without rhyme or reason and just came for cuddles because he felt like it.

In our case, MLM has transitioned to TO a while back and still I can see the beautiful little boy he was with his infectious giggles, silly antics and utter and complete abandonment in the activities we used to do together.

He is quite close to his father as well with me having to put both on timeouts occasionally when they keep acting like…well, males.

But as I look back at the little home videos I’ve been taking of this child since he was a few days old, his utter silliness seems to have been reserved for me. From dusting my face to putting on pots and pans on our heads as helmets and me watering him and saying he was going to grow like a flower; it has been a gift every single day.

And while I usually make the snootiest possible face when people wax on eloquently or get sentimental about their little ‘princes’ and ‘princesses’, I have to say that I get where they’re coming from. But I can’t call my kid a prince…it’s too bland. Mine’s a wizard! Because he fills our lives with his own magic and inspires me even when I’m threatening to punt him off somewhere.

Good lord, the heat’s getting to me. Such maudlin thoughts right in the morning. Whaddya gonna do? We’re people with kids…going gaga over them is Parenting 101.

Lost In Translation#498

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Kids extrapolate things based on their own frame of references. Mine does it quite a bit and even more so with words of a different language.

He loves music and at different times we have played hosts to quite a few different earworms of his. One of his old favorites reemerged due to a shuffle in his playlists and we were both humming along with it when he started off with that singsong tone he singsongs more whenever he has a question to ask me, “So A…is the Bulleya song about…?” And I reacted with a mother’s instinct and one honed from dealing with these particular gems- “No baby, it’s not about bulls. It’s about a poet and thinker (because early morning rushes are rushed enough without stopping to explain what a philosopher is) whose words have been put to song and who people sing about.”

And sure enough, came the expected rebuttal which led to this bit of head scratching fun-” But it says Bulleya…BULL-eya. Are you sure it isn’t about bulls?” ” Am positive! Baba Bulleh Shah didn’t have anything to do with bulls.” “Baba??” That’s what you call P (his nickname for my dad). Why is he called Baba?” “GO TO SCHOOL. BYE BYE. HAVE A GOOD DAY. LOOK IT UP ON WIKIPEDIA.”

Mom over and out. Oh how I miss Red when he’s out of town.

Lost In Translation #234

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That’s a random number by the way. It just seems like there’s way too many lost in translation situations with TO.

Today’s was hilarious because of the kind of kneejerk reaction TO gave to the whole misunderstanding.

So the boy needs a haircut and as has been the case with the past few haircuts, he’s been looking at Indian cricketers’ hairstyles and then deciding which one he likes the best.

Today he kept telling me names and I kept searching for images from which he chose the ones he liked the most. We went through pictures of Pujara, Jadega, Kohli, Rohit Sharma and then came the bombshell-Hanuman! 

I kept asking him if he was sure and he kept saying yes, each time in a bit more annoyed tone. So I searched for Hanuman’s images and found one where some of his hair was visible. I showed that to TO only to have him slap himself on the forehead and go, “Hey Prabhu! I didn’t say Hanuman Ayu…I said Hanuma…”.

Apparently I was meant to search for him

Instead of him

Color me relieved! Taking on a powerful monkey God as a style icon was a bit far out even for me. Phew! Of course TO’s DUH expression floored me as well- complete with the right amount of sarcasm and the mandatory eye-roll.

Zero. Dark. 2:37 AM

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I wanted my first post in the new year to be witty, funny, tongue-in-cheek but I guess I’ll be falling back on my old form of ranting about my kid. My forte in life et al.

This morning my darling ray of sunshine switched on all the lights in my room at 2:37 am and tapped me on my face till I woke up; to tell me he could feel the germs in his stomach moving around. Yikes.

I thought it was time for a visit to the loo and suggested as much, while scrambling from the bed and trying not to fall over the Batman figurine that mysteriously ended up underfoot or getting tangled in the bed sheets. But no. Apparently it wasn’t about going to the loo at all. My brat couldn’t sleep and had been thinking about the rumblings in his tummy and decided that a middle of the night bout of calisthenics would ease his mind and body.

So there I was, puffy eyed and puffier-faced with a severe case of bed hair, trying to focus myopic eyes on a 5-year old who was exercising in front of me and who wanted to discuss his tummy germs at length.

After pondering about tossing him out of the window and eventually nixing the idea, I managed to get him back into bed so we could discuss the way ahead. It seems he knew the course of treatment- no doctors but quite a bit of medicine, the yummy kind. And of course, no school. NATURALLY.

Kids are funny creatures. Their minds work in mysterious ways. They process information, look at things in a manner which is unique to their ages and bent of mind. Those were the things I was trying to tell myself as the hands of the clock crept closer to 3:00 am and the verbosity of my kid kept increasing.

Finally, I did the only thing that made any sense. The only thing that was a viable and legal resolution to the entire situation- I woke up his father, passed the buck and went off to sleep in another room.

I think that’s what I’ll try to do in 2015 more and more- react less. Not fight against the inevitable or the inexplicable. I’ll figure out how to tackle things and if I don’t succeed I’ll pull in an unsuspecting person and pull an escape routine on them 🙂

But seriously. Happy New Year blosgosphere peeps. Have an excellent year. May your thoughts and words never fail you and may you end up on more and more people’s’ reading lists as time goes by.

Salut!

Reblogged: What You Say Vs What They Hear

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I keep wondering what is it that makes my kid do the opposite of what I ask (read threaten/yell) him to do.

These are the very regular occurrences in our house:
  • Stand still gets interpreted as be anything but still.
  • Be quiet or HUSH= keep chattering incessantly.
  • Just a minute/second= I want it NOW!
  • Give me a minute to catch my breath= peppered by demands.
  • No iPad/TV = GIVE iPad/TV NOW!
  • Let’s eat dinner= I want JAMP (jam).
  • Let’s each lunch= I want chips!
  • Let’s brush your teeth= eating the toothpaste.
  • Rinse your mouth properly= water trickling out of the corners of the mouth with zero rinsing having taken place.
  • Enough ketchup= squeezing out another massive glob of it.
  • Eat properly with the spoon= eating with both hands in one go and looking absolutely simian in the process.
  • DON’T=DO
  • ENOUGH= NEVER ENOUGH
  • I’M ANGRY WITH YOU= thousands of kisses rained on my face as a bribe.
  • GO STAND IN THE CORNER= slowly inching away from the corner and smiling like an evil monkey.
  • Let’s not put the Play Doh on the sofa= rubbing it even more into the fabric.
  • Don’t write on the walls= put handprints with paint instead.
  • GO TO SLEEP= STAY UP AN EXTRA HOUR JUST TO SPITE ME.
See what I mean!
Clearly I live in the Land of Opposite and MLM is King!

We Are Home To Mr.NO & Mr. IT’s MINE!

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Red and I have always tried to use positive words rather than negative words when communicating things to MLM. Kids are like sponges and like mirrors…they’ll absorb everything and reflect them back on you…add boomerang to that list since they keep coming back no matter where you throw them. You *don’t* throw your kids? Pity….try it sometime…it’s cathartic!

Anyhoo…moving on from my not very maternal fantasies…we’ve been wondering how to get MLM out of his habit of saying NO to every damn thing that we ask him to do or not to do AND also his habit of justifying his actions by proclaiming- IT’s MINE!! Am tacking on only 2 exclamations…he adds a gazillion after his screeches.

The thing is…no matter how hard you try, it’s inevitable that the child hears NO from you on a fairly regular basis. If not NO then its loyal family of NOT, DON’T, STOP all hover inside our mouths just waiting to jump out and assault the child bent on doing things his own way.

Take today’s instance for example: MLM somehow got his hands on an extension cord that was happily wound up and kept out of reach- or so we thought. He unraveled the entire bit and dumped the rest onto his cycle carrier and was zooming around the house. I saw and asked him to stop knowing that the tangled cables would either mess up the bike or would cause a fall and a resulting ouchie; post which I’d have to kiss the aforementioned ouchie and tell the bike it had been very naughty for hurting MLM. Yup…my days are filled with fun things to do.

So the little man immediately acts like I’m the Gestapo and starts yelling IT’s MINE!! and NO! NO! NO! GIFF IT BACK!!! Seeing that the belligerence in my eyes hadn’t dimmed a bit he starts off on his impressions of a banshee (not a pretty sound especially on a day when I’ve been diagnosed with AOM) and just carries on till I box his ears and threaten to give the cycle away to the trash collector tomorrow morning.  Yes…we’re the threatening parents…rather I am…Red still tries to strike a balance…when that fails he calls me and I promptly come in and threaten.

The point is it shouldn’t be this hard…you shouldn’t have to be a bad cop for your kid to understand that you want them to be safe. But given that children much older than my boy have deliberately done dumber things, with more serious implications just goes to show you that kids really don’t listen. It’s not done with malice either. They just don’t know any better. And since you know better and try to stop them and end up cementing their intentions even more. But the alternative isn’t a pretty one at all…isn’t the most important part of being a parent is to keep your child safe? Not every experience is worth having when seen from a parent’ s viewpoint and in reality.

But till that glorious day comes when my child actually exhibits that he has brains and can use them appropriately, I guess we’ll be keeping company with the evil twins- Mr.NO & Mr. IT’s MINE.

I just hope their family doesn’t grow any more…I have very few weapons left in my arsenal 😦 The most effective of which continue to be Mr.Bedtime (for the child) and Mrs. Glass-0f-Wine ( for moi).

Toodles!