Tag: raising boys

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.

We Need Trappings

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I’ll be the first one to admit it, my kid’s sticktoitiveness comes and goes. He’s tried his hands at roller blading and then suddenly didn’t want to do it anymore. He’s resisted all attempts at learning to swim properly; preferring to channel an otter as his spirit animal instead.

Red tried badminton with him and that took root for a while as did squash and then it flooped. For now cricket fever seems to be gripping him and how! He’s been playing for a while now and dare I say is passable. Of course I wouldn’t know a good cricketer from a bad one. Anyone who’s shots connect more often than not is good in my book especially since mine never do. And when they do, they go places Red grumbles while he has to retrieve.

But more about TO- he’d been asking for a whole cricket kit so that it’d feel like he was really playing. We held off on thinking that if this went bust too we’d be stuck with a lumpy bag to get rid off or store somewhere till the yen to play came upon him again. But after we heard from the coach that he’d been making progress and was trying more often than not to learn the game rather than play “stylish” shots, we got him kitted out.

And here he is in his kickass cricketer avatar, looking like he’s already hit one out of the park! And this pretty much him throughout the day. We just need to make sure we duck while passing by.

So while I can take the game or leave it, it’s pretty damn good to see TO this happy at doing something. So maybe he stops playing, maybe he doesn’t. He gets to make happy memories now. Better flip flop as a child and learn the ropes than end up as a 30-something who can’t make up his mind.

Money-Grubbing Altruism

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Woman's face peeking out of a pile of money

It is a theory of mine that depending upon the kind of ride TO is in, his thought process changes accordingly.

I had a flat tire today and had to take an auto rickshaw to get around. I think the abundance of the fresh-polluted air got to him and he came up with such gems that I had to get them out to the unsuspecting world at large.

My child has questions about life and death. Mainly death. He knows it happens but not always why and if there are aspects which predicate it; if I can call it such. So this darling boy asked about certain key family members who are no longer with us and asked how it impacted those left behind and came up with a solution: he would learn magic and bring them back to life so everyone who was left sad by their passing would be happy again. Primarily his father, whose mother had passed away while he was still in his teens.

He then went up the generation ladder and said he would revive his great-grandmother as well because she’d been 97 when she passed and should live to be at least a 100. All noble endeavors. In theory.

Soon after caame the kicker! In this process of reanimating all the dearly departed he’d make a ton of money and then be rich! rich! RICH!!! and buy up all the dueling dinos that we (Red and I) have deemed unnecessarily expensive toys.

And in that instant I went from doing this-

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to this-

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Thankfully the ride ended soon after and apple of my myopic eyes raced home to tell his father about the love he has for his fellow-man and how he wants to bring joy in our lives.

Never a dull day with this one that’s for sure. They *never* tell you these things in those damn parenting books which is why I’m writing my own!

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Backseat Diaries

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MLM and I went to see Antman&Wasp today. We’d made plans ever since we saw the trailer online but I had some unexpected travel come up and the movie date got pushed back. It’s a testament to his affection that he waited to see the movie with me. Of course his father wasn’t keen on another superhero movie after I dragged him to see Deadpool-2 so going with me was kind of a moot point.

But I digress. After the movie, a gushing offspring started off with his commentary and critique of the movie from the backseat. He told me if he could ever be Antman then he’d definitely want me to be his Wasp aka partner because he loved me so much.

You’d be lulled into an “awww” right at this point except this child has my and his father’s DNA in equal measure. But sometimes it seems like those sets of gene are pounding my contribution to a pulp.

So I was told, after someone surfaced for air, that while I would have made a good Wasp, I wouldn’t fit into the costume because I was so fat! And all this said in the most matter of fact way as possible.

Adding fuel to the fire was an advert which was shown during before the movie started targeting good food habits by the way of reducing sugar, oil and salt.

I was asked why didn’t I reduce all those things? If I did I’d become thin and maybe be able to fit into the costume for Halloween…next year.

I swear this kid is geared up to be the most loving nemesis in the history of the world.

The Flip Side To Classical Conditioning…

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I run from my kid. It’s the truth. After the first hugs and kisses of the morning are done I run and hide; especially during his summer break. He’s like a bloodhound. He can always track me down. No matter where I am. SIGH.

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No loo is secure enough. No pressure cooker whistle is loud enough, or a hair dryer for that matter. His chipmunk voice always floats through…BIIIG SIGH.

I was thinking with a clouded headed today (before the caffeine hit my system and brought me to life) that if my life were a sitcom it would undoubtedly start with my kid standing near my bed and peering down at me and me waking up with a start. Every. Single. Time.

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It happened this morning as well. I was drifting in dreamland. When my semi-awake radar detected the force of a stare leveled at me for a bit. I woke up to see the flesh and blood, looking at me and saying something about some hand pointing up at something. As is my wont, I tend to kick out at anything and anyone who disturbs me from my sleep and then burrow back into the pillows and back under the covers. When said disturbance still didn’t get deterred, Red asked him to get into bed with us at the risk of letting things linger and setting off the near-feral wife before dawn.

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Between the whens, the hows, and whats we managed to get the child to brush, rinse, spit and repeat and have his milk and then started the actual “fun”. And yes, if I were to narrate this bit to you, the word fun would have had air quotes around it as well.

My kid has a habit of starting his chats with me as if we had been in the midst of a conversation and had taken a break. I could be folding clothes, doing laundry, stalking David Boreanaz (yum yum) on social media and suddenly a small (but loud) voice will say, “But Ayu….” and that will be it for the me-time bit. Until the curiosity has been satisfied completely, we will be beset by ‘But Ayus”.

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This morning the ‘But Ayu’ got delivered right into the ear canal while I was having breakfast. And I told the light of my life, “no butts, no noses, hands, ears or any body parts. And no talking till I ask you either.” A sad little body turned around and started walking back to his room, back hunched, body posture totally downcast. I felt bad. For a nanosecond. And then began to count in my head while I quickly gulped down my breakfast…10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5…and there it was..”But Ayu…when will you talk to me?”

Hey…the kid’s a monster. But he’s my monster. And hump days are meant to be wonky anyhow. Upwards and onwards peeps.

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A Blog A Day- Day#1

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I’ve been telling the offspring to buckle down and do a couple of things but being a parent means leading by example (or so we pretend we do) so I’m going to try and hit a few targets of my own. Expect grumblings from time to time.

I want to blog more. I love to write and I’m not picky about what I choose to write about. I’m usually reading something or the other, thinking about doing something and make plans for future trips and travels galore ergo loads of food for thought or bloggy material.

So this is going to be my honey-do list/things-to-do/bucket-list galore and inshallah by 31st December, I’d have done at least 100 consecutive blog/bloglets and been able to cross things off on the ever-growing lists that my brain throws up and Red ducks very nimbly.

And on that note I felt a gaze searing to me and looked up to see MLM staring at me. Locking gazes me with he said” Cookie”. Brief. To the point and hungry.

So here I go to get him a cookie. Come back tomorrow for day two of my A.B.A.D challenge.

Ode To My Oddballs

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My family is a bit kooky. And in that we’re perfectly normal I suppose. Since I don’t have a “fly-on-the-wall” access to my friends and neighbors’ homes, am assuming that their kookiness can rival and often outdo mine. Those who are painfully normal, I don’t know what to say…you are clearly the minority amongst us. I don’t know many of you so that clues you into what kind of people I belong with.

Take for example things I say to my kid quite often which others may jiggle their eyebrows at. A statement like, “Put on your pajamas and move your snake off the floor” is very probable and in fact was uttered while I was booting up the laptop.

My 8-year old coming to me and spouting the details of the Serval for durations which seem like eons to me also occur quite frequently. And suddenly phrases like “one’s life flashing before their eyes” don’t seem like such a phrase anymore…you can literally feel your hair and nails growing while the offspring drones on and on about small-big cats and suddenly segues into the Eyelash Viper ;yet another creature you had the pleasure of not knowing anything about till your flesh and blood decided you were pathetically uninformed about the creepy crawly and decided to make things right.

Recently, exactly 2 days ago, the Lord and Master (henceforth referred to as L&M) gave me a Fitbit smart watch. Am sure he was influenced by those unending ads on the telly which try to insidiously get inside your head and tell you to buy jewellery for the woman in your life. If not platinum, then diamonds and if nothing else works, go for the gold! Tis the season of bling after all!

So..Le Fitbit Watch-It monitors my heart rate (always galloping), let’s me know the optimum resting phase (so I don’t keep imitating a slug) and generally nudges me off the posterior so I can get moving in ways designed to help me. The ways I move that don’t help me much are my versions of tangos and weird jerky-dancing which I’m prone to break into as if in the throes of a partial seizure. But then again…Bollywood is in my veins and no dance is risqué enough, no dance is too weird and the more spontaneously you indulge in it, the truer you are to your people!

So this watch,which is waterproof, is helping me define new “health goals”. And yes, those would be sarcastic air quotes had I been speaking out loud. I am now suddenly very aware of not taking the stairs enough…the Fitbit reminds me that half a staircase has been climbed. How does one climb half a staircase anyhow?

I’m reminded that I haven’t had the mandatory 3000 mls of water I need to have on a daily basis along with the optimal amount of sleep I should be having. It’s all fine and dandy and maybe in time I’ll even grow into it, but as of 2 in the morning today when I felt a weird lump behind my back, went into the Princess and the Pea mode…I realized that I was sleeping with the watch on (for sleep monitoring purposes only) and the discomfort was making me thrash around, raising the “resting phase heart rate” to near-awake heart rates, steadily heading towards I’m going to be a solid beeyotch in a few hours if i don’t get some sleep” heart rate

And apropos to nothing; while I type this out the offspring is sitting next to me, still in his pajama tops-no bottoms and making hissing noises with the toy (miniature, thank the Heavens!) black cobra while he peers over my shoulders and takes dainty sips of his chocolate milk.

These are the oddities in my life. Thank goodness for that!

Now excuse me while I get my deep breathing done courtesy Fitbit…Breathe in….Breathe out.

OMMMMMMMMMMM