Cracked open

I can't crack an egg and not have a major tantrum thrown my way any more!

As he ate a hard-boiled egg yesterday, I cracked open an egg to scramble it with some butter. He came in to the kitchen and threw a major fit because he didn't get to crack the egg as he usually does when we make an omelette. He didn't want to crack a different egg, oh, no, that won't do. He needs to crack the very one that lay cracked and empty. The jumping up and down and crying lasted five minutes until his dad tried to put him in the laundry at which point he started insisting," I will listen to you daddy, don't put me in the laundry". He stopped the crying but sulked for another 15 minutes and refused to eat his chapathi. Got me to cajole him for a while and then he was all smiles.

It's so easy to lose it when he gets into such typical three-year old tantrums. No amount of reasoning will get through to him. It's as though he fully understands that the egg can't be put back together and that's precisely why he is crying - because he grasps the irreversibility of the situation. We just have to wait for him to throw his tantrum and get over it on his own.

Talking of omelettes and eggs, I found a bottle of cream in the fridge today and wondered why Praveen bought one as we don't usually have it at home unless I have a dessert planned. Apparently, my son is buying the groceries these days; he insisted on buying a bottle of cream because "we need to put it in the omelette". A while ago, he also bought himself a tiny whisk that he uses to whisk the egg and cream. I am never allowed to use a fork when that whisk goes missing either. It's more expensive than my own, so I guess he has a point!

Sleepover H(z)ero

The plan was for him to spend the day at Rohan's house on Saturday by himself ; all part of a new plan to hold collective kid care alternatively at each other's houses so the kids are out of our hair for a whole day. He didn't agree to go until Rohan proposed over the phone that they can both play with his new rocket and aliens. So we rushed through shower and breakfast and his dad dropped him a little after noon expecting to pick him up later in the evening.

We got home around 6pm from an afternoon show of Avatar - which did not end a moment too soon for me, by the way - and rang up Rohan's place. Our little bugger didn't even want to come to the phone to talk. The unspoken message was obviously that he had no intentions of returning home any time soon. We settled ourselves with an offer from Naresh to drop him home when he was ready to leave. When the phone rang next, it was to let me know that the two were so tired, they read some books and fell asleep! The little betrayer! He almost always needs his mum to sleep and now, he had been gone half a day and didn't even ask for me before bed. This day had to come too, I thought.

Not so fast, as it turns out. The phone rang at 3am because our very first unplanned sleepover had quickly turned into a sob fest to go home right away after our hero woke up in the middle of the night and found no mummy and daddy around! Poor Naresh had to drive down 20 minutes in the wee hours of the morning to bring him back.

He came into the bed all smiles - no traces of having cried - and I was so glad to have him back. I asked him in the morning if he had cried, he admitted that he did, but also insisted that he had only cried "half, only little bit, just little bit" with his thumb and index finger placed very close to each other to indicate the apparently insignificant amount he had cried. I checked with Kalpana and of course, his story didn't tally: he burst out in tears when told that he can go back home when the sun comes up.

So my mental note of first night spentaway from each other since his birth quickly erased itself. We have more time; my baby hasn't grown up yet...

Can we fix it?

Friday morning conversation:
I: Pranav, brush quickly and let's go to K-mart for a little while
P: No, mama.
After second thoughts,
P: What do you want to buy in K-mart, mama?
I: A skirt.
Employing his classic statement for dalliance,
P: We will go a little bit later.
I: No, we have to go soon, because someone is coming to fix our dishwasher later.
P: Is it Bob the Builder, or someone else, mama?
I: Ha, ha, this is so going on your blog, Pranav.
I turn to leave the room,
P: My blocks are here in this room, where are you going, mama?
I: Ha ha, not blocks Pranav, "blog", "blog".
P: Blog, what is blog?
I: It has your name on it and it's on the computer. Let me show you

Ote, Bees and What up!

What did you eat at lunch today, Pranav?"
"Mmm....I ote....rice, mama"

On the one hand, he uses the words "expensive" and "ridiculous" and on the other, he thinks the past tense of 'eat' is 'ote' and uses a self-made plural form of 'be' as a verb to indicate simple present tense
"The car bees in the garage" - means "The car is in the garage and that's where you will always find it"

I have taken to watching downloaded episodes of the series "How I met your mother" and he sometimes gives me company. He likes the title music and recognises the characters, at least by face. I have been teaching him one of Barney's trademark phrases, 'What up!' and reaching out fora high-five. I obvisouly got through to him: yesterday, I was watching an episode and he came along, looked at the screen and called out 'What up!' and gave me a high-five!
He did wonder the other day why that show was on the TV too, shouldn't it be only on my computer? Thanks to my downloading and watching on the computer, he has got his concepts of network television all mixed up. He also doesn't get why the episodes are not on back-to-back like when I watch them on the computer. He threw a big tantrum two days ago because he wanted to watch more!

Flip-Flop!

He is currently a fan of the British show Charlie and Lola, a very well-made show depicting the sibling relationship between an affectionate elder brother and his precocious little sister. In one of the shows, they play a game called flip-flop, which is a cousin of the memory game we know, except that the pair of cards make a flip-flop when the pictures complement each other in some way rather than being the same image.

So we have taken to calling the memory game we play flip-flop these days. He likes playing it almost everyday and calls upon one of us to play at least three games in a row. I am not sure if it is my not paying attention much, or he being good at it, he seems to have the cards memorised better than I do, sometimes. In the beginning, he would keep opening the cards until he found a pair, but he understands the concept much better now. If he happens to open mismatched cards during his turn and he remembers where the pair of one of the cards was, he reserves it for his next turn and won't let us open those cards. When he can't remember where the other card of the pair was, he starts pointing to each card and asks, "Is it this one? Is it this one?" He doesn't buy any of the "I don't know, or I don't remember", either. He seeks help and helps us out too: he will point to the matching card when we open one, when he remembers.

He misplaced one of the cards today and didn't understand when I said one of the cards is missing and pointed out the gap in the rows. He insisted that "It bees like that(bees = will be/should be/must be). When you play, the gap goes away." The look of consternation on his face when three unopened cards remained at the end was priceless. The wheels slowly turned in his head and then he agreed that we should go downstairs and look for the missing card.

Lunch Provided?

After-breakfast conversation between Pranav and I, few weeks ago, as I am packing a lunch for work:

P: Mama, why are you putting food in that box?

I: To take it to work

P: Why, mama?

I: To eat it during lunch, Pranav

P: No, mama. You should not take lunch to work. They will give you lunch at work in the afternoon.

I: No Pranav, my work is not like your child care, unfortunately...

Tadpole

We have been noticing that he gets bored during the weekends playing by himself and there is only so long that his dad - and when I am in the mood for it, I - can entertain him. He gets crabby and whines for the silliest things thus getting on our nerves. So we decided it's time for him to get in to some organised activity as a weekly routine and I enrolled him in a swimming lesson.

It was his first lesson today and just as I had feared he refused to go the lesson and instead wanted to play on the water slide play equipment pool. The place was brimming with kids in various lanes taking lessons and he stood there watching them, still steadfastly refusing to get out of his shorts and step into the water. It was only when his dad offered to go in along with him that he consented, and from there it was a fairly smooth journey, given the agony I put myself through going over all my options if he continued to remain in his shell.

The instructor was very kid-friendly and that put me at ease. It was very basic skills like holding on to a floatie and flapping legs, fetching an object that was lying on the bottom of the shallow pool, and trying to float lying on the back. He was paying attention to the instructor and didn't cringe away when he spoke to him as I fully expected him to. It appears that as long as one of us is in the water with him, at least for the first term, he will enjoy himself. He said he had fun listening to that babu during the swim lesson but that next time he would like to go to the big swimming pool and play on the slide, instead. Have to see what next Sunday brings.

A Year in the Making

It's still February, but of the next year and inspiration came calling again to me in the form of a generous comment from an anonymous person about one of the previous posts. So, thank you, to this unexpected visitor!

Here we are again, and, let's take stock of what has changed and what hasn't since the last year.

Pranav is fully potty-trained now - what an unpleasant topic to start with, eh? I am not surprised I am leading with this, as I know how parents and kids alike, struggle in that department. The food department has seen major progress, although, it would be nice if he faced vegetables full on, instead of my having to disguise them in his rotis. Still loves his meat, and recently, his eggs. Sunday ho ya Monday, roj khao ande is our principle with him. The tantrums have kept coming and were at the worst just after he turned 3. He can get extremely cranky about the silliest thing; more like, childishly obstinate about something unimportant. I find his tantrums are easy to deal with when I am in control of my mood myself; else it gets pretty ugly between us. It's a different thing we exchange 'I love you mama' and 'I love you too, Raja', soon afterwards.

He has grown into an extremely shy child, socially. When he is faced with the prospect of entering a room full of strangers, he literally hides behind my skirt at best and pulls me by my hand out of the room, at worst. I remember being extremely upset when I was first confronted with this behaviour from him. Now I understand better(a girl is allowed to delude herself, right?) and think about how I can make him more comfortable in the surroundings. It does draw a lot of attention to you, when your child behaves like he is being ambushed by aliens, which makes me uncomfortable too. It's a journey of perseverance, just like everything else. It's clear he needs more time than the average child to warm to new people. Definitely not an extrovert in the making!

He has learnt to write his name, as of today. I believe he can write most of the alphabet, sometimes writes 'M' like a 'W', and once, added an extra stroke to 'E' when I asked him to write two E's together, but other than that, I think he is on his way. Not much progress with numbers; there's apparently a number that's called 'eleventeen'. We have to work on our numeracy pretty soon.