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Mother's Panic, Baby's Ride

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At times life catches you unaware and turns the otherwise seemingly mundane events into frantic adventures. Well, I had one such misadventure lately and without offense to anyone this one goes as a lesson to all the mothers who trust their babies to babysitters and friends and others only to find them locked up inside their cars... yeah with keys inside the car.

Shaurya lately has started seeking company and often urges to tag along with anyone who passes by the main door of the house. At times he gets so aggressive to move out of the house that it seems as if he hates staying at his own home. He has made a few friends around and quite often loves spending time at the neighbour’s house. And it seems that he has a good time there too, may be because they have a dog or may be he gets too much of attention, and then comes back loaded with candies.

Very often our neighbour’s young daughter takes him over to spend the evening with them. Just yesterday evening, she took him along to park her car onto one side. She put him in the passenger seat and parked the car and came out of it to take him out from the other side and suddenly realized that she had locked the car and had even left the keys inside.

I was watching all this from the balcony and was horrified as soon as I realized that something was wrong. And to top everything she didn’t even have the spare keys to the car.

car I was frantic and kept banging on the windows seeking Shaurya's attention and using all signs and all of ‘his languages’ to get him to pull up the lock on his own, but all in vain. My little champ was oblivious to all the commotion around him and busied himself playing with the steering wheel and the gear box and was laughing at the way we all were running around like crazy.

After having tried looking up for spare keys, searching for locksmiths and all things in the vicinity, we tried forcing the lock using a foot ruler but even this didn’t help. And all this while my little devil kept looking at us from inside, laughing and enjoying the circus around him.

I was beginning to get all tense and worried now and was on the verge of losing my composure and would have broken down crying had it not been for a good Samaritan who came over and helped us out and to my relief opened the door by forcing a stick through the window.

The interesting thing was that once the door was open and when I tried taking Shaurya out of the car, he was totally unwilling to get out of his play area. He had no idea of what his mother was going through and how worried I had been.

I guess this is how life goes. A mother would wail her heart out for his child and the child can be lost in his own world. Anyway, the only meaningful lesson that I could get out of the entire episode was to never trust some one you love more than yourself, to anyone else.

"Nai-Nai" & Here Y' Go

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So, one thing that my little champ has been fond of and which I still have not put in, is his natural liking for water and his eagerness to be in the shower.

I have, personally come across many a children who detest taking a bath like anything and it is usually an uphill task for their mothers to have them cleaned up without being audience to a huge uproar from them. Luckily for me, my Hero takes in after me on this aspect and loves to be in water - be it his bath tub, shower or when in pool with me.

shower

Now the down side of his affection for bathing and water is that he wants to accompany everyone who is heading for a shower. He keeps chanting ‘Nai Nai’ which is his own term for bathing.

One has to see the smile on his face to understand what I am talking about. His happiness knows no bounds and he is his joyful best and keeps reciting “Ba Ba Black Sheep” and “Johnny Johnny” when in shower. I guess he really loves this particular time of the day.

However, the easier it is to get him in the shower, the difficult it is to get him out. I have to throw a dozen reasons for him to be out of his bath tub at times, luring him with toys and God, knows what.

And then the shower ritual has to be succeeded with a fixed pattern of post-shower activities. As a routine practice, I apply baby powder, lotion and hair oil to him after he has had his bath. He has now become smart enough to know that all this has to follow once he is out of the water and now asks for his 'cosmetics' by chanting "Here Y' Go" on and on. (I reckon he picked up this "Here You Go" phrase from me, as I used to say it to him when powdering him and stuff)

Anyway, it so happened that I was down with a backache a few days back and his Daddy volunteered to give him his daily shower. When it came to drying him, he had no idea that powder, lotion and oil had to be applied and he made Shaurya wear his clothes right away. I guess my little  prince was quick to point out that some thing was amiss and kept on chanting, "Here Y' Go"

His Daddy was just not able to make out what he was trying to say, and as it had to be after a while my baby started crying. All the commotion made me get up from bed and once I understood what the situation was, I could not help have a hearty laugh despite all my backache.

Later, in the day I was reminiscing about the incident and could not help wondering at my little bundle of joy. Maybe one of these days when I grow old and want things, he would bring me my stuff and tell me "Here You Go, Mamma" !!

Shaurya still doesn't speak properly and picks up words at random, but I guess that hasn't deterred him from learning his first lessons on cleanliness.

I am kind of particular about keeping the place neat and tidy and really prefer having things around me spick and span. It so happened that, the other day, the household help didn’t turn up and I was doing the dusting around the house. I did not notice this but my little prince, as usual, was keenly observing what his Mom was busy with. 

So away he went and got his shorts from somewhere and began aping me. I took it as an opportunity to teach him a new word and started repeating.. dusting2Dusting’ and then brushed on a decoration piece to help him correlate the word. His little mind did work hard at it and the next thing he did was to come near me and started dusting me. Probably this was his way of reminding me that I was messy too from the morning chores and needed a shower. I could not help being amused over the fact that of all things in the vicinity the only thing that my Hero found worth dusting was his Mamma. 

Talking about cleanliness reminds me of another of Shaurya's antics, this time for brushing his teeth. toothbrushWhile in US, my sister used to make it a point to hand him a toothbrush in the morning to get him to inculcate the habit. He did pick up the habit quickly, may be because he used to see my sister's daughter, who is not much older than him, do it and he learnt how to do it on his own.

And, now when we are back home, he kind of lost the trick and now I have to force him to hold the brush and then he throws all his tantrums so as to avoid the morning routine.

However, for past two or three days now I suddenly noticed that he was onto brushing his teeth again. But only when I looked close enough did I realize that  my little champion was at his naughty best and had just been fooling me with the pretence of brushing his teeth. Actually he was just licking the toothpaste on the brush, which happened to be a nice bubblegum flavor and instead of brushing his teeth he was just rubbing it on his tongue, so as to enjoy the tooth paste.

It became amazingly funny see him apply his little head and come out with such tricks. At all such times I just sit back and wonder at the presence of mind that kids tend to possess.

I guess parenting also teaches you to be a good learner all over again. Since the kid would copy you most of the time and so learn his lessons, it becomes imperative that you put up your best act for the child to follow suit and learn from your actions.

"I guess when a mother teaches her child, at times she learns more than the kid does."

Shaurya & The Washing Machine

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I often wonder at the way people are now dependent on machines and household appliances to get basic tasks done at home. The advent of science in the recent years has been simply mind-boggling. I am sure 10 years from today, no child would want to believe that there was a time when color TVs did not exist and we had only one channel on TV which again was not 24 X 7. The young minds today are ignited and sparked as never before. Every kid today wants a mobile phone for a toy and more amazingly learns to operate it and use it even as the parents are fumbling with the pages of instruction manuals for feature specifications at times. I guess these little ones are way ahead of us in understanding and using all such things.

Washing machine is another appliance which I guess just cannot escape the eye of any child, may be because it makes a lot of noise when it’s drying clothes or may be because the front loading ones look very fascinating when the clothes go round n round in them. Shaurya too is very fond of standing and watching it perform its functions. I can say that the washing area is one of his favourite corners in the house and the washing machine is his favourite place for hiding things..

If anyone in the house loses anything, it can be easily located inside the washing machine. The things to be placed inside can be toys, his own clothes, newspapers, diapers, books.. anything. He took me by surprise today, when he looked at me and innocently picked up my slippers and took them to the washing machine, opened the door of the machine and put my slippers inside it. He even went to the extent of touching the buttons, pretending to turn it on and then took them out in the most unconcerned fashion, as if the job was all done..

I wonder at the thought process of these kids, really can’t make out what is going on in their minds and what all things they are observing. The only way you understand it is when you see the way they behave and that too behind your back..

I guess the very thought of a mother hiding behind a curtain, just to see her child playing oozes warmth and sheer joy. I guess being a part of the child's play is as important for the mother, as it is for the child.

I guess, the pleasure of rediscovering excitement and mystery of our world and the little things in it reincarnates you in the same life.

 

"Bapu & The Ball"

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Babies can communicate pleasure or discomfort from the moment they’re born. But they learn to actually talk through interactions with their family and other social contacts. By listening to words and observing people’s actions, children come to understand that words have meaning and they develop a sense of how words fit together. It is especially amazing to see how babies learn to speak. The transition from "ga-ga - Boo - Boo" to "Mamma" is a rewarding and exciting aspect of parenthood. However, what is more interesting is watching a child learn two languages at once.

I guess almost all children born in India face the challenge of learning and picking up more than one language, one being their regional language and the other being either Hindi or English or more often both.

It's about time that my little Prince is learning words and is trying to use them where ever and when ever possible. He is still not sure which language to use and tends to pick up any word that he hears around him. Recently, we were off to USA and as a natural course of action, he picked up many words in English from his cousin there. To compound his confusion, it so turned out that at home there Punjabi was used a bit more than Hindi and now when we are back home, my multilingual champion is rowing his boat with oars of English, Hindi and Punjabi all at the same time. He is picking up words and phrases from all sources, be it interacting with his Da Ma and Kapa (read previous posts, if you want to know about Da Ma and Kapa) or TV shows .. and tries and 'parrots' every syllable he hears.

One of these days we paid a visit to one of our neighbour's house and as any other child, he pounced on everything around... they had kept small round candies and the only thing that Shaurya could think of was a 'ball' and he had just one thing to say.. 'Gimme ball' and when we paid no attention to his soft demands, he started speaking in Punjabi.. 'Ball Laina' .. and I was flabbergasted at this change of language.. may be his little mind worked really hard and he deduced that we were not able to understand what he was saying and he resorted to use a phrase in an alternate language. NY7 A child’s behaviour can really take you by surprise and you really never know what his small mind is keenly observing..

 Just yesterday, he was trying his tantrums on his dad.. Shaurya wanted his wallet and tried all possible means to take it from him. Naturally, one would not hand out a packed wallet to a kid to be used as a toy and so Shaurya's requests were put down too. Incidentally, the TV in the room was on and a commercial was playing wherein the word ‘Bapu’ (meaning: father) was being called out.

My little one was quick enough to grab that word and started whining.. "Bapu Bapu.. " the only thing we could do was laugh at his quick attempt of using every single word that fell on his ears

I must say kids can give you a run for your vocabulary. He still happens to call me ‘Maiyya’ instead of mummy, whenever he wants something desperately..and strangely though, none of us have ever used this word in front of him.. I really like it when he says this and I do give him a hug whenever he says so..

Hmm I guess “A mother would be a mother no matter which way you call out to her and I believe nothing is more satisfying for a mother to hear your child say 'Mamma' for the first time"

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