Reading out stories..

Ok guys, this is a ‘Pls help me’ post. How do I get Sid to listen to the stories I read out from books?

He has always been very keen and attentive with the board books having pictures of animals, birds, fruits, veggies, etc. So much now that he has literally mastered most of those objects, some of those I should admit I learnt along with him! (I know I’d definitely fail on ‘Are you better than a 5th grader?‘ ) So I decided to take it to the next level , and just while I was thinking about this, someone gifted on his b’day a bunch of story books. I was elated and made him sit down and start reading out one of those.. It was a very cute 10-pager book called “Pepper goes to school“. Now, there was a picture of an airplane in the second page, and we really didnt get past that. (Oh! Didn’t I mention he has been obssessed with planes and helicopters these days, he has countless numer of toy planes in different sizes, thanks to his thatha!) After each sentence that I read out, he simple repeated…‘meopane, mecopter.‘

nanum chumma viduvena?! I wanted to complete the story so I kept reading every sentence and dramatizing the story, while he stubbornly repeated…‘meopane, mecopter.’
When I was done, he was relieved, grabbed the book off my hand and just kept staring at the plane for an eternal amount of time.

So, Pls help! All creative, not-so-creative, lovely, silly ideas welcome, never know which one will work!

 

The restaurant experience..

I’m sure every parent will swear on how the restaurant going experience has changed after the kid(s). So am I an exception.. no! Last week, hubby & I went to have an evening chaat without Sid, and we realized that we’re actually managing to have a conversation with no interruption..Why didn’t I make use of the years before Sid and talk all I had to.. I guess I never knew what was going to hit me even though I had seen others going through it.
Sid, not surprisingly, creates a mayhem when we are in a restaurant. Once, we were so exhausted by his antics even before the food arrived, that we decided we should just get the food packed.. just as we approached the waiter to tell about our choice, the waiter volunteered.. “Sir? so you want to pack the food..?” I guess even he understood what was in our mind just watching Sid play havoc.
Have I learnt my lesson after all the troublesome incidents, you’d think yes.. but no, I have not with the pretence of continuing to enjoy life irrespective of kid, hectic work, etc. The word enjoyment is purely subjective and depends on perspective. This is just like a vacation you plan to an exotic place to relieve you of all stress, and come back even more stressed because of all the planning, packing, etc. But, does one learn, no!
Sid loves exploring whenever we go out for a dinner. We usually opt for a table with a couch, so he can dabble on it a bit without having us worrying he’ll fall off if it had been a chair. Frequently he tries climbing onto the dinner table, and wards off the salt, pepper containers to create more space for himself.. sometimes a vase or a flower becomes his victim, so we promptly hand over the vase to the waiter clearly indicating that we are simply not interested in the paraphernalia. Then he moves on his attention to the plates, spoons & forks and beats the plate kindly with the spoon or the fork to explore the kind of sound that could potentially arise from this activity. At this point, there is a high probability that we have come to the attention of all the people in the restaurant, and mostly the restaurant manager has blacklisted us, and allotted men to specifically keep a keen eye on our table, lest something break.
Sometimes Sid insists on shuffling from my side to hubby’s side with the sole intention of stress-testing our patience and also to make us better human beings. If we hold onto him tight to not allow it, he tries to sneak in from under the table. By now, my appetite wavering and patience stretching thin, I keep throwing glances at the waiter beseeching for FOOD..
Once it so happened that Sid was at his best, but finally we were done and were leaving the place, when many people in the adjacent tables gave us a smile, some sympathetic and some maybe a sigh of relief that they can now eat peacefully. They were just a bit short of clapping their hands.

Over the past couple of years, I’ve tried a few things to let me have a peaceful dinner, and sometimes they come handy.
1) Always have a glass of milk with me, so I manage him till the food arrives and then seal his mouth with the milk so hubby and I can both eat together and not wait for one to finish while the food gets cold. This is the brahmastra.
2) Keep distracting his attention to the various things in the restaurant. Sometimes I ask him to tell the colors of several objects around, or ask him to count the number of lights, etc… Disclaimer: This works for not more than 2-3 minutes but worth it while it lasts.
3) Make a villain out of the waiter. By now Sid knows this strategy so well..that if he thinks he is doing something that’s going to get me angry, he just says.. ‘amma, uncle thittuva’ or ‘amma, uncle adi’. (as in..uncle will scold or beat)
4) Play silly games with him.. I keep playing ‘dosai vathu’ with him so many times.. that the last time I overheard him saying.. ‘dosai vathu.. ammaku oru vai, appakku oru vai.. indha uncleku oru vai, andha uncleku oru vai, indha auntyku oru vai, andha aunyku oru vai’ feeding everyone in the resturant with his specially prepared imaginary dosas.
5) Order something that he can also eat and make a BIG deal out of it. Now he is thankfully old enough to eat some of what we order. I don’t give him any of the oily stuff from the restaurant yet, so usually I stick to soup or bread for him. So, he gets all excited..and keeps saying ..‘thoop’, meanwhile I gobble a few lumps of food.

If you can think of anything else that works for you, PLEASE tell me!

Meanwhile I’m going to continue enjoying(?) dinner at a restaurant.

 

Is this cute..or.. ?

Offlate, Sid has taken to calling everyone by their names.. it appeared very cute to hear him call me and hubby by names..but to hear him call his thatha and patti by their names, made me very uncomfortable initially.. for e.g. he sometimes calls hubby’s grandpa as ‘nanayana..samy‘..and as an after thought adds a thatha. Firstly I’m stunned that he gets this really long name right (sigh! is my name more difficult than this!) , secondly grandpa is a 80+ yr old for god’s sake, so I’m not sure how I’m supposed to react. He also calls my FIL as …‘narasimha’ at times. Luckily, he doesnt do this too often, sticks to thatha and patti mostly… but at times, maybe he gets too emotional Also, I realized that the grandparents feel extremely proud when their grandson does this.. so I eventually reconciled to it. Its sometimes weird though when he does it with new people, hubby’s cousin visited us this week and i taught him as K uncle.. and he dropped the uncle bit in just a few minutes..
Let’s just hope everyone finds this as cute!!

 

Still at it..

Since this happened, I’ve been trying hard to get Sid to say my name.. matter of honor you see.. And to some extent you could say that I’ve been successful as well. He now calls me.. ‘aima’.. Unfortunately the interpretations are different. Some believe that its just a different way of saying amma. I know for sure he means my name, but then I hear it as Raima. Since it reminds me of Raima Sen, and I think she is quite charming and pretty, I don’t mind.
However, my sister played spoilsport and keeps telling me it sounds like ayamma!! Maybe he realizes that’s what my core functions are with him
Now the efforts are on to get him to say my name the right way.. give me a couple of months and we should be getting it right!

 

The Haircut

This was one horrifying experience. The fact that I have the courage even to write about it, makes me admire myself. I always expected this to be an ordeal, especially since Sid yells and screams even for the hair bath every week. But then, we had to do this sometime since he was starting to look like Krishna and I could manage to tie a small pony..so finally garnered the guts to attempt it last Saturday. So off we went, hubby and me to a parlour..Sid started uhum, uhuming as we even entered the parlour.. so the lady got a bit worried and was very reluctant to do it..she scared us saying ..”what’d happen if the scissors scratched the ears..?” This was no way to appease nervous parents. Even then I managed to get a hold of myself and told her to be positive(!!) and just go ahead and do it. But she kept giving me a lecture and so off we went looking for another salon.

This time, we found a unisex salon, so hubby can hold him tight and also expecting male hair-dressers to be bolder. Alas! we were proven false. A similar incident happened here.. except that we made Sid sit on the chair, and he started jumping out of it. The hair-dresser was terrified and flatly refused. What the hell!! Hubby tried hard to convince the guy that things will be fine, but no!

Finally we found a smaller parlor, but women only. I gave the lady enough warning that Sid is going to be unmanageable, but she seemed fine with it. I put Sid on my lap so I could hold him tight while his hair was being cut. And not unexpectedly, he yelled attracting the attention of every person in that room, and in the adjacent few rooms as well. The torture I felt in those 10 minutes came a close second to the one I experienced during delivery. I’d have given him one whack if he was slightly older and if it’d be of any help, but knowing its only going to make it worse, I prayed to the Gods to give me the strength to keep my patience intact. After the ordeal was over, I could say, everyone in the room was relieved and got back to whatever they were doing in the peaceful era before those 10 minutes.

As soon as she was done..the hairdresser told.. “Pls dont bring him here again.. I cant do this all over again.” I was so embarassed, shocked and upset that I think it took me the whole of the weekend to get over the truama. Hubby thought she was being rude, but I could see her point ..

Wonder, if it is always this difficult to get kids a haircut, or is mine the BRAT of all times?

Before..

After..

 

Sid turns 2!!

Yes, and the terrible twos have already begun. The incessant crying has been getting to my nerves. But, more on that later.
We did a small party for the kids a day earlier on the 26th since it was a holiday for everyone.. The kids had a good time, not sure abt Sid though, he was sleepy and managed to display a smile only after everyone left. I have no prior experience of throwing a party whatsoever, not even for adults, so forget abt kids. But it was fun planning for it, especially since my sis landed to help me with the decorations. I can’t get over the delicious cake still, and since Sid is an animals’ fan, we made it custom-designed as you can see.. I had my heart in my mouth seeing the kids carry juice and cakes callously on my sofa and almost reconciled to replacing my current set. But somehow, it survived and all’s well! Sid is now officially grown-up! So, wish me all the luck!