My Heart Breaks :(

Today we left Aryan to his day care after a 3 days holiday. He cried out and clinged to me so badly. I still feel like crying for him. He wanted to spend time with his Nana Nani , whom he was missing for a LONG time. But then we thought of sending him to day care alternate days , in order to maintain his habit. Or may be ask my dad to pick him up by afternoon.

Just to tell you the back ground Aryan is very attached to his maternal grand father and paternal grand mother.My parents are here for 10 days and then with Anupam's parents for another 15 days.

After today's incident , I am in a fix. I am asking too much from my little boy :(( May be I can just have him a blast for a month and see what happens when we start the day care again after they are all gone. I know he will be totally disappointed then , but then that will last for a week or so , while he will cry everyday if we go by what we planned.

P.S. : The Birthday Bash post is up , here.

Time Flies

21st June, 2008 , 9.00 AM

Scene : A mother, a father and a kid at home. The kid just woke up and having milk.Father is lost in news paper , while mother is busy looking at the child.


Mother : "Today is 21st, Aryan is 11 months today. It will be his birthday next month."
Father : "Ohh yaa, Next month will be his birthday. Lets buy him a new toy today , to celebrate monthesary."
Mother : "Okay"

Pause

Mother : "Ohh No..Its not 11 months , it will be his 2nd Birthday next month, he is 23 months old today."
Father : "hahhaha"
Mother : "2 years , time really flies"


P.S. : I am weak in maths , but believe me it was not about maths.

Parenting Woes

1. How to make him WALK, when we go out? Whenever we go out , he wants to be carried. Carried and that too , only by Mumma. I figured out that he gets scared on road by vehicles , but then he refuses to walk in Malls and supermarkets as well. If you want him to walk , it has to be a open and peaceful place , like a park :( Outings have become a pain for me due to this reason. I wish to go out and take him out over the weekends and end up with a frown and bad back ache.

2. How to form his potty habit ? The doctor , the MIL and the husband insist on making him do potty after morning milk. But he refuses to sit.

3. How to avoid the language confusion ? I did post on this long ago and the problem persists.

4. How to save my skin. Aryan bites and hits me at the smallest disagreement.

5. How to make him a bit less sensitive and a bit more social.He cries at the drop of a hat and takes a hell lot of time to mingle with people.

Chiyya Tutu

I always try to ask Aryan about his day at the day care. Thats a different story that he had not been able to tell me much really,except for some nods to my questions.

Last week though ,I initiated the topic , when he was lying between both of us , just before the sleep. He told me a full story with full animation and eye movements. All I could get was "Chiyya","TuTu" and that he got hurt under his chin.

The next day I asked his Paati (Care Taker in day care) that did he break any toy yesterday. And I was amused to hear what she told me. She told me that Aryan and another kid were pulling a bird toy from both sides and the toy broke into two pieces and Aryan got hurt under his chin , due to the jerk. And that she made them say sorry to each other and do a hand shake.

So that was indeed our first communication where he gave me some feed back about his day at the day care. A milestone , I don't know if it is , but sure a big success and relief for me.

Now another aspect of the story that he has not been able to forget the incident. And everytime I talk to him about the day care , he ends up telling , "Chiyya Tutu" , meaning "Bird Broke". I am yet to figure out why is he not being able to forget the same.

Parenting is not easy , I tell you.

(This post has been written here as well , just the conversation part. The parenting blues come as part of "Whats on My Mind".)

BhoothNath is okay for kids ????

Do you think movies like Bhooth Nath are meant for kids and should be shown to kids ???
My answer is NO
Reasons :
1. We do not know ghost exists or not. How can we burden small minds with questions which even great scientists have not been able to answer to satisfaction.
2. Even if they do (if you say so) , I don't think its wise to tell the kids that people who die would still be around in the form of ghosts.
3. I do not think we should tell our kids to find friends or help from supernatural powers.

Okay , so what there are so many movies made on super natural powers.

1. Yeah , And we need to find the content before we allow our kids to see them.
2. In most of those movies we can tell them that the super natural power is fictional , while here the Grand father comes back as ghost.

What Parenthood Do to People...

All the mothers and fathers to be , read along and you will know what parenthood do to man and woman:

On the way to Aryan's day care , there is an old locality , where you can see lot of stray animals , as in dogs and cows. So yesterday while we were driving back from office through that locality ,to pick up Aryan , we saw a man taking a pair of cows with pointed big horns. I was thinking , if we would have picked up Aryan already , he would have been thrilled to see the cows , especially with those big horns. Right then , Anupam said ,"Ohho, we are late , else would have shown the cows to Aryan." And I broke into laughter, saying that it was exactly what was on my mind. And Anupam replied , "Kya kare ab bache ko cow dekhna pasand hai na.." and laughed along.

Piece of Advice

My advice to all the WANT-TO-BE-PARENTS , esp WANT-TO-BE-MOM :

Do a crash course in "Time Management" ,"Anger Management" and "How to be more Patient."

A Movie and A Prayer

Taare Zammen Par , its too late to write a review for the movie. And I am sure, I will not be doing any justice if I attempt also. Last weekend we got a chance to see the movie and both of us were touched somewhere deep inside.

Dyslexia is something which I heard recently but the movie and the TV programs and articles after the movie definitely helped me understand it better. But Dyslexia or No Dyslexia , the point here is that we do not try to understand the real problems with our kids and just keep comparing them with siblings or kids in neighborhood. Why talk of someone else , even I do at times , unconsciously. For example , Ohh , Aryan is speaking only 5 words , the other kid in the building speaks so many. Ohh..Aryan is still not potty trained , XYZ is. WHY ?? When his doctor said its normal , why do I compare ?

Its natural I guess to some extent , else how would you know when it is NOT normal.But I think we need to watch the extent to which we compare and watch what we do after we compare. Do we panic , do we put pressure on our kids , do we crib and curse our kids? The movie tells us what should be done. It tells that our kids too like to be the best in what they do , and if they are not then there is a reason to that.It also tells us that everyone cannot be at the top and we have to accept our kids as they are , with all our love.

Another thing that touched me is the fact that , our little kids trust us and love us more than we think they do. They can bear anything in the world , but not an indifferent behavior of their parents. The song "Tujhe Sab hai Pata ..Hai na Ma" made me shiver and sob at the same time.

I was left in an ocean of thoughts and emotions after the movie. And I could conclude only with a prayer, please God give me the wisdom and strength to fulfill my responsibility as a parent, with complete sincerity and dedication.

I am getting crazy

Doing the flash back post early this morning has sure enhanced my mood , but not enough to let go what has been bothering me. Quite recently I did a post on how Aryan has been a brat these days. Now I must say that brat is a word too small for Aryan.

Yesterday evening he saw butter in fridge and wanted to eat it. Eat it as in just butter. I made him taste a little. But he insisted on more. I offered bread slice with butter , but he wanted just butter. I tried to explain and gave so many different options , but he cried his heart out. He rolled on floor , scratched my face , pulled my hair , bite my legs , all for little butter. This biting thing is whats driving me crazy from long time. You just don't respond to him for a second and he will bite you at the most wierd place possible. So yesterday I lost my temper and he got one on his cheek.

This was not all. About an hour later , at around 10 , we were trying to put him to sleep. But he suddenly started crying. After a long time we could figure out that he wanted to go to living room and so hubby took him there. But NO , he wanted to go to living room with me coz he doesnot want to sleep now. I tried to compromise by playing with him , reading books, singing song , but all in vain. We should do what he says. And so the tantarum repeated. This time Anupam gave him one , for the first time.

Now , though he doesnot get hit so often , but these kinds of tantarams have become a daily affair. He wishes to command us for each and everything. After office , I should spend 100 % time with him. Should repond to his needs within 1 second. Should do only what he wants. All this is driving us nuts.

This weekend , we went shopping for grocery and he wanted to bring all the shelves down. When I resisted , I got a scratch under my eye.

I do not know what should I do to discipline this guy. I don't give in to him , but I do compromise , coz I cannot let him cry forever. But it doesnot work always. Sometimes I loose my temper like anything. Sometimes he doesnot compromise and he leave him crying for long.

Something is not right. God knows what.

Quite a Brat He Is !

Aryan is being quite a brat these days. His aggression leaves me dumbstuck.

You just don't do what he wants and he will cry out as crazy. That is still okay. What more is , he will hit me, scratch my face and pull my hair.

Shopping for my brother's wedding has been a horrible experience, especially on last two weekends. I understand that he gets bored and I do my best to keep him entertained but he is completely on non-cooperation movement. Last to last week I was shopping for him and I made him try a few dresses. So I gave him a benifit of doubt that he is angry for he has to try so many coats.

But last sunday , he tested my patience and I lost.
We were shopping for Hubby and I did everything to keep him entertained.But he pulled my hair , scratched my face , fought with all the kids in shop.I got so pissed off that I took him to the mother's room and let him cry for sometime , while I sat there. I know that was not the right thing to do but I did not know what to do.

At home also , he gets angry over small things and shows it by pulling my hair and hitting and scratching.

My policy is not to give in to his anger and divert him to something else. It works at times but not always.

Could anyone tell me whats going wrong.

Milestone Month !!

I don't usually write updates. It just don't click to me. But DECEMBER was the MILESTONE month for Aryan. So "update toh banta hai bhaiya" ..:D

And why do I say so ?

1.My little Aryan walks now. Though he is still to discover that walking is better than crawling. To him , walking is still a game. But he does !!!! And he enjoys...you should see that acheivement on his face !!!!This was something which was on my mind since so long and its such a relief now.

2.Remember the fight we had over his feeding bottles in the month of August. We have compromised on a sipper. They always win you see but I did not loose this time.

3. He keeps learning and forgeting words. So now that he has forgotten to say "Nahi" , he has learnt to say "Bow Bow"

4. He has recently started loving books and he likes to spend some time with his favourite animal book every day.

4. He knows his 'nosy' and his 'tummy' and he can show you as well.

How to Train Parents

Tricks our kids may use on us...funny article ...must read !
Teen-mole--The-parent-trap

Language Problem

Our mother tongue is Hindi and I know no other language except Hindi and English. And that is what we use to communicate with Aryan , mostly Hindi and sometimes a little English. Aryan goes to a day care and the owner of the place and most of the maids over there are Tamilians. Some of the maids are Kannadica. So what should Aryan do ? At this age my little sweetheart has to listen 4 different languages. What does he pick ? Another problem is , if he picks a word in Hindi , the maids will not understand him and if he picks a word in Tamil , we won't understand.Anupam and I have been thinking about this from quite sometime and this has driven us nuts. How will Aryan learn to speak in such a situation ?

Apprehensive About Milestones

Aryan is almost one year and 2 months old.He is not yet walking.He pulls up to stand with support and moves a few steps with support , but he never attempts to move without support. Some say thats okay while others say he is late.

He speaks only 2 words clearly , which are Mumma and Papa. There are 2 more word like sounding noises ,"bahar" and "aaja". But only I claim them to be words.

I have spoken to his doctor about these issues and he said , we have nothing to worry as yet. So, why this post ? Am I worried at the back of my mind ? Am I apprehensive ?

I do not know if I should believe in Jyothish (astrology) or not. But quite recently my father's astrologer friend said Aryan will walk only when he will be 1.5 years old and talk when he is close to 2 years. Since I admit , that despite of having a logical mind , I do believe in astrology to some extent at the back of my mind , I should no longer be worried. Especially when both the doctor and astrologer speak similiar.

But probably I am even more worried now. One reason is the social pressure. Whoever calls these days , asks us with great confidence "Aryan must be walking now ?" and we have to say no. To which they will console us , "Oh that its ok" (Though they never sound convincing).
Now with 4 more months to go before he actually walks (as per the astrologer , if thats true), I am not prepared to address all those phone calls. Plus we have a vacation planned in November , when we will face all the relatives. I am not prepared to address and bear with their apprehensions about my son.Nor do I have any valid answer ready for them. I definitely do not want to say about the prediction , since even I am not fully convinced by that.

Another reason ofcourse is the fear of unknown.I do not trust astrology 100%. Doctor said nothing to worry as YET. Four months seems like four years to me.

Probably only time will answer my fears. Meanwhile , I can do nothing much about the apprehensions , both mine and of others.

Fighting over the bottle

I was planning for this since quite a long time.But I did not have the courage. So each weekend I would have one of the following excues ready."He is not well today","Guests will be here , we don't want a cranky baby that time","We have to do some unavoidable shopping, he will trouble without milk" and what not.

This weekend though I decided to go for this, without a second thought.So I started on saturday morning.He had just one sip and then we compromised for a slice of bread instead of milk.He had his lunch and slept well and woke up to have 2-3 sips of milk.We again compromised with alternate foods.Bed time milk is his favourite though.He cried for the longest 15 minutes of my life.He begged and complained and was furious , but nothing worked with the bad momma , who sat still with a glass of milk. She kissed and patted but did not give him a bottle of milk.My little baby slept without milk and I cried with a broken heart while I fed him with a bottle of milk ,as he slept.

That was not all , he woke up with some bad cough.But mumma's heart did not melt.Morning went without milk.Early in the evening though mumma was about to give up and was feeling pathetic when the little sweetheart came and kissed mumma.Soon after , he had about half a glass and that again made his mumma a little confident.

I have a bad habit of feeling happy a little too early.Not a single sip at night.I took off for today.I was optimistic that half glass may turn to one today.But not a single sip since morning.At around 3.00 he had a few sips through straw but that was all.To add to this ,now he is not having milk during sleep too. Can I feel more miserable in my life than what I feel today. A hungry little baby sleeping next to me and I being a BAD BAD MUMMA.

I feel like quiting.Not that I did not feel like this in past 3 days , but then I had a satisfaction that he is not left out hungry.Now that he is hungry since morning and had only half of his lunch , I feel miserable. I always thought I will not give up because then he will know how to get his things done , but then I guess he already knows that.

Please God Help!

'Mommy guilt' a fact of life for most with kids

Ohh none of us is alone. 'Mommy Guilt' has hit each one of us at times. I did a post and then I read Poppin and JLT. We expressed in different ways , but its all the same.

Here is what I read today :

"Mommy guilt" is both instinctual and cultural, he says. "Our culture looks to Mom to be the person who is there, who is hands on. There is this feeling that 'This is what I'm supposed to be and anything else I do is selfish.' "
Crawford says working mothers who feel an inordinate amount of guilt often try to overcompensate by forcing quality time with their children. These attempts can often backfire. "Any guilt that you carry from home to work or work to home will interfere in your performance in that role and in your satisfaction with that role. So you're really cheating yourself."

Not only is guilt harmful for couples, but Crawford believes it also hurts children. "A child will pick up on that and they'll ultimately feel like they're the reason that Mom feels guilty."

Read the full article here.

Are we killing their Childhood , Their Freedom ?

Apart from school , he goes to a skating class everyday.Then on Mondays he has an Abascus and a drawing class.On Wednesdays and Fridays he has Music classes. Thats the weekly schedule for a 10 year old.And they plan to start his French and German classes soon , as soon as they find a good teacher. Since they think he still has some bandwidth on Tuesdays and Thursdays and weekends ofcourse.

A conversation with the mother today made me ponder.Is it right ? She said , this is the best age to learn and I agree. But at the same time this is the only age to enjoy.She said she wants him to be the best and survive the competetion ahead.Its true that I wish my son to be a master of all but then I guess this is over kill. Should they not have sometime of their own. Just play with whatever they like.Enjoy the innocence of their childhood ,feel the world around and find happiness and joy with simple things.Skating is enjoyable , but then not if its compulsary to do it everyday.You will master it but in the process you may loose the fun of it.Schools these days have lot of extra curricular activities and I don't mind extra classes for 1-2 skills during weekends , but I guess I am not pro about this over burden.

I did wrote about this some time back too.If my kid is extra passionate about music /drawing or whatever , I would go an extra mile for him to master that.But is it okay to force him for a french class just because I wish him to learn that at the age of 10.I thought this is the only age when you have freedom to live , sleep , eat and play and when we had that , how could be take that away from our kids ?

What Books for my Kid ?

Kiran's post inspired me for this one.Why are our kids not reading Amar Chitra Kathas? Or for that matter any Indian literature.I remember reading Amar Chitr kathas and Stories from Ramayana and Mahabharatha apart from Champak , Nandan , Chandamamma and some russian story books.I noticed with friends and relatives that kids today are not given any indian books to read and I truly don't understand the reason.I have no inhibitions against other books , and they can be reading them all.But don't you think our books brings them closer to our history , our mythology and our culture. Okay, I agree we have some fairy tales in our mythology and there can be a debate about all that being true/false , but anyways they are reading Harry Potter , so whats wrong with Hanuman ? Indian books brings them closer to our values and morals in simple Indian setup which they can relate to and visualize. With due respect to other literature , I think we have a great literature for our kids and we can be proud of that.But on the contrary , some of my counter parts , don't think its worth.Or shall I say , its something to do with our ego and status.We feel proud if our kid can talk about all the famous international characters and toons on TV and its kind of down market to talk about ACK ? Will my kid be out of place , if he reads more/equal number of Indian books vs others ?

How do we protect our kids ?

I know it was never easy to raise kids and especially , well mannered ,well educated ,confident,independent and cultured kids with strong moral values.But is it not becoming increasingly difficult with each passing day or may be I have realized it now , after being a mom.Oh I know the topic is not new, we all have read and thought about it so many times before , mad momma did a post too, but this has been haunting my mind from quite a few days and I wish pen down my thoughts.

How do we protect our kids from the society ? We can spend money to educate them in whatever fields , but how do we educate them about the dangers from human predators ? And at what age ? With incidents like Nithari (which is not the only one of its kinds) and like the ones mentioned by mad momma and Trishna , no age seems to be early.I don't have a daughter yet and I know these thoughts will haunt more after I have one , but then with this inhuman frustrated society , I guess I would need to educate my son too.

Yes, no one did educated us and yet we survived.But then many of us still carry certain black spots in our personality.Certain memories still haunt.Each one of us have faced eve teasing and harrasments from known/unknowns.There may have been times when we could hardly realize what we went through and later in life , there may have been times when we felt frustrated and yet helpless.Some of us may have shared things with our parents/friends/life partners while others would have carried it all the way in our hearts.Should our kids go through the same or can we do something to make their lives better.

Kids of this generation are learning early but thats what our parents thought about us too.Yet we faced what we did.Learning early has both advantages and disadvantages.Half the knowledge is even more dangerous.One of my friend shared this article today and perhaps that is why I am doing this post today.Even if we educate them against the frustated predators , how do we educate them (little later in life) about not making deadly mistakes.I am not going to discuss about whats right/wrong , we can have different opinions , but whatever it is , we cannot deny the need to educate our kids.How and when should we educate them ? And God forbid , what should be our reaction if we are one of the mothers from the article ?

These are some questions , I am struggling with. May be time will answer , as always. But then I hope it will not be late till then.

Another milestone !

Day 2 (Thursday)
We decided that I should join for the drop even today.We kissed Aryan and said bye to him , before handing him over to the maid.We told him that we will come to pick him up and he can have fun till then.Told him not to cry and eat well.He did not cry while going to her and till he could see us.We heard him crying from inside though.

I called around 11.30 and she told , he was not crying and had morning snacks.She said all the morning he did not let anyone come near to him and cried when we took him to other kids.Then I called around 3.00, he has had his lunch.He slept for 1 hour in the morning and 2 hours in evening.Paati said that he was quiet but wanted to be alone.Evening he started little bit crawling in his room though.I told her that he might be scared of too many people and asked her to leave him with 2-3 kids.It worked and she told that he loved observing them.Anupam picked him up around 5.30 and he told Aryan was crawling in the room when he reached.

Day 3 (Friday)
Anupam dropped him to the place and I said a bye to him , before I got down for my office.He cried while going to the maid.He ate usual.He crawled outside to the other room.He made friends with Paati and maids, but was still scared to go near the kids.He loved watching them from distance though.

Evening I decided to give a surprise visit and spend sometime there , playing with him.He could sense me as I stepped in.He was playing and the door was half shut , but as I stepped he turned around and cried for me.He was happy as soon as I took him in my arms.He smiled at everyone from my lap.But did not want me to sit there.Wanted to come back home.He looked for his papa , as he heard a car horn, who planned to pick us up after 30 minutes.So ,aryan and I roamed inside the place, talking to kids and maids and Paati.Idea was to make him feel at home.I could see that he was not scared of anyone.But was just not comfortable as there were so many kids.I made him play with another kid , but the other kid dominated as he was little older. Aryan greeted his Papa with a smile.

On the whole , it seems that things will be good very soon.Another milestone achieved for the baby and more importantly for the parents !!!