Tag Archives: kids

July 3, 2008 · 4:56 am

Two, No Wait, Few Birds With One Stone.

I decided to solve the clingy problem with all the will I had left in me.

Last month I had told myself that after my vacation, I would seriously tackle the what-am-I-doing-with-my-life issue.  But that cannot be done with a toddler holding your leg and wailing . You need peace to think, and I haven’t had any in the past two weeks, because my daughter decided she needed her mommy 24-7 and no one else. Flattering as that was, I began to lose it after a while; something needed to be done, fast.

So, this is what I tried. I got up in the morning and asked a friend if she wanted to watch a film, which she did, and I trotted off and told my horrified looking maid, who had been witnessing the scenes around the bathing and eating, to do what needed to be done – the bath, food etc – and put her to bed in the afternoon. I planned to return only after she had taken her nap.

And guess what? She didn’t shed one tear or throw one tantrum. I was told happy stories about how she laughed and played in the water and also during lunch. All that drama was, of course, only for mommy dearest. So overjoyed was I with this outcome that the next day I decided to take off in the morning again, and went shoe shopping, something I had been wanting to do for a while. And sure enough this time too she was happy as a calm and was sound asleep in her cot when I returned home, to peace and quiet.

So I am not sure I’ve successfully solved the problem – mommy hood has taught me not to celebrate achievements too early, and sometimes not all all, they have a way of resurfacing just when you think you’ve crossed that bridge – but I am feeling chuffed. After all not only did I manage to wean her off me for a while, I also got to watch a movie, catch up with a friend and buy some shoes in the bargain- not bad, not bad at all!!!

So now I am wondering if my good luck will last and somehow, miraculously, she’ll love school when she goes, for the first time, on Monday.

Too much to ask? I thought so. But, it’s worth a shot, in case someone up there is listening.

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June 25, 2008 · 11:39 am

She’s going through a clingy phase and I am losing it!

I am not going to deny it, I like my daughter to doing the “mommy” thing – you know wanting mommy to do this and that and no one else. Except, I like it to an extent, after which I start to lose it a little. I mean if going for a bath becomes an issue, then it’s not fun. These days I find myself constantly explaining to her why she needs to let the maid, who she does like, give her a bath, feed her etc, so that mommy can get things done.

But rationalizing with a two year old is, well, it’s not exactly a walk in the woods. I get a lot of No! accompanied, of course, with hysterionics like rolling on the floor, making throwing up sounds and faces, the usual. She didn’t do much of it earlier, so I thought I’d escaped it somehow. Right, wishful thinking.

Anyway, so ever since we returned from our wonderful vacation in Singapore, she’s been on this mommy -will-do-it-phase. So yesterday I decided to be brave and do something about it. I told the maid to give her a bath and I let her scream her way through. I stayed in the kitchen where I could hear her well, but I didn’t go in for the rescue, something she was trying hard to get me to do – the vomit sounds et all. But I stood my ground. I felt mean but I ignored that voice. I am not sure if it helped, but I was determined.

Did it help? Not sure. I am hoping it did, if in a tiny way.

One does what one can but it does not always work. To think that just because I let her cry one day she would now miraculously change her behaviour is, needless to say, expecting too much. But, still, at some level I think she understood that mommy meant business.

I’ll probably have to continue doing stuff like this, because in two weeks she starts school. I am not even thinking about how that will go. Boy oh boy, that’s going to be fun.

Time Machine anyone??

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May 14, 2008 · 11:21 am

I wish I had the guts to swim against the current..

In the good old days, children went to school at, what? say 4 or 5? maybe a tad earlier. But not at 2, that’s for sure. So when I told my father that I was putting my two year old into play school (she’ll be almost 2.5 when she goes) he thought I’d lost it, which it does not take much for him to think, he’s old school and I am, well, mostly, not.

He’s nuts about my daughter so he was upset. And I’ve been sitting on the fence about it anyway, so I kept (read keep) swinging between whether to send her or not. Looking around me didn’t help, since everyone sends their kids at some bizarre age or the other. And that’s not what I want to do anyway, to send her just because the whole world is doing it. But, I have enrolled her for July for the Toddler session, she goes everyday for three hours.

First, I was so worried about her whole interaction that I was ignoring, rather stifling, this little voice in my head that kept asking me if that’s what I really wanted. She has to go to school for a long time to come, did I really want to start it now? Did I not want her to be at home with me, playing the morning games we do, watering the lawn, playing with water, reading, and all the rest of it. Did I want to force her into a routine just because it was the right thing to do? She’s two for Christ’s sake.

But, till her interaction was over I managed to silence that voice. But now it’s back and I want to face these questions.

I know the answers and it makes me sad. The truth is that, if I was ensured admission into a decent (and that’s a whole different story, but for another day) school, I’d probably not send her now. I do think she’s too young and needs me more that she needs a routine. But, I don’t have the balls. I know that by the time she is three and over, I’ll have driven myself insane thinking about her admissions. At least this way I know that she will continue in this school, which, hopefully, will be right for her.

Its going to be five days a week, and this is the other thing that bothers me. Why make a toddler go five days? Three seems right to me. That way, they’d go and play three times a week, and yet, not lose out on time at home.

My husband thinks it’s too early but he’s left the decision to me, and from time to time, he, like me, laments the fact that we don’t have the guts to let her be for now and cross the admission bridge when we come to it.

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May 11, 2008 · 5:40 am

So It’s Mother’s Day..

In my previous post I made my views clear about mother’s day. And I stand by them.

But, (no, I am not changing my stand, so worry not fellow believers) when I woke up to find that my husband had arranged to send me flowers on behalf of my two-year old, it made me smile.

It made me happy not because it’s mother’s day, but because he cared so much that even though he is out of the country on an important business trip, he’d made sure that I didn’t feel left out as the world around me went crazy celebrating event, with cakes flying around and newspapers lapping it up, profiling mothers, chubby “ordinary” ones and celeb svelte ones alike, with cutsey mommy-baby pictures splashed about abundantly. It was his thoughtfulness that touched me.

I am not changing my stand in any way, but which woman does not like to receive red roses?? Though the flowers came bearing my daughter’s name, for me it is more about her father than her.

I think he was hoping to put out some of those mommyrage fires!! Ha Ha, I have to say, it did work!

For a while, that is.

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May 9, 2008 · 2:21 pm

Do We Really Need A Mother’s Day?

Where will this madness end? Mother’s Day? Who started it? It surely wasn’t there when I was growing up. But now we suddenly celebrate it like it was some integral part of our lives and scurry around sending flowers, buying cake and uttering some mushy words about how we care but don’t show it..ugh.

Would I be happy if my daughter grew up and sent me flowers and called me on mother’s day? Actually, I’d rather she cared year round!!!! (esp after the way I am waiting on her hand and foot!!)

And you know who’s smiling the most right now? Hallmark. And those online flower guys with annoying pop-ups.

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May 2, 2008 · 10:16 am

When both work, who takes care of the baby?

There are some people whose shoulders others cry on. I have one of those shoulders. For all my life, I’ve had people, friends and strangers alike, telling me their woes and asking me for advice, which I feel most unqualified to give, but find it difficult to communicate that convincingly for the fear of seeming uninterested or unwilling to help.

Anyway, to come to the point, a friend came over the other day, looking a little upset. I didn’t probe but I could guess what it was. She’d been talking about her husband, who I’ve never met but can picture – your typical I-need-my-three-hours-of-watching-sport-so-don’t-get-in-my-way kind of man, the kind someone like me would’ve left at the alter provided I was foolish enough to have made it till there, but, in my friend’s defense, it’s possible, as it is with most men, she didn’t know his various sides before she married him. Anyway, he sounds quite obnoxious so I was sure he was the cause of her sad face. And he was.

She runs an event management company that mostly handles birthday parties. So, on the days that she has to go on site, which, in her case, is the party, she takes her two-year old daughter with her. I’d wondered why she did that, for it was work for her, but never asked. It turns out that her husband refuses to babysit, telling her that since her work is “light and just a hobby” it’s perfectly ok to take the daughter with her -while he enjoys his peace at home watching TV!

Hmm..I wonder what I would’ve done had my husband said that to me (and at that moment I thanked God for him!!) I probably would’ve cut the cable wire and let him stew (I like that thought!!) But, my poor friend is a little too soft for her own good. She told me that the previous evening she had to go for a party that she had organized for a client and it was a little far, so she told her husband to be with the daughter, and the maid, at home. He refused, saying that he was watching an important match on TV and could not attend to the child, and that she should take her to the party, which was to end late.

So, the little girl accompanied her mother and they returned past midnight. The next day the girl was tired for school but that didn’t seem to bother the husband..”children need distraction” he says to her being tired and refusing to go to school. Then he adds that if the child does not want to go, then she should not be forced to and tells my friend “you just want her to go so you can carry on with your hobby”. Agh. Just writing about this is making me mad, so I cannot imagine what she would’ve felt.

I have little patience so maybe I am not the right person to ask for advice. But I told her to tell him off the next time he calls her work a “hobby”. He needs to respect what she does and it’s for her to decide what it means to her. Men need to be told firmly, the more you allow them to get away with, the more they’ll push..

I hope I never meet him, because if I do, my acid dripping tongue will find it hard to hold itself back!

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April 18, 2008 · 11:30 am

What do you teach your kids?

I was in the park the other day with my two year old daughter and she was running around playing with her ball, kicking it with a lot of gusto, something that delighted my mother’s heart since I’d like her to be an outdoor girl and I hugely discourage playing with barbies or any such disturbing habits!

Anyway, it was a nice evening, till a little toddler came and snatched her ball and almost punched her in the face. She recoiled and gave up her prized possession and ran to me. I asked her why she had allowed someone so much younger to bully her. She looked up at me, blinked and said :” Mama I was sharing”

I was dumbfounded. It’s something I’d been teaching her – to share and be nice and all that “values” stuff we like to teach our children. But at that moment I wondered if I was making her too soft. Not that I want to teach her to bully, but by telling her that she should always be nice to people, esp to kids, had I made her an easy target for other kids?

I am not sure how I feel. I mean, I certainly do not want her to be scared of kids and run away from situations, but neither do I want her to be aggressive just because the world around her is. So, I told her that it’s nice to share, but when someone snatches or tries to hurt her, she should not allow it and push if need be. But I am not sure she understood.

It made me think. What should one teach one’s children? If I bring her up to be honest, upright and caring – the values my parents taught us – will that lead to her being disillusioned later in life? It’s possible that I may be making too much of one small incident, but it was something that led me to think about parenting issues and the warped, violent world that our children are going to grow up in.

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