An accident

Shortly after we came back from our spring break vacation, Y had a bad car accident. Fortunately for her, it happened just outside her school during the morning school rush. She was driving alone in the car, and was hit by another kid driving 60 mph in a 35 mph school zone. Technically, she was at fault ("failure to yield on a left turn"), but the other kid was speeding so much she never saw him, even after she exercised due caution while turning. 

Our car flipped a whole 90 degrees and came to rest on its side. Thank God for airbags and seatbelts, which saved her life. She was very shaken but thankfully unhurt except for a few minor scrapes and bruises. More importantly, there was no drama or hysterics, and she stayed very calm throughout the whole ordeal. The car was totaled, though, and we had to get a new one at short notice.

Our family seems to specialize in near-death experiences :( 

Thank God we all inherited a sense of humor. For several weeks afterward, Yukta claimed that she had a "new perspective" on life. In the midst of a gossip session, she would deadpan, "I don't judge people anymore" or "I'm a judgement-free zone".

The girl can make me laugh even after going through a traumatizing experience! Cheers to that!

This is 14

This is 14.
Long long legs and arms.
Size 10 feet.
Feet that need new shoes every few months.
Smelly feet.
Smelly socks.
Monosyllables.
Grunts and mumbles masquerade as conversation.
(He used to be more verbal when he was 2!)
Big hands.
Clammy hands.
Taller than me.
Taller than dad.
Doesn't want you to enter his room.
Or clean up his room.
Does laundry.
Can chop vegetables.
Doesn't know how to open a milk carton.
Doesn't listen.
Hears every word when parents are whispering about him.
(Damn that Vulcan hearing- for fans of Big Bang Theory!)
Armpit hair.
Face fuzz.
Hates it when you hug him (you give too many hugs!)
Needs that big hug from you.

This is 14.
Clueless.
Selfish. Careless. 
You lie on the couch in high fever and he steers clear of you.
He doesn't need you. 
Except
When he's hungry (always!)
When he needs new pants (every month)
When he needs a ride 
When he has a small corn and my goodness, the pain that he's in!

This is 14.
He wants to know if you've saved enough money for his college.
He has trust issues.
He is aghast when you threaten to join the PTSA.
14 doesn't tell you the names of his friends.
Now you are clueless.
You are uncool 
and embarrassing. 

This is 14.
Coltish.
Heartbreakingly handsome.
You wonder how many of his schoolmates have a crush on him.
You'll never know.
Your deepest desire is to be a fly on the wall as he goes about his school day.
He lounges on the couch.
For a second you mistake him for his dad.
What is going on in that brain? 
Neurons firing, hormones raging.

This is 14.
More bewitching and confusing than you ever thought it would be.
The awkward entanglement of boyhood and manhood. 
Those terrible twos and threes?
You laugh at how hard you thought it was then.
When you thought they were testing your patience
and your strength.
Those were just little hurdles.
Mere prep
for the teenage years.  
In 4 years he will leave this roof. 
You swat that thought away.

For now,
It is enough
That he walks a few steps ahead or behind (never with you)
That you can watch him while he sleeps
That you can still impress him with your cooking 
That he will bike to the nearest Dunkin Donuts
and buy you a doughnut for Mother's day
and eat it all by himself 
That he will draw 3 balloons, write Happy Birthday, and call it a card
This is 14.
This is beautiful. 

The Confidence Gap

Last year, Y's school asked for kids in her grade to self-nominate if they would like to stand for election to a few school office-bearer posts. Initially, Y showed some interest but as she got to know more about what it involved, she rapidly backed off. I tried to encourage her to stand, remembering full well my attempts at such electioneering in my school days, most of which led to thumping defeats! But all my encouragement seemed to make it worse. She simply did not want to make posters, stick them up all over the school, give speeches and generally ask for votes. I let it go, thinking that she may be more confident after a year. After all, it was her first year in a strange environment. 

Of late, I have noticed a worrying insecurity that lurks beneath her surface confidence. She will show us our assignments but balk at showing them to her brother. Ads is notoriously critical (those Virgo genes!) and does not mince words when offering feedback (he is also very mature about accepting feedback about himself or his work, recognizing that the comments are not personal but designed to help him improve). Yuks, unfortunately, does not have the maturity to accept constructive (if blunt) feedback in an unemotional, impersonal way.

Often, showing us something she has made, she will preemptively announce "It's very bad, I know" and rush off into another room while we examine her work. A few days ago, she showed me a school assignment and while I was reading it, she was crouched under the bed as though I was going to pronounce a sentence on her!

Every time, I tell her the same thing. It's your work. If you put in your best effort, it's good. Don't aim for perfection. If it is flawed, or imperfect, you need to love and respect it anyway because it's yours. Don't allow other's comments to hurt so much. Do take feedback and examine it carefully to see if it has merit, then use that feedback to improve. But ultimately, be your own judge and judge yourself kindly. 

Reading articles and books harping on this theme does not help. As much as I want my daughter to grow up to be a confident woman, I understand that modern pressures will always pull her down unless she learns how to recognize the insidious nature of her own mental blocks, and knows how to cope with them and ultimately surmount them. My alter ego, of course, is laughing heartily and sarcastically at my attempts to inject confidence into my kid when I myself am subject to imposter syndrome, performance anxiety and sundry other imaginary syndromes, disorders and maladies :))

So, still working on how to tackle this. One more parenthood challenge! Will it never end?? 

Resilience, Reinvention and other such Random Ramblings

I have been counting. In the last 44 years, I have lived in 30 distinct places. 30 places I have called home at various points in time. The number is staggering and even absurd. What were my parents thinking?!!!

I counted the places we've lived in after we got married. The count is 10. My 14-year-old has lived in 7 houses/apartments. We've basically moved him to a new place every 2 years. What were we thinking?!!! Since I am still counting, he's studied in 7 schools up until now. Guess he's not making my record of 12 schools. I'm not sure whether that is a good thing :) 

I've been thinking a lot about resilience, and courage, and risk-taking ability. I did not grow up with friends I knew from kindergarten. Of course, my parents did not deliberately set out to change my school almost every year, but that's what happened. There have been only 3 years when I have not been the new girl in class. So every year that I moved schools, I was the one with no friends, no associations, no frame of reference, starting at the bottom of the social ladder. Making friends quickly was the first job in every new school, a task an introverted kid is singularly unfit for. Yet I shudder to think how much more introverted I might have developed to be if I had stayed cocooned in the security of the same home/city/school. 

It's hard to pinpoint the exact emotional state from so long ago. I am pretty sure there were some miserable lonely times. I do remember hating every move, the terror and uncertainty of the unknown never lessening with the passage of years. The ability to mask it under a veneer of confidence, however, increased exponentially. Over a period of time, even the aforesaid fear of the unknown largely evaporated. One just got braver, and more resilient. 

Hindsight is always 20-20 :) I read a beautiful quote somewhere - "I will forgive myself for not having the foresight to know what I now know in hindsight". Looking back, I would not change any of the experiences I underwent. As they say, what doesn't kill you makes you stronger! And this gives me a lot of strength and consolation as I think about my kids. Especially Ads, who even as a baby and a toddler, was one of the most cautious, scared kids around. For many years, minor changes in his schedule would lead to full-blown tantrums. That his ability to handle change was weak, was obvious to us very early on. A lot of our parenting with him has involved forcing him into uncomfortable situations (however, this is not why we moved all over India and to and fro from the US!). 

Willy-nilly, it happened. We see the results now, in his quiet confidence, courage and resilience. When we moved from India in 2018, I was very very anxious about his ability to handle this big transition. Having seen him tackle it head-on and just do what it takes to integrate and come out ahead, I'll be sure not to suffer unnecessary sleepless nights next time around!

A big part of the parental contract is protecting your kids from the vicissitudes of life. To the extent that we can, all of us want our kids to have a safe untroubled childhood. But exposing them to change, uncertainty, failure - this is part of the parental contract too. This gen will come of age in a VUCA world, and they need all the tools they can equip themselves with. And for most of us, we need to consciously build in challenges, experiences and situations that force our kids to go out of their comfort zone in a controlled environment, when we are watching over them. Because soon enough, we won't be there to stand guard and they will have to navigate this chaotic world on their own. 

Some concrete examples of conscious actions we have taken/are taking to inculcate independence and resilience in our kids:
1. Independent living - Do chores around the house. Picking up their stuff, folding their clean clothes, throwing soiled clothes in the laundry, making their beds and keeping their rooms clean are expected. It's their job to clean the table every night after dinner and help in clearing up the dishes. I've been working on training Ads to chop veggies and iron his own clothes, but it's a WIP.
2. Academics - I haven't as much as glanced at their homework or test prep for many years now, unless it is voluntarily offered up for inspection, and their grades thus far have been great (positive correlation or causation?!!!) Keeping on top of schoolwork, studying for tests, exams etc, getting decent grades, is their job and their job only. Occasionally I will help out if there is a big project looming. This happens maybe once a year. 
3. Empathy - Cultivate an attitude of gratitude and reinforce the importance of empathy. We have made a lot of strides in the first one and are still working on the second. A regular family volunteering activity would go a long way to promote empathy and this is a personal goal for me this year.
4. Self-care - Exercise and be mindful. Again, WIP. Ads has been doing well on this and he exercises every single day and has a daily meditation routine. We are working with Y on this as well.
5. Socialization - Communicate, make plans, ask for help. We do a lot of this when we travel in Latin America, where it is Ads' job to walk up to random people and ask for directions, opening and closing times, and other general stuff which clueless travellers need to know :) Ordering in restaurants is another way for kids to communicate their own choices. We have to do more of this, including making them shop for groceries and check out with minimal assistance from us.

I feel like this list keeps increasing in length, and every week I can think of something else that I need to teach my children. Life is complex, and it will only get more so as they enter college, and the workforce, and the demands of the real world. As I keep reminding Ads, grades don't matter that much, but it's all the other stuff you learn at this age that is key - how to be independent, organized, socially savvy, brave and empathetic - to be a success at living. I'm not sure he totally buys into what he considers my mumbo-jumbo though!! 

A lesson on being your true authentic self

My heart trembled as Ads bravely walked into his new school last August. There were no histrionics or drama in the run-up to the first day of school. What happened that first day, I still don't know. I worried about bullies, mean kids, sitting alone during lunch time (horror of horrors!). He seemed to have taken it all in his stride. 

My heart broke when he told me - "I sit alone during lunch sometimes. People like to sit with the popular kids and I'm not popular."

(Later I realized that he didn't really care whether he was popular or not. He was issuing a bald statement of fact) 

My heart surged with pride when he made it to the Honor Roll (straight As), one of a tiny handful among the 400+ kids in 8th grade.

In his 13th year, Ads is very much his own person. Unbothered by his peers, somewhat aloof, impervious to what's in and what's not, he rarely bends to accommodate the trends of the day. 

Everyone is on Fortnite, Instagram and Snapchat? Let them, he reads the Scientific American to relax!

Everyone talks about football and baseball? Let them, talk to him if you can talk intelligently about cricket. Or neuroscience. Or particle physics :) 

IPL the current craze? Hmm...ok, maybe for some....but test cricket is the real thing!

My boy makes his own rules. An introvert in a world of forced extroverts, an avid reader in the social media age, a dinosaur in a world of screens and devices, a cricket purist in the age of IPL.

Ads,  

I wish you would develop better social skills, laugh more, and loosen up more. 

I wish you would bend your own rules every once in a while.

I wish you wouldn't hold me and everyone else accountable to your own sky-high standards!

But never ever lose this gift you have, of knowing who you truly are, and giving a damn about the rest! 

The good one

It is vacation time. We are walking to dinner. An argument breaks out on who gets to sit with me during dinner time- Ads or Yukta. It gets louder and fiercer. Finally, I decide that this time, Ads will sit with me. Yukta shrugs, walks a few paces ahead to catch up with her dad, saying " Wierd. She gave up the good one." 

#thatsmygirl #confidence #thegoodone 

A couple of days ago, I learnt that a job that I had applied for, and was hopeful of getting, had gone to someone else. The kids knew about my application and the 2-3 rounds of interviews I had had, so I told Y about it. Since I am a sucker for incorporating teachable moments, I showed her the email I had written, offering my congratulations on the new hire and offering thanks for the time they spent with me.

"You lost", she said, with the painful bluntness only kids can muster. "Are you showing.....sportsmanship" (this with a puzzled frown)

"Yes!", I said, delighted that she had got the message.

"That's weird", she turned back to what she was doing.

#honesty #outofthemouthsofbabes

Ad-Lib #12

Resurrecting the AdLib series, because my 10 yo says the best funniest things. Some of these I posted on my facebook page but I want to put them down here as well.

Y singing: "Love is an open door...."
As snapping: "No it isn't!!"
The literal-minded don't get poetry. 

Ads to me: How much do you love me?
Me: As much as the entire universe.
Ads: Do you mean the observable universe?
Me: Huh?? (standard reaction!)

Ads: You know Amma, Adolf Hitler is a great example of a person who persevered against all odds to realize his dream. He started his political party in 1918 but did not become Chancellor until 1933. He waited 15 years to get to where he wanted.
Me: That's actually a really good example.
Ads (wisely): Yes, but no one will like to use it and say Hitler was really good at something.

Curiouser and curiouser

Very often, Ads will bombard me with random pieces of information. Sample from this afternoon, all in a space of less than 5 minutes.

Did you know Japan has 353,000 robots? The USA has 153,000.

If you tickle yourself, you won't laugh because the cerebellum send signals to the brain to ignore the tickling.

A US survey lists clergyman, firefighter, physical therapist and teacher as the most satisfying professions 

More than half of household dust actually consists of discarded human skin shavings, which are worn out skin cells (yuck!)

All of which makes me think of how different my kids are, even when it comes to being curious. Ads' curiosity is of the intellectual kind. He is interested in the large questions - the human race, the nature of God and the Universe, science and so on (though he has lately developed an annoying habit of reading all my whatsapp messages!). He learns through reading and accepts unquestioningly anything he reads. Long ago I suppose, he came to terms with the very limited intelligence of his parents and others around him and therefore relies on books for knowledge :)

Y's curiosity, on the other hand is more earthy. She is very interested in gossip, what everyone's saying, why that person said this and thought that....more like tell me the here and now...science and the Universe are unfathomable and will always be :) She learns, not through books, but by unceasing questioning. What's that word mean? Why did Thatha say that? What do you mean by that? Why did this happen? She learns by doing and is far more intuitive than her brother- the main reason why she will always have better life skills than him!

Sometimes, I want to make a list like we used to do in school. List 10 differences between Ads & Y. I feel like drawing a line in the middle and listing them all down :) This is the case with many siblings but I am always amazed by how chalk and cheese my kids are. Nature intended parents to always be on their toes and never develop a sense of complacence while raising their second or third child.

Shifting expectations

A couple of years ago, I would have given anything for Ads to run out of the house every evening to play with his friends. Instead he would sit quietly at home, drawing endlessly or reading for hours. Now, I get annoyed with him for playing cricket (and talking about it endlessly) and wish he would start drawing again and reading.

Isn't it so unfair that every time he gets closer to the finish line, I promptly draw another one a little further away! Oh the unfairness of it all! I am ashamed of myself.

I told myself this when he came back from school the second day in a row with his snack untouched. His favourite whole-wheat chocolate cupcakes had been nibbled around the edges, fit only to be thrown into the bin. Amma they aren't nice any more, he claimed. I got my just desserts (pun intended).

When we came to India, I wished more than anything else for him to be sociable, sporty and brave. He has become all of these...and yet...I complain ever so often :(

The burden of expectations- I didn't think I was that kind of mom. Yet we all seem to do it. Or worse, sink under someone else's expectations.

Turning over a new leaf from today :)

The proverbial chalk n cheese

Every night, Ads walks around each and every bathroom in the house. I can hear five toilet seats being pulled down and five bathroom doors being firmly shut. He also arranges the bathmat so that it’s perfectly straight, and shuts each bedroom door. I am meanwhile waiting for him to get to bed and silently gnashing my teeth. I asked him why he does this every single day. Give this bathroom inspection routine a miss one day, I suggested. He looked at me in horror. "I can’t do that! I won’t be able to sleep the whole night!"

My children are like chalk and cheese. How much of that is a function of birth order, I don’t know. Ads, like many first-borns, is high maintenance. When he wakes up in the morning, we never know what his mood will be like. Most likely, cloudy with a chance of thunderstorms – always keep an umbrella handy! Y, on the other hand, is little Ms Sunshine through the day and always manages to perk all of us up.

Ads is a typical Virgo – he likes clear boundaries, unambiguity, cleanliness and exhibits distinct OCD-like tendencies. He is also super-bright though he claims he is not (another Virgo trait – extremely self-critical). Y is carefree, deals with chaos and disorder effortlessly, and nothing describes her more aptly than that fantastic word - bindaas. She does tend to pick up some of Ads mannerisms and behaviours every now and then which I try to discourage. Why change something that’s already perfect? :)

Several months ago, we were all learning how to play the card game Uno. So this game has a lot of different cards and rules which are a little hard to make sense of, at the beginning. So Y and I played one game by ear, learning the rules as we went along. We made a lot of mistakes but by the end of 2 games, we‘d figured it out. When we invited Ads to join us, he insisted on a training session where I was supposed to explain the rules to him slowly. I said to him - "Just play Ads, you’ll figure it out as you play and we’ll help you."

"No no no...I can’t play like that...I need to know the rules first!"

That’s my boy, my Rules Ramanujam as my m-i-l has affectionately nicknamed him. A stickler for rules, structure, order! He drives me up the wall every single day and the only thing that keeps me sane is the realization that I used to be so much like him when I was little (yes I’m a typical Virgo too). I wouldn’t change anything about myself so why do I try and change him, except that I don’t want him to get so boxed into his own neat little world that he never understands the joys of frivolousness, spontaneity and messiness.

It’s going to be a long hard journey - I know because I have made it before – and look what a long way I’ve come!

One of the most interesting parts of my journey as a mother has been discovering the very unique personalities of both my children and celebrating the special quirks and eccentricities that make them the delightful people they are!

Cricket

Another deep dive into yet another topic. This time it's Cricket, the mother of all Indian obsessions. It's a little surprising the interest has surfaced so late- after all, he has been surrounded by cricket and cricket aficionados for years now. But of course, other interests have taken up precious time and mind-share!

In typical Ads style, he has been soaking up information like a sieve. One of our friends said "What I have learnt in 40 years, Ads has picked up 80% of it in 2 months!"

Which is an exaggeration but only a little bit, because his learning curve is astonishingly steep. Which is why it makes me mad when he wails and whines to learn 4 lines of a Hindi poem because "There's no space in my brain!!!"

Ads has also been playing cricket every day with his friends, and on weekends with his dad, with Y as able fielder. This is the kid who told me 2 months ago "I hate cricket!" I won't be surprised if the same line is repeated 2 months hence :)

Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde -Reloaded

Have you read this poem? By a chap called Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (American poet)

There was a little girl, who had a little curl

Right in the middle of her forehead,

And when she was good, she was very, very good,

But when she was bad she was horrid.

She stood on her head, on her little trundle bed,

With nobody by for to hinder;

She screamed and she squalled, she yelled and she bawled, 

And drummed her little heels against the winder.

Her mother heard the noise, and thought it was the boys

Playing in the empty attic,

She rushed upstairs, and caught her unawares,

And spanked her, most emphatic.

For the past several months, Ads has reminded me of this poem :) It has often seemed that we have regressed to the terrible twos and threes, which is the last time Ads was so challenging. Tantrums, bawling, tears at the drop of a hat, heightened sensitivity and prickliness, you name it, we have experienced it! The silver lining is that in public, he continues to be the well-mannered, quiet and cooperative boy he's always been. A pleasure to meet and talk to, affable and pleasant but never loud or aggressive. 

At home, Mr. Hyde surfaces. What has bothered me the most is him turning into the least attractive kind of elder brother - bossy, annoying and irritated by everything his sister says or does. Obviously we have tried to figure out when this behaviour started. It has intensified around the time I went back to work (there you go!) but the early signs have been there for much longer. 

Is it a "phase", like so many others? Who knows? The last week has been quiet; maybe we are turning a corner!

Singapore, Ads and me

Ads has heard a lot about Singapore from his friends and relatives. So he was excited to holiday there. He claims our recent holiday was the best one he’s ever had...ask him which place he liked more, Bali or Singapore, and there is no doubt in his mind. Singapore wins hands down. He said Bali is a place he’d like to visit but Singapore is where he would like to live! There goes my city kid :( 

His standard answer when people ask him what he did in Bali – temple temple beach restaurant, temple temple beach restaurant. Put that way, it doesn’t sound very appealing, does it? :))

Now, as for me...I admire Singapore. I don’t really like it. Don’t ask me why! But I will attempt a garbled answer. Reason #1 is probably that I can be a contrarian at times...if enough people tell me something is fabulous, you can be sure I will hate it! And enough and more people have told me that Singapore is fabulous over the last 15 years for me to be highly sceptical. Is that a good enough reason? :)

Seriously though, I accept that it’s a pretty good place – its clean, safe, disciplined etc etc. The humid weather freaks me out but I really do understand why people would like it. But as S aptly put it, it’s a place that is frustratingly predictable! And I think what that means is that we like a little (or a lot!) of chaos and randomness in our lives which is something that’s missing in Singapore. And that’s why I find it boring, and that’s my reason #2.

Am I coming off as someone difficult to please? Or one of those people who go to Agra and deliberately do not visit the Taj Mahal, because hey, that’s what all the tourists do? :)

The one reason I’d live in Singapore? It’s a truly fantastic base for exploring Southeast and East Asia. Give us 3 years and I promise there won’t be a country we don’t visit :)

The embarrasing mom Part 1

I feel slightly guilty about not posting any updates on Y but truth is, Ads is providing enough and more intriguing/entertaining moments at this point. One of the latest is being thoroughly embarrassed by/with me (not so much with Appa - I have to resentfully wonder why?). It's a given that I do not kiss/hug or otherwise exhibit any PDA in public especially at drop off/pickup time, tennis class etc, where there are bound to be a bunch of kids looking on.

Some days ago, I had to give Ads a message while he was in the middle of tennis class. I walked in, maintained a safe (!) distance and talked to him. His expression was priceless! Or should I say lack of it. He was looking at me, but his eyes were beseeching me to go away. He knew I wouldn't move until he had acknowledged the message so he said Ok and managed to mouth it without actually saying it out loud and nodded his head oh-so-imperceptibly.

His entire body language said - Ok I got it...now can you please leave? Like RIGHT NOW?

Just when I thought girls aren't like that, Y tells me to buzz off from her dance class, cos "I won't dance if you are there".

Foolishly, I look to S for some understanding. He bands together with his kids. He says "I totally understand. I would have hated it if MY mom had landed up in tennis class!"

Talk about getting a sympathetic hearing!

PS: I named the post Part 1 because I sense this is just the beginning of my kids being embarrassed by me! :) 

A little-big boy and his imagination

Ads has always been a very imaginative kid. From the time he was around 2 years old, he indulged in a lot of pretend play although until Y came along he always expected someone to keep him company while he played. He's also passed through a fairly obvious and predictable trajectory as far as interests are concerned. Chronologically, they have been - construction equipment and heavy vehicles, emergency vehicles (fire-trucks and so on), tigers and other big cats, reptiles, dinosaurs, outer space, birds, and now cricket and superheroes!

Something that I've noticed with a lot of boys is that when they get interested in a topic, they dig deep and turn into a veritable encyclopaedia of knowledge on that subject! Their interest verges on obsession. I have never ever in my 7 years of being a mom (which is about when I started noticing these things!) seen a girl jump in so deep into any subject! I can't believe my sample set is too small or skewed - has anyone else observed this?

So, anyway, getting back to Ads. The joke around our home is that whenever you need to find Ads, just follow the sounds of what we call the Dish-bish. A vocal potpourri of explosions, snorts, roars, grunts and yells that express the imaginative space he is occupying at that time - a tiger stalking and hunting it's prey, dinosaurs fighting or Iron Man and Cap'n against a common enemy :) The package is generally accompanied by a lot of hand gestures and kicks so beware anyone who's at arms-length at the time!

Ads has been the recipient of many an amused and/or astonished look by onlookers when he goes Dish-bish on buses, trains and other public places. I still remember two little boys about the same age as him as we de-boarded at Jaisalmer railway station. We were heading towards the station exit. Ads was in his own world, utterly oblivious to the fact that we had landed at our destination. I walked behind him, holding on to my suitcase with one hand while steering him with another and ensuring he didn't bang into people. These 2 little boys watched, jaws dropping, as he approached them, eyes open but in a world of his own, making strange gestures with his hands, funny sounds with his mouth and with myriad threatening expressions rapidly flitting across his face :)

Every time he goes into his zone, the three of us collapse into giggles which take a while to penetrate his consciousness but when it does, he gets really wild with us :)

Another weird, funny, endearing thing about my boy!

A sorted-out 7 yo (I think!)

Ads graduated from bedtime stories quite a while ago and for the last year or more, his bedtime routine has consisted of either a quiz (we ask him questions on a mutually-agreeable topic) or else a "discussion". The latter again involves a specific topic on which we have a free-wheeling chat of sorts. Nothing very elaborate, 10 minutes tops is the usual duration because we have to start sleeping and therefore the same topic may be continued for as long as a week depending on how interesting it is.

For the last few days, we have been talking about religion. What it is, why the need for religion, the different religions practised in India, and so on. Naturally, we have also talked about evolution and God and faith (mine, his and the world's at large!). Last night, he floored me not once by twice by saying something that was not just extremely insightful but totally unexpected for someone his age.

#1 - During a discussion on the negation of the theory of evolution by conservative Christians, he said: Only fools think they know everything. It was almost telepathic, because just then I'd been about to say something on the lines of - Only fools think they have all the answers, the wise man is full of doubts.

#2 - We were talking of the commonality between all religions and I told him that all religions seek to answer just a couple of fundamental questions, and then I casually asked him whether he could think what this question was. Pat came the reply: Who am I?

His prompt and ready response shook me up. How did he know? We'd never discussed this with him before. How had he cracked this most fundamental question of all? Who am I? Why am I here? To what end?

I find it very hard to reconcile this kid with the kid who fights over the last piece of chocolate with his baby sister and who throws a fit because I gave her 3 kisses and gave him only 2! I feel like saying - Dude, you cracked the meaning of life! You cannot, simply cannot, be acting like this!

Oh well - that's what makes life with Ads so interesting :)

Random thoughts on random people

I decided sometime last year or the year before, that I was going to prune my life of superfluous, superficial, negative and toxic relationships. I did not wake up one day and resolve to do this - though I should have, and a long time ago! It is something that has happened quite organically over a period of time. I've stopped investing time and effort in maintaining friendships that were chugging along on the steam of nostalgia ("old times' sake!"), and where the entire onus of keeping the relationship alive and kicking had fallen on me alone. I've stopped being bothered by people who ignore me and patronize me or my family.

Keep it distant but keep it cordial (like my mom says, it doesn't cost you anything to be nice).

So far (touchwood), I haven't been in a position where someone has tested my limits; but on the other hand, my limits themselves have been expanding, which is a good thing.

I recently had a pretty surreal experiencing of spending 3 days travelling with someone who would not speak to me. I don't know what the problem is or what I am supposed to have done. We shared a hotel room over 3 days (and about 20 words in total!), and there were a lot of meals with both of us looking in opposite directions and eating in perfect silence! My two-years-younger self would have been deeply hurt. I'm happy to report that I am far more thick-skinned now and I played my part in the cold war as best as I knew how - Distant but cordial (!!). The husband asked me why I did not ask upfront what the problem was. But really - why should I? If you have a problem with me, then tell me what it is. Why should I agonize over an imaginary or trivial problem that you have? I don't have a problem with you, so I will be polite but I won't force my company or my conversation on you.

Like I tell Ads many a time - Stop sulking and crying. Go to the other room and calm down. Then tell me what your problem is. 

Sometimes it seems like some people never grow up!!

PS: 3 days without talk created a mini-Vipasana-like experience which I am happy to say I coasted through :)

Y's unanswerables, and Ads'

I'm reading this book called Cinderella ate my daughter by Peggy Orenstein. I'll review the book once I'm done with it but the chapter I was reading put me in mind of some of Y's tough questions. The book says (I quote):

.....Regardless of how we dress them or decorate their rooms, when they are tiny, children do not know pink from blue. Then the whole concept of labeling kicks in - sometime between the ages of two and three, they realise that there is this thing called "boy" and this thing called "girl" and something important differentiates them. But whatever, they wonder, could that be?

......Until around age five kids don't fully realize that their own identities (and their own anatomies) are fixed. before that, as far as they are concerned, you could grow up to be either a mommy or a daddy. And they don't understand that other people's sex stays the same despite superficial changes until as late as age seven.

Moving on to some questions Y has stumped (and regaled) me with.

When I am big like you, will I still be a girl?

Is Thatha (grandfather) my husband?

When I grow up, my husband will be Anna (Ads).

My friend S has short hair. Is she a boy or a girl?

I want to pee standing up like Anna. Why can't I do it?

Why don't I have what Anna has (she is NOT talking about a toy here!)

When Anna wears a hairband, he looks so cute. Why can't he wear a frock? (Why indeed!)

 

Why did nobody tell me I'd have to answer such questions?!!

Of course, these are chicken-feed compared to the one I got from Ads. He scans the front-page of the newspaper every morning, I knew the question would come and I was surprised he took so long to ask me. However I was still unprepared when he asked me what "rape" was. 

Kids don't, simply don't, need to know what rape is at this age. Not boys, not girls. When I read of little girls being violated, I am filled with impotent rage. 

Note to self: It's a big bad cruel world out there. Figure out what to tell Ads if he asks you again. I've always answered his questions (even if it took me a couple of days to google and get the answer) and this issue needs to be treated with due sensitivity and caution, especially since we cannot escape the big headlines in the paper everyday. Any ideas, people?

Budding author

Our geek has been writing books. The kind that were written in the old days - yes actually written -with old-fashioned pen and paper and not by banging keys on a laptop. I half-heartedly tried to get him to write on the computer. I'd passed on my old clunky HP laptop to him when I migrated to a sleeker version. He did not take to it for a variety of reasons and I let him be. Unlike most of his peers, he's not very much into tech tools and games. Plus that laptop is so lousy; half the keys are missing thanks to Y and it's battery is on it's last legs.

The books (multiple!) are all started and then discarded. The first thing Ads does is to create the following pages.

• Foreword
• Preface
• Acknowledgements
• Resources/Bibliography
• Contents (with page numbers)
• Glossary
• Index

By the time he's done with all of these, he's exhausted and bored and the book remains all bones with no flesh!

We've grown sick telling him, start writing the damn book! Then do the preface and acknowledgements and so on. What do I do with this boy? On the other hand, how many 7-year olds know what a foreword and a preface is? :)

Most of the books have the authors name: Ads. Consultant: Y :) Editor: S and Publisher: Yours truly :) I told him, since I was the one supplying him with a regular and everlasting supply of A4 sheets for his books, I should be the publisher :)

I'm also thinking of buying shares in ITC's paperboard business!

Leaving you with some sample pages and a letter to Santa Claus.

 

Intro page to his Enclyclopaedia

Sample contents page with page nos

Part of a foreword that I wrote for his book

Letter to Santa asking mainly, for what else, an encyclopaedia!

 

Things I learnt about my son in school

 1. His nickname in class is "Encyclopaedia". Go figure - it shouldn't be difficult :)

2. His pasta is of course very popular among classmates. There's another boy in class whose mom makes great cakes, so I have been asked to out-do her and send a cake for snack tomorrow. Apparently my chocolate chip muffins and banana bread aren't good enough :)

3. He's a lot more assertive and outgoing than I thought he would be. It was quite a surprise! I could hear his voice overriding some others while we were conducting the spelling bee, and once he started arguing with another girl and the teacher had to shush him.

4. Apparently he passes the time by cleaning the classroom floor with a ruler, and plays goofball by falling onto the floor and rolling around whenever they have no teacher supervising. YUCK!!  

The things one learns!

On another note, this is the complete list of all the birds we saw in Bharatpur :)