Skip to main content

Good comes to those...

We have a little new game that I call ‘the Shocolate routine'. Every morning on our way downstairs we stop by Daadi’s room. I ask you to stay outside the room and wait for me. You go all noddy with a cheeky like smile and start repeating in a whispering voice with your French like pronunciation “Shocolaaaaate !”
Somehow your little brain has already worked out that this game is more fun without you knowing the hiding place of the chocolate trove! I come out of Daadi's room with three chocolates, mostly in differently coloured wrappers, one each for your mom, yourself and me. You are allowed to pick yours and apparently you do that based on the colour of the wrapper – Lellow (Yellow), red or brown. However, you are not supposed to eat the chocolate at this point. I ask you to wait till we are in the car and you respond with another one of those cheeky-smile nods and a nice big 'Yes'.
It is easy to see how the 'Shocolate' is still the centre of universe for you. On our way downstairs, you gladly go on in your cute little broken-up-but-yet-so-connected sentences about what colour you chose and then for no apparent reason change your choice, maybe more than once.
I put my share of the loot by the bottom of the stairs where we wear our shoes. You declare that you have decided to keep yours and your mom's there too as if a little family reunion of sorts has just been planned for our little family of chocolates. 
You are in-charge for handing out your mom's chocolate to her as she is due to leave for work before us. While you happily hand it over to her, your reaction to her walking out of the door could range from a playful 'goodbye mamma' to a full-fledged free flow of waterworks and wailing cries. Depending upon how heavy the downpour at Rheya-land is, I try to tune my efforts to draw your attention back to your little chocolate. It needs to be at the right level - just enough for you to forget about your mom going out of the door but not too much for you to try and open the chocolate there and then.




The plan is for you to be seated on your car seat and then unwrap the little bar. Once seated there, your eyes all bright, bubbly and brimming with anticipation, clutching your chocolate a bit too hard by now, right about the time you are about to delve into it, you ask me to open mine too.
I start on mine standing beside your car seat, relishing the sweet nutty glimmer of excitement in your eyes much more than the chocolate in my mouth. You finish yours and at times ask for some more. But (so far) it is more of a delicate little request that you are expecting to be denied than a vociferous demand of a toddler throwing tantrums. I explain without really explaining that we just get one chocolate a day and you agree after a little attempt at pushing for it.
 I know there will be a time soon when your cute requests will crossover to demand territory and my stern rejections then might seem even less logical to you. Until then, let’s enjoy the harmonious tandem between us.

Although it’s just a silly routine that we never planned anyway, it does mark a happy beginning for our day.  As a 'wannabe great parent' (I know such a being doesn't exist) I try and tell myself that you are learning all the right things - patience, sharing, managing your curiosity, waiting up for good to come to you and cherishing the moments when that happens.
But I know this is not really the age where you would end up drawing your life lessons from. Its more of a wishful thinking for me to be laying down the right foundations and making sure. More importantly I do know we are forming some lasting memories.
 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Empty Vessels ....

"Dad, what’s that noise?" "It’s the door creaking" "Dad, what’s that noise" "It’s the doorbell." "Dad, what’s that noise?" "It’s the bin collector."   “Dad, what’s that noise?” – That will be amongst my prominent memories from your trip to India when you were two and a half years. This was your third trip to my motherland but your first with a decent enough cognisance to notice the noise and wonder about it. I don't think though you would even remember the question or the various seemingly weird answers to be better prepared on your next visit to India. "Dad what’s that noise?" "It’s the drums. Someone is about to get married later today. " "Dad, what’s that noise?" "That’s the TV. They are ‘discussing’ a political issue live. " "Dad, what’s that noise?" "Someone is honking the horn in their car. That’s how they drive here as everyone has th...
Post a Comment
Read more

"That's a BIG Number !?!"

You turned four a few days month back. Your mom and I have been pushing that as a 'coming of age' number to get you to step up where need be. So we egg you on with wheedles like - "a four year old drinks her milk out of a cup, not a bottle. So hold this Cup Rheya" or "You are now old enough to tidy up your own toys". Or "What do you mean 'are we not going ?' Take my car and drive yourself to pre-school!" Nah! That last one isn't true. I'd never give you my car, I only asked you to pick up mamma's car ! 😜 Most of the times you happily shoulder the respon­sibility as growing older is the in thing until you are in your 20s. In your little 'social circle' you still look up to being at least as old as the princesses and fairies and Elsas and Sophies. I think to the one who justifiably claims the highest age there is a prize of a little momentary feeling of entitlement. But then that is common across all victories - entitleme...
Read more

“Main nahin pata”

Naanu and Naani were here. Naani tried to converse with you in Hindi and guess what, you tried too. You would break into what would sound like, a hindi accent and utter the 2-4 words you needed to. Like ‘Ek minat’ (one minute) when Naani would ask you to have your lunch. You could also do ‘paani de do’, ‘haan ji’ and ‘naee’ (no) as basic answers. My favourite was your slow and thickly pronounced ‘Main nahin pata’ as your way to say ‘I don’t know’. Grammatically, it should be ‘Mujhe nahin pata’ but ‘Main’ happens to be a more direct translation of ‘I’ hence your repeat err. The best part was, even when you were conversing with Naani in english, you would take on this slow, slightly sing-songish accent as if to make your words more hindi-like. I guess it did demonstrate your empathy in understanding your Naani’s limits with english and it worked too! You had the near fairy tale fun time with your grandparents on their trip. They got you tons of gifts - heaviest being the full set of Indi...
Post a Comment
Read more