Childhood Scenes - 1-8

I've just decided to document some memory flashes from Munchkin's childhood. Scenes that I think are worth remembering. Times when I wished I had a camera to capture the moment. Since I couldn't get a picture, I guess descriptions will have to do instead.

I - 'You look pretty, Mommy'
I kid you not. It was April 2002, which meant that Poppet's head hadn't steadied yet. We'd been invited to a baby shower and it was the first time that I'd dressed up after having my son. He was asleep when we left the house, waking up 10 minutes after we'd started. In the car, as I played with him on the back seat, his eyes widened in curiosity as he looked at every inch of my face. Slowly, he smiled. He seemed to like what he saw and gurgled his appreciation the rest of the way.

II - 'She's here!'
He's always been very attached to my mother. This happened when he was a little over 4 months old. Mum had just finished all her post-lunch work in the kitchen and hurried into his room to give him a quick hug. She lay down on the bed and hoisted him over her. The brat beamed and exclaimed what sounded like: Aayeehai. In Hindi, that transaltes into: She's come! Mum and I both burst into laughter and the brat beamed some more.

III - 'You have no idea what I've been through'
We were at the hospital for his vaccinations. Most children cried when the needle pricked their soft thighs and the nurses took advantage of their howling to put the polio drops into their mouths. The bitter taste made them howl some more. This time, Poppet howled when he was given his shot. But as soon as the nurse put the drops into his mouth, he stopped crying and smacked his lips instead. I brought him outside, where Mum was waiting and he promptly started to 'cry' again - wailing to complain about his recent ordeal. He wrangled a few hugs and kisses and plenty of baby talk from Mum on the way down to the car park where my father was waiting. As soon as he saw his grandpa, he started the whole wailing-complaining bit all over again until he'd had his fill of attention and affection.


IV - Windy Ride
We went out for lunch and the only way to get there was to use an autorickshaw since the car wasn't available. We'd put a hooded blanket on Popppet and I held him close to me. It was his first windy ride and he opened his eyes to look out. The wind was too much, prompting him to squeeze his eyes shut at once and bury his face in my neck. Five seconds later, he dared to check out the view again, and was once again forced to shut his eyes because of the strong wind. But he refused to give up. I tried to put him between my Mum and I but he wriggled and yowled his way to the windy side, only to be forced to close his eyes again. He kept it up until we reached the restaurant and then fell asleep from sheer exhaustion.

V - 'Am I being stood up?'
We were getting ready to go out somewhere and were in a rush to leave. Poppet was all dressed up and looking forward to getting out of the house. Mum scooped him up in her arms and walked out of the room. Suddenly, she remembered something she needed to take, came back into the room and plonked Poppet on the bed. He looked up at her with the utmost misery - a look that clearly said: you put me down! why? Needless to say, he was promptly scooped up again and hugged and kissed even as he milked the situation for all it was worth, snuggling against her neck and coo-ing his way to even more affection.

VI - 'Drooly Kisses are the Best Medicine'
Mum had a really bad throat and the cough refused to go away. I've rarely seen her so upset. One afternoon, she sat him down on the table in front of her and said: "Poppet, do something. Grandma has a really bad throat. It hurts so much."
The next instant, Poppet put his little hands on her cheeks and gave her a kiss on her nose and then a few all over her face, all the time with an I'm-so-worried-about-you look. Mum was pretty taken aback but loved the affection he showered on her, drool and all.

VII - Clap, clap, clap...with my feet!
Mum was teaching Poppet to clap his hands. He tried a few times but couldn't co-ordinate very well. After a few minutes, he threw his head back and lay down on the bed. The next minute, he had raised his legs in the air and started to clap with his feet. As Mum turned to look, he gurgled and shot her a mischievous smile. A couple of months later, we took him to visit his great grandmother and she would request the feet-clapping performance three times a day. Like the good great-grandson he is, Poppet obliged every time.

VIII - Bouncy, Bouncy Toes
If you held Poppet under his armpits and if his feet touched any surface, he would start bouncing on his toes and could keep it up forever. Hey, I have a video of this somewhere. Must dig it out. We also had this little song for him: How does the tree dance? Like this, like this (he would sway from side to side) How does the baby dance? Like this, like this, like this (he would start his toe-dancing routine.)

Yelling and Screaming, Again

Munchkin went back to school today, all dressed up and ready to give out his belated birthday chocolates. At around 2 pm, I phoned Mum to find out how he was doing and I could hear some happy screaming in the background. In case I haven't written this before, Munchkin has the habit of babbling nonsense when he's happy and contended. He'll add a tune to it and sing-song pure gibberish. Not a chance of finding a familiar word - and this is with five languages in the family!!

Anyway, so there was this background score and Mum pointedly asked me: "You're asking me how he is? Just listen."

And I did. The loud babbling continued and paused only to yell: "Don't talk to Mamma, come and play with me."

Which means he's fine and maybe he won't be so clingy again. The edge of my face and my neck is full of pimples because Munchkin's been playing play-doh with the area. I have a glam do to attend in less than 4 weeks and much as I love my kid, I'd like not to look like a pimply teenager at the annual office event.

Time flies when you have a fever

Sunday, 20th Jan, 2008: I thought Munchkin had a slight temperature. But since he was still his hyperactive self, there wasn't much I could do. Later that evening, Mum came down with a mild case of food poisoning (weird, since she hadn't eaten anything that hadn't been cooked at home). So Munchkin and I spent the night with her. By midnight, he was burning up.

Monday, 21st Jan, 2008: (incidentally, also my 34th birthday) Mum was weak. Munchkin still had a fever so I took him to the doc. That evening, his fever climbed to 104.4F despite the medication. And he hates sponging. The last time his temperature crossed 103, I'd panicked and taken him to the hospital. That was around his 4th birthday. All they did there was start him on antibiotics and do some more sponging. This time, he finally agreed to the sponging around 11 pm. He was so sleepy and I wanted to kick myself. Here was a kid who I've spent half a lifetime putting to sleep. Now that he wanted to sleep, I had sponge him! Hated myself.

Tuesday, 22nd Jan, 2008: All of Poppet's appetite was gone. And he had an upset tummy with the loosies. The doc put it down to medication and I started him on some pro-biotic meds. The fever kept coming and going throughout the day, although it was better in the evening. In the afternoon, I was giddy and feverish. Seemed to have caught the viral fever from the kid. Sigh.

Wednesday, 23rd Jan, 2008: Mum has the viral flu thing, too. So does DH. He went to the doc who confirmed the diagnosis and put him on antibiotics. Poppet was much better today. So we all thought he could have a decent enough birthday after all. As it is, we had to pull him out of the Republic Day celebrations in the apartment complex because he simply couldn't go for practice.

Thursday, 24th Jan, 2008: Munchkin's sixth birthday. He coughed all night and the fever was back. And he was very weak. So we saw the doctor again, and this time, he started the antibiotics. This didn't help his upset stomach but at least the fever stayed away. He was cross with me for not taking him to buy his gifts. Thank God he had his Criss Cross Crash set this morning. He was so tired out, though, that all he could do was smile at the sight of the big box.

Friday, 25th Jan, 2008: The brat and DH were better but Mum and I seemed worse. For me, shuttling between DH and Poppet, there was simply no time to visit a doctor. Poppet's tummy pain still won't go away. :-( He was also very, very cranky. I lost my cool twice and Mum was pretty irritated with me for that, but seriously, I was at the end of my tether.

Saturday, 26th Jan, 2008: Munchkin was very weak and still very cranky. Got scolded by Mum and DH too. He missed the flag hoisting in the complex but enjoyed the RD parade on TV. In the evening, he howled because we were missing the program downstairs. "All my friends are enjoying themselves and I can't go," he wailed. DH enticed him to watch Superman Returns on HBO. Then he watched a bit of a Hindi film on my laptop and the evening went off well enough. He said he wanted to sleep at Mum's again and that led to all kinds of chaos....

Sunday, 27th Jan, 2008: Munchkin is better, DH is better, I'm better, Mum's not. The day went past in a daze as I coped wtih mounds of laundry, bland food for everyone, DH's mood swings, Poppet's crankiness and my own exhaustion!

Monday, 28th Jan, 2008: The brat was supposed to go to school today but his tummy ache was back after the loosies refused to go away. Finally took Mum to the doctor because her throat was getting worse. I was just about falling to pieces, too. In the afternoon, I grabbed a quick nap. Munchkin came to play "play-doh" with my cheeks again but fell asleep next to me. On his own! I can't remember the last time that happened. Anyway, in the afternoon, I took him to Landmark - the much belated birthday-gift trip - and he bought himself a basket full of toys with the money he got from his dad and from my father.

Tuesday, 29th Jan, 2008: He couldn't go to school today either - more tummy cramps - and was in tears that he wouldn't be able to distribute chocolates to his friends for another day. The antibiotics end today (or is it early tomorrow) so I do hope his tummy is okay by then. He's sick of eating the same old bland stuff. I'm sick of feeding it to him. He's lost a lot of weight although his appetite is back despite the antibiotics.

Get well soon, kid.

Munchkin is Miserable

If Munchkin is miserable, that's a problem for me.

My dear husband (DH) went back to work a little while ago after spending 13 months at home writing a novel. And when he comes back, he grabs a bite and heads straight for the computer. (One of these days I need to post about the fact that I'm an Orkut/GTalk widow!) Now, although the little fellow is busy playing with his friends until it's almost dinner time, he's taken to announcing that he wants to have dinner at my mum's place. Which we found weird at first but the little rascal is quite attached to her. And given his Coats condition, we don't want him to bawl for no reason. So he's been packing up his dinner and heading down, sometimes making quite a fuss about coming back upstairs to sleep.

Worse, his class teacher at school is not coming back this year. A few months back, she had a severe back problem and has had spinal surgery. Poppet's class got several substitutes until the new teacher settled in. He doesn't seem to like her very much. So he's been moaning in the mornings saying he doesn't want to go to school.

But this morning, he was positively miserable. Virtually in tears. Last night, he got a major scolding and spanking from his father for making a huge fuss about going to sleep and how many stories he could get before bed-time. Earlier in the evening, he had cried his eyes out saying he wanted pizza for dinner because we hadn't ordered in for a long time. (This is true, it's been a few months, I think. And his father took up his cause. So the two of them had pizza.) At any rate, the little fellow was quite petrified at the end of it all and I had a tough time calming him down. Then I told him a story and made sure he smiled before he went to sleep.

Now, I've scolded him plenty of times before when he wouldn't sleep on time. Past 11 pm is much too late for a four-year-old and yet, he would simply not sleep before then. His sleeping pattern has caused huge fights between my husband and I. None of it is Munchkin's fault, his father self-confessedly needs food on time, peace and quiet, and 8 hours or more of sleep and goes ballistic if there's any noise in the house when he is in his "I-need---" mode.

Anyway, this morning he got ready after the usual whining but when I was putting him into the van, his eyes were brimming over. I promised him we'd take pictures tonight - he loves the new camera - and that seemed to cheer him up a bit. Nevertheless, he stuck his arm out of the window of the van as it was driving away and yowled: "Bye, Mamma!"

I have a feeling he's feeling neglected. I've never pampered him much. But the thing is, he senses that things have changed around the house now that his dad has returned to full time work. And 13 months is a long time in the life of a six-year-old. For my part, I've made sure I have no chores to do once I'm home except laying the table and heating the food. It was a conscious decision to be able to free up time so I could do whatever he wanted me to do. But I think he misses the stuff he and his father did together. It wasn't all that much, but still, he's just a kid.

I hope to remedy the situation as soon as I can. I did raise the issue - in a roundabout kind of way - with DH, but he put it down to the changes in school. Before she left, his original teacher - whom Munchkin had quite a soft spot for - had told me that he felt unchallenged in class, bored even because he seems to know so much more than the other children. So one solution is to move him to a better school. Tomorrow, we'll know the results of an entrance test he took last Saturday. He didn't know several of the spellings they asked for but did everything else fine, including the addition and coloring. I'm keeping my fingers crossed. There is one other very good school but seats are subject to vacancies - so we'll know about that only in March or even later.

Also, this other school is quite expensive. Since I am sure that I will quit my job at the drop of a hat should my son want me at home, DH may have to support us all for a while. I reminded him of this - important, because what he really wants to do is sit at home and write novels and make a living from that. He says he'll aim for a better position somewhere in a couple of years. I can live with that. At least he's open to the idea.

In the meantime, I need Poppet to be a happy little boy again. His sixth birthday is just around the corner and he deserves to be really, really happy after the tough year he's had.

Camera Confessions!

I finally bought a digital camera earlier this month and have been clicking away. So why aren't any of those pictures up on the blog yet?

Confession#1: There's some software I have to load onto the computer and I haven't found time to do that. I keep forgetting (I can just hear my son saying: "Bad Mommy....what's your Blackberry for?")

Confession#2: I keep forgetting to borrow a card reader from my friend (which is one way to upload the pics without the whole load-the-software hassle).

Confession#3: I want to put up all the wonderful pictures we've taken of my son over the years but I'm still wary of putting up his photos on the Internet for fear of God-knows-what might happen to them. (Feel free to tell me why my fear is unfounded and I'll have a slideshow up in 7 days - that's a promise!)

Confession#4: I've always thought of myself as possessing some semblance of a talent for photography. I love random images and I'm wondering if I'll make a complete fool of myself for putting those up here.

So here it is in black and white. My resolution to put up some pictures on this blog in 7 days' time.

Image of the Kodak M853 from the Kodak website

When I turned into a prude!

I wrote this in July 2002, but never bothered to spruce it up to send somewhere to get it published. Some of the stuff may seem outdated - Britney Spears, for instance, has come a long way from her virgin-till-I'm-married days. Anyway, now that I have a blog, I thought this piece to be 'out there.' It's a little bit of history. (grin!)

My son is just 5 months old and I have turned into a prude. I don't know whether it's a permanent thing or whether it's a phase that every new mother (or parent) goes through. Of late, the kid has been showing a whole lot of interest in newspapers and magazines. Put one in front of my little laptop and if you keep turning the pages regularly, he'll stay mesmerized for 20 minutes even. But every time I come to a page that features a "bold" ad -- by which I mean lots of skin-showing or suggestive lines (shudder!! Did I actually use the word "bold") or a graphic representing India's options in an all-out war with Pakistan, or the photo of a most-wanted terrorist, I find I'm cringing inwardly and find myself quickly skipping those pages and settling for showing the baby some "nice" display featuring colourful, attractive but "innocent" stuff.

It never used to be like that. I'd been seeing these very ads get bolder (Oof! There's that four-letter word again!) over the years. And they didn't seem that bold (Grrr…. where's a thesaurus when you need one). Sure, there used to be a big hoo-haa every once in a while when some ad crossed the line, so to speak, and steamy pictures and suggestive lines popped up in between boring TV programmes or even more boring political analyses. They were a topic of animated conversation to find out which side of the fence you were on, or in more intimate circles, an excuse to drool over the models' fabulous abs and vital statistics. Good for a few giggles, that's all.

Yet all of a sudden, it feels like there are simply far too many of these skinny, big things splashed all over the place. And there's this fish market inside my head going: Makers of innerwear and condoms justified in featuring semi-nude models. Semi-nude? Hah, there's hardly anything left to the imagination. Wait a sec, isn't that something my grandmother once said? Or maybe my Mum? Uh-huh. This is me I'm hearing. And I have a couple of years to go before I touch 30! Besides, it's not just innerwear, it's the (un)veiled ads for cigarettes, alcohol, shoes, colas and art paper. Even ads for clothes feature more of the model than the garment. Eeeeks!! I can't believe I just said that. Plus all that on-screen smooching and sexual innuendo on for-all-the-family sitcoms, not just the Dharma and Greg variety.

Then there's the violence. Till a few months ago, shows like NYPD Blue were good timepass and even Schwarzzenegger films didn't seem outrageously violent. The fictional guns and car chases and explosions were just a part of the action. Even real-life events, like the Columbine high school massacre, were a tragic news story I had to decide how best to position on the foreign page of the daily I worked for. Sad and scary till the "issue died down" and the stories stopped coming in. Now, it all seems very real and too invasive for comfort.

Since I refused to put my rising anxiety levels down to post-natal hormone changes (as advised by kindly neighbourhood ‘auntie’) I decided to an insta-poll outside the family. It's natural, said a friend with a degree in psychology but now selling insurance.

"You're afraid of all the stuff you have to protect your child from while he's growing up. Sex and violence in the media is something our parents worried about too. We watched cops and robbers on TV, we turned out okay. And when everyone grows up with it, everyone's cool with it." Is that so, I countered. So why does the Western media still mention Britney Spears' lack of clothing and her celibate-till-wedded vow in every little tidbit featuring her? The psycho shrugs. "Look on the bright side," she assures me. "At least we don't have topless models on the metro supplements and tabloids."

Not yet, I thought, remembering a colleague who was at his wits' end wondering what to tell his three-year-old son asking him why the "didis" on the cover of a daily's city supplement weren’t wearing proper clothes. "Chill out," the psycho ordered, "The discussion about the birds and the bees and the facts of life in specific are far away. He'll know how to cope." I'm sure he will. But what about me?

"Well, you should have thought about all that before you decided to have a kid," declared another, more forthright friend who admits the prospect of global warming and WWIII round the corner is a serious obstacle in way to becoming a Mum. "You've got to be kidding," I tell her. "While you're at it, you might as well worry about AIDS and cancer and pollution and water wars and the ozone layer and…." Gulp. I stopped to listen to myself and my anxiety levels went up some more.

Calm down, I told the voices in my head. Tried doing some breathing exercises, failed, and came up gasping for air, only to open my eyes and find my mother looking at me in a rather amused fashion. She knew what had been bothering me.

"Your friend is right. You have other, more challenging things to worry about before you get to the birds and the bees and questions of how much skin is okay," she said.

"Like what?"

"Toilet training."

I had to ask. Sigh. Thank God life happens one day at a time.

Finding Nemo! Every night....?

Finding Nemo was the first full-length animated feature in English that my son sat through. He was around 5 years old then and we watched it on TV. The movie was then shown on the kiddie channels dozens of times and the little fellow loved to watch it over and over again! After a while, it stopped being shown so often. A few months later, in some crazy my-son-likes-this-story-moment, I bought him the full comic book. (Um, apparently, they call it a 'junior graphic novel' these days. Thank God for the 'junior' or else I'd have felt like a perv!)

He wasn't overly enthusiastic about the book and for a couple of months, it joined a pile from where he randomly pulled out books each night for me to read to him. Then one day, he fished out Finding Nemo but took his to his father to read to him. Hmm...good enough, at least he's shown some interest.

A couple of days later, he came to me with the book and I told him "the story," complete with explanations that would make sense to him. The next night, he wanted me to read him Finding Nemo again! So I changed my narration a bit and kept the little rascal happy. I also hid the book the next morning. But Nemo was duly found and waved in front of my nose that night. Sigh! I was too sleepy to tell him a story so I thought of a way out. I just read out the whole book - if he'd understood the movie, he could follow the book. I did all the different voices - which he loved - and this gave me the opportunity to skip through certain portions. (As a working mom, I do not have the energy to read every printed dialog.) Big mistake. He absolutely loved the voices. Declared that his favorite part was where the starfish in the dentist's aquarium announces: "Good morning everyone. The sun is shining. The tank is clean....The tank is clean!!"

He made me do that part over at least 5 times, doubling up with laughter every time I said it. That was a sight for sore eyes...but my eyes were very sore indeed and I desperately needed some shuteye!

The next night, I told him to get his father to tell the story instead. I mean, how many times in a row can you do the voices or tell the same story without wanting to throw the book out the window? His unsuspecting father cuddled him up and started to tell him the story in a we've-never-heard-this-one-before manner. Complete with explanations. They were still on the first page when the little fellow announced to his dear Dad that his narration was BORING! You can imagine what happened next. The brat got a minor scolding and was more or less kicked out of the bedroom for saying that "Mommy does it better, with all the voices."

So I put him back on his bed and started on the voices. Somewhere between the trench that Marlin and Dory were supposed to swim through and not "over," and the sea turtle ride to the EAC, I fell asleep mid-sentence. "Mamma, wake up! Do the sea turtle's 'dude' voice," commanded the offspring. I felt older than the sea turtle but I managed to finish the book, falling asleep once in Sydney Harbor and once when Darla was shaking the bag. I reckon I got a minute each time because he woke me up saying, "The commercial breaks don't last longer than this!" Talk about media influence!

The next morning, I wanted to burn the book. But that's just not done so I wearily went through the whole routine again. This time, I had to do only three re-runs of "the tank is clean!" because he fell asleep right after that, halfway through a peal of laughter, with a grin on his face. He looks like an angel when he's sleeping, especially when he's just dozed off. I kissed him goodnight and turned off the lights. Sweet dreams, munchkin.

Finding Nemo Image © Pixar Animation Studios