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It's quite amazing how time flies…
Our little pumpkin, Rayan, turns 2 tomorrow…Just before sitting down to write this post, as I browsed through the blog archives(and chuckled and re-lived some beautiful memories while re-reading some posts from Raya's toddler years), I was momentarily hit by a pang of guilt…I realized I
had not put in as much effort to chronicle all the interesting milestones and moments of little Rayan's life with the amount of detail that I did for Raya..You could call it the
had not put in as much effort to chronicle all the interesting milestones and moments of little Rayan's life with the amount of detail that I did for Raya..You could call it the
‘second child syndrome'…while milestone dates have been written down religiously for entry into the baby book, I haven't really captured little Rayan's fun growing up moments in as much
detail as I would have wanted…partly because I have become quite an irregular blogger with blog posts becoming quite sporadic…and then, of course, there is the ‘second child syndrome'
being at play…you know how it is, with your first child every milestone is novel…every challenge is unique…the smallest of innocent sniffles from the baby is capable of bringing
on bouts of paranoia…the most trivial of ‘firsts' capable of setting off a parental jig…you love, cuddle ,chuckle at the antics, feel the pride of each accomplished milestone and the pain of each
setback just as much for each of your kids, it's just that the way of handling and reacting to a situation/scenario evolves…the same situations sometimes may not necessarily evoke as passionate or as excited
a reaction as with your first child…good or bad…that's what I mean by the ‘second child syndrome' or probably more approriately the ‘non first child' syncdrome lol ..
my little brother, Ash, and my hubby, ‘D' …both can vouch for it…as we discussed this ‘non- first child' syndrome, both of them were quick to point out that the parents' do not
have as many baby pictures/memories captured of them as of the older siblings, sending the parents into a rampant search of the archived albums, of course lol :)…Oh well…so that's that.
detail as I would have wanted…partly because I have become quite an irregular blogger with blog posts becoming quite sporadic…and then, of course, there is the ‘second child syndrome'
being at play…you know how it is, with your first child every milestone is novel…every challenge is unique…the smallest of innocent sniffles from the baby is capable of bringing
on bouts of paranoia…the most trivial of ‘firsts' capable of setting off a parental jig…you love, cuddle ,chuckle at the antics, feel the pride of each accomplished milestone and the pain of each
setback just as much for each of your kids, it's just that the way of handling and reacting to a situation/scenario evolves…the same situations sometimes may not necessarily evoke as passionate or as excited
a reaction as with your first child…good or bad…that's what I mean by the ‘second child syndrome' or probably more approriately the ‘non first child' syncdrome lol ..
my little brother, Ash, and my hubby, ‘D' …both can vouch for it…as we discussed this ‘non- first child' syndrome, both of them were quick to point out that the parents' do not
have as many baby pictures/memories captured of them as of the older siblings, sending the parents into a rampant search of the archived albums, of course lol :)…Oh well…so that's that.
Let's get back to the subject of this post, our little pumpkin Rayan…he is now a toddler…loves ‘nanas' (read bananas)…absolutely loves cuddles(and I am making the most of it while this love for cuddles lasts :))…adores his big sister (believe it or not, the first word he uttered was ‘Raya')…
he bosses all of us around(using a string of words that only he understands, but sure sounds like a reprimand, prefixed or suffixed by a ‘not nice Mama'/ ‘not nice Baba', ‘naughty Raya'),
and we are told he behaves like the sheriff in his day care class…I have to mention this hilarious scenario at the breakfast table a couple of days back…
he bosses all of us around(using a string of words that only he understands, but sure sounds like a reprimand, prefixed or suffixed by a ‘not nice Mama'/ ‘not nice Baba', ‘naughty Raya'),
and we are told he behaves like the sheriff in his day care class…I have to mention this hilarious scenario at the breakfast table a couple of days back…
To provide some context, over the last few years, Raya has become a very fussy eater… this does mean that making sure she has had breakfast on chaotic
work day mornings can be quite an ordeal…'D' and I have to invariably keep egging her on every couple of minutes…with ‘Eat Raya'…'Drink your milk'…'Finish your breakfast etc..
So on this particular morning, I was putting away some dishes in the kitchen, while the kids were at the breakfast table and this is what I hear:
work day mornings can be quite an ordeal…'D' and I have to invariably keep egging her on every couple of minutes…with ‘Eat Raya'…'Drink your milk'…'Finish your breakfast etc..
So on this particular morning, I was putting away some dishes in the kitchen, while the kids were at the breakfast table and this is what I hear:
Rayan to Raya(pointing at her milk glass): ” Raya eat…Raya eat…eat cheerios…eat your milkie” (He of course doesn't know difference between eat and drink yet)
Raya to Rayan( in a semi- embarrased tone”): “Rayan, you don't have to tell me what to do!” …LOL
At least, at the moment (at the cost of jinxing it), little Rayan is pretty low maintenance and independent compared to his big sister…a lot of our attention, specially at bed time
and meal time , is focussed on our first born (now, I guess that is a result of the pampering coming out of the ‘first child syndrome' :))…And then, like a very typical bong, Mr. Rayan has a sweet, sweet
tooth…there is a drive through ‘Dunkin Donut' on the way from his school to home…and invariably, as soon as we are close to that section of our routine drive, there will be a plea
from pumpkin from the back seat…”Mama…do nut…mama…do nut…pleeeeasse”…lol…the other day, pleas for a donut, at home, resulted in yours truly giving Rayan a donut with no frosting, since
that was all that was available at home…and guess what Mr. Rayan does…he scans the donut carefully…gives mama dear a tchh..tchh look and then tosses it aside…”Mama …no choco.. .Mama…no choco” (He was not too happy to be handed a non-chocolate frosted donut)..LOL
and meal time , is focussed on our first born (now, I guess that is a result of the pampering coming out of the ‘first child syndrome' :))…And then, like a very typical bong, Mr. Rayan has a sweet, sweet
tooth…there is a drive through ‘Dunkin Donut' on the way from his school to home…and invariably, as soon as we are close to that section of our routine drive, there will be a plea
from pumpkin from the back seat…”Mama…do nut…mama…do nut…pleeeeasse”…lol…the other day, pleas for a donut, at home, resulted in yours truly giving Rayan a donut with no frosting, since
that was all that was available at home…and guess what Mr. Rayan does…he scans the donut carefully…gives mama dear a tchh..tchh look and then tosses it aside…”Mama …no choco.. .Mama…no choco” (He was not too happy to be handed a non-chocolate frosted donut)..LOL
Pumpkin is beginning to develop a love for books…here again I have slacked a bit in terms of keeping up with a book reading bed time habit like I did for Raya, but I am doing my best to rectify it now that I see him enjoying books…his favorite books are “Brown Bear Brown Bear” by Eric Carle…and “My grandpa and I” by PK Hallilan…he does believe he can read by himself ..ha ha.. as he snatches the books from me after I have read a few pages and then pretends to read in an incomprehensible monologue…
His favorite song is the Bollywood number,”Kaala Chasma”…this song invariably makes him break into a jig…his favorite nursery rhyme is ‘Wheels on the Bus” and yes, the only colors he can identify, as of now are black, yellow and pink 🙂
And then today, as the family got together to put up the christmas tree (that comes in parts), Mr. Rayan points at one of the three parts and shouts….”mama…big broccoli…big broccoli”… and as I burst into a bout of uncontrollable laughter…I hear my little man reprimanding me in his tchh, tchh tone , “Not funny mama!! Not funny”….LOL..
So that’s that…as far his big sister goes, she is teaching her Mama piano these days. And every week, I am expected to get one of these…
I have been very clearly told that 6-7 days of practice would earn me this reward…4-5 days of practice would get me a stick face(whatever that is)! and a1-3 day of practice would get me a frown…oh well…that’s keeping me on my toes for sure 🙂
On another note, this is what happened a couple of weeks back…RAya was asking me to get her a toy…something very similar to another toy she already had… I just told her, “Raya we will get it later.I don’t have the time
to go to the store right now” (First of all, it was the wrong reason given by me…I should have simply said, “I don think you need this toy right now.You already have something similar or something to that effect)…Pat came the reply,”Mama you don’t have to go to the store…order online…order online…order on Amazon…it will be here tomorrow”….That’s when I realized our kids were getting used to instant gratification in terms of what they want,need and get…a working parents' lack of patience and abundance of unwarranted guilt, along with the convenience of online shopping, could in fact turn into a deadly combination in terms of unconsciously spoiling kids. So in order to provide Raya with a semblance of the value of money…this is what I did. I told Raya, “Next time we go out shopping, make sure you take out 10 dollars from one of your piggie banks and let’s see what you can get with that”. So the following day, Ms. Raya set out with me with a purseful of coins…I , of course, should have given her a 10 dollar bill in place of the coins , in hind sight….but hind sight’s always 20-20, right…Ms. Raya, of course, initially thought she could buy the store with those coins in her purse…one after the other, she looked at toys, most of them, as I was already aware, were more than 10 dollars worth… the few that she found that were less than 10 dollars(7-8 dollars) worth, she refused to buy…and this is what she said,”Mama they are too expensive…I will have to pay with most of my coins”…LOL..believe it or, she ended up buying something teenie weenie for 2 dollars so that she could save her piggie bank money :)….Now to pay for that 2 dollar thingie, she unloaded a mountain of coins at the cash counter from her purse…Needless to say,I was a bit embarrased…fortunately we had a spirited cashier and the folks behind me had a good sense of humor, giving RAya the time she needed to count her coins and pay the money she owed….Anyways, you may think this was a silly exercise….but I do have an important new year’s resolution for 2018 …to not give in to the absolutely unwarranted working parents’ guilt and to come up with creative ways to teach the kids the value of what they are fortunate to have …to learn to cherish and value non-material possessions…to understand the transience of most material possessions…it is going to be a challenge, I have to admit, not to cave in and it will require an of abundance of patience (I am not sure I have enough of that)…but I do believe it’s about time…so we will see how that that works out….absolutely welcome any ideas that I could adopt.
On that note, hope all of you have a fantastic holiday season…wish you the absolute best of health, love, laughter and happiness this coming year.
