Tales of the little-big boy

It has been quite sometime since I wrote about the little big boy in our house. He’s gonna be five this year… f-i-v-e! just imagine that! I think he’s growing up too fast for my liking! I miss his baby and toddler antics already 😦

Our sonny-boy just completed his lower kindergarten and is all set to enter the upper KG this summer! His two years at school have been good, but the reports quite contrasting. While he was the teachers’ darling in nursery with both his ma’am’s having a special soft corner for him, being one of the youngest in class; his LKG teachers have a different story to tell. Mid-way through the year we were told that he is quite naughty in class and is most often seen talking and dragging his neighbouring kids into discussions while the class is going on! My heart had sunk when I heard that and I had visions of him turning out into one of those naughty-always-talkative boys in class who’s name figures on the top of every list that the class leader makes! (this memory is from my school days, I’m not sure if they even do this now, for all I know today’s kids might laugh at the idea!!). One encouraging info the teacher had volunteered then was that he was always quick at the tasks assigned and would get around to talking only after finishing his work! A glimmer of hope, I thought!

Cut to the year-end meeting, this time the feedback was more positive with complaints being that he doesn’t seem interested or fascinated by any new concepts taught in class! Their guess was that it could be because he already knows them! Which I think translates into a pat-on-the-back for us parents! His naughtiness hasn’t diminished they said and what’s more he has learnt to tag kids names with titles that the teachers use! For e.g if the ma’am calls somebody talkative, he quickly nick-names them as talkative so-&-so!! But it all seemed to be in good humour and the teachers seemed happy with his academic progress, so that’s good news we heaved a sign of relief!

Also while we were waiting, I saw a beautifully coloured drawing pinned up on the class board. I asked S to know who had drawn and coloured the picture. First he said “I don’t know” and then said “me”. I dismissed him thinking he’s fooling around and telling stories. When we met his teacher she reconfirmed that it was indeed drawn by him and coloured with some help from them! I was incredulous! And what’s more she said that it was chosen to be used as the pic to be printed on the
back-page of all the notebooks! To say that we were thrilled is an understatement! She had a story to relate for that too – a child was chosen from each class to draw the picture and colour it and it was S chosen from his class. When he did it the first time, she saw that it wasn’t all that good. Knowing that he was good at drawing and capable of doing much better she asked him to draw again. But his royal highness was already bored! 😮 And he was more interested in doing what the other kids were doing in class. So then she took him aside and explained the significance behind it and that it would be printed on the books and coaxed him to try again. Then all the chosen kids were taken to the principal’s room to add more drama to the situation, that’s where they did the actual drawing! Phew! But with all the fee-paying and enquiries, we forgot to check the books, and later when we checked we found that the drawing wasn’t printed on the text books. On checking with the co-ordinator we were told that it would be printed on notebooks which will be given in class later. And amidst all that, we excited but stupid parents forgot to even click a pic of the drawing on our mobile phones! Well, in our defence we did ask the co-ordinator to keep aside a notebook sample for us 😦

As you’ve already gathered with all the rambling above, S is very interested in drawing and colouring activities. And he’s not satisfied just colouring ready-made printed pics in books. No sire, he needs to have the drawing replicated in his “diary-book” and then he has to colour it. On many occasions he tries to do that himself, but atleast once a day he gets into this sonorous whining mode that he can’t do it and so he wants me or his appa to do it for him! Oh the agony of replicating intricate drawings, you have to ask a harried parent like us! And that’s not it, the drawing reproduced should adhere to his strict guidelines in look and feel, shouldn’t be too small or too big, with constant drones of it has to be like-this-only and like-that-only! phew!

But when he chooses to draw of his own will, those are the best ones. I just love to see his imagination take flight and the fascinating thought behind his drawings 🙂 Here’s a sample of some he drew recently.

The words are Net, Nest, Nut and Not. Not is depicted by a girl shaking her head to say No, and she’s wearing a butterfly clip! 😀

A is for Alligator, Apple, Ant and (Hot)Air Balloon

M is for Monkey, Mango, Melt and Mum 🙂

He just picked up the book on a whim and when I explained what he was supposed to draw he came up with the objects and drawings himself. The spellings are his own interpretation too! I was a besotted mother and wanted to preserve this moment forever, and hence didn’t bother to correct them! 😛 Any guesses on which is my favourite? the “mum” one of course! 😀 That one he didn’t tell me before he drew and I saw it only when I opened the page to click a pic. I was grinning from ear-to-ear and lost no time in sharing the masterpieces with friends and family on my whatsapp list! 😀

Another heartwarming milestone I wanted to capture here is his new-found love for words! yay! yay! yay! 😀 He’s totally into reading words and reciting spellings – off every source that he finds – be it books, newspapers, pamphlets, ads on TV, carton box labels etc. He is also making attempts at reading words and sentences in his story books which fills me with such joy! I just hope that his love for words continues and his excitement on having and reading new books grows multi fold in the coming years – then I’d feel that the efforts I’ve taken to make him acquainted with books from a young age (he was all of 3 months when I first read him his picture book!) would’ve borne fruit! 🙂

Aside from the above, he talks nineteen to the dozen as always and asks a gazillion questions all the time. He still plays a lot with his building blocks and puzzles and numerous cars and planes. He has become more demanding for TV time – though we have restricted it to only weekend-viewing of a few hours of cartoon, but he does watch unwanted ads and serials when we have our parents over or when we’re following cricket on TV. He has also been introduced now to the luring delights of an iPad thanks to his appa’s office people who’ve forced it into our lives 😡 But so far, it is being used only to show him bedtime stories and cartoon videos sometimes, and I am adamant to keep it that way. As we’ve observed and as also pointed out by his teachers, he is very sharp in picking up new stuff and has good grasping power. Sometimes this doesn’t work to our advantage – like his return van trip from school to his day-care takes all of 5-7 mins but within that short time he’s exposed to the evils of radio FM music and has picked up all the latest Kannada numbers – the tunes of which are catchy but the lyrics spouted are trash! He can recognize these from the back seat, on the car radio even if the volume is totally low; while his aghast mom can only splutter what? where? how?

Well as my husband never fails to remind me, I guess I can’t keep him protected under my watchful eyes and wings always and he needs to be exposed to the ways and vagaries of the world too. According to the hubby, S not only needs to grow up to be “smart”, but also needs to be “street-smart”! Well, we can only wait and watch him grow, while we do our best to teach him the good always! And I am but an enchanted mother, who is still smitten by the antics of her thoughtful and kind little one, who never fails to declare in his sweetest kiddy voice everyday – ‘I love you, amma‘! I love you too kanda and will do so till eternity! :-*

Letting go of favourites…

The past Sunday, after a long long time, I walked the once much-trodden paths. The steps which were traced day after day many years ago – the ways which I knew like the back of my hand… the times and memories tucked into some obscure corner of my mind came gushing back and nostalgia took me on its wings for a ride. A smile played on my lips as I took the once all-too-familiar bus routes and stepped past the puddles on the rain-drenched footpath leading up to my parents’ house.

But the smile died when my mind jumped to the task that lay ahead and which caused me to be there early on a Sunday morning… The bright sunlit study room had to be cleaned and handed over to new occupants – the one in which I had spent many days huddling over my books – late into nights and the wee-hours of the morning, studying feverishly and preparing for the many exams that lay ahead. I was never the one to sit at a place and study quietly – I’d walk around the room a book in hand or sway back and forth while sitting and hugging the shawl or sweater covering my cold shoulders…somehow those gestures eased my nerves and helped me concentrate! Go figure that! 😀

And then I got married and moved away from my parents’ place, but when I had to go back there 4 years later for my maternity break, that was my room again. I threw a tantrum and insisted that my dad get the legs of the old double cot re-done. I didn’t want to take any chances as the legs were weakened after being hauled between many rooms over the years. After that was done, the room became all mine – where I worked from home at the laptop during the later pregnancy months, where I rocked on the easy chair and painstaking but happily knitted the stitches and rows of the many baby sweaters I made for my little one; where I devoured books like there was no tomorrow…

It was the room which welcomed me when I came back from the hospital, a tiny little bundle in tow, the many bright afternoons spent cooing and gurgling with my baby as he flayed and kicked his hands and legs in response, like he would get up and start talking any moment! The room which reverberated with the sounds of his rocking cradle as my granny rocked it tirelessly and alluring baby sounds when my dad invented new games and stories to keep his little grandson entertained…It was the room where I stole quiet moments to browse the net to hungrily cram in blogs-read-time and ravelry-time on the rare afternoons when the baby slept. It was the room where the hubby played with his son making him laugh with his funny faces and put him to sleep in the crook of his arm or on his swaying knees… It always has been the one room where I could trust to let my little tornado play without getting into trouble, pulling out the numerous items and things that we have accumulated over the last 30 years…

It is the room where me and the sis have had our many fights, giggled hysterically over inane jokes, cried buckets-ful, argued over which book belongs to whom and the list just goes on… And now we have to let go of that room, my favourite, the only bright and sunny one in the house… sigh! 😦 Change is inevitable they say, but it hurts… especially when one has to give up on something which has been witness to so many precious moments in life. But thankfully one has the memories to treasure – atleast that’s something nobody can take away from us!

Fun-tastic four!

It was our little one’s 4th birthday last week! 😀 I wonder, for much longer can I call him a ‘little one’?

I’ve already spoken about my new-found-since-the-last-two-years fetish to make birthday celebrations special and personal previously. In tune with that, I set some aggressive targets for myself.
-Make the cake
-Make the frosting, which isn’t just simple butter-cream
-Make the sweet
-Invite his cousins, close family and neighbourly kids
-Cook for the aforementioned 25-30 people
-Have a celebration at home
And all the above in the middle of a busy week at work.
To be fair to myself, I had complete intentions of taking the day off so that I’d have enough time for the preparations. But unfortunately he was down with viral fever the previous week and I had to take two days off to take care of him. This left me with no option but to be at work on the day.

To add to the woes, his school had announced the fancy dress competition on the day following his birthday and they had a theme that we had to follow – birds! After much thinking and indecisiveness following his illness, during the preceding weekend we decided to send him dressed up as a crow. And so followed some hurried scourging around for ideas and procurement of paraphernalia to make the crow costume. With all of the above happening, it was a luxury to get 5 hours of decent sleep and it wasn’t surprising if I felt and looked like a zombie!

Though I did lose some sleep, the birthday celebration turned out to be quite a nice event – the sweet – almond burfi was made 2 days in advance; the cake with the whipped cream frosting was ready the day before and was assembled early morning before I went to work. I did manage to leave office a couple of hours early and rushed home to make some chocolate butter-cream for the piping. The 3-layered-cake, though lacking in finesse of a professional or store-bought one, looked quite nice with the cherries, whipped cream and chocolate butter-cream, I must say. The kiddo had a great time blowing candles, bursting balloons, cutting the cake, jumping around and generally having a good time with all his friends and cousins. Having just a couple of servings of the BBB (bisi bele bath) left at the end for myself, meant that the food was enjoyed too and there were no leftovers – so it was a win-win from all sides! 🙂

Post the celebration and cleaning up, a couple of hours till late night were spent adding the finishing touches to the crow costume. He did quite decently at the fancy dress event and there were no mishaps to the dress thankfully! We did wish that he’d been a tad more vocal with his lines on stage – I wonder why it is that all the shouting and screaming happens only at home and the vocal chords go into hiding when it is required to be of service?!

So that was one eventful week – but there was one cause for agony which ruined the good parts of it for us – on the day of the fancy dress, the m-i-l slipped a couple of steps at the kiddo’s school and now has a hairline fracture at her ankle. This means she is gonna be out of action for the next 2-3 weeks. With the Gowri-Ganesha festival coming up the next weekend, apart from her obvious discomfort and sadness at not being able to take part in the festivities; this means it is more work for the already sleep-deprived me! I’m hoping that I should be able to pull it off with support from my hubby, co-sister and sister-in-law! Wish me luck!