Chez Moi

So  my son tried to feed his sister yesterday….

Yeah you read that right. It all happened while I tried to have a really quick shower last evening, prior to taking the horror to his Kumon classes. Typically, before I could finish, the baby woke up and screamed blue murder. Mum asked her grandson to rock the rocker to calm the baby down. When a few vigorous shakes of the rocker didn’t do the trick, my boy tried the next best thing. Sat next to the baby, lifted his t-shirt and invited his sister to have at it!

You bet am not going to let him forget it! Yeah am that evil, alright!

After weeks of humming and hawing, the much-planned picnic with SilentOne and her family materialised this Saturday. As I had already met her for lunch and have had many chats, both of the fone and virtual variety, I wasn’t any worried re sticky pauses etc. Hubby, on the other hand, was on tenterhooks. ‘Her hubby is a PhD! What will I talk with him?’ 

But all of that disappeared the minute they walked in to our house and the first “hello” was spoken. I would love to say this was due to our stellar conversational skills. But it was chiefly due to hubby overenthusiastically bellowing a greeting to Little N and touching her. That was it! She let out an almighty roar and refused to be placated. Apparently, she is wary of strange men (and rightly so, young lady!) and suitably chastised, hubby retreated to a corner of the room far away from her. 

P, who was away at a friend’s budday party, joined us mid-way during lunch and Little N was smitten. She refused to take her eyes off him, followed him around the house and tried to copy him. She was so taken up with him that even hubby’s star rose in her eyes and he was finally deemed fit to make her acquaintance. The sweetest moment of the day came when both children were missing - and SilentOne found her daughter sat quietly next to P in his room, with him teaching her something or the other. 

As the day was marvelously sunny , we decided to indulge in our favourite summer time activity: strawberry-picking. We went to a farm nearby, picked some yummy strawberries for our tea (and forgot to eat them later on!) and then proceeded to this massive country park near our house. With a deer enclosure, a duck pond and fabulous grounds, it is a very special place, one we visit as often as possible to take advantage of the finicky British weather. 

Little N was totally taken up with the deer and with some children nearby feeding the deer some vegetables, there was some quality entertainment coming our way. With the deers jostling with one another for the carrots and celery sticks, the children all had a lovely time. P’s extremely ticklish and the deer taking a small piece of carrot from his hands sent him into paroxysms of laughter and Little N looked on in wonder. We had to literally drag her away from the deer. 

Then it was off to feed the ducks. There must have been about 25 - 30 ducks vying for the bread that was being chucked at them and a rowdy swan in the middle kept trying to intimidate the smaller birds into giving up their tasty morsels for him. Shouting in glee, P and Little N stayed by the banks, throwing bread to the birds and generally enjoying themselves. It was time to leave all too soon and they had to be taken back to the car, kicking and screaming.

I was quite keen to see P’s reaction to Little N. Ever since he knew that he was going to be a big brother, he has finally started noticing younger children. Babies that didn’t even merit a glance from him before were now given the once over. The first time he actually spent more than a minute in a baby’s company was when we visited Premalatha and co - Avni has the singular honour of being the first baby to capture his attention! With Little N in the year-and-half zone, I was wondering how he would react to her. 

So after they left, I asked him what he thought of her. His words left me stunned!

P: “She scared me, mummy!”

Me: “Scared? Why??”

P: “Should I marry her when we grow up?”

Me: “What? No! Wherever did you get that idea?”

P: …..

Here I was, thinking my son was looking at prospective big brother duties while all the time, he was thinking of something along much different lines!! Only my son can ever think his old mum will be match fixing for him at such a tender age! He was quite relieved when I told him my intentions were purer than the driven snow. 

P: “That’s good. ‘Cos I don’t want to get married. I am going to live with you and daddy for ever.”

Me: “Okay then. What if you have a baby sister? Will we get her married?”

P: “yeah yeah we will. We’ll get her married off to a boy. Girls want to kiss and get married anyway.”

Me: “!!!!”

Good times, people. 

So we had the first scan today, at 12 weeks. I was apprehensive about it for two reasons - any possible anamoly and more importantly, the requisite full bladder. Keeping a litre of water in for more than an hour, when I know my bladder is full is a feat I have never attempted before. My bladder generally works on a ’see water, will go’ principle. The time I had to sit in a half-day long training with the coffee machine going ‘drip drip drip’ less than two paces behind me was the most torturous thing, bladder-wise, till date.

I downed half litre an hour in advance and kept sipping from a 500 ml bottle the rest of the time in a move to take things easy. As S kept going around in circles (literally) in search of that elusive parking space, I had to hoof it to the Maternity Ultrasound unit. Having so much water sloshing inside me while I was pounding the pavement was painful, let me tell you.

For the first time in the history of my NHS experience, my name was called a mere five minutes after I sat down and wasn’t mangled, chewed and spat out in a way I did not recognise it - another first! Off I went, lay down on the bed and the nice lady with the doofus started prodding me.

‘Ooh a nice full bladder, very good’, was her opening statement.

As I was gritting my teeth tightly at that point, I couldn’t risk any pithy comments.

Next came the dreaded ‘uh oh!’

And I was like ‘what? what? Are there more than one? Wassamatter?’

‘No, no, dear, don’t panic. The baby is just upside down!’

Eh? Sure enough, there the little mite was, showing us her/his bottom. Nice!

So the nice lady tells me to pootle to the loo and do a ‘little wee to the count of 20′ and come back in. ‘No worry, dear, we have got all morning!’ was her parting shot.

I walked in to the loo. How the hell does one do a ‘little wee’ when you have so much liquid inside you that is threatening to do a Niagara if you so much as do a sneeze? It was bloody hard, I tell you, fighting nature.

Back in, take 2. Thankfully the baby had decided to play nice and lie down. But what a difference from Big Bro! P was such a sweetie - he just lay there and let the sonographer do his bit and take piccies. This one seems to be a bit of a drama queen. For the next ten mins, the nice lady kept going ‘ooh don’t you do that, you naughty baby’, ‘come back here!’, ‘oh no you don’t!’, all punctuated with nice deep prods too near my still full bladder.

Finally she got the baby where she wanted and she went out and bellowed for S to come in and join us. As she sat down to show us which is where, the drama queen tried to turn and swim away! Cue another prod. It was a scream to see the lady prodding and the baby posing with a hand on her (got to be a girl!) head, like a tired movie star! It was surreal to see the ickle baby form - with the tiny heart beating like a hammer. Brought back memories of the first time - with P, I was still in the denial stage then and seeing him on the screen was the first step towards accepting that there was a baby in there and he is mine. This time, it was ‘ooh I hope everything is fine’ kind of feeling but wonderful, nonetheless.

P’s opening statement to me at the school gates was ‘did you get the pic of the baby? Where is it?’

Apparently he thought I would be standing there waving the pic like a mad woman. He could hardly contain himself till we came home and I showed him. His face, when confronted with the vague, blurry squiggles was a picture!

‘Is THAT the baby? Really?’ he couldn’t believe it!

He has changed his mind about his choice of a sibling - after weeks of insisting that he wanted a brother only (’cos girls are slow, Mummy and they squeal!’), he has decided to plump for a sister. And that he is going to be the deciding authority when it comes to naming the baby and buying her stuff - baby cot, buggy, the works. He has even offered to do the nappy change, though I don’t think I will hold him to that!

Ever tried selling one of the stories from Ramayana or Mahabharata to a child today? Especially one raised on a PG or U certificate rating anywhere else but in India? Hair-raising, I tell you. For one, the stories are all way too gory for their bland tastes. Tell them so-on-so chopped the other bloke’s finger or head off and watch young eyes turn into saucers. The whys and whats and loud gasps would take days to stem, leave alone the increased Nightmare Alert.

If your child is not raised on an Indian filmi diet, then the damage is manifold. Stunted far-fetched imagination, refusal to accept outlandish suggestions and the uncanny ability to put their finger on the one point of niggling abnormality are all just a few of the side-effects.

Take Krishna, for example. The whole baby Krishna- Bhoothana story was declared no-no the minute breastfeeding as a concept was introduced. Being an only child, P has led a much sheltered upbringing and the concept of a baby feeding off a lady’s er, chest, brought forth series of shrieks from my young lad. The Kalinga nardhan story also suffered a similar fate, when the gravitational forces (damn the school’s Science week) and the inability of the parents to keep an eye on their child (Krishna, that is) were brought into question.

I actually managed to sneak in a story of Chathrapathi Sivaji during yet another problematic mealtime, in an effort to make him eat his pasta from the corners of the bowl. This did work for a while and then disaster, in the form of Rajini’s super-dooper hit film hit and now the Chathrapathi got mixed up with ‘Vaaji, Vaaji’ and we were back to Square -1.

I am nothing if not persistent. So tried a different tack and told him the story of Ekalavya over breakfast cereal this morning. Buoyed by the fact that I wasn’t met with rapid fire questions that blew holes into the story, I bravely plodded on. Till I came to the part where Drona asks for Ekalavya’s thumb as guru dakshina.

That was when my luck ran out.

“He asked for the boy’s thumb? Why? That is so gross! Did the boy die?”

“Er, no. It was just his thumb.”

“Why did the teacher want it anyway?”

“With the thumb gone, Ekalavya cannot use a bow and arrow anymore and Arjuna would be the champion shooter, that’s why.”

“Eh? So what if he can’t use a bow and arrow or his right hand? He can use his left hand! Or he can use a gun! Pow pow pow! Easy, see?”

Sigh.

My gran and her kind did not know how lucky they were with us, I tell you. Seriously.

My son will grow up to be a great interrogator, am sure. He gets down to the res immediately, no faffing around. Last weekend, I was ten minutes into my weekly phone call with my mum when she mentioned that my dad has now taken this job of becoming a grandpa all over again so seriously, he has decided to go in for some false teeth. Apparently, there was some minor disagreement with a tourist bus and the car he was in somewhere on the Madras-Tirupathy highway re whose right of way it was. The car got pranged and thanks to being badgered by P last summer into wearing his seatbelt, he had it on and escaped with minor injuries - knocked a few of his teeth, hence my mom’s remark.

P was sitting beside me when I was getting these details so he was pretty up-to-date. His dad, however, walked in sleepily when I was asking my mum if dad had lost much blood and typically, went “what? what? what happened?”

Before I could react, P quipped: “Thatha had an accident, Daddy. It’s okay - he’s not dead.” Succinct, I call that.

Later that evening, we spoke to my dad. Before we did, though, P wasn’t too sure of his grandpa’s talking abilities.

“He has lost his teeth, Mummy, how is he going to talk? He is just going to say ‘ba, ba, ba!’”

So when my dad came on the line, he was met with a barrage of rapid-fire questions.

P: “Why were you so careless, Thatha? Why didn’t you wear your seatbelt properly? I can!”
My dad: “er….”
P: “So how many teeth did you loose?”
My dad: “…” (inaudible reply)
P: “Oh that many? You can still talk properly. How is that?”
My dad: “er….”
P: “I know why. It is because even though your teeth have all fallen out, you still caught them all in your hands. I know it. That’s why you can still talk. I know these things.”
My dad: “……”
P: “So how much did the Tooth Fairy give you?”
My dad: “???”
P: (exasperated sigh) “You know the Tooth Fairy gives you gold coins when you loose your teeth? How many coins did you get?”
My dad: “er, I don’t think India is on the Tooth Fairy’s radar, P!”
P: (shocked) “really? That sucks!”
My dad: “!!!”

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Now that lots of the older children in Year 2 are coming to school with a gappy smile, P has learnt that he too would start losing his teeth one day. Thanks in equal parts to his teachers, fellow students and Disney, he firmly believes that if he hides the fallen tooth under his pillow, the Tooth Fairy would leave him a shiny gold coin (curse you Disney!) the next morning. True to his Chetty origins, he swiftly calculated that he had 20 teeth in his mouth - a veritable gold mine! He even decided how he was going to put his new found wealth to use!Imagine his dismay when he learnt that the Tooth Fairy doesn’t visit kids in India! As we had been murmuring about returning to the homeland possibly once he finishes Infant school, he is quite frantic! He is busy hatching a plan to lose his teeth by the time he finishes Year 2 and net some profit before setting off home. Last I heard, he is still open to ideas! Anyone has a suggestion, please feel free….

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Conversation this morning ran somewhat like this:S: “Come on, P, hurry up now - wee and brush your teeth quickly!”
P: ……
S: “See you better go to the toilet right now and finish your job. You know your friend is waiting for you!” (He has a play date later on)
P: “What? Where? In the toilet?”
S: *groan*