Pumpkin Rayan and ramblings from the last couple of months...

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 at/re-lived some beautiful memories, while  re-reading  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 perhaps attribute it to the  'second child syndrome'. While milestone dates have been made note of 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 liked to...partly because I have become quite an irregular blogger, with blog posts becoming very 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 kind of situations may not necessarily evoke as passionate or as excited a parental response as with the first child...good or bad...that's what I mean by the 'second child syndrome'  or more approriately the 'non-first child' syndrome :) ...my little brother, Ash, and my hubby, 'D' ...both will 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, guilt ridden search of the archived albums, of course :)...Oh well...so that's that!

Let's get back to the primary 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 his 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 enough sound like  reprimands, prefixed or suffixed with 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:

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 (I am saying this 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 Donuts' 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...doo nut...mama...doo nut...pleeeeasse"...ha ha...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 did...he scanned the donut carefully...gave mama dear  his signature 'tchh..tchh' look and then tossed the donut  aside with, "Mama ...no choco.. .Mama...no choco" (He was not too happy to be handed a non-chocolate frosted donut)...ha ha!

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 observe him enjoying books…his favorite books are “Brown Bear Brown Bear" by Eric Carle… “My grandpa and I” by PK Hallilan…and "The Three Little Pigs" by Andrea Petrnik...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 :). His favorite tv show character is 'Mika' (Mickey Mouse, of course)...and he absolutely loves his teddy bear and toy cars!! And when he got his first taste of a radio controlled toy car today, he was super excited to see it "walking"(like he said it) on its own...as the car zoomed past him triggered by the remote, Rayan shouted in excitement, "Mama look...Mama look...car is 'walking',...car is 'walking'",,,such are the simple pleasures of  toddler Rayan...

And then today, as the family got together to put up the christmas tree (that comes in parts), Mr. Rayan pointed at one of the three parts and shouted…."Mama…big broccoli…big broccoli"… and as I burst into a bout of uncontrollable laughter…I heard my little man reprimanding me in his, now signature, 'tchh, tchh' tone , “Not funny Mama!! Not funny”….LOL..

And not too forget, the Das household no longer needs an alarm...Mr. Rayan, like clockwork wakes up at 6:00-6:30AM in the morning...and after being taken off the crib by his Baba dear dutifully runs over to wake up the non-morning persons of the household with "Mama week(read wake) up...Raya week(wake) up"...

So that’s that…as far as 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 1-3 days 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, definitely not good parenting, in terms of the reason given by me…I should have probably simply said, “I don think you need this toy right now.You already have something similar" or at least something similar 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 in life …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 that's a different problem)…but I do believe it’s about time…so we will see how 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.