Terrible Two's

We thought terrible two’s was just an adage used by indolent parents, who can’t reign in their wayward offspring’s while they wrought misery and havoc on poor sods around them. Well, now we have become those parents. It’s like our son was somehow waiting for that magical date when he’d turn two, which happened on 17th July ,and after that, voila, it’s like now everything goes. From a clueless, toothless, cute and cuddly infant/toddler he has now assumed a Mephistophelian demeanor, with everything that gets in his way either has to be vanquished or vanished.

And we, the parents, have become the laconic quintessential screamers that get parodied on most sitcoms or redneck product pushers. Yes, these are just not rambling rants, but maybe a plea for help, if I may. If our stuff doesn’t get tossed into the garbage can, it is either gnawed on, maligned, salivated over, stomped on or just plain fragmented. Sob Sob. ‘Yes, yes yes’ was how we elated, about two years ago, knowing that the stork would cometh visiting us which now have cavalcaded into a steady streams of indignant “No” that reverberates through our house whenever our child thunders around. Seemz lost her ostentatiously priced state-of-the-art slim phone, which got tossed in the garbage, without our knowledge, because our boy didn’t quite fancy it. Or so we think. Ditto fate for my travel alarm clock. It’s missing now and we can only assume that it must now be lying in some waste landfill in Canada. Have to now depend on the rooster in my mind to wake up in the mornings, until I find the time buy a new alarm clock.

The other disparaging characteristic is the chucking. Everything that he lays his hands on gets chucked, with a ferocity that sometimes has us worried and candidly, a bit scared. TV remotes, toys, books, phones, wallets, batteries you name it and its been chucked. Sohaib Akhthar couldn’t have done better at chucking, I tell ya. Its not that we have been mute spectators to all these shenanigans. All the disciplining just doesn’t seem to work. We have tried timeouts, gentle raps on the palms, vociferous ‘Noooooooo’s, rolling of the eyes, raising our voices, looks of disgust, our share of groveling and pleading, with little or no effect. Friends tell us “Oh, it’s a phase”, which we are now beginning to quote ad nauseam, just to save face! His eating habits are now slowly falling by the wayside as well. Fries, ice-cream, candies and goldfish snack seem more appealing to him than the regular ‘daal-chawaal’. Well, frankly, they seem more appealing to me as well, but hey, I’m the head of the household. During Sidharth’s feed time I try and slink away, since both mother and son are pretty much on the edge. That and also the fact that I invariably get roped into the chaos to distract the child with my monkey dance or ‘Dance like an Egyptian’ moves, while his mother forces food down his throat, before he loses interest in my calisthenics. He’s also learnt head-butting from his daycare. $%&^#@*. My poor crotch has been at the receiving end of most of these head-butts, send me sprawling to the floor, much to the amusement of the 2-year old. Candidly, any further additions to our family, at this point in time, remains in question!!! Our son is taking care of that adequately.

Actually I jest, but just a little. Though all the hair raising actions are very much a part of Sidharths repertoire, they are greatly eclipsed by the other stuff he does. Like wishing us ‘Goodnight dada’ and ‘Goodnight Mama’ and ‘I love you’ on most nights. Or the impromptu kiss on the cheeks followed by another one on the forehead. When he describes all the animals that he saw in the zoo, in his own inimitable style. Whenever he breaks out into a jig, when he hears a song he likes, we fall laughing to the floor. At parks, when I take him in the evenings, the way his face lights up playing with other kids and the look of wonder at the pictures in the books that I read out to him at nights. Most of his sentences are beginning to get more coherent, well-framed sentences. There are many, many more of these moments which I can only feel and not express succinctly enough. For all those cherished and treasured moments, head-butts to the crotch are a small price to pay.