"Sid"e Stories - Nov 2005

Its been long time since I’ve written about our sonny boy Sidharth. At 27 months, it seems like now how much more of this do we have to go through. The tough years, they say, are only just beginning!!!

Argggggg…..Somehow, now we fully appreciate the adage “Terrible Two’s”, is not just something that that fledging parents have coined for literary gratification. It’s a rite of passage, into parenthood, and consider yourself lucky, if you come through this with no grey hairs or even with some hair left on your head. At least, that’s how we feel about it.

Above and beyond keeping up with the tantrums of a two year old, our misery has been compounded by the fact that can be attributed to one dim-wit scurrilous “Eureka” moment, when we decided that our son was now ready to be “Potty Trained” and bid good-bye’s to those ever dependable Huggies diapers. Big mistake. He can stay in diapers for the rest of his life, for all I care!!!

That single, spontaneous, oft thought, imprudent decision is now wrecking havoc in our lives. There are now damp, wet patches all over the house, on the couch, stairs, foyer, beds, carpets and the floors. Clorox disinfectant wipes can now be found in every nook of the house, including the garage! It sometimes becomes difficult to discern if tiny bits of candy pieces have been strewn on the floor or its an infants processed food that somehow made its way out of the pants. Unless one gets down on all fours, to get the nostril inches from the offending mound, does one realize that it is what you feared it was. Hell, where’s that bottle of Pepto?

Traveling someplace is a call to frayed nerves. Not many strangers take well to the sight of a grown man, sniffing the rear of a child, when they are eating. Any mention of “Shoo Shoo” or “Potty” by the young un, is a DefCON 4 or 5 or whateverthehell level, rush to the nearest loo. Many times its too late by then, the payload has already arrived. Houston, we have a problem. There is a DVD supposedly, in the library, which offers parenting tips on “potty training”. Ah, a ton of crap, I tell ya.

Nowdays, somehow Sidharth seems to have grown an attitude overnight. There are distinct likes and dislikes, for everything. What he sees, eats, listens or hears, everything has been categorized in that little CPU. Some of them more forceful than the others. If a food group does not have “chicken” or “fish” as one of its ingredients, its met with instant disapproval. Plop, it lands up on the floor. Candies, cookies, pastries, suckers, pops are always welcome, with little regard to the time of the day. Vegetables are meant to be spit out, religiously. No amount of enticing can help ingestion of healthy nutritional diet. Even a lecture on starving kids all around the world falls on deaf ears.

Sanji Bob (Sponge Bob) and Nemo are his favorite TV characters. Any books with loud pictures and animals will get his attention. He then starts tearing the pages. We have paid a small fortune to the library, for damaged books. Bugs fascinate him.

On weekends, father and son go swimming at the neighborhood Community center swimming pool. All is well until we hit the shower after the swim. Try getting a 2-year old and yourself showered, in the same stall. If one does not pay attention, because of soap in the eyes or any other nefarious reasons, body parts will get pulled or prodded. Try soaping your knees standing up, you’ll know what I mean. All this aggravation is well worth it, since he has a rocking time in the pool, with the slides, fountains and other kids.

Sidharth’s vocabulary is now growing at a rapid pace, thanks in part, to the daycare that he now attends full time, 5 days a week. We try and get him to speak Kannada at home, with little success. Much to our consternation, even his Kannada is accented, like the stereotypical “gora” British, they portray in Hindi movies. There is no “Yes” or “No” responses to questions posed to him. Its either “Uh-huh”, when he concurs or a forceful “Nah” when something does not meet his approval.

There is a repertoire of poems that he can belt out on cue. Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, Humpty Dumpty, Johnny Johnny being some of his favorite ones. Bedtimes invariably always end with “Goo Nite…Don’t let the beg bugs bite…..Okayyyy….” and the “Okayyy” part keeps repeating until he elicits an OK response back from us. Most nights I’ll respond back “OK.OK..”. He’ll then turn around and sleep.

He can now name all our friends and their children, and no amount of prompting will make him suffix names with Uncle or Aunty. Unless its Yash, who is a year older than him and his Guru, where propriety mandates that he is addressed with adequate respect, and therefore the respectful “Yashu Bhaiya”, while addressing his mentor. Yash’s mother deserves no such reverence. She is simply addressed as Nita. Or Patita for Pratibha, Radhika and Seema, as in his mother.

Rabbi seems to be his favorite singer as every time we put him in the car he demands “Bulla ki Jaana” to be played, repeatedly. Sometimes he sings along “Mulla ki haana mainu kaun”. Repeatedly. Groan. We aren’t taking any road trips anytime soon !!!

Often I try and look for that quiet little bundle of joy that we got home almost two years ago. All the features of that baby are now fast disappearing. The puffy cheeks, the drooling mouth, the sleepy eyes are now fast forming features that befit impish little boys. I need to look hard, with my face pressed close, to his sleeping face, to try and gawk at the baby that came home with us, from the hospital, on a fine summer day, over two years ago. And then I see, somewhere in that sleeping face, the baby that he was until a few months ago, and how he was supposed to stay, for the rest of his life. Afraid not. Until he wakes up again. “Shoo Shoo”…Potty.