Playing ‘Mama’

One night, D dragged one of his stuffed toys, plonked it in his lap and started patting it vigorously. “What are you doing?” I asked. “He is my baby. I am putting him to sleep. He is sleepy naaaa,” he said in a slow drawl, a new way of talking he had mastered.

After the whole pantomime of putting to sleep (read thrashing), D picked up the poor toy and promptly planted a kiss on its lips. “So who are you? The baby’s Papa?” I enquired.

“No, I am his Mama naaaaaa,” the drawl is back.

D had never played with stuffed toys before, though he has several, most of them gifts. I had seen my nieces play Mama to their toys. This was the first time D had done it. My mind made a quick note that he had said ‘Mama’ and not ‘Papa’.

I was happy that D was already oriented into a culture that whenever he fathered children, he should be okay with playing a mother too once in a while.

The world is a nice place, at least in our house. D enjoys playing with ‘boy’ as well ‘girl’ stuff. He loves to play with a range of kitchen paraphernalia. The cooker, the ladles, the spoons, the rolling pin, the mixer, all separately and together, often form a part of his makeshift toys. Relatives and friends have gifted him kitchen sets and he often spends time making idlis, veggies, sheera or tea in them. We are all invited to partake of the feast.

I have never wondered why he chooses to play with items considered as the erstwhile ‘girls’ toys’. Most of his cousin brothers too love playing with kitchen items. That does not mean they don’t enjoy automobiles or what is termed as ‘boy stuff.’ D loves his cement mixers, Lorries, fire engines, Nanos, aeroplanes and helicopters as much as he adores the kitchen gear.

I believe I could safely say that D gets this from his genes.

In the five years of our relationship, the husband and I have never done things because ‘women are supposed to this’ or ‘men are supposed to do this.’ The husband contributes to several household chores just as I help plan our finances (except that the husband takes the ‘planning finances’ part a little more seriously because I suck at it and I take the chores part a bit more seriously because he does not perform exceptionally well there)

He has never been chivalrous to me. The only time he has ever opened the car door for me was when it was child locked and I was trapped inside. The only time he has pulled a chair for me was when it was stuck and I couldn't pull it out by myself.

But seriously, I love it that way. Is chivalry really needed in a man-woman relationship if there is enough respect, space and love, necessarily in that order?

I really want D to be like his father. I want him to understand that it is okay to not be chivalrous as long as he knows how to respect people. I want him to understand that he should know how to cook, clean, mop or swab as much as he knows how to earn money, drive a car, ride a bike or guzzle a beer.

I want him to know how to play Mama when the time comes so the real Mama gets to enjoy some moments for herself.

I want him to understand all of this and more.

Just like his father does!

God’s little people

I think children and God have a special connect. They just bond without much effort!
At least mine does and I realize I don’t put in as many efforts as I should to strengthen the bond. Thankfully for me, he loves to be by himself in such matters.

I don’t remember the last time I sat down and prayed. I do pray sometimes, but not necessarily sitting in front of the little devghar in my house – a corner in the kitchen where all our Gods reside.

I am not an atheist, neither am I into rituals or religion. But I know I am a firm believer.

As for D, he loves sitting in his grandfather’s lap as he performs his customary morning pooja. He loves putting tikka on the Gods and ringing the bell. He even wants to hold the idols in his tiny palms. His grandfather anoints him with an orange tikka and he comes to me triumphantly displaying his acquisition with a ‘Mama tita’.

For some time at home, we had this evening ritual where we all came together and prayed. I used to stand and join my hands. D once smugly instructed me to sit down and bow my head.

It’s been a while that we have prayed together now. But D has his daily dose in the morning. His grandparents have taught him some shlokas which he recites to the T looking all the more adorable.

I don’t know what I am going to pass on to him when it comes to beliefs and traditions. I have conveniently left that to his grandparents. All I know is I want my child to have some faith. Faith, I have realized, brings with it a sense of calm, serenity, assurance, confidence, strength and power. In life’s worst moments, it can keep you composed and grounded.

So now I have started this small routine at night to close my eyes and say a little prayer with D. I have told him it’s our ‘thank you’ to God every night. The prayer is neutral, not referring to any God in particular. D can develop his own affinities whenever. He loves listening to the prayer and makes me repeat over and over again. At one point, I have to stop and tell him we will do it again tomorrow.

Last night, I quietly pried my eyes open and found my little one with his eyes tightly shut and his hands joined in prayer.

Long after we finished praying, he still kept saying ‘Thank You God’.



D spies me clicking a picture, grows conscious, forgets to join hands and only manages to close eyes.

What you talkin about Mum?

On days when D is in his element, you will find the room strewn with toys, kitchen items, hangars, clothes pegs, CDs and much more. It looks no less than a battlefield. Of course, D himself is missing from the action because in all likelihood, he is in another room replicating the same design.

Even as I huff, puff and pant to clean up, the imp is back – all rejuvenated to bring the mess on the floor.

I have sometimes made the futile attempt of trying to teach him a thing or two about being non-messy. I try some lame pep talk like “You have to help Mama keep the house clean.”

Most often, he stares at me as I deliver the gibberish till I myself realize he is just two and doesn’t need the sermon really.

Ditto for our meal sessions. The latest discovery in D’s life is picking food from the plate and thrusting it into his mouth or eating with a spoon (actually two spoons – one in each hand). Even as some of it does manage to land in his stomach, most of it is on the floor. Though I have read reams and reams on how one should allow the kid to eat with his own hands, the whole nine yards of cleaning up after him make me jittery.

I still surreptitiously feed him even though he loves to eat by himself hoping that at least there would be a few morsels less on the floor to clean up.

I don’t know when I became so fastidious about cleanliness. I know I wasn’t born like this or I wouldn’t have had ‘those’ sessions with my mother. All I can remember is I was conditioned into it by her. Throwing clothes, books and toys around invited some wrath from her, so although I must admit, it was difficult, I still managed to come around after a lot of counselling.

She always ensured that things were organised in the house so much so that a friend would often remark “Your house looks like it has just been ironed.” Mum liked it that way, I endured!

The point is my mother worked on making us, especially me, realize the importance of being organised. When I moved out of my parents’ house and started living with roommates, it wasn’t easy because clearly our mothers had taught us different things.

Now, I think to myself that I need to pass all this on to D because as they say it’s better to start early. Then I look at my little one as he jumps in glee hurling the clothes I had neatly folded.

I realize he still lives in a world that believes flinging things is great, eating food with both hands is chic, and creating mess is en vogue. But then his world also believes in forgiving, forgetting, letting go off, crying, giggling, being innocent, learning, working without deadlines, sleeping without alarm clocks, living without fear and cuddling in Mama’s arms.

Then I look at myself. Isn’t there a lot more mess in my life? I realize my not-so-perfect ideals have no place in his perfect little world.

Toy story

D and I sat cross-legged on the floor last night and we made a sun, a spoon, a moon, a house and a pressure cooker. Yes, we ‘made’ all of that!

How? We fashioned it out of our very own, quintessential atta (wheat flour). No fancy clay for my son. We prefer the creamy, sticky, gooey atta because during our playtime, even as a lot of it is used for play, some of it also ends up in D’s tummy.

D is still to outgrow the phase of putting things into his mouth. He often picks up random things off the floor and before you could say Jack Robinson, it is already on its way into his belly. Most often, I am exasperated by this habit of his. But of late, I think I have resigned to my fate and I sometimes even turn a blind eye if I see him lifting something harmless off the floor.

That is how most children grow up and that is how mine shall too.

But that is also why I refrained from using real clay and turned to the home-made atta instead as some makeshift stuff. I must admit, I am not the innovator of that brilliant idea. I stumbled upon it on the Internet while looking for something else.

Anyway, the point is, it kept D busy for a while. Now, every evening, after I return from work it’s our little ritual– sitting on our haunches with the atta, creating a tiny world of suns, moons, spoons, cars and doggies out of it.

I have come to realize one thing. My son is not a big fan of toys. His toy basket is most often lying untouched in the corner. On days he does feel any affinity towards them, they are all lying strewn on the floor and he is himself sitting in the basket asking to be moved around like a handcart.

But he does have a rather interesting list of favourite playthings. They include a pressure cooker complete with the whistle (tops the list), spoons, ladles, sieves, plates, katoris, cups, pots, pans, rolling pins, onions, tomatoes, potatoes, garlic pods and just about everything that classifies as a kitchen item. Why, he even insists on taking the gas lighter.

D has always been like this. Till he had discovered happiness in the kitchen paraphernalia, he was a big fan of hangers and clothes pegs. He sometimes also loves playing with grains – a cup of wheat or rice does the trick.

I sometimes feel guilty that I don’t buy him a single toy for months on end. I do lament about it to friends, but secretly, I am happy he doesn’t throw tantrums for toys in shops. The only toys that he does enjoy playing with sometimes are the aircraft and cars in his collection.

Last week, I thought I would give away a few toys since most of them were only eating up space. But they belonged to D and I told myself I will have to ask for his permission (in whatever way I could elicit an ‘aye’ from a two-year-old).

This is how our conversation goes:
Me: Can we give away some of your toys to those babies who don’t have any?
D: Naa
Me: Why? You have so many of them and they don’t have any. You will share your toys with them right?
D: (without any further questions/queries/explanation): Okaaaaaaayy (and walks out)

It’s that simple! I do not need to use any of the convincing speech or tricks I am forming in my mind.

His life is sorted, so is mine and so is the mess.

I sometimes wish we learnt to let go off things so easily. At least, those that we don’t really need but still love clinging on to!



D rolling out that perfect chapati

Culinary escapades

I have never been much into cooking. Well, that is actually an understatement considering I probably didn’t know how to make decent tea till I was 16. I know that does not sound too cool. But, well, that is how it is.

So last night, when I put together the yummiest pasta for D with the most delicious white sauce, with a sprinkling of veggies, I was as pleased as punch with myself. As for D, he was exhilarated!

What stood out was that I dished out the pasta in less than seven minutes. Of course, it’s one thing that D did not leave me with any other option with his constant banter of “Mamma patta” (it helped that I am used to working with horrible deadlines and under backbreaking pressure).

D could not wait to dig into his pasta and to my surprise, he polished off the entire bowl. Hell, he polished off my share too! It was an adorable picture – D stuffing his face with the macaroni, French beans, Carrots all of it interspersed with “Mamma yummy”. At the end of it, I felt as if I had achieved salvation!

My son was a gourmand till he turned, let me see, 18 months. He would gorge on food, wrestle it out of people’s plates and act as if he hadn’t been fed for years. He would be ready to eat another meal soon after he had finished with one so much so that I would often be reprimanded by my mother and grandmother that I didn’t feed him well.

Those are of course tales of the yore.

Now, he is as fussy an eater as any two-year-old. Though it’s not a matter of concern (thanks to a doc who has made me realize that Mommies world over go berserk about the same banal and often trivial issues) I have learnt to go with the flow.

So I was mentioning about my culinary skills. I sometimes think the reason why I don’t enjoy cooking so much is because I don’t enjoy eating so much. Well, I seem to have attracted quite a few condescending glares there.

But it is true that I have never been much of a foodie. I have always had these flavours of the season dishes that I would order anytime I ate out. At one point it was puri bhaji (yes I could be that non experimental), then pav bhaji, then the current incumbents pasta or pizza depending on the mood. Also, some of the aforementioned seasons lasted really long -- like the ‘pav bhaji phase’ probably went on for a decade.

After D entered my life, completed six months and reached the solids phase, I wandered into the kitchen to hunt for the right stuff to start him on. It helped that I had an expert guide who suggested great food options.

D loved his beetroot and potato salads/raitas that I tried to make as appealing as possible for his tiny taste buds. I mixed them with dahi, threw in a little pepper and cilantro and sometimes even baked the whole thing.

The khichdi I cooked for D has by now become a hot favourite in the house with several takers. In his heydays of food, D was a great fan of the fare with its myriad colours thanks to the carrots, French beans, beetroot and other veggies that I added. Then there were also some suji desserts that I tried my hand at.

I also took to baking which turned out to be pretty much out of the world to mine as well as several others’ surprise. D would be squealing with delight every time he saw a muffin or a cookie sitting pretty on the cooling rack. The cookies have come in variety too. There have been some healthy oatmeal cookies that I cooked in the pressure cooker and they turned out to be quite yummy.

All these dishes have impressed my son who has otherwise become a little fastidious about his food now. Most often, he smugly turns up his nose at the stuff presented to him in his plate.

I know what I cook for D would not qualify in the list of ’10 interesting recipes for kids’ or some such thing. It’s hardly even experimental. But it’s come from me – with a lot of love for my little fellow. It’s something I have never done with so much emotion for anyone else.

Motherhood brings with it so many firsts!



The banana cake I baked for D

Celebrating existence

D turns two this month. It means we have been together for exactly 33 months – he and I. I find it difficult to believe that. Can’t be that less! I feel like I have known him all my life. I can’t, for the world of me, remember how my being was before he came.

The husband and I were pondering over how we could make the day special for D. Some of his peers’ parents had thrown fancy birthday parties for them and we had been invited. They were no doubt the best – with the best of food, games, cake and of course return gifts too.

We hadn’t celebrated D’s first birthday. It was a decision the husband and I made because we knew our child’s tolerance levels towards strangers were on the lower side. At 1, he hated being surrounded by too many people, too many things and too much hullaballoo. We wanted a quite celebration for him letting him do what he loved doing.

The husband took the day off from work. We settled on a simple plan. We cut a small cake for him in the morning (he was beaming when he saw a farm complete with tiny animals all in chocolate). Then we took him to meet his two great grand-mothers (what better way to feel special than to experience love at its best), to a restaurant (those were the days when food was still special to him) and to the city zoo (though that was a big disappointment because all we spotted were some half dead animals).

He smiled a lot that day. We did too!

Twelve months and a day care centre later, things have changed a bit. He doesn’t mind being surrounded by people now. So a party may not sound like such a bad idea after all. The big question is – Is that how we want to make the day special for him? I have never been much into grand celebrations. I think they are all fanfare and when it comes to birthday parties for one and two-year-olds (especially ones like mine), they might just end up feeling out of place in their own party.

That doesn’t mean I am one of those who shrug my shoulders and say, “What’s so special about a birthday. It’s like any other day.”

No, birthdays are special. They are days when people make an effort to remember you, when you open those gaily wrapped packages (I think those who say they don’t care about gifts are most often lying) and peer into those birthday cards, when you turn a year older and perhaps a little wiser.

It’s just that I want a simple celebration that D enjoys. He may perhaps not remember this day, but we certainly will! That naughty smile of his, that tight hug, that wet kiss, that non-stop chatter will be all the more special that day.

For him and for us, we just want to celebrate the day we got our share of the sunshine!