My Spacewalker

The two tiny arms hold an imaginary steering and drive away the car that is not there. I can never tire of calling Time as the greatest Trickster ever!

Varun is a big boy, now that he walks on two instead of four! The cute little Robot started by taking just a single route – from the hall to grandpa’s room and back. The whole day!

It is amazing how a child abandons the act of pulling itself on the tummy the moment it learns to crawl and then abandons crawling once it learns to walk! Its been a joy to see his careful spacewalk the last 4 days! He carefully avoids things that he himself has strewn on the path and takes hurried baby steps. Both his hands are held a little away from his body- like holding a steering wheel and with a swaying gait maneuvers his way. When he stumbles and falls, he crawls fast to the nearest wall for support to stand and resumes his spacewalk.

In a few weeks, he will outgrow this need too and walk more freely and even run, reducing his dependency on the adults in the household. But the mom in me is already missing the loooovely crawl accompanied by the sound of the anklets he wears. Like the rhythmic music from the bells around a bullock’s neck! A weird comparison I know, but I like it. You’ll understand if you’ve heard the sound in ‘Unna vida..‘ song in Virumaandi. That by the way is one of my favorites!

This touched me!

I’ve often sulked and complained! But this video has set me thinking! I’m moved is all I can say!

Still, its a big issue. And this being an Ad, I have decided to chuck magnanimty and continue making noise over it, sulk over it and stock-up on what are those? yeah the Breathe Right nose plasters!! Which I guess is a mere placebo! Anyone out there empathizing?

PS: Scroll down the page to see the video. Have issues embedding the video alone.

Sons or Daughters?

Duddu (Aathrey) is mamma’s boy and sees to it that he does not make my sister sad. He was barely 3 and a half when his elbows were fractured. My sister almost heard the bones crack and with one swoop gathered the boy and her 1 year old daughter Aashraya, and rushed to the doctor. It was only when the doctor was wrapping the fractured limb did she notice that Aathrey had not let out a single cry of pain or protest!

Aathrey is now 8 and a half. The other day, he magnanimously declared that his mom should make it to the movie Avatar along with her colleagues and must not feel bad about not taking him and his sister along. He reasoned that he and Aashraya have a lot of fun but his mom hardly gets to go out with friends!! That is Duddu for you!

Aashraya is how I love to be:-) Fierce, independent, confident, and beautiful!! She has an amazing hold of herself and gets things done her way at least 9 out of 10 times! She is daddy’s pet. She is yet to set her eyes on the moon!!

During our recent get together in our aunt’s house, her dad took her, Aathrey and Vyas shopping. On their way back, Aashi conspired (she leads her brothers mind you!) and told that they should leave the toys back in the car. Mummy might not appreciate the amount of money shelled out on the toys! Somewhere during the conversation, one of the boys blurted out and sure enough, my sister gave a good piece of her mind! Aashi was quick to rebuke her brothers with, “See? I told you not to tell amma till we get home!!”.

Last Sunday, she let me into another secret. She tells me that she is always upto some mischief and quietly leads her mom to believe that it was Duddu’s doing! When prompted to tell me some instances, she extracted a promise from me saying I must not tell my sister about it! I promised. In whispers, she tells me that she quietly changes the letter ‘i’ to ‘e’ in his homework notebooks and the brother gets to listen to sermons on wrong spellings, carelessness et all from the mother, while she quietly escapes!! And this is Aashi for you!

As the children grow, I see that the daughters get more close to the parents and are better friends than the sons who seem to drift slightly. Am I right or am I biased and imagining? With two boys, I’ll be happy to hear you guys say that it is all my imagination:-) If I’m right, is it a cultural thing? Do share your views while I wait for Aashi and Duddu to grow up and see them doting over their mother!