That's my ride!

I made the mistake of showing Vir some pictures of cars and then this video on youtube to distract him once. Now he thinks the only reason to switch on the computer is to show him pictures and videos of whatever he asks for. His requests range from cars and airplanes to bikes, horses, dogs, cats, and donkeys. Cars are of course head and shoulders above anything else on his list of absolutely fascinating things. No description of the current version of Vir is complete without this three letter word that I sometimes hear in my sleep now (and wake up screaming in a cold sweat!) His first word ever was "car." We realized what he was saying when he started running excitedly towards cars on the road screaming "KA...KA....KAAAAA." The obsession has only grown since then. He sleeps with a couple of his dinky cars next to him. The first thing he thinks of when he wakes up is one or the other specific car ("pupple car, yellow car, geen car, poee/police car"). He can spend an entire 8-hour drive from Delhi to Dehradun just looking out and staring at cars and announcing each one as it passes by. At the end of the day, he collects all his cars (and now that nani has realized how happy they make him, she's bought him like a thousand of them) and stuffs them in the boot of his little tricycle, which then travels with him to the bedroom so it's close to him in case of an emergency requirement in the middle of the night. He has to have a couple of them with him ALL the time - in the bathroom, in the park, at the dining table, when drinking his milk. So, of course, you can't go anywhere in our house without stumbling upon a dinky car. You'll find one or two stuffed inside the sofas, some stuck between the matresses of the bed, a couple on any shelf or counter you come across...never a shortage of these annoying little things here! I don't even understand what he really does with them...sometimes he'll just park them in one line and stare at them with this happy, wistful, faraway sort of expression on his face. I can only imagine the day dreams!

This obsession has now extended to basically any vehicle - autos, bikes, tempos, tractors, trucks, trains, and airplanes. I try so hard to get him to notice trees and flowers when we're out on a walk or a drive, or when we're reading a storybook and looking at pictures, but it's a lost cause. I don't think we'd have this problem if he was a girl...it's amazing how they're born with these predispositions. I didn't quite believe that until now. Anyway, there's something so incredibly cute about the way he lights up EVERY SINGLE TIME he sees a car. Before we know it, he'll grow up and lose this ability to be happy with something as small as a broken down auto rattling past us on the road. And start caring about things like models and makes and costs. Yuck.

If this carries on, I'm guessing the most special thing he'll ever say to a girl one day as he looks deep into her eyes won't be "I love you" or "Will you marry me?" but "Honey, let's go for a drive."

Vir's Art Work

Kisses

With the number of tumbles Vir has in a day with his constant running and climbing and jumping, we've all realized there's no point fussing or worrying too much. More than us, Vir himself has no time for such frivolous crying and whining. He knows that some things are the way they are and if he wants to run around like a toddler on steroids all day, he has to take the occasional fall gracefully as well. So, we've developed a quick relief system which basically entails me kissing whatever part of him hurts, him nodding when things feel better, and jumping off my lap to go and tug at Baggdu's balls or balance his cars on Baggdu's head. Lately, this has been taking longer than usual though, since Vir has discovered how much he likes our little kissing ritual. So, now he totally fakes it when he's hurt! After the first kiss on his head or arm or wherever it really hurts, he starts pointing to random things like the corner of his wrist, the tip of his elbow, tiny points on his forehead, and even his little toes! And he's not happy till he's been kissed at least 3-4 times everywhere that he's got "choke" (chote/hurt) or "daggi" (lagi/hurt).

Of course, eventually a distraction presents itself and he's off again leaving me hoping I always have this ability to make him feel better, no matter how or why he hurts.

Our little parrot

We don't need TV anymore now that Vir has started talking so much. For the most part, he doesn't know what we're making him say...he just repeats anything we say. And he remembers it so it's a lot of fun to get him to say stuff over and over. Here are some favorites (I'm not translating some of this into English because that'll make it lose all its funniness):

Vir mamma ki: Jaan!
Vir nana ka: Dopu
Vir nana ka: Chamcha
Vir nani ka: Goonda
Vir papa ka: Dhunu
Vir's prayer: bambi please mujhe achchi buddhi dedo, thakuu (God, please give me good brains, thank you!)

Grandparents Rock!

Once again, I've let too much time go by and now I have more to write than energy to write it. At first it was because I went through a phase where Vir's growing terrible two related misbehavior made him decidedly uncute and quite annoying. So, honestly, I had nothing very complimentary to write. It's really hard to find a positive or cute twist to a screaming, biting, toddler who is lashing out at you with all his limbs as he thrashes around on the floor because you didn't take his permission before taking off his sandals for him. Or because you took a nano second longer than acceptable to peel his banana or get his bottle of milk. Or because you accidentally walked into his path, or his life. Even if there is something cute hidden somewhere here, you don't get the mental space to really discover it because the thrashing toddler is mad at you for existing at least 250 times a day. This does seem to be getting a little better now. Or maybe we've just learnt to anticipate and manage the temper tantrums. There's nothing to manage really since my philosophy on dealing with a toddler's tantrums is very simple. I just walk away. This, naturally annoys him even more and he's been known to stop crying, get up and come running after me, block my way and fall again right in front of me to start crying - you know, just in case I missed it where he was lying before. At some point, he's going to understand that tantrums don't work. Till then, the trick is not to give in before he does.

Meanwhile, I've rediscovered his adorable side again over the last couple of weeks. This is also because I'm at my parents' place these days and they're so happy to entertain him 24 hours a day that it's fun to sit back and watch him do his thing. He has gone absolutely crazy since he got here about a week ago. It's like he's never seen any open space in his life...he gets out of the house into the front lawn or the backyard as soon as he wakes up and basically refuses to get back indoors the entire day. Ideally, he would like to be out of the main gate on the road, but since that's not an option, he makes do with the lawn! And if we do manage to trick him into coming indoors for a while, he's either running wildly from one end of the house to the other, stopping only to run inside mom's mandir (temple) to say "oooommm" and pick up a bell or something or standing by the door calling out to anyone he sees outside and screaming "baaaar...baaaaar" (outside). With the dramatically increased entertainment options both indoors and outdoors that he has when he's at the gramps' place he becomes a totally different child from the one who lives in a little apartment in Gurgaon. One who doesn't sit down for EVEN ONE MINUTE in the day, one who is so used to attention from everyone that he just doesn't understand why anyone would ever want to look at anyone but him, and one who gets away with pretty much anything - breaking things (it's only happened once but my mom's reaction was much calmer than it would if say, I had done the same thing...hmpfh), changing the TV channels when papa decides to watch his cricket, running off to potter around in the parked car for half an hour at a time, climbing the rocking chair and rocking on it while standing, you name it.

I grumble about how he's getting spoilt rotten and what will I ever do with him when I get back to Gurgaon and all that but it's mostly superficial because I think he's just the luckiest child in the world to have this opportunity...to play till he drops every day with his grandparents who dote on him more than I thought was possible. He won't remember this, but he'll be better for it. And anyway, would be a little silly to complain about this brilliant form of childcare which allows me to put my feet up, grab a magazine and suggest we have another cup of tea!