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!