Weather and Toothpaste

Great going, can't help pat myself on the back for having sent all 3 boys off to school and work by 8 AM. The secret? Caunteya has a 8:30 AM meeting.....so now you know what is the driver in my house.

The boys woke up around 7AM, quite decent as they slept by 7:30 PM yesterday as there was no afternoon nap (weekends are always off schedule). Manav woke up first and after usual hugs, cuddles and good mornings ran to the laptop to see the weather. He read the "degrees" and decided he needed to wear jackets and no shorts. And then explained to me showing his head - "Mommy this is the sun" and then spread his hands "These are the clouds" and then the hands started moving towards the head and "Mommy this is how the clouds will cover the sun and no sun....it'll be all cloudy today and tomorrow"

When Arnav woke up he explained the same thing to him and added "When there is other degrees then the cloud will go off and sun will be out again. Then you can wear shorts"

So let me shed some light on his passion for toothpastes as I promised. Actually its not toothpastes, its everything of a kind....I mean say many cars, dinosaurs, combs, glasses....you get the drift right.....but yes toothpaste/brush ranks a little higher. So he has his bathroom drawer full of toothpastes (collected from dentist offices and raided from our bathroom) and each one has a name depending on what they eat that day:

- gummy bear toothpaste

- candy toothpaste

- party toothpaste (where they have "jhal juice" which is soda)

- sparkley toothpaste (which make ur teeth sparkle)

- adult toothpaste (which is ours and not in the pic shown below)

In stark contrast Arnav has only one 'baby toothpaste', which he doesn't resent as he is not rebuked a lot if he doesn't spit it out and he's happy with the less attention there. Now let me tell you Arnav has this ability to convince you that he is a 'baby' or a 'big boy' to his advantage....when he wears his socks and shoes he's a big boy, you can't help him, when I told him this morning to take a bigger bite of his waffle he's a baby and when you tell him to say his alphabets and numbers he just pouts and says "I'm a baby, I cannot do that"

Now going back to the toothpaste topic. Everyday these toothpastes would come out laid neatly on the carpet and Manav would read the lables off to Arnav.

"Babies should not use this toothpaste. You cannot swallow the paste. Adult has to supervise brushing till you are 6 years old" ( all verbatim as explained by Papa)

It became a little too much when I had to actually ask for my toothpaste every morning and Mr. M would allow me to use it....if I mad the mistake of taking my paste and putting it in my bathroom after brushing at night, there will be a big teary lecture about how one shouldn't take stuff from little kids after being repeatedly told not to . Thank God now we can use our own pastes without permission from his highness.

The collection....Kids' Crest is the party toothpaste.

New doctor

As you can see I am on a consolidation spree trying to put as much as memory would allow in the posts.

This happened on Jan 21st. A few days ago a friend's 2 year old (let's call him Y) hurt his collar bone and we had a long talk as to how X-rays help in diagnosing the same and some more details.

Manav was explaining to Caunteya how he will offer Y some jelly beans so that he doesn't cry in the doctor's office.

"Papa the doctor will then put some cello tape, oops some band-aid on Y's bone and it will be fine after some time".

"So why not cello tape, Manav? "

"Cello tape is for paper papa, for bones it is band aid"

That was last night and next morning the boys were again pretend playing doctor. Manav put on his skeleton Halloween outfit and asked Arnav (clad in his transformer outfit) to take an X-ray as the bones were showing so clearly and find which was broken. Arnav did as instructed. Then Manav had to become the doctor and Arnav came to his office as patient and was told to lie down.

"Where does it hurt Arnav?"

"My back" (I have a bad back and that's all I keep talking abt when I don't want to pick them up etc...so of course that was the reply expected)

"Ok....looks like you are running too much and falling down and hurting your back. You need to calm down and sit in one place and read a book (that's exactly what I tell them)"

Then Manav took him to the couch and made him sit and read Goodnight Moon, which Arnav read for 1 minute ( an achievement)

Then I was invited to the doctor's office. I also said my back hurt. Manav said "Mommy your back hurts as you talk too much. You need to not take calls and when the phone rings just say "I'll call you back" ...you can talk to papa as he will come home to family"

When prompted about talking to other close friends he concluded wisely that anyone who lives in the same apartment complex deserves to be answered others ignored.

He also mentioned "If you do this for a long time (he had 2 fingers up, so I guess he meant 2 days, 2 months or whatever) your back will be fine again."

Then both of us were given our car "treasures" and sent home.

They continued playing and I was trying to feed Arnav his evening snack oranges. Dr. Manav said "You may feed him the oranges in here (pointing to his "doc office")"

"You may also feed me some"

The boys in the Halloween costume I was talking about, but here Arnav is the skeleton.

Manav's conversations....

All in a nutshell from my old diary where I jotted these and some from memory, enjoy:

- Over breakfast " You're not eating your waffles. Soccer teamers will be very dissapointed of you Arnav"

- While playing soccer in the patio "Arnav lets go inside and play (its carpet). The hard floor is damaging my cleats"

- On hearing thunder " Maybe a dinosaur is trying to start a car'

- Looking out of a window "The trees are not blowing away Mommy"
"Yeah the storm stopped"
"You're a good boy storm"

- I told him "You're an angel Manav"
"No Mommy I am Andrew" (Angel is girls' name I am a boy)

- One morning " Papa you are so lucky"
"Why Manav?"
"Because your children brush"

- I was overjoyed at something "You'll be a star Manav"
"No, I don't want to be a star"
"What do you want to be?"
" I want to be nothing"

- Papa says while rubbing cheeks with Manav " Manav how is your skin so smooth and mine is rough?"
"I don't know, maybe because I talk smooth and you talk rough"

- "You like your brother Manav?"
" Yes, a little bit"
"Do you like Mommy?"
"Yes, too much"

- "Mommy can I take the toothpaste that is in your bathroom"
"NO"
" Can I just borrow it then?"

Just so that you know Manav has passions.....sports, toothpastes, clothes, music and books.....Someday I will shed light on these.

While I am typing these he is watching "Finding Nemo" on TV.....and saying "Mommy I want Nemo to get back to his father, now" he is very involved and almost teary....and insists I absolutely must go back and watch with him....

Football and Tractor

So this was a beautiful Friday morning (28th Jan) with spring weather(70 degrees) in the midst of winter. I got the kids dressed for school, oh I have to mention that they pretty much dress (rather undress) themselves. Manav chooses his clothes and Arnav wants to do the same, so much for people judging my sartorial tastes by the way I clothe the kids. These days they choose a long sleeved T-shirt and put on a short sleeved over it...in Manav's words he gets to wear two, hence choose two, hence derive the maximum out of the routine. Now this became a little too much when he wanted to wear two socks, on over other. So it was a gray sock over a red one and his explanation - "Mommy these long socks slip, if we wear two they stay"...okay I got it but next comes another "Mommmmmyyyyyyy"....now his shoes don't fit as well, and even if they are forced on his feet, "It is itchy"...so that day he goes to school with bigger shoes, I just couldnt talk him out of the two sock idea. Did I mention Arnav pulled on two as well?

Now Manav wanted to wear Arnav's "tractor" T-shirt till he saw Arnav pick up a "football" T-shirt (has numbers on the front and back) and his love for sports won over cars. So they exchanged, Arnav is a sweetheart when it comes to sharing but largely mood dependant though and most of the time Manav sells him the idea ("tractor is VERY big, vroom vroom, look at the red color, its the best. The football t-shirt is not good, nothing in it, just numbers"). Then of course the game had to start. Manav started playing, Arnav joined but "Arnav you are a tractor, you will wait there, once the game is done you'll come clean the field and then I will play again"...so Arnav comes out to clean, does a little vroom vroom..."Arnav you have to clean the entire field, not just there" he follows instruction and just when I was wondering if Arnav is sick or something as he's never so docile, Arnav starts playing amidst "Arnav you're a tractor...you can't play" but in vain, so there goes another "Mommmyyyyyyyyy".

Some days I wonder if its worth having the 2.5 - 3 hrs of kid-free time I get in the mornings in exchange for an extremely excruciating 1 hr I spend getting them dressed and out of that front door. So much for the return on investment (ROI) analysis....how I am ever going to get that engineer out of a mom?

The football player and the tractor at their breakfast table.....please note the yellow tractor on the counter beside Arnav's blue plate, given by Manav to make "tractor" more authentic...

Index Post

Well I thought of writing an index page which will kind of initiate you to our world, the world of two boys and two (over) grown-ups....so before I write my first post, I need to pen this one and if I delay any further (have been thinking of starting a blog since time immemorial) the boys will be all grown up and their childhood antics and most importantly the "conversations" will be lost.


The days in the Parekh household are divided into weekdays and weekends. That's the norm, you'll say but wait till you see the unique differentiators. So in a weekday, ok before I write about the day I definitely need to throw some light on the previous night. We start off with a nice boys-in-their-bedroom and parents-in-theirs, in good days by 8PM and bad days 9PM, but at night unbeknowest to me ( as I sleep like a baby !!) osmosis and reverse osmosis happens between their and our bedroom with the not so thin membrane (living room) inbetween. Boys are walking, rather sleep walking all through the course of the night and its a good guessing game as to who will wake up in whose bed and in which side !! But that is one thing I absolutely adore about my husband, managing the somnambulism.


Ok so coming back to a typical weekday, I wake up at 6:30 AM trying to shut off the alarm in case the kid next to me (yes it is always a kid) wakes up as well, sometimes I am successful and those are good days when I get a few moment of uninterrupted ablution time before I plunge headlong into "conversations". The mornings are esp great time to hear the boys, bubbling with energy and bright ideas ("Mommy I already switched on the kitchen light so you can make chai for papa") and its usually difficult to match with correct or rather relevant answers to their questions ("Mommy why did you close the bathroom door, what are you doing inside?"). Then they leave for school and when I pick them up is another period where they are still continuing chirping but I am already running out of steam. During and post lunch (yes, they are home by 11:30 AM) conversation is mostly not that intellectual and depending on whether the little one is sleepy (Manav is outgrowing his afternoon naps) continues into late evening. And then peppered with TV, weather dependent outings, library, its time for dinner, a table full of family conversation. Then brush, read and off to bed.


The weekends are similar but the morning doesn't start at 6:30 AM. It starts at 7AM for them but we deploy all possible tactics to extend the in bed period. Some good days Manav takes charge and closes our bedroom door saying "Arnav let's go. Mommy and Papa need to sleep" and leaves us alone for 5 mins. And other days (most) its four of us in cuddled in the queen bed, squealing and giggling and talking and also trying to sleep.


On one such weekend morning, Manav decided to be the doctor and of course Arnav was one too. Caunteya (my husband) said his ear is hurting and Manav takes a peek and says "It has some pointed germs" and blows them away with his "tools". And Arnav wants to take an X-ray of his ears, so gets his camera, tells Papa to turn and show his ear and smile :-). Then he gets a hammer and tap-tap on his head to make the ear better.


You know the feeling when inevitably the movie isn't better than the book, its the same when I am writing. The actual events are much more entertaining than the read but I will strive to bring in as much reality as possible with my limited literary skills. So go ahead plunge into conversations.