HPP BIDAY DR ARNAV (Happy Birthday Dear Arnav)

"Arnav look at me" I said

"What?" Two big eyes stared at me from the nook of my arm where he lay cradled.

"Happy Birthday"

"Oh is it Friday yet?" Big eyes got bigger with surprise.

"Yes baby"

We all broke into the Happy Birthday song. The family was piled up in our bed this morning. And I couldn't help but marvel at the simple bliss in an otherwise insanely complicated and busy life. it's the same feeling every time - did we really create these babies? The train of thought was broken by Arnav saying

"Thank you Mommy"

"Thank you Papa"

"Thank you Manav"

I started thinking again, he didn't say "Thanks Mommy, papa and Manav" as I would. It was a genuine unhurried acknowledgement of our wishes.

They have all the time in the world. And that jolted me to the realization that it's NOT a weekend. What are we doing in bed at 7:15 am? The bliss was gone and we all were hurtled into the mad world from the bed turned trampoline.

Time now to relate Arnav's birth story. We weren't aware he was amongst us till I was 3 months pregnant. Sometimes I look at those pictures of Manav, Caunteya and myself when we were totally unaware of Arnav's presence. I can never forget the moment when we found out that we were pregnant. I will not write about our first thoughts and feelings. When it kind of sunk in, I remember thinking "At least, let it be a girl". Even that was not to happen. We survived the bleak and tired winter with lots of guilt and heartaches. The toughest was to wean Manav of his sole source of sustenance. That baby hadn't had a chance to get to the bottle, never tasted formula in his life and one fine morning we just thrust these things to him. Maybe an entire month or more went by without him having little to no milk. We introduced Manav to daycare at the tender age of 1, me being scared of harming the other baby and too physically tired to care for both.

And then ""We are delighted announce the latest addition to our family. Manav's kid brother was born July 29th at 7:45 AM CST. He weighed in at 8 pounds and 4 ounces and 19 inches tall."

Since he was born Arnav has shown us how to live life to the fullest. Unlike Manav he had no hardship whatsoever to latch on and feed. He had no issues with sleep, feeds and poops. Or if he had we didn't notice. The reason was partly that we were so easy with him. We just "knew" what to do. We didn't reach for "What to expect - babies' first year" every 10 minutes.  We didn't maintain a log of feeds, poops and sleep. We did (or didn't do) stuff that every second time parent already knows. And Arnav was happy to just reciprocate. 

Arnav is a surprise, joy and delight for the family. He is always at his cuddly and nuzzly best. He loves to pout and express mock anger only to burst out laughing at the next moment. We love him to pieces. The story continues in pictures.

Arnav's first cries at Presbyterian Hospital Plano

Arnav's first birthday party at Preston Meadow Park

He started walking at 11 months and sprouted his first tooth at 4 months. He just cannot wait to grow up and bridge that 15 months gap between him and his brother. He is almost as tall as his brother and both wear the same size clothes.

Arnav's second birthday at Home, put together last minute by my father

Arnav in his 3 year old grandeur

Manav's card for Arnav, he didn't wait for me to help him spell

1st one is for Arnav - Arnav in red holding Mommy's hand and a ball, with the "rainbow rectangles". 2nd one is for Papa - Special double layered cake.

Now the quiz question - which one is Manav, which one is Arnav? Answer in next post.

After 3 and 4 years, no marks for guessing in this one.

Another interesting trivia, such a coincidence. Post birth recovery room at Presbyterian, Plano was the same for both boys - C475, exactly 15 months apart.

Tomorrow (rather today, it is 2:01 AM now, thanks to Blogspot.com which made me write this post 3 times, crashing consistently) is Arnav's birthday party. So pictures will continue.

Surprise! Its your Birthday!

"Hey it is Papa's birthday today, we need to wish him" I coached the kids, this morning.

Manav shook his head with teary eyes.

"What happened?" We asked him

"Papa made a deal and broke it"

"What happened?" I was clueless.

"Papa woke up before me. That is not good"

That was when I got it. Manav's deal is when he wakes up in the morning he will walk into our room and cuddle with Papa. Papa CANNOT wake up before that and leave his bed. They usually sleep late nowadays as there is no school in the morning most of the days. As a result they wake up late and Caunteya cannot idle in bed (though he would love to) during weekdays. Inevitable fights in the morning. As with the other things we have learnt "Even this shall pass away".

Things cleared and Papa went to work. I asked Manav for suggestion to surprise Papa on his birthday.

"We can write 'Surprise, its your Birthday' on the card"

"We can say 'Surprise' when he comes back from work" he tried again when he saw me shaking my head.

"No Manav, we need to surprise him, as in the verb, by doing something" yes he is now learning his verbs and nouns.

"Oh, we can buy him a nice winter jacket then" Manav was confident this time

"Manav, its summer. What will he do with a winter jacket in 104 degrees?" I was genuine.

"He will wear it in winter Mommy" simple answer, how could I have missed that? And they say kids "live in the moment". Mine is oh so future oriented.

Manav is still stealing the show with his conversations. The piece about Arnav has to wait I guess. The other day we were driving back from someplace and as usual we were telling him how he could have behaved better.

"I will tell my brain to behave. It keeps forgetting Papa" Manav explained

"Manav, what if my brain forgets to take you to the skating class?" Caunteya asked.

"Papa, don't copy me. You have adult brain. Adult brains don't forget. We are kids. Kids brains forget" Manav appeared angry

"Who said that? " Caunteya was a little baffled.

"Nobody. Just made it up" came the smug reply.

And on the dinner table the usual bickering and Caunteya with his

"Manav, eat. If you don't, I promise my hand will start working"

"Papa, don't. Don't ever promise bad stuff. That is not good" Manav was not joking.

Manav has always been fascinated with sports and music. Either genes or too much exposure to his father. He has taken to his ice skating class with a fair amount of success as with his swimming lessons. But with two success stories comes umpteen failure sagas. And handling failure is something he has yet to learn. So he tried the jumping rope he got from the dentists' and failed miserably. Same with the monkey bars in the park today. He officially denounced both these "sports" and promised to eradicate all monkey bars in all parks (or make sure they have some form of support bar to hold onto, when you fall - his idea in a moment of calm) and jumping ropes from all dentists' treasure trove.

On the breakfast table one morning he was counting the games he liked, on his fingers

"I like chess, swimming, skating, baseball........"

"I like chess, swimming, peanut butter sandwich, oranges......" Arnav continued. For our foodie, all roads lead to Rome. 

Manav has used this trait of Arnav's to cash in on the toy market. I mean Arnav's love for toys doesn't come anywhere near his do or die attitude towards food. Every once in a while they get to buy a McQueen car (the Disney Pixar cars character cars) as a special. They have accumulated quite a few by now. Oddly enough at any given moment you will find all the cars with Manav except one old, Doc Hudson, the blue borrowed car which, Arnav totes around.

"Hey Arnav where is your car? The new one we bought that day, Francesco Bernoulli?" Caunteya enquired at the table today when we were all enjoying our ice-cream shakes to beat the heat. He pronounced it with the "sss" sound for Francesco.

"Papa you made a mistake. He is Francesco Bernoulli" Manav corrected with the "ch" sound.

"Farncesco's wheels are stuck. So he is not a good car. " Arnav explained.

"No, his wheels are fine" Caunteya went on to demonstrate to Manav's utmost chagrin.

"Papa, please mind your own business. You should finish your ice cream shake instead of talking so much. Are you on the dining table to eat or talk?" Manav reprimanded.

Manav has efficiently brainwashed Arnav by pointing out conjured up handicap in each of the cars (except of course Doc Hudson). So McQueen "has just had milk" (as his red paint on front has been chipped due to repeated hitting around to reveal the white paint), DJ "has so many speakers and is a loud car", Chuki is a "traffic car" not a "race car" and so on and so forth. Caunteya tried to reverse the brainwashing but Arnav remained loyal to his brother. After all who spends more time with him? Arnav does get to "borrow" the cars when he wants but has to return them "when he is done" which is usually right away as dictated by big brother.

It is so entertaining to watch and hear these kids. The fine print is you have already gotten the dishwasher loaded, laundry folded, dinner done, bath taken care of, brush/floss/rinse trio dealt with, bleh, bleh, bleh......and more. Once this is done you can "listen to" and not just "hear" the kids. THEY will tell you to forget the fine print and just spend time with the kid, as they grow up fast and won't remember how clean the house was or how tasty the food was or how fluffy their bed was.....they will remember the moments spent together on the table, park, games etc....go ahead do that. But when you encounter that stench in the kitchen next morning and everyone in the house running around for clothes don't tell me I didn't write the fine print.

As Arnav says

"Why are YOU sorry Mommy? You didn't hurt me. The "outside" should be sorry. The "rocks" should be sorry. You are good Mommy"

when I kiss him goodnight and remark on the places he got hurt

"I am so sorry Arnav, you got hurt"

Water Bodies

My hair is naturally falling off else I would have had to rip it off my head. Such is the pace of life now. I had everything in control with all events marked in my calendar (no iPhone/iPad stuff, a real wall hanging paper calendar from Huawei, courtesy my friend's husband) or so I thought. Looks like I had Manav's and Arnav's swim classes all wrongly marked and must be Santa who gave me an intuition to check with the other student's mom the very day when the classes were scheduled. And Santa did make sure I had 2-3 hrs lead time notice so it actually went fine. Now for two weeks we have alternate day swim classes for the boys. And last Friday Caunteya happened to take the boys to the mall and ended up signing for the skating classes for Manav. So all 6 or 8 Saturdays are now booked there. I just made sure I wasn't the one ferrying the kids around. So summer just got busier.

Breather doesn't exist any more. But life is still entertaining all the same. Or so it seems when the kids are in bed and I am blogging. The other day Manav remarked
"Mommy I didn't know water had bodies"
"What?" was my distracted reply as I was driving
"Papa said something about water bodies"

Manav was explaining to Caunteya about a TV show.
"Papa there are two kinds of lions. One with hair and one without hair."
"You mean the male and female lions?" Caunteya said
"I don't know. But the one without hair takes care of the babies"
"Its called the mane, Manav" I added. Kids have to learn all the time right?

I was in the garage cleaning when I heard tidbits of conversation from the laundry room
"It looks like an american badger " Arnav said
"No its an iguana" Manav replied
"Or a snake"
Now my curiosity was sufficiently aroused to check what they were checking out. Once inside I yelled like no body's business. It was a baby lizard, you know the transparent ones we had in India where you could see all the organs inside. (Sorry for the description Sheetal)
"Mommy what is happening? We have ants, spiders, baby lizards, rolly pollies....everything in this house. You are keeping the garage door open and they are coming in. Please be careful Mommy" Arnav reprimanded while gesticulating.

Last Saturday morning Caunteya came back from his tennis match to a very dejected me. The boys as usual have been driving me crazy and I was madder, it being a weekend .
"Looks like you have been difficult, boys. Why is Mommy so angry?"
"No we were good boys" Manav said
"Then why does she look so tired?"
"Maybe she didn't sleep well or something. We were good boys" Manav confirmed.

The other night Arnav spilled water in his bedroom. Caunteya just stopped short of spanking him. He started crying and looked for me and finding me around pouted his famous pout.
"I am angry at Papa. He is a bad adult"
"Who spilled the water? You or me? Who should be angry? You or me?" Caunteya tried logic
"You are in a bad mood" Arnav pouted even more
"Manav and I will be here in this bedroom. Mommy can come in. No Papa. Papa will go to the old house." Arnav went on.
We all tried talking truce but in vain. Arnav was adamant that Papa leave us alone in the new house.

Last week Caunteya was caught up in workshops so we didn't see much of him. This was taking its toll on Manav. The second day Caunteya had a pre-screening of Harry Potter and was not home till the boys slept. Manav explained to Arnav
"Papa is watching a movie in office. He will be late"
"Nooo. Papa works in office. He doesn't watch movies. Hah" Arnav replied vehemently
Something snapped and Manav started crying, little sobs at first then full blown wailing.
"Mommy do you know how much I miss Papa?" he wailed
"Oh baby, I know. We all miss Papa. But he needs to work to get money so we can have a good time."
"I don't want to have a good time. I want Papa" more tears
"Ok, so lets do this. Papa can stay at home and I can go to work and get money so that we can continue having a good time" I wanted to distract him. His cries were beginning to break my heart
"Ok." Then he paused. " But then I will miss YOU Mommy" more fresh tears
"I want both Mommy and Papa" he stated his requirement in crisp words.
Somehow we made it through that night.

Manav and Arnav were playing in another apartment's play area. Some boys were there on the slide playing with their bay blades. My boys started watching them and one of the boys came up to where Manav was climbing the structure and asked him to back off.
"I am not coming down THAT slide. I am using the other slide" Manav tried bravely
"Hey, go away. Or I will slap you" said the boy.
Manav started crying and as much as I hated it I had to intervene. I visualized the millions of bullying moments that will come in my boys' life and I will not be there to help them out. It just made me so sad. But then one part of me wanted them to deal with it and be prepared instead of being shielded. After a pep talk with the boys (who by then had already sobered down, they didnt expect Manav to cry) I forced Manav and Arnav to continue playing. They timidly played a bit but wanted to go home. On our way back
"Manav, you need to be brave. When someone is not being nice to you or troubling you, you have to tell them so."
"But they are such big boys. How will I do it? They will slap me" Manav had genuine concerns
"Manav you have to pretend to be brave even if you feel scared. You have your brother, so together you are a big team. And no one can slap you." I tried
"But he is so small. How will he help me?" Manav couldn't be convinced.
I tried some other explanations but didn't quite work.
"They are bad boys Mommy. I don't want to play here ever. They live here but still they are not being nice" Manav made up his mind
That night while tucking him in bed I said
"Manav remember the time you scared Neil in the Preston Meadow playground. Now you know how bad he felt. You shouldn't do something that you don't like other people doing to you" I tried preaching
"But Mommy, then I was a lion. I was just pretending." Manav said
"Manav, for Neil you were scary. He didn't have a way to know whether you were pretending or being real. One can argue that the boys here were pretending to be mean. They were not really mean"
"No, they are bad, mean boys Mommy."
I let it go at that, hoping that he would have imbibed some of life's lessons.

Today I left the garage door open the entire time I was away to fetch the boys and visiting friends. Manav gave his two cents
"Mommy how can you do that? What if someone comes in uninvited and messes with our things here? What will we do?"
"I am sorry Manav. I will be more careful next time."
"Its ok Mommy"

Now some pictures. On more than one occasion we have caught the boys sleeping in the same pose. That is some uncanny resemblance. Check out the two pictures below.

Arnav with his favorite boiled bhindi and salad lunch.

This morning Manav was trying to write "It is not a good world" but got as far as "It is not a go" as the "page ended.".
"Why are you writing this?" I was a bit alarmed
"Mommy I want to give this to Papa. I don't want him to wake up before me." That explained. By the time Manav walked into our room we were out in the kitchen having tea.

You did it

The boys are at their boisterous best. Something to do with summer, no school, heat killing me but egging them, too much TV than usual, my preference for the "sewer" (as Manav says) over the library books and other non-mentionable guilt laden reasons. The obvious and most plausible reason that they are undisciplined spoilt brats doesn't seem to ring a bell. Even if it does it inevitably points back to the parents. So when does a kid become an individual and shoulders responsibility for all his actions? When he is an adult? Then miles to go before I sleep.

Some adult talk:

"You are a bad adult" comes Arnav's retort aimed at Caunteya.

"This is an adult drink" Arnav pointing to the tea/coffee/soda

"Only an adult can drive a car, kids can pretend to drive a car" Arnav is smart

"When an adult is kidding he is not a kid" Manav drawing from his "phrases"

So I as an adult go about listing the kids' (seemingly inferior) handling of situations and make them sound cute and humorous. I must punish myself by referring to the following incident. Now we have a two car garage with the alley entrance. I was backing out the Corolla (my expertise is in the highlander which is usually the sole denizen of the garage when I back out) but just couldn't get past the garage door even after folding the rear view mirror and cheered on by the the kids strapped in the back seats. So I took the non-traditional route of "fronting out" the car instead. After what seemed like million iterations of inching back and forth on forward and reverse gears, carving my own trajectory of tire marks, I made it out of the garage. The kids cheered on

"Please be careful Mommy"

"You did it Mommy. You did it."

"Good job Mommy."

"Hard work hunh?"

"You are so strong Mommy"

All this made me sink lower into embarrassment; not due to the fact that I couldn't reverse a car but due to the important point that the kids saw a victory in my failure. Instead of berating me they cheered on. If only.....

Arnav is driving all of us crazy. He is so close to being 3 years old but his terrible twos are just showing up. He wants the exact same thing that Manav is playing with and wants to do the exact same thing that Manav is doing. So most of my and their waking moments are saturated with "Sorry", "He snatched it", " I want it", " I am not done", "Ask nicely" and yelling and more yelling. Today I was called in to settle such an issue.

"Arnav broke my parking lot" Manav wailed pointing at his upturned cars.

"Arnav please fix the parking lot" I said

Arnav started bawling for no reason. He does that a lot. When he knows he has done something untoward he joins in the crying game (with no tears).

"Arnav, say Sorry to dada and fix the parking lot"

"I can't say sorry"

"Why?"

"My teeth are stuck"

"Why?"

"They are hurting"

"Arnav why is your teeth stuck and hurting?" I was getting impatient now

"My teeth are brain dead" more false wails.

"You're not a good girl Mommy" Arnav

"Now you're a good girl Mommy" Arnav

"I am Sorry, I pushed Manav" Arnav

"I don't like Arnav, can you make him disappear please" Manav

Today in Subway Arnav was his usual don't-do-it-my-way-I-will-yell self. So we let him choose the chips, his seat and he also made sure that Caunteya sat next to him as that is what Manav wants most. Manav tried all his tactics so that Arnav would let Caunteya go but in vain.

"Next time when we come to Subway, we will not bring you along. We will have a babysitter stay with you and feed you. Mommy, Papa and I will come to Subway" Manav let his frustration out. 

"Noooo babysitter" was all Arnav managed before being rendered speechless by a huge mouthful of sandwich.

The constant chattering, teasing, silly talk and giggling can drive you insane when you are driving in this intense Texas heat. So we always keep reminding the boys that they need to behave in the backseat. On one such occasion Manav said

"Yes, yes I need to take a deep breath and be calm. But it is so funny I need to laugh and then I take a deep breath like a humpback whale and" he snorts and breaks into uncontrollable laughter. And remember, everything you have to endure is always "times 2". The question "What did we do to deserve this?" keeps popping up way too often now.

Manav has made a treasure trove under his pillow to the extent that his head was at an eerie angle when I went to kiss him good night. I fished out about 6-7 "Mc Queen cars", a new set of "Mc Queen" under wears, a pair of scissors, a baseball and an eraser (that's all I remember) to make his pillow horizontal. One morning at the dining table
"Arnav lets put the "Mc Queen" cars back"
"Ok"
"I will tell you which car, you take it and put it under my pillow"
"Ok"
"Take DJ first"
And off Arnav would run with DJ and put it under Manav's pillow.
"No part of the car should peek out from the pillow. As you are small brother I need to keep an eye on you" Manav's never ending rattle of instructions.
"Yes, I am very young" Arnav conceded. One of those few good days.

And when Manav knows he has been misbehaving, while going to bed he says
"No million kisses today, right Mommy?"
And I usually give in but one night I stoically bypassed all good night rituals. He walked to our bedroom around midnight and said
"Mommy are you still upset or can you kiss me a million times now?"
And of course I kiss him million times and then he says
"Now I came for susu" I still have to solve the using-our-bathroom-at-night mystery.

We (me and Caunteya) become different persons when the kids are in bed. We are more relaxed, talk nicely, feel hungry and not-so-tired-after-all. And I actually fall in love with the kids all over again. I also feel guilty for feeling this strong for them when they are in bed. But
"If I am a parent can I choose when to love my kids?"
just like Manav asked me once
"If I am not a girl can I eat a pink cake?"

Captain of the sea

Wake up at 3 AM, jump on a flight at 6, camp at Holiday Shores in Dells, jump back on the flight at 8 PM and back home by 11, isn't that insane? Not really. There is a gap of 2 days between the flights. Our annual fourth of July vacation at my brothers'.

It was a first for quite many things. First such an early flight and more important first such an uneventful flight. First camping trip for the boys and more important first successful, relaxing, and happening camping trip for us. First holding fireworks for the boys. The boys' First chasing and capturing fireflies in ziploc and then letting them go "live free in the wild". Manav's first sleep in the camper with hands on his ears (due to loud fireworks). The boys' first golf cart Fourth July parade. Our first fireworks display from the airplane, was awesome to say the least. I will add to the list as and when I remember more.

Firecracker Time

Inside the camper

Breakfast

Beach

 Manav is manipulating Arnav's innocence to the fullest now. The only change is sometimes it works sometimes it doesn't. One morning I woke up in the camper to hear Manav negotiating a deal with Arnav for the cars (disney pixar)

"Arnav lets play a matching game" he said

"Ok" Arnav demurred

"You are small so you match with the small cars, here take Chuki and Antonio and King"

"And I am big so I will match with bigger cars like DJ, MCQueen, Mater and Jeff Gorbett
(dunno his real name, but thats how it appeared on the Walmart receipt)." he continued

Please note that Manav's choice of cars have nothing to do with size (except for Chuki, which is small all other cars are similar sizes), just that he wants the new and flashy ones. Another time to dissuade Arnav from letting King go in the race

"Arnav, people who are watching the race will get confused if there are two blue cars. See here, DJ is blue and so is King, so let King rest and DJ race" case rested.

There was usual water park activities and here is another first. Both Manav and Arnav went in huge high water slides all by themselves. They would start in a sitting position but the speed would build up so rapidly in the twists and turns that they would automatically flip on their tummy before reaching the bottom. My heart would lurch seeing this from the top but they would come back again and again for the thrill. Then we graduated to the beaches and boats and lakes. We rented a pontoon for a ride on the Wisconsin river and moored on a beach for a quick swim in the lake. Manav made up a song

"I am the captain of the sea, You all have to listen to me"

and thwarted "alligators" (Bablu Mama and Wendy Mami) and rescued "poor swimmers"(me). The entire time we were on the boat Arnav slept with his life jacket on.

Captain of the sea.

  

Arnav woke up on way back and decided to be at the helm of affairs.

One evening we went to Denny's for dinner (:-). Manav was very sleepy but wouldn't let go of an opportunity to order.

"I will have spaghetti with sauce"

"And what will you have for side?" and the waitress rattled off a list of sides.

"I will have some crunchy goldfish" with a flourish that got all of us laughing hard.

Before leaving for the flight back home the boys were playing "ice hockey" (sliding on the wooden floor with their socks on). Wendy said

"Boys why don't you slide some more near the kitchen so that it gets cleaned too"

"No, that's the job of the Zamboni" Manav surprised us all.

And I must not forget to mention that Manav knows his numbers in Chinese now and also doing a great job with Chinese words (or are they alphabets).

  

Yes, Chinese.

  

 Had to end with campfire, reminiscing the hours we spent together huddled around it. It was actually therapeutic to just stare at the fire and hear the crackles. Bliss.