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?"