Dreamer

Manav turned five and my heart is still doing the five feet deep dives imagining him 15 and 25 and beyond. Seems like yesterday when I wanted the boys to grow up fast so that I can get a little breather from this hectic life, while now all I want is to slow down. Years are passing by like moments and before I have a chance to recover from a blink, things have changed. I am forever panting to catch up, this rapidity in everything is killing and making me feel old in every sense of the word. Yes, be very careful what you wish for.

We started the birthday preparations and Manav painstakingly wrote the 23 personalized thank you cards for the return gifts. Arnav helped by putting stickers on the cards and envelopes.

Here they are spread on his Birthday Cake Box.

On friday, i.e 20th April we started the official birthday celebration by stopping by for doughnuts at Dunkin Donuts on our way to school. Manav chose the "rainbow sprinkles" doughnuts for his friends at school. Back in the car, Manav said
"Mommy did you see the pink doughnuts there?"
"No. Did you want those?" I was concerned for more than the obvious reason.
"No, they are for girls. I saw them on the top shelf. Maybe that is why you missed them" Manav put my concerns to rest.
"Girls bring pink cupcakes with Hello Kitty rings on them" Arnav volunteered important information.

Saturday, the actual birthday date, we started with all of us singing the birthday song on our bed while Manav was still asleep. I remember him coming to our bed in the wee hours of the morning and saying to Caunteya
"Hey Papa, remember you wanted to sleep with me. Well here I am"
Then I made his favorite pancakes and decorated it for his birthday breakfast.

Then we went for his last soccer match for the season. We had cupcakes and drinks. In the evening we had a birthday party in a neighborhood park. We played games - spoon and marbles where both Manav and Arnav had issues. Arnav said
"This is a bad game. The marble always falls off"
Manav tried twice and gave up. He cried some and hid behind the trash can. He still has to learn how to accept failure graciously. Then we played bingo (housie, tambola whatever you call it) and this time Manav won the 'full house' and surprised us all. The win didn't come without the throes of not getting favorable numbers called out and whining about it.

Pizza, watermelon and grapes later the kids gathered for the cake cutting. It went fine till the cake was cut, after which the Arnav started wailing as he wanted the transformer decal from the cake, while Manav reminded Arnav that it was his birthday, in vain.

The angry birds are happy

The cake and the offending transformers

Thus we had a great evening with the weather behaving and the kids not so behaving. Amidst smiles and cries we completed a day of outdoor birthday fun.

Next morning I reminded Manav that it was his cousin's birthday in India. I said

"Manav I just spoke to Ma and she said that Ghontu has torn his birthday dhoti"

"What is dhoti?" Manav asked

"It is a traditional dress worn in the bottom with a kurta" I made an attempt to explain.

"Oh, an underwear." Manav smiled

"No it is like a pajama" I settled for that

"So his two-three teared?" Manav said

I was perplexed as to what that meant when Caunteya explained

"Because he says/hears dhoti like do-teen that is why he is saying two-three" and when that finally made sense to me I just couldnt stop laughing. The kids and their accented Hindi is full time entertainment.

The other day they were playing some game in the car when Manav complained

"Mommy, Arnav says M + N = 4 when it is 7"

"Oh, you cannot add alphabets Manav" I smiled

"You can add alphabets. You just have to add the number of lines there are in a letter" Manav said

"But some letters dont have lines, like S" I was flummoxed.

"Yes, it has. It has one squiggly line. So it is 1." Manav explained.

There and then it came to me. These kids are clean slates, they don't have pre-conceived notions. For a moment I did think maybe he was coding alphabets like A=1 etc. but then missed the fact that there are other ways of doing it. And for me lines are always straight lines, while Manav has a whole arsenal of various shaped lines. While I am static and inflexible, Manav and Arnav are so full of possibilities, I sometimes get dizzy as I struggle to fathom the enormity.

Another incident like the above exposed me to a kids unadulterated mode of thinking. We were playing 'tricky questions' and I asked

"The sun is setting. What is it going to be - day or night?"

"Night" pat came the reply from Manav

"Depends" said Arnav " If it is Ma-Dadu it will be day, but for us it will be night" Ma-Dadu are my parents and they live in India. Of course, how could I miss that?

Manav continues to amaze us with his imagination. He has taken to drawing and writing and does a decent job of it. He draws outer space, rocket launchers, family and imaginary video games complete with levels by joining sheets of paper with tape. His current craze is Legos and keeps building them till cows come home. But he looks for "gun wielding" Finn McMissile, affirming that his earlier craze of Disney Cars is still very alive.

Holding on to the recent past and craving for new. Will not not settle for anything less than winning. If something is interesting has to be done and completed right now. Tomorrow is too late.

"Yesterday night, first dream was scary but the next one was very good Mommy."

That about sums up my five year old - Dreamer.

How I wish...

Suddenly my days are jam packed. There is absolutely no me time. The weather is great and lots of things are happening and I am actually liking it. Amidst all this I have this constant fluttering heart and butterflies in my tummy feeling, just thinking about Manav starting school this fall. Already the registration is underway and he is kind of set to go to school. Just that I am not.

Seems like the other day we brought him home and the first feeling I had was if only we had extra insurance then we could have stayed in the hospital a little longer. We had absolutely no idea what to do with Manav. He seemed so fragile and every task was an effort. We have kind of come a full circle as he turns 5 on 21st April and his emotions are so fragile and every task with him is an effort. He is questioning things which I dared not ask my parents, even now.

"So if that drink is not good for kids, how can adults drink that?"
" I eat, Papa eats, I sleep, Papa sleeps, I play, Papa plays, so if he can copy me why can't I copy him? If he can say "None of your business", why can't I?"
"I never cry or say I am upset when you use 'such words' with me, why do you have to get upset when I say the same words?"
"Why do adults act like kids and tell on them. When I do something you tell Papa. When Arnav hits me I don't complain or cry, I try to be brave and not tell on him. Why can't you be brave?"
"Don't tell me you are angry when you do that. I am VERY angry now"

I am censoring my explanation of these paradox, as even when I was answering, I felt I was not doing justice. He has a point but I am the parent and that is what I drove across. Anyways all I am reminded when I type this is
"Main karun to saala character dheela hai"  ooops bad word.

Last Tuesday when we were supposed to drive to Florida for our vacation, there were deadly tornadoes in Dallas. The kids were stuck at school and we had the scariest time ever. When I finally got them back I asked
"Manav were you scared when the tornadoes came?"
"No, there was no tornado. We had another of those drills. We went to the hallway, they switched off the lights and we ducked our head in our hands. But no tornado came"
What a bliss to have no concerns amongst raging mayhem. Aaah childhood.

We had a great drive back home from Florida especially if we compare it with the drive to Florida, amidst the raging thunderstorms. The boys loved the fact that we crossed Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and then reached Florida. They are learning about the states in school so they could relate with the welcome posters at each state line.
"Now we should be entering Georgia" Manav said when we were in Alabama.
Caunteya explained we will directly drive into Florida, so no Georgia.

On our way to Florida we stopped at a hotel to sleep for the night. In the morning I was taking the kids for breakfast when we met a lady in the elevator. She came in while the door was almost closing and said
"I tricked you"
"We are going to India" Arnav smiled and said
"Oh that's so great" she exclaimed
"Nooo we are going to Florida" Manav corrected
"Thats even better" she said
"I tricked you" said Arnav and we all started laughing.

We were jiving to the tune of desi boys in the condo we rented in Florida. My friend has two daughters and the older one was leading the dance floor and others were happily following. Then Arnav came up to Caunteya and said
"Papa we don't have only desi boys we have desi girls too" and burst out laughing. This kiddo is fast becoming an entertainer now that his slur is disappearing. But he still has issues with 'r' and he admits the same. The other day someone asked his name
"I cant say my name. It has a 'r' in it" was his answer.
Arnav pouts and complains
"Why did you put a 'r' in my name? Manav doesn't have any?" if only I had known baby !
And I started thinking, that is one of the many things we don't have control on - our name. We are just plain lucky or doomed depending on what went through our parents' mind when they named us.

We are planning Manav's birthday party. I asked him
"Do you want an angry bird cake or lion king cake" these are his current favorites
"I want a lion king cake as I already have the angry bird t-shirts." Manav said and immediately I regretted asking that question. How can I have mismatched birthday theme for my baby? But then I thought maybe thats what will be great, a bunch of mismatched characters, sort of "these are my favorite things", lets see how that develops as the list is ever changing.

With thunderstorms and rains comes rainbow. And that is another topic they are learning at school. Arnav said
"Mommy for a rainbow to happen there has to be rain and sun. As there is no rain today, the rainbow will not happen. Maybe it will happen, but without the color indigo. And as there is some wind, maybe the rainbow will have more orange" and his imagination ran wild as he painted his own rainbow from the available elements of nature.

Beautiful blue water, sugar white beaches and abundant sunshine marked our vacation. Manav summed it all - "We should live in Florida Mommy" How I wish.
When I was getting Arnav in his swim clothes for his swim class day before, he asked
"Are we going to the beach or Lifetime Fitness?" How I wish.

Sand Castles in the making

The Dolphin Cruise, we spotted bottle nosed dolphins.

"The stick tastes like ice cream too" and they licked on..

Mr Smart Pants, kept sitting there and made everyone else work at pouring water (refer first picture)