Health. Food.

First of all, I’m not going to crib about my diet and talk about how much I love everything that’s sinful, including food. Let’s just take that as a given.

The point is, if there’s one thing in which I don’t want the twins to end up like me, it’s my attitude to food. I want them to grow up to have a balanced and healthy attitude to food. I want them to be unfussy eaters, who will try anything once, will like most things, will have stomachs lined with lead, will thrive on bland, homemade, stale food as much as on oily, spicy, toxic street food, and through it all will achieve a balanced diet with a good proportion of dal, carb, fruit ‘n’ veg, dairy and non-veg.

And, of course, I hope they will always enjoy cakes and ice creams, but will never be cursed with an insatiable sweet tooth.

Is that too much to ask???

While the twins were at home full time, we made sure they got only healthy food. Their milk, curd, butter, and cheese came out of a packet of some kind, as did bread and cornflakes, but just about everything else they ate was fresh. They got fresh fruit and vegetables and enjoyed most of it; and fresh meat and chicken as well. They got no soups or juices out of a packet. They got no chocolates, no sweet except for what I sometimes made at home, no biscuits, no chips, practically no packaged foods at all. I did give them frozen peas, but they never liked them, though they loved fresh peas. Smart kids.

(Of course, I must clarify, to quell those rising eyebrows, that when I say ‘fresh’ food, I mean the ingredients are fresh as opposed to frozen or preserved. The food they get cannot not always be described as fresh, but I do usually impose a 48-hour limit; anything cooked more than 48 hours ago lands up in the trash can. That would be me.)

So right up until they joined ‘big’ school this June, they rarely had access to junk food like biscuits, chips, soft drinks, chocolates, toffees and the like. In playschool, they sometimes got a chocolate, but it wasn’t very often, and, back then, sometimes I just grabbed it from them and distracted them for a few minutes and they’d forget all about it (after shedding a few indignant tears).

Now, of course, it’s a different story. If they get goodies at school, they usually eat them before I get there (smart kids), but if they still have them on hand, it’s not as if I can just take them away, distract the kids and they’ll forget all about them. Oh no!

For one thing, they have my number. They don’t trust me at all when it comes to chocolate – and with good reason; if only they knew how many of the chocolates intended for them have landed up in the dustbin (me)! Now, if I tell them to put their sweets in their bags, they protest loudly, and when they finally comply, they keep a sharp eye on their bags. The whole way home, a small part of their memories are dedicated to the stored chocolate. As soon as we reach home, they start to ransack their bags looking for their chocolate. At which point, I usually take it away from them and keep it on top of the microwave – within eyesight, but, mercifully, still out of their reach. The deal is that if they eat their lunch like good girls (without throwing their food around and generally driving me crazy), then they will get chocolate. They don’t yet know that they shouldn’t have to negotiate for something that’s rightfully theirs… But that day is not far off.

One day Tara was too sleepy to gracefully complete her lunch, so I put her to bed sans chocolate. Mrini, however, said to me assertively, “I don’t want sabzi, I don’t want chicken, I don’t want dahi, I want only chocolate.” So I gave her hers.

Three hours later, Tara woke from her afternoon nap, and, still groggy and rubbing her eyes with both fists, said to me, “Mama, I want my chocolate.”

Well, I gave it to her – with Mrini looking on and saying “Taya, ha-piece-ha-piece,” as sweetly as she could. I told Tara that Mrini had already had hers, but she promptly broke her chocolate in half and gave it to Mrini regardless. It’s absolutely heart-warming to see her do that without any hesitation or prompting… especially considering that Mrini rarely returns the favour.

So distracting them and hoping they’ll forget about it just won’t work any more.

Still, they do get quite a lot of chocolate in school some days. It kills their appetite for lunch, and I doubt it does their teeth any good. And I really don’t want them to develop as much of a sweet tooth as I have. I don’t know whether not getting a lot of sweet at this age actually helps to develop a sweet tooth, or whether being denied it helps to avoid getting a sweet tooth; but it just seems like in this respect less must be better. So whenever I can, I still surreptitiously reduce the quantity of sweet that they actually get. Very sneaky and mean of me, no doubt, but that’s what parenting is all about, isn’t it?

What I really started out writing about though, is, why do all school birthday treats have to be packaged foods? I know that not all parents have time to bake up a storm like I did – and it is a lot of work – but can’t you do something simple and homemade? Or else send fruit? Or something that’s not food?

I’m a great fan of eating out and even of eating packaged food, but for these tiny tots, I still feel that the less packaged foods they get, the better. At least with homemade stuff, you have a better idea of what’s gone in it and how much of what and whether it is likely to be allergenic or not; and also, you have better control over the hygiene conditions. But most importantly, it’s the only way to minimise kids’ exposure to chemicals like preservatives, flavouring agents, and the like. Shouldn’t we be thinking of that for at least a few years?

I know – they’re three years old, I should just let go. We do the best we can at home and I should just let go of what’s beyond my control. And I will. But, when they come home with three or four different bits of chocolate and a commercially made cup-cake each, I just wonder.

Feeling Foolish

Today, after the usual rush to get out of the house on time, I drove the kids to school. I felt very pleased with myself, because I made it in a record 20 minutes. Watch out Schumacher! (Oh, that’s right, he’s retired. Well, whatever.)

Then at the gate, I was turned away by the guard. “Why?” I asked indignantly.

“It’s a holiday for Onam,” he said.

“But I didn’t get any message!” I exclaimed, even more indignantly.

“It’s in the holiday list,” he retorted.

As I walked away, I realized that there was only one other idiotic kid who had turned up at school. The parking lot was empty. The roads were surprisingly peaceful. No wonder I’d made it in record time – everyone else was blissfully asleep! Arrrrrrrrrrrrrrgh!

I felt extremely foolish when I reached home and checked the holiday list, which clearly listed today as a holiday.

The girls were quite puzzled, too. They prefer school, of course, but since they had been shuttled back home, they settled down and demolished the tiffin I had packed for them early morning – fresh, layered parathas with jam. Lucky kids.

Keeping them occupied and happy at home is no longer an easy task. Luckily, I have a good yield of toys garnered at their birthday parties, so I started doling them out with a free hand. It didn’t work – they flung everything in every direction and started fighting with each other and whining to me. The joys of having twins…

They generally do enjoy their birthday gifts, and even tend to favour clothes that they receive as gifts over clothes that I buy them. But one thing which is currently top of their list is the cycles we bought them. They’ve only taken the cycles out four or five times yet, but they’ve already got the hang of it. They know that they have to wear their helmets or they won’t be allowed on the cycles. They know that I’ll carry their cycles down one at a time, and they love to run back upstairs with me for the second trip. They know how to get on, ring the bell, turn, and brake on their cycles. Mrini also knows how to pedal…. but with Tara, it is, as ever, a different story. She only pedals half a turn forwards, half a turn backwards. Despite being shown and told how to do it, she insists on doing it her way. How will this girl ever get anywhere?

I don’t have much to do as long as they are cycling in the common area downstairs, but when they’re ready to cycle to the park nearby is when the fun will start. I can hardly wait.

Magical Moments

With all children, I’m sure, but so much more often with twins, there are these Kodak moments, magical moments of sheer joy and delight. As a parent, you want to capture them forever, to be able to look back on them and enjoy them years later. But they are so fleeting, they flash past, repeatedly, before you can grab the camera, or sometimes, even before you can call someone else (usually your better half, if he’s around) to share in them.

Blogging is one of many attempts to capture some of the antics for posterity. Like other attempts, it is doomed to failure, but perhaps a little less so – there’s so much you can try to capture in words that evades the camera.

Tara, for instance, has quite got the concept of sharing – specially food, and specially with Mrini. On the rare occasions when I give them something delicious – say a piece of cake – I obviously give it to them at the same time and in equal quantities. While Tara delicately nibbles at hers and makes it last, Mrini will finish hers quickly and then go scrounging for more. Scrounging includes staring sweetly at Tara and saying most agreeably, “Tara ha-piece-ha-piece?” Tara always nods eagerly and gives away half her kingdom smilingly. It’s amazing. Strangely enough, I’ve never seen this take place in reverse. Mrini is just too smart, I suppose.

That Mrini is equally fond of her twin sister is evident in different ways. If Tara gets hurt, Mrini immediately pats her on the back and says, consolingly, “It’s ok, it’s ok, Taya,” and sometimes adds, most endearingly, “You got a laga (hurt)? Come, I give it kissie.”

On one occasion, while scolding Tara severely for something, Amit was saying angrily to the crying girl, “Look at me.” Mrini, who was certain that it was not she who was being reprimanded, stepped in to make the peace. She went to Tara and said, “Taya, look at Baba,” and set about in all earnestness trying to turn poor Tara’s head around on her neck to make her look at Amit. The natural consequence of this was that all three of us wanted to laugh, but given the gravity of the situation, none of us could do so openly.

Often, nowadays, Mrini goes up to Tara, takes her by the hand saying, most persuasively, “Taya come, Taya come Taya,” and drags her off to do some mischief.

For Tara, Mrini is sometimes a friend, sometimes not. When she decides she isn’t a friend, she goes and sits as far away as possible – usually at the other end of the sofa, which, the sofa being a two-seater, isn’t very far at all – and says decisively, “I’m nawwwwt your friend. You don’t come near me.”

When she decides they are, after all, friends, she is, if possible, even sweeter. I saw her the other day calling Mrini to come and sit next to her on the sofa. “I’m your friend, Mrini,” she said. “You come and sit here.” When Mrini had squeezed herself into a rather tight space between Tara and the arm of the sofa, Tara still beckoned, saying,”Come closer.” And they sat with their arms around each other squashed into less than half a seat on the sofa.

And then there are those other Kodak moments, like bedtime lastnight. I dug out two sets of nightclothes. Both were raggedy old pairs, that hadn’t been used for a while. Whenever presented with similar but different instances of something – clothes, shoes, school bags, books, balls, whatever – the twins normally amicably select one each, and after a few uses, it becomes clear to everyone which one is whose. It would actually probably be pretty clear from the second use onwards, but I pay so little attention to such details, specially colour, that it takes several uses before I notice which one is whose.

Anyhow, they usually know which one is whose, so that’s good enough.

Strangely enough, though, on this particular occasion, they both wanted the same set of pjs, and whichever one wanted it howled until the other relinquished it, and then… the one who had relinquished it howled. I suggested that one of them keep the top half and the other the bottom, but this was not acceptable to either of them. In the end, when they failed to sort it out themselves, I took it away from them and substituted a less sought-after set of nightclothes. As a result of which, they both howled.

On Sunday, we went and bought them bicycles for their birthday. One cycle was pink, the other was purple. As usual, each picked one – Mrini pink, Tara purple. Both cycles wouldn’t fit in the trunk of the car, so Amit drove back with the girls and one cycle, while I was packed off in an auto with the other cycle. Apparently the girls spent the entire duration of the drive home arguing about which cycle was in the trunk of the car, and which was with Mama. Amit says they were pulling each other’s hair out over it.

It’s not their birthday for another week or so, so we parked the cycles in the balcony and explained to them that they’d get the cycles on their “happy birthday”. Strangely enough, they understood this and accepted it. They do go and look at their cycles through the window every day, but there have been no demands, no wailing, no gnashing of teeth or pulling out of hair. And yet… a raggedy old set of pjs could incite them to extreme violenc.

There’s no doubt about it: kids are really strange, sometimes.

Weekday Loafing

So with the kids’ school having closed for the rest of the week, I’m faced with the prospect of having them home full time for 5 straight days. Such a thing has never happened before in living memory – which means, not in the last six months at least. Ever since they started pre-school last October, they’ve been out of the house for at least some time every weekday morning. Of course, there were the summer holidays. But in those halcyon days, I still had their Shaba-aunty, my cure-all for any rwins-centric issue. She had a baby boy less than a month ago, and has been on maternity leave since the end of June. In fact my domestic help scenario is at an all-time low right now. I’d delegated the entire lunchtime rigmarole – of heating, serving, overseeing, screaming at, and cleaning up of girls, dishes, and horizontal surfaces in a six-foot radius etc etc – first to Shaba-aunty, and later to her sister, our cook, NJ. Just this week, though, NJ announced that, due to various other part-time jobs, she would be unable to handle the lunchtime rigmarole. I think she didn’t enjoy it much, anyway. So the entire weight of the lunchtime rigmarole is squarely back on the sagging shoulders of yours truly.

On the past several weekends, we have ended up taking the kids out somewhere practically every morning, because they’re such a handful to manage at home. I worry, vaguely, that we’re making them even more restless and excitement-seeking than they already are, but it is so much easier to keep them engaged and happy away from home that I push away long-term worries in the interests of retaining my short-term sanity. Amit has a holiday this Friday (yay!) and has promised to take sole charge of them kids on that day, so that left me with only today and tomorrow to worry about. (And the weekend, of course, but that’s three whole days away, who can think that far?)

Considering that we’d spent all of Saturday loafing, with great success, and that Sunday had been only a little less full of loafing, I decided that it was now safe to venture out in public alone with them. I had a couple of errands to run: I had to pick up the Registration Card of my new car from the Residency Road showroom, and I felt it was also high time I paid a follow-up visit to Mayo Hall to find out the status of our khata application (you can read the previous thrilling installment here). I could have driven out, and used the Garuda Mall parking lot as I usually do, but I decided that, with school closed, the chauffeur (that would be me) needed a holiday too. Besides, the twins actually enjoy going by auto. So by auto off we went.

It was a great outing. Of course, I found, to my great dismay, that our particular room at Mayo Hall had shifted to some far-away and obscure location. There were only a couple of people, a computer, a desk, and a truckload of files remaining. To really appreciate how little that is, you need to be well acquainted with public offices in general, and Mayo Hall offices in particular. While the kids ran around the cavernous hall and brought a smile to a couple of people’s faces, I enquired somewhat desperately about our khata. A polite and quite helpful gentleman, the same person who had accepted the application over two months ago, in fact, said that he’d try to find out and get back to me.

“It’s difficult for me to go so far to just find out,” I explained, indicating the twins. It never hurts to play that card.

“Oh, that new office, you’ll never find the place at all,” he assured me cheerfully. But he took my phone number and said he’d let me know by afternoon.

I’d promised the twins beforehand that, if they behaved well, I’d get us all a snack at the end of this little expedition. Thinking that we had finished our work, Mrini embarrassed me at this point by saying, loudly, “Mama, it’s lunchtime, I want my chicken.” It was just about 11 a.m., and I shudder to think what everyone around must have thought of me. I rushed the girls out of there before they could think of anything more incriminating to shout about.

Next, we took a short detour to the State Bank of Mysore in yet another futile attempt to get stamp paper. Then we walked to the Hyundai showroom, where I got my RC without any difficulty.

Now for that chicken. Since it was still quite early and restaurants wouldn’t be open yet, I took them to Nilgiri’s, where we shared a curried chicken pie, and I had a cold coffee. At a nearby table, a group of college girls were celebrating a birthday with cake and cellphone photographs. The twins were engrossed enough in their event to momentarily forget about their food. I wondered whether they would be obvious enough to earn themselves some cake, and, sure enough, they soon did. They shyly mumbled “happy birthday” and “thank you” and then proceeded to gobble the cake as though they hadn’t seen food for a week. Then we went to wash our hand, which had icing all over them, and Tara managed to dismantle a cupboard in the handwash area! I got them out of there quite quickly after that.

At the Residency Road, MG Road intersection, several of the Big10 buses were lined up. I was sorely tempted to take one of them – the kids have never been by bus, and they would have loved it – but I didn’t know where they would go. Two had signs in Kannada, and the one that had the sign in English as well wasn’t going anywhere near home. I should have asked, but in the end I lost my nerve. It’s probably been close to 20 years since I went on a local bus in the town where I lived (it’s different, of course, as a tourist). So we came back uneventfully by auto and we were home by noon.

It was more than an hour later that I realised that it was probably the first significant outing with the girls that hadn’t involved a toilet break! So they are growing up!

Live Report and Swine Flu

We’re getting close to two years since we brought the twins home. And boy, they have certainly blossomed in these two years! Apart from being mischief makers on par with Dennis the Menace, they’ve also bloomed physically. When we got them, they were at the lowest 5th percentile in terms of height and weight. They were already over a year old, so we could only hope that any physical, mental, or developmental delays due to malnutrition or the institutional environment wouldn’t be lasting.

When we took them for their annual check-up last weekend, we found, to our delight, that they’re now close to the middle of their weight range. In height, they’re still below average, but at least they’re somewhere around the 20th percentile. They might come up to average, slowly, or maybe they just have short genes. Anyway, they are generally healthy now, and have got a certificate from the doctor to this effect. I didn’t really need a doctor to tell me this – but we have to send this document to the Family Court every year unti they turn 18, as part of their Live Report – but it was nice to have it reaffirmed from a medical perspective.

————————–

I suppose what follows should, logically, be a separate post, but it seemed to me distantly related.
Swine flu is currently all the rage. It’s the number one topic for the newspapers and amongst all parents of school-going kids right now. The papers are doing their best to spread fear and chaos, as usual. Schools are agonising over whether or not to close, parents over whether or not to keep their kids at home, students over whether or not it’s hip to wear face masks. The government has been urging everyone who is even just thinking of coughing or sneezing to get tested for swine flu – without considering first how they are going to cope with the masses of people who come in demanding to be tested. Now that reality has hit them hard, they’re backtracking and saying, hey, hang on, don’t panic, just stay home and drink lots of fluid.

Maybe I’m stupid, callous, and cavalier, but… Don’t we need some common sense here? This is flu season. If you send everyone to be tested, you’re going to be so swamped, you’ll probably just miss the folks who might really have it, or get to them a couple of days later. Why not just tell people to go to the doctor? My understanding is, most cases of flu, even if it is swine flu, can be treated by rest, relaxation, plenty of fluid, and common sense. Only severe cases are cause for concern. The statistics show that, in most cases, the flu runs its course in a week, like any other flu. It is estimated to be fatal in less than 0.4% of cases, and then it is due to complications like pneumonia or pre-existing medical conditions. Don’t take my word for it – go do your own Google search (or any other search engine search, I suppose), and find out for yourself.

In retrospect, it’s quite possible that Amit had swine flu week before last – he is always working with people who travel, or with people who interact with people who travel. He had fever, lethargy, sore throat etc. And it did go off after a week without any medication, but with plenty of rest (and good food – not sure of the medicinal quality of that, but it does the morale a world of good). His doctor didn’t think it was swine flu, but apparently it’s really difficult to distinguish flu from swine flu without the lab test. All the same, unless you develop the severe symptoms or you have pre-existing medical conditions, specially lung problems, it doesn’t seem to be something to get into a panic about. I don’t think panic helps – even if the newspapers delight in it.

As a result of the newspapers’ scare-mongering, even Amit, normally quite a logical and practical person, is worried now. Our girls have had a stuffed head, particularly at night, for the past couple of weeks or more. They don’t really have a cold, only a very mildly runny and blocked nose. No fever, no sneezing, practically no coughing, no apparent sore throat, and they seem to be in fine spirits in every way. So should we be worried about the runny nose? Could it be swine flu? Should we keep them at home? Should we get them tested?

If you believe all you read, the answers would be yes, yes, yes, yes. But I believe getting them tested for next to zero symptoms would be irresponsible and a misuse of scarce resources. Amit thinks we should at least take them to a doctor. I think we just did – though for their annual checkup, not for swine flu, specifically. The mildly stuffy nose was present then, no better and no worse than it is now, but the doctor didn’t even so much as comment on it and prescribe a decongestant, so is it really likely that two cases of swine flu just walked through her clinic and she didn’t notice?

I think getting people to be aware of the symptoms and encouraging people to go to the doctor if they have symptoms of flu is sensible. Getting people to just stay home if they are sick is sensible. Emphasizing the importance of washing hands frequently, with soap, is mandatory (and I don’t see enough of that message being sent). But closing schools, testing every single person who coughs twice in a day, wearing face masks all the time etc is just over the top. Starting a panic response to the situation right now doesn’t seem like a really good idea. If a sensible, educated, informed, and generally level-headed person like Amit can be scared into taking two obviously healthy kids to the doctor just because of ordinary stuffed noses; if, in other words, an ordinary parent can be made too scared to call a stuffed nose just a stuffed nose, then you are already succeeding in overwhelming common sense with panic. That’s not sensible.

At least, that’s the way I see it. But then, what would I know?

Time-out Vs A Spank on the Bottom

The twins were going through a bad patch a while ago. Tara had taken to biting Mrini at every opportunity, sometimes hard enough to scrape the skin off, or leave bite marks. This was very upsetting for Mrini, but even more upsetting for us. Amit, in particular, was worried that they might bite or otherwise be aggressive with other kids, the more so with school starting soon. I, on the other hand, believed that these honours were likely reserved specifically for each other. However, it was very upsetting to see Mrini running off in a loud flood of tears every so often. What could we do to put a stop to this?

I’m not one of the many modern moms who abhor spanking. I’m terribly short-tempered, and when the kids push me too far – which was quite often some months ago – I’m quite likely to haul off and give them one on their bottoms. With some restraint, of course. Mostly.

So, when Tara embarked on her reign of terror, my initial response was to explain to her sternly and with the aid of a few spanks that this was not on.

Before you throw the book at me, let me add that I’ve already read The Book and I can see the logic of not using violence to deliver a message of non-violence; but you can only do what you can do, and not giving them kids a shouting and a spanking from time to time when they are begging for it… It is just beyond me.

However, finally even I had to admit that it just wasn’t working. I was already trying the strategy of giving her more attention and affection whenever she wasn’t being hostile, but clearly that wasn’t enough either; there were just too few such opportunities.

So, prompted by Amit, I initiated time-out. I explained to the girls how it would work, and next time Tara attacked Mrini, I told her to go stand in a corner. She did so, howling all the while. I didn’t have the heart to keep her there long, and let her out soon enough.

Twins are frustrating; perhaps all sibling are. Mrini would forget all about their ill-will and want to go and talk to and play with Tara long before I had got over my own anger with her. So if Tara were in time-out, Mrini would hardly leave her to it.

In just one or two instances, both girls got the hang of it. Mrini, upon any perceived assault, would indicate that Tara should go to the corner, and even Tara knew when this punishment was impending. Luckily, I didn’t have to use it too often, because, whether due to this or other reasons, Tara eventually stopped her aggressive behaviour and grew more and more affectionate towards Mrini.

What I found in this entire episode is that – for me, time-out just doesn’t feel right. It feels cruel, a lot worse than a mild spank on the bottom. The latter causes a passing physical pain, but I fail to see how the former doesn’t cause a deeper psychological scar. I know that expert opinion tends towards time-out and that current wisdom is to view corporal punishment – of any kind – with shock, horror and disgust, but I don’t agree. There are obvious risks associated with corporal punishment – losing your perspective and going too far, hitting small children in an inappropriate manner, with excess force, causing lasting or permanent physical damage, even, in certain horrific cases, death. And for this reason, I would not be happy about schools allowing corporal punishment. But parents, I hope and believe, would generally be capable of exerting a modicum of restraint, except in very rare instances.

The dangers of the time-out system are much less apparent. Perhaps there aren’t any? But just think about it – treating a young child like an outcast so many times a day, or week? How can that not have a deeply negative impact on a delicate ego, on a sense of self-worth still in the process of being established? Would not a child frequently sent in to time-out begin to feel unloved, feel isolated, feel not worthy of being loved?

Physical scars can be seen, physical wounds, short of death, can be healed; but what of an ego torn to shreds; what of low self esteem that sets in at an age when the person is too young to even know what self-esteem means?

I suppose the experts know what they’re talking about. But for me, personally, time-out just seems wrong. I’m going to revert to spanking and shouting at my kids, or, now that they’ve grown up a bit, withholding treats and privileges, and I’m not going to use time-out if I can help it. After all, isn’t parenting also about deciding which experts to follow and which to ignore?

Preparing For School

My idea of preparing the kids for school is talking to them about it (almost incessantly, now) and telling them how much fun they’re going to have and how many new friends they’re going to make (or find). And, of course, getting them clothes, shoes, and so on.

Apparently there’s other stuff I should be doing with them that I haven’t been doing. This was brought home to me recently, in conversation with another mother who has a three-year-old daughter, who will also soon be starting school. “I realized that I have to start getting her ready for school,” this woman said, “so I went and bought the ABC book and I’m trying to get her to learn that.”

I didn’t say anything to her, but I thought to myself, “Oh my goodness! Lady, you and I can never be friends.”

I mean… Getting your almost three-year-old to mug up on numbers and ABC before school!?

The kids already know their ABCs and 123s, and they even know part of their A-for-apples. But. They get it all wrong! They routinely leave out QRSTUV from the alphabet, they jumble up their numbers, and often go, “…5, 6, 7, 8, ten o’clock…” And as for A-for-apple, they usually go “B-for-ball” and then use B-for for everything all the way from pussycat (which should be C-for cat, not C-for-pussycat) to zebra.

And so what? They’re kids, they should get things a little jumbled up. It’s what makes them so adorable. After all, how many people do you know who will solemnly say, “Baba is sleeping, don’t disburt him, ok!”

They have the rest of their lives to get it right, must we start pressurizing them from now?

And besides, if we have to teach them everything at home, what are schools for?

Oh, I forgot. The twins are going to be attending a Montessori school: schools are for playing with toys. I wonder what this other mom would think of that idea.

School Days

May is drawing to a close and June is around the corner. That means, schools re-open here in Bangalore. And that means, a quantum increase in traffic volumes at 8 a.m.

Since I’m not working now and don’t have to join the millions making their daily commute to the workplace, the increase in traffic volumes is largely theoretical for me right now. But for how long?

I’ve just got the letters informing us that the eagerly anticipated day when the twins join their new school is set for 10 June. At first, they will spend only an hour or so at school, and parents have to stay with them. Probably in the second week, they will start following regular hours, 8.30 to 12.30. Then I’ll be spending much of my day in the driver’s seat – literally, unfortunately, not figuratively – with a 15 km round trip twice a day. Not only will the school time traffic suddenly be highly relevant to me, I’ll be part of it.

While the kids starting school means I’ll have a few hours of peace in the morning, which is not a given when Shaba-Aunty is home with the twins, it will also be good for the kids to get out. Last year, when going through the admission process, I kept feeling they were too small for school – but that was then. Now, I no longer think so. They can talk quite a bit now, and have become more socially-oriented: they look forward to meeting their park friends every evening – kids and adults alike – and cry out loud to meet other friends whom they see less frequently. And, keeping them occupied and engaged at home in the morning is full-time work. What’s more, it’s getting more and more difficult to tire them out sufficiently so they’ll fall asleep after lunch. Today they stayed up babbling and playing games for two whole hours, before finally falling asleep! School should take care of that, or so I hope. (How do parents (specially SAHMs) manage in those countries where school starts at age 6???)

So while I’m happy they’re going to be starting school soon (and honestly, the sooner, the better!), what I’m still not sure about is packing them off to school in the school bus. They still seem too small for that experience. Won’t it be scary, being in a bus full of big kids, no known faces around, being trundled around town for 30 or 40 minutes before making it to the only slightly familiar and less scary environment of school? True, there are two of them, and true, too, that other kids their age do it and survive, but still…

I don’t really want to be doing the dropping and picking up chauffeur service, though. It will certainly be fun talking to them on the way to and from school, but it is going to break up the morning in a quite disruptive fashion. Sending them off by bus means I get a whole five hours or so to do my stuff. Getting Amit to drop them on his “way” to work (it’s not really on his way) means investing in another set of car seats. Sigh. Problems, problems.

More interesting – and a bit worrying – is that certain memories that they form now can potentially last forever. Don’t you remember your very early days at school or preschool? I have vague memories of nursery, and even hazier ones of pre-nursery. I remember a friend from pre-nursery – or rather, I remember the name of a friend, and the concept of a friend as someone you did everything together with, more than the person herself. I remember howling my head off in nursery because a boy took my sketch pens and didn’t give them back. I remember another boy (or perhaps the same one) turning his eyelids inside out (boys are gross!) and scaring the hell out of me. I remember, strangely enough, the room that was the nursery or kindergarten room, and my seat in the room. I remember other things about the school, like the building and the grounds, and even the teachers; but those memories formed over the years, as I continued in that school till I was ten. But the earliest of my school day memories must date from a little over three years of age.

And now the twins are going to start collecting their own set of forever memories. I always loved school, my sister pretty much hated it. I wonder why that happens. It is so much easier to enjoy school than to dislike it, I hope I can help my girls to grow to love it and to build a set of happy memories.

Twinnings

There were clothes to be washed today, which meant I’d have to pick up day before yesterday’s wash from the line. Everything had dried, of course, probably the same day it was washed, but I’m lazy about picking up the laundry. Actually, that’s not entirely true – I’m lazy about just about everything that doesn’t directly involve food (see previous post).

Ahem.

So anyway, I went out to pick up the laundry and the kids, of course, went out with me. So I put them to work picking up the clothes, which they did with enthusiasm, wrenching off the clothes pins and flinging the clean clothes in the general direction of the dining table so that several items landed on the not-so-clean floor of the dining room.

As I folded the larger items, the girls folded their frocks. Then I took one load and went into our bedroom to put it away. Mrini came with me, Tara didn’t. After a couple of moments, I went to see. The kids’ clothes had disappeared from the dining table. Tara was in their bedroom. She had pulled open the lowest drawer of the cupboard (not the new wardrobe, mind you, which is still missing its drawers), which would normally have held shoes. The shoes have been taken out in the recent past and replaced with a thick blanket, folded up. She stood on the soft pile of blanket and reached for the handle that opened the main compartment of the cupboard. Then she got off the blanket, picked up the clothes that she had folded and placed on the bed, and threw them into the roughly appropriate part of the cupboard. Then she got down, closed the cupboard and pushed the drawer back in.

Then she dusted off her hands and came to me and said,”I do other clothes.”

She went running to fetch the laundry bag, opened the washing machine and loaded it, meticulously separating Amit’s shirts and handing them to me so I could put Cuffs ‘n Collars on them. After everything had gone in, she went to the bathroom and stood on the stool to reach the cabinet where the detergent is kept, and tried to get it down. It was still too high for her, so I helped her. She would have poured out the detergent, had I let her, but in that matter I prevailed on her to let her elders and betters do their bit. Then she slammed the washing machine door shut and turned on the power.

So: laundry assistant socked in. Shaba-Aunty has one chore less, lucky her.

I also have two coffee-makers-in-waiting. They’ve watched me make coffee and toast enough times to know how to do it themselves. I only have to wait till they figure out the gas stove. Oh, and how to transfer coffee powder from jar to cup without scattering it all over the floor. Shaba-Aunty has a second round of sweeping to do, poor thing.

One activity that has lately been keeping them occupied for half an hour at a time, is the task of giving their panda and teddy bear lunch. This highly absorbing and elaborate ritual combines real and make-believe elements in a manner akin to some exotic religious ritual. The spoons are real (though plastic), and so is one plate and both bibs. There’s a red plastic box that a long, long time ago contained a goodly amount of some delicious ice cream, but now, sadly, contains only imaginary dal-chawal – or sabzi as the occasion demands. The lid of the box serves as a second plate. There’s a Play-Doh container that is put to use as a carton of imaginary curd (yogurt).

The panda and teddy bear are seated ceremoniously side-by-side in the high chairs, and industriously strapped in. (I’m not sure whether they are the high priests or the sacrificial victims.) The bibs are too small for their fat necks, so I am roped in to force the necks into the bibs. Two dining table chairs are pulled up side-by-side and facing the high chairs. Then the meal begins, with the girls making frequent forays into the kitchen for toast, or mango. I also noticed that several bites of the panda or teddy bear’s imaginary lunch find their way into the kids’ mouths. Now where did they get that idea from, I wonder.

After the meal, the panda and teddy bear are taken down, made to wash their hands and face (with imaginary water) and tenderly put to bed. Must be the priests, then. (Unless the process of putting their bibs on strangulated them, in which case they are the sacrificial victims.)

Whew! I wonder if Mrini-Tara find it as much as a relief as I do, once their darlings are peacefully in bed. Of course, they don’t have so much to do in terms of tidying up – imaginary food doesn’t make much of a mess. However, Tara does take the used bibs, fold them, pull the dining table chair across the floor to the cupboard (rendering me in complete agony due to the screeching sound), stand up on it, and fling the bibs on to the top of the cupboard, where they (more or less) should be.

No wonder they say that if you’re having another child, wait till the older one(s) is about three. It seems that they’ll happily do all the work when they reach that age. Wonder how long this will last, though.

Meanwhile, two new words have emerged:

“Mama, monkey toes biting,” says Mrini.
Really? Monkey? Where? Tara doesn’t seem to be biting anybody’s toes.
“Monkeytoes,” says Mrini, pointing to the air.
Oh, right. Mosquitos. Yes, they’re biting.

“Mama, fatter day?” says Mrini.
Fatter day? I hope not! But if it must be a fatter day, is there also a thinner day to look forward to?
“Mama, Sunday?”
No, it’s… oh, I get it. It’s Saturday! That’s a relief.

The Selfish Gene

It’s not Richard Dawkins’s book I’m referring to here; it’s me. I must be the most selfish person I have ever met. I’m so selfish that I actually enjoy traveling alone, because it means I get to do just what I want, when I want, how I want. I might not want to be this selfish all the time – like most things, I expect you enjoy it most when it’s a rare privilege – but once in a way I really like it.

I’m getting remarkably immune to all the funny looks and comments you get when people see you alone in a holiday kind of context. Of course, Goa is an easy place to be alone in that way; specially the kind of upmarket resort that I’m stayed in. People will largely leave you alone, and keep their questions and opinions to themselves. It’s not as easy in many other places I can think of.

This was also an extremely luxurious trip, by my standards. If I wanted to travel without the family because I wanted to enjoy the whole travel experience, then this is not quite the way to do it. I’d have to have a backpack, a local bus, and about one-tenth the budget of this trip for that. Heading into the Himalayas is of course always tempting, but I didn’t really come up with this whole plan early enough for that. Maybe next time.

Although, I don’t think I could bear it. Being away from the kids for that long, I mean. It was more difficult than I thought it would be just leaving the house without them. I didn’t even go into their room to say bye when I left in the wee hours of Thursday morning, because I didn’t want to disturb them. Of course, I had told them beforehand that I’d be away for a few days and I’d be back soon, and I think they understood that. But all the time I was away, I kept hoping that they were ok with it. At the end of the first day, reports from Amit indicated that they were fine, not missing me at all. He thought I might be sad to hear that, but I was relieved and happy. I don’t think that if they don’t miss me it means they don’t love me or anything like that; I think that if they don’t miss me, it means they are comfortable, secure, and independent kids who don’t have any conscious scars from their vaguest memories of their earliest days. And that’s wonderful.

And Amit tells me that they wolfed down three helpings each at dinner, which is completely unheard of, so that’s good too.

Once I was actually in Goa, I didn’t feel guilty about not bringing the kids along It was very hot, and the sea was very rough. They’d have played in the sand for a bit, then wanted to go back. Without their normal activities and with a small subset of their toys, they’d have decided to look for innovative ways to keep themselves busy. That would have driven us mad, and we’d have spent most of our time shouting, “Don’t!” So if they’re home with Amit, in their safe and comfortable environment, and if they don’t mind my being away, this works better. I’m all for taking them out of their comfort zone every so often, but when they are subjected to significant discomfort in our pursuit of travel/pleasure, then I feel horribly guilty. This way seems just so much easier.

Though I miss them and think of them constantly, there are the simple pleasures of not having them around. Like…

After a year-and-a-half of parenting toddlers (don’t forget they were already over a year old at the start of that period), it is really strange to walk into a room, dump whatever you are carrying on any horizontal surface, and not have to rush around moving everything into child-proof hiding places.

And it’s also really nice to be able to sit down to a fancy meal outside the house (at home I often eat while they’re asleep) and actually get through it without once having to drop everything and wrestle with the health and hygiene aspects of two kids in an unfamiliar, public restroom.

Being able to sleep when I want, for as long as I want, without interruption. And likewise spending quality time in the bathroom without them kids banging on the door saying rude things like “Mama, sussu done?” and “Mama, big potty coming?”

And the ultimate in luxury: A big, soft double bed, neatly made and turned down by somebody paid and – more importantly – trained to do it, immaculate white sheets, and FOUR soft pillows all to myself! Ahhhhhhh

Yeah, I know – petty and completely selfish. That’s me… and I’m not ashamed of it.