Shilpa Roy Kota

Parenting Stories (and more) from the desk of an imperfect parent

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  • Time Out Time

    Having been through terrible twos once already on my own, and having listened to numerous tales of terrible twos, one would expect that I would be completely prepared to handle Yog as he approaches that stage. Alas! I admit I am not at all prepared. Somehow, when I held in my arms for so many months, kissed him good night, twirled his little fingers in mine, I always considered him to be an angel sent straight from heaven to save me.  Deep down inside my heart, I always belived Yog would be different. He would not throw tantrums over food, not break things apart, not jump from chairs and above all, not disobey me. Sigh!! How wrong I was.

    He is barely fifteen months old, and I was forced to give him his first time out today. I know it is shocking. How could that adorable baby already reach this milestone!!?!

    Heres the story behind this milestone.

     

    I have been suffering from a serious back pain since some days. To avoid aggravating it, I try not to bend to pick up Yog whenever he demands to (which is like 90% of our waking time together). This morning was as choatic as any other morning, as Toyna prepared for school and I prepared for breakfast. In addition to the already existing chaos, my hurting back was making me slow and grumpy. As expected, Yog oblivious to the choas and my hurting back, wanted to be carried in and out of the kitchen. We somehow managed to send Toyna to school and stepped out for a morning walk. I was hoping that Yog would let go of me and enjoy the flowers, friends and rocks on the road. But today, Yog didn’t want any of that. Maybe he sensed my withdrawl from him in some way, and wanted to make up for it by clinging extra close to me throughout. I literally ended up carrying him for most part of his walk. If I would let him down, he would scream his way right back up. Figuring that this was not working out as expected, I dragged myself and him back home. As we climbed the steps inside, Yog reached out for my cheek (in a way you approach someone for giving a kiss) and bit me hard on my cheek. Ouch! I screamed in pain, and landed him in a corner of the room – Time Out Time had finally come!!!

    He sat there screaming his heart out and was rescued by his grandmother. My heart cried for abandoning him when he needed me, but my back couldn’t take the strain anymore. Looking back, I realize, there was nothing different about Yog today. He was just behaving the way he normally behaves. What was actually different in todays equation was “me”. My hurting back was my problem. How could Yog understand that? All the grumpiness from my sickness was actually making Yog also grumpy. He was just bouncing back the same emotion that he was catching from me. Maybe, the person who actually needed a time out was not him, it was me.

  • Paradox of Life

    A recent lesson I learnt in life – The biggest paradox of life is that in order to make any change happen, we have to first accept life as it is, with all its beauty and its ugliness.

    We have to accept that some days we will be cheated.

    Some days we will be hurt.

    Some days we will cry till our heart breaks.

    When we have accepted these facts and are at peace with ourselves and with those around us, it is then, that we can hope to start the process of change.

  • Maybe

    There are two challenges I continuously encounter when taking Yog out for his daily walks. One, he loves automobiles irrespective of the fact whether they are stationary or moving. If he sees a car coming towards him, in place of moving away from it, he will try and run towards it. Even a split second distraction on my part can have him hugging the moving automobile in no time.

    Two, we have explored almost all nooks and corners of the road in our neighborhood so Yog is itching to go some place new each day. I don’t yet have the courage to take him to busier, unknown streets so he is pretty much confined to the same 200 meters of road and trees of our neighborhood. But of course his thirst for new territories remains undeterred. In order to continuously expand his area of exploration, he now pushes out on all the gates of our neighbors houses. Which ever gate relents to his tiny hands, he enters that house as if the house was all along waiting to welcome him. His speed and sense of purpose as he enters this new territory is very impressive. He quickly takes a 360 degree assessment of the area and runs towards his key areas of interest – water taps/buckets/puddles (basically water in any form) and of course automobiles. I let him wander for a while and then try and distract him back to the road again. This works for a few steps, till he comes to the next gate on the road and the same sequence repeats itself.

    Most neighbors are very friendly and love having Yog enter their homes uninvited. However, some are not so.  When Yog approaches their house, I have to literally pick him up and carry him till we cross the house.  As I deposit him back on the road, he runs back to try the same gate again, cause that is one of the few ones that has not yet relented to his gentle push.

    For me the dilemma of how to make him understand continues. How does one explain to a 14 month old child that people have made boundaries to their houses for a purpose? How can he understand that in today’s world people eye uninvited people in their houses with suspicion, even if it is just a toddler and his mother? How can he understand that the land that we live on has been divided between people till the last inch available and not everyone is willing to trust and share?

    I am pretty sure he will not understand all this right now.  At the same time, I foster this small hope in my heart that maybe he will not need to understand. Maybe, by the time he grows up, the world might be a little different.  Maybe, the gates will not be so strong and maybe the hearts will be a lot softer. Maybe he will be free to wander not only in his spirit but also in his world.  Maybe, just maybe…

  • Classic Classy

    One thing that I am quite happy Yog has taken from me, is my love for dogs. We don’t have a dog at home so we are always out looking for dogs on the road. There is a very well mannered pet dog in our neighbourhood by the name “Classy”. As soon as we turn the corner where she lives, our eyes strain to find her. As soon as Yog spots her, he runs after her to catch her tail. Classy on the other hand, doesn’t share the same feeling for Yog. She is quite scared of Yog because he often steps on her feet or hits her (when trying to pet her). She is quite fond of the older children on the road as they are pretty well behaved and often have treats on them that she can eat.

    Evening time, today, was quite exciting. It all started with the older kids playing hide and seek in an empty house in the neighborhood. They ran up and down the steps trying to hide and find each other. Classy being so fond of them, ran behind them. However, most of these boys are scared of dogs so they hid on the roof, refusing to come down till Classy was there.

    Yog spotted Classy running up the steps and he ran inside the compound wall to catch her. Now Classy who had climbed one floor, refused to come down, scared that Yog will hurt her.

    I was on the road calling Yog, who was inside the compund calling Classy. Classy was, in turn, on the first floor wagging her tail and trying to get attention of the boys on the roof. The boys in desperation, were trying to call me, seeking my help to take Classy out of the house so that they could come down.

    What a commotion it was! I couldn’t help but laugh at the fact that while the bigger boys were scared of Classy, Classy herself was scared of miniature Yog.

  • Special Needs

    Did you know – those born with special needs, are at the same time also born with special skills, which most of us “normal” beings don’t possess.

    Like we consider them needy, I am sure they consider us more so.

  • Unadulterated Adulation

    Sometimes the Love that you have nurtured and held dear for a long time, has the capability to strangle you completely, till you are gasping for breath.

    Going through that phase with Yog. His attention for me, and demands of attention from me, are leaving me completely perplexed. When I am at home, the only way to get two minutes to talk, eat or even pee seems like a luxury, a gift granted from God itself.

    On one hand, I love the fact that he adores me so much. On the other, I wish there was a better form of adulation he could figure out.

  • Sense of Purpose

    The smallest ant, the mightiest mountain, the farthest planet and even the darkest hole in the milky way is all there for a purpose.

    Yet, most human beings, considered the most intelligent specie ever, live our lives on a daily basis without the sense of a positive purpose.

    If that is what intelligence means, my request to God – I would like to go back to being an Ape.

  • Time to Focus

    Just like we cannot replace 1 hour of daily exercise for 10 days, with 10 hours of continuous exercise in 1 day;

    we cannot replace quality time spent with relationships on a daily basis, with years of continuous time together.

    Some things flourish with just a little focus every day. If we don’t give that now, we can never hope to compensate for it later in life.

  • Lesson on Change Management from Yog

    I seem to be re-learning all Project Management lessons from my children. After a session on perception management from Toyna, Yog taught me a very useful lesson on Change Management.

    As Yog turned one year old, the pressure on me to give up infant practices and transition him into toddler ways started to build up. After his first birthday we took a small vacation and I made up my mind to start working with him on the transition, soon after we return. This meant weaning him from breast milk and formula to cows milk, stopping his bottle feeding and feeding in the middle of nights, not grinding his food and not having him watch TV while feeding. The list might seem simple to those who have never tended to babies, but I am sure most mothers would relate to how painful the transition can be.

    I knew a couple of days ahead would be rough, and I was emotionally and physically prepared to take the stress. The day we came back from the vacation we were all completely exhausted but I made sure I live up to my commitment of starting the transition. I hid his milk bottles, trashed the remaining milk formula and gave strict instructions to everyone not to grind his food. As I expected, Yog refused to cooperate. He vomited whatever he ate, refused to drink cows milk or even water without his bottle.

    A few days of howling, scratching, kicking went by and I realized it was not what I wanted. I stepped back, trying to gauge what I was doing wrong. I made a list of what were the most important things that had to be addressed first, and which could probably wait for a while. The top 2 things in my list were – No to formula and grinding of food. So I started with this. I reintroduced the bottle, but with cows milk this time. I even added a little sugar to milk to try and get Yog hooked on to it. For feeding, I re-initiated the TV sessions and made food soft enough for him to swallow without grinding.

    Yog liked the sweet milk and started drinking that from his bottle. Over the period of next few days, I reduced to quantity of sugar in his milk bit by bit and he was off sweetened milk after about 10 days. As he got settled with drinking cows milk, I tried introducing the sippy cups and doing away with the bottle again. This time he did not resist. In fact he liked the sippy cups because the flow of milk was much faster in that.

    As for eating food, as long as his cherished nursery rhymes were on, he gulped whatever came in front of him. After about 10 days again, he was adept at eating soft food which had not been ground. Now we initiated the process, of skipping TV during feeds and slowly got him distracted with books, toys and other activities.

    Yog is now almost 14 months old and I can say the transition has been complete and more or less successful. Through this whole exercise, I learnt the following lessons from Yog on change management:

    1. Keep your priority list simple. Identify one or two things to address first before setting eyes on other priorities.

    2. It is Ok to introduce small evils (like sugar), in order to get rid of bigger evils (like formula).

    3. Change need not always be painful. It can be fun and exciting as well, if introduced in the right way (like sippy cups)

    4. Successful change management is not so much about your level of preparedness, but more so about the level of acceptability in the recipients of the change. (just after tiring travel was a wrong time to start the transition)

    5. Another learning, not necessarily about Change Management, but about hiring. When trying to hire good quality Project Managers, organizations should look at hiring women who have been mothers. Believe me they have lived through some extreme projects in their lives.

  • Lesson on Perception Management

    Lesson on Perception Management from Toyna:

    Yesterday evening, I was trying to win a debate on food choices for Toyna. In order to make her feel she was in control of her choices, I said, “I even ask you each day what you want for your school tiffin. And I give you just that, then how can you say I don’t let you decide what you want to eat.”

    Her prompt answer, “You ask me what I want for tiffin, because you can’t think what to make for me!!”

    I literally had my mouth open for a few seconds as I soaked in her perspective to all my hard work.