Shilpa Roy Kota

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

recent posts

about

  • Learning about the World

    Morning walks with Yog have now transformed from “Learning to Walk” exercise, to “Learning about his World” exercise. We walk less, but stoop more to pick up things from the road. He feels almost every fallen item on the road to explore its colour and texture. If there is something very interesting (usually a stone or a shiny wrapper), he decides to sit down on the road or on the mud alongside the road to give the item its full attention. In the initial days, I used to worry about hygiene and infections, but I figured the amount of learning involved for him in this whole exercise is much more than the possibility of him contracting an infection. Nonetheless, to keep my mother’s anxiety at bay, we have timed his baths to just after his walks, so we can scrub him off all the germs that he has so lovingly explored.

    Today, as he sat down on the road rubbing his hands in the mud and pebbles, a lady walked up to us with a look of complete disapproval. By her attire and accent, I could make out that she belonged to one of the slum communities that we have near our house. She looked at me and said, “Can’t you see your son is sitting on the road?”. I was surprised by her tone of voice and was taken aback a little. My response was brief and curt, “Yes, he is sitting on the road! So..?” She gave me an exasperated look and walked away. I realize she was trying to tell me that my son can fall sick by so many germs surrounding him. I am guessing in her mind, she assumed that people with intellect and money should not indulge in primitive games like this. For the lesser privileged children, they didn’t have a choice but to run and play on the roads. But how could I, educated female of the modern era, have my sun exposed to so many germs?

    While coming back home, I had this constant thought running in mind – Does the possession of education and monetary resources mean that we have to live our lives away from the ground? Just because my son can have all the toys he desires, should I deny him the enjoyment of rolling in the mud and picking up stones? More than the enjoyment involved, I seriously believe such activities immensely aid in the development of motor skills of young children and help them learn about their world. Should I deny him this essential learning, because I have been fortunate to be educated?

    As we grow up the ladder of education, innovation and success, I so wish we could keep our lives simple, as close to the ground as possible. Yog loves it for now and I hope I am able to keep it this way for some more years to come before the world of technology floods him.

  • Walking and Falling

    After a month of holding hands with Yog and religiously walking around, Yog finally started walking on his own. Watching him grow towards taking his first few steps on his own has been a significant journey for all of us.

    In the early days of trying to walk, he lost his balance once and fell hard. Ever since that day, he became skeptical of walking. Somewhere in his mind, he associated walking with falling and getting hurt. In the last month, we all knew he was capable of walking on his own, but he wouldn’t let go of our hand. For him, the fear of falling was way stronger than the joy of walking on his own.

    A lot of times, people on the street looked at him as if something was wrong with him. After all, kids his age walk on their own. It didn’t matter to him and it didn’t matter to me what others thought. I knew he would get there at his own pace sooner or later.

    The transformation from those days of not letting go of my finger to now, when he refuses to catch our hand even when we know he is about to fall, is one of the most memorable journey we will ever embark. As we step out of the boundaries of our home, he leaves our hand and runs forward out on the road. He is still wobbling around on his feet, so we are often scared he is going to fall and get hurt. He probably knows it too, but that doesn’t stop him from wobbling and running around at the same time. Every 10-15 shaky steps later, he falls down on the road. We instantly get concerned, but he steps up as quickly as he fell down and starts to run again. All over the street there is a platoon of people trying to catch him, to stop him from running (more so from falling). But he hates to be held on to. He wants to run, catch the flower, pat the dog, or chase the motorcycle whizzing by.

    After a few days of trying to prevent him from falling, I gave up. By now, I had realized an important lesson in life – in order to learn how to run, it was also equally important to learn how to fall. Even though Yog is still learning how to run, he has pretty much mastered the art of how to fall. Whenever he is about to fall, he either uses his hands or his soft bouncy diaper to cushion him from the fall. “Falling”, for him is as natural a process as Walking. Some times, when he falls down, he sits on the road and claps his hands, congratulating himself for having fallen down.

    I wish, as adults, we are able to remember this lesson, we all went through as children. I wish we are not scared of falling, when we are trying to run.

  • 99% Rule

    99% of us out here are extremely capable of surviving on our own.

    Yet, 99% out of this 99% choose to find that one person in life who makes the feeling of dependence irresistible.

  • Working Mother

    I think I can make a generic comment on behalf of working mothers:

    While others look forward to going back home, after a long day at work, we look forward to going to work after a long winding morning to catch up on our peace of mind.

    No matter how crazy work is, it will always be more relaxing than the chaos at home.

  • Happy Birthday to Me

    I have been planning this for months now – giving a birthday gift to myself by going live with own, yes! my very own website. In spite of months of planning and thought process, I still missed the date.

    Even though I am late by a day, I still vowed to myself to take out the time today for doing something which is very important to me and to those who have religiously followed my posts till date.

    Starting today, I choose to post on my website, even though it is still half baked. All posts published here will be posted on my accounts of Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr.  I would love to have all my friends directly get notified of my posts,  but that will take a while as I still get my hands around editing and managing my site.

    Till then, do continue to read me up on Facebook and keep commenting and sharing.

    Thanks for the tons of wishes on my Birthday! Given so many good wishes in my basket this year, I am pretty sure this year is going to be simply rocking!!!!

     

     

  • Drama Skills

    Toynas school teacher told her today that she is very good in Drama. He also promised her a role in the next school drama show.

    I was surprised that one – it took them so long to observe this skill of hers (which I have been subject to for eternity) and two – how differently we reward a skill like Drama at school vs. at home.

    How I wish she didn’t have to practice Drama at home to really hone this skill!

  • Expressing Anger

    How do you express yourself when you are angry with someone?

    Toyna found a completely new way of expressing her emotions for her dad,Pavan Kota. 

    She was extremely upset with him so she made a beautiful “I love you Papa” card for him. She gave it to him when he came home and then took it back from him and tore it, exclaming she was still angry with him.

    Ouch! I admit this girl is super creative.

  • Professionally Speaking

    There is a lot that I do, and a lot that I don’t do at work.

     

  • You sure you want to be here!?!

    I am honestly surprised that someone would want to come to my website.

    So please be sure you have the correct address before you start navigating further.

    If you suffer any mental trauma, start hallucinating or just plain simple fall in love with me, remember, I will not be responsible.

  • True Lies

    My elder one walks into the kitchen, immediately after coming back from school. With a big sigh and a dramatic pause she proudly discloses “I lost my water bottle cap today in the bus. I was drinking water, the bus moved, the cap fell and I couldn’t find it!” Fortunately, I am cooking at the stove, with my back to her, so she can’t see my instant reaction of rage. I stop for a moment to take in a deep breath and turn around to look at her. We look at each other in the eye, and then both of us, at almost the same time, exclaim “Another One!?!”. With that we both burst out laughing and I give her a big hug.  

    She just lost the cap but that makes the whole water bottle pretty much useless. It is probably the fourth water bottle that she has rendered useless in the three months she’s been going to school. Of course, my instant reaction is of fury thinking of the money and the effort on my part and the irresponsibility on her part. But none of it matters at this time. All that matters is that she came home and told me the truth. For that, she deserves a big hug! 

    Things were not always so happy between us. She used to get bitterly scolded for losing anything from her school bag or for missing homework or getting less grades or for fighting with a friend. Essentially, she used to get scolded for everything that children are supposed to do. The end result was that she started lying to me, trying to put the blame on someone else for the mistake that she had committed. Her lies were easy to catch and they made matters worse. In addition to have done the mistake, she now got scolded for having lied about it too. It was a vicious cycle. The more she lied, the more she got scolded. The more she was scolded, the more she revolted and made more mistakes, which lead to even more lies. I was in despair and didn’t know how to handle this. She had even started lying about things that she didn’t need to, things that didn’t even matter.

    One day, we sat down to have a girl to girl discussion. I told her, I was aware she was lying about a lot of things and I was not happy about it. I also told her that in my opinion, the reason she was lying, was because she thought that she would get scolded if she told the truth. She nodded instantly and had tears forming in her eyes. I wanted to start my whole lecture about honesty and responsibility all over again, but something told me, it would not help. Instead I made a promise to her. I promised her that I would not scold her ever, no matter how big the mistake, if only she would come and tell me the truth about it. She looked at me like as if saying “There goes one more of your false promises. I know I will be scolded each time.”

    There was no way of making her believe my promise, apart from practicing it right from then on. Each time she lied, I would not scold her, remind her about my promise and encourage her to tell the truth. It took months of patience and hard work to make her realize that Mom, indeed, meant her promise. During this time, it was more important for me to build my bond with her, for her to consider me a friend. It was only when she considered me a friend, that she would tell me the truth. It was only when I knew the truth that I would know what was happening in her life. And it was only then that I could ever hope to guide her about values that I wanted her to believe in.

    Nowadays, we usually laugh about the mistakes she made. Most of these conversation starts with “Mama, mistake happened!” That sentence in itself tells me that she realizes it was wrong and should not have happened. When she herself is feeling bad about it, then why the hell, do I need to scold her. All I need to do is give a patient hearing, and maybe try and help her come up with a few tricks so that the mistake doesn’t happen again.

    Mistakes are a part of each persons life. More so, when we are children. My school friends still remember that I had a strange disorder of throwing out bottle parts (tubes, caps, handles, etc.) from the school bus. I got scolded for it at home, but did it change me?

    I hope to remember my promise to her as she grows up and mistakes increase in frequency and intensity. I admit, in order to keep my promise, I still need to remind myself that she will only tell me the truth, if and only if she feels comfortable sharing her life with me. If she lies to me again, it is not she who has failed, but I who have broken my bond with her in some way.