your first crush

My dear son,

Today at 7:30 am, after your morning rituals were over, I decided to teach you how to spray paint with a tooth brush. This was one of the very few art works I loved to do. You sprayed the brush once with your thumb, looked at your hands and ran off to wash your hands. At your return, I asked you to resume the brush art work. You nodded, showed me your hands and said “now hands are clean”. That was the end of that. You screamed at your very good friend because she messed up your room. It has been a couple of days since then but you are still refusing to do a play-date with her because of that incident. Yes, I think like your father, you are a cleanliness freak. 

Yesterday, you insisted on going to the market in your superhero cape and mask. And for some unknown reason you were very kicked about the fact that children might laugh at you. And vainly you roamed the market like that until a little girl laughed at you. Thankfully you removed your superhero gear then. I guess like all the children in the world, you want to be a superhero too.

Last Saturday was a revelation. You went with us to the opthamologist and responded to her in the most mature way possible. I think you also fell for her a little bit as you have been religiously following her advice – to the point of even reminding me also that the doctor told you to have a banana,

Yesterday, you woke up at your usual 6 am but said you were sleepy. So I asked you, “should we sleep some more?” To which you replied with a question, “no office today?” You are 4 years, 3 months old now and for the last 3 months, since I joined office, I am sneaking off to work, literally. The few times I tried to say good bye to you, you would start crying. But in the last 3 months, I am proud to say you have become more independent than ever before. In the bathroom. You still refuse to eat food on your own and we are still threatening / cajoling on a daily basis during all meal times.

I made you join dance class this week. For two classes you just observed and your eyes were glued to the dancing children, but you refused to dance. And then just like that, at the tail end of the second class, you got off from the chair, told me not to follow you very emphatically, and joined the other kids.

A few days back, we had gone to meet your little cousin Tia. Your grandma had not accompanied us. And you were quite miffed about it. So much so, that you took my phone and faked a conversation with her for 20 mins trying to convince her to come and join us.

In the month of May, we were involved with two dinner dates. You threw up in both. We organized a couple of splash pool party cum play dates. We also went to HK which was a hit and you fully enjoyed the flight, the hotels, riding in the metro, bus, and ofcourse the highlight was hour-long market visits while you were perched on to your dad’s shoulders.

 Two movies and you slept in both. The second movie, you insisted on sitting on your seat and not sharing it with either of us. I ended up watching the movie from an aisle below.

Everytime you poop, you go check your weight and height. Your favourite channel is rhymes tv and these days you are obsessed about eating jackfruit. So we sliced and offered melons and you were happy to eat our version of jackfruit. You wear the blue-pink car shoes for every outing and fall asleep listening to pepper stories. Every night.