Yesterday was a very big day….. for Tanay. We took him to Madison Square Garden to see Walking with Dinosaurs. We had told him when we booked the tickets which was months ago, but were very careful not to talk about it too much because then we have to go RIGHT AWAY. This was one of the cards I used to soften the blow of his grandparents’ return to India. Once it was out, I used up every single opportunity to play the ” We won’t take you to the dinosaur show card”. Stop whining…… else….., finish your water…. else…… stop making the T-rex jump on my head… else…! Yeah.. yeah… I can be mean sometimes. But c’mon! you have to agree with me, when was I going to get this golden chance again?!

So, the night before the show as I tucked him into bed, I told him to sleep tight and to not wake up too early as the show was only at 3pm. See… here’s where I always go wrong. Never tell a toddler to do something, especially when that something has important repercussions. Coz… of course he is going to do the exact opposite of that. Tanay was up at 6:30 that morning….. all bright eyed and ready for his dino adventure…. Groan!

Apart from all the dinosaur sightings, the city never fails to entertain me. Especially if you are riding the subway. And the best thing to do there is people watch. We met up with a cousin for lunch at this nice Thai place called Topaz in Midtown. Then on the subway to Madison Square Garden, there was this Hispanic guy carrying a smallish backpack, standing by the door. That backpack had a lock the size of a tennis ball!! A big red lock. And not just any regular lock. It appeared to have a couple of dials on it to set up a code or something. Real fancy. Needless to say, I spent the rest of the ride wondering what it was that he was trying to protect with such an inconspicuous seal. Hmmmm….

After the show, we went to H&M. That’s like my city routine which I HAVE to do. Shubham had to take a business call so we were just waiting outside the store. At this point Tanay had turned into a live ticking bomb. Tired… sleepy…. cranky but much too excited to rest and there was no way on earth that I was getting into a store by myself. To keep him busy, I decided  to get us some ice cream, when suddenly someone tapped on my shoulder. I turned and found myself facing not one…. not two but a big family of Gujaratis!!! For those who don’t know, I have a history of always being confronted and harassed by them. Although it is never intentional on their part. Anyways, so this family was looking for a particular address on Madison Ave and were asking for directions. I told them that I wasn’t sure, and that I would check with Shubham once he got off the phone. So I turned my back to them expecting them to leave. But, I had this strange sensation that they hadn’t left. You know the feeling that a dozen eyes are watching you. Yeah…. they were right where I had left them. They were all waiting for Shubham to finish his call. Yes….. all ten of them just stood there staring at him! He was totally creeped out and I was petrified that I would have to do small talk with them. Because of course, they have to talk to me in Gujarati. C’mon people, for the last time, I DO NOT SPEAK YOUR LANGUAGE! But luckily Tanay came to the rescue by indicating that the bomb was about to go off and well….. what followed was not pretty. But for once (and this will probably be the last time, unless I bump into them again) I was actually relieved that he had found this exact moment for a blow up. As for the Gujjus… they waited patiently for a while and when Shubham showed no signs of rescuing them, they left. I sincerely hope they reached their destination safely.

As for the show, It was brilliant! I LOVED it and I am not the dino fan. Tanay was beside himself with joy! But I must warn you of the flip side too. He woke up this morning at 5:30 am and stormed into our bed armed with 5 of his best dinosaurs and kept saying, “THE SHOW WAS AWESOME!! JUST AWESOME!”. After which he proceeded to put on an entire show of his own. This has resulted in me having the worst headache of the century. Apart from this minor irritant, the show gets our FIVE STAR rating and a must see recommendation. Even if you are not a dinosaur fan. You just might turn into one. Not sure if that’s a good thing or a bad thing. Well there is only one way to find out.

I have some very sad news with regards to my plants. Yes. You guessed right. They are all dying. They started off ok. And I did all that I was supposed to do. I think. However, a few days ago, I saw some weird looking stuff growing out of my planters. At first I thought, it was probably some new kind of a plant going through a delayed growth spurt. But no. Turns out….. they were weeds!! And they are everywhere!! Also, I think that the recent thunderstorms have been showering way more water than the plants really require. The worst part is my beautiful seven leaved indoor palm is down to just one leaf which is also slowly but surely rotting. Sigh!

Yeah… I am a bit sad. But I will survive. I don’t think I have the energy to try and revive them. Don’t get me wrong, I am still watering them religiously. I just think that I am done with gardening for this season. Next year….. who knows, my heart may be filled with renewed hope and energy. And no… I am not going to post any pictures of the destruction. I am not a sadist. But for now, I need to get myself a new indoor palm. Coz really there is nothing else that can go in that place in my living room. Shubham says, he is sick of all the slaughter. He wants to get a fake palm this time. But I think I am going to give it another try. Frankly, there is nothing like having a lush green plant blooming in your home.

There is a saying in India ” Ummeed par duniya kayam hain” meaning, ” This world lives on hope”.

My in-laws are back in their home in Delhi. Tanay is in school. It has been a while since I have been by myself. It’s not that I don’t like it, but I had kinda gotten used to all the activity in the house and the chit chat over tea and snacks. It’s not just me. Even Tanay misses them terribly. This morning, he didn’t want to go to school. He had been having too good a time with them. Why bother going to school when you are having so much fun at home!

Just the night before they left, Maa asked Tanay, if he would like to go to India with them. Without hesitation he replied, ” No. I belong here. I belong in my home in New Jersey.” To begin with I didn’t even know that he was aware of the word “belong”, forget using it correctly in a sentence. I was just stunned by the conviction with which he said that. Damn…. even I don’t know where I belong! Do I belong here…. in the US or back home… in India?! Which is my home? I seriously don’t know! Shubham thinks I am digging too deep into it. Well… I can’t help it. I think I am going to stop now. This post sucks!

Lately life has become rather interesting. Mr. Curious Tanay has gotten into the habit of questioning every single thing that comes out of my mouth. Not only that, he also doubts my every sentence with a,” ARE YOU SURRRE?!”. At one point, after becoming completely frazzled, I finally uttered,” YES! I am sure. Coz I am your mother and I know everything!”. He was almost about to doubt me again but the look on my face made him stop. Needless to say I am trying to have that exact look permanently plastered across my face. 

The past few nights, we have changed our bedtime loyalties from A-Z of Dinosaurs to My first Animal Encyclopedia. We are particularly interested in the Mammal section. So, yesterday night, I was going through the differences between a mammal and a bird.

Me: So… a bird lays eggs. And a mammal?

Tanay: A mammal does not lay eggs.

Me: Correct. Mammals give birth to babies.

Tanay: Are you a mammal?

Me: Yes…… and I gave birth to you. You are my baby.

Tanay: Are you sure?

Me: YES! I AM SURE! You were in my tummy.

Tanay (looking at me from top to toe): Hmmmm….. but I don’t see any door?! 

I seriously was not prepared for this discussion so early on in life. I mean, C’mon…. he is just three and a half for crying out loud! Also, when I mentioned this to Shubham, he remembered asking the same “where do babies come from” question to his grandpa when he was 6 yrs old. Every generation seems to be getting there faster. Eh?! Not fun when you are at the receiving end.

A few nights ago, Tanay woke up in the night screaming bloody murder. He kept trying to explain something but I just could not understand. Seriously, it’s almost impossible to understand the words coming out of his mouth when he is crying like that. After I had him all calmed down, it finally hit me. My poor baby had had a bad dream. And apparently the cute little frog faced humidifier was the one scaring the shit out of him. Apparently, he was staring at him!! To put things in perspective…… try and visualize this. At the last count he had 132 dinosaurs and approximately another 100 animals in his room. There is also a Dinosaurs of the World map right above his bed. This was strategically placed by him so that he could see all of them lying down. One would think that the frog humidifier would be the last thing to haunt him. But no…..  we are all wrong. At his insistence, I turned the humidifier around so that the frog wouldn’t face him anymore. And, of course, I had to spend the night on the floor in his room. No complaints. Anything to keep him away from my room and my bed. 

So, the next morning I introduced him to the dream catcher. I had picked this really beautiful one from Lake Tahoe long before Tanay was born. It was time for it to fulfill it’s destiny. Tanay seemed rather skeptical. I don’t blame him. if someone told me that three circles hanging from each other surrounded by weird dangly feathers was going to protect me from an evil frog…… I would laugh in his face. Nevertheless, we ceremoniously hung the ornament next to his bed. Come night time…. he started getting the creepers again. Well…. the spooky frog was facing the other way and the dream catcher was all ready to do it’s job. It was all going to be fine. I assured him. I kissed him good night and walked out. After about ten minutes, I started hearing some noises from his room. When I went in, he sat up in his bed and whispered, ” The dream catcher is not working.” So we shook it up a little bit and gave it a fair warning and I walked out hoping for the best. Fast forward to the following morning, Tanay ran into our room and announced, ” THE DREAM CATCHER IS GREAT. IT WORKED. YOU TOLD ME SO.” Whew!

Now…. only if I could get one that would work for me. Most of you know about my dream obsession with snakes and the like. I desperately need something to fix that. Also ever since I visited my aunt’s place over the weekend, her three cats have been creeping me out in my sleep. I keep waking up in the night kicking my feet around. Duh! that’s because the cats keep coming and licking them. SHUDDER!

This, my friends, is how we look when we are MAD!!! In other words this is our Tantrum-face. You see that mouth open wide…. well… I have seen it open even wider. And just try and imagine the scream that comes out of that big gaping hole. It’s PURE TORTURE. Nothing you say or do can stop it. Unless of course you give in to his whim and fulfill his every wish and command. And if I start doing that, then I will have to request the Walking with Dinosaurs guys to let me buy a 30 foot tyrant reptile from them. Ofcourse, not only will we go broke, we may also end up in a mental asylum. So, what I am trying to say is, I have to PUT MY FOOT DOWN. If that means ignoring him while he lets out these ferocious roars… so be it. I have become quite immune to all this by now. I just let him get it all out. Ofcourse, a full blown public tantrum can get quite tricky, not to mention embarassing. But I am so beyond it . As for the rest of you witnessing the drama…. just deal with it. Because I WILL NOT CAVE TO THIS INSANITY. 

Almost always these tantrums are followed by a very loud, ” I DON’T LIKE YOU ANYMORE!!”. You would think that hearing this from my own flesh and blood would shred my heart to pieces. But frankly. No. By the time I get to hear this, I am so done with him that all I say is, ” FINE. I am not a big fan of yours right now either!”. Childish. Juvenile. Call me that if you like. But I am a person who needs to blow out the steam. I cannot leave it seething in me and pretend to be normal on the outside. We had one such fight at the Air and Space Museum in DC. Shubham was amused enough to take a picture of us sulking.

The other day after one such fight, I announced loudly that if he didn’t like me anymore then I would like to just pack my stuff and go to my mother’s house in Bombay. That calmed him down and got him thinking. Fast forward to next morning, where we were squabbling over how long he could sit in his bath which resulted in another, ” I WANT MY PAPA, I DON’T LIKE MOMMA!”. When I handed over the towel to Shubham and walked out, I overheard Tanay saying, ” Uh oh! She is mad. I think she may want to go to Bombay now!”. And that’s when we hugged and made up. 

Ever since Shubham started working on this website, he seems so much happier. Simply because he loves doing it. In fact, he beams at me every time I ask him to make any changes. It’s a perfect situation for him. I cannot complain that he is spending way too much time on the computer. Since I don’t want to hear, “But, I am doing it for you!”. All I can do is patiently wait it out. And if you know him even a little bit, you would know that he will not stop until everything is just PERFECT!!… which is great… most of the times. But sometimes I wish, he would just let the font color be “Light Grey” instead of “Very Slightly Light Grey”. So , a few weeks ago I expressed my desire to have a way of posting a Daily Photo. But nothing seemed to be progressing on that front. So, I resorted to some public humiliation techniques. Mind you, I was not trying to be a bitch. But sometimes a guy needs a bit of a push… you know!

What can I say….. it worked. Yesterday night when he came out of the study doing his famous victory dance, I just assumed that he had either cracked a deal at work or made some money on his sagging stocks. Alas! it was neither. He had finished his assignment!  Although I would have been happier if one of the former were true. I mean face it. As much as I would love to believe that advertisers are lining up outside my door, the truth of the matter is that no one is paying me to write this. But, we are talking about something much more important than money. Yes…. it’s called doing justice to one’s creativity.

The next task on my “Shubham’s list of things to do” is to identify each reader and threaten them with a time-out if they do not leave a good comment. That should keep him busy and happy for a while.

I am so kicked. For the very first time, I drove across the border and into a new country. Yes. I am blogging from my hotel room in Canada. And not just any hotel room. The very best falls facing Jr Presidential Suite the country has to offer.

To be honest, I was dreading this trip. And I still am, coz the return journey remains. After the hell Tanay gave us over a 4 hour DC drive, I was so not looking forward to this. So this time, I was armed with the most powerful ammunition ever. THE PORTABLE DVD PLAYER! I am one of those moms who does not believe in letting their kid watch much TV at home. My philosophy is simple. I reserve it for occasions such as these. Of course he was overjoyed, albeit a little suspicious of the sudden change in my attitude towards TV watching. But it had to be done. In the name of peace. I just hope that his eyes don’t fall out of their sockets by the time we get home.

As we neared the border, I couldn’t help but wonder if the Falls would live up to the hype. I mean, how wonderful can some water falling down the cliff be!? Well……. they are just INSANELY beautiful. So mesmerised was I, that even the tons of Gujjus chattering away in their mother tongue couldn’t get to me. I just stood gaping at Falls in my blue raincoat, as the Maid of the Mist weaved through another brilliant rainbow. It was as if I had touched a rainbow. I almost choked. As if I didn’t want even my breathing to get in the way. I am probably sounding all woozy……. but here I am, sitting on the couch, staring at them lying by my feet, the brilliant lights playing a beautiful tune and the fireworks making me wish that I had a bottle of wine next to me….. wouldn’t you be a bit tipsy? ….even without the wine?! However, we did get a little worried when the fellow behind the wheel showed no sign of turning the boat around. I mean… yeah the Falls are great, but c’mon I don’t want to die choking. GET ME BACK TO LAND!

So.. CANADA. I am very glad that I finally met you. You really are sexy. I hope that I can make it back in August with Shubham. I should probably go to bed now. Even though I simply cannot take my eyes off the beauty that lie is front of me….. Good night Niagara!!

You guys are probably bored of reading my posts by now. They seem to comprise of only two things… dinosaurs and Kung Fu Panda. No…wait. Make that three. With the arrival of the parental units, food comes in at an impressive #3. But, really I am not making it up. This is my life. And I don’t mind it. Not one bit.

Last week when I went to Party City to pick up some balloons for Maa’s birthday, I saw these adorable Kung Fu Panda character masks. I had two choices. Either I buy them or face the wrath of the most dangerous kung Fu master ever known to mankind …… Master Tanay. Which really means that I had no choice. He was thrilled. And there is nothing in this world that makes me happier, than to see his tiny face light up like that. Here is the flip side. What began after that was pure torture…… for the entire family. We have been assigned characters and we HAVE TO play along. ALL THE TIME. Ofcourse, he is the evil leopard Tai-Lung. He only wants to be Po, when he feels like raiding the cookie jar, coz, THAT”S HOW PO EATS COOKIES!!!

Fast forward to this morning. Breakfast time.

Tanay: It’s summer time right? I need to take a vacation.

Me: I would love that too. Keep chewing.

Tanay: I really must go and meet Tai-Lung. He is waiting for me on the rope bridge. We have to go to Ancient China right now. RIGHT NOW. Let’s go…. LET’S GO…. LET’S GO!

Me: Keep chewing. THUD! (That’s the sound you hear when my brain collapses, resulting in a complete shutdown).

If anyone knows a travel agent who can get us to Ancient China RIGHT AWAY, please let me know. We will bring back souvenirs. I promise.

I am a worry wart. I tend to get hyper and start to overreact over rather silly things. It was actually quite bad until Tanay was born. Then….. it got out of control. That was the peak. That’s when I slowly started realizing that unless I wanted Tanay to start thinking that his mom is a raging lunatic and run away from home at the age of five, I better get my act together. I still get stressed out every now & then but it’s not so bad. Atleast that’s what I think, although it’s totally possible that Shubham & Tanay may have completely opposite views.

Sometimes I wonder if Tanay ever gets stressed out. I mean, I am sure a toddler’s life can get pretty rough at times. All the alphabets and numbers to learn and the pressure to color within the lines, the time out threats, the constant nagging to eat vegetables and drink water….just to name a few. Just thinking about it is stressing me out. Damn… I need to give the kid a break. Point noted.

I have a feeling that his teachers at school have realized what a hard time the kids are having in today’s big bad world. Yesterday, Tanay came back from school in a rather cheerful mood. So, we asked him about his day. That’s when he forced Shubham and Papa to sit down for a lesson in, what he calls, “Toddler Relaxation”. I guess he realized that we needed it more than him. So, there on the living room floor sat three generations of men trying to get rid of all the negativity that was getting in the way of a happier existence.

As you can see, the technique is pretty simple. Just don’t forget to alternate the “ooh” and the “aah”. It seems to be the crux of the entire process. Try it out. C’mon, don’t be shy. Let me know if it works!