Anirudh will be two in August of 2009 and I am yet to adjust to the idea that he is not a baby anymore and that he is a toddler about to enter the "terrible twos". So the idea of Anirudh going to school still seems far into the future for me. Still…I will tryJ
When Anirudh was about to be born, I and Chakku had seriously contemplated on whether I should continue working or take a break, because being there for the baby and not missing any of his "Firsts" was of paramount importance to us. However, the God-sent option to work from home until he was one year old just made that decision a lot easier. Even so, we knew that after my mom left for India, I would need a hand at home with the baby if I had to punch in my 40 hrs/wk productively.
So in came Anirudh's first school....at home....Our Biji. Biji, a middle-aged Punjabi lady, came home 8-4 every weekday to help with the baby and some household chores. That was my first experience at sharing Gutloo's (That’s his nickname at home) responsibilities with someone outside the family. At some level, I believe that this experience with Biji the first year was his first school. He was so attached to her that I must admit it made me a little jealous sometimes. He would sprint to her the moment she entered the house in the morning and yap in a very whiny tone in his babbling language on how he missed her. (Well, that our interpretation!). I was just very thankful that I was home to enjoy all his firsts...like his first word (boooovaaa), the first time he sat, stood and walked. (Not to forget, we also enjoyed some divine parathas and Rajma from Biji tooJ). All this he did with Biji and we will always be thankful for giving our baby such a wonderful time while his parents were engaged in their work hours.
The change came in when we bought our house and the commute was not something Biji could make and we had to start looking at other options. We decided to look for another nanny in the new neighborhood and actually found one the very same month we moved. We were ecstatic about having found her since we were hoping the same routine could continue. However, this was destined to be our sour experience. This was the first time I experienced the pain of someone making my child unhappy. She was not quite taking care of him and I was no longer able to work from home since my one yr option had just expired. I remember the day I came back from work and Gutloo came running to me crying and I could tell he was trying to tell me that he was very very unhappy. I remember how his sadness hit me like a bolt. I had just gotten a glimpse of how my son is a piece of me and how it is absolutely not okay that he be unhappy. We immediately terminated our relationship with the new nanny and started looking for other options close by.
It was then that our next door neighbor (an Indian as well) suggested that I should try Shahana's day care, as she and many of her friends had a wonderful experience there. This time around we wanted to be sure that he took to the person taking care of him all day. We spent about an hour with Shahana one evening and Gutloo seemed to be comfortable around her. Apart from the fact that we would have someone take care of Gutloo while we were at work, some of the obvious pros in the arrangement seemed to be that he would learn social skills early, share both toys and affection/attention and maybe build some health immunity too in the process.
Shahana's day care is a licensed day care based out of a home and Shahana and Carmen Aunty take care of about 8-10 kids. Talking about how we felt dropping him off the first time, I was very very very anxious the night before. I kept doing silly things like checking his bag about 20 times to make sure he had all he needed to get through the day( Blanket, shoes, spare clothes, spare for spare clothes, a familiar toy, diaper...well, u get the idea). I packed his food and was so anxious that I packed 4 times the food he will eat. I even went to the extent of labelling rice as "Rice" and banana as "Fruit" just in case...(just in case of what? ...I do not know!!!). Shahana must have certainly thought “Does this teeny weenie boy actually eat this much?????”
So when we dropped him, as expected, he started crying and was quite lost and Shahana instantly picked him up, cuddled him and took him to her backyard. We bid goodbye and left for work. I called her 2-3 times that day to see how he was doing and apparently, he had stopped crying in 10-15 minutes but was missing me every now and then. This continued for about 2-3 weeks everyday and everyday he would cry lesser and lesser until the day finally arrived when he saw us at the door waved bubbye and blew a flying kiss. You would think that this would be among our happiest moments, but I did feel a tad upset that may be we have made our child independent way too soon. He is just one yr old and he should still be needing amma and appa....but we were also very relieved that he was happy to be there. And now the situation is that its quite a battle bringing him back home coz he doesn’t wanna leave Shahana and his friends.....he sees me in the evening...runs to me, huggie kissie and all and then runs right back into the play room or starts hiding behind Shahana. Its adorable to see him so attached to his friends Nandini, Saatvika, Aayush Karthik and so many more. We have seen first hand what a dramatic change the day care brought in Gutloo's personality. He started loving having people over. He never liked to see guests go back home...and most importantly, he takes less than 5 minutes to make friends with anyone.
In fact we have even experimented with him staying over without us. During my mom's visit this spring, he got very attached to her and so, when she left to stay at my brother's place (about 30 miles away), we let him stay with her a few times for 2-3 days at a time and he was very okay with the experiment. Every time, he would say bye happily and not be cranky through the stay at all. How I behaved those 2-3 days is a whole different story all together. In fact I was super cranky and whiny without my munchkin jumping all over me. It is funny how Chakku and I said the same thing in completely different tones….
Kanchu: Its so quiet!!! (Frowny Whiny Mopy very sad low tone) (Very Kannan)
Chakku: Its so quiet!!! (Smiley, Relieved, “I cannot believe it!”, “WOW” tone) (Very Aarumugamangalam)
Love,
Kanchu
When Anirudh was about to be born, I and Chakku had seriously contemplated on whether I should continue working or take a break, because being there for the baby and not missing any of his "Firsts" was of paramount importance to us. However, the God-sent option to work from home until he was one year old just made that decision a lot easier. Even so, we knew that after my mom left for India, I would need a hand at home with the baby if I had to punch in my 40 hrs/wk productively.
So in came Anirudh's first school....at home....Our Biji. Biji, a middle-aged Punjabi lady, came home 8-4 every weekday to help with the baby and some household chores. That was my first experience at sharing Gutloo's (That’s his nickname at home) responsibilities with someone outside the family. At some level, I believe that this experience with Biji the first year was his first school. He was so attached to her that I must admit it made me a little jealous sometimes. He would sprint to her the moment she entered the house in the morning and yap in a very whiny tone in his babbling language on how he missed her. (Well, that our interpretation!). I was just very thankful that I was home to enjoy all his firsts...like his first word (boooovaaa), the first time he sat, stood and walked. (Not to forget, we also enjoyed some divine parathas and Rajma from Biji tooJ). All this he did with Biji and we will always be thankful for giving our baby such a wonderful time while his parents were engaged in their work hours.
The change came in when we bought our house and the commute was not something Biji could make and we had to start looking at other options. We decided to look for another nanny in the new neighborhood and actually found one the very same month we moved. We were ecstatic about having found her since we were hoping the same routine could continue. However, this was destined to be our sour experience. This was the first time I experienced the pain of someone making my child unhappy. She was not quite taking care of him and I was no longer able to work from home since my one yr option had just expired. I remember the day I came back from work and Gutloo came running to me crying and I could tell he was trying to tell me that he was very very unhappy. I remember how his sadness hit me like a bolt. I had just gotten a glimpse of how my son is a piece of me and how it is absolutely not okay that he be unhappy. We immediately terminated our relationship with the new nanny and started looking for other options close by.
It was then that our next door neighbor (an Indian as well) suggested that I should try Shahana's day care, as she and many of her friends had a wonderful experience there. This time around we wanted to be sure that he took to the person taking care of him all day. We spent about an hour with Shahana one evening and Gutloo seemed to be comfortable around her. Apart from the fact that we would have someone take care of Gutloo while we were at work, some of the obvious pros in the arrangement seemed to be that he would learn social skills early, share both toys and affection/attention and maybe build some health immunity too in the process.
Shahana's day care is a licensed day care based out of a home and Shahana and Carmen Aunty take care of about 8-10 kids. Talking about how we felt dropping him off the first time, I was very very very anxious the night before. I kept doing silly things like checking his bag about 20 times to make sure he had all he needed to get through the day( Blanket, shoes, spare clothes, spare for spare clothes, a familiar toy, diaper...well, u get the idea). I packed his food and was so anxious that I packed 4 times the food he will eat. I even went to the extent of labelling rice as "Rice" and banana as "Fruit" just in case...(just in case of what? ...I do not know!!!). Shahana must have certainly thought “Does this teeny weenie boy actually eat this much?????”
So when we dropped him, as expected, he started crying and was quite lost and Shahana instantly picked him up, cuddled him and took him to her backyard. We bid goodbye and left for work. I called her 2-3 times that day to see how he was doing and apparently, he had stopped crying in 10-15 minutes but was missing me every now and then. This continued for about 2-3 weeks everyday and everyday he would cry lesser and lesser until the day finally arrived when he saw us at the door waved bubbye and blew a flying kiss. You would think that this would be among our happiest moments, but I did feel a tad upset that may be we have made our child independent way too soon. He is just one yr old and he should still be needing amma and appa....but we were also very relieved that he was happy to be there. And now the situation is that its quite a battle bringing him back home coz he doesn’t wanna leave Shahana and his friends.....he sees me in the evening...runs to me, huggie kissie and all and then runs right back into the play room or starts hiding behind Shahana. Its adorable to see him so attached to his friends Nandini, Saatvika, Aayush Karthik and so many more. We have seen first hand what a dramatic change the day care brought in Gutloo's personality. He started loving having people over. He never liked to see guests go back home...and most importantly, he takes less than 5 minutes to make friends with anyone.
In fact we have even experimented with him staying over without us. During my mom's visit this spring, he got very attached to her and so, when she left to stay at my brother's place (about 30 miles away), we let him stay with her a few times for 2-3 days at a time and he was very okay with the experiment. Every time, he would say bye happily and not be cranky through the stay at all. How I behaved those 2-3 days is a whole different story all together. In fact I was super cranky and whiny without my munchkin jumping all over me. It is funny how Chakku and I said the same thing in completely different tones….
Kanchu: Its so quiet!!! (Frowny Whiny Mopy very sad low tone) (Very Kannan)
Chakku: Its so quiet!!! (Smiley, Relieved, “I cannot believe it!”, “WOW” tone) (Very Aarumugamangalam)
Love,
Kanchu
A thing which comes loud and clear from ur experiences, is that you are having a gaaaala time and enjoying every moment of it; typically like a 22 0r so something, a la "kareena Kapoor in say "jab we met" dancing in rain and in love. Najar nahin lag jayee beti, ask Amma if she is still there to do "najar utharofy".
ReplyDeletePerhaps you can send this piece to any one of the american magazines, who come out as "love starved" people who have to talk of love every second to remain alive. Your candour, and uncomplicated love towards every other human being, would be a roaring success story, methinks.
Love to you and Chaku dear
Vichu
Kanchana,
ReplyDeleteI had mentioned in an aside conversation to Vichu Athan, that gutloo's first word - boooovaaa, could possibly mean "Athai" in the northern part of India.
Our love to gutloo for reminding us of our own athai, whom we loved as much as gutloo did his Biji(which incidentally is also athai in Punjabi, if I am not mistaken)
Hi Kanchana & Shekhar,
ReplyDeleteGave us (Anu & I) great joy to read this post of yours. Not the least because it was almost entirely true for us!!!
The nanny, the mother's feelings, the temporary work-from-home freedom, the 'silence'... everything!
In fact, we also saw a couple of Day Care Centers here, with similar reactions on our side. Only we have decided to wait it out till Aradhana is a full year old.
Since we haven't managed to write our piece for Ambu Athan as yet, (you know how it is at 9-10 months), we even thought we could simply cut-paste from yours and it would still be honest!!! Kidding ... but great to feel similar!
We must meet ... and so must our kids! Missing you all. Hi to Chaku,
Anand