Promoted to Dad

My daughter was playing a computer game. The most I feel like irritating her is when she’s focused on something. She was saying, “For members only. For members only. For members only. Ah I can buy this!” You can buy items on the game with points you earn by playing the game. The game is free to play, but you can pay real money and become a member. Members earn more points and can buy more items. She usually doesn’t complain. She knows we’re too cheap to pay for games, but she’s seems content with that. Today she unusually remarked, “Why is everything for members?” I say to her, “When you grow up, make a game that allows non-members to buy anything they want”. She says, “Good idea” with a straight face. I’m not sure at this point if she’s just saying okay to get rid of me, or because she really liked the idea. I had also implied that she should make games when she grows up, and she usually doesn’t allow me to make hypothetical career choices for her. So, I decide to dig a little deeper...

This is what a lot of our conversations sound like: Daughter: “Can I tell you what happened in My Little Pony?” Me: “Sure” Daughter: “So first princess Celestia calls all the ponies to Ponyville. Oh and Rarity, she’s making a new dress for her friend. Oh and Twilight Sparkle .. “ Me: “You have five sentences” Daughter: “Ten” My wife: “Seven” (I’m already angry about this because I would have stuck to five) I want her to learn two seemingly conflicting skills. The ability to summarize and the ability to tell a story; not five sentences that may or may not be connected. I also want two seemingly conflicting things for myself! I want to listen to all her stories in great detail, but also have time to have my own thoughts. Everyone tells me that when she’s a teenager, I won’t be able to get more than a couple of syllables from her. I hate that thought. On the other hand, I also dream about dinners where we’re talking about the news or discussing some ideas, or just enjoying the food in si...

My daughter has had walkie talkies before. They were cheap toys, and didn’t work well. They were fun for five minutes but quickly grew old. This time as we were at the toy store, she said she wanted walkie talkies again. I told her that if she didn’t get a toy, we would get her real walkie talkies. I searched online and found a pair of regular walkie talkies. I didn’t realize what a good investment I’m making at the time. We constantly use them now. Me: [static] “Breakfast is done” [Beep] Daughter: [static] “Okay. Just need to clean up and I’ll come down” [Beep] Daughter: [static] “Papi, I need help. I can’t open this” [Beep] Me: [static] “Coming. Hang on” [Beep] Sometimes we also talk to each other using the walkie talkies, even when we’re clearly within earshot. There are two other funny side effects of buying the walkie talkies. First, my daughter is now ‘teaching’ me to always use the walkie talking when not in the same room. Sometimes she has clearly heard me, ...

What is it, that's so satisfying about watching my daughter drink hot chocolate? Sometimes your job as a parent seems to be to get your child to calm down. Children are naturally in one of two states. Super excited (happy) and super excited (sad). As a parent, while you don't expect them to be completely zen or emotionless, your ideal state would be for them to be happy, but not mind blown happy. This is the state I find my daughter in, when she's sipping on hot chocolate, while reading a book. To top it, the thick chocolatey liquid also seems nutritious. It's probably not, but it looks like it. So it satisfies another primal need to provide nutrition to my offspring. I am step away from beating my chest in this hip cafe, as I type this. Oh, and the last reason why this is so satisfying. Its because we’re spending time with each other without needing to talk. So I have the luxury to ponder this question, sip on my cappuccino and even write this piece! Ah! I feel like ...

I’m a bit crazy about being on time. Okay fine, I’m obsessed about it. Every morning I’m a bit of nervous wreck, trying to get my daughter and myself ready and fed. Since I’m obsessed, there’s a sequence of steps I follow, with a set time for each step to be completed. As long as I keep meeting those timelines, I know things are in control. As soon as they slip, I lose my mind. Something that can add more stress, is an early morning meeting. I can handle it, since I’ve done those a few times. I know which steps need to be adjusted, so I can still leave the house at the same time.  This happened a few days ago. I had an early morning meeting. Now, as soon as I come out of my meeting, I expect my daughter to have changed. However, this particular morning, I come out and see her in her pyjamas. The meeting had already induced some stress, but missing the timeline! I am now in physical pain! With the pain carrying through in my voice, I ask her why she isn’t wearing her school clothe...

A few of vignettes that I’d like to remember from the last month or so. --- On Martin Luther King day, my daughter decided (unprompted) to tell us why this day is celebrated. She tells us that in the past there was segregation between white and black people. She also mentioned Rosa Parks, and since we’re relatively new to the US, we had not heard of her. As this was the first time I heard my daughter bring up race, I asked her, “so, what are you?” (implying, ‘what is our race?’). She says, “I am..” and proceeds to tell us her name. As me and my wife are laughing at the innocent answer, she asks, “What was I supposed to say?”. All I could say was, “That was the perfect answer. I expected nothing less from you.” --- I heard my daughter whistle for the first time recently. I asked her, “so you can whistle now?”. She says nonchalantly, “yes, its easier for me now since I don’t have my front two teeth”. --- Sometimes she’ll use a new word or phrase in her vocabulary, and it often impresses...

I’m starting to see that my daughter is turning out to be quite competitive. In fact we were already using this trait to get her to do stuff we wanted, without realizing what a big part of her personality this is. There are two competitions she has early in the morning, before going to school! One is with her mother. I am the judge, and I decide who’s brushed their teeth better. Almost everyday I decide that its my daughter, but on some days I call it a draw. Mainly because I like to flex my power as a judge. The other competition, for which a judge is not required, is with me. Whoever gets ready the fastest wins. I think I’ve won twice in the last three months. I’m sure its a matter of time before she figures this out, but right now, she’s very motivated to brush her teeth well and get ready fast. Maybe I’m shooting myself in the foot by typing out all of this. However, after all of this ‘gamification’ being put in practice, I only began to realize the importance of competition for h...

At school one of the children cut some pieces of paper together and wrote a ‘how-to book’. My daughter has written ‘books’ before by stapling paper together before, but this inspired my daughter to write a how-to book. She asked her teacher if this was a requirement and was told that it was not, but its still a nice thing to do. When our daughter told us about her drive to write a how-to book, we asked her what kind of a how-to book was she thinking about. “I want to write a how-to book about how to write how-to books”. We had to work hard to keep our erupting laughter in check. I knew straight away that this one is blog material. I asked her if she would consider writing a how-to book about how to write how-to books that teach how to write how-to books? This was too much for her. She didn’t like this idea. I think it was too niche. Anyway, I had fun helping her. This is the outcome. See for yourself.

We all look for fairness or justice in life, but recently when I read ‘ Tipping Sacred Cows ’, it made me realize how this need for justice sometimes looks like. The author tells a story about a time when he tells one of his daughters that he’ll have to miss her birthday, as he needs to travel for work. The daughter obviously feels bad. When he asks her how he can make up for it, she asks him to miss his other daughter’s birthday. While my daughter too looks for fairness, I’ve not seen her take joy in someone suffering. If my wife kisses her goodbye, but then accidentally kisses me goodbye twice, then she wants that second kiss. If we spend a lot of time in front of our screens, then she wants more screen time. Come to think of it, ‘that’s not fair’, is almost a catchphrase for her. I want to tell her obviously that life isn’t fair, but I’d like to break it gently to her. However, I don’t think I can expect her to stop looking for it. Maybe she can stop expecting it, and not be taken ...

As we’re sitting on the table a day before Thanksgiving, I tell my daughter that tomorrow we must all talk about everything we’re thankful for. She’s decided that twenty four hours is too long a time to wait to be thankful. Now, had I been on a family table growing up, I’d have waited to be the last. That would have given me a chance to think about my list of things I’m thankful for. Luckily she’s a much faster and better version of me! She’s decided to go first, and jump straight in. She starts with her parents. Yay! Now, I’m really thankful that she started with her parents, because you’ll soon see that this was not a very short list. She says that we’re both nice and not mean parents. I do want to record that, but then I’m trying not be mean! Next, she’s happy for the house, and the fact that we have a place to live. So far so good. She seems to be going in the order I would have gone in too. Next she’s thankful that we have food to eat and clothes to wear. Now at this point, I can...

I recently did something bad to my back. Luckily with the thanksgiving week around the corner, I decided to take the entire thanksgiving week off and recover. The doctor prescribed a painkiller, a muscle relaxant and lots of rest. That’s exactly what I’ve been doing this week. Its having the right effect, and I’m doing a lot better. I did feel guilty that all this resting is putting more pressure on my wife, but I tell myself that its better to contain the problem and now rather than make it a long term disability, making it a lot worse for the family. I was feeling bad that I was neglecting my daughter. Luckily this was one area where I was pleasantly surprised! Everyday in the evening, rather than feel bad that I’m not with her, she comes to me. She asks me about my back. She will stroke her tiny hands on my head to make me feel better. For those five minutes, she’s the adult and I’m the child. Thanks honey, this time has meant the world to me.

We get a lot of homework! Five minutes of math, twenty minutes of reading and another homework sheet that could be any subject. Finally, there’s a ‘journal’. One sentence everyday about anything that interested or excited her. The sentence per day, has been a good insight for me. It forces her to choose the most interesting thing that day. I’ve noticed sometimes she cheats and writes the second most interesting thing, since she’s already written the most interesting thing once before. For example, “We went out for dinner”. If she can’t think of the second most interesting thing, then she may get a little more descriptive, in order to be less repetitive. For example, “We had burritos for dinner”. For me, the most interesting is when she decides to write something which tells me a bit more about her. She mentioned her friend’s absence from school once. She’s social, and this reaffirmed that importance that people have for her. She mentioned learning about syllables once. Again, she’s fo...

My daughter is just a kid. I know it’s obvious and sounds kind of stupid written down. It’s not always obvious to me though. Kids have a lot of accidents. Ergo, so does my daughter. Spilt milk. Spilt food. Toys stuck under the sofa. Trinkets stuck between two sliding doors. Elbows unintentionally hitting noses. Feet accidently stepping on feet. My guess is, she averages one per day. I told her she averages two a week, and she thought I was inflating the number. I sometimes (maybe I’m being kind to myself a bit) give her a hard time when she does have an accident. I look down using my height advantage, and give her a condescending look.  I say something on the lines of ‘accident again huh?’. Usually she has this sheepish, apologetic look, and nothing else is said. However today her true feelings came out. She’s been thinking about this during the course of the day. “You know accidents happen”, she says. If I’m doing something bad on purpose, then you can blame me. A fe...

Last night we went out for dinner with some friends. It was a long day and we had to drive for 45 minutes to reach the restaurant. My daughter was a bit sleepy by the time we ordered dinner and it seemed like an ordeal for her to go through dinner. She did perk up when server asked if we’d like to order dessert. Of course, being my girl, she wanted cheesecake. However, by the time the cheesecake arrived, my daughter had put her head down on the table and gone to sleep. We asked for the cheesecake to be put in a box. My daughter slept through the car ride home. Soon we were all tucked in and were in lands far far away. Now at 3.15 a.m., my daughter wanted to use the restroom. We get a knock on the door as she wanted to be tucked back in. I get ‘voluntold’ to get up. I tuck her in. She closes her eyes, and is about to sleep, when she suddenly opens her eyes wide! ‘Papa! There was a cheesecake!’. I smile and respond, ‘Yes. It’s in a box in fridge’. ‘Oh. Okay’. It then ta...

I think maybe we have too many rules for my daughter. On the other hand, we do make exceptions, and I think this is making her a great negotiator. Why? I think a good negotiator is one who’s faced with many rules (example: “This is the price, take it or leave it”), and understands that all ‘rules’ can be challenged. Of course, the caveat being, this only applies to rules made up parents, teachers, bosses, clients etc., not to rules made up by the courts and parliaments! Now, we may be wrong in having so many rules for her, and we also may be wrong in making exceptions. Maybe I’ll read parenting blogs about that and maybe I won’t. I do want to dive into the negotiation topic a bit more though. Lets take an example. She gets thirty minutes of screen time everyday. This can be TV, some apps/games on a tablet, or even a phone. This also includes any educational app! My daughter loves to read, and is also mandated (more rules) by her teacher to read. She never breaks this rule, because...

As I was changing her clothes yesterday, she shivered and said, ‘ooh I’m cold’. Of course, there was only one thing for me to say. Hi Cold, I’m dad. She laughed. A loud and genuine laugh. She then said, ‘That was a good one papi. You haven't told me that joke for a while’. What she left unsaid were two things. One, I’ve cracked similar jokes before. Two, more importantly, they are funny when not repeated for a long time. Alas, I don’t think I have much time with my dad jokes still making her laugh, but I’ll take whatever laughs I can get. It reminds of a time when I could laugh as openly.

One day, I’m back after a long day at work. My wife isn’t around. I’m trying to feed my daughter. She’s taking a painfully long time to chew her food. This is something she can do if she doesn’t feel like eating. She can keep the food in her mouth and not chew. You get stuck. You can’t tell her to open her mouth, because she’s got food in her mouth. You can’t keep waiting forever either, because either you’ll sit there all night or you’ll quit but not feed her enough. Now I know one school of thought is to let her go hungry for this meal, and she’ll not trouble in future, but I didn’t go to that school. So I hear myself telling her every few minutes, “chew”. “chew chew” It almost works a few times before it fails. I find myself getting angry and almost like an army sergeant yell, “Chew Chew Chew!” My daughter says, “That's a train!” You win some, you loose some. Note to daughter: You’ll have a kid someday. She/He’ll have your genes too!

Sometimes you hear yourself say something before you realize what you said. I really want my daughter to grow up at a normal pace. In fact my wife and me belong to that set of parents that worry that our daughter would grow up too soon and leave us. We won’t get to love her enough. Still, this is what I hear myself say: Me: “Grow up!” Daughter: “How?” Me: “Just stop behaving like a baby” Now like I said, I’m in no hurry for her to grow up. She’ll grow up when she will. But I thought these were great words to learn from myself. Then I got thinking about another tale that we tell her. Whenever she falls down, slips, bites a lip, or finds one of innumerable ways to hurt herself, we tell her, never mind, when you get hurt you grow up a little. What I realized is that these are really the only two ways that I “grew”. One, when I got hurt. Two, when I found myself in a spot where I decided to stop behaving like a baby. Take your time honey. There are enough gr...

Wasn’t it yesterday that we, new to a developed (at least comparatively) country, went to Ikea to buy your cot? We came home, 2 years ago, carrying a cot, a little mattress, a couple of cute, pink, fitting sheets, teething rails, a tiny pillow a couple of tiny pillow covers. I came home and got to work on the contraption, living up to “ Mr. Fixit ” again. Like most Indian parents we’re a little over protective and a little smothering. Don’t blame us when you grow up, you’re Indian too and you’re quite clingy. We’re the opposite of parents who might agree to the Ferber method. Therefore, the cot was installed in our room and you slept there till two days ago. As I dismantled the cot today, I realized that for me, the retiring of Tendulkar and Tata had no meaning, but you sleeping in your own room on your own bed signified the end of an era. I realized that even though I was a bit relieved that the parents had their room back again, I missed you. However, more than that, I ex...

I like fixing things around the house, and take the ‘Mr. Fixit’ title given to me by my wife as a compliment. My wife has let my daughter know that daddy does most of the fixing around the house. So whether its some hair clip teddy bear that needs a little super glue, or a book that talks, that needs a battery change, my wife would probably tell my daughter that, “We’ll need to ask papa to fix it.” Recently though, a musical toy that had stopped working, took a fall, and miraculously hit the right spot so that it started working again. Since this wasn’t a battery change issue, it was something more technical, I wasn’t able to fix it. Now that this magically started working, my daughter assumed that since I’m the fix-it-all, that I had fixed it. Here’s the scene. I don’t know about the miracle yet. My wife is feeding my daughter, and my daughter is playing with the toy in question. I still don’t realize that this wasn’t working before. My daughter looks at me...