Dry Days

Given that my little one is three years old and has been toilet trained now gone are the days when I had to rely on diapers to prevent any ‘bathroom disasters’ either at home or outside. And given the number of places that we took her out to almost since she was around 4 months old meant that diapers were God’s own gift to ‘outward bound’ parents like us.

And when one says the word ‘diapers’ in India it almost automatically refers to Pampers. Just like the term Xerox copies has replaced photocopies, Diary Milk has replaced milk chocolates, Pampers, the brand has clearly overtaken the generic category to which it belongs to and has replaced the word diapers in consumer minds and popular lingo. In fact I still remember the days when I had to visit the closest pharmacy or general store to buy diapers and the shopkeepers wouldn’t quite understand what I was looking for until I said the magic word – Pampers.

In any case, this post is not about how big the brand is and how it has taken over consumer mindshare like no other brand has, which is the truth and nothing but the truth! This post is about how diapers as a concept and more importantly Active Pants as a product have drastically transformed parents’ and children’s lives in India.

Although I don’t quite remember my ‘diaper days’ so to say, I have heard enough anecdotes from my parents about that phase of my life. Growing up in the 80s in India meant that the markets here still had not heard of diapers at all, and they had to rely on carefully stitched square pieces of cloth and large safety pins to keep toilet disasters from occurring. In fact, they not only regale me but also my daughter with stories of how on many occasions I have run around the entire house with my dripping cloth diapers, playing with my toys, without a care in the world. It was only when the diaper rashes attacked that I would feel uncomfortable and start whining and crying. And given the wet Bangalore monsoons and cold Bangalore winters back then, almost 8 odd months of the year would be spent in them liberally applying diaper rash cream on my private parts. I can only imagine how uncomfortable I would have felt back then, especially considering that I was quite an active child back then with my fair share of running and tumbling around type activities.

And it is in this context that Pampers Baby Dry Pants has proven to be a blessing to me as a parent in bringing up my daughter. As is the wont these days, my little one is more than active and cannot spend a single moment sitting down and relaxing except when she is asleep for her afternoon nap and night sleep. The fact that these diapers are easy to put on, just like her underpants, and easier to remove with the tearable straps down both sides mean that they can be put on and removed in ten seconds flat, talk about speed!

And what is even better is that with the Magic Gel (which was already ‘magical’ and has gotten even better in its latest avatar) inside which not only locks the wetness and moisture inside but keeps it locked no matter what, means that my little one could be as active as she wanted without her experiencing any kind of discomfort at all. And as parents, these Active Pants also meant that we could dress her up in the loveliest of dresses and take her out to all the places we went to, parks, malls, social gatherings, restaurants and even amusement parks without having to worry about putting others around to any kind of inconvenience due to her toilet disasters.

To make things easier than they already are, the wonderful folks at P&G have started this portal [Link to portal] not only to purchase these lovely Active Pants online but also for parents to be educated and enlightened about various aspects regarding their children’s hygiene.

And if this post doesn’t convince you enough to switch to Pampers Baby Dry Pants, here’s a small ad of theirs from YouTube to help you make up your mind.

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This post has been written for the Dry Baby, Happy Baby campaign from Pampers being conducted in collaboration with Indiblogger.

Anger and happiness

Of late one particular thing that drives me crazy are the tantrums that my three year old daughter has started throwing. From the clothes she wears to the food she eats, from the shoes she will wear to wearing woolens in the winter, almost everything she does is preceded by a tantrum and ends up with either my wife or me or both of us being completely frustrated, at our wits end and screaming at my little one.

Neither my wife or me are sure as to why she has suddenly started off with these tantrums of late. Just around a month ago, she was quite comfortable with the clothes we asked her to wear, with the food that we asked her to eat and in general with following instructions. It baffles both of us when we sit and try to figure out what has changed in the past month to encourage this obstinate behavior of hers.

At the other end of the spectrum, one thing which provides me with immense happiness is to see my daughter running around in the park, having a good time on the swing, the see-saw, the slides, and in general enjoying life. When she is around with a couple of her friends, they end up inventing little games of their own, singing rhymes and having a ball of a time the way only kids in their innocent way can. Nothing brings an immediate smile to my face other than this.

Looking at her tantrums from the perspective of the innocence of her childhood and her age (all of three years old), at times I feel that this new found obstinacy crops up from a couple of factors. Firstly, the fact that she is an only child and is pretty much the center of attraction and the apple of everybody’s eyes wherever she goes means that she gets her way almost all the time. Maybe, just maybe, this has led her to believe that ‘her way’ is the right way and that she enjoys an unalienable right to ask for what she wants and gets angry when it is not provided to her.

Secondly, it goes without saying that junk food obviously tastes better and provides instant gratification when compared to the regular healthy food that we try to feed her at home. It therefore goes that she tries to pull the screaming and crying stunt whenever she doesn’t get her quota of fried food, chocolates and ice creams. I am more than sure that her grandparents and us, her parents are more than partly responsible for tantrums at meal times.

In conclusion, I guess the solution lies somewhere with my parents, my wife and me drawing a clear cut line as to on what occasions my daughter is entitled to her opinions, likes and dislikes. Given that she is only three years old, it goes without saying that as elders we know better when it comes to food, clothes and other similar issues. We need to lay down the rules with her very clearly as to what is acceptable behavior and what is not, and not give in to her tantrums under any circumstances. I am more than sure that after a few failed attempts at trying to ‘blackmail’ us with her crying, screaming and other similar stunts, she will figure out that they are useless.

Here’s hoping for the best.

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This post has been written for Project 365: A post a day where the intention is to publish at least one post a day based on the prompts provided. Today’s prompt was to think about something that drives me crazy, and then think about something that makes me happy, and then discuss about how the latter thought changes my perspective on the former.

Love to love you

Running the risk of sounding extremely conceited and self-centered, let me unabashedly confess that the one person I love the most in this world would be I, me, and myself. It therefore goes without saying that my most favorite person in this world would also be me.

Having said that today’s prompt asks me to address three questions – What do you love the most about yourself? What do you love the most about your favorite person? Are the two connected?

Since I don’t want to cop out and cheat and combine the first two questions by saying that since I am my most favorite person, what I love the most about myself would be the same as what I love the most about my favorite person, for purposes of this post, I am going to nominate my little three yr old daughter, R, as my most favorite person.

Now going on to answer the questions themselves, the first one being – What do you love the most about yourself?

The one thing that I love the most about myself, at least in recent times, has been my love for reading. Reading in any form, books, newspapers, websites, blogs, reading in general has been something that I think I have always loved. As long as I have something to read, in a language that I can actually read, I go ahead and read it. You can find me reading Filmfare in the barber shop, a medical journal at the clinic, my novel in the railway platform, newspapers in the tea shop while I am waiting for my hot cuppa; it would be really difficult to catch me whiling away time without reading.

I am guessing this habit is something that I picked up from my grandfathers (both of them) and my father. While my paternal grandfather was the quintessential English literature expert with an MA in the same, his Shakespeare ‘fanboy’ status is the stuff that old childhood stories of my father are made up of. My father was no less when it came to inculcating the reading habit and a healthy affection for crime, action, adventure thrillers in me. Pretty soon, by the time I hit my teenage years, I was strongly afflicted by the reading bug, and after a few years in hibernation, 2014 is the year that it bit me with a vengeance.

Enough about me, let us now move on to the next question – What do you love the most about your favorite person? Funnily enough, despite all the cute things that my little daughter R does, the one thing that endears her to me the most is her love for books. Even at this age, when all she can do is to recognize only the capital alphabets, her enthusiasm when she receives a new book and her persistence in getting somebody at home to read it out to her is unbelievable. At an age when her friends are more tuned to the Chota Bheems and Doraemons of the television, she simply cares only about her books and having someone to read it out to them.

From the above paragraphs, the question to the third question – Are the two connected?  becomes quite redundant, doesn’t it.

So, what about you folks? Do you or your children love reading as much as I do or R does? Go on, let the other readers of this post know about what it is that you truly love doing with your kids.

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This post has been written for Project 365: A post a day where the intention is to publish at least one post a day based on the prompts provided. Details about today’s prompt have been provided in the first paragraph of this post.

Intensely Angry

I still remember the day clearly as if it happened just yesterday. It was at the third birthday party of my daughter’s second cousin that the incident happened.

The birthday boy, as is the norm with three year olds was running around the small party hall in which the cake cutting was organized. And since the rest of the crowd was yet to arrive, his only playmate at this point in time was my daughter who was just a few weeks of turning three years old herself.

Now both these kids were ‘only children’ in that they didn’t have any siblings to share things with and were pretty much the center of attraction and attention in their respective families. This automatically meant that they were used to getting their wishes fulfilled and although were not ‘spoilt brats’ in the true sense of the word, the honest truth was that there was no competition for them as far as having their way at home. This naturally meant that both of them were quite bossy (for lack of a better term) in their demeanor.

That being said, both of them quickly realized that they were the only kids in the room and therefore adjusted well to playing with each other, generally singing rhymes and running around the room. Slowly however, as the birthday boy’s friends started arriving at the venue, he started getting more and more into his element. Within the next half an hour or so, we had a bunch of 10-15 kids running around, having a fun time in general.

Pretty soon my daughter was the only one there who didn’t know the other kids at all, and she started being left out of the fun and games that the rest of the kids were figuring out on their own. But that did not dampen her enthusiasm to be part of the fun and at every given opportunity she joined in on the fun, laughter and running around with the gang.

I still haven’t been able to figure out why, but all of a sudden the birthday boy suddenly started pushing my girl around. Every time she tried to get into the crowd of kids playing, he would make it a point to come over to where she was and physically pushed her away from the game itself, so much so that on more than one occasion he managed to successfully ensure that she lost her footing and fell on her butt.

While my wife and me were quite disturbed by this behavior, the fact remained that it was the boy’s birthday party and both of us knew better than to get involved in a kiddie fight as long as it was not physically dangerous. But, once we noticed that the boy didn’t have any intention of letting it go and let my girl join in on the games, we had to intervene and pull her out for fear of being injured, both physically and to a smaller extent mentally as well.

What got my goat was the fact that neither of the parents of the birthday boy even tried to intervene and ask him to ease up on his bullying of my girl. Yes, it was his birthday and while the intention of not scolding him on that particular day was understandable, the fact remained that he was targeting my girl for unnecessary heckling and that irritated me to no end.

On previous occasions when my daughter had tried bullying other kids elsewhere, both my wife and me had intervened and explained to her as to how it was important for her to share her playthings and allow other kids to join her games. And while she didn’t quite like it at first, she soon understood that this was ‘the rule of the land’ as far as interacting with other kids went. Therefore, when the birthday boy continued his bullying without any intervention from any of the adults present, it ticked me off to no end that nobody was discouraging this behavior in him.

While I understand that the kid was probably a little too young to actually understand what he was doing and how it hurt my girl, I was more irritated at the sheer callousness displayed by his parents who ideally should have intervened in this situation up front itself. Just remembering this incident rankles me a lot for more than one reason, not the least among them being parents inculcating good value systems in their children right at a very young age itself.

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This post has been written for Project 365: A post a day where the intention is to publish at least one post a day based on the prompts provided. Today’s prompt was to describe the last time I was surprised by the intensity of a feeling I had about something or how strongly I reacted to something that probably wasn’t a big deal.

Guest Post: Double Income families and their kids

Today my guest author deals with a topic which most families, especially double income families grapple with when they have kids. Does the mother continue to work, does she take a break, does she quit her job, what will she do, how will it impact the family. While there are no easy answers, this post does highlight some relevant points to be considered in such a situation.

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One thing that never ceases to puzzle me is what do married couples both working at the same company do at home? Do they read the CEO’s blogs together? Do they swap balances in their Food Cards? Do they help fill each other’s Performance Appraisal forms?

If there is any reason why I have survived marriage, it is that my wife makes sure that I don’t get in her way and we pursue separate interests. While the differences are blurring with time, but still, there is some free space for us to do what we want to do.

My cousin is a well established doctor and she along with her husband run a flourishing medical practice here in Chennai. Their daughter is about the same age as our elder one and this girl came over to spend the day with us. The kids had great fun. But, this girl was freely sharing her withering feedback about her parents with all of us. While it was funny listening to her, back of my mind, I fret that my daughters too will be judging me on what I did or did not do for them.

Should both parents work to bring in that extra money or should one parent choose to stay at home to raise kids? My wife figured out quite early that she will get only thought leadership from me and that she will have to raise our kids practically by herself. She chose to be a stay at home mother. It has been a good decision for my kids, I think.

When my elder one joyfully talked about our Christmas holiday trip to Yercaud, there were other children at school gleefully talking about their excursions to Dubai & Hong Kong. These are the moments when I think just perhaps, what if both of us worked…

When I started my career, I thought I will take an early retirement when I had Rs.15 Lacs savings. I laugh at my innocence. Financial goal-posts keep shifting away & further away with time. The biggest fear which folks at my age face is ‘Insecurity’. It is – Do we have enough for our children’s education? For their wedding? Do we have enough for a medical emergency? Do we live in a safe neighborhood? I now marvel at my parents for somehow managing to raise their sons & giving them a decent education with just my father’s middle class salary.

How much money is enough for us? This question looks deceptively simple. But, many of our decisions in life are driven by this. Couples who can focus on all aspects -their income, expenditure, savings, investments and insurance will probably get more ‘mileage’ out of their financial choices. Couples choosing to pursue dual careers because they are passionate about work is a good thing. But, I suspect financial compulsions have more to do with this decision than anything else.

The wealthy have lots of money. The truly wealthy have lots of time & money. Our children will appreciate the gift of our undivided time & attention than anything that money can buy.

My relatives blame me for having wasted my wife’s M.Phil education. I explain to them that taking care of me is a full time job. While it may not be monetarily lucrative, the benefit of my company is truly priceless.