When Yuvaan (Y) was small, he used to love wearing clothes with footballs printed over it. With time, his choice of clothes kept changing. Since last 2 months or so, he has been obsessed with the spiderman. He loves how spiderman dresses, jumps, and talks. He likes other avengers too, but he insists to dress-up with something spiderman-ly (spiderman or his web printed over it) only every day. Well, this spiderman saga was found cute by us initially. We bought everything spiderman-ly for him; be it clothes or shoes; this story is not about how we are spoiling our little son (haha) but is about him pulling through something truly unexpected.
Midst of the spiderman saga, I bought Y a new water bottle and since Spiderman print was not available, I got him a blue color water bottle which had a small boy wearing Captain America shield printed over it. When the bottle arrived, Y was elated to receive it. As I said, he adores all kind of avengers. He took it to school for a week or so and insisted to use it only at home too. I was relieved that he liked it and did not insist on getting another spiderman-ly bottle.
Today, as usual, I woke Y up for school in the morning. He got up happy and got ready to go to school. While I was packing his bag, he looked at his bottle and said, “Mumma, ye nahi chaiye mujhe spiderman vali bottle chaiye.” I said, “No, this one is nice too, what’s the problem?” He kept insisting that he does not like the bottle anymore because it does not have spiderman printed over it. I kept trying to convince him that his blue bottle is fine too; all while getting things ready for his school. During the conversation, Y was playing with his water bottle, keeping it over the dining table and then picking it (putting and picking on loop) and I was asking him to stop it. Just when it was time to pick his bag and bottle to leave for school, he snatched his bottle too fast from the dining table that it fell down and its cap broke into pieces.
Well, if you are raising or have raised a threenager, you know that these things happen. I was not mad at him but I did tell him in a firm voice that he just does not listen and now his almost new bottle is broken. While I was busy in washing and filling another water bottle for him, to my complete surprise, my 3.5 years old came, stood next to me, said “sorry mumma” and started crying. Its not that this was the first time he ever said sorry, but this was the first time he actually meant it and he said sorry without someone asking him to say so. I felt so overwhelmed. I felt like telling him that bro, forget it, I will get you everything you ever ask for but then I controlled and said, “it’s okay, it happens, please listen to mumma next time.”
He was back to his threenager attitude within 2 minutes and announced that he will not go to school because he did not like the back up bottle which is by the way shaped like a bear (and I love it). After a little convincing, he left for school.
Parenting is a tough job, I swear. You want to get them every freaking thing they ask but you don’t want to spoil them. You want them to have empathy, but you also need to make sure that they know how to protect or stand up for themselves. Well, moments like the one we had today makes parenting worth it. Its mentally/physically exhausting but emotionally so fulfilling to raise these little tornados. High-five to all the lovely parents who never stop trying their best.
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