Good Times

My son Adarsh is 8 months old and I just love this phase of his life where he finds everything funny, exciting or joyful (provided his tummy is full and he has had a nice sleep). He usually gets up before me in the mornings, so I am greeted by a chubby drooling face with a 90mm toothless grin every morning. (well almost every morning) Believe me, its a great way to start any day. He loves to play with switches and likes to turn the fan regulator. He also tries to harass his sister every morning if he gets a chance.

Now that he is crawling, we have to really keep an eye on him. He puts just about anything into his mouth that he can get his hands on....including the occasional insect. He is also a total "mamma's boy" and I melt every time I see the adoration in his eyes for me.

Adarsh is a total contrast to my daughter Tanu when she was his age. First of all she never put anything into her mouth except her bottle and a spoon if it had food. Even while she was teething, she was quite neat. She also didn't giggle as much as he does and we had to do a lot of entertaining to get a smile out of her. (She eventually grew out of this and now her non stop laughter can be heard from near and far:P) And Tanu was totally daddy's little girl. I used to feel jealous when my husband entered the room, coz her face would just light up and she was oozing love and I would see the look on my husband's face and wonder why I didn't have that. But now I do and I love every minute of it.

Thank you God for blessing me with such precious kids.

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Discipline

"Raising children is an incredibly hard and risky business in which no cumulative wisdom is gained: each generation repeats the mistakes the previous one made." Bill Cosby

Amen! In my opinion, disciplining children is the most difficult thing a parent can do. I used to always say that my parents were strict and I wont be like that with my kids. But lo and behold....I have unknowingly become their carbon copy. What actually is the correct way to discipline kids, especially those that are young....like my 4 year old.

The traditional methods like hitting with your hand, or a stick seem barbaric, I know. But there are some moments wherein you lose all sense of judgment and your hand takes a life of its own and BAM, you smack your little ones bottom and all hell breaks loose. Between her wailing and your shouting, people will obviously think its a madhouse. After all the chaos, the end result is you feel guilty and like a terrible mother.

Method Two: Time Out...This method has also been tried and tested by me. My timeout involves putting my kid in a room and closing the door and keeping her there for a few minutes. I really don't' like this method, because many times, I literally have to drag my screaming kid to the room and once she is kept there, her bawling becomes so intense that I feel my ears going numb.

Shouting, scolding, threatening to throw her toys/book/ favorite dress, etc out the window....they all work only once in a while. After applying all these methods, the ultimate outcome, in my opinion, is increased blood pressure, throat infection, headache and stress.
Oh the joys of motherhood. If only fatherhood was this fun.

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