What will he be when he grows up?

Read about that poor 15 yr old kid in Trichy who performed a caesarean operation on a 20 yr old girl, and was horrified at the parents who actually supervised it.

It made me wonder- how ambitious can a parent be for their child? To what extent can they push their children? And when does all this start? In the womb? Would this mother have been reading medical books during her pregnancy?

I know that during my pregnancy, I made it a point to do lots of things in the hope that Sonny boy would imbibe... (ala the legendaryAbhimanyu, who heard his father Arjun speak about the chakravyuh, even while his mother dropped off to sleep...) - listen to good music, read good books, not laze around, think good thoughts... I really tried to do all this, in between puking, throughout the day- from month 3 to month 9.
My MIL told me that reading the Ramayanam was tantamount to getting a good offspring, so I did. I faithfully read C. Rajagopalachari's ramayan and thoroughly enjoyed it too. Tho' till date, I haven't told her this. ;-) (Supposedly if you can't read all, if you just read the sundarakandam is also enough)

Maybe all that will yield result, but when, is the moot question. Right now, nothing seems to hold Sonny boy. Sonny boy's attention span really has me worried.
I guess it is kind of OK if he is an average kid. (After all, I am no Einstein, nor is his Acha. I rejoice in the fact that Einstein was considered a dud at school!)
Like any parent, I too would like to see my son reach a higher level of life than me, however, Jack of all trades, master of none is what my son excels at being.


His attention begins to stray 5 minutes after we sit down to some learn-and-play.
I laugh about it later with his Acha, that a boy who otherwise has to be forced to go to sleep, only has to hold his crayon in his little fingers, for the yawns to come in an army.
When we go to the park, Sonny boy sits for a minute on the swings, while he eyes the slides. He trots off to slide, when he espies the see-saw. Off again to see-, but before the -saw, he is off to his cycle, and then again to that gymnast rod.. it goes on...

I mean, how can a child (or its anxious mother) know what he likes, if he doesn't even experience it to the full? Ditto for all else. He is like the proverbial butterfly, sipping from this flower and that, generally buzzing around... I see other children close to his age who at least manage to stay with one toy to finish whatever they are doing. Or at least, they have a favourite toy. Not so Sonny boy.

His nature is evident from the fact that when I tell him to go play with his toys, he goes and tumbles ALL the toys from his toy basket onto the floor. Just in case a few get caught in the corners and don't fall out, he pokes them out! He delights in seeing them strewn all around. PlayDoh is out of bounds in my house now, cos he makes little balls out of it and then runs his toy cars over it to see the tyre marks. Very creative and innovative you might say. NOT, says the mother who had a tough time trying to clean the carpet of the sticky dough. The carpet still has bits of fur rolled in dough!
The ONLY toy he has liked more than the rest is Thomas. He spends some minutes with the tracks and Salty and Percy and the others.. laying the tracks out, connecting them...
And he also loves anything to do with water.

But yeah, sometimes I wonder if I watched any (too many?) kittens while pregnant. Sonny boy simply loves string! A rope, a belt, a tape.. anything that he can wind and loop and tie and knot and use to connect... He can really spend an hour doing intricate, puzzling winds and turns..tying the chairs up, looping the table to the chair, the chair to the sofa, tying up one of our legs in the process. He can also simply walk around the dining table, looking back every now and then, at the way the string follows on behind him.

The Acha and I are totally blank as to what future brillinace this is a sign of. Any of you who drop in here- any ideas?