Wednesday, January 7, 2009

He's a growing, he is....

I was a smart mother, I was. But Sonny boy is getting to be too smart for me, sigh!

You may remember that Sonny boy HAS to have a story read to him before he will/can go to sleep. It is left to the Amma to tell said story after she supervises his homework, supervises dinner, DICTATES dining by Sonny boy and then supervises shutting-the-kitchen. This after a hard/maybe not-so-hard day at work.

The Acha would have been busy all this while supervising the different programmes on tv. Ah! Very tiring work indeed, esp when sprawled out on the sofa. So the Acha promptly goes to bed after dinner if there is no more supervision needed on tv. Needless to say, he would be lolling in bed with HIS book, while Sonny boy waits for me with HIS book (When do I get to read MY book? is a pet grievance with me).

When I do crawl into bed, Sonny boy latches on with 'story, story', and bone-tired tho' I am, I do not find it in my heart to turn him away. But I am a smart (read mean) mother. I take the book in my hands, and I start to read, and I turn MULTIPLE pages, keeping to the gist of the story.
For eg, the story is about about a little farm boy who is searching for a name for his pet pussy cat and who goes around taking suggestions from his folks, and the horse, sheep, cow, hen, dog, pig, duck, fish etc etc as to what he should name her. With a page and a few lines devoted to each person/animal, it would normally take about 5 minutes to read thru the entire thing animatedly. (No compromises on the animation, no matter how tired I am, I intend Sonny boy to enjoy his books.) But when turning pages, if you turn two pages together, hey presto! you get rid of two animals and can end the story in 2 minutes. Which, once I knew I could get away with it, I did regularly. With Sonny boy being none the wiser for it. Till last week.

After the granddad, I skipped the horse and the cow to the pig, when up piped an alert voice from my shoulder,
"Amma, you forgot the horse."
"Horse? What horse? There's no horse, the little boy's asking the pig."

And I firmly went on to the pig. And went on reading.
"No Amma, there is a horse."

A little finger comes up and turns back the pages till he comes to the horse.
"There! See? You forgot the horse?" and he beamed at me in the innocent delight of having helped me 'find' the missing page.
"Ooooh! There was a horse...! I didn't see him, Sonny boy..." and I beamed back in fake delight.

A minute later, I skipped the pig and the hen to the duck.
"Amma, you forgot the pig,now."
"Pig? I did...?

Up came the finger immediately.
"See?"
"Ah, I see!"

I see, my little Sonny boy, that gone are the days of little deceptions like these. Don't grow up too soon, my son, my darling son.

16 comments:

Smitha said...

Oh this so reminds me of my life :) My daughter does the exact same thing - she makes sure that I don't skip a thing - and then she 'reads' the book by telling me the story - which is worse - as it just makes her even more awake - so now I have no option but to read it completely :(

Mama - Mia said...

hahahaha!!

now i wonder if i should inculcate love of stories for Cubby!! :p

that Sonny boy of yours is sooper smart!

cheers!

abha

~nm said...

You bet. Reminded me of hte times when I would make my own stories and Betu would remember it by heart and if next day I would not follow the same sequence I would be pulled up duly by little highness!

dipali said...

Smart boy you have there!

Scattered Thoughts... said...

awww.. kiddo is sweet :) needless to say smart!

and you dare not challenge the task of supervising TV channels.. did you ever try to imagine, how difficult it to watch News on 5 different channels, then comparing the gist, and finding out which channel has the smartest a**es there to expand a 5 minute news roll to 5 hours.. especially when there is one channel like India TV who is the uncrowned winner all the time ;)

Priya said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
BangaloreMom said...

Hey...

Cute post :) With me, I'm the idiot who, due to over enthusiasm, reads him the whole story the first few times and the thing comes back to haunt me as kuttan wants the WHOLE rigmarole EVERY time. BTW, pls pick up the award for you from my site.

the mad momma said...

LOL! you bet they grow up too fast.. and we have to grow more inventive in our cheating ;)

Vidooshak said...

Every time the cub makes a mess by opening a bottle cap, splashing about with a spoon or switching off the lights I need to stop myself from yelling-- he didn't just switch off the light, he LEARNT to use the switch. Wow, when did that happen!!!

Sonny boy is proving the adage true. Soon he will be the father of two hopelessly retarded parents. Good luck!

Cute posts. Good to see you on fire again!

Just Like That said...

Smitha: Welcome.:-) I sooo empathise with the 'keeping awake' thingie.

~Nm, BMom: You bet they ENJOY routine. Woe betide you if you change even your tone!

Abha, Dipali: :-)

Scattered thoughts: I dare not indeed. WHEN r u getting married btw? I need to meet wifey before u do. :-D

MM: They grow too fast indeed :-D

Vidooshak: Sometimes we let the most amazing things get taken for granted before we pull ourselves up, don't we :-)

Scattered Thoughts... said...

oh yeah!! I will invite you for sure.. will that do :)

Marina D' Souza said...

Oh my god. Being a mom requires making so many sacrifice. Giving up a chance to read my Wodehouse for a bunch of farm animals all of whom are interested in voicing their opinions. Sheesh. I. would. cry.

When will Sonny boy start to take an interest in your blog? When he does, let me know. I would love to read it out to him. Such fun posts. Something i could/do give up a Wodehouse for.

Swati said...

LOL! Smart boy !

WhatsInAName said...

lol! beta mom se badkar!!! Go sonny boy! Dont let your mom off so easily ;)

WhatsInAName said...

lol! beta mom se badkar!!! Go sonny boy! Dont let your mom off so easily ;)

aMus said...

haha..this is so familiar...

be prepared, my dear..there's so much more to come...