A non-dancing Engineer

There’s a talent show is DS’s school. The teacher asked the kids if anybody wanted to participate.

But of course, mostly girls raised their hands.

“What about the boys?” the teacher asked.

My son meekly lifted his hand up. And then there were some more little boy hands hesitantly going up.

And before he knew it, he was signed up for a dance performance.

I got an email saying that my son along with a few kids had signed up to dance for the Talent Show. While surprised, I was excited to see what my son had planned to practice.

After his usual excited entry home, and his scrumptious hug, I asked him – “So babe, it’s exciting that you’re going to participate in the talent show.”

His face turned somber.

“Mamma, I only lifted my hand, so it would encourage the other boys to lift their hands too.”

“What do you mean?”

“Mamma, only girls had raised their hands and the teacher asked what about the boys. So to encourage everyone, I raised my hand. And as I raised my hand, the other boys raised their hands too. I forgot to put my hand down when their hands went up, so I had to sign up.

“I asked if I could do some engineering or show my inventions, and the teacher said I could do dance or sing, and so I am signed up to dance.”

“But that’s still good?” I asked, not knowing what he really wanted to do.

“No, Mamma. Not good at all. The other boys want me to dance and sing, and I hate doing both.”

“What do you want to do?”

“Well, I thought I could do engineering, but I can’t show that in the talent show, so I don’t want to do anything.”

His friends’ parents had called him for a dance practice by then, and I told him to try it out and if he didn’t still like it, I’d let his teacher know.

Sure enough, he had a lot of fun playing, but hated the part where he had to practice dancing.

And as promised, I let the parents and the teacher know as well that he did not want to participate in the Talent Show.

And immediately he started building his gadgets with lego, and he was his usual happy self.

“I am an engineer”, he said smiling as he built, “not a dancer.”

“You know you can be both” I immediately replied on reflex.

“Yeah, I do. I don’t want to dance though. I just want to build.”

Well, if that’s what he wanted to do… ‘poor guy the amount of stress dancing for the show created on him’ I thought looking at him.

“Mamma” he came to me rather quickly. “I am missing a few pieces of lego. Can you buy me a new set?”

So much for all the stress.

Building in the Bath tub

DS has been very clear since the time he knew what an engineer does, that he wanted to be an Engineer.

Not gonna lie, I kinda felt very happy, and I don't really know why. Could be the Indian-ness in me, could be that it's something I am familiar with compared to what the other kid wants to become - a professional actor. 

I do know, that my dad would've been very proud, very happy. 

Now time will tell what this kid will do, but so far, seeing him tinkering with everything in the house, making gliders, designing fans, he may be on-track. 

Everyday with this kid is a new innovation day. 

Yesterday, he was off to build something new as usual. When it took an unusually long time for him to get out of the bath tub, I decided to interrupt the bubbles. 

"What's up, dude?" I asked him. "What are you still doing in the bath tub?"

"I am building" he said. 

"Building what?" 

"Mamma, can I take your body lotion bottle?"

"For what?"

"I want to use it for my building."

"How?"

"I just need to take the straw from inside it. I won't throw the lotion." He clarified he wouldn't do what he had done with my bottle the last time. 

"No" I said, also remembering the last time, he emptied my entire bottle. 

"Ok, fine, let me figure something else out, can you give me 5 more minutes?" he asked me kindly.  Who could've said no to that face. 

Five minutes later, I came to see this construction in the bath tub. 

"What is this babe?" 

"Mamma, it is the best building in Singapore."

The resemblance is of course uncanny. Once you see it, you just can't un-see it. 

Image source: Wikimedia

It's so embarrassing...

 

This came too soon. With DD, it took a bit, or atleast that’s what I’d like to believe.

This past week, we went to Indonesia on vacation. It was a much anticipated, high-expectations vacation.
The kids had gone 2 months with no holidays apart from the weekends, so they were really looking forward to chilling by the beach, and making the parents participate in all the adventure activities.

DS for one was counting down the days. With a 2 week vacation, the first week was spent with friends – a trip to Universal Studios and a water theme park. This ofcourse was not sufficient. It only took away 2 of the 5 ‘working’ days.

All his friends were traveling, so clearly DS knew his parents were not really interested in his enjoyment, not withstanding that we had to wait for his sister to return from her outdoor expedition through school.

“Fine, son” I said.  I do call him son… it doesn’t really roll of the tongue, but I call him son, so he knows that “beta” means son in Hindi. So he either hears “Fine, son” or “Theek hai, beta.” There isn’t really an equivalent in Tamil that sounds good. “Seri, Kanna” is what I go with. Kanna is sweetheart, or darling. Thankfully he knows all these phrases.

“Fine, son. We’ll make a trip after Dika comes back.” That seemed to calm him.

“I don’t want to go to any trip after coming back. I need to rest.” DD declared. So that led to some back and forth, and we agreed not to book anything for DD, but that we’ll wait for her to come back.

“If Dika doesn’t come, will we not go?” DS started as soon as Dika was out of the house.

“Do you want to go without Dika?” I asked.

“No, but I want to go on a vacation. Why won’t she come?”

“Maybe she will. Or maybe you can convince her.”

“She doesn’t listen to me…” and that went on for a bit.

But contrary to popular belief, DD did want to go on the vacation, and that made the little kid really, really happy.

So off we went.

We took the ferry to Bintan and on the way, I felt all very motherly, and really wanted to hug my baby.

My son seemed all very excited too, jumping between his seat and ours.

I pulled him closer and hugged him on my lap.

“Mamma, please stop. It is embarrassing” He said, and broke my heart into a thousand pieces.

“What?” I asked in disbelief.

“Mamma, I am not a baby. I am a big boy. You can’t make me sit on your lap. It’s embarrassing.”

“What?”

“Maaaa…” he freed himself.

Ady who was witnessing all this added, “Looks like the umbilical chord is finally cut.”

I was pretty devastated. I knew DS was right, he was a big boy now, but I just needed some more time with my baby.

“Embarrassing?” I kept looking at Ady in disbelief, as DS went back to his seat with Dika. “He’s seven.”

“It’s ok” Ady tried to cheer me up. “He’s growing up.”

I was about to react, when DS hurt his elbow jumping from his seat to ours.

“Ow!” he whimpered, looking at me. I didn’t react.

He came back to me, sat on my lap, “Mamma, I hurt myself.”

It was his way of making sure I was ok, ‘cause with everything else that came after it …the rock climbing, the archery, wakeboarding, and with all the falls, he was a ‘brave boy who can take care of himself’.

My little. My heart.