I am trying to get Toddler out of our bed and I am in the process of setting up her crib as a toddler bed. So I went to the store to pick up some fitted sheets and a guard rail to go with the new set up. While at it I also picked up some fitted sheets for the infant. Infant sleeps in her crib. She has thrown up in the crib whenever she is extremely congested with cold. Also she has the habit of pulling the sheets to entertain herself till she fell asleep. Me being the lazy person, got pretty tired of laundering sheets and making the bed three times a day and let things slack. Plus, I also started imagining that she threw up when ever I put new sheets on the crib! Long story short, she sleeps on her crib mattress, with nothing between the plastic of the mattress and her skin, hugging her favorite pillow and holding a queen sized comforter that is at least 10 years old. Why the queen comforter? Well it was very cold until very recently, even now it gets cold early in the morning and she just squirms out of her measly blankies. Anyways, digressions apart, the point I am trying to make is, her crib looks yucky.

So I vowed to dress up both the cribs and put some effort in making them look decent. We have a queen bed and two full sized cribs in our small bedroom. That means that I had to squeeze myself through three-inch spaces and set up the crib – new sheets, padding, two throw pillows, pretty blankie, baby sized comforters and a cute little teddy bear. Having done that. I stood back and admired the result of the effort. Looked wonderful, just like a place a baby would sleep in.

When bed time came I sang my usual song, kissed the children good night and moved out of the room. Infant started screaming her head off. Sometimes she does this, but after she cried for a couple of minutes and blew some steam off, she would go right back to sleep. So I dismissed her wails. But the kid kept screaming for more than 10 minutes. So I picked her up, hugged her, consoled her and put her down again. The minute I walked out of the room there was more crying. I tried everything, making sure her diaper was fine, her clothes were comfortable, we cooled the house by switching the A/C, gave her some water…etc. I suspected that she might be coming down with something, but again no. Whenever we carried her and bought her in to the living room, she started squealing with delight and was keen on watching X-Men. So hubby and self concluded that this is just a playful child who is throwing a tantrum because she is not feeling like sleeping. Not wanting to encourage her any more, we put her in the crib and walked away.

By now Toddler was intently observing hubby and self, walking in and out of the room, carrying the infant and (according to her) spending special time with her. So Toddler decided to throw a tantrum. She cried her heart out and came out in to the living room, found out that there wasn’t anything particularly interesting going on told us, “Okay amma, I want good night sleep tight” and went back to bed!

All through this time the infant was standing in her crib, and crying her lungs out. She was going strong and steady for 15 min now. Hubby and self decide to let her cry. 10 more minutes and we hear throw up (Hey, what about my theory about new sheets and throw up?! I am not lazy, I have a vision ). We did the usual soothing, cleaning routine. But nothing calmed her, she bought the roof down when ever we put her down on the crib.

Suddenly it struck me. We put her on the naked crib mattress and thrust the ugly, huge green comforter at her, she clutched it, gurgled and went right back to sleep. So all this fuss was for the stupid comforter.

Boo and Kodi’s mom had left surprise comments about the preferences of a 2.5 year old after reading my post about the car seat fiasco. What do you say about this?

She was waiting for her younger daughter to turn one. Now she can legally switch her baby from the infant car seat (stage one car seat) to the front facing car seat (stage two car seat). She was so looking forward to this day. From now on, when she is driving, if she tilt the rear view mirror ever so slightly, she can see the beautiful faces of both her darling daughters. No more wondering if the child is awake or asleep or worrying if the child had spit up. Also once when she was negotiating a tricky curve to enter the highway, the infant car seat, for some reason, had tipped. The baby was still secure, but the shock from the movement had set the baby in to a frantic wail. That gave her quite a scare. Ever since she had been very conservative in driving and was looking forward to this day where she can move her baby to a new car seat.

Finally the day arrived and she went to the store to get a new car seat. She wanted to get something similar, if possible the same, front facing car seat her elder daughter uses. She knew how children are and she wanted to avoid preference conflicts that might show up in the near future! But much to her disappointment, that particular model, she had picked up one year earlier, was not to be found anywhere, not even in the manufacturer’s website. After analyzing and over analyzing, in the best interests of her daughters, she decide to buy a booster seat (stage three car seat) for her elder daughter and put her younger daughter in her elder daughter’s car seat. So she came home with a new car seat for her elder daughter!

She knew how children are and how they hate surprises. So she prep-ed her elder daughter for a day, showing her the new car seat, speaking to the child in high pitched voice full of enthusiasm and heavily marketed the new car seat. She put the new car seat in her pooja room, asking the good Lord to bless the car seat, and to protect the precious commodity it is going to carry from now on. All the rituals done with, she installed the car seat and was looking forward to start using it from the next day onwards.

The next day she woke her children, telling them that today’s ride to the day care was going to be different because they are going to sit in new car seats. They all left home in a hurry, but happy – a mother and two happy children, all smiling and waving good bye to the father who was also leaving for work.

As soon as the van’s door opened her elder daughter ran to the car and stopped short. The child was puzzled that her car seat was missing. The child was even more puzzled to find the car seat on the other side of the van where her baby sister sits. So the child ran to the other side and tried sitting in HER car seat. But her mother gently stopped her from doing it and put the baby in HER car seat. The child started telling the mother, “Amma, my car seat. This my sit down”. The mother was not yielding, she was smiling and pointing to a different car seat. But THIS was HER car seat. The new one had a different belt system, it was nothing like her usual one. The child had just learnt to wear her seat belt all by herself. The child wanted to get her point across, she started crying, and screaming, “This my sit down”. The child tried telling her baby sister to get down, but babies…bha…they never understand anything. So the child tried moving the baby so that she can sit in her car seat.

Now the mother was starting to get impatient. She had so dilligently explained the change because she wanted to avoid what was going on right now. And it was getting late. So she grabbed the sobbing child and thrust her in the new car seat telling through clenched teeth, in a stern voice that this is to be the child’s new car seat from now on. The child started crying louder. She, as a mother, could almost understand the unspoken words the cry meant. “When you told me about this new car seat did you ever see me acknowledge it? Didn’t you get the message when I turned my head and walked away pretending that I didn’t hear you? You adults expect us, little children to be flexible. But you never practice what you preach. Can your hypocrisy get any bigger? Is it because we are little and helpless that you try to enforce such great control over our lives? For the past one year I have shared so many things with my baby sister. Now my stuff is being snatched from me and given to her. How much more do you guys expect me to put up with?”

A change now would mean pulling out the infant seat from the garage, installing it and reconfiguring the old car seat to accommodate the bigger child. But it was getting late. So she decided to go on as planned. Yes, the child was crying, but she thought playing her child’s favorite nursery rhyme CD would calm the child. The idea was a flop, the child’s wails drowned the nursery rhyme. The child was squirming wildly and attempting to get out of the harness.

Within a matter of 7 minutes, the smiling happy family that left home reached the day care in an angry, distraught, tense and stubborn condition. She tried to kiss the child good bye, but the child just pushed her off and ran in to the day care, hugged a three- year-old who happened to open the door. The child complained to the three-year-old, “M, M, that is my sit down, that is my car seat” and ran and hugged her day care provider and just sobbed uncontrollably. She left the day care a very hurt mother.

Disclaimer: All the characters and incidents depicted in the story are real.

Cast and credits
Self: Hurt mother
Toddler: Upset child

Epilogue:As soon as I dropped her in the day care, I drove to the store, returned the booster and picked up a stage two car seat for infant. Did all the adjustments, readjustments and put everything back in place. The booster used the regular seat belts and though toddler was not able to unbuckle herself, she kept tugging and pulling and had the belt wrapped all around her. It made me uncomfortable. For now, I think a five point harness will be a better choice a squirming toddler.

Toddler refused to smile at me when I went to pick her up in the evening. She came to the car, inspected everything, made sure that what ever was done was duly undone and then ran to me and gave me a hug.

Lesson learnt: You guys tell me.

I used to be a legendary sleeper. Once when I was in my tenth standard, my parents left me alone at home and went out for a couple of hours. I did what I did whenever I had some time to spare. I lay down on the couch and started sleeping. My parents came back home and rang the bell…and pounded on the door…continuously…for 15 min…and I was there lying on the couch which was exactly 2 feet away from the door…and I didn’t hear a thing. The neighbors gathered, every one shouted my name. Some were trying to break the door, just like in movies. One went looking for a saw, the grand plan was to saw through the dead bolt. My father was flying in to a rage fueled by embarrassment and my mother was imagining that I might have electrocuted myself or slipped and fell and cracked my skull open and all the other unimaginables. The neighbors were concocting their own stories that involved a teenage girl and academic pressures…even better…. boy issues. Then one of these nimble neighbors, jumped from the patio on to the sun shade, peeked through the window, found me lying down on the couch and proceeded to prod me with a stick. Five minutes of continuous prodding did the trick, I woke up from my slumber and opened the door. The circus had lasted for approximately 30 minutes. This is how I used to sleep. This trend continued well in to college.

Yes, used to, in past tense. After I got married, some one cast and evil eye on my precious ability to sleep and I had to work to sleep. I needed my space, my quite and my blankie. Some time in the middle of the night I would get up disturbed by the rhythmic ticking of the clock and would lay awake for the rest of the night counting how many times hubby rolled over and how many times he ground his teeth. But still I use to make up for it in the early morning, sleep in late and wake up feeling better.

Then came the children. Toddler did not let any one in the house sleep for the first few months of her life. Then the pattern stabilized and I would say things were still better, as she was sleeping in her crib and I had at least my space.

Troubled started when she decided to sleep between hubby and me. I would say hubby is the real culprit. When infant as born I was in a bedroom with the infant, hubby and toddler were in another bedroom. Whenever toddler woke up from her sleep and cried looking for me, hubby used to pick her up and put her next to him and both father and daughter would go back to sleeping peacefully. So when we all moved in to the same room, toddler refused to sleep in her crib. Even if I put her in her crib, she learnt to jump out of the crib. But she went off to sleep by herself, no more sleep time dances and routines. So I compromised.

But this little demon, would toss and turn, slap me on my face, pulled the comforter away from us and pushed it of the bed. She insists that she lay down perpendicular to hubby and self (forming a H pattern) and push us both trying to roll us down from the bed. Hubby has no care in the world, he can sleep with a road engine rolling all over him. But my precious sleep was lost forever. In general I am not the kind of parent who can proudly boast that I have never hit my children. So far infant has escaped the wrath of my fury, but toddler has been on the receiving end a few times now and I have no qualms about it. I don’t hit for no reason, if I do then there is a very very very good reason for it, and mostly its just a one sharp smack on her diapered bottom and if I am really mad on her thighs. 90% of these thigh smackings have been delivered by me in the night when she has mercilessly jolted me out of my dear dear sleep. But she never even knows that I hit her. She has her father’s genes as far as sleeping is concerned.

Only few days back, I commented on Poppin’s blog that every parenting style is different, one has to pick their battles and I have decided not to pick my battle over co-sleeping. Yesterday night I REALLY needed, not wanted, I needed, to sleep. I don’t sleep in the afternoons and I don’t drink coffee or tea (Well, I am not so strict about tea. I do indulge in tea, may be 3-4 times a year. But after every cup of tea, I get very hyper and I can’t sleep for about 3 days) and I was blanking out when I was driving, which scared the hell out of me. And this girl tucked her knees in to her stomach and then plummeted her legs, landing her feet with full impact on my spine. THAT’S IT. I am at the end of the rope now. Now it is war time.

After a sleepless night imagining what will happen if infant also decides to move in with us in our small queen bed, I woke up totally fatigued and craving for sleep. So here I am sitting on my couch, finished a full packet of Swiss chocolates, high on sugar, blogging away.

I have decided to convert the spare crib in to a toddler bed and lure toddler to sleep on HER OWN MAGICAL BED. Will keep you all posted on how that goes.

One small step for mankind, one giant leap for infant.
Did I tell you folks? Infant took her first step, all by herself, without holding on to anything last Wednesday (May 30, 2007). She is discovering that she can scale new heights and I am realizing that I can’t keep calling her infant as is pitter pattering to toddler-dom with those little feet.

I am daddy’s girl.
She seems to prefer her dad to me. You must look at her when hubby is in the house. She just trails behind him wherever he goes. I am noticing this preference only in the past two months. Before that both infant and toddler used to compete for my attention. But of late, looks like infant has given up and switched loyalties to hubby. 🙁 This is so not fair.

Keyword activated….
She has been waving goodbye and has been clapping for quite some time now. But it is all keyword activated. I would be on the phone talking to some one and I would say ‘bye’ and hang up. Infant would be around me sitting and playing by herself, her radar will pick up the word ‘bye’ and automatically she would start waving her hands. She did the same for clapping. Whenever she heard some one clapping or the word clap uttered anywhere in her vicinity she would start clapping. Now the recent action is for kissing. When she sees/hears smooching, she takes her right palm to her mouth, sucks a big gulp of air and pulls her hand away from her mouth and smiles a big smile.

Five teeth and counting
I can see four in the upper jaw and one in the lower jaw, all this is in 2-3 weeks. I think there is more coming because she is itching to chew on something all the time.
And the drool….oh. May be I will rename her bubbles or bubbli from now on!

Books
She loves them, can’t get enough of them. Don’t jump to conclusions that she is a huge reader, she like the way books taste. In tamil, they have a term, “Karachu kudikaradhu” (literal translation – to dissolve and drink, meaning with refernce to context – to master something), that’s what this one is doing! If at all she reads books, she insists that the book is upside down. If we turn it the right way for her, she gets mad. She waves her hands wildly, utters a loud ‘mmmmmmmmm’ an turns it back upside down.

Good thinking amma.

All my stories start with, “Three weeks back”, so does this one. Three weeks back we went to a friend’s house for dinner. They have a baby girl, about a year older than toddler. Toddler was pretty kicked on seeing new toys and wanted to play with everything. Predictably there was the issue of establishing territory. In the middle of one heated fight where hands and legs were about to be used to make a point, I pulled toddler away and lectured her on the lines of how nice it will be if they take turns. She listened to me intently, shook her head up and down and with a straight face she tells me, “Good thinking amma”. What?!!!! Girl, enough of the appreciation, step on the implementaion part!

Amma, you go make pasta.
Toddler is in the “I want to do everything by myself” phase. It takes her 20 minutes to wear her shoes and at the end of 20 minutes, she discovers that the shoes are in the wrong legs, so another 20 min to wear them the right way. Add another 20 min to stop and smell the roses while walking to the car. And 20 more minutes to sit in her car seat and wear her seat belts. I usually stand next to her to make sure that she wears her seat belt properly. She hates it. (May be she does not like begin watched when she is intently doing something. Just like her mother!). She keeps telling me, “Amma you go that way. You go sit in your car seat and do round and round”(Meaning: Move away from me, you go sit in your seat and start driving). Anyways…she was trying to do her puzzle and was struck at some place and was getting impatient. I tried helping her and she tells me, “No amma, no. You go to the kitchen and make pasta.”. Talk about gender typing!!!

Appa you are making a big mistake.
We have a vague division of labor at home. In the mornings, I feed the kids and hubby gives them a bath. Last week he was trying to drag toddler, who had her eyes glued to the TV, to give her a bath. She protested quit a bit. When she found that hubby was not yielding, this 30 month old, mischievous, naked child standing in the bath tub, tells him in a very menacing tone, “Appa, no appa, you are making a big mistake”. The next thing we know, she will be making us an offer that we cannot refuse!

The master story teller
Her vocabulary is increasing by the second. An average 2.5 year old is supposed to know 1000 words on the average. But this one knows at least 10,000 words, I suspect. Okay enough blowing my trumpet, the point I am trying to make is, her expanded vocabulary combined with her photographic memory, she can now repeat a whole story. Yesterday she said the story of the Lion and the mouse(the lion getting caught in the hunter’s net and the mice chews through the net to free him) verbatim.

There is a flip side to this. Sometimes she blurts out things. Even though thats what children do, it is pretty embarrassing to us as parents. The other day we were standing in a store. A cyclist walked in. He was wearing biking tights, a hip pack, a back pack, thick sunscreen and had bronze red colored hair. Our little chatter box looked at him and screamed at the top of her voice, “Amma, look clown”. I just went all red, as red as our man’s hair!

Lispick on toes
She saw that I have nail polish painted on my toes and told me,
“Amma, pretty toes. I want lispick(lipstick) on my toes.”

And many more to come…..

I have come up with my list of blogs that make me think. The funny thing about this list is couple of them don’t know I exist on this planet! I, people, am a serious lurker who takes lurking very seriously! I will let them know, but I am not sure if they will be passing the torch on. I mean, if some one tags me out of the blue, I would think twice too!

And I am doing repeats and back tags. Because my blogging world is quite small.

Boo: Two years ago, Big Boo comes to me and tells me that her sister has a blog. And me goes, Blog?! What in the world is that? So Boo practically introduced blogging to me. Ever since I have been compulsively checking her blogs atleast 2-3 times a day, mainly to update myself on baby Ashu’s antics and also because her style of writing leaves me wanting for more. We go a long way back and she is as wonderful, fun and thoughtful in person as she is in her blogs.

Tharini: The minute I open her blog, a calmness seeps in to me. Be it the banner or the image of the teacups, its all so serene. She puts in so much effort in to each post, with those special banners and images. She takes parenting very seriously and at those times I get in to one of my temper tantrums, I compare self(which I do a lot) with people like Tharini and feel embarrassed. Her family must be really lucky.

Kiran: I am back tagging you. I am a bit of a dope head – explanation follows shortly. I had been reading your mommyblog and also your personal blog at wordpress and was amazed by the way you write, quite contrary to the modest picture you paint about yourself.{Begin explanation for dope head }All along I had been thinking that these two ladies write so similarly. Even after looking your pictures, I still hadn’t figured it out. Finally it hit me only after reading your comment. {End explanation}

Ammani: She is known as the quick tales lady. She has close to 200 QT in her blogs. Each tale is unique and has a different flavor. The reason her tales are so close to heart are because the crux is so common that we all experience it day in and day out. But it takes talent to present it as captivating quick tale. Hats off to you Ammani.

Chennaikaran: He sure makes me laugh. I have laughed so hard that I have blast food out of my nose! He has such a wonderful, light take on life. I wish I could have his sense of humor. You have to read him to believe him.

If you choose to pass it on, these are the Thinking Blogger Award rules:
This award was started here.
You have to award five others whose blog you think deserve this award.
Should you choose to participate, please make sure you pass this list of rules to the blogs you are tagging.
If, and only if, you get tagged, write a post with links to 5 blogs that make you think.
Link to this post so that people can easily find the exact origin of the meme.

Optional: Proudly display the ‘Thinking Blogger Award’ with a link to the post that you wrote.Please, remember to tag blogs with real merits, i.e. relative content, and above all — blogs that really get you thinking!

[Update:Linked the image to thethinkingblog]

Thanks Kiran for nominating me for the thinking blogger award. This is prefect because I live for gratification. I even created a new category for this post , some where I can file away the other awards and rewards that are going to come knocking…he..he..he.

If I have to come with 5 things about myself I would have jump started my post and would be done with it. But I have to think about 5 people(gulp), other than self(gulp, gulp), who make me think(GULP, GULP, GULP)??!

This people is going to take sometime.

I want to discuss a few popular streams of preschools in this post. Most of the information will apply to families living in the US. Which doesn’t mean that the others must not read this post. Even if you do not have school age children, please do read on, because I would love to hear your opinions on this subject. 🙂

Through out this post I will be using she/her, as required. It sounds too formal/politically correct to keep repeating he/she, his/her every time I make reference to a child. Just like the word man means both man and woman, my reference to she means both he and she. Yes, I am partial towards ‘she’ because I have two girls 🙂

It seems like only yesterday hubby an self were breaking our heads to pick a day care for toddler, already it is time to start thinking about preschools! After a few months of thinking, visting, revisiting ideas, it will be that time to start acting!

We are all parents, so we all know clearly well, what a preschool is. No definitions required. The general norm, irrespective of which part of the world you live in, is to send your child off to preschool when the child turns three. Most of the preschools in US, require that the children have completed two years, nine months and are potty trained before they take them in. Some of the smaller preschools might be a little lax on this rule, they might take the child in as early as two years and six months and are okay if the child wears training pants.

A child’s brain grows at a tremendous pace till the child reaches 6 years. When the child is approximately 5 years, her brain is supposed to be more or less the size of an adult brain. The idea of sending the child to preschools is to make use of these essential years. Attending preschool or getting the benefits of a preschool education at home gives the child a head start through out her life.

Every child is different. So the method the child must be taught must differ too. We have to have an understanding about the types of education and the temperament of the child, in order to pick the best preschool for the child.

Now, to the two main methods of education – which in simple terms can be called as the child-centered method and the teacher-centered method. For the most part the Montessori style is a child-centered approach, but since there is a lot of unique stuff to be said about this style of education, I am putting in to a separate category.

A child-centered method is one where the basic goal is the wholesome and autonomous development of the child. The individuality of a child is celebrated. There is no segregation in terms of subject, it is believed that all the subjects are inter related. This method is based on the assumption that every child is growth seeking and has the intrinsic motivation to learn, which is true. Only as we grow, we start piling up negativity, laziness and become bums. There is no preset curriculum for this method, there are rough guidelines, but what the child learns is totally up to the child and the teacher. All the activities are chosen by the child. The child gets to decide when, what, how she wants to learn and when she wants to play. Interaction, between the kids and kids adult interaction is highly encouraged, because this method believes that is how children learn. Most of the preschools in the US and around the world were based on this method until the Asian influence seeped in, me thinks :).

The only place where I have seen this type of education practiced in its true essence is the lab schools aka the childcare centers affiliated with an educational institution. Every educational institution, which has a child studies department, has its own child care facility. They organize the children according to their age groups. The children age group 3.5 years – 5 years have a preschool program. The environment is set up every day and the children can do anything they opt for, throughout the day. It might sound and seem like all play, but they do teach cool stuff. The couple of weeks I was there in my lab school, the kids were taught about photosynthesis, life cycles of a butterflies, silk worms, democracy and career options when they grow up.

But, couple of negatives about this style of education is that,

The kind of kids who will thrive well in this style: The beauty of this is, it will fit perfectly for kids from opposite ends of the spectrum. Kids who are social bees take naturally to this style. But it doesn’t mean that a very shy toddler will not do well. This might be a good chance to draw your toddler out. Kids are known to interact easily with other kids than with adults. Also if the child is from a family where the adults believe that children are supposed to run around and have fun, go for this. After preschool, make a slow transition to an academically oriented school.

A teacher-centered method is a style educating the child by teaching the child conformity. The children are motivated to learn through external means – test, assignment kind of stuff. This style is based on the theory that the environment shapes a person. The characteristics of this style of education is its emphasis on product over process, separate subjects, fixed curriculum for all the students and imporantc of an authority figure(namely the teacher). Interaction between the teacher and the children is encouraged, but there is a limit on the interaction between the kids. Every school in India is based on this style, so I don’t think we need any further explanations.

The kind of kids who will thrive well in this style: Kids who thrive on structure. The amount of openness in the activities that can be done over whelms kids many times. The kids might start one activity, suddenly jump to the next and will end up not learning anything properly. All kids are fickle, but there are varying levels in the fickleness. If you feel that the child needs some kind of conformity in order improve her concentration, jump right on to this style. If you are an Indian parent who is thinking about moving back to India and is looking for a temporary pre school please do the kid a big favor and enroll her for this style. Because in India, as far as I know, most of the schools are too academically oriented. Otherwise there might be a small possibility that the kid might have to repeat the kindergarten program once again in India. If at all that is the case, parents take a chill pill and let the kid do it. Don’t think of it as a year wasted, think of it as a life long investment. You can potentially crucify the child’s self esteem by letting her feel that she constantly needs to catch up in school.

Montessori style: Dr.Maria Montessori started this style of education in Italy at a time where education was only for the rich boys. Girls, poor children and children with metal and physical disability were considered ‘not fit’ to be educated. At a time like this Dr.Maria Montessori came out this unique way of education, the main goal was to give the poor kids a way to sustain their lives. Have you heard the adage, “Give a man a fish to eat, you fed him for a day, teach him to fish you feed him for his life”? Dr.Montessori essentially came with a method of teaching the kids to fend forthemselves for the rest of their lives.

So when you look at a Montessori program, you have to keep in mind the reason Dr.Montessori came up with this style of teaching. In a Montessori there is very little interaction – between the kids/between the kids and the teacher. The children are encouraged to work on their own, the teacher ‘guides’ them. First and foremost, the children are taught how to take care of themselves – basics like how to wear their shoes, how to dress them selves, how to clean their environment…kind of simple activities. Lots of stress is placed on nature, most of the materials used are natural. In the present days, the Montessori programs are highly watered down versions of the original method.

The kind of kids who will thrive well in this style: Kids who love independence, interacting with nature. If you have a special needs kid (like ADD), go for this method, because there is low teacher: student ratio in a Montessori (might vary from program to program, check with the provider about this information).

I know toddler will thrive well in an academically oriented program, but I just want her to get the benefits of a much more relaxed curriculum, after all this is the age to run around and have fun. So I am still dilly dallying. Hubby has his heart set on a full blown, completely academic program.

Will also do a post (sometime soon) about the choice of schools, when to apply, how to apply etc, but that will be more focused to the California bay area.

I was going through my toddler-log from my pre-blogging times and this particular log caught my attention. I had made this log last year, a month before toddler turned two.

ACTION:

I was teaching toddler how to be nice, sweet and polite. “Baby, always say please when you want something. Say thanks when you get something from someone or when some one helps you. You have to say sorry if you hurt someone. It is nice to say welcome if someone says thanks to you”.

REACTION:

Toddler gets up every morning and says ‘Thenths(Thanks) pillow, thenths bantheth(blanket)’. I thought that she might be over doing it a little bit, but hey, being too polite is not going to hurt. But….if I hand her something that she had asked for she says, ‘Thenths spoon’ or ‘Thenths book’ instead of ‘Thanks Amma’. I tried correcting her, ‘Say thanks amma’, she looked at me and said ‘Veltham(Welcome)’ and walked away!

Same way if she knocks something on me she says sorry to the inanimate object, but not ‘Sorry amma’. If I correct her, ‘Say sorry amma’, she thinks I am telling sorry to her for some reason and says, ‘Uh-oh, thats othay(okay)’ and walks away!

So far ‘please’ is not being abused. She does say please when she wants something!

Well, this is a question that has been gnawing me since I got married. I am an only child and I grew up with my aunts(my mom’s sisters) and went to a girls-only school. I had few men friends in college but that was not good enough for me to look deep in to the male psyche.

Ever since I got married, I discovered that hubby and self are yin and yang, not in the nice complementing each other way! We have the exact opposite reaction to any situation. He is calm, composed, balanced, never gets overly excited, a bit of a cynic and thinks with his head. I am easily excitable, swing from happy to sad before one can snap their fingers and think with my heart. Really how different are men and women? Are all men and women this different?

With this in mind, I observe children at play. The four year olds I work with show clear segregation in terms of gender. They even want to stand in two separate lines, “the boys line” and the “girls line”, while they go to the play ground. I asked them why they want separate lines, the girls said, “The boys don’t use walking feet. Once he pushed me down and I got a boo-boo on my knee”, the boys just said, “No”, that’s all nothing more.

I mean, there is a difference even in the style in which they answer. The girls have an elaborate answer, they run and we don’t like to run, so we will have our own line, thanks. The boys use very limited words, don’t explain all their actions, their attitude was like, “Isn’t it obvious, why do you even ask?”.

Observing more, the boys played with toy trucks, each one holding a truck, ramming the trucks head on, repetitively. They played with blocks, each one holding a block, ramming them head on, repetitively. They played with (toy)garden equipments like shovels, rakes, lawn mowers, each one holding one piece of toy, ramming them and yes they did it repetitively. While playing dress-up(“No Ms.A, only girls dress up. We are wearing a costume.” was the response I got from a gentleman when I asked if they want to play dress up!) they picked fire fighter hats, spider man masks, police man uniforms and rammed their heads, of course, repetitively! They didn’t want anything to do with the so-called “girl toys”

The girls loved to read books, played in the sand, danced to music, dressed up as princesses/cooks/nurses, didn’t mind playing with “boy toys”, wanted to paint and do more art work in class.

There is more, the boys preferred repetition, the girls preferred variety. The boys wanted more out door activities, the girls wanted more in door activities. Girls preferred girls only groups, the boys didn’t mind a girl in their group as long as she was equally rough and tough. When there was a problem the girls voiced their complaint to an authority figure, where as boys dealt with it by them selves…and the list goes on.

Such deep preferences and segregation in terms of behavior at such an early age? It makes me wonder about the reasons influencing this. First comes the biological differences, the second culprit is gender typing by parents and the third culprit is peer acceptance.

As a sense of self develops, gender awareness also develops in a child. Apart from a few biological differences, which are mostly hormonal or genetic, there are no notable differences in terms of a boy’s brain or a girl’s brain or in the way boys and girls develop till they are 18 months.

Around 18 months, the child learns the concept of self and visualizes its role in the society through it maleness or femaleness. Irrespective of whether the parents believe in gender segregation or gender equality, they promote gender typing. The degree might be different, but it is present in all families. Sometimes parents are very cautious not to fall in to gender stereotypes, they might get an easy bake oven for their son or a construction set for their daughter. By telling that it is okay for a boy to play with girl toy, is a type of gender typing in a convoluted way! Research indicates that fathers are more likely to gender type than mothers! Can you believe it? Apparently fathers consciously or unconsciously interact with boys through rough play and are more sensitive to girls. An adult in this house, who shall not be named at this time, once commented that he will teach the girls sports like tennis, basket ball, cricket and bring them up as boys. Understand the subliminal gender typecasting folks?! Plight of boys is even worse. They are very strongly gender typed than girls. At least girls have a level of freedom in their choice of dresses, games and playmates. Imagine how much the parents will be freaking out, the father more than the mother according to researches, if the boy dresses in pink, plays with dolls and only with girls and likes wearing his mommies jewellery?!

As the child grows, gender gets more and more defined by interacting with peers and other adults. This basically seals the issue once and for all. At this point of time even if there is a little bit of femaleness in a boy (the other way around is accepted, it considered tomboy-ish-ness) he gives it up or masks it. A child is quick to take up gender labels for the sake of peer acceptance.

Phew, now what does this means for us parents? Even if you believe that men and women are equal, your child will definitely learn about gender inequality, may be a little later, but it is something we cannot avoid.

If you want to raise a rough and tough girl or a sensitive boy, don’t push it on the child. Be sensitive to what the child wants. Once in a while it is okay if your boy plays with dolls. It does not mean anything. And if your girl is too girl-ish, just go along with it.

If your three year old boy makes a sexist comment, don’t freak out. It does not mean that you are a bad parent. Children learn from lots of places beside home – TV, school, friends, other adults. Correct him and be a role model. The child is merely going through a phase. He will eventually learn.