Friday, May 17, 2013

Not as big as Jupiter, Amma?

Putting the kids to bed meant that one of us (mom / dad /grandparent) lies down in bed between the boys and puts them to bed – singing lullabies, telling stories, patting them, rubbing their hair and more. During this bedtime routine, we also called over our legendary friend, Wiwiliwinkie. We would say “Wiwiliwinkie is coming on it’s rounds to check if all kids are in bed. So you better get going. Else, you are going with Wiwiliwinkie for the night…” (OR) “Wiwiliwinkie, come and get Akhi (or Siddhu). He is not sleeping.” To this last comment, S always got scared and slept.  We always had Wiwiliwinkie as one of the kids’ bed time helpers until one day A looked out the window into the stars and said “Wiwiliwinkie, come and take Amma(or Nana) away. Keep her with you.”
Then I understood I was just wasting my time because neither is A scared of Wiwiliwinkie, nor is he going to sleep when he doesn’t want to. Also, it was getting a very time-consuming process and I wanted to transfer responsibility of sleeping from parent to the child. So, we changed bed time strategy to the following: Bath - pyjamas – milk - medicines – brushing – story – favorite blankets – sleep frens (toys) - music on - lights off – no adults in the room (boys sleep by themselves). Usually at this time, I go into the room and whisper into their ears how special each of them are to me and how much I love them. Going on some of their favorite books, I say “I love you to Pluto and farther and back all the way to our home… “, “I love you as soft as your skin”, “I love you as bright as your eyes”, “I love you as big as Jupiter is”, “I love your sparkling eyes, your running nose, your cute bum, your rumbly tummy, your short hair etc etc” and more. I use a lot of comparisons, spend about 5 minutes in the room with my boys and then plant a BIG BIG BIG GOOD NIGHT KISS.  S returns the same to me  - he kisses me, hugs me really tight (it gets tighter day by day), he says to me “I love you a lot , Amma”…..Then I leave and both of them sleep. A usually gives me a kiss and says “GOOD NIGHT” (He is too small to react like S)
On 04/23/2013 and 04/22/2013 after 10 minutes of me leaving the room S yelled out “Amma, Amma, Amma…” The pitch of his yelling made me wonder what happened – did A fall? Did someone have an accident on the bed? Did A beat S? Only to realize that the yell was for S to give me a good night hug and goodnight kiss…(This is after we have given our due of kisses to each other)… When such things happen, I usually tell C “A mom’s kiss can solve any problem for her little ones…”
Two days back (on 04/24/2013) I told A, “I love you as big as Jupiter, as red as Mars is, as cold as Pluto, as small as Mercury, as beautiful as Earth and as wonderful as you…” then I went to S’s bedside and told him, “I love you as bright as your eyes, as curly as your hair, as enchanting as your smile, as jumpy as your little legs and as beautiful as you…” Immediately S asks me, “Not as big as Jupiter, Amma???”
Yesterday (on 04/25/2013) after our GOOD NIGHT kisses S hugged me real tight and told me “Amma, I love you to the sun and moon and back. I love you day and night. (so sweet of my 4-yr old)”.  He also asked me if he and his brother can have a sleepover with me. We agreed to Saturdays being our sleepover days…So, our first sleepover will be this Saturday on 04/27/2013. Waiting to see how that goes…

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