A sleep story

Yesterday was an unusual day for us. The nanny was sick, and Amit too had signs of cold, in addition to his irritated eyes. Amit decided to WFH/take leave half day and picked up Rian as usual from school at 11:45am. Rian was so excited to know Daddy will take care of him, he refused to sleep in the afternoon. Daddy got quite a few errands done, including a trip to the doctor for his sore eyes. By evening, everyone was tired.

We discovered there was no daal at home. Eating the new cook's chapatis without daal is not possible, so I ventured into territory I've been unaccustomed to for almost 3 years: the kitchen, to make daal. Rian had "Shayona sandwich" with Daddy while mom cooked daal. I think Rian was rather full after that, and also very tired.

We had a surprise when Rian decided to play all by himself in his room while Daddy had dinner quietly, and mom talked to him. We could hear Rian for a long time, and he was playing with his cars. We were kind of thinking: wow Rian has grown up so much!! Daddy was almost done with dinner, and it was time for Rian's milk too. We could no longer hear Rian though.

We went upstairs to see Rian fast asleep, in his bed, on his pillow, with all his cars in the bed :-) It was such a cute sight!!!

We managed to give Rian half his milk, just under 4oz, in sleep. It was a miracle I could get him to pee in his half asleep state. A quick change of clothes and he was nestled in his bed again.

I've only heard stories from Amit's mom: Amit often fell asleep, without dinner, and Amit's mom had to give him milk in his sleep :-)

Nails

Rian is usually okay with me cutting his finger nails, once I explain and show him that they are long and sharp, and can potentially hurt him. I usually take one of his tiny fingers and run it over his long nail, and that drives the point home. Getting him to cut his toe nails is a bit harder. Especially in winter, he has socks on all the time. For some reason Rian loves his socks, and will scream bloody murder if I remove them without reason. I have to convince him to remove his beloved socks, then show him that his toe nail (specially his big toe nail) is indeed long. 10 mins and the job is usually done, and we are happy and back to play.

Last night after his milk, Rian says to me:

Mumma it's sharp, your nail is sharp. Oh look, your nails are big. You need to cut. Cut your nails mumma.
(Pulls my feet out of the comforter)
Now look, your toe nails, they are big. Cut Mumma, cut your toe nails too. We need to do it now, Mumma

We were rolling on the bed, laughing :-) Yes dear, sometimes Mumma doesn't get time to cut her nails...

Car fanatic

It's unbelievable that I haven't written more about cars and Rian. More than 90% of Rian's wakeful hours are spent with his toy cars. The boy is obsessed, just like his Dad was as a kid. Rian's car obsession started small, and his first few cars were fairly big. My memory of his first set of hot wheels is in Austin, TX from Aanya. After that, there was no stopping. Rian's nanny Cely fueled his passion, and used cars as a way to teach Rian many things. She alone must have bought more than 60 toy cars for Rian, sometimes one every single day of the week. It's no surprise by the time Rian was 2.5 yrs old, he had more than a 100 cars. Disney Pixar's Cars became Rian's all-time favorite movie, and we owe many a lunches and dinners to this movie.

Early on when Rian started speaking, he started identifying car models. This was ~a year back in March '10. Walking through parking lots quickly became a hobby and a wonderful experience. Driving was also fun, as we started pointing to various cars: which car is the grey one, and pat would come the response. Rian loves playing this car game even today. At 25 months, Rian was a pro at identifying 90% of the car makes!

As his reading improved, he started reading car makes and models. It with the make VOLVO as this car does not have a clear symbol on the back. So Rian used to identify this as "V O L V O that's a Volvo car!". Since two weeks we were reading models like Acura MDX, Toyota RAV4, BMW M3. The other day he asked me: "Mumma, V O L V O is Volvo. What is Costco?" I explained to him "C O S T C O is Costco".

The reason for today's post: Today morning I saw a big Toyota Tacoma SUV and it did not have the Toyota symbol on the back. I generally quizzed Rian asking him "What car is that Rian?". He said "Toyota". I was surprised. I asked him "how do you know, Rian?" He said: "the letters Mumma. See T O Y O T A" :-) Amazing, simply amazing. A great start to a Monday morning...

Morning wisdom pearls

Mornings have always been bright and shiny with Rian. When I used to co-sleep with him from 6am, I used to wake up to some amazing talk :-) Last night Rian woke up 5 times, coughing. Finally at 6am, he came to my bed (we blew off Tahoe plans :-( -- more later about that). When he woke up, this was our conversation.

Me: Rian, Mumma is not feeling well today. Mumma's tummy is hurting.
Rian: what's that hanging next to the calendar?
Me: That's Rian's photoframe.
Rian: Mumma got hurt by Rian's photoframe.
Me: no beta, photoframe did not hurt me.
Rian: then what hurt your tummy?
Me: beta, Mumma ate some bad food last night, some mushrooms Mumma did not cook properly.
Rian: Mumma, eat good food Mumma. Eat egg.
Me: yes beta, I'll eat good food, I'll eat egg today.

Even though my tummy hurt like hell, I had a huge smile on my face :-)

We usually kiss Rian if he falls or hurts himself. Rian is picking up on that now. He said next:

Rian: Mumma Rian wants to kiss you
Me: Oh how sweet, kiss me (and I came forward)
Rian: No mumma No. Rian wants to kiss Mumma's tummy. Then it will be alright.
Me: (melted in a pool of love by the bedside).