Silence is golden unless you have a toddler. Every parent gets anxious when there is a long silence. Priyansh has no history of putting random things into his mouth. My friend’s kid had apparently put a pebble in his mouth and it always haunts me. The only time Priyansh ate a non-edible item was his Nonna’s makeup. His expression when we caught him in the act is priceless. It’s indeed a cosmetic foundation cream that he is chomping in this picture.
In last few months Deepti and me sleeping at ungodly hours has become a routine. He wakes up before us by 8 or 8.30am. He keeps himself occupied but we still can hear him all the time. He used to jump on us and try to wake us up but he has come into terms now that his parents are not morning people. Deepti has a habit of keeping something for him to eat in the morning. The most common being a banana or a fistful of Dry fruits. During the Mango season we used to keep Priyansh away from the unripe mangoes but one fine day he happened to uncover the Mango and couldn’t stop himself.
While many ppl will find this pic cute, the first thing a parent will notice is the presence of a knife in that plate! As a modern over-protective parent, the first thing we think is the worst case scenario. We started hiding Mangoes and Knives. While he could follow the smell of Mangoes, he couldn’t find a knife. He actually got creative and he used a ‘screwdriver’ to somehow poke holes in mango and peel and eat the mango. A screwdriver!! Of course we had to start hiding the screwdriver till the end of Mango season but that didn’t stop him from using a hard plastic straw to poke holes and eat a full Mango. For the record, I would like to state that we do give him lots of food and like normal kids he refuses to have his proper meals but loves to eat snacks/chocolate or anything sweet. With the end of mango season, we were getting to sleep ( at morning 9) without worry for a few weeks. One fine morning, there was an ominous silence. It’s an established pattern that if he is not making any noise, he is upto something. As usual we were worried about ‘what happened again, why is he silent’, followed by a ‘you go check’ routine. We both were in for a shock! Priyansh had raided the freezer for the first time! He had nicely taken out a tub of ice cream, used the scooper to serve him HALF of tub in God knows how many servings. By the time we got to the scene of crime, all that was left was a few spoons of ice cream. A week later, he actually pulled out the baby proofing that we had done on the fridge and got a free pass to eat choco chips, fruits, raisins and what not for an entire week. We had almost 3 quarters of a Amul chocolate bar approx 100 gram pack. It was only after dinner that we realised Priyansh has almost finished it seeing the tiny nibble marks on it. We ended up buying an Advanced Baby proof ( and adult proof to a certain extent) contraption on our fridge and freezer! It has a strong magnet key, without which even an adult cannot open it. We hope this buys us some half an hour of extra shut eye in the morning.
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