Bed-time Stories

"He wouldn't even settle sleeping next to me. He has to sleep on me."

The sleep-training is being going on for a few months now at our place, but Ganesh still does not sleep through the night. I have partially weaned him off from his swing of saree. We had to swing him for thirty to forty minutes every time to make him sleep, right from the time he was born. This itself I consider as a big achievement, for the struggles, crying and negotiations we had to go through to get him to  bed.

He still has his milk in bottle at around 3 am and another one at around 6 am and sleeps till 7:15 am which too has reduced from three to two. I know I am not the only one hre going through this, just felt good reading this article.

Of sharing and being nice

If you ask Ganesh to share what he is eating, you will get, after much pleading persuation that is, something in your hand, which you will not be able to see. And if you put that in mouth, you will not get the taste of it either.
If a baby or child, looks at his plate, irrespective of he eating or not, otherwise a nice, calm and soft Ganesh turns into a hitting monster. In a park, if I touch another child, Ganesh screams, DDDDDAAAAEEEEEEE anna (or akka, whosoever his mother shows a temporary interest). He even went and hit a child yesterday. (Ofcourse he had to go through the amma-not-talking-to-you discplining strategy and he saying sorry to the child. Amma would have ignored it, if all this happened in her absence and the other hitting back Ganesh or they dealing all of it with each other)
We had been to Bannerghatta National Park last week. Shiv plucked some fresh tamarind from the trees and I just tried if the wild squirrels eat that. They came near, took that and started eating. It was such a cute sight, to say the least. Ganesh had not approved for it and hence had a lying-on-floor-crying tantrum. One lollypop as a bribe and he becomes fine. He kept on asking for the tamarind, for some time though.

One of our neighbors has a dalmatian called Spotty, with whom we are friends. Spotty doesn't generally allow people to enter his territory, but from the day we have seen and befriended him, he has not only allowed us to enter his zone, but also has been extremely gentle with Ganesh. Ganesh then being just one year old and not so steady, Spotty used to be very careful even while shaking off Ganesh from his body when Ganesh would hug him, bite him, pull  one of his feet or pull his tail. He would not sit anywhere anytime when Ganesh was around, to avoid Ganesh sitting on him. People around would ask me to be careful with the dog around the child, whereas I used to be worried about the dog. That was such a perfect picture. Until recently, when Ganesh had  just picked up a stick (as usual) from the garden there. Spotty, playfully snatched it from the other end and ran away. Ganesh, being him, did not like it and had a lying-on-floor-crying tantrum. I could not help laughing loudly, much to Ganesh's irritation. Spotty too, I am so sure was laughing who was standing next to me and kind of challenging Ganesh to take the stick back.