Thursday, October 30, 2008

sleeplessness and grudges

Anjali slept a grand total of nine hours yesterday, from 12 midnight to 7am and then from noon to 2pm. We expected her to sleep early last night because of this, but guess what? She is sticking to her schedule of not sleeping before midnight.

Last night there was a fight between father and daughter. Two fights actually. the first one was over a packet of biscuits. They were colorful and shaped like fish and apparently contained cheddar, so i bought them for Anjali. when we opened them, we found that they were over salted. I tossed them in a tupperware and kept them on the kitchen counter, but never really bothered with them.

Lately though, Anjali has taken a liking to the biscuits. She would stand on the edge of the kitchen counter and say "bi". i would open the box and hand over one tiny biscuit, which she would take. "Amma", she would say, implying that Amma must take a biscuit. "Adi!" and then pass a biscuit to Daddy.

But daddy was getting a bit worried about Anjali eating unhealthy oversalted biscuits. And yesterday, when she wanted three biscuits, thhe told her,

"ok Anjali, you take one more and then i'll put away the biscuits". she took one more. Husband tried to put away the biscuits, but the imp refused to accept it and so the tantrum began.

it didnt stop until I went in to mediate.

Husband took the opportunity to hide the packet of biscuit. This morning, I found it on the top rack of his clothes cubboard, and deciding to play safe emptied the whole tupperware into the dustbin.

Already she was miffed with husband over the biscuits. Imagine what happened when, as Anjali was happily playing with water in the sink, I called husband to take over watching Anjali as I couldnt stand too long.

it was 11.30pm. Husband picked the girl up rather unceremoniously and tried to dump her in bed. That started the second tantrum. Which didnt stop for atleast ten minutes.

I came in with a bottle of water.

Drink some water.

Anjali stopped crying, looked around the assess the situation. Would she be allowed to play? She seemed to decide not.

"Waaaa"

"ok, cry away, but your throat is probably parched. So drink some water and then cry."

She settled down to drink water, by the end of which she decided that she was tired and fell asleep.

This morning, she was still holding a grudge against husband. When he was in the bathroom, she kept calling

"Aaadi"

"Appappa"

And when he came back

"Anjali, give me a kiss, I am going to work."

No response.

"Anjali, give daddy a kiss"

No response.

"She is upset with Adi", i told patti, explaining the situation

"Dont be upset with appa Anjali. Appa scolds you because it is good for you. You know how much thattha used to scold mummy. He scolds mummy even now. and then mummy cries waa waa."

"I didnt scold her" Said husband.

"No you didnt. you just chided her. and she is not used to being chided by anyone else, especially not you. lets try again.... Anjali, you want to do buffalo with mummy?"

Anjali promptly turns around and butts her head against mine.

"You want to do buffalo with daddy?"

No response.

So daddy had to pick her up and rub noses against her and make her smile, and you could see that she was enjoying all the attention.

She's probably going to milk it for all it is worth.


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