How will we know if it's a boy or a girl?

That's the question S asked me first thing this morning. A very valid question given we have decided not to find out the gender of our baby.

But what do I tell her???

Are you sure you want to leave me at grandma's?

Usually when I want S to listen to me or to follow an instruction, invariably I find myself telling her that I will take some privilege away or threaten her with dire consequences.

I was surprised by how smartly she turned the tables on me this morning. S has been running a light temperature since the last few days, so when we decided to head out to do some Diwali shopping, we decided to leave her at her grandma's place since we also wanted to take our helper along to help out. S wasn't too happy with this situation. She started insisting that she wanted to come along too. I tried explaining to her many times that we weren't taking her because she wasn't well and didn't want her to get more sick. But none of this seemed to register. The pleading continued for a while.

Suddenly she changed tack and told me that if I left her at grandma's she would watch a lot of TV, implying that it wasn't something I would like and hence I should reconsider my decision. Tv watching at grandma's is usually uncontrolled and it's a bone of contention between my mom and me, which she is well aware of. I replied that I didn't care and she was definitely going to grandma's.

But it didn't end there. Her next words were - "I will watch so much tv and eat candy"! When I replied that I didn't care, she retorted, "I will eat 2 candies, and 3 and 4! How about that"? All this with a wicked twinkle in her eye. She knew all the things I didn't like that happened at grandma's and was throwing them in my face!

I was pretty impressed that she knew which things would bother me the most and was using them effectively. Very smart, don't you think?

Mama is laughing at me

It was a deja-vu moment. S was playacting and I found the incident vastly amusing and couldn't stop myself from laughing. She got upset and started howling seriously.
Apparently I had hurt her feelings by laughing at her.

Rewind 28 years. Similar set up. My mom and brother were playing some game and ignoring me. My protests and attempts to capture their attention all met with amusement and laughter. The laughter further angered me and in true Hindi film style I decided I would commit suicide and that would get their attention.

I marched smartly in to the kitchen and picked up a long sharp knife and dramatically stretched out my small arm and aimed the knife at my tummy. My mom who had decided to take me seriously after all, followed and calmed me down. She got me to give up the knife. I felt I had achieved success, I had her full attention. Before I knew it I received the loudest, tightest slap from her and in a really scary voice she warned me never to try anything stupid like that again. I was shattered, even my little drama hadn't managed to get me some affection. I went to my dad and sobbed my heart out.

I was thoroughly ashamed of myself and lived in constant dread that mom would share this incident with everyone. I took to eavesdropping whenever she was on the phone or she was meeting someone. This, of course, she found even more amusing.

It was only when I was in my late teens that I was able to see the funny side of things and it remains a vastly entertaining story!

Hearing S lament that "Mama is laughing at me", took me back to my own childhood and that day more than 28 years ago :). She is my daughter after all!