Play a game,Sing a song,Tell a story

Ever since my son could talk, his incessant demands would be for us to "Play a game with me". I always felt that I had to much to do, be it cooking, cleaning and so many more. When one day my father-in-law told me to put things aside and play with my son. He said, " The work will always be there". And so it is.
So my husband and I used to take turns in playing and the games changed with the seasons.
It first started with a big plastic ball, more like a beach ball. We used to throw it at each other. Then there were the building blocks. After a while many games were added. There were silly games and clever games. And then family games like snake and ladders. There were also games with marbles since my husband liked it.
Then we played "Killi Thandu" which we used to enjoy as children. And then there were kite flying with fancy long kites purchased after a trip to Marina beach where my son saw them flying wonderful kites.
We progressed then to thief and robbers and Pallankuzhi and over the years to Pokemon and now Nintendo Wii.
Well we find playing the Nintendo games take more expertise on our end and there is no way we can compete with our son. He always WINS.
That is not the case when it comes to singing. I have never been asked to sing because my family knows I cannot carry a tune. So my husband always sings and we enjoy.
The story telling is another matter. It was easy to narrate stories from our Puranas and Amar chitra Katha and Panchatantra when a child is young.
As the child grows, the stories get to be very challenging.
We passed through Tenali Rama and many of that calibre.
Telling bed time stories did help set a precedent, so much so that now we can use that time to discuss real life stories.
This is how a child grows.
Playing at home, sometimes even with house hold vessels, singing songs and then hearing the wonderful old stories which we never get tired of telling and they never get tired of hearing.
Many from our family and friends and teachers over the years have been involved in raising our child. Is that why they said it takes a village to raise a child?

 

Shashi
Nice to hear from you.. All of us young mothers do go through those phases..

 

Mindi
You are some much better at putting it in words

We always surprise ourselves when we do so much more for our little ones..

I am not missing the incessant demands as now the demands our changed.

This year he wanted to go to garba and I stayed up till 3a.m.!!!

The stages are different but the child is the same. I thank god for these small pleasures everyday! These small seeds of togetherness is going to grow into a giant oak of sweet memories:thumbsup

 

Oviya
we do appear as kindred souls!

I just read your reply to my Nap thread and if we can both power nap for few minutes and also experience cling clangs from kiddo, then surely we qualify for kindred righta???

It is really an unique phase with mothers than fathers. They react differently to this .. sometimes for them its just physical play like basketball, cricket etc.

For us its the babyish kind of plays.. with pots and pans being cling clanged.

When my son was a toddler we did not buy any toys at all mainly because we could not afford to.
Apart from any gift he got, his favorite toys were ALL the Pots and Pans in the kitchen.
I had bottom draws like cupboards that would open outwards.

So standing and cooking i will keep the cupboards open.

He had a great time knocking all the vessels around.

Since I am somewhat deaf anyways, the din did not bother me

And I need to share with you what else happened in the midst of cling clangs!

He LOCKED me inside the kitchen. There was a latch kind outside the door and he would sneak out and lock me in and stand from outside and cry.

He was an absolute expert at doing that.

Those days we had'ne heard of childproof and stuff. In more ways than one glad we didnt hear of it.

Where else will a mother learn the feeling of being locked IN???

(Forgive me my ramble

 

Mui Kanva
Thanks for sharing here.

I feel babies just want to hear their mothers voice.. I agree with you we will never get a better audience. I still remember singing all the nursery rhymes .. over and over and over again!!!