Daddy’s Little Girl: The Cost Daddy Pays to Be

On an uneventful Sunday afternoon, Siddhi and I thought of doing something exciting. Unfortunately, Misri wasn't asleep. So our options were pretty limited. We had the choicest of two choices: harass each other or gang up and harass the toddler. We'd already had enough of the former having been married for seventeen years. Therefore, a natural choice was to harass the tot. Siddhi and I looked at each other with a devilish and mafia-ish smile, respectively. Unaware of our grand schemes, Misri was innocently watching videos on the iPad. So we took the iPad away from Misri... just to watch how she reacted. That didn't elicit much of a reaction from Misri. This kid is resilient. So against her will, we thought of teaching her something new. There's nothing quite irritating as some futile words of wisdom from parents, when all a child wants to do is watch "meaningful" YouTube videos from ChuChuTV and the likes. 

However, it was time for Misri to know who mommy, daddy, nanni, daadi, patti, aaji etc. were, in English, Hindi, Marathi, Tamil, Gujarati and most importantly... in Indonesian. Especially, she had to know who mommy and daddy really were, so we could stamp our authority all over her with phrases like "I am your daddy, you have to... (random things to coerce baby)". We spent 20 minutes teaching her who's who at home. But when that didn't feed our voracious appetite for fun and adventure, we thought of holding a pop quiz. Misri loves popping bubbles, so when she heard the mention of "pop quiz", she expectedly was brimming with joy (unaware that it didn't actually involve popping bubbles of any sort). Here’s how the quiz transpired -

Siddhi: "Where's daddy?"

Misri: “There...", she replied pointing at me

Siddhi: "Where's mommy?"

Misri: “There........", she said pointing at ME AGAIN

I snickered. 

Siddhi: "What's daddy's name?"

Misri: "Jayyyyy......"

Siddhi: “What's mommy's name"

Misri: "Jayyyyyyyyyyy....."

I laughed.

Siddhi: “Alright, what's naani's name?"

Misri: "Jayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy....."

I guffawed. (In retrospect, I shouldn’t have done this)

Siddhi: This time a bit agitated, “What's YOUR name?"

Misri: "Jay", she was succinct this time

Siddhi: "OK, where's Siddhi?"

Misri: EFGH..(takes deep breaths while literally inhaling the letters)...NOPQ......RRRRRRabbit...(short of breath by now but still rattling off the alphabets)...XY Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

By this time I was in tears of joy. As pretty a name as "Siddhi" is, it's not poor Misri's fault if her mom's name sounds like CD. 

The quiz ended. I was roflmao. I declared that Misri's answers were spot on. I awarded her a score of 10/10. By this time, Siddhi also seemed to take it sportively and was smiling. It was back to business for all of us. I was feeling a little exhausted after the high-octane action. “Come here...” Siddhi said, “I’ll give you a nice head massage”. I smiled and thought to myself naively “This is probably the best day of my life”. With Siddhi sitting on the couch, I situated myself in my head massage position - on the floor, next to the couch, by her feet with my back facing her and the couch. I failed to realize that I had conceded the high ground to her. The hunter was about to become the hunted.

“Are we ready?” she asked in a suspiciously obliging tone. 

And before I could even answer, she started hitting my head repeatedly with Misri’s baseball bat. After the first blow I felt like I was hit by a train, and boy was it a long train. The blows kept coming at mathematically precise intervals with exponentially increasing intensity. I asked her to stop but she had seemingly turned a deaf ear. “This is a REALLY weird kind of a massage” I thought to myself as I screamed in pain. I cried out for help but our neighbors were out-of-home. I couldn’t call 911 because getting a terrible head massage isn’t exactly a security threat or a medical emergency (The NSA though might consider this a threat to the national security and ask Apple to unlock mine, my wife's and our neighbors iPhones too as it could contain potentially valuable intelligence)

I had to think fast. I tried to escape by lunging forward and breaking free from her grasp, but I fell flat on the ground with my arms stretched out. She then clasped both my ankles, and dragged me back as my fingernails screeched the hardwood floors. I felt like I was a helpless blackbuck being hunted down by Salman Khan...... 's driver. I felt like I was a helpless gazelle being hunted down by a lioness in the savannas of Africa. "Nooooooo, pleeeeeeease, nooooooo......" I begged. There seemed to be blood everywhere, I freaked out for a moment. However, I soon realized that I had just landed on some ketchup. A momentary moment of relief for me. She then pounced on my back and starting beating me again mercilessly until I was back in my senses. It finally struck me, this wasn’t some kind of a brutal nordic head massage technique (duh!). She was trying to teach me a lesson. I apologized immediately for laughing at Misri’s answers. She then slowly let go of me and the baseball bat. I got up slowly, corrected Misri and made her a “Who’s Who at Home” guide book so she wouldn’t repeat the mistakes. I also had to adjust her quiz scores to 3/10. Misri was a little disappointed, but only because she thought at some point in the quiz she’ll get to pop bubbles. Despite the intense headache and ringing ears I was experiencing, I took her outside to our yard to pop some real bubbles, after all, she IS daddy’s little girl. 

As I was blowing bubbles and Misri was popping them, Siddhi - tired from all the hard work - soaked in the sun. There's nothing quite like the feeling of being a happy family. And so we turned a boring afternoon into a soul-satisfyingly eventful one, glazed with a ton of fun and excitement. Ah, the Joys of Parenthood!

Disclaimers and Corrections

1) Of course we've not been married for 17 years, we've only been married for 5 years. But it sure as hell feels like 17.

2) No she doesn't need to learn Indonesian. She does need to learn Spanish, German, French and ooh.. Chinese (in both traditional and simplified scripts)

3) Misri's baseball bat is plastic, but it still hurt like hell. After that beating, I had to hide it for a few days. The only reason why I didn’t throw it out of the house was because I thought of it as a good weapon of defense

4) No offense to Salman Khan OR his driver, it was just a joke. Besides, everyone knows that Vivek Oberoi was really the one who killed the blackbuck.

Teaching Manners

Baby, mom and dad are in the living room.

Mom: “I think it’s time to teach our kid some good manners”

Dad: Belches loudly, “Sure!”

Mom: Stares at dad in anticipation

Dad: Acknowledges the stare , contemplates at length

7 seconds later

Dad: Still clueless and silent

Mom: “Excuse me??"

Dad: “God bless you!”

Mom: Shakes head in disdain, moves on

117 seconds later

Baby: Belches and says “Sure!”

Mom: Scowls at Dad, and politely corrects  baby “No, Excuse Me!”

Baby: “God bless you!”

Dad: “There we go, that’s a good start”

Screw It

Misri, just like any other toddler has tons of toys (yes, it's a growing epidemic). 50% of her toys are usually tucked in some place that we cannot find, 40% toys that she is not interested in playing with are spread out all around the house, the remaining 10% toys are in the place where they should be. Every once in a while, she manages to pull out one toy from that “50% bucket” from some obscure corner of the house. And when she does find one of those toys, it’s usually either broken or it’s run out of juice (you know, electrical juice). 

And so today, Misri again pulled out one of those toys from the darkest corners of the house. This time it was some kind of a weird table that doubles as a piano (I’ll never be able to understand how these product ideas are conceived in the first place). She tried to play with it as she usually does, but the piano wasn’t singing to her tune today. Of course it didn't, it’d run out of juice. So she started beating the cr@p out of it. Not because she was angry, but just because she thought that all the smashing and bashing will make somehow make it work (part of this psychology does linger into our adulthood). Siddhi was of course looking at her, after which she looked at me too. One look was enough, I knew I had to get up and help Misri out and save the piano from it’s annihilation or else I would eventually meet mine. So I got up with a sense of purpose and pulled out a new set of batteries. Every single time I replace batteries in Misri’s toys I get a bit nostalgic and scared. Nostalgic because it reminds me of how I used to pester my dad until he’d replace the batteries in my toys; scared because I know every single thing that I did to my Dad, she will do to me. It all comes back at you. 

Anyway, so I also pulled the screwdriver from it’s usual place (and surprisingly, it was actually present in it’s usual place). By this time Misri was hovering around me like little kids hover around iPads or any glowing screen for that matter. She of course wanted me to fix her toy. So I sat down and started working on her toy. But then she noticed the screwdriver in my hand. And then she forgot about her toy. Now she wanted the screwdriver. I could say from the look in her eyes. She grasped the screwdriver and pulled it towards her, and I set off with my usual “No Misriiiiii” in a rather imposing tone which I’m not usually capable of. That didn’t bother her much, she tugged at it again. I didn’t let go of it either, I pulled back harder. At this point she made her hybrid “crying and annoyed” face. If the crying won’t get you then the annoyed look would most likely scare you. But her hybrid face didn’t work on me (I guess bacteria and pests aren’t the only things that can develop immunity to stuff). Then she started screaming and revolting. I pulled the screwdriver out of her hands with brute (but safe) force, loaded the new batteries in the piano/table thing and hid the screwdriver. The piano started singing, but she didn’t care. Now she wanted the screwdriver badly, more so than ever before. After spending about five minutes fruitlessly distracting her I gave up and said “Screw It” (to myself) and gave the screwdriver to her. She gleefully accepted both the victory and the screwdriver, looked at it for a few seconds, then nonchalantly threw it across the room. “Screw it” I guess is what she thought too.