Jeyanth has graduated. Not that there was ever any serious doubt, but he has now made the transition that clearly distinguishes the path of his mental development, from that of a dog. He has left behind his puppy-like eagerness to please, to arrive at a threshold of maturity where there is serious contention between his desire to please his parents, and his desire to have his own way.
In other words, Jeyanth is on occasion deliberately and willfully naughty. Of course, he's been doing stuff that elicited vehement parental 'No!'s for a while, but till recently, it was fairly clear that most naughtiness was caused by the toddler-typical combination of a gold-fish like memory for instruction, and the non-existence of a pause between the conception of an act and its execution. Alas, not so any more.
Of course, its not like we didn't know it was going to happen. But I'm sure all first-time parents have that moment of shock when they realise that this otherwise affectionate, unbearably cute, ever-so-cuddly little ray of sunshine has a mind of its own, and this mind is not always bent on cooperation.
So, we've had a few episodes recently, where it has been made abundantly clear to Jeyanth what was required of him, and he has made it abundantly clear that he gives not a fig! Well, I won't bore you with the details, but I'm sure you all know the sort of thing - specially when I mention christmas trees and fly swatters.
This did get me thinking about the nature of freedom, choice, obedience and other such things. What surprised me most of all about this whole new experience was how viscerally I hated shouting at Jeyanth. Several times I found my self wishing that I could somehow redefine what he was doing as permissible so that I wouldn't have to get into a conflict with him. I wished I could just remove the sources of contention, or somehow prevent him from getting to them. I discovered how apalling it is to be in a position of power - I am a lot bigger, and for the moment, smarter, than Jeyanth; I have very many ways of getting my way - physical force, cunning, my power to dole out punishment etc and yet I could not have the one thing that I most desperately wanted, which was obedience. I get that he doesn't understand when I say that something is dangerous or destructive - but couldn't he just do as I asked?
And then, everyone tells you about the huge shock of joy when you first see your newborn child - but I think that the surge of pure pleasure that a parent experiences when their toddler obeys an instruction is hugely under-rated!
Every stage of Jeyanth's life, I realise how much more I learn about God from parenting. My mind boggles at the sheer courage that it took for God to give us this earth, rather than stick us in some padded-cell planet so we wouldn't screw-up so much. But then, without freedom to choose, I guess there's not much pleasure to be had from obedience.
Yes, we're doing a whole batch of posts to catch up on the last few weeks....
On Wednesday, we finally made use of one of Jeyanth's birthday presents - a bicycle seat. Sureka and I (and Dayan and Duncan) bought bicycles about three years ago, in a spasm of enthusiasm towards getting fit, but after a few really good rides (and one spectacular accident, which you'll have to ask Dayan about) we stopped, thinking it an unwise activity (for unfit and inexperience cyclists) during pregnancy.
But D&D gave Jeyanth a seat (and helmet) for his birthday, and Sureka and I returned the favour for Jahan, so sooner or later we were honour bound to break out the pumps, fit the new seats, and take the boys out for a ride. And so the six of us set out, with Jeyanth and Jahan perched behind their respective Daddies, for a ride along a creek, five minutes from our home.
We didn't go for a long ride, but it was long enough to see whether or not the boys would enjoy it - and they certainly did. The objections to having his helmet put on rapidly vanished as we started to ride, and while it's hard to see Jeyanth's reaction when he's sitting behind you the occasional shout of delight confirmed that he was having a whale of a time.
There are little bicycle tracks all over Sydney - so now we have an excuse to discover some of them...
Anyone who knows toddlers knows what bundles of incessant activity and endless energy they are. The ability to sit still is not something that these little people are reknown for, and Jeyanth is fundamentally no different.
However, as he gets a bit older, and his behaviour is starting to be more obviously influenced by his personality, a quieter side to Jeyanth appears to be emerging. Now, 99% of the time, he is still tearing around the house creating havoc in his path. He talks to himself all the time, sometimes shouting or singing to himself; and throwing is still the most popular activity undertaken with any small toy. However, a few times over the last few weeks Chris and I have caught Jeyanth having a contemplative moment. The most memorable to me is two days ago, when having put a fresh CD on, Jeyanth sat on the rug, leaning on his bean-bag, and spent a solid 10 minutes gazing out of the big french windows, watching, as far as I could make out, the wind rustling the leaves of the bushes in the garden. I was so surprised by his behaviour, that I moved from the sofa to sit on the rug next to him - but he just smiled at me, and continued to gaze out of the window, for all the world, looking like he was just sitting and listening to music. We sat in companionable silence, he contemplating the universe, and I contemplating him - my philosopher-nerd baby.
We'd like to think that Jeyanth is showing early signs of being musical, but the "Ceedee!" phenomenon can just as well be explained by an obsessive desire to push buttons, specially buttons which make something happen.
First thing every morning, and several times during the day, the plaintive cry of "Ceedee!" rings out from a little person who is either pointing at the CD player on the shelf in his room, or pawing at the one in the cabinet (behind glass doors) in the living room. There is then nothing that will satisfy him but carefully prying open a CD case, extracting the CD, pushing the 'Open' button on the CD player, taking out the old CD, putting in the new one (with help to get it the right side up), pushing down the cover, pressing play, and positively crowing with delight when the music starts. And to his credit, it must be admitted that Jeyanth is perfectly willing to put the old CD back in its cover, and slot it back into the rack - a skill his father is yet to fully master.
Jeyanth originally perfected his skills on the CD player in his room (a cheap and cheerful $50 K-mart job in blue plastic) and recently discovered to his great delight that his skills were transferable to the living room. Fortunately both our CD players are roughly similar in design, both top-loading, with the key buttons in approximately the same positions.
In the early days of the CD obsession, he wouldn't wait to hear a CD play out before wanting to change it, but he's getting better now, mostly due to parental refusal to indulge him. However, it is still absolutely the first thing that has to happen in the morning when he wakes up - much howling is the only reward for a parent who tries a trip from the cot to the change-table without going via the CD player.
Chris and I are just learning about how much Jeyanth actually understands spoken language, even though his own linguistic offerings are limited to single words and cave-man-grunts.
Yesterday, Jeyanth picked out all his yellow blocks and then all his blue blocks from a multi-coloured pile on the floor, in response to a colour specific request! (He lost interest by the time we asked for the red ones, preferring instead to trot after a dog, trying to get it to eat one of the said blue blocks!)
Though we often describe objects to him by colour, we had absolutely no clue till then that he even knew what the concept of colour was! Its quite exciting really!
So, I was sitting on Jeyanth's doggy beanbag, offering to read a book (on the condition that he went to get it for me), but he wasn't showing much interest. Until I said "how about your mulberry book?".
It was as if a light had gone on in his head, and he trotted off into his bedroom. A series of banging noises ensued, and Jeyanth emerged, triumphantly clutching his copy of "Here we go round the mulberry bush", handed it to me, and plomped himself down on my lap expectantly. Later inspection of the bedroom leads me to conclude that the source of the banging was him systematically pulling books off the shelf until he found the right one (which is, it should perhaps be noted, a rather distinctive purple colour).
The title of this entry? Oh, that's how Sureka described Jeyanth on the phone when I told her this story. She claims to have said "nugget", but I heard what I heard :)
Jeyanth has always been quite cautious physically; not in any mad rush to climb things and the like. This has made Jeyanth-proofing our house relatively easy - a couple of fences, a stair gate, and he can't get into too much trouble.
But as of yesterday, we've moved into a whole new phase of toddler-trouble, with Jeyanth learning that he is quite capable of climbing up onto the sofa (and from there it is but a short toddle to the CDs, the TV, the shelves with all our photos on....).