Maladies of a Toddler’s Dad.

At the end of this year’s keyobering season the little rascal in our house will cross a major milestone. This year, he will move out of toddlerhood and enter into his fourth year. The last two years were great for him.

This year, he started attending playschool and has started humming some rhymes and also the Indian National Anthem. Toddlerhood also saw him accomplish many feats (read peccadilloes), most of which ended up with plucking my nerves. Although most of his activities ended with me having to take a sizeable fiscal hit, I thoroughly enjoyed having a toddler at home. He continued to entertain us with his antics and was especially successful in positing a smile on my face and help release me off other worldly tensions.

Some of his most unforgettable achievements were:

Killing a laptop.

He managed to soak my laptop with milk and then pluck out all its keys. Sometime early this year our laptop was put in the ICU, but even the best Service Agent in Qatar could not save its soul from departing.

I eventually got home a PC, which he has been using well. He has learnt how to use a mouse and is now a frequent visitor to www.starfall.com

Convert the house into a 24x7 Art Gallery

He is the artist in our house, and has covered all the walls with his complex modern art. Few weeks back we were compelled to repaint our house, but to save his art, we have limited the repainting to just the living and dining rooms. The exhibition is still running live in the kids room.

Convert the sofa into a snow machine, and its cushions into a vault

He converted the sofa cushions into a safe vault for storing all his precious toys away from his elder brother. Now I know why they show raiding Income Tax officials ripping off sofas in those bollywood movies!

Last week we got the sofa upholstery redone. I pray and hope he doesn’t rip off the cushions again this December, to make snow for the Xmas tree.

Teach Dad some carpentry.

He managed to get locked in the Master Bedroom twice. Through my efforts to rescue him I eventually ended up learning how to pick a door latch. Since those events, as a precaution, I have removed all the latches and none of our rooms (except the bathrooms) could be locked.

Two days back he managed to get himself locked in the Guest Toilet. Now even the toilets in our house don’t have a latch!

We now have a new rule in the house ‘Sing loudly while using the toilet to avoid unwanted intruders/embarrassment’. Well, knowing my boys, I know they are eagerly waiting for someone to sing, so that they can check out.