A is still recovering from her shots yesterday. A bit of fever and some pain. The pain was more in the morning and much lesser now. Seems almost nil. I watch her from her distance and she is happily playing now. P and she are playing with their toy guitar and camera and doing some sort of dancing show. But that’s not why i call them Drama Queen. As soon as A sees me she starts limping and making crying sounds! When I’m gone she is dancing and playing happily! Can you beat that? I could never imagine a 2 year old doing so much drama 🤣🤣

And now, just as i am writing this, she is singing ‘Kaisi dhakad hai dhakad hai kaisi dhakad hai’….

 
P is no less a Drama Queen. She feels SO sleepy when its dinner time that she wants someone to feed her. Or when she doesn’t want to do something her crocodile tears come flowing down! So it was dinner time one day and she literally closed her eyes and was on the table as if she had gone off to sleep. My MIL was like poor thing she is so tired. Why don’t you feed her. I was in one of my angry moods that day and somehow knew this is all a hoax. I said if she is so sleepy she can go and sleep. Forget dinner. Madam P immediately took the cue and off she went. In another 5 minutes she was jumping around and playing! I told her either you eat yourself or no dinner. That’s the way my rule book goes. 

After i think 4 years of age kids can easily eat on their own. (Although the age for self feeding is much lower in western countries, I’m sure people living in joint families in India will agree with me) But i think they feel they need to be fed forever. A little drama of being tired and sleepy and there goes…. out comes all the sympathy and they are spoon fed. We need to stop doing this. The rule is you eat yourself, seated on the dining table with everyone or you don’t eat. No TV. No iPad. No Mobile. Kids learn most by example. Especially parents and other family members. So it applies to everyone in the house. We all eat at the dining table with our mobiles kept aside. And we don’t have a view of the TV from our table. 

Of course we do relax these rules once in a while. Sometimes we watch a movie together and eat. Or sometimes the kids want to eat upstairs in their playroom. But that’s only sometimes. And they know that. I have had enough tiffs about this and i think everyone is clear with it now. 

When you make rules, stick to them. And make sure everyone int he family is on the same plane. Don’t bend them even ‘just that once’ otherwise the kiddos will know when to take advantage. Like for A this is crucial stage for all this. For P its already established and she knows. That age of 1.5-4 years are important in that aspect. That’s what i fugured.