No Cartooning
“Here, watch Doraemon while I finish some cooking”.
“Okay”, chime the two.
I hurry to the kitchen, to finish preparing lunch.
It’s a Saturday and since everyone gets up late on Saturdays, breakfast was delayed and subsequently, so was lunch.
Within minutes of my entering the kitchen, my 4-year old twins give me company.
“What happened?? Why aren’t you watching TV?”
They don’t bother to reply. Instead, my daughter Lui asks me which vegetable I’d like her to give me from the fridge.
“Tomatoes please”, I reply and add,” Would you like songs?? Shall I put on some music??”
“YES!!”, they yell, totally kicked about hearing their favourite Dhinka-Chika (or ANY Salman number, for that matter). So I wander back to the drawing room, flip through a few music channels and there, indeed to my delight, plays a Salman number. The kids are immediately besotted.
I rush back to the kitchen to wrap up the cooking.
“Mumma… you too come and watch”, little Shobby, my son, pleads.
“I can’t dear. You go ahead and watch. I’ll wrap up and join you”.
“No Mumma… you also come”.
When I insist that I cannot, Shobby runs out to the drawing room and complains to his sister that their mother has refused to join them!
Lui, indignant at this slight by the mother, thunders into the kitchen.
“Why you are not coming”, her little nose quivers.
“Sweetie, I need to finish cooking dear. You go and watch, I’ll join you”.
“Then give me colours. I want to draw”.
“Me too”, chirps Shobby.
So I give them blank sheets of paper and crayons and the two are busy doodling, sitting on the kitchen floor, while I’m busy cooking.
And for the umpteenth time, I wonder why my kids don’t like television. Before you get me wrong, it isn’t because the twins crave my company. 🙂 They do, but not all the time.
We aren’t a very television-loving family. None of us at home (5 adults) follows any program or serial. If in the mood, we switch it on for a few minutes, watch whatever comes on screen and then switch it off again. When the kids were younger, I was strictly against them watching TV, cartoons or otherwise. For nearly three years of their initial life, the kids were TV deprived. In their fourth year, I started showing them Animal Planet, something they delighted in, especially programs on deep-sea marine life . Now, when they are about to step into their fifth year and I try to distract them with television, it backfires on me. There are times when I want to spend some time by myself, reading a book or just lazing around. The kids, unused to being stuck in front of the TV, insist that I participate in their games, that I sit with them and draw or sometimes, just talk to them as they go about their ‘work’. Frankly, I wonder why my kids can’t just watch the cartoons for a while and give me a breather!
And then, when I visit relatives and friends and see how their kids are glued to the television set, I send a thankful prayer to the one above, for giving me the sense to limit the TV watching for the twins. They aren’t charmed by it now, but it won’t be long before they too get addicted to it. But till then, I don’t have to worry about them turning into couch potatoes or wearing spectacles with soda-bottle glasses!
Sure, I need to devise ways to keep them busy. Heck, everyone at home has to chip in, to keep the twins occupied.
The one good that has come out of this is that my children like books. They can’t read yet, but they sure love going through picture books, science books and sometimes, even my novels which don’t have pictures in them. They like figuring out the alphabets and sometimes, they pretend to read a story. 🙂
I think I will get them comics. That way, at least they would get to know the cartoon characters! I mean, my kids don’t care for Tom and Jerry!! Tom and Jerry!!! That’s sacrilege, isn’t it?!!
Noorulayn Syed is a full-time wife, professional, daughter-in-law and an all-time mother (that’s because she wanted to be a mother since she was knee-high). Find more posts on her twins at http://momofrs.wordpress.com