No honor to be had around here…

I was browsing through the work of the first graders pinned on the wall, while waiting to meet Ryan’s teacher for a conference. One project caught my attention, the children had written who they ‘honored’ and why. They were all very entertaining reads. I read all the writings and colorful illustrations with a smile while searching for the one written by my son. I was curious to find out who he had honored.

There was only one which had no name on it, and I knew that was Ryan’s by the curl of the tail of lower case ‘g’! That is his idea of writing in cursive, by curling the tail of g artistically. He had honored Zach! I admit, I was slightly crestfallen. There was a secret hope/desire that I would find him honoring his mother for feeding him (that has to come first, he loves his food), taking him to sports and practices( he loves sports next). I would get all misty eyed, go ‘awwww’ and make that my Facebook status update. But there it was, ‘I honor Zach because he is a great basketball player and he tries very hard.’ First I couldn’t even remember who Zach was, after racking my brain for a while and fearing that I was slowly losing my mind, I remembered Zach. He was a fellow teammate at Ryan’s basketball clinic whom Ryan had met only six weeks ago. He, indeed, was a good player, but Ryan and Zach were certainly not tight. They probably high-fived each other after a basket, but the camaraderie ended there.

Well, maybe their bond goes deeper than I thought. Still puzzled, I attended the conference, came home and forgot all about it. Today, at lunch I remembered my slight at not being honored. Who was this Zach who usurped my place in my boy’s heart, and wanted to get at the bottom of it. I laughingly asked Ryan why did he honor Zach, his other friends had written they honored their moms, dads, friends, army, military, firemen, astronauts etc, etc and he honored Zach, who he hardly knew??? He heard my spiel with a slight smile and said ‘Did you see the alphabet at the corner of the paper?’ I did see an alphabet, yes. He said, ‘I got to think of someone who I honored whose name began with the letter Z. At first, all I could think of was zebra, so I wrote I honored zebra because they are fast. But that didn’t sound good to me. So I thought some more and remembered Zach! His name begins with a Z and so I honored him. I wanted to honor you but I didn’t get the letter M!’

Seriously? Honor someone whose name begins with one of the most difficult alphabets in English language? Who would I have thought of? Emile Zola? Zachary Taylor? Of course, Mark Zuckerberg? Oh wait, we are talking of first grade, here!

Get out of my hair!

I grew up with the usual insecurities that girls grow up with, my looks, height, skin tone, body mass etc, but not my hair! Oh no! I was born with a head of luxurious, full-bodied, bluish black, shiny hair. My mother decided to increase the volume and beauty of it by shaving off my head five times in my childhood. I had no say, of course, but had to suffer in silence in school when girls teased me about my shining, bald head! But I did have the utmost satisfaction of informing her, as I got older and wiser that shaving heads did nothing to grow one’s hair any thicker! Don’t fight me on that one, I am not going to hear it!

My mother was very proud of my hair. She would tell anyone who listened how people crowded around me in hair salons complimenting the thickness of it and how they wished they had hair like mine. I said in my mind, ‘You can have it! Take it all!’ I, the black-haired Rapunzel, was not happy with my headful of hair at all. I had to wash it, brush it, detangle it….and I have already mentioned in one of my earlier blogs that I am inherently lazy!

I kept my hair long because even the thought of cutting it short was somewhat sacrilegious in my extended family, ‘What? You want to cut off that beautiful hair! People would die to get hair like you!’ So I kept it long in a careless topknot on my head!

I met my husband and quite predictably, he loved the hair despite my exaggerated eye rolls and long sighs. When my daughter was born, she liked to clamp her little fists around my long earrings and pull with all her might. I got rid of earrings. Then she targeted my long hair! Finally, I found a credible reason to get rid of it. Don’t want the baby to put my hair in her mouth now, do I? On a whim, I went and chopped it all off. I will never forget Sean’s face when he saw me that day! He recovered quickly and said I looked great, whatever I wanted to do with my hair was simply fantastic. I look gorgeous either way! What can I say, I got a good one!

I asked him to back me up when I faced my mother with the new do. As soon as my mother saw me, her face fell. She couldn’t talk for a few seconds. Good thing I was an adult, a married woman and a new mother, or else I would have been grounded till kingdom come. When she got her speech back she turned to her baby granddaughter and said, ‘Now you have two daddies!’ Interestingly enough, my mother sports a very stylish page-boy hairstyle. Sean, my knight in shining armor, came to my rescue as usual. He gave this classic line to my mom, ‘She loves your look so much, she wanted to look just like you!’ I gave him a gratified look which said, ‘I knew there was a reason why I married you!’

I visited Kolkata with my super short haircut, only to be reprimanded severely by my uncles, aunts, grandparents. In india, long hair is a sign of beauty and I did away with that! In fact, a well meaning neighbor while lamenting my decision came right out,’Why did you do this? That was your only sign of beauty!’ Sean and I laughed so hard and appreciated the lady’s forthrightness!

We were living in India then, and I couldn’t withstand the pressure any longer. I let my hair grow back. Life got busy, I didn’t have much time to take care of it, it was either pulled in a ponytail or tied it on top of my head while I raised kids and held the fort. Then I started noticing long strands of gray! And that was the last straw! I was not going to go around with long salt and pepper hair. Some women carry it off well, unfortunately, I am not one of them!

I turned forty and made a momentous decision. I will wear my hair short for the rest of my life! I did just that and this time my husband declared that he loved my short hairstyle. What else could he do, poor guy! That was all I needed. My mother, miraculously, came around and said I looked fine with short hair! Oh, the joy! I feel liberated and free from the long tresses which I had to carry around unwillingly for a major part of my life. Friends from India still try to exert pressure by saying long hair gave me a softer look, short hair makes me look ‘stern’! Or “You looked so much better with long hair, please grow it back!”I always threaten them that if they don’t back off, I will write a blog on my hair and make them read it. I have done good on my threat. So there….

I will give you four pennies if you give me ten dollars.

I often ‘borrow’ money from my children. I am always out of change for lunch money or snack money. So I tell them ‘Just take it out of your money jar, I will pay you back!’ I keep a mental count on how much I owe them and pay them back with a little interest…..most of the times. Sahana has smartened up lately, she puts all her money in a bank account and keeps nothing at home. Young Ryan loves his money jar and he can be seen, often times, sitting in a corner, counting his pennies and nickels. I look at him and think ‘Shylock’ in my head!

Recently, I took three dollars from the above mentioned, precious money jar and asked Sean to pay him back. Since we vowed to take care of each other at our marriage, we fulfil our promise. I take care of his nourishment, his laundry, our children, he takes care of me in tricky situations, like when I have to repay my debt!

The following conversation is a result of my eavesdropping. And I am recording this because I want Ryan to read this write-up when he is doing his Major in Math at Harvard!

Before Ryan’s bedtime, Sean went to return the three dollars and decided to make it a teaching moment as well.

‘Ryan, how much is 10 minus 7?’

‘3! Easy, peasy, lemon squeezy, all the way to Japaneze!’

‘Right, big guy! So I am giving you $10 and taking $7!’

A moment of silence, then a cry of desperation,

‘WHY ARE YOU TAKING $7 FROM MY MONEY JAR???’

‘But I am giving you $10 and taking $7! So you get back your $3! Remember you said 10 minus 7 is 3! So 7 plus 3 is 10! You had 7, now I am giving you 10 but taking away your 7! So you see, you have the $3 back that mommy took from you.’

At this point, I believe Sean proceeded to take his $7 back.

Wailing.

‘NO! NO! DON’T TAKE MY $7! I will give you four pennies if you give me that $10!’

More math. More teaching, a few moments of silence and then desperate pleading.

‘Take four pennies dad, for that $10! Not $7…..!’ Sniffles added at this point!

Sean said they will talk about it the next day and left it at that!

The next morning, when Ryan woke up for school, he rubbed his eyes, sat right up on the bed and said in a groggy, morning voice, ‘Can I have my $10 dollars, dad?’

We will talk about it tonight!’ I think Sean was scared to broach the subject…. understandably. He decided to break the ten at a store and give the boy 3 one dollar bills. He also thought of using poker chips or something of lesser value than $10 to teach this complex math fact!

Once, when Ryan was about four, I was trying to teach him subtraction. I made the mistake of saying, ‘Ry, if you have 5 candies and you give 3 candies to Sahana, how many candies will you have left?’ Without missing a beat, he said, ‘I don’t want to give ANY candies to Sahana!’ I debated which lesson to teach him at that moment! The lesson of sharing or subtraction! Decided to go with math, just had Sahana give her candies to Ryan. Things went smoothly from then on!

Tonight, before going to bed, I found Ryan standing quietly in front of Sean’s bedside table.

‘What are you doing here, buddy?’ I asked.

‘Trying to see where daddy put MY $10 dollars!’

Sean and I both looked at each other and then the letter proudly stuck on our refrigerator, saying, ‘Your child, Ryan Callahan has been invited to a first grade Math instructional seminar in school….’ It is an early form of Gifted and Talented program in Math!