Airplanes, Biting and other stories

The D Space

Rhea's learnt a lot from her india trip. Especially related to airplanes. Kinda reminds me of the days when i could identify the plane type by
just listening to it, and could identify every airplane by looking at its tail.Funny how you learn from your parents. Daddy always took me to Sahar airport every Sunday morning to look at airplanes, and I've tried
to have Rhea interested in airplanes too.
But I digress, on the way to India, while taxing to the runway, i showed Rhea the control tower at Charles De Gaulle, and told her how the
people sitting in there direct the air traffic, and tell the pilots how to go to the different parts of the airport and sky.On the way back, flying back to the US, Rhea saw it again, and actually remembered ..Look Daddy, there's the Control Tower.I think she's fascinated by how someone sitting in that building could direct traffic in the sky.
The other day, she was playing pretend with Fiona. Rhea is big time into pretend play. Fiona was "travelling " by airplane. Rhea was sitting on her chair and checking everyones tickets, and Mommy was "waiting on the couch" (as we wait in the terminal)."Ok , come on""Hi" says mommy."Welcome aboard the Mexico plane" :-)Then after Fiona sat down, "Ladies and Gentleman , please put (sic) your seatbelts on".Then after "flying" for sometime, "ok those who want to get down here, get down, everyone else needs to stay on the plane"(I guess Fiona was in transit)"Where are we?""ummm ... in Paris"So Fiona "travelled" from Austin to Mexico via Paris.


On the day of our anniversary, Rhea happenned to go to the library with Fiona and the boys. While they were in the library, Rhea
happenned to spot a certain book , that she must have seen at daycare.. She took the book to Fiona, and with absolute glee, Rhea told
her to turn to a certain page.At first Fiona was wondering what the heck she was up to. The book was a story about Frogs. On the page that Rhea made Fiona turn
to..the Mommy frog is telling baby frog how they are going out to dinner because it was their anniversary!!!
How bout that!! Rhea remembered that there was a line about "anniversary" in that book and took it to Fiona. Now that's impressive.



For a while both Ryan and Rohan have got into a bad habit of biting each other when they fight. Rohan did it first, but stopped maybe
after two weeks. Ryan's been doing it for a while now. Rhea went through a biting phase too, but not having a sibling to bite at , she
would simply grunt, get really mad, bite her toy and then fling it away..
What typically happens is that Ryan is busy on his own, doing his own thing, such as playing with a car/wagon/stroller/hula hoop, and
then Rohan will come by, and after exchanging nasty stares at each other, Rohan will try to get the car/wagon/stroller/hula hoop.Ryan will try to hold on to it. If he thinks he's gonna lose, he will try to bite.
Fiona talked to a number of friends whose kids have had similar problems, and they recommended, tapping him on his lips, and then telling
him, "No biting, only hugs and kisses". That got Rohan to stop. But not Ryan.
Yesterday, Fiona was out, and while i had Ryan and Rhea on piggyback, Rohan tried to get on as well, in front of Ryan which was a
mistake. Ryan bit him, but i didn' see it. And i couldn't tell where.Rohan of course was bawling (you can tell when he's bawling because Ryan bit him), which resulted in Ryan getting a light tap on his lips,
and then a dressing down from me, which had him bawling too.
Until yesterday, despite the occasional biting, and despite Ryan biting Rohan twice yesterday, we thought that the tap on the lips was
working. It has gotten considerably less,and is really a "phase" that a lot of kids go through.
Working well, until Fiona returned home. At which Rohan immediately went "Mama..BITE..BACK" :-)Then Fiona looked at Ryan and said Ryan did you bite Rohan? And then Rohan looked at Ryan and went "NANA(that's what he calls Ryan)..BITE ...BACK" Ryan then sat on Fiona's lap, on the floor.Again, Rohan went "NANA ...BITE ..BACK" . "UH UH... UH UH UH" he said shaking his head and then he smacked Ryan on the lips.That's right. He smacked him on the lips. Lightly, but nevertheless smacked him .
It was really suprsing and funny at the same time, to see Rohan imitate us.He tried that two more times, during the evening..Using the "NANA ..BITE...BACK - UH UH...UH UH" and then approaching Ryan
threateningly. Both times of course,we stopped him and told him only Mama and Dada can do that, but he looked unconvinced.Either the bite must have really hurt a lot, or , the more likely scenario, Rohan realized that he had discovered something cool.In either case, we have to change our tack now.