Inertia

Chip is inertial. Just like his father. He hates change. Chip doesn’t want to get out of bed in the morning, he will happily cuddle and pillow fight for an hour. Once in the shower, he doesn’t want to come out and get dressed. But once dressed he wants to get out the door that minute. Remind him of breakfast and he will come to the table but take his own time eating it and then telling his Baba (who handles his morning routine) he has to go to the potty where Baba will read a shrillion books to him until Baba runs out of patience or realizes he is late for his meeting.

Once inside the car, he will not want to go to school. He sheds a tear every day when Baba waves him good bye. But one hug from his teacher and Baba is forgotten. In the evening when I go to pick him up, he is usually reading by himself, or singing with the other kids, or playing outside or doing a craft, or as I have caught him on several occasions, holding down a squirming kid (usually his Korean buddy or one of the blond kids) and pointing out their body parts to them (including eyebrows, he is fascinated with them), in Marathi.

When I come in, he usually looks at me with what I see as a small frown and continues doing what he has been doing or will invite me to join him (especially in the body parts lesson). When I tell him to pick up his lunch bag, he will balk. “No, Aie, no ghari jaaycha.” (No, aie I don’t want to go home). Only after I promise him to take him to the “zhopaal and gundi” (the swing and the slide) will he reluctantly fetch his lunch bag and follow me battling several temptations on the way out (the babies’ room, the occasional TV cart, other kids)

Once out, he will try and punch the access code to get back in or wait for someone to open the door, so he can sneak back. Then he will remember the cute intern and run outside peering through the large glass windows calling her name “Jamie, where are you? Come here. Now.” He will see the older kids still in their class and squish his nose on the glass window until they do the same or give them high-fives so many times that the teacher will look up to see what the thumping is all about. In the end I will always have to pick him and drag him to the car, strap him in his car seat before he jumps and sits in the driver’s seat. I get in and we drive away to a whole new set of demands.







*Blame the bad picture quality on the camera phone.