The world of wild things!

One of my biggest challenges at home every day is to get Abhay to the dinner table. Just when it’s mealtime, he manages to find a million other things to dig himself in and having dinner hardly seems interesting enough! I despise handing out any incentive ( like TV) other than food itself. I mean.....there are a million kids in the world deprived of basic food!! When I bring that up with my parents, his doting grandpa manages to find fault in the food that is offered to him! C'mon ...a picky eater like Abhay can hardly be an impartial judge of my cooking! Mealtime is in itself an ordeal and now I have to suffer through a prelude to this ordeal! As much as you try to be civil with him, the more he tests your patience! I’m desperately looking forward to a time when he runs up and asks me “Amma, what’s for dinner?”There are times when I’ve been so tempted let him go without food as long as he can, until he’s comes to dinner on his accord! But as made clear in my earlier posts, ‘letting go’ is not one my USPs!

When you let your son go without food, what transpires after he has been dismissed to his room is the subject of a classic called “Where the Wild Things are” by Maurice Sendak. Recently made into a movie, this is one of Abhay’s all time favorite books. One evening, Max, dressed in a wolf suit, cant help playing mischief one after another and is sent away to his room without dinner by his mom. Still in his ferocious self, his imagination transports him to a world of wild things – wild savage beings who roar their terrible roar and gnashed their terrible teeth and show their terrible claws! Max, no less wild himself tames them with his magic trick. Awe-struck by this little monster, they crown him as their king and call him most wild thing of all! Then the king of wild things, says his most famous words “Let the wild rumpus start”! As the wild jamboree is on, Max sends off the wild things to sleep which in turn makes him feel lonely. He suddenly smells the aroma of something good to eat that gets him all hungry and motivated to sail back to the good old real world only to find his supper waiting for him in his room…piping hot! So you may go where the wild things are, but home is where your heart is and mom’s cooking is where your taste is! What say you…Abhay?