When I grow up, I'm gonna be.....

From the moment a child is born, the million dollar question plays on everyone's mind..... What'll the baby grow up to be? Despite Aamir Khan's 3 Idiots, many parents still prefer the big two - Engineer or Doctor (Too bad Aamir, no social revolution here).

With Yash, in his 5 years, the answer to the above question has changed multiple times....

At 2 years, Yash wanted to drive the car. So his dad, Vickram, showed him his licence and told him 'son, you can drive a car only when you have one of these. And to get this, you need to grow up'. After this, when asked the question, pat came the reply from Yash,'I want to be a car driver'. For some time, maybe a year or so this answer did not change. Nor did we force him to change it. 

It did happen that after some of the visits to his pediatrician, Yash would express that 'I want to be a Doctor when I grow up.' He was still clear though, that he had to be a driver first and only after that, a doctor. The doctor phase was just a fad, lasted very briefly. 
Vickram (Yash's dad) is artistically inclined. I often marvel how creative he is and am glad that Yash has taken after his dad in that respect. And it goes without saying that in such a family, we watch a lot of reality shows, especially of dance and music shows. These used to inspire Yash a lot as most shows now have the Junior version too. So he now wanted to be a driver, dancer and singer, much to Vickram's delight.

Excerpts from Yash's Baby Book

Suddenly, from the past few months, Yash has developed an interest in being a scientist. He comes home from school, talking about science. He is interested in learning new concepts and it's a joy to have discussions with him. Like, we had a discussion about the solar system and he was able to tell me about the milkyway galaxy (And on our trip to Kundapur, he heard of the milkyway burger and found it very funny). He was also able to talk about earth, sun, other planets and it was just pleasantly surprising that he remembered so much. Other times, I would get questions about how plants grow, how it rains, and much more. I've also realized that most often these questions were thrown at me just before bedtime. Knowing my penchant for all these, the little bugger, was putting off his sleep time :) 

Anyway, this science craze has now led him to the world of experiments. One day, Yash came up to me in the kitchen while I was cooking. He looked at the onion peel and asked 'Mom, can I take this peel for my experiment' A few minutes later, he was back, scouring the kitchen for more things for his experiment. One

 by one, by the end of it, he had taken garlic peel, egg shell, red chilli, tissue paper, salt, pepper, and maybe many more things. All these were stuff, which were accessible to him, and he did not need my permission to take. Cleverly, he had chosen his ingredients to avoid drawing any attention to himself. At the end, he announced that his experiment was complete. We inquired what it was and he revealed that it was 'Magic Potion' :) LOL

His passion for science continues till date. We saw some ads for a science fest happening at Bharatiya City and decided to take him there. He enjoyed watching experiments being done. He also enjoyed the play about liquid nitrogen and freezing the earth put up by a couple from Edinburgh. The fest was a bit of a let down, but the experience and the time spent together was fun I guess.

Being helped with wearing his apron, to make slime

During this visit, we were witness to an experiment where the quality of the dish wash that helps remove the fat from the vessels was demonstrated through use of milk, dish-wash and color (to show the movement of the fat in the milk). A few days after this, Yash had been to a story telling session with his cousins to a place in Basavanagudi. During the session, he managed to become the storyteller. He narrated about his twice -a - day - milk - drinking habits, and that milk had fat. He went further on to narrate how he used color, milk, dish-wash and ear-bud to remove the fat from the milk. I'm pretty certain that the story teller fainted ;)

Well, his latest addition to his scientist repertoire has been a CD about experiments that can be conducted at home. We have done a couple together. 

This whole process of having questions, seeking answers and validating them - the work of a scientist is fascinating and I hope Yash continues his journey all the while having fun. The song that comes to mind while I think of this is Higher Ground by UB40

I have never had very many dreams for Yash, just want him to be be stress free and happy in all that he does. Vickram also believes that you do what you love and the rest of the things like career, finances and life will take care of itself.
We are learning a lot, Growing Up With Yash!