आजचा किस्सा इंग्रजीमध्ये लिहावासा वाटला जो पुढीलप्रमाणे आहे:
What are the Universal problems of all parents?
"Our child doesn't sleep on time."
"He/She doesn't wake up on time".
"Throw a lot of tantrums after waking up/ before going to bed".
Yes, we too have the same fun in our house (Why should other parents have all the fun!).
Gargi's sleep is a 'late bloomer'. When everybody has reached ढगात at night, she is always still fresh (or acts so many times) that she forcibly drags us out of our sleeping World into hers.
Due to my office's shift timing, I am usually awake at 6 a.m. in the morning. So, I decided to wake-up Gargi at that time and take her to the nearest garden which is at a walkable distance. I exactly knew what was I getting into. It would be an uphill task to tame the angry young lady but I accepted the challenge!
I directly picked her up from the bedroom at 6:15 a.m. and brought her in the hall and started waking her up. She as usual started crying, shouting and asking to let her sleep and that she doesn't want to go to the garden (her high decibel "Soothing voice" would have surely acted as a morning alarm for many of our neighbours.) When that got somehow sorted, then she moves to her regular 2nd round of 'Costume' debate. After lot of bargaining, we settled for a 50-50 choice of costume, the one she suggested (forced) and the one I wanted since it would be cold outside and mosquitoes would have been waiting for our welcome in the garden.
Once she was into 'A normal human-being mode', I decided to add some motivation to our experiment of 1st early morning walk cum exercise regime. I took out my headphone and placed it on Gargi's head and started playing all her favourite songs while we were walking towards the garden at 6:45 a.m. (half an hour went to cajole Gargi Devi!)
She was singing all the songs loudly on the road as if nothing else exist besides 2 of us on the road. I was just laughing continuously by looking at her and listening her singing in complete trance (by now, I should take this credit). After we reached the garden, we walked a lot, we did few exercises on the equipment available in the garden and she played her regular slide, swing etc. During this, she gave the headphone just once to me while she was playing the swing. When she saw me singing along with the song being played in the headphone, she immediately asked me to put it back on her head and I happily obliged her 
We picked up a couple of fallen Plumeria (Chafa/Champa) flowers, smelled them and brought at home. In between the songs, we did have healthy chats too but she was totally submerged into music. So much so that I knew today she will break all the records of walking in a single stretch and that's what she did.
When we reached home, I showed her on mobile how much we walked today (although she and mathematics are poles apart like her dad!).
We had surprisingly walked 3.7 Kms. (4847 steps) together without any "कडेवर घे ", "पाय दुखत आहेत" or "घरी जायचंय" dialogue (80% target of the day achieved early in the morning itself). Now 3.7 Kms. for a 4.4 yrs kid is a lot especially if it's not a regular practice. It was very refreshing for both of us.
Like in every experiment that I do with Gargi for her betterment, I found 2 motivations (her lovable ones) to persuade her for waking up early in the morning and go for a walk in the garden (music & that walking man in the app of your mobile)!
So what's your motivation factor for your kid?
P.S. I am not a fitness freak but a ढेरी freak. So please don't applaud me as I don't know whether I would take up the same challenge tomorrow 
.jpg)
