My mam told.. My teacher told..

I am forced to hear this statement every so often in various tones, context and decibel levels that it has now become synonymous with noise. D considers her mother, that is me , the best in the whole world, just like any other kid. But when it comes to learning, her teacher takes the sweet spot. I am not complaining, but there are times I want to strangle her to accept that I, your mother, knows too!!! At times, she has even asked me to “ask some teacher in google” when not convinced with my explanation, but that is fodder for another post.

This conversation with D yesterday reached new heights!

 

D: Mumma, I would be very happy if you come to my school as a teacher.
Me: Huh? Ok.. But I am a Computer Engineer. And I am not sure if I will like teaching more than computer related work.
D: You are becoming smart by being a computer engineer?
Me: hmm.. I guess so.
D: After you work as a computer engineer for million years and become smart, then only you can become a teacher?
Me: HUH??????????

Any aspiring teachers out there? This is enough motivation??

 

At home turf, we are trying supplement schooling. About an hour everyday(ok.. most days. Ok Ok.. < 10 days in the past month) is set aside for exploration/creation/innovation/discovery. The girls love it. Few days back D had asked why we have started doing this? Maybe because I start drumming "fun time.. fun time.. join in or you'll miss it.. ". As a matter of fact, I told her to think of this as a kind of school, idea is to have fun, do something together as a family, create and explore.

Don't know what the 5 year old had been thinking all night, maybe the above conversation flashed in and she considers me a "teacher" and "smart" now. Instead of the typical "My teacher told.." I got to hear "You also know because you are now a teacher"..

Good progress, totally worth an hour a day! What say?

September 2007:

February 2010:

The resident 5 year old hears me sing this throughout the day and ends up asking the meaning of Dil, Thoda and Kachcha. With the forever preoccupied mind, I say Heart, Little and Raw without realizing the context. 2 minutes later I get questioned – Heart is little raw? Like it needs to be cooked more?
Even before it registered, I hear – Ewww!!

Off topic, she refuses to eat chicken as she is not able to accept that someone actually has to kill a chicken for her to eat it. She is so my girl !
The little 2 year old on the other hand refuses to leave the bits sticking to the bone even. Totally papa’s girl !!
Whoever said we should not compare our kids !!!

PS: This is a song from Ishqiya sung by Rahat Fateh Ali Khan.
(Updated with another youtibe video with lyrics ).

Yesterday night, D wanted a new real story to be told, real like in Greg Mortenson uncle’s school stories (Three cups of tea). The father surrenders to the request and barely manages to keep his eyes open while churning out some African on-the-spot tale set in Serengeti. They ended up into an argument over the elephant eating oranges Vs dirty green grass.

D says Good Night papa and cuddles with me. Her eyes are wide open, I ask her to keep them closed and try to sleep. Also muttering.. Tomorrow is school day.. bus won’t wait for late kids.. you’ll miss out on all the school fun.. the usual threats which her sensory organs must have become immune to, by now.

She says “Smile”

The patience quo dries up, I tell her with that not-so-pleasant tone that I am in no mood for nautanki at 9:30 in the night. If she does not want to sleep, she can take a book and read. I am feeling sleepy and I am going to sleep.

She replies “I am saying smile and sleep, mumma. If you sleep with a smiling face and think about stuff you like, you’ll get a happy dream. If you sleep being cranky, you’ll get bad dreams.”

Sounds familiar, where have I heard that before? It all comes back, the good, the bad and the ugly!!

The newest thought process in D’s world has been “poor”, “why some people are poor”, “why they don’t have money”, “their mother and father don’t work?”, “poor people are bad or good people” and the likes. I have been trying to explain this to her without labeling a class of people as “poor”, and trying to imbibe in her that poor today does not equal permanently poor. Without divulging into the relativity of how less is poor, tell her in the simplest form I know, that anyone who does not have enough money to buy basic things like food, and sometimes don’t have a house to stay, are poor. If tomorrow, mummy doesn’t work hard enough, and our company’s customer’s don’t pay us, then we will also be poor. Making sure she does not associate “poor” with any class of society, and that we could also become poor.

Not being sure if she is old enough to address/understand this topic, I also wonder where she picks these from. I do however feel that the class difference is much more prominent in India than in the US. My cleaner in the US drove a better car than mine. I am not saying that US does not have poverty, but the poverty line is much higher in the graph and is much less visible than it is here, in terms of basics like food and shelter. Alright, in Rani Mukherji’s Dil Bole Hadippa style, enough philosophy jhadofied.. Time to get to the point..

Dussehra holidays started this past Friday. I had promised the kids some fun projects for the holidays. The kids wanted to do cutting, coloring, gluing and I wanted to get something tangible out of the time spent. After some thought and discussions( with D and Babio ), we decided to make some mathematics puzzle’s and memory game’s at home. And give them to kids who cannot buy them from stores. D’s curiosity level was at it’s peak and she was supremely excited. Tagged them along to the nearby stationery shop, got some chart papers, and pairs of animals and vegetables sheets to make the memory game. I am sure a sucker for hand made items, so instead of printing out the puzzles from the computer, D just ended up with her free hand drawing skills

A picture is worth a thousand words, so here goes…

Even the littlest one participated , though most of the time my job was to shield her from the older one’s. All in all, 2 puzzles and 2 sets of memory games were created in about 4 hours. We played with one of them a few times and are now ready to be dispatched. To whom, is the question. We plan to find out if any of the maids in this apartment complex have kids in the age group 5-10, and give these away to them. Based on the response we get, we plan to make more of these. Puzzling out India map and world map is next in line.

We also hand wrote some activity sheets. D was pretty excited to be on the creating side rather than the solving side. Some picture/word matching sheets, some phonetic sheets and some numbers sheets. All in all, it was great fun to watch her enjoy the process. She is now super excited to give them away, which I am kind of surprised, owing to her this-is-mine attitude. To top it, she said, the kids might not have pencils to solve the sheets. I have lot of them, so can I give one to each kid. What could I say?

There were few outdoor activities we planned for the holidays, but both the kids fell sick and I am home alone with the kids. So, they are parked for another time. Am happy we got some done however.

She is lying on the bed with welled up eyes over a painful argument with her husband. After a really long day, juggling with the many responsibilities, an otherwise casual question on priority broke the camel’s back.

The littlest one is cuddled up with her, while the rest of the family is on the table trying to eat a peaceful meal. The little-big girl runs to her mother in spite of her father demanding her back on the table, and requests her to come eat, which the mother vehemently refuses, seeking the desperate help of a tummy hurt. The little-big girl goes back to the table, says her tummy is hurting, she needs a break, comes back to the bed and curls up with her mother. The littlest one senses something is not quiet right, puts her little soft hands over her mother’s eyes and mouth, makes that pouted lips and says – My Dlittle baby sad. Dlittle urt.

When will this sentimental fool grow up, put up a strong front and learn to let go. For the sake of saving her kids from these emotional turmoil.

When we moved to Bangalore less than a year back, the husband was pretty adamant on not buying the TV. The LH is a man of his own values, and adheres to them earnestly, no matter what the world makes of him. Me, on the other hand, lives by the rules, likes moderation and believes in balance.

Acknowledging the fact that me and the LH don’t converge on any said topic, and to save our kids from the constant dilemma, we made a conscious decision to let me have the final say on parenting issues. Not because I am the better parent(Hell no!, the husband is the epitome of patience, more well read and well traveled, all of which attribute to better decision making ), but simply because I am the more involved parent as far as providing consistent, predictable time with them and their day to day activities. And thus I self proclaim myself as knowing them better

So, when the LH had declared that we won’t get TV, I was game for experimentation, convincing self that I could always find a reason and force him into to getting one if-and-when needed. D and Dlittle hardly watched TV while we were at our in-laws place, as they were used to watching pbskids in the bay area, and could not relate much to the programming here. When they did not seem to care for the existence of the idiot box, I cared less. While youtube serves me well for the likes of Tere mere beach mein, Google news and the morning papers serve their purpose of instilling the little worldly knowledge that I need.

It is close to a year now, and we have survived without the idiot box. We still don’t feel the necessity to have one.

However, the influence on kids, by taking extreme measures of not having the TV in the house Vs allowing restricted quality viewing, while 99.99 percent of the population we relate to has one, is the question of concern.

Allow me to digress here, for the only way I know to get my point across is by quoting happenings and analyzing the after effects. What made me choose this topic for the weekend post is something that happened the day before yesterday night. A good lot of our family and extended family kids(10+ years) are on twitter, we have successfully phased the younger ones out of facebook and orkut(Some had faked their age as 13, just to get a facebook account. I had written about Social Networking some time back and still believe that it is not a safer place for younger kids to hang out without parental monitoring). We got them on to twitter, some have even started blogging. I feel twitter is much more simpler and transparent and makes it is easy for us parents/guardians to keep a watch.
(My dear handful of readers, before you judge us to be a crazy internet addicted family. Let me tell you that our business revolves around social networking, we have 2 software engineers in the making, one JEE zone topper, all die hard fans of their chacha’s/maama’s bindas attitude on life life-is-short-do-only-what-you believe-in-and-what-gives-YOU-happiness and entrepreneurial capability and keep asking for fun projects to do. So, it is not entirely our fault that our family’s primary mode of communication has become direct messaging via twitter instead of phone. phew!).

Before I go on, let me first formally introduce my nephew to this blog. Babio, as Dlittle lovingly calls him, is my 13 year old nephew, a very very sweet kid, staying with us and studying here. Babio came into the office room asking if he could open a twitter account for his sisters. You guessed that right. An account for D and Dlittle. That’s when it hit me that I had taken a twitter account in D’s name in early 2007 and even tweeted one mere line. Call me nuts, I did it. And conveniently forgot about it. I opened up the twitter page and D was supremely excited to read her name there. In less than 2 minutes she demanded the page background be changed pink, to be made very colorful like a rainbow.

Then comes the defining moment, leading to this heavy duty post.

She spots her name on the browser url – http://twitter.com/hername, selects just her name using the mouse and asks –
If I type Dlittle’s name here, her page will come?

“P.A.G.E?”. You said PAGE?

When I told her that I had not created Dlittle’s twitter page yet, she says in these exact words.
Sign up, mumma. Sign up.

S.I.G.N U.P????

Where in the world did she get that? S.I.G.N. U.P. Still remains a mystery. When asked, she simply said, I was imagining about it. Whatever imagination has to do with knowing “sign up”.

One other time, Firefox crapped out and she refused to use Safari. Saying she only likes Firefox, the orange colored thingee. Yes, thingee. Nothing else.

Yet another time, madam was installing adobe plugin. When I happened to see it and asked what in the world she was doing, she says that the video will not come unless she does it. She just has to keep clicking the second button on the right and it will work after that.


Which brings me to these points to ponder. Are my kids getting more than the needed dosage of computer time? Have we unconsciously s u b s t i t u t e d computer time for TV time. If yes, is that a good or a bad thing? Should we continue without the TV, or should we get one for the heck of it. If we get one, with our ever increasing demand for time, will we be disciplined enough to restrict the timings? Will my kids feel left out when their friends discuss some popular TV character? Is that something to even care for?

It is not that we are completely deprived of movies and we plonk ourselves in front of the computer the minute we wake up. D hardly gets half an hour of computer time, 2 – 3 times a week. Every now and then, we get the projector from our office(thanks to owning office assets ), dvd’s and project the movie on the h.u.g.e wall we have in the living room. Spice it up with ice cream or popcorn, the kids have a blast. Idea is to make it a special once in a while event instead of a routine.

I don’t have answers, but I do believe that my kids would have sooner or later got into the internet/computer world, just based on the nature of our job. Based on them being exposed to a home office server, 3 laptops, big screen monitor and the likes. Based on us preferring the computer(internet) to communicate long distance. Based on them watching us running to google baba for anything and everything. (Seeing us printing maps, looking up directions before going out. Checking out restaurant reviews. The other day she asked me something , I said I am not sure. She says, type it in google, it will tell you).

So, are we going to acquire the idiot box or not? The dilemma continues!

When the two girls end up in a fight over the same paint brush. Mother tells the older one, God has given her a mouth to talk. Use that before using the fist. While she is attempting to listen by looking into the mother’s eyes, the younger one punches her, snatches the brush and runs as fast as her little legs can take her.

When you are teaching table manners to the older one’s, get irritated at their giggling, only to realize later that the cause of the the giggles is the little one under the table tickling the older ones.

When you are telling your kids to use proper language and not use words like idiot and stupid, the younger one pulls her tongue out and screams in excitement – susu potty papa susu potty.

When you are disciplining the older one and telling her to listen, as this is an important life lesson, the younger one comes from behind and pokes your nose and eyes and bursts into a laughter.

What do you do?

The sad part is that for one reason or the other, the mother miserably fails to put up a stern face in front of this little monster. Time and time again, she bursts into laughter at her little nautankis. She better change, before she becomes the sole contributor in turning this little one into a bigger brat.

It makes me wonder if it is typical of a 4-6 year old, to show interest in topics related to life, death and spirituality. I have read at least 5 blogs related to this topic in the past month, all of them having kids in this age group. The email newsletter from babycenter few weeks back has this highlighted. It does make me feel better to affirm D is not talking nonsense for her age. But no matter how I try to explain, it paves way to a million unanswered questions. To her, to me.

D was little over 3 years and Dlittle was just old enough to sit on the high chair, when we unintentionally got into the culture of dinner time talks. One of the reason was to get D interested in eating by herself. She definitely showed more interest in eating, when that was not just another chore to complete, but a family time, where we all ate together with a lot of chit chat, laughter and silly talks. Now, the kids look forward to this time, and are stepping on each others shoes to tell how their day went. Good, bad and ugly. Even Dlittle with her limited vocabulary pitches in.

Getting back to the context of this post, couple of months back, one evening we had assembled at the dinner table as usual and D suddenly asks -

Mumma, you know M’s daadi is dead.
I was a little shocked to hear that word explicitly from her.
hmm.. okay..
Why did she die, mumma?
Not sure beta. She must have been very old.

Conversation was on hold, while the little one’s mind was churning with thoughts. I could see her lost in her thought and was expecting the next series of questions, but nothing close to what she ended up asking.

Mumma, you will also die when you get old?
hmm.. yes..
She starts crying her heart out. No, you can’t die. You are my mother. You have to take care of us. Dlittle cannot even eat by herself.
At this point, I was overwhelmed as there was no pretext to this topic whatsoever.

Tried telling her that she is not old enough to understand all this. We can talk about this when she is 10 years old. Obviously, of no vain. Ended up telling her as a matter of fact, we all will die one day. Mumma, paapa, everyone. When we get very very very old. Super old. By that time, you will be a naani yourself and will have your own daughters and sons and they might even have their own kids. That much old. And you wont need mumma to take care of you, you will be taking care of your kids instead.
I don’t want boys. Only girls.
ok. Point noted for future discussions.
I so prayed this discussion would end here. But no.

Over the next few days, this had been the hot topic of discussion, no matter how hard I tried to deviate from it. Multiple versions of the question and answers.
But, why we all have to die?
That’s how God has created us beta. There is only so many people earth can hold right. So for a new baby to come into the world, old people have to die, go back to God and come back as a baby. Also, when we get old, our bones break, we cannot walk properly, we cannot see properly. Then we get tired of old age and tell God. God thank you for giving us such a wonderful life. And smart cute daughters. Now, they are old enough to take care of themselves and I am ready to die. Please make me a baby again.

She seemed convinced with the answer for the moment. Ironically, this was about the same time when my father fell down and broke his hip bone. Had to go through a replacement surgery and was bed ridden.

D’s questionnaire got active again.
Mumma, we will have naana in our house for some days. Then can you please ask him to go somewhere else?
I was shocked to hear that and after repeated futile talks that it was not right to say like that, said pretty sternly – He is my father, just like the LH being your father. Would you like your father to go away somewhere else?
Poor thing started sobbing and said – I just don’t want him to die in our house. I will be very scared and that’s why I want him to go out.
I did not know how to handle the situation, I asked her what made her think naana is going to die?

Old age – bedridden – not able to walk – broken bone. Ah ha!!

I tried to explain her that we don’t get to choose when we want to die. God chooses that for us. Mumma is always there with her and nothing will happen.

Don’t know if simplifying death as die-tobe-reborn as a baby- was any better. For it definitely led to this conversation.

Don’t do that D, Dlittle will get hurt.
She will die?
No beta. But she can get really really hurt.. Like blood coming out, going to the doctor for shots.
Let her die mumma, then she will come back as a baby. She is very cute as a baby, I want her as a baby.
Telling her coming back-as-a-baby is not in to our own house, some other house we wouldn’t know and we will never ever be able to see her again. We will never get to play with her, hold her. Would you want that.
Honestly, I had my foot in my mouth dreading a YES!
No, no. I will take care of her gave me peace of mind for the moment.

When I chose the title of the post, the intention was to write on the enlightenment felt on staying fit, eating right for old age, something I feel we owe to our kids. But, looking the length of the post, I should do that another time.

The birds and the bees is another topic of interest these days. God, spirituality is another. Will pen this also another day, for now leaving you’ll with some of D’s dialogues –

God does not have a house, thats why he is everywhere?

God is everywhere, so if this wall breaks, he will jump from there?

D, be nice to papa, beta. He works hard so that we can make enough money to eat yummy food na? No, mumma, papa does not give us food. God gives us food and toys.

Why papa did not grow me and Dlittle in his tummy? Because he does not have guggu baata to feed us?

Back in January, we had a parent-teacher meeting at D’s school. The meeting was organized in to 15 minute slots. The teacher -K, was talking to this parent, while I was waiting for my turn. K was telling this parent that their daughter was an all-rounder. That there isn’t a single change she wants in her, she is just a perfect little sweet kid.


My turn comes. After apologies for not sending D to school half the time, thanks to allergic bronchitis, we sat down with her record. K said there isn’t much she has to say as D had hardly attended 15 days of school by then. She did say that D is a very quick learner and even if she is absent for 2-3 days, she picks up very quickly. She is very curious, vocal, assertive and does whatever it takes to get her job done. So she wouldn’t worry much about her missing school. Her health comes first. I was pretty happy with her comments.


Coming to the title of this post. While I am still in conversation with K, this parent who had just finished with her meeting, the parent of the all-rounder child. She barges in without asking for an excuse to affirm with the teacher – K, just wanted to ask again.
My daughter is the best in the class no?


It took me few seconds to come to terms what I heard. The confirmation came from the very embarrassed K’s transparent face. I mean, what was this parent thinking. How insensitive of her to ask such a question? Out loud in a hardly 15×15 feet room, where 2 other parents are still in the meeting, few parents are waiting for their turn and few are collecting their records and kids and about to leave.


K tells this parent, something along these lines – As I said, your daughter is doing very well and there is nothing more I expect out of her. To which the parent nods her head and leaves with a sense of disappointment. She probably was expecting – Of course yes! K then tells me in a very apologetic tone that D is pretty good also. Only because she has been missing out on school, she has some catching up to do. That D is of the curious kind, wants to know everything around, which leads to a little distraction, which is pretty common with kids her age.


I stopped the teacher right there and told her there is no need to be apologetic. I am not expecting D to be perfect OR the best in the class. As long as she she shows interest and curiosity in learning new things, that will do for me.


I don’t believe in this “best-in-the-class” or “first-in-the-class” theory. You want to compete? Then compete with your own self till you think you are the best for your own standards. That is the bottom line that will provide the much needed confidence and self esteem. I believe in making sure my kid is exposed to a variety of material that’s stimulating enough to invoke curiousness. Good environment, good school, balanced friends circle, books, field trips, puzzles, a good dose of dinner time talks to keep the communication going. That she is adding something into her knowledge kitty everyday, however tiny that might be. That she stays grounded, doesn’t develop attitude and grows into a good human being. And her curiosity is to die for, I know it can be is a little too much to handle at times, but this is an art that is pretty difficult to acquire otherwise.


Provide them with the exposure and stimulation, and they will sure turn out to be the best in their own form, in something that interests them, that they feel passionate about. They are 4, 5 years old’s for God’s sake and there is this pressure to perform the best in class. I totally fail to understand. What does “best in the class” mean anyways?!


All said and done, this is me recording my thoughts as of August 18th, 2009, 11:20PM. How will I react if my child ends up coming last in her class, only time will tell. I had such set firm opinions on few areas of parenting some 5 odd years back, most of them trashed when I got my hands dirty. There’s a lot of learning and de-learning we do as we grow as a parent. Only time will tell how long I will keep up with this promise to myself that I will not compare or pressurize my kids to perform.

Stumbled upon this video. A lot of what Ken Robinson says makes absolute sense. I am not the creative kind, I am very much a left brained person. So, I cannot relate too much to the thought of having schools teach dance as a mandatory subject just like math and language. But living with the extreme right brained LH and now seeing that trait reflect heavily on D makes me want to understand more. The story of Gillian Lynne brings joy and grief as many such kids, instead of being encouraged end up being diagnosed for ADHD.

D is showing definitive signs of the creative kind. The teacher back in California had complains that she does not concentrate and that we parents are somehow responsible for it. We need to massage her before she goes to sleep. And play a lot of light music to help her concentrate. Not that we did not, we did. But she is a naturally hyper curious child and pays the price of getting distracted. I am happy that her teacher in India, on the other hand thinks D is one of a kind. Creative, vocal and a super quick learner. That she needs a creative element to her learning, when it comes to repetitive learning. She refuses to write “A” 50 times in a page. But any exercise in the activity book is done even before the teacher has finished explaining the task. She is reading 3-4 letter words, even 6-7 letter words phonetically correct. She tries to write words she hears. Most of the 3-4 letter words phonetically correct. How far can she go without the repetitive learning skills, only time will tell.

Okay, I digressed a little.. But its fodder for another post. Left brained Vs Right brained in its extremity. For now, enjoy the video.

All kids are born creative and most of us educate ourselves out of it as we grow.

If you are not prepared to be wrong, you will never come up with anything original.

Gazillion apologies, Eric Carle and Elieen Christelow. I understand that you both are not related by any means, but my daughter attempts to do so. In her own imaginative world.

These last few months, D has been insisting on starting the book with Who wrote this book and ending with Where Aunty/Uncle lives , Why he/she wrote this book?. After having followed the new rule set diligently for some time now, this curious little girl now remembers the authors of some of her favorite books. Eric Carle, Elieen Christelow and Nancy Carlson top her chart due to repeated readings of these books.
The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle
The Mixed Up Chameleon by Eric Carle
Five Little Monkeys series by Elieen Christelow
I Like Me series by Nancy Carlson

It has been a while we returned these books to the library. Nevertheless, once in a while we refresh our memories pretending the book is in front of us. I read the book title and she tells the author. Sometimes she decides to say the title and asks me who wrote it. Sometime after returning these books, we stopped doing that. Few days back, we started again.

She forgot the author of Five Little Monkeys, rather couldn’t remember the full name. She was mumbling a combination of Elieen Christelow and Nancy Carlson. And wouldn’t let me help her either. Very precise that I should not tell!! Poor thing, after few minutes she got irritated that she couldn’t remember. So I gave her a hint and she got it.

But, this one can’t let go of a situation without spinning it to her advantage. So there she goes – I am going to mix Elieen Christelow and Eric Carle in a bowl like dar dar. Of course with that wicked grin of hers. Only this time, I gave her company.

* * * * * *
On a whole different context, put my car up for sale today. Within an hour, this Chinese dude walks in, takes a look at the car, test drives it and hands over the cash advance. We were so not expecting the transaction to happen this quick and were not prepared with what-to-do-next, in terms of paper work, signing a contract for as-is sale and so on.
But, this episode has left me with an extreme overwhelming feel. I never realized I had any sort of attachment with my car, until today. I had not felt any emotion when we sold our house couple of years back. I signed the papers without a second thought. But car? Why? Strange!

! E-Ticket in hand ! ! Household sale bohni this Saturday !

No matter from which angle I look at it, zoom in, zoom out, flip or rotate. It speaks out loud, it is very much a non-refundable, non-transferable ONE-WAY ticket! Don’t get me wrong, I am super excited and looking forward to the move, to the new beginning. But still, there is a hidden angst to let go. It’s that feeling of realness, the sense of no turning back. It’s happening! It’s really happening!!

It’s such an experience to watch my daughter go through this process and to see her interpretation of the move at various stages. I don’t think the scope of moving-to-India has registered to her yet. She was a year old when we made our last trip. She hardly remembers anything from then. Few east coast trips after that have led her to the understanding that we will be back home in few days.

We started the selling process this past weekend. We moved some furnitures downstairs, close to the entrance, just to save the lookers from coming deep inside the house. My daughter asks the question, just as anticipated. Why mumma? Mumma is a good story teller, she can churn answers even in sleep. But to give an answer that is convincing in the first go, and one that does not provoke further questions is a whole different ball game. This time she was prepared and had rehearsed the answer. D, we can only take some suitcases in the plane. Plane does not have space for big items and furnitures. Anything that won’t fit into the suitcases has to be given away. She seemed a bit alarmed and says – Only table, chair, bed, shelf? Right mumma? Not my toys and my bo-oo-oks? You are right beta, I tell her.

So, this American dude walks in to take a look at the dresser I advertised on craigslist. In spite of detailing every possible dimension with pictures in the advertisement, he walks in, takes a look and says its too narrow for his room. What can I say, in that one hour that the empty dresser had been lying downstairs, D had managed to sneak in some of her toys. Maybe the dude got ticked off. My little one who had been observing all along pops with yet another question Why Uncle did not take? He did not like it beta. Another uncle will be here in few minutes, he might take it. Okay, I tell her.
This monster screams at the top of her voice at this man, who is now few feet away – Why are you not taking it? We are going to India. This will not fit into our plane!! Then I cannot even go to India! It is amazing to see how these little minds work and how they connect the dots. Furniture not selling + No space in plane == Cannot go to India.

Shortly another person walked in, loved the dresser, paid the list price and took it. To which D exclaims with extreme happiness and relief This uncle was good uncle. That man was bad boy!

And thus happened the bohni on Saturday.

That very same afternoon, a family with 2 kids came by to pick up the guest twin captain’s bed. While the lady’s husband was busy dismantling the bed to be loaded into his van, the resident chatterbox[Yes, I have lost the title to my daughter] strikes a conversation with the lady. First she asks her name. Then she tells her – You are taking my bed because the boys don’t have any bed to sleep on?
My face was worth a photo shoot, I tell ya.

This past week or so, no soul on the street has been spared from the information that we are moving to India. We had a chat, me and the daughter.
Me: D, you should not tell everybody that we going to India.
D: Why mumma?
Me: Because, some things we can only tell to friends. Mummy and papa’s friends are those uncles and Aunties that come inside our house, talk to papa and mummy for a long time. Other people you see on the street, say hi and smile, are strangers. Should not tell anything to them beyond Hi. Especially when mummy and papa are not around.
D: Oh! You are right mumma! I can tell the Aunty who took my bed. She was inside the house and talking to mummy and paapa for a very long time, right mumma!!

Lesson learned! Things you don’t want the whole world to know, keep it low-key in the house. Contain the excitement to self and spare the little bees from serious calculation of what to say and what not to say!

The mother, in a very casual conversation, ends up telling the daughter there are mosquitoes in India. Daughter is excited about going to India, to meet her cousins and all. But not very excited to meet the bugs one on one. She is constantly trying to find a suitable solution..

Daughter: Mumma, but I don’t like mosquitoes.
Mother: hmph.. Neither do I. They are usually outside the house. They won’t come in if you keep the house closed. And the surroundings clean. B bhaiyya, K didi are there na beta. They are not bothered. You’ll have fun there.

Few hours later..
Daughter: Mumma, I have an idea. How about we take a super small, teeny weeny airplane. We will go inside the house in the closed airplane, and lock the house. When we want to come out, we can get inside the airplane, go where ever we want and then come inside the house in the same airplane. Yes, mumma? Then the mosquitoes cannot ever ever ever ever bite me.

**********

Papa goes hiking Sunday early mornings with a bunch of uncles. Daughter has been wanting to hike as well. Papa keeps telling her she is too young to go for that long. One such Sunday morning, she wakes up, finds papa has gone hiking and..
Daughter: Mumma, papa is walking on the mountain. Are you sure he is ok and will not fall down?
Mother: Yes betu. Am sure he won’t.
Daughter: Yesterday, papa was telling me, when I will be big girl, then he can come with me. Then I can help him climb and make sure he won’t fall!!
I told you, she’s a true Californian!!

**********

Papa and daughter are happily munching away the said almonds to glory. Mother has no clue they are out of almonds and the last handful has been split into two, after being subjected to negotiation. Both papa and daughter are eating and reading and lost in their thoughtland. The mother passes by and eats few from the daughters bowl. Daughter snaps out of her thoughtland and bawls It’s not even fair! Why you don’t eat from his bowl. Why you always eat from my’s[mine]! That’s why I am not healthy.
Mother: Who told you are not healthy? My daughter is such a good kid, eats well, sleeps well..
Daughter: Nooo.. That’s why Dr. J put shots for me. Second Aunty poked me. So much harder, you don’t even know.
( Referring to the typhoid shot she got a few days back.. )

**********

Mother is trying to finish up Sunday chores while sipping chai. Daughter is happily making shapes with play dough.
Mother: Hey, its almost 5. Shall I get you some milk?
Daughter: Sure, mumma! I would love to drink!!

**********

Daughter eats capsicums because her mother has told her they are rich in anti oxidants. They are good for health. Daughter’s only worry right now is the baby sister growing taller than her. So bring on everything that has anything to do with good-for-health.
In the same context..
Daughter gets hold of a packet full of banana chips. Both the girls are happily slurping on them. The mother caught a glimpse, but she let go, telling to herself – It’s okay once in a while. She couldn’t resist when the pack was half empty within matter of minutes..
Mother: D, you had enough. Tummy will hurt if you eat more.
Daughter: Look Mumma! These are banana’s. Fruit.. They are very healthy. My teacher said tummy don’t hurt when you eat fruits.
Mother: D, these are fried in oil, okay. It’s okay to eat a little bit once in a while. You have eaten enough. Put that pack back in the shelf.
Daughter: There is no oil, mumma! Look at it. These are bananas. You don’t understand!!! Come baby, lets eat.. banana fruit..

**********

It feels like one fine day she woke up with these one liner additions to her dictionary..
Sure! I would love to.
It’s not even fair.
I can help you.
I have an idea.
Let’s do that, what are you waiting for.
How about that.
You don’t understand.
This is what I mean.
My teacher said.

Sameer Mishra, a 13 year old Indian American from Indiana wins the Spelling Bee competition this year. His winning word was ‘Guerdon’, which means ’something that one has earned or gained’. The second place went to another 12 year old Indian American, Sidharth Chand from Michigan.


What intrigued me to write this post is not that an Indian won the competition, but how hard work eventually paid off. How much endurance this kid and his family must have, to stay put, to try over and over again. This was his 4th attempt, his sister Shruti has made 3 attempts earlier. Consistency and endurance is key to success, I think.


Incidentally, following the spelling bee, was aired the 20-20 series. The topic of discussion being how far a parent would go to help their kids realize their dreams. Or live their dream through their child perhaps! This one parent proudly states that his son is the first teen paparazzi! Beats me! This kid gets beaten up every now and then, he is squished in between 6 footers, sometimes even used as a bait to lurve the celebrities and get to the front. The interesting point to note is that the father drives him to the destination, and watches movies in his car’s built-in dvd player, while the kid is apparently enjoying getting beaten up, to get a glimpse of Britney Spears or Paris Hilton. Why? Because it’s the 15 year old kid’s dream to be a photographer, to be a famous, and the kid wants to get there at any cost. The father is just helping him get there. Am I being judgemental here?
Just when I was watching this and murmuring, My God, these parents! Where will they draw the line?, The LH walks in and says – So Sameer won huh? D adds her 2 cents, Papa, one Uncle gave that yellow dress bhaiyya an instrument aka trophy. The LH takes D in his arms, shakes her gently and says, I love this.. love this.. D, D, D please please, my daughter.. take a good look. Just once, I want you up there on that stage! Spelling Bee and a marathon is all I ask, and you’ll make me a proud father. Even yesterday evening the dinner time talk the father and daughter were having was about running a Boston marathon together. This 3 year old girl also goes with the flow, without have the faintest clue of what a marathon is.
Hello!!! Was I just talking about other parents pushing their kids beyond the fine line? She is a 3 year old, thinks that trophy is a musical instrument. Lets talk about being judgemental!


Now, the news within the home territory! D’s maama and maami are visiting us from the east coast. They’ll be here on Thursday. Lots planned from Thursday to Sunday. The parents in the DD household are contemplating giving the maama and maami exclusive privilege to spend one on one time with the 2 bees, while the parent’s can go out to watch a movie in big screen.