In and out!!

It been two weeks now since the cub junior's been learning about the human body. It's fun to see how much the little ones enjoy learning new things. They had a doctor come to school to show them the different intsruments used and the kids were taken to the lab to see the skeleton. And now he knows why his heart goes thump, thump...and what his lungs do.

Two days back, after gorging on a treat of homemade pizza for dinner, the boys were in their room doing their routine of driving the neighbors crazy, while i cleaned up.

Soon, junior dances into the kitchen.

"You know, Amma, the pizza has entered my food pipe".

"That's nice, now where does it go" I had to ask

"now it's gone into my intestine, the good food stays there, the bad food goes into my biiig intestine' (that was probably to emphasize how big it is)

"okay.." now i'm understandably piqued ...

"and" he continues, "i think pizza is bad food 'cos its gone into my big intestine and it now wants to come out ...(he's literally dancing now)

"eeks!!! into the bath room right now!!!' I scream, my momma alerts ringing loud and clear

and that's how we averted a smelly accident that day.

sigh, pizza is bad food?

a 'mushy' tale

I have to record this just for its "laugh" factor.

The kids are excited about the upcoming trip to India. They have cousins in Bangalore (my sis' kids) who are 15 and 11). My nephews in a way, are curtain raisers for whatever would happen to my kids. The last time we saw the 15 yr-old, he had started shaving, too.

My cub junior absolutely hero-worships the 15 yr-old.

Yesterday while we were waiting at the gate for the school bus, (a group of 8 brighteyed children chattering away while this bleary-eyed mom looked on) discussion veered to moustaches. Cub senior, (the self appointed mr.know-it-all courtesy his cousins) declared that when you reach class 8/9, u get a moustache...

of couse junior's ears perked up. He runs to me, thrilled with this nugget of information and asks, "is it true, i too will get a moustache when i reach class 9?" (his questions are still framed as sentences asked in a questioning tone)

i nodded,and couldn't resist adding "maybe earlier.. "

he looked excited...

next he peers closely at me and asks..."u don't have one?"

"urrmmm......no"

Now comes the howler...

"why? u didn't go to school, u never reached class 9?"

i really have to work on my image , don't i?

i've learnt a new poem...

cub junior came home yesterday, all bubbling with news...he loves talking about his day... every single thing is important, be it the taekwondo step he learnt or the chocolate he got...

"Amma, my hindi teacher taught us a new poem. You want to hear it?"

"Sure", i said

"Aaya, aaya , paagal aaya"

"huh, paagal?..you sure she said paagal? ' i question

"she said paagal' he insisted...

so i opened his hindi book and sure enough, the poem was printed there...

and it read

"aaya, aaya, baadal aaya"

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obviously, he had heard it as paagal...and paagal it will remain... till hopefully the teacher notices and corrects him...(crossing ,my fingers here)...because a teacher is always right...!!!

He used to speak Hindi so well, he dreamt in it...i used to despair about him learning to communicate in English. Now 8 mths in Singapore, english has become his chosen language...and he's learnt it too well...more than he's supposed to know... :)

Oops! Junior's done it again!

Its been some time since I've written anything here, which does not mean nothing interesting has happened. It just means I'm taking my time assimilating everything and wondering what is going on!

Recent weeks have seen complaints by senior about swear words and abusive language being used against him. The final straw came when the boy in question started putting things in cub senior's bag and accusing him of stealing it. It turned out that the behavior stemmed from resentment and jealousy. An email to the right people hopefully has calmed things down. Aside from the fact that the cub senior's vocabulary is now enriched by more swear words, I'm stunned by the nonchalant usage of the words here. ...I've managed to ensure that cub senior minds his language,but for how long? I wonder...

As for cub junior, what can I say...A cosy evening found him playing with a new aiplane. His brother had been to the airshow and brought back a souvenir for the lil one. So while i caught up on some reading, junior was busy shooting bombs from the cockpit. Or so i thought. Till hubby pointed out, that what i mistook as cockpit was actually a reference to his err...vital part of his anatomy.

Further subtle probing revealed that he picked it up from the bus.(i use subtle, because to give the word undue importance only serves to etch it further in his mind and i don't want that, do i?) And he was thrilled with the new word he learnt(what he has to learn, he will never get it, but this...no probs mamma, !!!). Leave alone the fact that at his age, in my time, the cock used to be the better half of the hen... :(

a mom on the warpath....a 5 yr-old who is the most willing sponge, for all things undesirable...fireworks unlimited!!!

And the tension of various situations he may use it in!!! Ahh well!!
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When six became....!

these days, the lil uns are taught alphabets the phonetics way...which is quite confusing for an adult...the alphabet I makes the sound "eee" and the alphabet E makes the ehh ...and so on...

So finally cub junior has learnt the spellings of the numbers. Of course we had a lot of weird spellings which cropped up but my favorite was...

Wanting to convince me that he knew the spellings, he says, " see, i know...i know how to spell six! 's'...'e'...'x'...six...(he's confused the sound part and the alphabet)

i take a deep breath, and say no, it is s...i...x...(six)

and five minutes later he's back to s..e..x...!!!
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After 2 minutes, a question pops up... what does s..e..x mean??

so i sit down and explain....

the male /female gender thing...(*sheeesh, whatever were you'll thinking!)

and he went away happy...

but now knowing his penchant for testing newly learnt words, i foresee a situation in the MRT (train), where in the crowd, he may holler...i know his/her sex.....he's called a boy...or worse...could it get any worse?

Uhoh!!!I HATE SEX...AAargh! ...i mean six!!!

The sun wants to play!

the weather's been funny the past few days here in Singapore. You never know when the sunny day decides to be all teary...Today was one such day and my lil boy was feeling upset that it rained...so i made up this poem for him and we had some fun! Sharing our lil moment together...This suited the prompt at writer's too...
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The sun wants to play!!



Over the horizon and far away
The sun woke up to a new day
Should I hide behind a cloud today?
Should I be bright and stay?

So he hopped behind a cloud, peeking in and out
Making the weather man shake his head and shout
It’s going to be bright...umm wet....may be sunny,
This sure wasn't good. This sure wasn’t funny!

Waiting for the sun to make up his mind,
Was not easy, they were beginning to find
Our umbrellas or our shades, what do you think?
What a mess, it tickled our sun really pink

Everybody grumbled, what a day
The children didn’t know where to play
The beach or the park, in or out
The sun was acting strange, no doubt…

No body ever thought the sun
Could be having some fun
Over the horizon and far away
The sun sure had a great day

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This was more of a spontaneous oubtburst from me to keep S in good humor.
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Don't ask me!!!

Cub junior is quite a dreamer. He can only sing the alphabet but cannot say it. He is the reason i sometimes wish our education system was different. I wish it was more sensitive to the child's individual needs. But then this is wishful thinking! The saving grace is that i don't force him to 'study' but try to keep his mind active. He is intelligent enough and its not his fault that he is expected to know spellings of four letter words and number names from 1 to twenty! The poor boy is lost in a muddle of spellings and the horrors of hindi alphabets!

But the lil fella will never say "I don't know'..he comes up with a new connotation..

Yesterday, we were doing numbers. ...after a long time.

I asked him ' How do you spell three"?

He looks at me, evidently flummoxed...creases his forehead and says "why, you don't know?"