The Adventures of the Little Indian Girl

So, I went to the store to get yogurt and bought a bagful of groceries, while N & D went to the library. I come home and this is what I see. No hello, not even a glance. Eyes glued on to the TV screen and hanging on to N tightly!

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And these days this is how we are at 4pm. Absolutely love it! She drinks her sometimes cocoa/sometimes plain milk and snack, while I have tea/hot cocoa and my snack!

Yesterday I spent the afternoon at friend So & Su's place. So is a mother of two young children, Ad (8 years) & Dh (6 years) and she takes care of them full time while hubby goes to office. I made it in time to have lunch with the three of them and spent the afternoon being entertained. Followed along with mom and son, while daughter went for a arts and crafts class, for the son's haircut and mom's pedicure. And then we headed out to another of their friend's place where three other mothers and a houseful of kids were congregated for a public-speaking session. Oh how cute it was. Each kid between the age of 5-10 went up in front of everyone and spoke about a topic of their choice and then one mother gave feedback on presentation skills. Just listening to them we got lost in the world of constellations, dinosaurs, komodo dragons, and summer vacations. And listened along to the mothers' struggle to instill their mother tongue (Tamil) in their kids. They could send them to a tutor but they also want to keep it amongst these kids as they live in the same neighborhood and also will hopefully come up with a sense of some local community like we experienced growing up at home.

As we were all saying bye, the kids were wondering if they should address me as "didi"(elder sister in Hindi) or "aunty". I was afterall the only one in the room without a kid! The mothers smiled and said I can qualify as "didi" (mind you the mothers are maybe just 6-8 years older to me). The one who asked (10 year old) said, they will stick with didi but still was unsure and asked my age. I played along and asked him to guess. He guessed, 16 or 17. I chuckled and go alright I will take 16. He still had his doubts and said maybe 15. Ad right away exclaimed, "but no. She is married. She must be older!" Alas, we had to head on out and so couldn't finish the conversation. But it's always amusing to see the kids perspectives on things and life!

Ad spends every spare moment reading. She is a sponge and she reads anything and everything.Dh is the quiet entertainer. Well, quiet as a 6 year old can be. He reads and plays. He was even helping mom and I at scrabble. Oh what fun it was! Of course, I was at moments as their father later put it, "bewildered" at the chaos in the house. I must admit. They are such well behaved kids and yet wow.... I think I postponed our kids plan by another 3 years!! :P

But really they say the darnest things... If only I could write it all down... I would have a few volumes by now. The two managed to get me to spend the night with them as well! So and I stayed up and watched Rebecca. We didn't realise till half way through that it was a 3 hour long saga! But a well-done movie indeed! I also remembered there was a recent Bollywood movie that went almost along the same ways, but halfway through it took a different storyline.

We awoke and spent the morning again at the breakfast table. Had such a wonderful time and maybe won't mind replicating such a life. I have already picked two friends' home where we can drop off our kids to get "trained" at being such well behaved and fun intelligent kids! So easy, no?! :P