Naisha’s not well… upset stomach, which is no surprise considering she’s expecting her poor stomach to digest such utter rubbish… chalk, sand, cement and every other concievable stuff off the ground. She’s got it quite badly. And she’s a BAD patient if ever there was one. She’ll pick fights and make herself so unpleasant and difficult that she ensures no one is happy till she gets well. A total handfull.
What’s worse… Hrit can’t stomach the fact that he’s not the one who’s unwell, for a change. He couldn’t believe it that Naisha was getting more medicines and attention (in that order) than he was. He got so fed up of asking for medicine that he came up with a new one…
“Mama,” says he, “Give me medicine my mouth my hurting.”
“What happened to your mouth,” I asked
“I’ve talked so much today that my mouth is hurting. You need to give me medicine,” says he.
I thought that was funny till he actually howled and howled.. “My mouth is huritng and mama is not giving me medicine.”
Tough times.
Ludo disaster
I tried teaching the kids to play ludo yesterday. I presumed because they knew counting they’d enjoy the game. Wrong… It was such a total disaster. To begin with it was tough to get them to sit. Then they were more interested in everything else rather than moving along their pieces. They were totally enchanted by the dice but weren’t bothered with how many numbers it was showing. They fought over which colour piece to pick but didn’t bother with the game at all.
Then I tried snakes and ladders… maybe they’ll like it because of the whole concept of being bitten by a snake and climbing up ladders… wrong again.Finally I lost my cool. I know, I know I shouldn’t have… but I did. Told them they were good only for bat-ball ( bad, bad, bad, I know). Then took them down to play where they met their friends and I met mine. Both had a ball. And everyone told me it was a little too early for them… said after they were four I should try again. Which made me feel better – nothing wrong with my teaching or Hrit Naisha’s learning abilities… What would I do without friends… thanks Sahana for this one.
Bat ball or cricket
There was a time when Hrit was happy playing ‘bat ball’. Now that he’s growing up he likes to call it ‘cricket’. Only he’s a little confused. Instead of just calling the game ‘cricket’ he now calls his bat and ball also ‘cricket’. Confusing? Well it’s like this, if I tell him to get his bat and ball he’ll say, “it’s not bat and ball it’s cricket. I’ll get my cricket.” Crazy.
Holi hai!
Holi is Hrit Naisha’s all time favourite festival. Where else will you have permission to play with water, dirty water at that, to your heart’s content? Hrit was as usual down and on two-hourly nebulisation so I was a little reluctant to let them play but there’s no way he would miss holi. I’d been holding them off for pre-holi playing and that was bad enough. (I did allow them to play in the bathroom). Anyway on Holi day I made a special ‘vest’ for Hrit out of a plastic bag and made him wear it on his regular vest and over that came his kurta. yes he wore a kurta dhoti because obviously Naisha would wear her chaniya choli.. It was a fastabal (festival) after all. So they went down all set with their pichkaris. When I went down a little later.. there they were colour splattered, drenched to the skin making gulal bhel. Don’t know what that means? Well there were many gulal heaps kept for everyone and Hrit Naisha were busy mixing them together. Thankfully it was Holi and no one was really bothered about what colour the gulal really was.
After about an hour of water play I dragged them home. And surprise surprise Hrit’s vest was almost completely dry. Three cheers for a good idea.
Old vs tall
How can someone short be old – that’s Naisha’s latest query. According to her as one gets older they just get taller. The idea that people stop growing taller at some point is alien.
I was telling them the story of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. When I came to the part where Snow White is ‘dead’ and the dwarfs are watching over her Naisha came up with an addition saying, “Woh log toh school bhi nahin jaa pate the.” Then I had to explain that they were old and didn’t go to school. Then followed a host of questions on how come they were old but were not tall (She’d seen pictures in her book).
Concepts which seem so simple are sometimes not so simple to explain.