A Simple Plan..

We are reading 3 letter words. Nischal is finding it less boring since he gets to draw the words on the iPad. In parallel, the older brother is being quizzed on types of houses, and factors that influence their design.
With Nischal - 'M's sometimes are written as 'W's the first time, but we make some progress.Answers to 'PAT' , 'PAN' , 'RAT', 'RAN' start coming pretty fast. So, I get a little ambitious and have him write 'PLAN'
'Pu' 'Lu' 'A' 'eN' - gets pronounced a few times, but 'PLAN' doesn't get pronounced identifiably because of trailing vowel sounds especially with the consecutive consonants.
No sooner than I give up and blurt out 'PLAN', comes the question; "What does PLAN mean? "

"Plan.. " I stumble " ...means something you decide first before you actually do it"
" like , like .. you decide to scare me each time I come home, get behind there ( I point) and yell 'boo' at me "
(Yes, each evening when I get home,  I get 'scared' when the big monkey jumps out. And I get even more surprised and let out a bigger yell when the smaller, louder monkey jumps out a couple of seconds later - Every evening.) 
Nischal gives it a moment's thought before he starts with his objections. Before I can hear them, the older brother starts blurting out his Nth wrong answer to "How can one keep snakes & rats out of the house?"
He's already rejected Dad's options of "Sit outside and blow a snake charmer's bean", and "Sing 'snake snake, go away; Come again another day.."  with a couple of short derisive laughs.
 
Nischal finally gets back my attention with his persistent 'but's.
"But we don't decide before" he says, "we hear the sound at the door and just get in here.  Is that a plan ? "
"No" I concede quickly. But it turns out to be too quick coz the older guy points out "So what if it was decided just before? It's still a plan, right? "
I deflect that one by "If you 'block' the drainage like you just said, can you imagine what else will get blocked ? "

While the big one is pondering that, Nischal has decided we're done- "We're done now, right ? " to which I nod almost eagerly.
As he tries to leap off my lap, I manage to catch him in a hug. But soon as my precious few hair strands get into trouble, I offer to let him go soon as he counts to 30. I don't bother correcting him when he goes over to 40 after 29, but fervently object whenever he tries to put 30 after 49, 59, 69..etc. I finally take pity and accept it after 109 and loosen my hold.

As he leaps on to the floor, he offers a scholarly nugget that he picked up at the sand pit. "Papa, did you know you were naked when you were born?" And finds it exceedingly funny.
As his laughter dies down, I ask mockingly "So, weren't you also naked when you were born ? "

He smiles, and says with an I-can't-believe-you-don't-know-this voice "No Papa. I was born with a T Shirt."  And saunters out without looking back.
 

The case of the white mud

"Papa"  he starts,  while still looking down at the toy in his hands.
"Yes" I reply, barely looking at him - I'm driving. But I do put the stereo on mute.
"On a sunny day, when I get a holiday, we should go on a ship "  he looks up at me, while his face breaks into a smile. I guess he's picturing it in his head.

Nischal still doesn't get the concept of days too well. But he gets time of day. So, events are described as on a 'dark day', a 'sunny day', etc. 'Yesterday' and 'Tomorrow' are used, but they are just like 'sunday' or 'monday' - their purpose is to count the days to the coming saturday (holiday).
Once, he found out in March (thanks to a YouTube trailer) about an Iron Man movie.He bugged me literally every day if 'May' was tomorrow, and if we could go see the movie. No thanks to the malls that put up posters well in advance, but I digress.

"Where do you want to go, on the ship?" I ask - wondering if this is one more plea for me to go to the US. I often get woken up from my saturday afternoon naps to go 'right now' to the US to buy some toy he saw on YouTube or Amazon.

"If you go on the ship, you will get to Penguins. I want to go there " he says. There's this disney website called 'Club Penguin' where he & his brother spend a good bit of time playing games. Yes, every player there is a penguin, with a custom set of accessories.

Seeing that 'penguins' doesn't get me jumping in glee, he adds " You also get white mud there".
It takes a couple of moments for me to realize what he's talking about, but I manage to hold back the corrections I have to offer.
I ask instead "White mud? Really ? That sounds interesting!"
His smile widens. "Yes, white mud. But you need to wear caps when you go there"
"Why is that ? "  I ask as I realize scenes on a monitor don't convey the weather.
He pauses a beat before coming up with " Because, the white mud will get into your hair"
"So what if it gets into your hair?", I counter.
He assumes a professorial pose, and takes a deep breath. " Papa, if you get white mud in your hair, you will fall sick. Ok? "
"Oh", I nod vigorously like a light bulb went on in my head. He's pleased with himself.

The next couple of weeks, I'd bored all my polite friends with the 'white mud' story. Then, I hear him point at the TV and say "Papa, that snow looks awesome, no ? "
I barely hide my anguish while I look at his older brother.

"Yes, I taught him. He was going around calling it 'white mud' with my friends too" he says, with a 'I saved the idiot' smile.
My little guy is growing up too fast.

Present Tense talks to Past Tense

Nischal's older brother used to only speak Kannada while he was a child. But that became a problem once he joined day care. The teachers there ended up learning some kannada words so they could understand him. To help him, we parents started speaking more in english. That made him pick up english, but he forgot kannada completely. Even now at the age of 10 he is not able to speak Kannada.
So, with Nischal - we decided we'd just stick to Kannada, and english would come to him on it's own once he joined school.
That was not to be.
He started speaking in english on his own - just listening to us - and now has us also automatically replying to him in english.  The english needs work, but we don't correct him. I enjoy listening to the mistakes too - knowing that they are short lived. I know some of my present & old colleagues will find that hard to believe about me, but it's true. :)
Coming from a more streamlined language like kannada, he doesn't even consider the fact that present-past tense patterns vary for different words.
So, I broke from tradition one day when I corrected him after  "Papa, this Bhaagya (maid) is a bad guy! She waked me up so early in the morning today! "
"Nischal, she 'woke' you up this morning"  I said, "-not 'waked'  "
He looked at me, and smiled.

I couldn't help offering a couple more corrections over the next couple of days, and I was quite getting into the roll of things ( my friends are nodding their heads now).
Then one day, as I was taking off my shoes and putting them away, came another complaint  " Papa! This Anna (his elder brother)! In the birthday party, he drinked all the soda by himself! "
"Nischal, it's  'drank' - not 'drinked' "  I corrected automatically.

He then walked up to me,  and put his hand on my shoulder. I turned to looked at him. Since I was already bent down, we were eye to eye.
"Papa " he says, his face all seriousness, " It's not 'drank'.  'Carry - carried' , 'wait - waited' , 'wake - waked' and  'drink - drinked' ,  Ok ?"
As I scrambled for words; he broke into a slight smile,  turned and walked away with a slight spring in his step. 
Enough was Enough, I suppose.
And yes, those of you(my friends??) that are smiling ear to ear? You can stop now.

One Chapati Dinner

The cook had quit; She wanted to take care of her daughter whose child was due anytime.

For a few days - before we found another cook - Anu would cook. One of the nights, she insisted the kids & their dad sit down on the kitchen floor, and eat fresh chapatis right there as she made them. For those going 'aaaww, sho shweet..', our house chapatis tend to crack teeth if left out for too long.  Yea.. a different kind of 'aaww'.

So, here we were eating the fresh chapatis & curry;  even Nischal was eating eagerly - a very unexpected, but welcome change - when he talks about what happened in class.
"Teacher was asking us all about families"
We adults make encouraging noises, and the older brother continues to eat while in his own zone.

"I told her about Annaa (older brother), pappa, amma ."  Nischal continues.
"You didn't tell her about Ajji (grandmother) ? " asks his brother.
"No, Ajji is not with us here. That's a joint fa-ma-lee" says Nischal.
Now our appropriate noises become more authentic - glad to hear something he'd learnt, and also glad to hear that he'd learnt something.

"But Ajji also is our family, isn't she ? " continued his brother, " she ... "
Nischal interrupted him " No, Anna. We are a new-clear fa-ma-lee!"
Now, both of us adults are smiling and realizing that we aren't totally throwing away our money when we pay his school fees.

The older brother also nodded in grudging appreciation "Nuclear. I didn't know that word until last year (when he pored over wikipedia to sate his fascination for nuclear bombs)".

Nischal goes back to munching on those chapatis - they probably have gotten slightly colder.

One of the sundays..

The wife was out shopping for my niece's birthday present, and I was left with the boys. It was 4 pm, and the little guy said "Papa take me down to play with Anant".
So, we get ready and go down, but Anant isn't around.
"Let's go to his house" he says. I say "you can't just go to somebody's house.. we need to call and find out"
"I know his number" he replies and proceeds to dial the extension. He's promptly greeted by a lady on the other side who tells him there's no Anant there.
I have a million questions on how he came up with that number (he's 4 years old ), but those are interrupted by his next command. "Let's go to his place, and I want to climb the stairs"
Anant's apartment is on the 10th floor, but I agree - my phone has this step counter app, and I never get close to 1000 steps daily let alone the 10,000 steps goal it thinks we need to get everyday. And my 1000 steps include not pausing the step counting while in the car too.
 Anant's dad greets us, and promises to send Anant down with his grandpa in a few minutes. Barely hearing him, Nischal starts taking off his shoes to go in.
Before I too can voice my objection (coz I'll have to put them back on him), he's vaults in .. calling his name.

Anant's mom also promises that she'll send him down after she packs his water, etc. - they're clearly uncomfortable with us standing at their door. Nischal is unfazed. "No problem, we'll wait right here for him" .
They give up.
"Okay, he'll come with you.."  says Anant's dad " .. and his grandpa will be down shortly with his water bottle ."
"You're ok with minding them? " asks Anant's mom .. rightly concerned. I nod nonchalantly.. " sure, no problem"

I have the elevator door open for them before Nischal thinks of skipping down 10 floors.