Appropriate conversations

The kids are back in the house. Our in-laws are also here. We have a full house and it feels great! 

We are back into funny conversations.

Kids are watching something on the TV from Netflix online. Suddenly Jr. (who let me remind you is not yet 13) gets the remote and starts forwarding something.

Me: Why are you forwarding it. Let me watch it.

Jr.: Appa, don't think it is appropriate to watch. that is why I am forwarding it

Little one (not yet 10) chimes in: Yes appa. that part she is forwarding is not appropriate

Me : !!!!! Appropriate for who? Me? or You? and if you know it is not appropriate, that means you have already watched it! what is going on here?

They both had a sheepish grin and were in a rush to talk over each other to offer an explanation. Apparently some boy kisses a girl in those forwarded minutes of "Good luck Charlie". Apparently, they fast forwarded it the first time they watched it also! Finally... "appa"-rently, they were more embarrased to watching me, watch it than they were, during the previous time they saw the episode.

Wasn't exactly sure if I should be happy or mad or sad for the fact that

- they are watching this

- they think the age appropriateness is for ME

- or for the fact they still had some respect for me that they would not watch it in front of me. 

Time will tell. 

Just saying..

Daddy had just come back from yoga class, showered and was trying to get into equilibrium on the couch.

Mommy and the kids were watching some Tamil TV channel and a conversation started about an exercise class that mommy attended recently

LO : so what is so hard about this exercise you did?

Mommy : I had to sit down on the floor and move my hands to the other side while sitting.. (makes gestures on couch)

Jr. (gets down on carpet) : Tell me what it is.. I can see how hard it is

Mommy describes the move and Jr. does it and goes "that is easy"

Mommy : That is not easy when you have to do it many times and fast!

Then the little one chimes in with 

Amma, you are "Oh - El - Dee" and she is "why -oh - you - en- gee" ! Of course it is easy for her and difficult for you. 

Unfortunately I was deep in the corner of the couch and unable to escape immediately. thinking that any global catastrophy would be more welcome than what was about to follow in the next few minutes, I quietly slinked back deeper into the couch and opened my laptop to shield any direct eye contact with other house inmates and mom takes it in for a full second and says 

"unakku evvalo thimiru dee?" (which crudely translates to "how dare you" *10^27  with a wind chill factor given the look on mom's eyes) and the litle one calmly goes 

"What ? That is why I didn't SAY it. Didn't you see how I spelled it out so I didn't say it?!"

Somewhere something snapped and we all burst out laughing and we have lived to see another day!

Two elephants, two hours, memories for two lifetimes

We did two trips within trips this year. The first one was a trip to Kerala with my parents, brother and sister and families. 

We stopped first at Thekkadi and went for an elephant ride to view the Western Ghat mountain range from vista points along a ridge. 

There were two elephants, one male and one female that took the family in batches of four through a 30 minute ride. The male elephant is apparently the fourth largest elephant officially known in Kerala. 

They were magnificent creatures and were happy to take the 4-5 kilograms of bananas divied up and distributed through everyone in our group. 

There were pictures.. lots of them.. here are a few.

Throughout the trip Jr. was a very serious person. The only time I saw her smile, even blush was when she was on the elephant! 

Then came the session where we fed the elephant and the kids got blessed by them. They were happy and scared to go near the giants but soon realized that the animals were gentle creatures. 

That was a kid who is scared and happy at the same time! Should caption that image "Scrappy"! 

Jr. did warm up to the elephant and fed it first. Did not expect her to be that bold. She surprised me.

and once she did it, was all proud. "Did you see what I just did?" 

The little one was really scared and needed a little help from the adults to go near the elephants. 

Then she was their "best friend"!

She got up close and personal !

There were many unforgetable moments on that trip. My parents who were not sure of joining us because of their health concerns, jumped in last minute to join us. Watching them go around on an elephant made my day! 

The views from the ride were breathtaking as well. You could see the mountain ranges, the towns and farmlands below and the sunlight doing a spotlight show through the break in the clouds. 

This reminded me of the views on the way back from Whittianga to Auckland in New Zealand. There is so much sightseeing to do in India. Don't know when we will get time to go soak it all in..

After this we went on a boat ride in the lake to spot wild animals and birds. That is a post for another day!

Intelligent but not smart

My mother always used to tell me "you are intelligent, but not smart!" and it would usually be in the context of how my people skills lacked a certain element of "guardedness" and a track record of my faith in the fellow human being placed on the wrong beings.

Recently the kids go on a spree, pointing out why Grandma is right!

We had to do passport pictures. San did the usual diaglogue of "you have thousands of dollars worth of camera equipment. take the photos yourself" and the photo session was done. 

When it came time to print the photos, yours truly said "Hey, I can get us all the photos in one print!" and put them as a 8x10 grid and sent it off to print.

It did come out nice and we were in and out of the local pharmacy photo printer area in 5 minutes. 

Then came the realization. Instead of printing it as a 8x10 and paying upwards of 5 bucks for it, we could have made it into four 4x6's and got it for under a dollar. 

The little one is smart enough to figure this out.  Going forward, will have to include her in any of my "projects" to put the smart factor in!