A picture is worth... a short play!

Every year Jr. brings this school portrait picture request from school. It is "attractively" priced at anywhere from 28 to 100$ depending on the package.. attractively for the kids that is! 

The photographer in me is never happy with the pictures and the CFO at home says "Didn't we fund all that expensive camera equipment? No way we need to pay for any pictures!" 

This year when Jr. got me the form and envelope told her "how many times have we gone through this? I am not even going to have this conversation. You can have this one with yourself. Face me and act like you. Then face the other way and tell yourself what daddy will say in response and be done with it!"

She thought it was actually a great idea and humored us with the little one edging her on.

The result is..

she did pretty good. At the end she tossed the form and now she gets to spend 14 or 28$ at Target.. depending on if the little one also co-operates and doesn't insist on a school portrait! 

Next year, we do not even have to do this play. We can just review this video. 

Life just gets simpler every year!!!

Truth be told

The little one has been given a project for first grade. It is to make a Diorama of one of the "Frog and Toad" stories.

When I got back from Austin Thursday night , the first thing she told me was "Finally, I also have a project!"

What that translated to is "Daddy, you have a project for me!"

After hearing her go on and on about this I asked Jr. "Didn't we do the exact same project three years ago when you were in first grade?! Remember buying silly putty in different colors and making frog and toad and you made a table, bed etc. with it and painted the whole shoe box"

Jr. says "yes and it is probably still in the garage!"

In a fit of laziness blurted out "why can't we just reuse that diorama?" and left it at that.

Friday evening comes and the little one tells me "I asked my teacher today if I can bring the same diorama my sister did three years ago and guess what?"

He said "NO!"

That was embarrassing.. Now I have to go face her teacher who probably is appalled by my "reuse" concept!

Daddy Narayanan is growing too old for Dioramas and is kind of getting bored of going through same projects with a 3 year deja vu cycle.

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All in a day..

Conversation 1 with Little one just before bedtime

Me : please eat fast and eat more! Only then you will grow big.

LO : I want to be a "mouse kutty"! (and makes a small rat face by pouting her lips. She wants to be a baby mouse)

Me : No. be serious. you have to eat fast. tomorrow morning I want you to eat fast so that we will be on time for school.

LO : Daddy, you know something.. I am not eating because if I don't eat, then I won't become bigger.. if I don't become bigger, then I don't have to get married and go away. I want to stay with you always!

Me : !!!!!!! thinking "We have a big big problem". You can stay with me forever.. even if you get bigger and get married. You can bring your husband and make him also live with us. no problem. just start eating okay?

Conversation 2 with MIL:

MIL : What are you taking a photo of now?

Me : a peppercorn!

MIL : I cannot even see it without my glasses from here...

Me : that is the beauty of this lens. The peppercorn looks like a small pockmarked planet when I zoom into it with this lens.. totally amazing. this makes small things look big!

MIL : Do you have a lens that makes big things look small? if you do, use that and get me a new facebook profile photo!

Me : !!!!!! (hmmm.. maybe I can get another lens for this?!)

Conversation 3 with Jr. earlier this evening:

Me : so tell me what happened in school today?

Jr.: there was an election and we all got to vote on a ballot for student council leaders, sports secretary etc.

Me : this is your first time voting?

Jr.: yes. 3rd graders to 5th graders vote. But you have to be in 4th or 5th grade to stand in an election.

Me : so how did it go

Jr.: the people who were in the election had to put signs out everywhere in the school. then they held the signs and shouted "I am responsible. vote for me.." and stuff like that. it was very noisy.

Me : so do you want to stand in the election next year? You aren't exactly responsible but we have one year to get you there! why don't you be sports secretary?

Jr. : well, we have to put way too many posters everywhere

Me : I will help you with it.

Jr.: if you are sports secretary, you get to go clean all the tropies, pump up all the balls and do more work. If you are president you get to announce things in the speaker and ring the bell everyday.

Me : in other words you are saying "why work to get elected and do more work?"

Jr. : exactly. I don't see why they want to shout all day, get elected and do more work.

Me : hmmm.. right now I am not exactly sure if I should coach you on leadership skills or commend you for staying on the sidelines. we will talk about this once amma comes back home. By the way, who did you vote for.

Jr. : I heard them do all the shouting and we had to pick 4 choices out of 5 for all positions. So I picked all the girls.

Me : thinking "great, so the vote pretty much got divvied up along gender lines!"
don't you think it is unfair to just vote for them because they are girls?

Jr. : No! they are also saying they are responsible!

Me : !!!!!!!

So much for democracy. God bless America.

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When engineers try art..

Volunteering at daughters school for the Art program this year. Today was the first class from the masters to the wannabe art instructors.

It was interesting. The only downside was a two hour delay going to work and that made work way too hectic.

At first there was a short introduction to the artist and his particular type of art. Then all the parent volunteers were given an hour to try the concept themselves.

Our work then went up on the wall for the kids to see.

The artist ? Henri Mattisse
The art type ? gouaches découpés (painting with scissors)

No pencils were allowed. We were given a glue stick, some scissors and a range of colored paper.

We had to cut shapes and stick them on the paper to create art.

Some of the parents who are doing this for the third or fourth time came up with really good work.

This was daddy narayanan's first attempt..

It did get a few looks and positive comments for the rainbow concept. Some parents did point out that the rainbow colors were not in VIBGYOR order and I beat the ability to circle the ring behind the saturn to death by putting way too many saturns.

Told them that it was artistic license!

For more on the amazing Henri, please go to this page that is a great resource on the man and his art! 

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School can be a double edged sword

Looks like Jr. is learning "letter writing" at school.

Earlier this evening, she was practicing it and both the adults were surprised to read the letter..

There has been a lot of frustration and anger in this house for the last few weeks. It is all behind us now. Maybe we will see the letters improve as well as the writing ?!

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