Santa chronicles

Last year the little one had found out that Santa is not real. Somehow she has forgotten that realization this year.

Today she came to me and said "Daddy, I know Santa puts our gifts under periamma's tree but will he still come into our house through the chimney and check our Christmas lights? What if he comes and is not happy because we don't put milk and cookies for him?"

Me : !!! I don't know. Maybe he will come to our house

LO : He comes to every house anyways right? even if we are good or bad girls?

Me : go to sleep. Santa will bring you gifts. Just don't worry about it.

On the other hand, Jr. is growing up a little too soon, and when this is happening with her mom as a role model.. that means trouble for Daddy.

Jr.: Daddy can you do this for me?

Me : Iru, idho varen (wait, I will come now)

Jr.: I know what that means. You will take an H O U R to come. I am going to go ask Amma!

Me : NO that is not true. I am almost done here. Just give me a minute.

Jr.: You are on your laptop! Every time you are on your laptop and say "a minute" it means a hundred minutes. You won't come. I know you..

LO : Yeah Appa. you take a hundred million thousand minutes!

Me : (shut down laptop) Okay, tell me what you want?

Jr.: See, you did that just to prove me wrong. If I didn't say what I did, you would have kept working.

Me : Ennadi aniyaayam (this is not fair). I don't come to help, it is a problem. If I come to help, I am doing it to prove a point?

Have a lot of work ahead to change the little girls perception!

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We are Indians?!

The little one tells Jr. during our Disney trip "We are Indians.. we helped the Pilgrims.. that is why everyone should thank us during thanksgiving!"

Me : !!!???!!!! Who taught you that?

Little one : My school.. I know all about thanksgiving!

Jr. : The Indians in the thanksgiving story are native Americans who wear feathers on their head.. not people from India.

LO : So nobody is thanking us? (looks sad)

Me : guess not.

LO : I was wondering because we don't eat turkey and live in teepees!

Now that we have the Indian side cleared up we might have to dispel doubts on who the pilgrims were...

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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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We just cannot wait...

Found the little one walking around the house like this today.

Rubber bands, hair clips, fake dangling clip on earrings to match pink fake hair..

Kept saying to myself "God, what have we done! She is brave on the outside but inside she does feel the lack of hair!"

Well, it was a one time deal and it will be forgotten in a month. We can already put a clip through the hair.

Had a heart to heart with the girl and she is okay. Why?

"In two months my hair will be growing faster than Akka and will be longer than Akka! So I am okay. This is just pretend for now"

Now all we can pray for is that it does start to grow faster.

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Jahan Khan

My FIL decided to take us for a vacation within a vacation so we got a little unwinding between our trips to Chennai and Mumbai.

We went to Delhi and from there on to Agra for a day.

This being the first time daddy and the kids are seeing the Taj Mahal, there was a lot of expectation and a lot of hyping for the kids.

The story of Shah Jahan and his love for Mumtaj and how the Taj Mahal was built for her was repeated many times for the kids the day before and during the drive.

Once we reached the Taj and the kids went "oooh" and "aaah" there was a pop quiz for the kids...

Me: Who built the Taj Mahal?

Jr.: ask me ask me.. I know the answer

Me : okay you tell me.. who?

Jr.: Shah Rukh Khan!

Me : !!!!!! விடிய விடிய முகல் புராணம் கேட்டுட்டு, மும்தஜுக்கு புருஷன் ஷாருக்னு சொல்லறியே டீ!!

(vidia vidia Mughal Puranam kettutu, Mumtajukku purushan Shah Rukhnu sollariye di!!)

I don't know how to translate that last part into English from Tamlish. Needless to say, the education on the history of the Taj continued for another 15 minutes after that answer.

Here are some photos from our Taj Mahal trip.

It was truly breathtaking!

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