Quite sure

Little One : Your hair is disappearing daddy

Me : Yes, I am growing old.. so the hair will go soon

LO : So, soon you will become a "thatha"? (grandpa?)

Me : No. I will become a Thatha only when you have kids

LO : (very calmly) I won't be having kids dadu.

Me : Why not da kannamma(darling)?

LO : I don't want the doctor to cut my tummy. So I am not going to have any babies.

Me : !!!!????!!!!! Sangeeeeeeeeeeeeethaaaaaaa.....stop sharing C-section stories with this kid..

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Size matters

Came home and tried to engage both kids at the same time.

The little one having spent the last two days pretty much in bed with me all afternoon was missing me terribly. Well, when one gets better, one has to go to office, no?

Told her to draw something for me while Jr. and me were going over math.

LO : I am going to draw our whole family!

Me : good.

LO : So far I have drawn daddy and mommy.. next I will draw Akka (jr.), then me then Paati (grandma)

Me : (was looking at it from a distance) why do I have long hair?

LO : No.. that is mommy. This is you!

Me : bring it here.. show it to me..

Me : so why am I smaller than Amma?

LO : (gives me a sheepish grin) Oh that? This is a picture of you when you were a small boy and this is a picture of Amma when she is already grown up.

To save face at that point, the conversation was stopped.. next thing you know my growing up will be highlighted with a bar graph or pareto chart...

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Mothers day

Mother's day is a lot of things to a lot of people... depends on country, culture, commerce.. etc.

All said and done a day where you thank Mom's with an open gesture. It was conceptually new to me because as a kid growing up in India, do not remember any special plans for mothers day or my dad deciding to kiss my mom or buy her special gifts or cook breakfast for her while she woke up late or do a special archanai in the local temple on that day just like he would on her birthday (the archanai of course).

When in Rome, do as the Romans do is what they say (still don't know how the Roman's celebrate Mothers day, but we do know how Californians celebrate) and that means we should have been on the program and schedule.

As fate would have it, I fell sick and pretty much blotched any semblance of plan or schedule.

Woke up this morning with a terrible stuffy nose and painful sinus. Told the little one "wake up.. we have to wish all the moms on mothers day"

LO : Let us go wish mommy

Me : she is still sleeping. don't wake her up. I will call Madras Paati(grandma) and wish her.

LO : why should you wish Paati for mother's day?

Me : what do you mean? She is MY mother. I have to wish my mother on mother's day!

LO : it is MOTHER's day. Not GRANDMA's day!

Me : we have to wish all mothers we know. especially our own mothers. you go wish Amma. I go wish Paati. Amma will wish Bombay (San's mom goes by Bombay Paati or just Bombay in our house)

LO : Now I get it. should I wish Madras Paati too?

Me : yes. and every mom you meet today!

at that point we decide to call Madras Paati.

Me : happy mother's day

My mom : (very hesitantly) Thank you

Me : enna pannindu irukkeL ? (what are you guys doing?)

My mom : silence.....

Me : Enna maa.. pesave maatengare? (what mom.. you are not speaking?)

My mom : was trying to figure out who was on the other side. You must have a really bad cold. what is wrong with your voice? I cannot even recognize your voice? have you been taking care of your health? is it the job? etc. etc.. she almost went to "are you drinking your horlicks every night or not?" we just stopped shy of horlicks and the ennai theichu kuliyal (oil bath). You know you are in trouble if the oil bath makes it into the list of questions.

Me : Please let me talk. I DO have a bad cold. the weather keeps changing outside. Yesterday we went to a birthday party at a local park. it was very warm when we left and walked around in a T-shirt. Suddenly it got very cold and chilly and by evening I had a stuffy nose. It will get better.

Mom : what is the point of wishing mothers day when you are somewhere and I am somewhere and can only see you in pictures? and cannot even recognize your voice?

Me: you have a point there. will come home soon and we can talk, okay?

that cheered her up, at least temporarily...

the sickness kept going. An afternoon nap that was more than a nap. Then we decided to go out and have a drive. San pretty much said "come on now. just sit in the car and I will drive. let's take the kids and my mom out to eat someplace"

so off we go to do some errands and then hit Baja Fresh for an early dinner for the four of them (just had to watch as my stomach wasn't food ready).

We are waiting for San to come out of some store. There is a huge banner on Saratoga Avenue for Lumix Point and shoot camera's.

Jr. : Daddy, when can you buy me my own camera?

Me : I told you that I will buy you one before your next birthday and if not will give it to you as a birthday gift, no?

Jr. : Amma cannot take pictures with your camera anymore. the lens you have there is too complicated for Amma. she doesn't know how to use it.

Me : stop. I can teach her.

Jr. : NO! you cannot. It is very complicated. I have seen it. It has many rings and you keep moving buttons on it and she thought about it that other day and told me "it is too complicated and I don't want to break it and get in trouble with your daddy". We need to be a "camerologist" or something to use your camera. Can you buy me something easy where I can just see the picture on the screen and click?

Me: A camerologist? don't you know a word for someone who takes photos?

Jr.: (sheepishly) Oh yeah! Photographer!

Me : okay. we will think about it.

by the time this conversation was over San showed up and we were off to Baja Fresh..

we were happy, mad, silly, sad and all of the above over a 45 minute period.

Somehow we were all happy that we had each other.

Then we got home and Jr. and the little one insist I sleep with them for a few minutes.

Me : cannot lie down now. Nose is completely blocked. have to inhale vicks

LO : otherwise you will die?

Me : no. I won't die. will feel miserable.

LO : okay. we were worried.

Me : don't worry. everything will be fine.

LO : When is father's day?

Me : Don't know. But don't do anything special for father's day. just pray that we will all be healthy.

Mother's day went with the true realization and appreciation of what Mother's do for you and why they hold such a special place in your heart..

Here is to moms, who make you feel better, who support you when you are up or down and teach you constantly it is not a bad idea to listen to them...

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Two is okay but three is a crowd?

A bedtime conversation:

Little One: Daddy were you happy with mommy that she had another dolly?

Me : Yes. Very happy! (she is the "another dolly".. the first dolly in question being Jr.)

Jr. : What would have happened if you had one more dolly?

Me : Let's not talk about that okay. We are happy that we have two dollies and you are both good girls. We don't need any more dollies.

LO : You are right. How could we have three kids. You have only two hands.

Me : ??????? What has my hands have to do with how many kids we have in the house?

Jr. : Right now we have two kids sleeping on either side of you on your two hands. How will the third kid go to sleep? Where will it put its head? On your neck or something?

LO : Maybe the third kid will have to lie down on top of you!

Me : You know there are more things to worry about when we have three kids than bedtime?

Jr. : Yeah. We won't be able to warm you when you say "I am cold.. come and lie down on me and warm me".

LO : Yeah. That kid will be too small and when we jump on you to warm you and will get squished between me and akka. What will happen then?

Me : I give up! Please just go to sleep now.

Real estate at bed time on daddy's hand seems to be the key criteria for number of kids in the house.. who knew?!

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Appa, she is kusu vutting!

Now that translates word for word from Tamlish to:

Daddy, she is farting!

When you have a household that speaks a mixed tongue, where words that are neither here nor there make up more than 30% of the vocabulary, life gets to be interesting.

The English speaking folks can only understand part of the conversation. The grand parents and relatives in India look puzzled in the video chats over the weekend because they are not sure if they heard things right. The only people who understand the kids and the parents in conversations are other kids raised in America or parents raising their kids in America who have the exact same mother tongue.

Yes. A tamlish kid speaks a different dialect than a Kannadlish or Telugish kid.

Much like a North Indian will perceive all south Indian languages to be similar sounding and lump them all as one, a Hindlish parent or kid might lump all these dialects as one.

That said, it is really funny when the parents also start talking like the kids!

Why we do it is beyond me. Maybe we think it will be easier to get through to them? We think it is cute? It makes sense being Tamil speaking people in America and somehow optimizes the total number of words that have to be spoken to convey the meaning in both languages simultaneously?!

We speak sentences like

"Appa, can you come pal thEch me?" = Daddy, can you come teeth brush me?

"Appa, the meen is kutty pOtting!" = Daddy, the fish is baby dropping!

etc.

Nakking (licking), kudiching (drinking), thodaching (wiping dry), etc. are one set of variants where the verb starts of in Tamil but ends up as some kind of gerund with the "ing" ending.

Then there are the variations like "doneaa?" which gets a response "donnu!" where the english word gets the Tamil ending added to it to convey question vs. answer, active or passive voice, or tense!

doneaa = are you done ?
Donnu = yes I am!

This is how a tamizh concept gets ported over to Tamlish

There is one more variant.

"Daddy, can you kadichy saap my tummy?" which kind of translates to :
"Daddy, can you bite eat my tummy?" which is their way of saying
"Daddy, can you blow raspberries on my tummy?"

Note that Kadichy is close to Kadichu (or bitten), but saap is shortened for Saaptu (eaten). Now when two action words are chained back to back, the second one gets chopped. An English concept now gets carried over to Tamlish!

Sometimes, we are misunderstood, but mostly we get the best of both worlds!

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