Yeah, I know

We were at a South Indian classical music concert this evening. Raghavan Manian was singing and he was doing a fantastic job. It was at a clubhouse in a residential complex and it was more of a social event than a rigid everyone has to be at their seat affair.

Jr. and the little one would come and sit in my lap for a few minutes, then disappear off to the back of the room to play with other kids and come back when they felt like it. Usually I never get to listen to concerts. Even if we do, I would be the one to walk out or run out with a screaming kid on my shoulder.

Today, after a long time, got to sit in one place and listen to a concert. That alone was a blessing.

Towards the end of the concert, he sang "Chinanjiru Kiliye" and at that moment Jr. came next to me and started dancing. (he almost sang it like a film song at places). Told her to sit down and she would not and to distract her, I asked "do you know who wrote this song?"

and she nods her head while dancing and says "Yep"
I was surprised. Did not think anyone at home would have introduced her to Bharathiyar!

Me : Tell me, who wrote this song?

Jr.: Easy. A. R. Rahman

Me : !!!!!!!

.

Translating in your head

The kids have caught on to "vaadaa maaplai" a song from the movie Villu (which was played repeatedly on Vijay TV as part of singing, dancing competitions). They have also watched this song a gazillion times now on youtube and amused themselves with Vadivelu saying "bad girl" in his Tamlish accent.

Jr. even sings the song out loud and they both jump up and down in an attempt to dance to her singing (they have eluded the secret video so far. They stop dancing when they see me have the iPhone in the horizontal position.

So I just gave up and sat down to watch them sing and dance.

There is a line in that song which says "ratham varaadhu" which translates to "you won't bleed" or "no blood will come"..

Jr. actually sang "bloodtham varaadhu"!

I laughed and asked her why she sang that and she said "I know what the tamil words mean, but I go from the meaning in english to remember the Tamil song!"

It was amazing to see a six year old clearly understand what was going on in her head. What is really interesting here is that when it comes to English or Spanish songs, I would internally guide myself with Tamil for english songs and english for spanish songs.

Looks like speaking Tamlish in the house is not enough. It is very obvious that the primary language in our kid's head is English. Not that we expected anything different, but we know that Jr. thinks in english and then answers in Tamil.

Hopefully, a secret video will follow....

ps. the whole song is full of double meaning and the kids don't have a clue what they are singing.. while it is amusing to watch, it is also sad to see how a TV in the middle of your living room can influence your kids and how it is just not in your control .. then again, I have a reputation as a control freak dad already!

.

It is all in the numbers

Recent conversation:

Little One : Appa, why is everyone coming to our house now.. it is so crowdy!

Me : You should say "crowded". You know why everyone is coming right? Has something to do with daddy and mommy

LO : It is your annuvarsiry!

Me : Right! That means one more year has gone by from the time we got married. It is just like every year your birthday comes on the same day, our anniversary comes on the same day. Do you know how long mommy and me have been married?

LO : I know! I know! One hundred and forty one years!

Me : ?!!!!

and to leave you on that note.. a picture taken at Legoland last weekend.

.

Doing tricks

Daddy has been having more than his regular share of headaches the last couple of days and decided to go have a massive haircut this evening.

The little one promptly declared that daddy looked more handsome after the haircut. Tonight during the usual "will you sleep with me for just 5 minutes please?" phase, she rubbed her hand over my hair ..

LO : Daddy your hair is doing tricks daddy!

Me : what do you mean?

LO : When I thadavi(caress) it up it is rough but when I thadavi it down it is sooo smooth. It is like magic.

I started laughing first, then wondered.. "wait a second, she does this all the time.. so why wasn't this magic discovered earlier?"

and the answer was

"before it was rough on both up and down thadavi's"

Something tells me that the little one might do a Ph.D. or at least go towards science and technology as she grows older.

She might even take up materials science for all we know!

On a completely different note, the head feels lighter, literally and figuratively and somehow it makes it look like daddy has more hair after the haircut than before. Must be some kind of optical illusion created by exposing the scalp.

Who knew?

Sometimes, less is more!

.

A for Apple, B for boy, C for...

The little one came back from school. As usual she had a couple of sheets of her workbook exercises in her bag.

One of them had four pictures on each page and a row of three alphabets next to the pictures. She had to circle the starting alphabet for what was in the picture.

She had circled the 'c' for carrot etc. etc. and there was one mistake..

There was a picture of a bunch of potatos and she circled 'a' instead of the small 'p'.

Me : Why did you circle 'a' for this one?
LO : I circled 'a' for AALOO silly! but they said it was wrong.

the way she said "it was wrong", shaking her head from side to side was just amazing! Have seen kids who refuse to call a Tomato a "thakkali" at home, because it is not what their school teachers call it.

The little one is different.

A for aaloooo!

What can I say...

.