Happy Family...

Anand and I always keep talking about Happy Families... We have happy family dinner (where all 3 of us sit at the dinner table), happy family hug (kinda a group hug) etc..

One fine day Arjun was sitting in his booster chair and playing with his animals..He then called out to me and Anand and said "look Amma, Happy family uppu mootai" (piggy back).

He had neatly stacked 3 animals one on top of the other...Applying concepts to daily life, huh?

:-)
Priya

Of Phone Conversations and Arjun...

These days my mornings are very nice because I get to talk to Arjun on the phone... Each time the phone rings, he wants to know who it is on the line.. So he asks Appa Daddy? Amma Pia? Thatha? Athai? Sannu? Rahul? and if yes, he just wants to talk to them...

Most of my phone calls are made around 8:30 am and when he is given the phone call, it goes something like this...

Arjun: "Hello..."
Me: "Hello Arjun, how are you?"
Arjun: "How you good" [he thinks "How are you", pause, "Good" are part of one single sentence]
Me: "Good Morning"
Arjun: "Good Morning"
Me: "I love you..."
Arjun "I love you 2"
Me: "I love you 3, 4"
Arjun " I love you 6"
Me: "I love you 100..."
Arjun: "100..." [thoughtfully... as thats a new number for him..I give him one new number once in a while...]
Me: "Did you brush your teeth"
Arjun" Yes"
Me: White teeth or brown teeth
Arjun: White teeth. Doctor ok [He means that the dentist is now happy]
Me: Did you do a diaper change?
Arjun: Appa Daddy [Meaning Anand changed his diapers]
Me: Ok..Have your breakfast with Thatha [Anand's father is there for the time being and helps with breakfast]
Arjun: OK. bye
Me: Bye, give the phone to thatha
Arjun: Bye Thatha...Bye
Me: Bye i love you
Arjun: I love you, Bye
Arjun: Bye Amma
Me: Bye Arjun
Arjun: Bye
Arjun: Bye
Arjun: Bye
Me: [after so many bye's in a stern voice now...] Arjun, give the phone to thatha please...bye
Arjun: Bye amma...bye...bye...bye...

He just doesnt want to give up the phone...LOL :-)

Learning...

Arjun is great with respect to vocabulary... He speaks sentences and can identify so many words that I am astounded... His knowledge of animals is very interesting and keeps growing by the day...

Just the other day he was talking to me about the Sumatra Tiger and the Sting Ray fish and the Cayman Lizard... Whaat? That was my reaction too...

But then when it comes to learning what we need to learn in school, he refuses to buckle down... Take a slate and start writing A, B and C and he will run away.. Start writing down numbers and he will direct you towards playing with his toy animals...

We need to come up with a strategy to get him to sit down and work on the alphabets... The indulgent mom in me asks me to wait for some more time till he himself is ready... the pushy mom in me asks me to schedule lessons... while the worried mom in me is convinced that he will reach the age of 30 without ever learning his alphabets and numbers...

Hmmm.... Is there a lesson somewhere there for me?