Whose Line Is It Anyway? - #7

• The battle of wits between parents and kids is always classy. In our case, we knew, it reached a new height when our toddler disarmed me completly with a unassuming disarming comment recently. These days he has picked up this habit of pulling his lip's dry skin with his fingers. We are trying to get him out of that habit. While driving to school, I decided to implore upon him that he shouldnt do it at school. With a warning tone, I finished that if he did it at school, I will get upset and I dont know what I will do. Our kid is used to such warnings by now which are usually followed by well defined "else" clause. eg. You should not do such-and-such act, else you will not get to color today etc etc. Usually depending on the stakes at hand, he will decide either to go for that act or otherwise. We feel victorious if he backed out. In the case of the above said warning against picking his skin, I deliberately left out the "else" clause undefined as I dint want to sound too harsh. But used to hearing what his stakes are, he got back innocently from the rear seat, "If I do it, what will you do ?" From his view, its a very innocent plain question. He wants to know the outcome. But for a grown up with an ego at that, a question like "what will you do" from a toddler is very unnerving and disarming. To be frank, I dint know what to respond.
• One fortnightly activity for my son is to attend the Balabhavan(kid's school) at our local temple where parent-volunteers try to imbibe concepts about our religion into these young minds. In one such class, they were mentioning about Lord Shiva who also goes by the name Shankar. When the teacher asked "Who is Shankar", our son promptly replied "Shankar is my daddy's friend". Everybody laughed assuming that I had friend by that name. I laughed too while thinking which friend of mine he has got confused with. Only later then we realised how much this young one's memory and mind are alert. Upon our Bay Area trip a month earlier, I met one of my friends by name Shankar. We spent hardly an hour at a hangout place there and I mentioned his name only once to my son. He has remembered it so well that he was able to make the connection while I was searching for a local friend by that name who doesnt exist.

Pic for today's post features our son playing in the white sands of the "World's Most Beautiful 17 mile drive".