பேசும் பொற்சித்திரமே !!! - 13

Getting facts (and fractions) straight !!!

My daughter has been having a tempestuous relation with the iPad-s we buy. Our very first iPad2 got thrown off the stairs in a fit of rage. Even a screen replacement couldn't revive the 2yr-old device. The next one, iPad Air2, got caught in the middle of one of her sibling rivalry episodes and lost its screen. It gave up after 3 months. The latest one to-date, an iPad 6thGen, was the unluckiest one of all three. Barely four days in use,  it had the misfortune of being near her during one of her rage outbursts and suffered a screen crack. Her elder brother, though 5years older but still her contemporary in maturity, didn't miss a beat to point out that she has until then broken 3 iPad screens. Not one to take a blame lying down, she corrected his statement "It is not "three" iPads, it is only "2.5"...". Apparently her brother is partly to blame for the second one that got damaged in the sibling crossfire.  To her, 2.5 iPad broken screens is not as bad as 3 iPad broken screens. 

Today morning I was on one of my usual missions to get her to eat a fruit, a banana. After getting a blank refusal, I decided to sweeten the offer by saying I will take 50% and she can have 50%. The push back wasn't that fierce. So, in my desperation, I sweetened the offer further, "Okay, I will have 75%, you can have 25%".  To the second grader, 25% still seemed huge. So she decided to switch from %age to fractions and emphatically told, "No, but I can have only a quarter of it and not more".  Note to the teacher - relate fractions to %ages next class.

Pesum Porchithirame! #12

A drive via City Hall one day led to discussions about civics and civic structures, city Mayor etc. Suddenly my little girl asked who the mayor of our city was. I said I don't know. She was not amused by my reply. With a resigned look, she said - "That's odd. You know, in Ponyville, everybody knows everybody else including the Mayor". (Ponyville is a city in Equestria for those who missed out on watching "My little Pony")

We were on the road one day, driving a bit out of town, during night past dinner time. With everyone hungry, I asked my son or wife to google for "food near me" to see what comes up. With a mischievous smile, the little one commented, "It's going to point to our van" (as we were carrying some snacks with us). We finally ended up in an Indian restaurant known for non-vegetarian style of cuisine. Though we asked for veg food to go, my son, couldn't help commenting he can smell lives that are lost (alluding to the smell of non-vegetarian food inside the restaurant). When we started driving back, the little bro and sis brought this up again for discussion and this time the little one was more brutal in her assessment. "I don't know how they eat dead animals. Those animals don't smell good even when they are alive"..

Pesum Porchithirame! - #11

Discussions during day light saving time - be it start or end - are always interestingly emotional. Our  little first grade kutti started paying attention to these. Noticed everybody was talking about an hour being lost. She was frustrated why no body was addressing an important question so she decided to pitch in - "Where did that hour go if we lost it ?".

The bundle of cuteness has an interest in hands-on house work too - be it drilling a hole with a drill bit or tightening a screw - she is always in. Once she took a wound-up measuring tape which can measure 25ft. It had "25ft" marked on it. She took her hair pin, poked around with the wound-tape and after a few mins - declared her hair pin is 25ft long - as it spanned across the diameter of the "wound-up tape" which said 25ft.

Our India trip when she was turning 7yrs was particularly interesting for her - as lot of things about the plane, airports etc started attracting her attention for the first time. In a particular flight across the pacific, after finding her seat, she poked around the seat pocket in front of her. Took out the air plane security features card that illustrated the emergency exits etc. One picture got her excited as she claimed excitedly - "This airplane has a slide - Hey!!" -  it was the emergency evacuation slide !! As  if this was not enough, the curious mind also checked with his middle schooler bro next seat on what  class were they in. Economy, came the answer. Then they both went ahead to check if the life vests were actually there under the seat as mentioned in the security card. My wife's usually abnormal paranoia by now already reached its cruising altitude even before the flight's take off.

Pesum Porchithirame! - #10

This last fall season fires and some SoCal-typical Earthquakes led to some family discussion on such furies of nature. Both the kids were shell shocked and realized that the forces are nature are much more for their human strength. Moments later survival instinct kicked in and the planning and wishing started.
Younger one - she would rather be in Chennai during the Earthquake/Fire seasons. Upon asked the reason, she confidently replied - "Chennai gets only floods and I know swimming". Plausible right :-)
Older one - thought out loud about escaping the city temporarily and staying in a nearby city's hotel to wait out the disaster. But then he wasn't thrilled that earthquakes don't give much of a headroom warning. I also pointed out, even in the fire scenario, the roads are going to be clogged as the whole city tries to evacuate. The sixth grader response was to use his mountain bike to escape :-)younger one - name board - spelling - how did you know how to spell my name correctly when I born ?

The priceless moments I cherish nowadays are when our younger one's six year old brain is trying to comprehend and out run reality. She used the clock on the kitchen range sometimes. Late one evening their mom was baking something and the oven was preheated to 350F.  My wife found that the younger one was going about leisurely with her homework etc. When hastened, she took one look at the kitchen range and calmly replied - "Time is only 3:50 now".