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".

Pesum Porchithiramae !- #9

One day my daughter was in my office room. She noticed a office calendar with some dates highlighted. The foot notes there said those dates are "pay days" - fortnightly pay days in office. She was amused by that idea and exclaimed - "You have paydays? We have paydays at school too." I didn't know the first grader had pay days in her school too. Before even I could ask her, she contined - "..We have paydays on Thursdays. We get stickers. What do you get ?". I could only envy her innocence and her joy in getting stickers. I merely said - "nothing as exciting as stickers for sure".

This year we were fortunate to visit four National parks. The last one we visited with our friends was Joshua Tree NP - known amongst others, for its clear starry night skies. Though we didn't camp out, we parked the van in a dark area and spread out in the parking lot gazing at the starry sky in awe. All of us were trying to figure out the constellations. One of the older kids said - "how come we are not able to spot the Big Dipper yet? That is one of the easiest". Before even others could comment, my little one blurted out, without even looking up - "I know where Big Dipper is." The other kids, shocked for sure, asked where. She replied in perfect calm - "Near my house".  She had remembered seeing the Big Dipper from our occasional walks near our house during clear night skies. So, in her cozy little world - sorry universe - that's where Big Dipper is - near our house and not at the National park.

This post's pic was actually taken by my son using his iPhone. A pano shot of Barker's dam at Joshua Tree NP.

Pesum Porchithiramae ! - #8

The latest addition to the family is - 3 guppies - which our little one got from her class when she "graduated" from Kindergarten. For the new members with a combined net worth of 50c, we had to shell out ~25$ for tank, fish food etc etc.

One evening, our daughter was looking inside the tank "The guppies are eating". I lamented, that's all they do 24/7. Suddenly she recollected an important thing from her own swimming lessons - "But they should not eat and swim. They will throw up. That's what our teacher told". It took me while to convince her that they swim and we walk. We shouldn't eat and swim. But they can. What they shouldn't do is eat and walk like we do. Then they will throw up ! The laughter burst from her thinking about "walking fishes" was well worth the effort of the onerous weekly tank cleaning task!

Pesum Porchithiramae ! - #7

With the trips to a couple of National Parks and the canyons, the "park ranger" bug caught the elder one. We got him a small ranger tool - a whistle, compass, thermometer, flash light etc etc all in one. Not one to get left out, the little one also made sure she got one for herself and started to furiously work on her compass reading skills like her brother. On our way back from the Grand Canyon trip, we stopped at Hoover Dam. In the elevator ride from the bottom of the power station, it took a while for us to reach the ground. Surrounded by people and no sense of direction inside, she decided to put her compass to use during the elevator ride up. She took one glance at it and proudly declared "We are going in the north direction!" Can anyone confirm or deny ?

This last experience involving the little one ended up being a delicate, queasy moment for the entire family. Somewhere between Las Vegas and Barstow, we stopped at a road side business strip for gas. On the way back to the highway, we were at an intersection. Some distasteful local bunch had decided to install a totally nude male statue there. My wife, in her anger, blurted out her displeasure at the scene. Only then apparently the kids noticed while I desperately tried to speed up from that place. We realized the damage was officially done when the little one commented "Oh..., that's how boys are!"  Both me and my wife pretended we didn't exist for a while. 

Pesum Porchithiramae ! - #6

A summer road trip this year to Grand Canyon area led to some cute memorable comments from our little 5yr old daughter.

* On our way to Page, AZ, we stopped at the Native American thrift shops selling Indian artifacts and crafts. The "Dream Catcher" caught my eye and was inquiring about its legend. Apparently the little one had heard about it already and explained to me how it is supposed to catch bad dreams during sleep. Then all of sudden with a stern face she declared "But it doesn't work!". We didn't know how to react with the shop keeper and others watching us. Upon asking further, she clarified that she had made one such dream catcher in her Kindergarten art class and that night, she apparently still got a bad dream in her sleep and hence lost the trust that the "Dream Catchers" work ! Who can argue with that ?

* Our next stop that day happened to be the famous Horse Shoe Bend on Colorado (see picture). While breathtaking a view for sure it was, I was constantly worried about the lack of any railing protecting the overlook. I held the younger one tightly and let her peep down the few hundreds feet of abyss to see the bend. Down below, were people camped out in the floor with their tents/rafts visible from up top and we were commenting about that. Our little one couldn't fathom the idea of depth she was witnessing but made sure she joined the conversation "But why are they so small ? Are they LEGO people ?". We didn't bother to correct her and just enjoyed the stress-busting comment.