Potty Talk

An old post - actually 3 years old....

Parents are expected to teach kids that certain topics are not to be discussed in public, one important category being what happens inside the bathroom. 

My 4.5 year old has taken a fancy for talking about precisely this – POTTY. He loves the topic....and we have no idea why! Thankfully, we are subjected to the dialogues only for 10 mins a day, while he is doing the job! 

He gets very offended if we tell him firmly, not to talk about it... He assumes we don’t want him to talk at all. Then he tries haggling... “Can I say just one more sentence and then stop?”, “There is just one thing I need to say”, etc etc. So we let him finish and hope that it would be the last time we would need to discuss it. 

When we try and ignore the talk, he makes himself really really loud and clear. “Mamma, you know how much I did today?”, “Daddy, I did hard potty!” 

There are times he sounds so gross, yet funny, that we end up in splits, and that is exactly the reaction he seems to be waiting for. These times, there is just no stopping him. I am deliberately avoiding the dialogues, because I really don’t know how many of you will want to read them! But all I can say is that the descriptions that we get are comparable to the cricket commentary coming from Harsha Bhogle. 

With these different approaches, one would think that he would start losing interest, but the crowning glory is this afternoon’s dialogue, when he skipped his routine. “Mamma, my potty seems to be having too much fun inside my tummy, it is refusing to come out!” – Characterisation is the last thing we expected ... or wanted! 

Ayush-ism.......

 Conversations I enjoyed with the feisty 4 year old in the last 2 years......

Me: What do u want to wear to play in the water?

Ayush: I don't know!

Me: Swim suit?

Ayush: No!

Me: Swim trunks?

Ayush: No!

Me: Chaddi?

Ayush: No!

Me: Then you tell me what you want!

Ayush: I will wear only my penis!

Ayush: Am feeling cold.

Mamma: Shall I switch off the fan?

Ayush: No, maybe a hug and kiss will be good.

Mamma: Can you wear your shirt by yourself?

Ayush: Yes I can! (And wears it inside out)

Mamma: Ayush look at how you are wearing the shirt!

Ayush: Oh am so sorry! I got confused! It is ridiculous!

 Mamma: (speechless.... Is this a 3 year old talking?)

Mamma: Were you a naughty boy at school today?

3 year old: Yes!

Mamma: What do you mean?

3 year old: I pushed a small boy and hit him on his head with my waterbottle!

Mamma: (In utter shock!!!) Huh? Really? Who.... When.... (Frantic short breaths).... Why..... How....?

Ayush: (Grinning) I was "joking", and telling "lies", to sound funny!!

Mamma: What do cows give?

Ayush: Cows give us milk!

Mamma: What do sheep give?

Ayush: Sheep give us wool!

Mamma: What do chickens give?

Ayush: Chickens give us eggs!

Mamma: Ayush, you are very good!

Ayush: I know one more!

Mamma: What?

Ayush: What does Ayush give?

Aryan: Ayush we are talking about farm animals and birds, not humans!!!

Ayush: Ayush gives us us yellow su-su!

Mamma: ROTFL

Location: Kids' Salon

Scene: Stylist finishes the haircut

Stylist to 6.5 year old: Ho gaya beta.

Aryan: Thank you!

Stylist to 3 year old: Ho gaya beta.

Ayush: Well done!

Ammammai: Ouch!

Ayush: It's ok!

Ammammai: I know it's ok, but it hurts!

Ayush: It's ok!

Ammammai: It is not ok, you should say "Sorry!"

Ayush: Ok, Sorry!

Ammammai: That's alright, you didn't do it deliberately!

Ayush: Yes! You know it was a mistake, no?

Ammammai: Yes!

Ayush: Then, why did you ask me to say Sorry?

Ayush crying on our way back home from school!

Ayush: Is daddy there at home?

Mamma: No, he is at work!

Ayush: (Crying) I told him not to go today. He should never go to office.

Mamma: But if he doesn't work, we won't have any money!

Ayush: That's ok!

Mamma: Then we won't have a home, food and clothes!

Ayush: Where will we go then?

Mamma: We will have to live on the streets!

Ayush: Also me?

Mamma: Yes!

Ayush: Will you, Anna and Daddy also live with me on the streets?

Mamma: Yes!

Ayush: Yay, then its ok!

Kids eating breakfast this morning!

Mamma: After finishing your toast, have your milk!

Aryan: Is the milk sweet?

Mamma: Yes!

Aryan: Then, I will pretend that the milk is my dessert!

Ayush: And, I will pretend that the milk is my ‘jungle’!

Ayush: You are a dead person!

Me (Flinching): Why are you saying that?

Ayush: Because you ARE dead!

Me: How can I be dead? I am talking to you and playing with you!

Ayush: I know that, but you are dead.... Because, Anna told me this morning that Mummies are dead people!

Mamma: Good Morning, baby! Come let's go brush your teeth!

Ayush: Give me five mins more!

Mamma: It's already late, baby! By the time we go, Anna will already be done!

Ayush: OK! I got your point!

Ayush: Mamma, Anna was about to get hurt just now!

Mamma: How?

Ayush: I will be honest, and not selfish!

Mamma: Ayush, how come you are using such big words? What's the meaning of 'honest'?

Ayush: Honest means 'I won't do it again'!

(P.S: Anna was about to get hurt because Ayush pushed him.)

Scene: Mamma driving at 7pm and Ayush fighting sleep next to me...

Mamma (Worried about him not having had dinner or shower): Ayush… no sleeping!

Ayush: Am not sleeping

Mamma: I saw your eyes closing

Ayush: That's not sleeping…. that's called blinking!

Mamma: What if I go to Chennai and never come back? 

Ayush: I will think you are dead...

Aryan laughs at something that Ayush is doing...

Ayush: Shhh.. Not another word from you!

Just when we were leaving for his painting class!

Ayush: Today I will tell teacher that I want to make a pterodactyl!

Me: What if she says she doesn't know what you mean?

Ayush: Then I will tell her it is a flying dinosaur.

Then he spoke to Aryan for a few mins and comes back and...

Ayush: Mamma, also pterodactyls are predators

Ayush: Mamma, I got hurt. See, I am bleeding!

Mamma: Awww, it’s ok. It’s a small bruise. You'll be fine.

Ayush: But the skin is gone, so put some new skin..

Mamma: What? How can I put new skin. You don't get skin... It has to grow over time...

Ayush: Yes, you can. You need to go buy it in the bakery!!

Scene: English Grammar lessons practice

Mamma: Aryan, make a sentence using 'special'!

Aryan: Hmmm.... Send me a special snack for school tomorrow!

Mamma: Good one, now make one using 'squeaking'!

Aryan: I heard some squeaking and I found it was a mouse!

Ayush: Can I make one too?

Mamma: Yes...... Make one using 'very'!

Ayush: Can I also sing?

Mamma: (Puzzled) Yes, even better!

Ayush: Why this kolaveri kolaveri di!

Ayush came rubbing his forehead and crying to me this afternoon.

Mamma: Why are you crying?

Ayush: Anna and I were playing, and he fell on me!

Mamma: What happened to your head?

Ayush: Anna damaged it...

Ayush (Very seriously): Mamma, do you have a bum?

Mamma: Yes I do!

Ayush (Genuinely surprised): Huh? Really?

Mamma: Yes!

Ayush: Then how come I've not seen it before?

Mamma: Because it is a private part!

Ayush: That's not fair!

Mamma: What do you mean?

Ayush: If you can see my bum, you should show me yours...

Mamma is still reeling with shock!!

Ayush: Can u play chess with me?

Mamma: Yes.

Ayush: Stop working, come play!

Mamma: Ok, go get the chess board!

Ayush: Here, I brought it.

Mamma: Set it up, I will come

Ayush: Here, I have set up white, you set up the black for yourself!

Mamma: Please, can you set up black too?

Ayush: How many jobs should I do? I think I have to do ten thousand jobs.

Scene: Serving Ayush some puffed rice

Mamma: Ayush, do u want kuwmuwa?

Ayush: What?

Mamma: Kuwmuwa!

Ayush: I am a baby I can't say 'wa', so I say 'wa'. But you can say 'wa' pwopely, so speak pwopely.

Mamma: Ok, Ayush! Do u want kurmura?

Ayush: See. You sound nice now. When you said kuwmuwa like me, you sounded vewy silly!

Scene: Reading Hansel and Gretel

Aryan: Mamma, you are a good Mamma. Sometimes you are naughty.

Mamma: Sorry…. Sometimes I am also bad.

Ayush (Matter of fact tone: Didn't bat an eyelid: Pointed his palm at me): That's because you are a step-mother.

Scene: Morning of a school holiday and the mother has some hope of sleeping in. Kids decide to wake up earlier than usual. Have loud conversations / giggle / argue /play / fight at 6:30am in their room. Then the 4 year old saunters into mine.

Ayush: Mamma, its morning. Wake up. Stop being so lazy!

Mamma: Please Ayush, I want to sleep for some more time.

Ayush: You are a Mamma, you should wake up wight now.

To think I make an effort to give them a nice slow loving huggy kissy wake up call on school mornings..

Mamma: Where shall we go for our next holiday?

Aryan: Let’s go to Alaska.

Ayush: Let’s go to Pangea.

What women's day means to me!

Today is Women’s Day! I believe everyday is Women’s Day, and I don’t think there needs to be a special day to celebrate being a Woman. I also don’t believe in Woman Power and the desperate need to be equal to men.

If I shut my eyes today and look back at the 40 years that have passed by; there have been so many achievements that I am proud of. At the same time, there are many incidents that have left me unhappy, scarred, but I look at them more as experiences.

As a kid, I enjoyed being a little sibling to my first sister who is 12 years older to me. I saw a mother, friend and role model in her. My second sister who is 10 years older to me brought the balance in my childhood by being the home-bound one since she is physically handicapped. She gave me warmth, silence and the much needed feeling of being accepted for the whacky kid that I was. I found it a matter of pride to be the daughter of a mother who lost her husband when I was all of 5 years old. Growing up in a household full of women, achievers in their own way, I don’t see the need to acknowledge anything special or powerful. An all-girls school and college gave me more opportunity to see achievers in academics, sports and arts. When I stepped out of college and went on to complete my computer course and joined work, I started having the opportunity to meet and interact with men. I realized that my perception of woman power hadn’t changed, since I continued to see that women excelled in every field.

Now I am all grown up, and live with 3 boys! It does make me feel special because they make me feel like superwoman. So..... I do not need a particular day to celebrate it!

As a mother, I would love to teach my kids to respect women for what they are and the choices they make. But that is something I would teach them about every human. Hopefully they will get there.

I don’t think I will ever teach them the significance of a Women’s Day, Mother’s Day, Father’s Day etc. If they happen to pick it up from school, newspapers or from friends, they can get fair and true answers from me if they want to know….. but that’s about how much I will do for Women’s Day!

All you people out there, stay happy and stay blessed, today and everyday.

How my kids have fun while building their vocabulary!!!

My 6.5 and 3 year old boys are using big words all the time, and it is all my fault. Ever since they were born, the one thing that I have been doing consistently is talking to them like I would, to adults. Of course I enjoyed, and still enjoy baby talk, but only when it comes from them.

While this bit has ensured a strong foundation, the vocabulary building has happened over time – literally. When they have more than 5 minutes, and they know they can’t run around or play with their toys, they never say “Mamma, we are bored!” because they know that Mamma is always ready to play word games. We play while waiting at the restaurant, doctor’s clinic, drives, time on the flight, sometimes even when they are on the pot in the morning.

• Rhyme Game – My son would say a 3 or 4 letter word and we would take turns calling out a word that rhymed with it. That’s easy! But I also taught him how to find them. For example, when he said ‘try’, I would ask him to replace the first letter with another, in the order of the alphabet, so he would mouth out ‘ary’, ‘bry’, and say an excited ‘cry’, followed by ‘dry’ and along the way learnt new words (with meaning of course) like ‘pry’, ‘wry’ and so on. Now we have progressed to starting with ‘hive’ and rhyming it with ‘chive’, ‘drive’, ‘five’,  and brilliantly connect that ‘live’ can be pronounced in two different ways, and learning new and longer words like ‘naive’, ‘survive’ and so on. It is a beautiful experience.
• Beginning and Ending Game – We both would decide to make as many words as possible that began and ended with a particular letter. He would say, start with ‘p’ and end with ‘t’, and we would take turns saying ‘pot’, ‘pet’, ‘pant’, ‘part’, ‘pest’, and I knew he was thinking of words just like we did in the rhyme game – put the letters in the middle in the alphabetical order. But now, he has progressed to ‘paint’, ‘protect’, ‘prominent’, and sometimes learns on the way, that ‘primate’, ‘procrastinate’ actually end with an ‘e’.
• Association Game – This is a game that even the small one enjoys playing. He says a word that comes to his mind and the next person says an associated word (connected to the first one’s). For example, if he says ‘cycle’, his brother says ‘bell’, and I say ‘jingle’, and we go on with ‘christmas’, ‘snow’, ‘winter’, ‘wool’, ‘sheep’, ‘farm’ and it is endless fun. Sometimes you can introduce a new word here and there, since they will remember better when there is an association. Sometimes, when they come up with the weirdest of links to words, I stop and ask them to actually associate it, and it is so amusing or wondrous how they can connect so beautifully. (My small one once connected ‘pasta’ to ‘doctor’ and his association was “I had pasta for snacks in school today, and when I took the plate back, I fell and hurt my knee, and we had to visit the doctor!”) Actually, this is my favourite game, because it is simple, breezy and is enjoyed by my 3 year old as well as my 80 year old mom.
• Word Building – Say a word and the next person says another starting with the last letter of the original word. He would say ‘car’, I would say ‘rat’, and this could go on to ‘table’, ‘egg’,  ‘gas’, ’soda’, ’airplane’, ’enter’… Now we add challenges to this and just play with a theme, and the current favourite is names of cities / countries / continents – where he has to build the word and tell us if it is a city or a country or a continent…… so it would start with a lot of fun and mostly end with frustration of landing up with ‘Australia’, ‘America’, ‘Argentina’, ‘Antarctica’, ‘Austria’, ‘Asia’ and then a desperate attempt to change the theme to another favourite which is names from the animal kingdom – where he also needs to tell us if it is a bird, animal, predator, carnivore, raptor, marsupial, mammal or reptile. Over time, you could make this a Connecting Word Game and start with ‘coffee-break’, ’break-fast’, ’fast-track’, ‘track-suit’, ‘case-file’, and of course give up or go on….
• Three Letter Game – We started playing this last year when he was about 5 years old, where one player (THINKER) thinks of a three letter word (KEYWORD), and the other one (FINDER) tries to guess it by saying some more 3 letter words. Thinker now has to say 0, 1, 2, 3 depending on how many letters in the Finder’s word actually match the Keyword. Suppose, Keyword is ‘rat’, Finder says ‘sip’ and Thinker says ‘0’ (no match). If Finder says ‘not’, Thinker says ‘1’ (‘t’ matches). If Finder says ‘try’, Thinker says ‘2’ (‘r’ and ‘t’ match)…. and the Finder has to use the same letters in more words and try to find the Keyword. The rule is to use words with as many letters as the game, so you can’t use ‘pop’, ‘add’ ,’mum’, ‘tall’, ‘pasta’ etc. Over time, one can progress to challenges like finding the keyword within 20 turns, or trying to find 4 or 5 letter words, and this will keep the kids totally occupied.
• Difficult words – We play this 5 minute game where I deliberately use only difficult words when I talk to him. It could be regular conversation about anything. For example, instead of “Don’t run on the lawn!”, I say “Refrain from running on the lawn!”, or instead of “I want some water, it is so hot!”, I say “I need some water to quench my thirst!”, and I sometimes introduce idioms like “Pot calling the kettle black!” or “Cock and bull story!”. And it is so interesting to hear them ask for the meaning and try their own examples using the new words.
• Silly words – We play this 5 minute game where we make deliberate silly mistakes in grammar, pronunciation, sentence structure, word usage and giggle away until we split our sides laughing. For example, “Mamma, are we going where?”, “We is on our way in the zoo!”, “Can you pass me the remote? I am thirsty!”, “Thank you for brunging the towel!”. Although I suggest, nobody play this game too often, lest we have children forgetting the correct usage forever!

So while the dads are body building, moms are image building, let the children do some vocabulary building and have some fun at the same time! And I specifically warn all parents that these are addictive games, so all the best!!!