Assigning work to his teacher

Vaibhav was just day two in school in standard I. Karthik and Vaibhav leave at different timings. Unfortunately Karthik left his diary. So I sent it via Vaibhav, asking him to give it to his brother. Vaibhav was already calculating that he had to climb two floors and he wouldn't have time. But, I convinced him to take and give it to his brother. When they came back, I asked Vaibhav if he went and gave the diary to Karthik. He replied that his aunty did that job for him. It seems, he went to his class teacher with the diary, and told her that "This diary is my brother's. He left it at home. He is in 3rd C. Can you please give it to him". Amazing how he gets his work done.

Other tit bits

May 2021

Due to lockdown, I had gained weight majorly on my tummy. Vaibhav was persistently telling me to lose weight, since it looked like I am pregnant and I have a baby inside me.  He would push me to exercise or go for walk. I began daily walking. I was looking at myself in the mirror, when Vaibhav walked in and said "Ninu awalpa sanna aag iidhiya.. adhre goth aagodilla" (You have lost weight a bit, but it can't be made out"

In his class there was EVS test.
They asked him to write:
Name who is the favorite person in your family?
What is their hobby?
So for first one he wrote as "Vaibhav" and for second one he wrote it as "Cooking". Teacher put a question mark for the first question.
I asked him why he did that, he replied innocently that "I am a family member too"

Vaibhav loves butter. Whenever my mother in law visits us she gets butter for him. He is super happy. After a couple of days, my mother in law told him that she will be returning. Vaibhav thought over for a while and then asked innocently "ninu benne nu thagondu hoogthiya" (will u take back the butter".

Vaibhav was in 1st Standard. The class teacher makes one child a prefect for a week. It was 3 months or more into school, but his teacher didn't pick him as a prefect. So, almost everyday he would go and ask his madam to make him a prefect. After a couple of days she got annoyed. So, she warned him that if he asks her again, he will never make him a prefect. So, he stayed quiet for a week. Then he went to his madam and told that the current prefect has been prefect since long and she needs to be changed. His madam gave up and made him prefect the following week.

Raj got Horlicks for the kids. So Vaibhav said this is kids horlicks, there is mother's horlicks too. But why there isnt father's horlicks.

Don't get a sister

Raj's cousin got a baby girl. I showed Vaibhav and Karthik the baby girls photo and told them it is their sister. I asked them if we should bring a sister. She could play with them and they could take care of her. Vaibhav made a face, thought over and then said, "Don't bring any sister. We are already two kids here." I replied, "so what we can have another baby, she will be cute and nice.". Vaibhav then told "Don't bring any sister, when I grow up I will get a baby. I will give that to you, you can care for it and play with it.". I couldn't stop laughing for hours. 

Naughty Vaibhav

We had a dark brown sandel soap and a regular brown sandal soap for bath in the bathroom. Karthik and Vaibhav both wanted the light coloured sandal soap for some reason. Vaibhav didn't want to share it. So, the previous evening he took the light coloured sandal soap and hid behind the bucket. Next day morning when Raj took both the kids for bathing, Karthik demanded the light colour soap. Raj looked for it everywhere, asked me and asked the kids but the soap was not to be found. Vaibhav stood quiet all the while. Once Karthik soap part was done and Vaibhav soaping was to start,Vaibhav innocently puts his hand behind the bucket and pulls out the light coloured soap.
Raj and me were immensely amused but hid out amusement to avoid any anger out breaks from Karthik or Vaibhav.

(2019) I got new shorts for Karthik and Vaibhav. Vaibhav would hide away all new shorts behind other clothes. He wouldn't arrange his clothes for school till Karthik would do. Once Karthik is done, he would pull out the new shorts to wear to school. 

I won earrings in mycity4kids

There was a facebook contest by mycity4kids.

I won these pair of earrings. :-)

https://www.facebook.com/mycity4kids/posts/1714341328585538

Some achievement in mycity4kids

I began to blog on mycity4kids.com as a mother. I wrote about a child abuse incident that happened in my apartment. I wanted to create awareness and also let people know that there are organisations that support parents in such situations. But least expected it to be the trending blog with more than 6lac views in span of two days. The article had 2k shares and 1.5k likes on facebook.

chota bheem style

In some conversation I was talking about thieves to Vaibhav. So, Vaibhav suddenly said, "amma, when thieves comes next time, you throw laddus at me. I will eat laddus and do disoom dishoom to theives and they will run away". All in chota bheem style!!

Why no shorts?

Vaibhav asks "Amma, why do you always wear pants, why not shorts?". I asked him, "Why should I wear shorts?". He responded "Appa, Karthik and Vaibhav all wear shorts. Why do you only wear pants and not shorts? !!". 

You feed Appa

Vaibhav said, I am 3 years old and so I am a big boy. So, I replied, "Well!! you don't eat by yourself yet. big people eat by themselves. I eat by myself, aunty eats by herself, appa eats by himself.". Immediatly, Karthik pitched in and said "Appa, doesn't eat by hemself". I asked him, "If so, then who feeds him". Instantly, without a thought he replied "You feed him".  Maids started laughing. I was struck and embarssed. I asked him when has he seen me feeding his father. For which he replied, that I had fed him Grapes. Then I remembered I had fed mangoes (not grapes) to all the three men of my life about a day ago. He was narrating that. 

Cuteness overloaded

Raj asked me to pull out a ceramic mug from store, since he wanted to drink hot water at office. Night before I started sloka practice for kids, I pulled out the mug and kept it on iron table. After 30 min shloka practice I put kids to sleep. Morning routine began. We woke up at 6:30 am. At 7 am when I was talking to raj, I saw vaibhav walking out of the room with the mug in his hand and handed over to his Appa. He was still half asleep, and the I put him back to sleep. But what I wonder is, as soon as he woke up he remembered that his Appa needed the mug.

How to teach english?????

Finding it tough to teach karthik English. I
Started teaching him spellings. I asked him to write table..so he wrote "tabl". I asked to write "e" at the end. So he asked ..it will become "tableee"." E" in phonics.

Vaibhav's love for Karthik

Vaibhav's love for his brother Karthik is amazing. Not one but many such instances.

Doughnut incident.

We had got a couple of doughnuts from mall for both Karthik and Vaibhav. Vaibhav was asleep and Karthik ate off his doughnut. When Vaibhav woke up, I gave him his doughnut to eat. So he asked me to make it into two pieces and give one to Karthik. I told him that Karthik had already eaten his doughnut so he can eat all of it. But, he refused. I tried to convince him but he began to cry. So I made two pieces of dough nut and gave one to Karthik. Both of them ate happily.
But I was so moved and touched.

Chocolate incident.

I had taken Vaibhav to medical store. He asked me to buy him a chocolate. I bought two (one for him and other for Karthik), but gave him one while keeping away the second one from his view. He immediately asked me to buy for Karthik. To see what he will do, I refused to buy one for Karthik. He began to cry and didn't stop till I handed over Karthik's chocolate to him. Vaibhav didn't eat his. He carried it all the way home. Gave one chocolate to his brother and then he ate his. !!

Bangle incident.

I was cleaning my cupboard. I had four odd bangles, which I couldn't use for anything. So I gave it to Vaibhav to play. He immediately split them into two each and gave two bangles to Karthik incident

Water incident

When I sit to feed both I don't get water for them. Vaibhav when feels need of water he goes and gets one glass for himself, keeps it in his place. He then goes and gets another glass of water for karthik. Just amazing.

Vaibhav's latest game

Vaibhav picks all sorts of things and keeps stuffing into his father's pockets. This time he found a big shampoo bottle to stuff into his father's pockets.

I have kept it on floor

Vaibhav had a newly bought pen in his hand. He put it down to take up something else. I asked him "yaako pen na kelaage bisakidhiya" ( why have you thrown pen down). Immediately vaibhav made an angry face and replied "bisakilla.. iitidhini" (not thrown but kept).👌👌👌

Experiment with water

Today i was reaching boys concept of surface tension. Too much for them? Believe me, they love it and they do understand it to their best level.  They totally enjoy it.

Karthik and Subraction

I started teaching Karthik Subtraction. Yesterday was the fourth class of subtraction, and I was amazed that Karthik could do all the sums. To make it more interesting and give him more practise I found a game website which has games for subtraction. And Karthik did 20 sums all correct!!. Just wow!!. Well, I felt just proud and happy that I did a good job, happier than a personal achievement.
 But, I do know people around me will say, what is the hurry, why am I burning him out. But, they dont realise that, it is a two way process Karthik should be willing to learn and I should be ready to teach. Only when that happens, we can see results.

Karthik's drawing classes

I was able to start drawing classes in my apartment for Karthik's sake. It made me super happy.

Karthik loves drawing and he has been asking me for a drawing class for almost six months. No classes close by and I didn't want drive for this class too. I am already driving kids for shloka and dance classes, so driving again in this traffic and bad roads was not an option for me or them.

So, my only option was to start a drawing class in my apartment. Knowing my apartment folks attitude towards such extra classes and money, I knew it will be tough. I asked my apartment secretary if she will let me use the common puja room for classes. She agreed!  

Next task was to find a good drawing teacher. In Vaibhav's school there is a good drawing teacher, Soni but I didn't have her number. Called Leela the head of Vaibhav's school maybe about ten times before she gave me the number. I had by then googled and found some ten teachers and spoken to about five of them. No one was convincing. Glad that Soni got convinced agreed to come. Now I needed to get at least five kids. In a building of forty kids one might think it is easy. But it was hard. Most didn't care about drawing class, for some felt it expensive and for some time didn't work out. I just had four kids for the class. I went house to house asking if they will send their kids and believe me people gave pathetic response as if I had gone to ask donations. Finally I got five kids and drawing class started.  i

I was so so very very happy, my Karthik could go to drawing.

Fun doing it together.

It is so much fun to take my boys around on my bike to shloka classes or dance classes and participate with them. In shloka class I sing along with them, while riding back, we continue to sing together. Everyday night we recite all the sholkas and bhajans before going to sleep, that is amazing.
I go to dance class, it is great to see Karthik dance, I put the video back at home for them to practise while I either watch or dance along with them.

Karthik could read three letter words

I have been working with Karthik to read three letter words, since he has become conversant in phonics. Today was the best day since, I started this effort. he could read many three letter words and many he asked me to make for him. He could read bat / cat / rat / mat / sat / pat and fat. When I asked him what fat meant he said "appa is fat" and gestured the same :-). He then asked me to put letters for "Bun", which I did. To make it funny I then put "BuM". He laughed and laughed and laughed at the word. I then continued with can / fan / man / ran and so on. But he could read most of the three letter words. Good Going. 

Proud moments.

It was moment of joy and triumph when Vaibhav could recite all the shlokas he learnt at the shloka class, and when Karthik could dance wonderfully from day one in the dance class.
I have no words to describe but it was just an amazing feeling to see Karthik dance so well and enjoy it. Same, when Vaibhav recites the shlokas. It feels worth every hard work I have put in. It took me a year of googling to find a shloka class and a dance class for them. It is quiet a effort to drive them on roads with one feet deep potholes and heavy traffic, most often I am exhausted by the time I get home. But, when I see them enjoy and perform, it feels worth every effort. 

uuhhhh!! Well!!

During June 2015 I didnt send karthik to school for three days since he has swollen eyes.
Vaibhav finished his breakfast and came to me asking for my phone. "Amma phone alli phonics song haaku"[Amma, put phonics song on the mobile.]. Karthik was sitting there and having breakfast, he immediatly told "Vaibhav, phonics nood beda amma, ninage school innu illa. Mobile alli games aadu."[Vaibhav, don't see phonice song since your school hasn't yet started, instead play games on the mobile].