because we dont like sour grapes...

Cubby laughing at "Tolly! The Grapes!" as i try to feed him some warm milks after getting wet in the rains at Horsley hills! :)



or not so happy endings!


I wrote about Cub's favourite books coupla posts ago. The reason we also end up buying lots of books apart from an obvious love for them is his parents' complete inability to use imagination and create new stories. M is marginally better, but couldn't bother too much. Cub also is a slave of routine and has his own favs and would not be talked into listening to something new till you beg him to.


Now my Dad can make up stories about everything under the sun! So for a few days after he left Cub made random demands about stories about an omelet or a shoe or whatever else that came to his mind! He soon realized that his parents are not as gifted as his Ajoba and settled for ghisa-pita stories that we churned out for him.


That said he is a story freak and blackmails us into telling him one or more to get anything and everything done from him. So if he is to eat his food, we need to tell him story. Ditto if we are to get his inhalation done. Needless to say the activity undertaken lasts for as long as the story does and we need extend / modify the standard stories to suit the expected duration of the said activity.


One of his favourite modified stories is the Fox and the Grapes. He was quite disappointed with the fox walking away saying "the grapes are sour" when he could not reach them after a lot of effort. He said Nahhii much in filmi fashion and I had to change it quickly so that we indeed reached a happy ending, moral be damned! :p


So in our version the Fox firstly does a happy dance when he finds an entire garden of grapes. It has green, red and black varieties. He tries jumping and reaching the said grapes with no luck. But fox being a clever animal, goes home and gets a stool. He still cannot reach the grapes. So he realizes he needs something taller and rushes home to get a ladder and still falls a wee bit short. Now he is very disappointed and worried. Suddenly he has an idea!


He rushes from the garden and huffing and puffing reaches his friend's house. Tolly - the giraffe! (Name flicked from Toot). He is breathless and says "Tolly! Tolly! The Grapes!" Tolly a l'il confused says "I am NOT Tolly the grapes. I am Tolly the Giraffe!". (This part brings a whole lot of chuckles from the child). The same is repeated when the Fox says "Tolly! The garden!"


Soon enough the fox is able to catch his breath and manages to tell Tolly how he has found a garden full of grapes, how he cannot reach the grapes and if he will help him pluck them. Tolly readily agrees. Fox is now thrilled and happily point to grapes he wants which Tolly obligingly plucks and gives him.


When he has had enough he tells Tolly also try some. Tolly makes a face and says "main grapes vapes nahi khaaata. I eat only leaves and grass!" The fox tells him there is no harm in trying it once and he can always refuse next time if he does not like them. Tolly agrees and takes a few and quite likes them.


They both then take some for their families also and happily run home.


story khatam! :D


Then there is the Hungry Crow and the Thirsty Crow, in both of which the crow goes to least 10 homes including our own, friends' and relatives' asking for either chapati or water (depending on whether he is the bhooka or pyaasa Kauaa). If he is asking for Chapati, all the folks give him something to drink. The kauaa then slaps his forehead with his wing and says "Arre! I am the hungry crow, not the thirsty crow! I want something to eat!" Of course it goes vice versa when it comes to the Thirsty Crow and he gets offered something to eat in all the homes! :p


I heard M extend the Monkey and the Crocodile story yesterday and I am sure there are more modifications in store for us!


:)

till i write a post of my own...

We lost my pa in law, fondly known as just Papa on 1st Sep 2010. He had been a heart patient and in and out of hospitals or past few months.


A lot of you who are regular on the blog must have read fairly consistent comments on all my blog posts. I am still to be able to write a post in as much detail as I would like to. One that lies in my draft folder since 15th Apr. A post about Cub and his Daadu which i wanted to put up as a gift for papa's birthday on 19th April. Now i am kicking myself for not having finished it then and there. But such is life... and death.


So I am just linking M's post right now. Simple, short and poignant.


I have not mourned his death. He lived his life too fully and happily for that. If it were for me, I would throw a party to celebrate his life with lots of meat, alcohol and laughter. Three things he absolutely loved! :)


Rest in peace Papa. You were a good soul and I am glad our paths crossed. Thank you for all the good times and unconditional love. You are missed.

of bookies and booker prizes

with a storm being raised thanks to the match-fixing by Pakistani cricket team, the word bookie has again graced the front pages of our newspapers with allegations and denial and counter allegations of course.


But since my blog is all about fluff and the happy Cubby stuff, I am just using these terms to talk about the Books Cub now loves. I still cannot say whether Cub is an avid book lover or no. You can rarely see him poring over his books by himself. But he does love being read to and his appetite for stories is unending and our repertoire far too less to satisfy those hunger pangs. Yet, we read new books and stories and the loved one are oft repeated and reread. So, i thought I should least make some not of the books he likes at this point of time. We are of course hoping that he will eventually become a bookworm!


Cub's love story with books and errr.. stories started with Karadi tales gifted by very cool Vee Taiji (who incidentally believes that the term Taiji itself makes her uncool but we disagree!). Now they are pretty much a staple diet in our life.


I think the CDs eventually become redundant but it is indeed cute to see Cub repeat after Karadi the bear and mouthing lines like "he had a fiery red mane and a deep thunderous roar!" We use these CDs to baby sit him while we go have a bath or something and he quite enjoys them.


Among all the Karadi tales, he loves The Foolish Lion which has Buddhu raj falling into well trying to fight his own reflection and Little Vinayak. I personally LOVE the latter. Its an adorable tale of l'il Vinayak who as his name suggests a small elephant but with a looooong trunk that he keeps tripping and falling over. It tell us how he finally learns to walk without falling with a song that Cub and me sing often. I totally recco this book to one and all with kids young enough to enjoy the elephant's trials at trying to make his trunk short!


Oh and I cannot forget how much he loves the story of Bakasur or rather Bheem as Cub calls it. Art gifted Bakasur and Bhasmasur books to Cub for his birthday and he fell in love with Bakasur story right away. He finds it funny how Bheem is always hungry! He also enjoys The Foolish Crow and we have to sing Saa sing the sunflowers ever so often!


We recently discovered joys of Dr.Seuss as well. The ABC book is often read and laughed over. I still am not sure if Cub laughs because I do or he genuinely gets it. But he enjoys repeating lazy lion licks a lollipop in an endless loop. I love to hear him say Yellow yawning yak. Young Yolanad Yorgensen is yelling on it's back! It's just too cool, i tell ya! :D


We also enjoy One Fish, two Fish, Blue Fish, Red Fish again by Dr.Seuss. The hilarious rhymes are always a great pick me up!


Same and different by Tulika which was gifted by Starry is also something Cub totally enjoys doing. I never thought he could spot the differences. What also amazes me is that how he looks it at it in the most simplistic fashion and finds the correct pair while I look at the more complicated parameters. Of course he still refuses to even try the ones which are not that obvious but I guess he is quite young!


Recently picked up Tulika's "Where is Gola's home?" in which Gola the yak wants a home for himself and how his friend Muri the eagle takes him to different habitats. Starting from sea to rivers, from desert to forest and how he finally find home in the snowy Himlayas. Enjoyable! :)


I also picked Eric Carle's bilingual of The Mixed-up Chameleon at a recent trip to Crossword. I am officially in love with it in couple of readings. So is Cub. We loved the vibrant artwork and the pictorial progression of how the Chameleon wants a l'il bit of something from every animal and after getting it ends up being so mixed up that he can't even hunt for his food. It's then that he realizes he would rather be the Chameleon he is instead of a mish-mash of random animals. I also read the book to Cub in Hindi as well and realised that so many words are never used in our day to day spoken Hindi. So Cub amused me by pointing to horse and monkey on some toy of his and telling me "Yeh jaanvar hai!" - something he learned from the Hindi version of the story. And this is after 2 reads.


We trip on Pratham Books as well. For one the stories are so sweet, simple and short and the art work so gorgeous that Cub gets them right away. I think they are the most value for money books ever possible. Just LOVE them. Tommy and the fly, The Onion's shawl, Annual haircut day, Too many Bananas are just a few that are read often.


He likes looking at his picture books as well. The simple ones that have Birds and Animals, alphabets, numbers etc. Since he now recognizes the alphabet pretty much completely (we have never taught him at home) he now tries to recognize them everywhere he sees a bunch of capital letters put together. He still doesn't understand the concept of how words get built, but likes the whole recognition business a lot.


So that's that from our Library as of now. Am sure there is stuff I have missed out on, but something is better than nothing. And i really need to keep the blog alive! I have been terribly busy at work leaving me with no time to even breathe on a working day.


As per 2B goes, the pregnancy is as smooth as ever - Touchwood! I am I think around 28 weeks through and HUGE! I hardly have any pictures and all that jazz this time round and with Cub to keep our hands full, I wouldn't bother being fussy even if I wanted to frankly! I can feel the movements pretty consistently now and I must say that 2B seems much more active than Cub was in-utero.


Poor 2B has not had any updates on this blog as yet. But don't you worry my love. You are being eagerly waited for. Especially by your big brother. Every time he sees a small baby he says "2B bhi aisa hi hoga naah? Chhotaasa?!".


The other day I got only your Bhaiyaa's breakfast plate outside and guess what he asked me? He questioned me saying "Where is 2B's naashta?!" The concept of his mother eating for herself doesn't exist any more.


He is looking forward to teaching you so many things. Anything he does he will follow it up "Does 2B know how to do this?" and when i say No, he says he will teach you. You are one lucky kid sweets! :)


And since 2B has been till date royally ignored in this space and we have been tripping over Ogden Nash, here is his hilarious take on First Child, Second Child.


Be it a girl, or one of the boys,
It is scarlet all over its avoirdupois,
It is red, it is boiled; could the obstetrician
Have possibly been a lobstertrician?
His degrees and credentials were hunky-dory,
But how's for an infantile inventory?
Here's the prodigy, here's the miracle!
Whether its head is oval or spherical,
You rejoice to find it has only one,
Having dreaded a two-headed daughter or son;
Here's the phenomenon all complete,
It's got two hands, it's got two feet,
Only natural, but pleasing, because
For months you have dreamed of flippers or claws.
Furthermore, it is fully equipped:
Fingers and toes with nails are tipped;
It's even got eyes, and a mouth clear cut;
When the mouth comes open the eyes go shut,
When the eyes go shut, the breath is loosed
And the presence of lungs can be deduced.
Let the rockets flash and the cannon thunder,
This child is a marvel, a matchless wonder.
A staggering child, a child astounding,
Dazzling, diaperless, dumbfounding,
Stupendous, miraculous, unsurpassed,
A child to stagger and flabbergast,
Bright as a button, sharp as a thorn,
And the only perfect one ever born.


SECOND

Arrived this evening at half-past nine.
Everybody is doing fine.
Is it a boy, or quite the reverse?
You can call in the morning and ask the nurse.