"I don't want to eat through a ladder."

 Since the last two nights, Oli had been crying and telling me, "I don't wanna be big, Mommy." Strange. I wondered why she was saying that. I started a conversation last night...

"I don't wanna be big, Mommy!", followed by howls and tears.

"So you don't want to celebrate your 5th birthday?"

"Nooo."

"Then your friends will grow bigger and you won't."

"It's okay."

"Just tell me why you don't want to grow!"

Howl howl..."Because I don't want to eat through the ladder!" More howls.

"Ladder?"

And then I remembered my conversation with her a few days ago. We told her that she'll be as tall as a giraffe one day. Then she asked how she'll eat. I told her that I'll put up a ladder and feed her. 😀😂

Breakfast for lunch?

At lunchtime, Oli, in the middle of her Paw Patrol episode, hopped into the kitchen.

"Mommy, please make pancakes for me!"
"Pancakes for lunch? No. You can have pancakes for breakfast tomorrow morning."
"But I want pancakes now!"
"Sorry, pancakes are breakfast. You'll get your veggies for lunch."

She left, disappointed, and came back after a while.

"Mommy, please give me breakfast for lunch!"

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And here's what Papa dear and I look like - presenting, the portraits of the day by Oli!

Of blue hair and princesses

"Why is your hair grey?, Oli asked her Grandpa today.
"Because I'm old.", he replied.
"But how did your hair turn grey? I don't like grey. I like only black and blue!"

If you were Grandpa, would you have colored your hair blue to please your granddaughter? :D

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In one of the online sessions, Oli's teacher asked her the typical question - what do you want to be when you grow up? Well, I feel it's a silly question. Oli answered, "Princess!". Let me rewind to last year when they had a fancy dress competition in school and the theme was the same as this typical question. We, the typical parents, thought she'd be a good doctor and dressed her up in a doctor's coat. But she hated it, sheesh! She, just like now, wanted to be a princess! So we dressed her up in the funkiest of clothes and let her do a little ramp walk on the "Taki Taki Rumba" song. :D

Did you ever want to be any such character when you were a kid? A princess, a king, a fairy, a witch, a superhero! They can wish to be whatever they want to be, and keep working towards it, isn't it? :D

Of the blue mango seed and pink sun

Does it bother you if your kid wants to color the mango seed blue in her school book? :) No, right? Because that's what kids are supposed to do. Experiment. Nah, if you're the typical parent, it will bother you. :D

Oli, while doing her homework, insisted on coloring the mango seed blue. After trying to convince her that it should be a mix of yellow and white, not blue, I gave up. I remembered the time when San was four and she wanted to color the sun pink. "Why can't I color the sun pink, Mommy, why?", she'd asked!

I did tell Oli that mango with a blue seed is mango gone bad. LOL. She was fine with that. :D So big sis San came to the rescue and tried to fix the color of the mango seed for her. You see, she isn't like the 4- year old San who was good with the pink sun. So they worked on the seed and got it to a decent brown color. :D

Locked-up souls

This is my third post since the time we came back to India...this is crazy! Such busy lives we have! Or is it just the usual excuse? sigh

And as I write this one, I do want to highlight the crazy times we are living in - the Corona times. Like most of us, we've locked our lives at home. They call it the "new normal", but it isn't. It's nothing close to normal. Not living at home, but the fact about our life being locked up at home.

We doubt everything we touch and everyone we meet. Kids can only look at their slides and see-saws from a distance. We're breathing the oh-so-fresh-air from behind a mask. We're washing and cleaning things like crazy. We've not been socializing. The shops are closed. Our favorite pani-puri guy is gone. No balloon-sellers, no roadside cacophonies, no hair-cuts, evening strolls by the 'chowpatty'. No school buses and office-goers on the streets. No queues outside the neighborhood temple. 

I can go on forever...

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Kids. San has grown more silent and Oli has become a chatter-box. San wants to go back to the US and Oli wants to go everywhere. San dreams of owning a big bungalow and Oli dreams of making sandcastles at a beach. They are so different. 

Oli has been devouring Peppa Pig's episodes. She talks like Peppa and cries like George! :D

These two girls are the Tom and Jerry duo! They fight, they play, and they care for each other! "Aww" moments and "Aarggh" moments galore!

They're busy with their online classes now - thanks to teachers for all the efforts they're taken to make this setup a success!

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We're 6 of us, locked up at home. Tempers can't fly out. Tempers can't stay in. Do what now? Screeeaamm! At times, it feels like I'm deteriorating, both physically and mentally. I've become a robot. I always work against a clock now. There's always a routine running in my head. Cleaning, mopping, kids, classes, laundry, office, dishes, food - it's a mish-mash soup in my head.

I should stop here.