Good Vibes

Pranav asked me what vibrate meant. I tried to explain. He vibrated like my iPhone and said , "So this is what vibrate means?"

He sure is a thinker. At bedtime, he lay down in his bed with the lights off, thinking quietly while I checked news on my phone. A plane flew overhead, and he said, "Do planes vibrate?" I said I thought they did, as their engines run. "Like that time I felt sick on the plane?", he said, remembering the time of intense turbulence in a plane last month that made him nauseous. "No, that was turbulence.", I said.

Then he lay thinking quietly again and eventually fell asleep.

It is interesting to watch him go through his phases before he falls asleep. First he talks a lot and asks lots of questions. Then he grows quieter and  more thoughtful. Finally, his breathing goes heavy and he drifts off.

End of summer

It's down to the last week and a half of summer. Pranav will be a first grader, Summy will be in seventh. Summy has offered to blog about Pranav because obviously, I haven't been keeping up.

Summer

Kindergarten is done and Pranav has his first summer holidays. He is having fun with Summy.

First swim

Pranav swam a few paces by himself for the first time today! He loves the water, just like Summy.

Resolve to start blogging again

There are a lot of things about Summy that I have forgotten and remember fondly when I read old entries in my blog. I'm afraid might forget all of Pranav's things, so I decided to put something, anything, in my blog each day.

He is five, he is in kindergarten, and is growing up, even as far as we're concerned, though he's still our baby.

Scrabble Master

His new favorite game is scrabble, which he can play endlessly. He has even learned to strategize for higher scores. 

The other day I found him playing scrabble online on my phone with somebody. I wondered if the other anonymous player could have imagined that he was playing with a four year old.

(And then I wondered how many times I might have played against a little kid without knowing about it.)

Innocent Vanity

We were walking by a nice lady who told Pranav, "Hello, don't you look handsome!" Pranav told Kiran happily in a nice loud voice, "Everyone is telling me I look handsome today!"

When he grows up...

He wants to be a cop , Pranav said the other day. Then the four year old  reminisced:

"When I was two, I wanted to be an astronaut. But now I changed my mind."

"Why, Dinky?", I asked.

"Because I don't want to land on Venus and get my toes burned."

A disastrophe

I forgot to bring my phone while dropping off Pranav today. 

He said, "This is a disaster".

I laughed and said, "No, it isn't."

He said, "Then it's a disastrophe!"

Another poem

In the car, stopped at a red light, he came up with this.

"Red means stop

 Green means go

 Yellow means slow down

 Now you know"

The Reluctant Poet

Pranav was telling me, 

"When I am sad, I cry and pout

 When I am happy, ummmm, I laugh about"

I was so thrilled to hear him thinking and making up a rhyme. I wrote down his poem right away, but then he changed the second line to "when I'm happy, I play and wait for my dinner". 

He threw a little fit when he found out that I had kept his original line and not changed it to the new, much less poetic one. Poets can be so finicky!

Almost four

Days are passing by fast. Pranav is going to preschool full time. He really is not a baby anymore. 

He always seems to be going near the speed of light, yet time isn't slowing down. Was Einstein wrong?

Yucky Rice

We were driving along in the car ( Isn't that where the best conversations happen?) and I was discussing with Summy about what would be good for dinner. 

"We have yucky rice at home?" Said Pranav, out of the blue. 

"Yucky rice? Why would we have yucky rice?"

Then I realized what we'd been talking about: Teri"yaki rice".

All he wants for Christmas

Are maracas and fake snow. 

Fantastic

He still seems like a baby to me, but he says things like "These cheez-its are fantastic." I guess preschool does that to him.

Literal (and stubborn)

If there is one thing in common between the two kids, it's that they are both exasperatingly "strong-willed". Even when authority figures like teachers tell them to do something, they won't if they don't like it. They both behave well in class, get along with friends, and usually make the teachers' life easier. But occasionally they are told, for example, to do an activity that they dislike, and will stand and stare (while I, who'd never have dared disobey a teacher, watch and wither)

Today I was talking to Pranav in the car, trying to teach him a new word. (Which I forgot, but let's just say it was "pigheaded") "Say pigheaded, Pranav!"

Silence from the backseat.

"Can you say pigheaded?", I said.

"Yes", he said. I waited for him to say it.

More silence from the back seat.

"Will you say it?"

"No!" (mischief in his voice)

Oh, so he could say it, if he's in the mood for it or wants to do me a favor, but he doesn't feel like it right now, so he won't.

Bringing up children is like having to make that proverbial horse drink water all day, every day.

Wide Eyed

Pranav was talking to a friendly lady who we met while we were out. He told her everything about his preschool, friends, and family. 

She asked, "And do you take naps at your preschool?"

Pranav said, "Yes!", then added, "but only with our eyes open."

A Happy Tail

Last night I asked Pranav: "Would you like to hear a fairy tale tonight?"

"Yes!", he said innocently. "A fairy tail is the tail of a fairy, right?"

Unfathomable Loss

One morning four months ago, I talked to my parents on the phone. Then I got off the phone quickly because I had to take Pranav out for a class. I heard my dad say "Good Night" to me across the room from my mom, on the speakerphone.

That night, I got another phone call, a dreaded one. We packed up and left for India. I would see my dad a final time, but he would not wake up to see me or his grandchildren again. I cannot come to terms with this yet.

He was a loving dad, and such a loving grandfather. My best memories of childhood are of lying down next to him on the open terrace, looking at the stars while he told stories. This is what I'll always remember when I look at the stars, dad.

Short and Salty

We still go to the movies with Pranav. Kid movies are easy. For movies that are either inappropriate or too boring for him, we have worked out a strategy. We go at  his sleepy times, afternoon or night, and get into the theater early armed with popcorn. He stuffs himself with popcorn, drinks water, snuggles up and falls asleep by the time trailers are done.

Today, we went to the latest Star Trek movie. He ate popcorn, curled up and went to sleep as usual, and woke up  after the two hour movie was done. He even commented that it was a short movie.

I guess his movie review would read: "Buttery, salty, crunchy, and delicious! Comfortable seats.  Very refreshing, walked out of the movie feeling well rested."