Friendship

Got a chance to go to the movies with Balaji this weekend. Watched "Bourne Ultimatum". Enjoyed the movie. This post is not about the movie, but the trailer for another movie, "Kingdom"!

The trailer pretty much shows Saudi Arabia as an enemy of the United States, a HOSTILE nation for Americans, etc. etc.

I chuckled out loud during portions of the trailer. The people around me actually turned to look and see the "chuckling dude"!

The reason for my amusement? Here is my train of thought..

1. Hollywood is 95% pro US government (whichever party is in power, the movie industry shamelessly totes their policy).

2. Depending on who the US is about to target and go to war with in the immediate future, or depending on who stops supporting, or speaks against US foreign policy, countries and people from those countries will be made the villains for the biggest summer blockbuster. eg. any dude with middle eastern background was the villain in the mid nineties after the first gulf war as in "True Lies" and the rest of the movies those years.

3. Even countries which are portrayed as friends of the USA in the previous seasons blockbuster can see a role reversal the next summer, if they don't agree with the US!
Classic case in point, Saudi Arabia! These dudes were friends during the first gulf war. Now they are the bad guys. Have to go find out if they have said something bad about the US war in Iraq or if they have pulled out some support!

4. It is also possible that the US government uses this villanous depiction in blockbusters as a warning sign to other countries. "Hi, you better support me and my policy, or you will be the next villain in our 4th of July blockbuster! The entire country will stand united in that blockbuster to fight a common enemy, YOU!". Note that if there are no countries in that year's list, Aliens will be cast as the villains.

I do sound like some kind of conspiracy theorist. This whole train of thought was only amplified because Jr. came home and said "she is not going to be my friend anymore. She is not listening to me at all". I was going to ask her "who do you think you are? Hollywood?".

Friendship should go beyond agreement and like mindedness, should it not ?

.

The number 12 nipple

Years ago, when San was pregnant with Jr., we had a baby shower at my work place for her. One of the gifts was an AVENT bottle set with a few bottles, nipples, cleaning stuff etc..

Glad that the feeding bottles were already given to us, and finding out that AVENT was the most common brandname that newbie parents used, we started using the set with great results. I used to admire the intricate design which would let air bubbles escape through the special lid, the fl oz markings etc. etc.

Trouble started when Jr. was four months old. She used to get extremely furstrated with the bottle. Being the astute observer and experimenter that I was, I concluded that there was definitely something wrong with the bottle or nipple and it was not Jr.'s fault. By then the nipple had become less transparent and we collectively agreed that we needed a new set.

We were promptly adviced by "the parents and relatives" gang on how they couldn't advice us on such problems because in those good old days the breast was the only bottle, etc. etc., this in spite of the fact that Jr. was an entirely breast milk bottle fed baby!

In hindsight, drinking from a breast vs. a bottle would probably be like driving an automatic vs. manual transmission vehicle! The breast probably adjusts flow to the demands of the baby and has some kind of psychic feed back loop between the mom and baby. I cannot prove this, but I am sure the many scientists who have devoted their entire lifetime to the breast, have studies that support my hypothesis! A bottle with a nipple, on the other hand is like driving on a single gear. Readers of this blog, must know by now, that there is always some study somewhere that supports my hypothesis!

So, imagine our surprise when we go to Toys'r'us and the guy asks me, "Which number AVENT nipple would you like to buy Sir?".

San and me looked at each other and went "What number?"

The guy gave us this look which could loosely be translated as "just because some body parts fit, people like this end up as parents! there has got to be a pre-parenthood IQ test".. anyways, I digress and you probably got the drift.

To top things off he showed us a #1 embossed on the side of the nipple. I had washed that thing a few million times without once realizing that there was a "1" on the side. Of course the nipple was 100% transparent and the "1" was 99% transparent and that fact would explain why! Nevertheless, we were branded in the eyes of that salesman and the other parents shopping in the feeding bottle aisle.

Having learnt our lesson, we walked back with some #2 and #4 nipples to prepare us for the days to come. We were also smart enough to start our second child, on #2 right away and went promptly to #4 in a few months.

Trouble has revisited us after three years. Jr. went from #4 straight to a sippy cup and would drink water, milk or anything liquid, through the sippy cup. The little one has somehow identified the "sippy cup" to be dedicated for water only. If we give her milk, she takes the first sip and promptly spits it out on the floor! After writing a little thesis on the impact of spat out milk on various flooring materials, I decided, enough was enough!

Took a #4, punched out a few extra holes with grandma's safety pin and we now behold, the #12 nipple! The holes are not exactly professional and we can see the little one is getting variable flow. We guess this by the way her eyebrows change as the nipple suddenly goes from trickle to flood in under six seconds. The surprise element is helping the otherwise bored child and daddy is considering a patent on the surprise nipple!

Tomorrow, we plan to buy a new #4 and put holes with a hot needle or search for a better solution. We also have promised Pillaiyaar Ummachchi a few rupees worth of Kalpooram if the little one takes to a the sippy cup soon!

.

Peesh and Goflish

The little one is talking and learning a gillion words a day.

She was pointing to the baby animals book and saying Peesh, Peesh , Goflish..

I thought Peesh was fish and Goflish was Goldfish, but Peesh actually turned out to be Sheep in disguise!

She is now talking sentences (not the Deda Nu Cheeesse stuff), but actual three four word sentences.

She has also learnt to "lie"!!!

Yesterday she acted as though she had hurt herself after falling on the carpet, was rubbing her knee and crying. For some reason, the crying was just not genuine enough and then suddenly her crying turned to laughter and she looked at me and said "lie"!

Guess even at 20 months a kid can grasp the concept of deception and lies. I told her not to tell lies again and she goes "Okay"!

I am scared.

.