Those arduous few minutes

It is a daily ritual now.

We wake up early in the morning, brush our teeth and start praying to the god of Cheerios!

Swallow, chomp, bite, chew, fast, quickly, we are late, let's call her teacher on the phone, you are going to the street, please, vaayila kozhakaataiya irukku (do you have dumplings in your mouth), etc. etc. in every permutation and combination you can think of!

All to get a 100 or so honey nut cheerios into that little mouth and make sure they continue their one way trip to Jr.'s stomach. Sometimes, they get a free return ticket when Jr. feels double or triple or quadruple teamed (these days even the little one chimes in with "eat", "eat"!)

We are now switching to honey bunches of oats, idly's, dosai's.. etc.. But at the end of the day, the pushing food into the mouth routine continues..

A picture is worth a 1000 words. This one is worth about 73 cheerios!

Do you see the pain in her face? All that suffering! Oh, the humanity! We should be insane to put food into a little girl! What are we thinking?

After a 40-50 minute session of cheerios pushing, we all smile and she races to school with either Mommy or Daddy.

Maybe I should liquify the Cheerios and make her drink it with milk?

Maybe I should invent a system that lets her stomach absorb food through her skin. I could tie a cheerios pack around her stomach as soon as she wakes up, and it would slowly infuse the cheerios into her stomach by lunch break!

These days they are coming up with medicine patches that send medicine through the skin. So why not breakfast? I am hereby laying claim to the food patch for difficult kids!

If anyone actually succeeds at this, please send me a check.. or at least a few free samples!

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Old enough is enough!!

Last week a colleague saw my screen saver and said "You guys have got to be doing something right. You are making really cute babies!".

Came home and shared the comment with the lady and she gave me "The Look"

Now that the context has been set, let me present:

Top ten signs that there won't be any more babies generated in an Indian Household...

First sign:

Her to Him : Aye, nee diaper maathu paa.. Nee dhan sooopera maathuviye! (Hi, you change the diaper. You do it so superbly!)

Him to Her : (after changing diaper on the living room floor) Idha kondu poi garbagela podu. (take this and put it in the Garbage)

Her : (!!!) why dont you put it?

Him : I am sitting on the ground. You are already standing up! Here, take it!! (and tosses heavy diaper to the Mrs.)

Second Sign :

Him : Are you working or are you surfing the internet ?
Her : Still working .. he he.. Why ?
Him : No power cord here..will come to the bed

this is a genuine gtalk conversation between a husband in the living room and the wife in the bedroom just after midnight!

Third Sign :

Him : I gave Jr. breakfast, made tea, and have been up a full hour before you woke up!
Her : Pallu thechchen, bathroom pOnen..innum edhavadhu irukka ? I gave the little one breakfast and that is a lot more difficult! (brushed your teeth, went to the bathroom, bring on the list, I gave...)
Him : Okay from tomorrow, you can get up an hour early and I will give the little one breakfast..
Her : Kizhichchai. Adhayum paakaren! (yeah right.. I would like to see that!)

this on a Saturday morning

Fourth sign :

Him : You look cuter by the day
Her : You have started yelling at me a lot, that too in front of others..
Him : I am sorry if I did. I won't do it again.
Her : don't lie. everything you said is a lie. (now, that would include the cuter by the day comment)

Now we are not talking about getting to any base, as mentioned in the official desi lovechart, we are talking about being thwarted at just plain entering the field!

Fifth sign :

Come on now... The fourth one alone was worth six!

Note : All standard disclaimers apply to this post. All special disclaimers also apply! Needless to say, everything in this post is "a lie"!

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Do you still hold on to your..

Big, Fat, Red...

"Wren and Martin" English Grammar book?

Do you go to sleep happy in the knowledge that this book that created something close to a Stockholm syndrome inside you, is tucked away in a loft somewhere, halfway across the globe?

Do you know in the bottom of your heart, that in spite of going through this book from cover to cover over a three year period in middle school, you somehow thank those dudes who came up with this book for helping you grasp a language that has opened many a door for you, and continues to do so?

Do you get flashbacks of this book on a chapter to chapter basis starting from "The Articles", to "Gerunds, participles" to Precis writing? Are they flashbacks that evoke mixed emotions and you start tossing and turning?

If you are going, Yeah, Me too, that's right!, it is high time you join the Wren and Martin Anonymous club that I plan to start..

We can discuss about our middleschool english grammar experiences..

Do they still use this book in CBSE schools today?

Has this book now changed in thicknes, color, addded authors..let me know! Sometimes, google doesn't tell everything!

Going to have some sweet dreams of subjects and predicates.

Now stop counting the number of mistakes on this post, will you?

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