Mamma Mia

Vonage has a new Visual Voicemail System which transcribes your audio voicemails to textual email messages.(Supports English only). For a while I thought that they were still in the beta version and getting me someone else's messages as they were totally context less and meaningless. But looks like they mean business. On Manav's birthday I got an email message

""Hi this message is for Monica. He died. So yeah and being got some good assuming you have a good game hope you had a long time I know that Mark Debbie. Just calling you another time. Okay bye"

and I took the pain to match the actual voicemail

"Hi this message is for Manav. Siddarth, Gautam uncle and Sasi Aunty wish you many happy returns of the day. Hope you had a nice time with Arnav, Mommy and Daddy. Will call you some other time. Ok bye"

If you think about it phonetically the way Manav does, it will make some sense. Of course this is similar to the auto word completer, spell check etc but a notch higher so they can make extra hilarious mistakes. As my mother says "Try to do things yourself rather than depending on others."

Time to show off my beautiful hibiscus in full bloom. Reminds me so much of our childhood home where a hibiscus tree was a part of the courtyard (in addition to the neem, guava and parijat flower tree). Yes, it was a tree not a shrub like the ones we find here.

The kalanchoe flanking it is not bad either

Ok, time now I got back to conversations. Yesterday, Manav was discussing the ice-cubes (hail) and tornado warnings. He said

"Mommy the tortuga warning came up and I was scared"

The Wild Kratz brothers use the turtle shaped flying ship called the tortuga.

"You mean tornado Manav?" I clarified

"Yes, tornado" Manav responded with a sheepish grin.

This morning I came out of the bathroom to find Caunteya lying on the couch with the boys on either side. I sulked

"I am very sad. There are only boys here in this house. I am so lonely"

"We can have a sister" Manav suggested with all his four year old brilliance.

"How can we have a sister?" Still pouting, I threw it back at him

"When we move to the new house we can get a new sister" Ok now I know that I am using the when-we-move-to-new-house-then excuse more than needed. I know for sure that we haven't bought that birthday bike for him as the new house has more storage or was it because he still needs to grow up for a 16 inch bike?

I have a new problem at hand. And as I always say, I solve one problem and 3 more spring up. When Manav sits down for his homework Arnav has to do his homework too. Does it really matter that he doesn't get homework from school? So every afternoon I have to go homework hunting. I usually dole out Manav's classwork sheets asking him to color or count but sometimes that backfires.

"Someone has already done this Mommy. I need a new one"
 Other times as seen in the picture below I only have to pass on an interesting object like scissors and he is content (for a moment)

Manav is concentrating on his uppercase and lowercase alphabets

Yesterday afternoon, they played the snake and ladders board game. When my parents were here we bought that and many a afternoon battles were fought and won and cried upon that board. Manav started with

"I like the snakes. They eat me, so yummy" and then graduated to

"Snakes are bad, ladders are good"

Arnav played a bit and then

"I have yellow so I will be on yellow square" doesn't matter whatever number can show up on the dice.

Manav won the game and there was outrageously insane amount of screaming as if we had hit a jackpot. He was so ecstatic that he was shaking. Went on to repeat replay mode of

"I had to roll a 2 to reach 100. If I roll 1 then there is a snake to eat me and any other number would not work. Only 2 needed and I did it"

Manav is now addicted to Abba's Mamma Mia song. He can sing not only the chorus but a considerable part of the song. Arnav just joins in with a

"My-My"

He took out the "drums" (upturned margarita cups) and the bowls for some music accompaniment which I am unsure of and played the song on his guitar. It was a splendid performance. Arnav brought out all plates and cups and asked me

"What would you like, tea or coffee?"

Right now I will kill for a sip of anything. But even for water it is self serve here. When the kids are awake though they fight each other to get me a glass of water if I ask for it. Often I need a couple of refills and they don't mind at all. There are so many things that they want to help with but are not quite capable and when they become capable they won't want to help. Conundrums everywhere. No sight of a beverage though.