Surprise! Its your Birthday!

"Hey it is Papa's birthday today, we need to wish him" I coached the kids, this morning.

Manav shook his head with teary eyes.

"What happened?" We asked him

"Papa made a deal and broke it"

"What happened?" I was clueless.

"Papa woke up before me. That is not good"

That was when I got it. Manav's deal is when he wakes up in the morning he will walk into our room and cuddle with Papa. Papa CANNOT wake up before that and leave his bed. They usually sleep late nowadays as there is no school in the morning most of the days. As a result they wake up late and Caunteya cannot idle in bed (though he would love to) during weekdays. Inevitable fights in the morning. As with the other things we have learnt "Even this shall pass away".

Things cleared and Papa went to work. I asked Manav for suggestion to surprise Papa on his birthday.

"We can write 'Surprise, its your Birthday' on the card"

"We can say 'Surprise' when he comes back from work" he tried again when he saw me shaking my head.

"No Manav, we need to surprise him, as in the verb, by doing something" yes he is now learning his verbs and nouns.

"Oh, we can buy him a nice winter jacket then" Manav was confident this time

"Manav, its summer. What will he do with a winter jacket in 104 degrees?" I was genuine.

"He will wear it in winter Mommy" simple answer, how could I have missed that? And they say kids "live in the moment". Mine is oh so future oriented.

Manav is still stealing the show with his conversations. The piece about Arnav has to wait I guess. The other day we were driving back from someplace and as usual we were telling him how he could have behaved better.

"I will tell my brain to behave. It keeps forgetting Papa" Manav explained

"Manav, what if my brain forgets to take you to the skating class?" Caunteya asked.

"Papa, don't copy me. You have adult brain. Adult brains don't forget. We are kids. Kids brains forget" Manav appeared angry

"Who said that? " Caunteya was a little baffled.

"Nobody. Just made it up" came the smug reply.

And on the dinner table the usual bickering and Caunteya with his

"Manav, eat. If you don't, I promise my hand will start working"

"Papa, don't. Don't ever promise bad stuff. That is not good" Manav was not joking.

Manav has always been fascinated with sports and music. Either genes or too much exposure to his father. He has taken to his ice skating class with a fair amount of success as with his swimming lessons. But with two success stories comes umpteen failure sagas. And handling failure is something he has yet to learn. So he tried the jumping rope he got from the dentists' and failed miserably. Same with the monkey bars in the park today. He officially denounced both these "sports" and promised to eradicate all monkey bars in all parks (or make sure they have some form of support bar to hold onto, when you fall - his idea in a moment of calm) and jumping ropes from all dentists' treasure trove.

On the breakfast table one morning he was counting the games he liked, on his fingers

"I like chess, swimming, skating, baseball........"

"I like chess, swimming, peanut butter sandwich, oranges......" Arnav continued. For our foodie, all roads lead to Rome. 

Manav has used this trait of Arnav's to cash in on the toy market. I mean Arnav's love for toys doesn't come anywhere near his do or die attitude towards food. Every once in a while they get to buy a McQueen car (the Disney Pixar cars character cars) as a special. They have accumulated quite a few by now. Oddly enough at any given moment you will find all the cars with Manav except one old, Doc Hudson, the blue borrowed car which, Arnav totes around.

"Hey Arnav where is your car? The new one we bought that day, Francesco Bernoulli?" Caunteya enquired at the table today when we were all enjoying our ice-cream shakes to beat the heat. He pronounced it with the "sss" sound for Francesco.

"Papa you made a mistake. He is Francesco Bernoulli" Manav corrected with the "ch" sound.

"Farncesco's wheels are stuck. So he is not a good car. " Arnav explained.

"No, his wheels are fine" Caunteya went on to demonstrate to Manav's utmost chagrin.

"Papa, please mind your own business. You should finish your ice cream shake instead of talking so much. Are you on the dining table to eat or talk?" Manav reprimanded.

Manav has efficiently brainwashed Arnav by pointing out conjured up handicap in each of the cars (except of course Doc Hudson). So McQueen "has just had milk" (as his red paint on front has been chipped due to repeated hitting around to reveal the white paint), DJ "has so many speakers and is a loud car", Chuki is a "traffic car" not a "race car" and so on and so forth. Caunteya tried to reverse the brainwashing but Arnav remained loyal to his brother. After all who spends more time with him? Arnav does get to "borrow" the cars when he wants but has to return them "when he is done" which is usually right away as dictated by big brother.

It is so entertaining to watch and hear these kids. The fine print is you have already gotten the dishwasher loaded, laundry folded, dinner done, bath taken care of, brush/floss/rinse trio dealt with, bleh, bleh, bleh......and more. Once this is done you can "listen to" and not just "hear" the kids. THEY will tell you to forget the fine print and just spend time with the kid, as they grow up fast and won't remember how clean the house was or how tasty the food was or how fluffy their bed was.....they will remember the moments spent together on the table, park, games etc....go ahead do that. But when you encounter that stench in the kitchen next morning and everyone in the house running around for clothes don't tell me I didn't write the fine print.

As Arnav says

"Why are YOU sorry Mommy? You didn't hurt me. The "outside" should be sorry. The "rocks" should be sorry. You are good Mommy"

when I kiss him goodnight and remark on the places he got hurt

"I am so sorry Arnav, you got hurt"