Piece of cake

There has been a significant change in Manav's conversations. Well it has been happening over time but I am just beginning to notice. Earlier it used to be our words wrapped in his baby language being spoken but now its all his own - words, feelings, language, vocabulary everything genuine, no copy here. Some incidents over the past few days.

Last evening the boys were having sprinkler fun. The sprinklers work in zones as per setting and they had a ball running from front yard to shrubs, to back yard and all over following the sprinklers. Soaked from head to toe they now became too inquisitive. They started sitting on the sprinklers, stuffing them with snail shells, covering couple of holes in the sprinklers and "diverting" water. These activities prompted Caunteya to make the "no touching sprinklers" rule. And when this was violated umpteen times Caunteya said
"I will never ever start the sprinklers again. Tulu (that's me) go shut off the sprinklers"
"Papa, it is your wish. You may never ever start sprinklers if you want to. You can shut them off now. I don't care. I will play."
"Yes, you can go away Papa, if you want to" Arnav chimed in.
They played on and got into mud baths. There was mud in every conceivable part of their body. After a good scrub Manav said
"Now that we had so much fun with the sprinklers, can we calm down with some TV?"

This morning we were running late for Arnav's dental appointment and were not sure whether we wanted to drop Manav to school (and waste precious minutes) or take him along. By the time I came into the car Caunteya had already told Manav that we are going to the doctor's first and then school. I called up the doctor, informed we will be late. Manav was furious
"Papa, you are not a kid. Why did Mommy answer my question and why did you listen?"
"What question Manav, I am not following you?" Caunteya said
"When I asked where we are going you said dentist's and now Mommy says school. Why are you listening to her, you are an adult not a kid" Manav was pretty mad
Caunteya did explain about the change in decisions but that didn't go too well with him.

Nowadays Manav's favorite whining is
"No one listens to what I am saying. I have to listen to everyone. Everyone is taking my things and I cannot take anyone's things" and so on. I love the way he generalises things, I mean in this sentence he referred to me and Arnav and sounded like including the entire universe.

And his curiosity continues to enter unthinkable
"Mommy, I am going to have hair in my armpits when I grow up, right?"

But he is still the sweetest boy around
"Mommy you work so hard isn't it?" when Caunteya said you have to eat what Mommy cooked.
"Yes, Manav" I beamed
"You cook and exercise so much. You have to put the oil and your hand gets exercise." Manav confirms cooking is hard work but very beneficial. How did I miss this fact?

Some more fragmented conversations
"Mommy, sit here a little bit. Tell me all about the walk we had today" , when I was kissing Manav good night.

"Here, I will show you how to approach this problem" showing Arnav how to color the opposite side.

"If Papa walks down, how will he get up?" while waiting to pick up Caunteya from his office. And he was very tickled when I told him "walk down" is a phrase. He started a conversation with his phrases
"Arnav when I say it is a "piece of cake" what do I mean?"
"Arnav when I "plant my foot" is it a tree there?"
Arnav was flummoxed to say the least.

Arnav is talking too, lest you think otherwise. Just that I have to tune my receivers to his frequency. When we have a bigger talker with complicated sentences it is easy to miss out on Arnav size conversations. I have to devote one entire post to Arnav to make sure he doesn't feel left out. Yes, I really think the boys will read this when they are older and will have a good laugh.

Stuck Carrot

Has been a while since I penned. Food for thought - since we moved in here we have been too busy, guess that is a good thing. Kids have ample space to play and hardly rant for my attention, guess that is a good thing. Husband is happy with the yard and has embarked upon stringent cricket coaching for the boys, guess that is a good thing. I like everything about this place - flowers, bugs, leaking faucets, very quiet neighborhood, being able to recycle, lawnmowers occasionally breaking the silence, hardly a face to be seen anywhere, library around the corner, ample biking friendly sidewalks for the kids and much more, guess that is a good thing. And the above are the exact reasons why I don't like this place and guess that is what "like- dislike" being the two sides of the same coin is all about. Just a wee bit tinkering iyour mind and you start flipping the like to dislike and vice-versa. Not sure if that is a good thing, or did I mean a bad thing.

Amongst these opposites the boys are growing up by leaps and bounds. Summer in full swing and most of the days they are at home, me being too lazy to send them to a half-day school and the lunch menu forbidding a full-day stint. The day they are home is again a mixed bag but I feel a strange sense of achievement when such days are done. I didn't write this (the very next day I send them to school irrespective of the lunch menu). And conversations are getting more refined with the little one joining in more often that not.

Last morning I woke up to Manav's cries on the potty.
"What happened baby?" I asked
"You made me eat those (baby) carrots. And now they are stuck in my bum and poopy won't come out" he wailed

And the other day
"You are just a beaver" Manav said pointing at Arnav
"No, you are just a beaver" Arnav retorted
Actually they meant Justin Beiber. Misha had introduced them to this teen singer but they preferred the wild angle.

I am not sure if I should include such an adult content in a kiddie blog, but then the kid said it so have to. Hope no feelings hurt.
The master bathroom in this house has a door without a lock. One day while I was changing Manav barged in saying something but stopped mid-sentence
"Mommy what are those hills?" Don't get any ideas I was clad, just not adequately.
While I was groping for an answer and a t-shirt at the same time, Manav self-explained
"Oh, look I have only marks" lifting his t-shirt and pointing
"and you have real hills" and walked away satisfied, leaving me stunned.

Thus summer continues with many more hilarious incidents which my old mind has forgotten. All I need is to train my mind to register the events. Awaiting the fourth of July vacation at my brother's, till then enjoy some pictures.

Feet in the air - during a recent playdate

Boys enjoying the Denton Airshow

Future Fighter Pilots

Ending with the savory bowl of pasta with "planet" olives, which closely ties with dosa for the position of "Most eaten food in the Parekh household". Yes, you got it, strangely the kids don't like Pizza unless a Birthday Party makes them hungry.

Memorable Memorial Day

Kids need Kids. Though they depend on us adults for most of the things, they thrive in the time spent with other kids. There are initial hiccups but if we just let them be (and not interfere with our notions of rules and behaviour) they finally settle into peaceful play. This extended Memorial day weekend Manav and Arnav settled down with Mitisha and Mallika, the adorable daughters of my best friend Mahasweta. When I write "best friend" it seems like school/college era and a bit foolish as well, maybe even embarrassing but she still is and will remain my best friend.

The evening they landed was a humdrum affair with the almost 2, almost 3, 4 and 8 year olds trying to mingle while the adults exchanged information over their heads. Next morning we set out for Galveston, touted to be a "poor-man's beach vacation place" (or maybe that's what I expected) but it turned out to be a perfect place for all of us. But we didn't know what awaited us as we were engrossed in the long drive with the kids flowing freely between the two cars, hence the multiple stops to accommodate seating preferences. Not to mention the drink breaks, bathroom breaks, food breaks and puke cleanup break. At last we reached the Galvestonian - our resort and that was the best part of the day.

Everyone just plunged into the pool having decided to hit the beach next day as it was already evening. Ouch, I just remembered that this is NOT a travelogue but conversations, so here I go.

"Misha, can you spell cosmopolitan?" I asked Misha to veer the current topic of who-gets-to-sit -next -to-Misha.
"What is cosmopolitan?" she asked and after some explanations and disclaimer that this wasn't 2nd grade stuff, she successfully attempted the spelling. And this started a new game. Manav and Arnav joined in
"Can you spell lamppost?" and got her confused regarding 1 or 2 'p's
"Can you spell sign? and the silent 'g' stumped her
and many other words until Arnav said
"Can you spell gaadi?"
"What IS gaadi?" she was stumped again
"Car" Manav explained
"I cannot spell foreign language words" was her reply and Caunteya I guess couldn't help but retort
"English is a foreign language"
and more spelling words were thrown at her by the boys until she said
"I am not spelling any more. This makes me feel like school and it is not pleasant. I am on a vacation" and didn't budge when the boys implored
"Last one please"

The family before hitting the beach

And then the sand castles

The kids had a great time on day 2 with sand castles, beach toys, wave riding and running around. On day 3 we went to Moody gardens. There they went berserk with the 4-D movie of Dora and Diego, loved the aquarium and chased the butterflies in the 100 degrees simulated heat of the newly opened rain forest pyramid. But the best part was again the "Palm Beach" inside the garden. They were practically tireless hopping from wave pool to water slides to lazy river to sprinkler parks to anything and everything water. It was constant happy laughter and lots of shrieking and yelling.

The evenings were spent dining at the great seafood restaurants lining the Seawall. We also visited Historic Strand and went on a horse carriage ride. Manav asked the driver
"How do you make the horse stop at the Stop signs?"

Ok back to some more car conversations. They were talking about doctors. Manav said
"Babies go to baby doctors. They give shots"
"I go to a pediatrician too" said Misha
"I go to Dr. Zarmin" said Arnav
"No, doctors are not mean just because they give shots." said Misha as Arnav's "Zarmin" did sound like "mean".
"It is Dr Guetersloh not Zarmin" Manav said
"I go to Dr. Zarmin" maintained Arnav
"No, doctors are not mean" maintained Misha.
and so they maintained the conversation .....

A couple of days ago ( I have been writing this post since the last few days, not getting done :-) I made gherkin fry which we call tindora in Hindi. Surprisingly Manav and Arnav loved it. Arnav said
"Can I have more Dora, please?"
"Yes, sure you can. It is tindora" Caunteya clarified
"Yes, T-T-T- Tin - Dora" Arnav attempted the phonics.

The blooms in the new house reminds me of our childhood home in Rourkela. Google led me to the name plumeria but I am still not convinced these are those. Same family though. 

I started writing this post on 2nd June and it is already stale. Need to let go of this one and start afresh. New things happening all the time but time is what I don't have now. Too many things to do, some I love, some I like, some need to be done, some I hate and some I can't stand doing and some happen nevertheless.

As Manav said just now when I kissed him goodnight
"Mommy I will soon become an adult and I will let you die"

More on this seemingly alarming statement later. For now goodnight.

My nest is best

"Mommy Mommy, come look what I found"
has been the latest most uttered sentence since we moved to this new house winning by a big margin over
"Mommy please let's go out and play NOW"

Manav, with Arnav at his heels has been constantly "exploring" the backyard, front yard, all rooms, bathrooms, garage and more. Most of the activity is centered around the backyard though. And when it is a "wet" (because of the rain) backyard the priority is easily explained.

"Mommy see here is a mommy snail and here the little one is the baby snail" And sure enough there were these "concentric circle" snails wedged between his fingers.

"Mommy hush, there is a bird over there" this is the second most common sentence. Birds are such a common sight and the frequency of their spotting and Manav asking me for their names has made me a Google "birdwatcher". So we identified the blue jays, American robins, great-tailed grackles and the common pigeons, doves and sparrows. The boys figured out that if they stay indoors and "follow" the bird from the formal dining, kitchen and into the family room always keeping an eye on it through the drawn up blinds it works much better than following them outdoors as they "always fly away" and "come for a short time" there. But whisper they must lest it gets frightened and flies away robbing them the chance of watching them up close.

"I am digging" Manav made this his prime job throughout the weekend. Armed with a garden spade Manav "dug" wherever his eyes fell on.
"Mommy look there are ants below this rock I dug" his happy eyes seemed to convey that he can handle their bite as well. Well not quite, as I learnt in the next moment.
All protocols about having a pair of "outdoor" shoes and another pair of "indoor" slippers were soon forgotten and they were seen without any footwear more often than with. And we just went to Costco and bought the "Swiffer" instead.

More protocols are in the making and will be dispensed soon as we figure them out. Some work in progress are:
"We will not jump and climb on the new furniture. It is strictly for seating"
"We will not walk into the house with mud on our feet( and hair), we will wipe them first on the new debri-catching doormat that Mommy bought"
"We will drive our toy cars on the rugs and not on the wooden floors"
"We will not jump from the ledges that adorn the house and should house decorations"
"We will not check and try out all the millions of light fixtures we have in this house as we have ample sunlight"
"We will not ice-skate on the wooden floor"
"We will not climb up the attic stairs now, only when Arnav is not around"
and so on.
We are just in the process of adding a positive connotation rather than the negative "will not" but it is not working out quite and we are running against time. We have to deliver before this house becomes a means of substantial additional income (in addition to rent) for our landlord.

This evening brought lightening, thunder and rainfall. I asked Arnav
"Are you scared? "
"No Mommy I am not scared. I am Arnav"
"I am very scared of lightening and thunder. Can I sleep in your bed tonight Mommy?" Manav chimed in
"You can talk to me Manav if you hear thunder" Arnav said making me wonder if he actually knew the meaning of "scared". Guess I will never know as by the time I find out he would have actually added "scared" to his vocabulary. Yes, that brain of his is making the connections and that too at a breakneck speed. And we are always working against time.

Pictures are coming up as soon as I figure out where I packed my camera. Till then we are finding our way in the maze of boxes and rooms and having a decent exercise in the process. From chaos to normalcy to elegance is the theme.

Summing up in Manav's words
"I love my house, I love my nest,
In the whole wide world my nest is best"
of course omitting the next sentence in which Mommy bird cries out
"Nooooo, we need a new and better house"

Wildflowers and Doctors

The wildflowers are everywhere. Picture this. Two boys on their bikes and Mommy walking alongside on the sidewalk. Every few minutes the older boy alights followed by the scampering younger one. Not a single dandelion can remain "unblown" till of course they see a whole field of them swaying in the breeze. Yellow small flowers,( here I have to acknowledge google for names and information on wildflowers) probably desert marigolds appear in a clump of four. Big boy says
"Mommy look it is a family. Mommy, Papa, Manav and Arnav" pointing to the individual flowers
"And here there is grandma and there, over there is grandpa"
"Arnav no touching or plucking them. Plants hurt. You can blow dandelions only"
Then they chance upon an entire field of blanket flowers dotted with a few black-eyed susans, iceland poppies and bluebonnets.
"Mommy look this is like a microphone" pointing to a grey-headed coneflower sans the petals and proceeds to sing "Mamma Mia" using the same. I missed my camera. I can give you a glimpse of my gerbera though

After umpteen other stops midway, chasing bunnies, squishing bugs, alerting for dog poop, surprising the crow like birds, waving at other bikers and more flowers they reached the park. Finally Mommy could rest in peace on one of those benches or so she thought when
"Mommy can you buy me one of those? I am so tired pedalling a bike" pointing at a girl riding the Razor motorcycle and zipping past the gaping boys. The story ends here though seeing her flying hair even I wished I had a toy like that. But I can't spoil my own kids, can I?

Earlier in the evening the boys pretend played doctor. Manav had chanced upon my breast-pump accessories which I had marked for trashing and found good use of those. Arnav complained of chest pain. Manav took out the thin tubes and wrapped around his forehead and said
"Beep, Beep, Beep. Now that it has beeped it is done"
Then took out the suction cups and put them on Arnav's chest and told him to breathe hard
"Oh, with my stethoscope I can hear your chest saying that you want to susu."
"Oh Mommy, I want to susu." Arnav said and promptly went to the bathroom.
"Thank you doctor, you are so good. Now my chest is not hurting" Arnav thanked Manav. Manav tapped him lightly on the shoulder and said
"No problem"

"Doctor, I got hurt here" Arnav came back.
"Now this is the last check I will do. Did you hurt your knee?" Manav asked
"Yes, I just got this boo-boo. See I cannot move my leg. See it is moving so slow" Arnav said shaking his legs.
"Ok, let me check it out with....." Manav started fumbling in the accessories bag
"Ok, I have to put an injection. Here .....and band-aid, band-aid" Manav pretended the band-aids after the injection.
"Doctor here too" Arnav showed another place for band-aid and was rewarded.
"Thank you doctor, no more boo-boo"

Then they moved onto their homework. Manav does get some from school while Arnav works on Manav's previous day's homework, which has already been corrected and graded by his teacher.
"Mommy, look I colored purple" Arnav tells me excitedly
"It is so pretty Arnav. I like it" I say with eyes still on my computer screen.
"Don't say that. Don't say you like it" Arnav's words make me look at him
"Why? " I ask
"Because I am not done. Let me finish then you say you like it" Arnav pouts with his traditional arms crossed over chest stance.
Lesson learnt. If you are not paying attention to their remarks and sitting there like a figurehead (mom) that's what you will get back. Blame the childrens' "not listening" skills to yourself.
Then some more lesson. Arnav walks over with his "completed" sheet and says
"Is it pretty?"
"It is very pretty Arnav. I like it" I am genuine this time around.
Lesson is - whatever you do they will always come back to you. They will forgive you in nanoseconds and love you unconditionally. Till what age this holds true is a tough question though.

Manav is doing a great job with his homework especially coloring. He sits with his coloring sheet for a long time and painstakingly mixes, matches and colors all the time making up stories.
"The bird landed on a green field"
"The flowers are a pretty blue and pink. The bird likes it so is singing"

Philosophy aside, it is tough being with the kids whole day with a break of 2 - 2.5 hrs in the morning. My "inebriated" brain is no match for two "making millions of connections per second" brain of these kids. The worst part is they look up to you to answer their queries and believe what you say so you can't lie. Its having a mirror all day reflecting your activities,
"Why did you eat after brushing your teeth?"
"How did this chocolate wrapper come in the trash?"
"Why did that boy touch and take the candies to play with in the store?"
"Why does a giant squid has popped out eyes?"
"What is the meaning of resist "?

Now that they are asleep and I have had a breather, I have good answers to all these questions but at that moment all I can muster is
"Its ok. We'll find out later. Lets finish our lunch" or something like that.
I promise to be a better mother tomorrow as they promised to be better boys tomorrow. Well tomorrow is better.

Hello and Goodbye

Growth is relative. Perception of growth needs a base for comparision. I know the kids have grown when I chance upon an old photograph or pair of onesies or the newborn diaper. Otherwise they are still little. And I know the Lima beans that Manav planted has grown as well but at a faster rate when I see the beans hanging from the branches. Every morning Manav wakes up and checks the growth and says the same thing
"Mommy Mommy come look, there are more"
"Mommy the spiders have built a web on the other plant" pointing to the hibiscus shrub and sure enough there is a barely noticeable spider web there.
"Mommy I am making the flower straight" trying to tug the sun facing tilted yellow gerbera towards him.

Everything is so green, you can hardly see the beans until you look closer

The boys have gotten comfortable with falling asleep on their own in their room. Manav does show up on our bedside sometimes but instead of climbing up between us he says

"Mommy, my hands are so cold. Can you come tuck me please?" rubbing his palms on my cheek

and another day

"Mommy, why is Arnav here?"

"He has been coughing too much" I reply

"Oh ok" and goes back to his room

and again

"Mommy I need to go to bathroom"

I nudged Caunteya and told him to take Manav to the bathroom. Caunteya takes him back to his room and puts him to bed. Next I see the bathroom light on and Manav on the potty. He is really on his own now.

"Can you tuck me in please? My legs are always out of the blanket" is a common statement most of the time.

And when he wakes up in the morning he checks with us

"Did I sleep all by myself?"

and feels very content when there is an affirmative from us.

Today when I kissed him goodnight he said

"See you tomorrow then"

and Caunteya tells me, Manav told him earlier

"Papa, I hope I don't come to your room today. It is a weekday" We have a pact that we can sleep in each others' room only in the weekends.

Arnav has been sucked into all this growing-up game. I cannot imagine Manav at 2 years 9 months sleeping all by himself. But then Manav donned the big-brother cape also at a tender age. So all's fair. What is not fair is this hollow feeling that while falling asleep they no longer need us by their side.

The other day Manav got up from his potty with an aghast look.

"Mommy I got susu from my bum. Girls do that. How did it happen to me? I am a boy" He was almost teary. They share a bathroom at school so guess he got the idea from there.

"Maybe it was not susu, it was your poopy. Remember your tummy was hurting" I tried to placate him.

I know this is getting kind of gross but I had to mention as Manav was really very very concerned with this unusual occurrence.

We didn't end up buying that 16 inches bike for Manav. He needs to put on a couple of more inches to be able to manage that bike. Thankfully we got an used 14 inches bike so now both boys ride their "Big Boys Bikes". Today I told them to ride the bike inside the house as I was busy packing and couldn't take them out. They marked all the boxes area as "construction site", loosely packed articles as "stop signs" and the kitchen as "one way" etc and played for a while. Arnav got stuck someplace and Manav came over to help. He said

"Arnav try your best to control the corners. When you come near corners you go past them, not bump into them." with great stress on the words "past" and "bump". He also showed off a live demo of how he deals with corners. It was very precise and neatly executed audio and video.

Since the past couple of days Manav and Arnav have been busy making rhyming words. During one such creative session at the breakfast table Arnav said

"Have you ever seen a racket wearing a jacket?"

and Manav added

"Have you ever seen plants wearing pants?"

"Have you ever seen a door sitting on the floor?"

and many more which I cannot remember now. This is in lines of the silly songs that they hear so often. But the above are their own.

We are all caught up in the upcoming move on Saturday. Then there is the much awaited Memorial Day vacation in the weekend after. There is promise of lots of fun. But first we have to get past the move. And we will since the boys have been a lot of help in packing. They counted and labelled the candy jars with the number of candies appropriately. They took out stuff from the semi-packed boxes and tried getting into the same boxes multiple times. They have so far packed and unpacked their box of cars at least 20 times. They have expressed delight in moving to a house with "backyard" but in the same breath have expressed sadness to have to drive down to meet their friends here. Manav said

"When we pass by this house we will" and sang out in the tune of 'wheels of the bus'

"Wave Hello to our old House,

Our old house, our old house

Wave Hello to our old house

And then say Goodbye"

Yes, Hello and Goodbye are the two sides of the same coin. Goodbye for now.

Vinegar and Baking soda

Blog Moment, is a moment when something happens and you feel, aaha this is what I want to write about when I write next. And when you are ready to write after hours, days or weeks you have completely no remembrance of these episodes. This is precisely the phenomenon I am experiencing and the reason is also clear. I as usual have "millions" (as Manav would say) of things on my mind and these days add another "million" due to the upcoming move. So I will pen today's post trying to rack my brain to unclog memories and right after the post experience a surge of "conversations". So technically I should begin writing after I complete a post. 

Manav is doing some science experiment at school. He explained it thus. 
"There is vinegar and baking soda and when you mix them the balloon sucks up the air and blows"
This was enough to trigger memories of my father lighting a candle, placing it on a water filled saucer, putting a glass cup over it and magic - the candle goes out and the water is sucked up the glass. Wait, not over yet. When Baba (father) holds the saucer upside down, the glass is still stuck with the water inside. With audible gasps breaking out into vehement claps me and my brother would beg for an encore and my proud father would grudgingly oblige. I guess it is the novelty of anything that mesmerises us and as soon as we get to know the real science behind it the magic wears off. I am reliving the magic via my kids as possibly I cannot experience the "first time" again for things that have already happened. Or can I?

When I asked more questions on the experiment Manav came up with a clever reply
"How about I let you focus on driving and not talk?"
and that did shut me up.

Arnav is becoming quite a talker now. A typical conversation with Arnav would go like this
"Arnav, did you throw the marker here?"
"Maybe" with a cool shrug
"You know that you're not supposed to play with markers."
"I think so"
"I don't like it when you are not listening"
"Me neither" and little man walks off.

The other night for some reason he kept on crying and wouldn't sleep. I cuddled with him and said
"Ooh my baby, what's bothering you shona?"
"I am NOT a baby anymore" pat comes the teary reply
Caunteya tried to lighten the moment by saying
"Jaldi so ja. Abhi batman aayega, tera bhai"
"Nooo Manav is NOT a batman, he is a ice-hockey man" another round of tears.

And today afternoon when I sent him for nap, he complained
"My tummy is hurting"
"It's ok, calm down, breathe and rest a little, you will feel better"
"I think the sun can help. I am tired of sleeping. I am sooo cranky" Arnav cried.
Manav also resorts to this "tummy hurting" syndrome quite often. Guess that is where Arnav learnt it from. So we tried water, food, rest everything when Manav remarked
"Maybe the oreo cookies and come ice cream will fix it. Let us try"
And when he had both
"See it worked. I cannot believe it. I think my tummy needed some cold thing"

Arnav is my cuddle bundle. Today he tells me
"Mommy can you please give me the squeeze hug" and I gladly did
The other day I smothered him with kisses and he said
"Mommy don't kiss me so hard. Then my back will hurt like you"
Manav on the other hand is more Caunteya oriented and is a little conservative with his affection towards me and I guess it is mutual.
Today Arnav was running behind Manav and both were crying aloud. I was concerned and when Manav stopped, Arnav just leaned over and kissed him on his arm.
"Awww, you are such a mean brother. He just wanted to kiss you"
"I didn't know that" Manav said and fair enough. Arnav is very very raw with his display of affection .

There is a deluge of "why's" from the boys and it is killing to say the least. Almost 90% of their sentences begin with why.
"Why does Snow White need a prince?"
"Why do you put that on your face?"
"Why do you want to be pretty?"
"Why can't I be a girl?"
"Why is it subzi? Why not subzi mandi?"
"Why did the rainbow disappear?"
"Why did you say why?"

Today I reminded Manav for the umpteenth time that when Mommy is on the phone he has to behave and not yell. I completed yet another difficult phone call and Manav explained
"Arnav pretended to be a ball and I had the baseball bat. So I hit him and he cried. I tried to stop him as you were on the phone, but he still cried."
He is now besotted with baseball and knows the baseball anthem "Take me to the ball game", courtesy Ms Foley.

When Arnav is angry he just crosses his arms and pouts. Sometimes he says
"I will not give you any jelly beans." or
"Just leave me alone"
Manav tries to intimidate you with his meanest remark. The other day he said
"I will not cook and feed you when you grow old"

Manav donned his office clothes and shoes and carried his laptop to "office" while Arnav managed with just a shirt over his shorts. I requested for a photo op and Arnav said
"Sure, you can" and posed for me
"I am very late. I cannot stop for pictures. Once I am back you can take some pictures" was Manav's reply
Then they spent considerable amount of time on their laptops till Manav had to come home for "tea". I finally convinced him to undress and "work-from-home" as he was sweating with those layers of clothing on.

Handsome Arnav posing

Manav is getting better at his alphabets though there is miles to go.