Mumma has work!

My dearest Sid,

Over the last few months, we have been having conversations similar to the following:

Sid: Mumma, let's play hide and seek.
Me: Mumma has to cook.

Sid: Mumma, let's go to the play area.
Me: Mumma has an evening call, dear.

Sid: Mumma, let's play badminton.
Me: Mumma has a huge pending laundry, can you wait for a few minutes?

Sid: Mumma, I don't want to go to school today. At least, no day care?
Me: Mumma has to go to office today.

The list goes on...

And finally, when I somehow manage to get some time off from work and come and sit with you, your delighted eyes sparkle and you say this with enthusiasm:
Ammakyu ippum oru jooliyum illa? (Mumma has no work now?)

Yes, I confess, you have been receiving this reply a lot --- "Mumma has work!" I know that and I am so sorry for that. It's been almost 3 months now that we (both of us) are managing with day care, mumma's increased workload, and (especially) without ammamma. You have amazingly grown up to realize the need of the hour and let me do all the chores peacefully... Well, most of the times.

This letter is to mark my gratitude to your understanding and patience. I realize how much you enjoy my company. I do too. I can spend the whole day just snuggling with you. I am sure we are going to exchange our roles when you grow up. You will get busy with your daily life and you might not get enough time to spend with your mom. At that time, just remember that "I understand".

Yours ever loving,
Amma

Sid and the Indian cinema

Like “both” his parents, Sid loves cinema. That’s quite apparent by now. And, like his dad, he loves to watch the already-watched movies even more. If I start writing about those kids’ cartoon movies (Manjaadi, Minnaminni, Poopi) and songs that I gather from various sources, I am sure I would exceed the word count a blog can have. So, I am sticking to the Indian Bollywood, Mollywood, and etc-wood movies now. 

Here’s listing a few items for Sid to cherish when he grows up. His first-hand cinema experience in my words.

• Bangalore days (Malayalam)
  This was Sid’s first movie in a cinema theater. Gopalan Grand Mall, Bangalore. Second-show. 22nd June, 2014, Sunday. He must have been around 2 and a half years old then. The movie started and Sid seemed so determined to understand the story. He understood that it was “kalyanam” (wedding) setup and simply loved the song “Tantunanena”. The overall experience was indeed better than I anticipated. I only missed one scene when he wanted to pee. And since it was a second-show, he slept off for the last quarter of the movie.
  After-effect: We have played the “Tantunanena” song a 100 times, we have heard him sing this song 150 times, and we have danced on this song with him 200 times.
  
• I (Tamil)
  This was his second movie in a cinema theater. And the experience was worse than I expected. Sid doesn’t like violence, you see. He was so irritated with all those stunts. His frequent pee trips were followed by thirsts, and those were followed by begging mumma to go outside the theater. All that he liked in the movie was the virus-infected-Vikram, which he called as the monster.
  After effect: Unnikyu adi-pidi koodunna padhangal ishtamalla. (Sid doesn’t like violent movies.)
• Ohm Shanti Oshana (Om shanti vaishana) and Vellimoonga
  We had watched these movies in our laptop along with Sid. He loves the opening and closing songs so much that he watches the first quarter and the last quarter of the movie just in anticipation of these songs.
  After effect: He would go do his work after watching his favorite songs and we end up watching the entire movie ourselves.
• Mr. India movie
  I caught this movie running on one of the Hindi channels on a Sunday morning and since it is my favorite movie, I narrated the story to Sid (He doesn’t understand Hindi as of now). He simply loved the kids’ battalion, Arun bhaiya, and of course the disappearing-and-re-appearing Mr. India.
  After effect: I was in the toilet and he was searching for me all around the house. When he saw me finally, he said, “I thought Mumma became Mr. India.”
• Creature
  Yes, my cute little innocent Sid simply loves this horrible-looking man-eating monster called Bhramha-rakshas in the movie “Creature.” He plays this movie in our laptop all by himself now; and requests me to hop on to the scenes in which this creepy creature comes on man hunt. Hopefully, by this I am shedding off his horror fears.
  After effect: All of a sudden, he roars and jumps on to our neck or hand or whatever part is easily accessible and bites off the skin pretending he is sucking blood. I know, I should be blamed for this one.

I would end this list here, although it’s not complete. More next time.

Fun facts about animals

Pre-schoolers are usually animal-lovers. My 3-year old Sid is no exception. And, these curious growing minds do ask some valid questions. I was just browsing answers for some of his questions when I stumbled upon some really cool facts about animals that I never knew. It is always good to increase our knowledge (and share some). I am not going to overload all this information on to Sid all at once; perhaps next time my Sid is fond of an animal, I have something interesting to tell him about it.

Elephants - How can I not start with my baby’s fondest animal! 

• Elephants come third in the list of world’s smartest animals list. The list goes like this: chimpanzees, dolphins, elephants, cephalopods and crows. Can you imagine? Crow?
• Elephants can’t survive for more than 24 hours without drinking water. So they always stay close to some water-source. They can smell water from a distance of 4.5 km.
• Elephants cannot jump. It seems they are the only animals who can’t jump.

Giraffes

• It has the highest BP of all the animals.
• A giraffe can feed for up to 16 hours in a day. And it can eat up to 60 kg of leaves daily. And they are still so slim.
• They are the only animals born with horns. Those are not exactly horn but knoby bones on their forehead.
• They need to drink water only once in a few days. Most of the water comes from the food they eat. Such a contrast to the elephants.
• Mommy giraffes deliver their babies while standing (like most of the animals). But imagine the baby falling down from such a great height. Baby giraffes can stand within half an hour and after only 10 hours can actually run alongside their family.
• Giraffes have black tongue. A giraffe's tongue is so long that it can clean its ears with it. (Yuck!) It is normally 21-inch long!
• It is one of the quietest animal. A giraffe does not have any vocal chord to make any kind of sound! That’s why, a horse neighs, a donkey brays, but a giraffe only chews food. ;). Woodpeckers too don’t have vocal chords. So, it’s their beaks hitting the wood that makes the tick-tick-tick-tick sound.

Like it? Some more interesting stuff:

• Male sea-horses get pregnant. Awesome!
• An octopus has 3 hearts. And an earthworm has 5 hearts. So, ideally they must be very very romantic, right? ;)
• Sharks have no bones. A shark's skeleton is made up of cartilage (a tough elastic tissue). No wonder we can chew those too. :P They are the healthiest of the creatures as they are immune to almost all the known diseases.
• A blue whale's tongue weighs more than an elephant.
• A rhino's horn is not attached to its skull. It is compacted mass of hairs that continues to grow throughout the animal's lifetime! Quite a mass of hair, I must say.
• A tarantula spider can survive without food for more than two years!
• Honeybees never sleep. No wonder, the saying goes, as busy as a bee.
• Ostrich, the biggest living bird on earth, which lays the biggest egg --- its eye is bigger than its brain. And, it has two toes in each feet. Quite a runner it is.
• Mosquitoes love to bite people who have just eaten banana or have smelly feet. Phew. They are most attracted to the color blue. It is the female mosquitoes who bite us. Also, mosquito-repellants do not actually repel mosquitoes. They just block the mosquito’s sensor so they don’t know a human is ready nearby to be sucked. And guess what, it has 47 teeth.
• Ants stretch and yawn when they wake up in the morning. That’ll be so cute to watch.
• House-flies do not grow. They are born full size. I want to see their eggs. But, it lives only for 14 days.
• Fish don't feel pain! Even if they are hooked or fought on. I wonder if it’s true.
• Bulls are color-blind. What the hell, where’s the red-myth gone?
• Dogs always have a wet nose that helps them smell like a detective. Its nose-prints are as unique as our finger-prints. So, we now know how to get a dog’s signature.
• Cats spend 30% of their waking hours grooming themselves. And you blame girls? Huh!
• Tigers can see very well in the dark. Tigers' legs are very powerful that they can stand still even after they die. They are excellent swimmers too. Not after death, though.
• A group of frogs is called an army. A group of kangaroos is called a mob. A group of crows is called a murder. A group of owls is called a parliament. Ha ha ha.
• A humming bird is the lightest and smallest bird. A coin is heavier than a humming bird. I wonder which coin.
• A snail can sleep for three years, at a stretch. The today’s kumbhkaran.
• A butterfly was originally called a flutterby. They smell with their feet.
• A rat can survive longer than a camel without water.
• Squirrels accidentally plant millions of trees, as they bury their nuts and forget where they are. That’s so cute.
• A star fish doesn’t have a brain.
• Spiders have transparent blood.
• Owls cannot swivel their eyes. Instead they move their heads completely around to see straight behind them. And chameleons can move their eyes in different directions simultaneously.

Turned out to be a lengthy list, but I didn’t want to miss any of them. Hope you are feeling enlightened. Hehe. Go ahead, startle your kids.  

Source: http://www.makemegenius.com/cool-facts/animals-birds-zoology--interesting-facts