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Entries in conversations (20)

Sunday
Jul262015

Appropriate conversations

The kids are back in the house. Our in-laws are also here. We have a full house and it feels great! 

We are back into funny conversations.

Kids are watching something on the TV from Netflix online. Suddenly Jr. (who let me remind you is not yet 13) gets the remote and starts forwarding something.

Me: Why are you forwarding it. Let me watch it.

Jr.: Appa, don't think it is appropriate to watch. that is why I am forwarding it

Little one (not yet 10) chimes in: Yes appa. that part she is forwarding is not appropriate

Me : !!!!! Appropriate for who? Me? or You? and if you know it is not appropriate, that means you have already watched it! what is going on here?

They both had a sheepish grin and were in a rush to talk over each other to offer an explanation. Apparently some boy kisses a girl in those forwarded minutes of "Good luck Charlie". Apparently, they fast forwarded it the first time they watched it also! Finally... "appa"-rently, they were more embarrased to watching me, watch it than they were, during the previous time they saw the episode.

Wasn't exactly sure if I should be happy or mad or sad for the fact that

- they are watching this

- they think the age appropriateness is for ME

- or for the fact they still had some respect for me that they would not watch it in front of me. 

Time will tell. 

Sunday
Jun212015

Taking sides at a young age

Given my iPhone 5S is nearing its 2 year contract, I can get an upgrade to the 6 or 7 or whatever comes by November. 

Jr. already has got her own 5S and her iPhone 4S is now a hand me down to the little one. I have since been getting an earfull on how the 4S is useless! It has no memory. It has a poor battery life and keeps losing charge. It is slow and there is a long list of complaints. 

Also the little one is hoping that I get the new phone and she automatically gets my current phone as a hand me down... with a phone number. She now has a busy calendar and friends to call on play dates.. which will soon be called "hangouts"

Another thing I learned is that when a girl goes from elementary school to middle school and does the same thing with the same friends in the same houses, it still goes by a different name. It is not a Playdate anymore. It is a "hangout". 

Life was simpler when I was a kid. Same cricket bat, same electric box used as stumps, same bunch of boys.. same rules for what gets called a 4,6 or out. None of this playdate vs. hangout stuff. We didn't even have a name for when we all got together and played cricket or table tennis or went to the beach on our bicycles.

Given all the playdates and possible future hangouts, the little one made us wander to the phone section in target to "check out" the phone deals. Of course she points to a 5S and goes "it is 40$ per month ONLY appa!" 

If ONLY she knew what that ONLY meant for a two year contract! That is when San takes her to the wall and goes "why dont you pick one of these phones. they are larger, have more memory and come with cheaper plans"

The little one wanders through the display and comes back to us and goes 

"that wall is ENTIRELY full of Android crap!" 

I burst out laughing but looked the other way.

Jr. and San were shocked by the way she said it with all that frustration.

Given San uses a Xiaomi Android phone, not sure how she took it.

Looks like we have an "i-ddict" in the house. They got this one young.. 

Now we wait for November. 

Saturday
Jun132015

You want the truth?

Was driving the kids back after we went to get some frozen yogurt and the radio was on.

An ad started with something along the lines of  "Walgreens would like to ask you a question. if you have to go buy groceries, but just a few groceries and you have to shop for other things, where would you go?"

Both the girls in the back seat were seriously digging into the yogurt and subconsciously they say "Target"

I started laughing out loud.

They asked me why I was laughing and I said "did you guys even listen to that? it was an Ad. For Walgreens! It started with Walgreens would like to ask.. "

Pat comes the reply from Jr. 

"hey, if you don't like to hear the answer to the question, don't ask it!" 

Walgreens has some soul searching to do. 

Sunday
May172015

Responsibility 101

Jr. went to Great America for a day to perform as part of her school band. They were done by 11AM and the rest of the day was play time till the school bus dropped them back at 7:30 PM. She "termited" us (kept pressuring us till we gave in) to pay 60 dollars for this outing! 

Around noon, something falls into her eye. She tries cleaning it with water and no luck. Given a choice between calling us ASAP and telling us she has something in her eye, or continuing to go on rides with her classmates and attempting 6 more washing eye routines all with no success, she choose the latter. 

To top things off, she develops light sensitivity and to solve that problem, buys herself a dark 5$ sunglass of poor quality that makes it worse if anything. When she stepped down from that school bus all teary eyed and in dark sunglasses, our first thought was "did someone abuse our daughter?". Once we got the full story and saw how bad her eye was, we knew how the rest of the evening was going to go..

Spent the rest of our evening in ER, mostly waiting. Finally when our turn came, they put a numbing drops into her eye, put a dye in there, looked at it under a powerful scope, found the thing under her eyelid and pulled it out. By the time though, the damage was done and the white of her eye was bloodied. 

So we came home with antibiotic ointments and a moping Jr. 

This morning I was talking to my mother on the phone and told her about the experience while Jr. was listening in. Then I mentioned that "if she had called us as soon as it happened we could have solved this earlier, with a lot less drama and for 20$ copay instead of 250$ emergency visit". 

Jr. was upset over this. She tells me "it is my eyes we are talking about! you are upset over 250$ vs. 20$?"

That kind of pushed me over the edge because I don't think she understands how difficult it is to make 250$ vs. 20$.  The fact that she is my number one concern doesn't change. The fact that I bring this up is to worry about a daughter who doesn't undertand the value of money. 

Then she came up with "it is not like you didn't have accidents when you were my age! Paati(grandma) told me all the stories about how you got hurt so many times doing stupid things!".. I muttered something to the effect of "good that she doesn't have a FB account or I will not be able to have any conversation with my kids"

True. True. Very true. I almost ruined our Poonal ceremony by falling off a parapet wall and getting stitches on the back of my head and that is just at the top of a long list of things. To my credit, I promptly told my parents or grand parents or any nearby relative of my stupidity, so they could take timely action!

It is not easy to have Responsibility 101 conversations with kids, given they know everything already! Wonder why a kid smart enough to argue with me on technicalities is not making the right choice when it concerns her own eye?!

The good news is that she is doing fine now and her eyes have cleared out. Good enough to go to school tomorrow. I am also happy  that this happened while I was in town or it would have been very difficult for San to handle on her own!

For my part, I did apologize to Jr. if I sounded like the money was more important than her eyes. For her part, she has promised to be more responsible and call us ASAP when it comes to any medical emergencies! 

Lets see how the promises go..

Saturday
Mar142015

Conversations continue 

Parents are in the kitchen while Jr. has just started eating breakfast on the couch. The little one wanders in to the living room with her blankie and announces "Daddy, your favorite person in the world is now awake!". Given the way she said it in a cute voice, I was as usual going to come in and give her a big hug. 

So I walk from the kitchen with a tea glass in hand. 

Jr. gives me a glare and a mean look and says "I knew it. See, she declares she is your favorite person and what do you do? come out with a smile?"

It has been an ordeal the last few weeks to literally prove to them that they are both loved the same. While Jr. is not trying to make a point, the little one has really been pushing it. 

Then I read out a post from my SIL that mentioned how their older daughter same down to breakfast and said she was feeling sad. When asked why, she had mentioned it was because her baby sister was sick.

The kids heard it and the responses were :

LO : Ooooh.. that is soo sweet! 

Jr. : She is making a terrible mistake. She just doesn't know it yet. She will regret it as the younger sister will turn into her worst horror! I know.. from experience!

The little one ignored it matter of factly like a fast ball outside the off stump, while the parents looked at each other and went "where did we go wrong?"

A few hours later there is a fight of sorts because Jr. has to go for some practice and she does not want the little one tagging along. 

Jr. : No. She is not coming. Why does she come to all my stuff but when I try to come with you for any of her stuff she protests?

LO: that is not true

Jr. : I am not talking to you. I am talking to Amma

LO : but you are talking about ME! 

Jr. goes on to ignore her and the little one shouts 

"I can go where I want to you know.. I have rights. This is America. I am not in India!"

Me and San burst out laughing. 

Me : Where do you get that crap from? You can go anywhere you want in India also. It is a free country. 

San starts counting the total number of weeks she has spent in India as a conscious person within two hands and we go "you have not been there much! why are you saying that?"

She said "Sorry! I said it as a funny thing." 

After much prodding and digging around it hours later figured out that what she wanted to say was this is free country. . but to emphasize she had to pick an opposite corner and she picked the only other country that comes to her mind automatically.  The logic of "if I am good, everything else is bad.. and if I have to pick an example of everything else, I go with my second favorite" made my head spin.

Trust me, these are kids that we work hard to have a world awareness. Something we find most kids growing up in the US to be lacking. In the last twenty years if there is one thing that I find surprisingly waning is the abiilty of Americans we meet daily to empathize with things that happen in other parts of the world. Blame it on the school system here, the political system or the media changing over time, but it is there.

It is funny that as kids we knew every US state capital as part of Georgraphy but many our friends here in grad school could not put even the four Indian metros on a map. Never figured out why that was? 

When all this was going through my head, was reminded of another recent conversation few weeks ago. Was driving the kids back from a saturday afternoon class when we were talking about their school.

Jr. : I think we should stop social studies as a subject in school

LO : I agree!

Me : why? you don't want to know what goes on in other parts of the world? 

Jr. and LO (at same time) : That is NOT what they teach in social studies.

Me : then what DO they teach?

Jr. : Things that have already happened before. Who killed who and who killed who back and stuff like that. Why do we need to know that. We only need to learn things that will help in the future. We dont need to know who we are supposed to like and not like! that does not help people to become one and work together

LO : I agree with her appa. What happened has already happened. we do not need to know people have been fighting all the time. 

They both had no problem with Georgraphy! They had a point. If our kids have a futuristic outlook and they want everyone in this world to get along, they see no point in all these dark reminders of the past! 

Maybe we should stop teaching history for a few decades in schools and see if conflicts across the world simmer down or subside.

Wouldn't it be wonderful if we could do an experiment like that in our lifetime?

Our kids constantly show us how their thought process is so different from ours, on a daily basis. It is good to watch and learn!