Drama Queen - A photoblog

Loving it..

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Background

Just realized that you can put your kids on the TV stand or a stool and use the Samsung LCD TV as the perfect background for portrait photos!!

Why didn't I think of this before?

ps. if you angle it, somehow the TV surface doesn't bounce the flash.

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Trying to impress grandmas and getting carried away..

Jr. and the little one both get a "ragam quiz" every night at bedtime. They can guess ~20 ragams from either a song I hum, the aarohanam-avarohanam or phrases or swarams I hum or sing.

Sometimes just play from iPhone for the quiz(usually GNB, MS, MLV, TN Seshagopalan, Ariyakudi from the music collection or the latest Sudha Raghunathan, Sanjay Subrahmanyam, Priya Sisters, Ranjani-Gayathri straight from Youtube favorites).

They guess reasonably well, considering they have been at this for two three months already.

Every now and then, they pick a favorite and listen to the whole song till they memorize it and imitate it. While San thinks this is border line blasphemy, I encourage it. After all every kid is not going to be a super singer and the whole idea is to imitate and learn and this is my way of spending some quality time with them and having some fun.

The most important thing in learning, is learning how to learn! (if that has not been copyrighted, I am doing it right now)

So, here are the little Narayanan girls, doing their version of Vinayaka. They thought this was a rehearsal and did not know that the camcorder was on.

Don't know if the paati's will be pleased, what with the little one's novel concept of "variable thAlam" where she suddenly goes into a vigorous hand slapping to give herself some more energy to sing and Jr.'s attempts to sustain notes to try and get some semblance of a steady timing.

If they do improve over the years with lots of practice and training, they might look back at this and go "god, we have come a long way".. and if their interest in music dies out after some time, they might still look at this and go "we did try, didn't we"..

Getting these two to sit next to each other and sing in unison was in itself a workout for Daddy Narayanan. If they happen to sing this in tune and tempo eventually, will post that video as well...

For now the girls are a "work in progress"!

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Responsible child

LO : Daddy, we should not waste money, right?

Me : Yes. I keep telling you two that. Why are you asking me now? (my spider sense was tingling after seeing that sincerely serious look on the little ones face!)

LO : Why don't I just stay home? You and Amma keep saying "we spend soooo much money to send you to school!". If I don't go to school you can save money, right?

Me : !!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Kids these days are plain dangerous. Endha puththula endha paambu irukkummnu yaarukkum theriyaadhu! (which snake lives in which hole, no one knows - is the literal translation.. but in this context it means, you cannot guess what a person is capable of by their size or looks.. ie., there is more to it than meets the eye!)

Note to self: Be very very careful with the little one, when she grows up!

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Explaining the economy

How does one explain the economy to a four year old?

We grew up in a poor household and as kids our understanding of the economy was simply:

"There are people with a lot more money than us we have to interact with every day. We are not rich. But it is okay. All our relatives and friends love us and we have no dearth of fun"

Over time we kind of learned (we weren't necessarily taught openly) to understand what our parents could provide for us as a default, what was pushing them to their limit, what was an extravagance for the household, etc. and would not bother to ask them for things that they might want to give us but cannot. The few times we did, we did with a lot of regret knowing the pain it would cause them.

The setting for the little one, is a lot different from the setting for me. Even Jr. understands things to an extent because we were going through a tough time when she was four, when the little one was just born and were moving from place to place and living in one room for almost 6 months.

The little one always "needs" things and "wants" things. She always compares with her sister or friends and is very temperamental, but she is also a very smart kid.

Earlier today, I gave her the usual speech about work, money, job, jobless people, expense, buying, spending, responsibility, etc. etc.

She listened to it patiently as though she cared and still wanted to get new shoes because her shoes are too tight, which is typical of four year olds because they change shoe sizes every 6 months! (and she IS going to get a new shoe).

Told her that she should listen to me and get the shoes Daddy picks for her.

She promptly ran away from me, looked at her mom and goes

"don't ask appa to buy me a shoe for 10 dollars okay.. just ask him to buy me a shoe that is one dollar!"

We both burst out laughing.

If only it was that simple!

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