Bits and Pieces

The mite has found a captive audience in Baba, he realised soon enough that Dadan cannot move about freely and occupies specific chairs and other seats at specific times. Baba embodies the discipline of the army. In the morning he is up by 6 and waits patiently on the bed till it is time for his eye drops at 7 when he wakes Ma up. Thereafter he can be found on our balcony reading the newspaper. Then after breakfast he is in the balcony and then he sits inside before lunch. That is when the mite tells him stories and sings songs for him and shows him his handiwork. Yesterday the mite came to me displeasure writ large on his face- " Dadan ta shuye gechhe." (Dadan is asleep, in our Hindi-bengali lingo, as it a direct translation of "Dadan sso gaye" in Bengali we would say 'ghumiye porechhe' for sleep and 'shuye aachhe' for lying down). Clearly he did not take it sportingly when Baba fell asleep in the middle of his narration of a story!The mite got over it as he found me and showed me how Dadan was sleeping with his head bent and then went on to feed me imaginary food which he has cooked.
Ma is helping my daughter with her homework, which is a relief for me and for her too because I have very little patience with her. She is very slow and not steady either. I have always had trouble getting her to do her studies. Even the slightest bit of effort from her gets good results as she is intelligent but even that is too much of an effort for her. She is a bit spoilt I guess, for she has been an only child for long always having four adults at her beck and call. However now I have put my foot down. Actually I had put my foot down long back but only now there are some positive results coming off it. Till last year I was packing her bag! She would find some excuse or other to dodge this chore (she is in class III now and we used to pack our bags from classI). She still does not wear her own uniform, she does not dry herself after her bath, she does not comb her hair, she never puts her play things away without a short skirmish and sometimes a shouting. In short she is quite impossible. But there is hope still, atleast I hope so, before she reaches her teens.
The mite is ready for school for he is not content hovering around the house anymore. He has become friendlier and more outgoing. I have visited a play school near our house and am thinking of putting him there. We are trying to get him mentally prepared for the change in his status, from a stay at home toddler to a school going boy.