MinnieMum

So as soon as your kids turn 4 you can slowly see that their logical reasoning skills budding up.  Earlier they believed whatever you told them, as they grow big you are in for a nice surprise. So Saturday morning on waking up Daughter: "Mom do I have kindergarten today?" Me (teasing her): "Yes you do." Daughter: "No Mom teacher told yesterday while leaving, Have a nice weekend, So today is a "nice weekend!!" Well I couldn't deny that :) So with Christmas round the corner I had asked my daughter what she wanted from Santa. Daughter: " I want Mickey mouse skates, Doc Mcstuffins skates and Chota Bheem skates." Me: "Why do you want three pair of skates ? You can wear only one at a time" Daughter: "I want them because (pausing to  think), I want  to wear them in three seasons!!" Well  hadn't thought of this answer!! Well luckily she changed her wishlist later :)

All the parents have their own bag of tricks to manage their kids or make them do something. And as the kids grow up the old tricks go obsolete and you have to come up with new ones. And as they grow up you feel, Oh it was so easy when they were small!!  So to make my daughter wear something or eat something I used to tell her the object is crying.  If I  told her that the dress was crying, she would wear it or the fruit was crying because she is not eating it, then she would eat it. And she believed it for quite a long time.So the other day I was asking her to wear her shoes. Me - "Look the pink shoes are crying , they are saying "Pick me, Pick me."" Daughter- "Mom they are just shoes, they don't have a mouth and they cant talk. They are just to put on your feet!!!" Well the bubble burst,  and yes now  I have to think of a new trick.

You get a sneak preview to the imaginative world of kids when they narrate their fantasies.They can convert a mundane task to an exciting adventure. I guess it is more mundane to us rather than them, because for them they do is new and exciting. Wish we could change our perspective and unlearn whatever we know, so that every experience makes us delighted. So role playing is now one of my daughters favorite games. So whatever she says is "only pretend".She will take her small story book and charge at you opening and closing the pages of the book, which look like a monsters mouth. Daughter - "Mom look a monster, rarrh raarh raarh!!" Me - "Aaah take it away..." Daughter(reassuringly) - "Mom, its only pretend, its just a book." So we asked her to make pretend orange juice yesterday. Here was her recipe. Daughter - "Step 1, open the fridge and take out the oranges.Oh I don't have any oranges!!" We told her to get the oranges ...

When your kids start thinking logically , it becomes quite difficult answering their questions or denying their demands. It feels it was easy when they were small and believed whatever you said. So here go a few amusing conversations with my daughter. It was raining and my daughter was on a video call with her grandmother. Daughter - "Its raining here." Grandmother - "Ask the rain to come here too, its not raining here." Daughter (annoyingly)-" Rain doesn't have hands and feet, it cant sit in the air plane, so  I cant send it there." Well who can deny that!! -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I was ironing the clothes and my daughter wanted to use the iron. I told her only grownups can use that. Daughter- "Mom I am grown up." Me - "No you are 3." Daughter - "No mom I am a grown up, and I want it." Me - "You will b...

When kids start talking they create many new words. Even though you start correcting them, they are so consistent in making the same mistake, that finally you add those words to your vocabulary. So they first word made up by my daughter was "Beeya". She called a cat Beeya and even though she knew how a cat was called, she always called it Beeya. Once when she was two years old, we had been to an aircraft show. On coming home, Daughter - "I want an aircuttel" Me- "Whats is an aircuttel? Do you want an airplane? Daughter - "No aircuttel". The whole evening she was asking for an aircuttel, which finally ended up to mean helicopter. Had a hard time understanding that one.Thankfully she learnt the word helicopter and that word is long forgotten. The next funny word is the "Stapy stick".Any guesses to what that means. Well its "sticky tape" , and that's been added to our vocabulary. And since yesterday when she saw the ...

Its quite amusing to hear the kids narrate the incidents in their playschool. So here is today's conversation. Daughter - Today that boy pushed me and I fell down. Me - Did you cry? Daughter - No, I just called the teacher. Me - Then what did the boy do? Daughter - He laughed and called me "little". I shouted,  "I am not little, I am six." Then he said "ok". Me - When did you become six? You are still three. Daughter - No  I am six, because I eat more food and have become big.  Well that is the result of telling her eat food and you will grow big !

The way kids interpret meaning of words, while learning a language, is quite amusing. So my daughter was eating  smarties and she started to laugh. Me - "Why are you laughing?" Daughter - "Mom I got a joke." With the way she used the word joke, I was tempted to ask her the meaning of it. Me - "What is a joke?" Daughter - "Mom joke means to laugh. If anything falls down we laugh. My smarties fell down so I got a joke." Well I couldn't stop laughing at her joke.

You pay a heavy price for reasoning with your kids each time.They remember the reasons and throw it back to you at the right time. With the mercury rising to 36 degrees  here, its too hot to go out to the park until evening. My daughter wanted to go to the park. I showed her the clock and told her it was 3.00 pm now and  we will go out when it was 6.00 pm. She very excitedly told  me ,"Wait I will show you the time on the ipad". She took the ipad  and started the stopwatch application and asked me "Mom what time do you want?" Well there was no point in telling her the time I wanted. Me-"Its so hot outside, if we go out now your head will become hot." Daughter - "Mom I will wear a cap, cap covers the head, so it will not be hot." Me - "You will become dark if you go out in the sun." Daughter - "No mom I will put sunscreen." Well I had run out of any more excuses, and as a last resort I told her we ar...

Rain after a hot sunny day is such a relief. The fragrant smell of the mud when the earth cools down and the pleasant weather bring up childhood memories. The cloudy sky and the quiet, the quiet before the thunderstorm and then the torrential rain accompanied by the roaring thunder. The electricity would be gone and we used to huddle up in a blanket. Later on when it stopped raining we used to sail paper boats in the collected rainwater. So yesterday it rained here after a hot summer day. My daughter is scared of thunder, but after it stopped raining she wanted to go and play in the muddy puddles. So after many attempts of dissuading her from playing out she finally went to play. In the courtyard there was  a big muddy puddle created by the rainwater and she started walking and splashing happily in that.  Me - "Its dirty water don't play in that." My daughter splashing happily without notice and then she jumped in it splashing muddy water all over. Me (shouting) -...

When we don't know what a thing is called we simple say don't know. But what if you don't know how to say don't know!! Well too many "Don't knows"!! When kids are learning to speak they cant say "Don't know" and its fun what they say instead. When my daughter started speaking if you showed her something that she didn't know the name of, she would relate it to the nearest known object. So if i showed her the picture of a sailboat and asked what it was she would say triangle or blue. She would describe the shape or color of the object. She now knows how to say don't know but still calls objects with her own names. So one day while passing through a park there were kids playing badminton. Daughter - "Mom I want to play High-Five game." Me - "Which game?" Daughter (gesturing with her hands)- "High - Five and High five." Then I realized she was talking about badminton where we do a high five with the...

Imagine getting advice from your 3 and half year old, its funny and heartwarming at the same time. Till your kids were babies and toddlers you never got a response to your monologue, but beware whatever you say now they will make it a dialogue and a funny one at that. You will be in a hurry and maybe speaking to yourself at times and if your kid overhears it you will get astonishing replies. We were running to the bus stop and were going to miss the bus. Me - "Oh no we are late, we will miss the bus." Daughter - " Don't worry mom another bus will come, we will take that." The other day I was imitating my daughter cry. Me - "I want my mom." Daughter (thinking for a while) - "Mom your mom is far away, she is in the laptop and we cant go inside. I am there and daddy is there. We both are there for you mom." The laptop reference because she talks to her grandmother on  video chat. My daughter wanted to go to the playground that was ...

Kids can take role playing to the next level. If something catches their fancy they have to do it to the hilt. And however busy you are or in a hurry no amount of persuasion can make them change their mind. So this happened on our way to her kindergarten. Usually kids come on their scooters and small bicycles and there is a parking area for kids bicycles and scooters. So while walking to the kindergarten a 100  m before the entrance my daughter said that she wanted to walk all by herself. Then she put her hands in front and took a step forward and lifted her other leg backward. So another step and another back lift. For two minutes I didn't understand what she was doing Me - "Why are you walking like that". Daughter (coolly without looking at me) - "I am riding my scooter." Me - "We are getting late, you don't have a scooter, come lets run." Daughter - "No mom I am riding my scooter." So she rode her imaginary scooter for som...

One of my daughters favorite cartoons is "Peppa pig". Its a UK based series with Peppa as a central character. Peppa loves to jump up and down in muddy puddles, after all she is a pig. So from there my daughter caught on jumping in a muddy puddle. Thanks to concrete roads, and no pun intended here, her muddy puddles are only places where water gathers. When it rains she is happy to jump up and down on water puddles, irrespective of where they are. So while walking if she sees a puddle on the middle of the road, she wants to jump on it. So this happened last week in her kindergarten. There is a outdoor play area there where the kids play. When I went to pick her up from the kindergarten, she was covered in mud below the waist. Her overalls were really muddy and her teacher told that she had jumped in a muddy puddle. As it had rained there actually was a real muddy puddle in the play area.  Me - "Why did you jump in the mud?" Daughter (nonchalantly)- " I h...

You can never imagine what goes on in the mind of a kid. When they cannot speak, they absorb everything and when they learn to speak everything comes out. And after they are three the next they do is to  try out everything they see. You can never comprehend what may catch their fancy . So I was showing my daughter a picture book, a really small picture book teaching opposites. It was a picture book depicting pictures of 'small and big', 'happy and sad', 'empty and full' and lastly 'clean and dirty'. She was asking me details about each picture.She had seem it before many times. The picture depicting "clean" was a small girl just about to start breakfast. The picture depicting "dirty" was of the same girl with yogurt smeared on her face. Daughter - "Mom why is she dirty?" Me - "Because she has yogurt all over her face." The next day my daughter wanted to eat yogurt. She sat on her high chair and was eating y...

How do you explain a 3 year old the meaning of a 'No smoking' sign? It may seem quite irrelevant and you would really think hard if you had to explain it. This happened last week when I was travelling with my daughter by bus.This sign is displayed in the bus. I always show her the sign on sprays or things that should not be touched by kids, it is shown as a circle with a cross. And she calls it 'cross no'. So when she found a similar sign she asked me, Daughter - "What does that sign mean?" When you cannot answer kids, one best way is to ask them the same question. Me - "You tell me what does the sign mean?" She thought for a while. Daughter - "Hmm Hot brush.. cross no hot brush" Well definitely I wouldn't have been able to think of that. It saved me quite the trouble of explaining. But every time she sees the sign she keeps asking me Daughter - "Mom why is the brush hot?" Well any answers anyone?? ...

My daughter first noticed nail paint when she was a year old. She couldn't speak then but would go and touch the nails of whoever was wearing them with rapture. I never wore nail paint in front of her or around her. So she never had seen it applied . So when she was two and a half she got it applied to her nails by her cousins. On finishing applying on her hands she quickly showed her feet and said "Put it here too". So this happened last week. We had been to a friends house and there were many kids there. The eldest girl among them was applying nail paint. So all the girls made a beeline to have their nails painted, two 3 year olds and a 6 year old. So my daughter got it applied too. She was so happy and ran to her father to show her painted nails. Daughter - Showing her nails, "Daddy see, say wow." Dad - "Eeeks ! This is so ugly, why did you get your nails painted?" Daughter - "No daddy its pretty, say wow." Dad - " No its l...

The most repeated word nowadays that I must be hearing a zillion times all throughout the day is WHY?? So with every sentence I utter my daughter will utter a nonchalant WHY? How easy for her. Daughter - Mom I want to go out Me - No dear its dark outside. Daughter - Why? Me - Because the sun has set. Daughter - Why? Me - Because its tired. Daughter - Why?....... And so on and so forth the whys will go on. One day I was busy working Daughter - Mom come and play with me Me - No dear I am busy Daughter - Why Me - My hands are hurting Daughter - Why? Then I thought I should give her a dose of her own medicine Me - Because you hurt me, Why did you hurt me? Daughter - "Aww I am so sorry mom." Well no  explanations she ended it right there and I could'nt ask another why.