Conversations..

Conversation with Pari this morning:
Pari : Mere papa kahaan hain? (Where is my Papa?)
Moi : Papa bathroom me hain. (Papa is in the bathroom.)
P: Papa bathroom me kya kar rahe hain? (What is Papa doing in the bathroom?)
M: Papa nai-nai kar rahe hain. (Papa is taking a bath.)
P: Kaun nai-nai kar raha hai? (Who is taking a bath?)
M: Papa nai-nai kar rahe hain. (Papa is taking a bath.)
P: Kiske papa nai-nai kar rahe hain? (Whose Papa is taking a bath?)

Aaargh.. kill me now! I so pity stay at home moms. What is with these kids asking useless questions that they already know the answers for, one after the other in the KBC fashion with only more questions for reward. To be fair, she does ask other questions too, probably reasonable for a child but they get my goat. Sample these -

1. Where is Paltu's mumma?
2. Where is that man going? (It can be any random person on the street.)
3. What is Golu doing at this time? (Golu is a friend's daughter.)
4. When will Lucy go to school? (Lucy is a girl teddy bear, if you can imagine that!)
5. What does Papa do in the office? (Hehehe... that was easy... I replied 'nothing'!! But then there were followup questions, sigh!)

And so on and so forth.. and her montessori Principal says, we should not discourage children from asking questions. I remember Pari asking the Principal, 'where are the children?', when we went to collect her progress report, and the Principal taking pains to explain it to her. But honestly, despite trying really hard, I sometimes lose patience with her never ending questions. At the same time, I have a strong feeling that it is only a few years before we start asking questions that Pari would find senseless and unworthy of her time!!

Excluding questions, conversations with Pari are growing increasingly interesting these days. There are so many that I wish to put down here, just to preserve them for eternity. I'll put the most recent one here, before laziness seeps in and I forget it. This one was last Sunday.

Pari: What is this mumma?
Moi: A cockroach.
P: ye mar gaya hai?
M: yes(wondering if she really knows 'marna')
P: Papa ne ise 'maraa' diya hai?
M: Hmm..
P: You don't worry mumma. I will tell the cockroach. Cockroach, you don't bite my mumma. Tum 'already' mar chuke ho!

The last sentence really cracked me up, specially the use of 'already'. Post this, we went out to get some groceries. By the time we came back, the cockroach had somehow managed to turn over to be back on its legs, and started running just as we turned in the key. Pari immediately climbed on the bed, and started screaming.

P: Mumma, cockroach is running.
M: Wait, I'll get Hit(pesticide, sprayed some of it on the poor thing till it died)
P: Mumma, tumne ise 'maraa' diya?
M: Yes.
P: (Climbing down the bed) You don't worry mumma.. I will tell the cockroach. Cockroach, you don't bite my mumma, tum 'phir se' mar chuke ho!

Thank you my child.. I really need protection against dead cockroaches!