Reading

Like most parents of today, S and I are all for reading books out loud to BA. That I love reading makes it even more of a reason to try to foist the same habit upon my son. I can hardly wait for the day BA can start reading and enjoying books on his own.

The public library in our city has a nice collection of children's books and we usually pick up a few books for BA during every visit. They are all kiddie board books. Even then, the books are usually very colorful and have an interesting enough "storyline" that I genuinely enjoy reading them out to BA.

Then yesterday, with BA sitting attentively on my lap, I started reading out a book called "Hello Doctor". It was book about a bunch of animals waiting in a doctor's clinic to get checked out by the human doctor. The book started off well with the animals complaining about various ailments and the doctor making silly diagnoses for them.

Then, I noticed that the animals in the waiting room seemed to be disappearing one by one in the pictures without being diagnosed and assumed that maybe they had fled the clinic after overhearing his silly diagnoses. I continued reading.

A wolf went into the doctor's office. As the doc checked out the wolf's mouth, the wolf sucked the doctor right in and swallowed him whole. Whaaatt....

Then the wolf came out of the doc's office and with an evil grin, asked the next patient, a lamb, to come in. At this point, I was looking like this:

Then realization dawned that the other missing animals had not left the clinic but had apparently found new residences in the wolf's tummy :-O!

As I hastily shut the book, I was heartily happy that BA still cannot read or understand most of what is being read to him! Seriously, this was a book for toddlers? Which young kid will ever agree to go to a doctor again after reading this book? *I* had to make an effort to stop myself from getting creeped out!

Valuable lesson for the day: read every book before letting BA get his hands on it!

-------
Cat pic from http://www.kulfoto.com/cat-pictures/14743/shocked-cat . When did I become a cat-pic posting person!?!

2014

Happy New Year to the one person who is still following my blog (Hi, Mum!). 2013 flew by in a flash. I would have had a tough time believing that an entire year has gone by if I did not have BA's baby pics to look back to. I keep wondering how the tiny baby has grown into a toddler so soon. Who would have thought that nostalgia and reminiscing would start this early!

~~~~~~~~~

A few random thoughts:

1. I only recently noticed that while song lyrics in Tamil usually refer to rain in a positive way and to the sun in a negative way, English song lyrics are the exact opposite. I guess this is understandable considering the climate of the places these songs are usually written it. I am just surprised that it has taken me this long to notice this!

2. From childhood it is drummed into our heads that it is what it is inside that counts, not exterior beauty. The other day I was thinking about how a person's personality is also decided by his/her genes to some extent just as his/her exterior appearance. So why is having a good personality touted as a super great virtue when inherited genes probably played a part in that as well?

3. In a situation which requires an apology, the apology works best if it is offered without an added supposed-to-be-mitigating excuse. Usually, a no-strings-attached apology quickly defuses the situation and then the hurt party becomes more willing to listen and to forgive. Yes, it is tough for the apologizer to admit culpability but it usually works out great for everyone eventually.

4. Life is too short to read crappy books. I have finally given up on my "Have to finish reading any book I start reading" rule.

5. I really like ice-cream cakes or rather, cake with ice cream. 

~~~~~~~~~

I hope to write more in 2014 - let's see how that goes!