One of the biggest payoffs for all the toiling, sacrifice and labor (pun intended!) involved in giving birth to and raising a child is some of the insightful, unwittingly witty, unassumingly humorous remarks they make,their exclamations. And these verbal pearls drop down at the most unexpected of moments. Amidst some really chaotic times, in hair splitting moments of stress - induced and/or enhanced by these VIPs themselves! It's not so much their mispronunciations and baby babble, but their take, their view and their 2 cents on what they see and perceive.
Shree usually, in response to 'what is your name', says ' She or Shwee'. Prod her with 'what's your full name' and she goes - She-Ao (for Shree Rao).
The other day, while browsing through Cost Plus, a local store here that sells kitchen and home decoration products from different countries, we spotted a small zebra cloth toy. I pointed to it and aksed her what animal it was. She said ' Zebrao', I couldn't contain my laughter. Last week, after a full day of sightseeing in Old Montreal and a whole lot of walking through the various streets and inside the Botanical Gardens, we sat down on a bench, exhausted, waiting for the last toy train ride of the day. We knew she'd like it and didn't want to miss it. There, we saw many crows on a nearby grass patch, cawing. Shree's dad asked her , "what does the crow say?". We expected her to just come back with the "caw caw" sound of the crow. She replied " paati paati please vada thaa" and we both looked at each other and burst out laughing!
Couldn't resist adding this - Whenever I am coaxing Shree to try some new food item - be it a fruit or something cooked at home and she's unwilling, turning her face away, I always say "just a taste" to make her try a really small amount. Yesterday, Shree and I were playing with some paints. After a while, I told her that was enough and that we should get up and wash our hands. Shree goes, " Amma, taste, taste!" - it took me a couple of seconds to realize that she wanted a tiny amount of paint and was using 'taste' to mean - 'just a little bit' and not to actually lick it!!!
