Boys!

A few days back I spent over an hour washing and scrubbing my sneakers. That was a momentous event considering it had been months since their last wash. As I was showing off their sparkling whiteness along came Hrit and very very purposefully stamped on them with his muck-laden school shoes and then grinned at me readying to scoot should I try to whack him. I settled for the loudest yell I could muster.

A few hours later, he had completely forgotten his misdeed while I was still bristling at the defiling of my shoes. He came to me and said, "Mama do you know what I want this time when I complete my ten stars?"
I've been giving the kids stars and crosses for good and bad behaviour for a long time now. It's a pretty effective way to get them to behave. They really look forward to the ten-star mark when they get a gift of their choice. Hrit counted his stars today and realised he'd got just two more to go before the promised gift.

"What?", asked I.
"I want that you never die," said he. Considering that his original demand was for a remote controlled car which he'd been hankering after for a long long time, it was quite a huge sacrifice.

Devil or angel? What do you say?
***********

I've been struggling to get the kids to sleep on their own with little success. As a first step to sleeping in separate rooms instead of lying down with them I have recently started sitting and putting them to sleep with a story or a song.
Yesterday by the time the kids were ready for bed I was still wrapping up dinner. I put them to bed and told them to try to sleep on their own while I finished up.

"I can't sleep alone," complained Naisha. Obviously Hrit's presence in the room doesn't count.
"I want a song," said Hrit
"Sing yourself to sleep. I'll be there in a minute," said I hurrying around the kitchen.

When I got to the bedroom Naisha was dutifully humming their regular bedtime song while Hrit was singing quietly to himself Main to Annie Annie Annie Annie ruk gaya... if you didn't get that, it's the Ainvayi Ainvayi song from Band Baja Barat.
No wonder he takes ages to fall asleep.

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