Category: Growing Up

Dandiya day at school….. she wakes up at 6 (instead of us having to pull her out of bed at 7:15), practices walking in that dress and falls flat a few times (all the girls in my  ouse are totally unladylike when it comes to dressing up)….,

our Gurkha in shorts runs away to chase a couple of pigeons and almost

lands face first into a muddy puddle, finally we get out and at the first signal realize we forgot to bring the dandiya sticks….. make a u-turn further ahead and buy a new pair at a shop that was luckily open, at the school I nearly run over this over enthusiastic mom who was trying to walk through our car while dropping off her kids…… fun mornings

so Ria comes up to me along with two of her friends and says “this boy hit her with a gun”….. (that’s what we’ve tried to teach her…. do not settle scores on your own let an elder know) the girls corroborated her story….. me being the “bad” parent that I am tell her “ok you go and hit him back” (guess I was fed up of the common refrain “girls are so sweet”)….. and that started the biggest fight back in history… these three girls chased the poor chap and a couple of his cronies all over the building and beat him up when they caught hold of him (they walk/run with me every evening no gun-toting 5year old bum can outrun them that’s for sure)…… finally he went and hid behind his mom who asks me “kya hua kya hua” to which I cheekily thought of saying “nyaaay…. abhi sambhaal apne puttar ki ijjat ko”…. but I just smiled said “kuch nahin bachche hain hua hoga kuch to” and I carried on with my bunch of tough girls on our 3km walk/run….. today we did 3.57K …. bring it on!!! (I am such a bad dad)

Ria is super excited about my upcoming birthday(I have traditionally been depressed around my birthdays but then this kid wont have any of that)…. she has been planning for almost a month now…. today she’s taken sweets for the kids at school even though we told her it’s not allowed says “I’ll tell maam that it’s my pappys birthday she’ll not say anything” (yeah not to you kiddo)…. so while driving to school today I tell her about who all have a birthday in the same week…. by the time we reached school she was almost knocked out cold planning all the gifts she needs to start couriering from next year onwards (I got her started on that part)…. we counted 23 people that we’re good friends with or related to who have a birthday in September…. 23 and counting…. September is one loaded month….

“Mamma, we shouldn’t talk to strangers”…. “right”…”but then how do we make friends? See Saloni is my best friend but how did she become my friend?”…. “well you live in the same building you met her and liked her so you two became friends”…. “yes but before that she was a stranger so we should talk to strangers, how else would we make friends?”…. ….and she is not yet 5