Little Girl And Dog Acrobatics

 India Today: Little girl and her pet doggo perform stunts together. Viral video has 2 million views.

Disciplined Child

 NDTV: Watch: Toddler Takes Airport Security's Nod Before Saying Goodbye To Aunt.

Her Story To Tell

 https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2021/09/19/carolyn-hax-mom-affairs-divorce-tell-adult-children/

Autism In Babies / Children / Kids

Neuroscience News: Early behavioral marker for autism identified.

MS Dhoni With Baby Daughter

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oZTLI4c8S34&feature=youtu.be

Toddler Development

https://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/focussing-on-the-critical-years-of-a-childs-life/article28762478.ece

Dont Like Being Cooked

A friend sent me this video of a cute girl being interviewed. I am fairly sure a girl  of that age won't be able to talk the way she does in the video and not have such a matured voice and vocabulary. Seems like the video was shot after multiple takes.. Doesn't look authentic but the girl issss cute.

When A Goodbye Is So Nice

I was sitting in the park when I saw a small girl walking towards me accompanied by her doting parents and grandma. 

She was wearing those squeaking shoes and she was walking with her chest leaning forward without much of a control with either her speed or direction. 

She must have been about 1.5 years old. As she came near me she smiled and waved at me and turned right and left with her entourage. I got engrossed in what I was doing. A few minutes later, i heard someone say bye to me. I looked up.  It was the same toddler walking past me as she was leaving the park and waving to me with a smile. 

I smiled and waved bye to her.  Are toddlers generally capable of smiling and waving to complete strangers? How beautiful a person she would turn out to be as an adult...

Feeding Babies

I read about feeding babies offline (http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/mumbai/Mom-at-work-most-kids-feed-on-stored-breast-milk/articleshow/8010653.cms) today.

This is probably better than feeding the babies milk made from milk powder while not as good as feeding them directly.

With increasing need for money and for women to go and earn, some basic things in life are getting diluted.

Hmmm.

Recipe For A Happy Family

I read this post (http://in.lifestyle.yahoo.com/relationships/perfect-combination-happy-family-article-ilgg.html) on what constitutes a happy family. Specifically this post is about the number and gender of children that constitutes a happy family. The data is based on families having more than one child - for some reason single child and childless families have been excluded from the study.

I wonder though how happiness was defined. Did they ask the respondent "Are you happy? Or "Rate your happiness in a scale of 1-5"?

Based on the survey, apparently a 2 daughter family is the happiest. 

Interesting.

Additional reading: http://vbala99.blogspot.com/2010/11/politicially-incorrect-truths-and.html

World Cup Cricket Champion

http://www.thehindu.com/news/article1594925.ece?homepage=true., http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/todays-paper/tp-economy/article1597504.ece, http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/editorial/article1597036.ece These articles say it all.

I remember the day in June 1983 when India won the world cup championship in England. A generation later India won the championship again last night.

During the intervening 28 years, the Indian team went through some highs and many lows. Good cricketers came and went but big success was not much seen.

I am reminded of a story here. This is about a court case involving the custody battle for a child.

After listening to what the husband and the wife had to say, a judge decided that the mom will have custody.. the child refused saying the mom beat the child often. The judge then said that the dad will get custody of the child. The child didn't like that too saying that father beat him frequently.

The judge was intrigued. He suggested that the child's aunt or grandmom could be given custody. The child said NO, they also beat him often.

Now the judge was at a loss. The judge finally told the child that the custody will be given to the Indian cricket team.

Because no matter what, the Indian cricket team could NEVER beat anyone.

Such was the reputation once of the indian cricket team. It is nice to see the team do well. It was also nice to hear the gentlemanly speech of the captains of the Australian, Pakistani and the Srilankan teams after the quarterfinal, semifinal and final matches, respectively.

Incidentally my niece pointed out that the eyes of the Srilankan captain (Sangakkara) was captivating. And that his doe eyes (http://flashnewstoday.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/sangara.jpg) would suit a woman so much better. I personally was more attracted towards his English. He spoke very well at the end of the match yesterday, good accent and well modulated.

The reactions of the Indian and Srilankan press are summarized well here (http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/cricket/9445113.stm).

This is a nice post (http://ovshake.blogspot.com/2011/04/dear-men-in-blue.html) written the day prior to the match.

Wrestling In The Real World

I was traveling by train recently. There was a family of 6.5 (husband and wife in their 30's, 2 teenage daughters, five year old son and parents of the husband in their 60's) sitting next to me. The younger of the girls was exceedingly fair and pretty. They were a handsome family.

The person that this story is about is the little boy who was too young to have a seat for himself (children up to the age of 5 travel free). He and I got close and we started playing. I asked him whether he knew how to do "panja" (hand wrestle). He didn't know, so I explained the intricacies of the game to him.

It was a little tricky since his arm was shorter than mine and when our fingers were entwined together our elbows could not be together, his elbow was hanging somewhere midair, if you know what I mean. He brushed the issue aside and challenged me to a bout.

People around us were watching this war between a tough north Indian and an equally tough south Indian. I lost 3 quick games in succession each in about 5 seconds.

The victorious man then looked around and pointed to a 20 year old guy (who was a student and who was from Bihar) and told him menacingly "You next". The student was knocked out in a few brief sessions.

The boy couldn't hide his thrill. He looked around and asked each of his siblings and parents. Each one shook their head, none was willing to challenge him.

The only person who was man enough to tackle him was his grandmother. The grandson and the grandmother started hand wrestling. 

I have to go into the psyche of the boy now to do justice to what happened next. Here was the Hitler who had overrun eastern Europe (me) with ease and then conquered the low countries (the student) to the west and north with equal ease. And now looking at his grandmother to lay her arms and beg for mercy. Little did he expect that history would be repeated, that his grandmother would be a Winston Churchill who proclaimed loudly that she will fight on the seats, on the berths, on the beaches, on the aisles etc.

After beating me and the guy from Bihar hands down, he thought beating his grandmother would be a piece of cake. Even at such a young age, children know who would be a stronger opponent and who wouldn't be. And for the life of him, he couldn't accept the stiff fight that his grandma put up.

His entire family family burst out laughing seeing his perplexed face as he tried to pin his grandma's palm down.

It reminded me of a friend who recounted what a doctor said to her "Children (in India) these days are so pampered by their family that when they become adults they are hardly able to face the harsh realities of the real world".

I hope this boy learns to wrestle well.

Calm Wife

I had an occasion to travel overnight by bus in a hilly area. There were lots of people, including a man and his wife with 2 sons (about 5 and 2 years old). Halfway through the night, as the bus was climbing up the hills, the older boy started vomiting. Then the husband was vomiting through the night. And I was like ughhhh.

The wife on the other hand was calm, helping her husband, she also had the toddler sleeping on her lap all through the night. There was not a hint of irritation that I could see while I was seething with anger - how come the idiot (in his late 30's) planned such a trip by bus. Surely he could have foreseen what would happen.

But I continue to remain amazed by how the wife took all in her stride. 

Ice Cream From Breast Milk

Ice Cream from Breast Milk (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1360225/Shop-sells-breast-milk-ice-cream-London-restaurant-Icecreamists-Baby-Gaga.html) on sale in UK.

Hmm. I thought of a name for the brand: Breastkin Robbins.

What next? What else will we sell now?

Additional reading:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/parenting/wp/2017/07/25/i-donate-my-breast-milk-heres-how-and-why/?utm_term=.26d39c738726

Baby Videos

Friends of mine gave me couple of baby videos which were just too good.. Here they are.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AYt31nQabYA&feature=related: This one shows a baby enjoying his food.

https://www.instagram.com/p/B9NO0uIJ3rs/: Baby in pram

https://www.instagram.com/reel/Cd8PSH6gC9k/: Doll like baby with blue eyes

A baby replying to questions http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7cSudpyEU9w&feature=player_embedded#!

And this one shows many babies dancing to an arabic song

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2MIHpf3_TzE&NR=1.

A baby playing billiards: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vjYiJsSjWIM

Boy getting a kiss: https://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=178244018892310

A definant baby: https://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=123797101015105

Guitar Seniors: https://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=169772946407702

This is another video of a baby (very funny).
https://docs.google.com/leaf?id=0B1xQDlpMnLKxZTc1YTg4MDQtZTJlNi00MzViLWJjZmMtOWY2NWU4ODMxNDQ1&hl=en. While the baby in this video reminds me of the way some of my friends behave when their mom goes out of town and the baby in the 1st video reminds me of my friends' children. These videos were not shot by me and I don't know any of the characters in the videos.

These are a couple of nice photos, the links to which were given by a friend.
http://j3.tagstat.com/image04/b/be1f/009P052yXUv.gif
http://i3.tagstat.com/image05/b/4acb/002x054CQHb.gif

I Can Understand Sindhi

Few days back I was talking to a (boyish looking) woman whose age (about 3 years old) is less than her height in feet (90cm=3 feet). She and I have gotten into this habit of talking once a week and she will tell me about incidents at home. She is the niece of my friend about whom I have mentioned earlier (http://calmisc.blogspot.com/2009/08/cooking-disasters-in-middle-east.html).

Sometime back apparently there was a rather harsh exchange of words between this woman and her mother about water having been spilled by one of them. Each of them thought that the other was the guilty party.

And I used to ask this woman about it each time we spoke. And she would shake her head and say "meine nahi giraya" (I didn't spill it). And later she got into the habit of covering her ears whenever she spoke to me expecting me to ask that dreaded question.. I have a suspicion that this woman didn't like to dwell on that spill perhaps because I made it seem like the Exxon oil spill near Valdez.

The last time i spoke to her I asked her whether she spoke Sindhi. She replied "Haan,  mein aapse sindhi mein baat kar rahi hoon" (Yes, I am speaking to you in sindhi)..

After the call I was euphoric. I could understand whatever she was saying and I thought I had learnt a new language without even realizing it..  After some time, better sense prevailed. I understood that I had been taken for a small ride by this woman. Probably its my innocence that makes people take advantage of me..