About My YO

I am so busy marveling at the similar interests that my EO and I share and going into rapturous ecstasy over his linguistic skills, that at times, I am guilty of over-looking my little one's growing oratory prowess.

Of course, being around the EO and The Nephew has made the YO quite the little chatterbox; he's not afraid to speak his mind, voices his opinions and puts into words just what he's thinking. He tries to copy their manner of talking and likes to use phrases and expressions that the elder boys throw about with such flippant ease. Their play-time together and pretend games have helped his imagination soar and he is also quite a charming and expressive story-teller in his own right. Their company has also accounted for his rather impressive vocabulary...replete with some of the wrong things too, unfortunately, but that is one of the hazards of little siblings hanging around elder ones...sigh...

However, I shall forget for a moment that in a voice loud, proud and clear as mountain water, he spelled out 'a very bad word' to my absolute horror and chagrin. I immediately asked him to spell 'school' and of course the look he gave me was as blank as my Class 9 Maths answer sheet.

But as I said, this is not about that. This is about the time when he was riding his scooty around the house, pretending to be a cool cat stuntman and then came to tell me that he almost banged into the two settees in the living room...

So my YO was riding his scooty around the house, pretending to be a cool cat stuntman when he suddenly charged into my room, full of excitement to tell me about the near and neat miss. "...and you know Mamma, so I wuz riding my scooty so coolly and so fastly when I almosht had an accident and I almost banged so hard into doze two twin brudders sitting over there."

"Huh?", said I, my mind going into stupid mode.

"Doze two twin brudders", he repeated for his poor, old and rather slow mother, pointing in their direction and laughing at his own cleverness.

When realisation dawned, I couldn't help but be awestruck at my little shrimp's imagination.

Sigh...perhaps BOTH my boys will be writers after all!

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The EO is an avid quizzer. Already. GK is one of his favourite subjects and he actually enjoys reading kiddie encyclopaedia and 'Tell Me Why" books. This is another common passion that binds us together.

It was therefore a tremendous thrill for me when the YO, at yesterday's inauguration ceremony of the Apeejay Lit Fest, won a book for a sudden pop quiz that the emcee decided to hold as we waited for the Chief Guest to arrive.

The YO's class had been invited to perform at the opening ceremony of this three-year-old lit fest. They did an adorable dance to this very catchy song on reading. This was after the Chief Guest, tabla maestro Bickram Ghosh -- a musician I just happen to adore -- rapped out a story and a poem, told a few stories using rhythm and tabla bols, played on his cheeks (no, not butt cheeks and yes, really, really hard) and generally enthralled the young audience and charmed the young audience members' mothers as well.

But yes, before dear old Bickram arrived and did his playing and rapping and enthralling and charming, the emcee decided to have a pop quiz. I know, I already said that

Anyhoo, she made it really fun and asked questions like, "All the king's horses and all the king's men, couldn't put WHO back together again?" and "Where did the old woman with so many children live?"

Now as this was rather impromptu, the emcee sometimes forgot that she was addressing a bunch of four and five year olds, and would begin a question by asking, "How many of you have read Hans Christian Anderson?" Naturally she was met with silence. The same happened when she asked, "Do any of you read Enid Blyton?"

Ooof! Woman! They're just about reading number names and spelling out colours and differentiating between January and July! (however, here's a clever tip to keep a bunch of high-energy, excitable, noisy bunch of kids quiet -- ask them difficult quiz questions!)

So, whenever she was met with these spells of silence and puzzled faces, she'd quickly rephrase the question. So the Hans Christian Anderson one became, "Which pretty girl from a famous story by HCA, had an evil step-mother and two mean step-sisters?" and the Enid Blyton q became, "What was Big Ear's good friend's name?"

Many of you might remember that the YO was, once upon a time, hooked on Noddy and even had a Noddy themed birthday party two years ago. So as soon as he heard the name "Big Ears", my little shrimp just jumped up, threw his hand out in front of him with full force and screamed, "NODDY!" Of course there were a few others who also gave the right answer, but luckily the emcee saw my little boy and called him out to collect his prize.

My son was beaming and so was I. He beamed even harder when his Mamma answered a question correctly which was passed on to us after the children couldn't answer it. And his beaming got even brighter when he noticed from where he was sitting, that Mamma's prize included a couple of packets of his most favourite thing to eat -- biscuits!

We came back home yesterday, a beaming mother-son duo.

Sigh...perhaps BOTH my boys will be quizzers after all!

And of course it was the EO who pounced upon his brother's prize and finished reading it in two minutes, but hey, it was my YO who won it after all, naa?