Cats' cradle- Day 5 of #100happydays

“Look, I can make a star”, my sons’ friend told me. Her first attempts were clumsy, but she finally produced a star- something I’d never learnt to do when I was addicted to cats’ cradle.

When I got home, I cut out a length of twine, to see how much I remembered- I had forgotten most of it, but a lot came back to me. I stored it up to teach the kids. Isn’t it marvelous that despite all the electronic distractions available to them, kids today are still fascinated by the things that we loved when we were young?

 

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Cooking Happiness- Day 1 of #100happydays

Cheesecake is one of the few things we agree on as a family. Specially strawberry cheesecake. We don’t tolerate it. We don’t merely like it. We, all four of us, love it. Even the younger one who is absolutely indifferent to anything that needs to be consumed, and the husband who’s perfected the art of gobbling stuff without having to taste it.

So when I found fresh strawberries in the market, I picked up the rest of the ingredients, and proceeded to make cheesecake. It took forever, but can there be anything more fun than Cooking Happiness for the Family?

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Put kids in charge

Decades back, the Indian government came up with “Project Tiger”- a way to protect the environment by putting the national animal at the apex of the ecosystem. Unfortunately, today, even the big cat faces extinction.

"If tigers are so important, why don’t we just keep them in zoos”, a kid asked.

Before the teacher could reply, my kid piped up, "but Project Tiger is not about the tiger. It is about all the animals. The tiger is the symbol, because big people don't think rabbits and butterflies are important."

Right he was. Why can’t we just put kids in charge?

“If the bee disappeared off the face of the earth, man would only have four years left to live.”
― Albert Einstein

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This is the fourth year that I am going to be a part of NaBloWriM. The Plan is to elaborate on a quote that touched my heart- let's see how far this takes me. If I can tie it in with the writing prompt, so much the better!

Spot the Difference

While we were waiting for the bill after lunch at our favourite restaurant, the younger one trotted off with his brother’s camera and returned a few minutes later with a satisfied smile on his face. Not to be outdone, his brother claimed the camera that is rightfully his, and disappeared on a photoshoot. After signing the charge-slip, I paused for a moment at the door, took out the camera and snapped a quick photograph.

It was only while downloading the photographs that I noticed that the same scene had captured all our imaginations. Can you guess who took which one?

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See how you fared:

I - Thing One - the (nearly) nine year old

II - Thing Two - the six and a half year old

III - Biggest One - the mother

All is forgiven

They drive me up the wall, with their incessant demands. Every word of mine is questioned, every direction flouted. They want to go down and play when they should be doing their homework, and remember their school assignment when we are sitting down to dinner. When I am trying to work, they are bored and need to be entertained, but the moment their bedtime is called, they remember the abridged chess game they were to have finished that day.

But when they finally go to bed and allow sleep to claim them, they look so angelic that all is forgiven.

Confusing operations

Yes, division is repeated subtraction, and multiplication repeated addition. If you add five to five, five times, you get the same answer as if you multiply five by five. I know it, as would anybody who has been adding, subtracting, multiplying and dividing as long as I have. But is it absolutely necessary to confuse my eight-year old by teaching him so?

Yes, in principle, I agree the idea of teaching kids different ways of performing the mathematical operations and letting them choose the one that works best for them. But after they do learn, can’t they be left alone?

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A drabble is a story told in exactly 100 words.

Who says kids no longer read?

“It is refreshing to see today’s kids reading”, exclaimed a retired schoolteacher when she saw my eight year old engrossed in a book.

I found nothing strange about it- my son reads, his entire class reads, and even my younger son struggles to make sense of Tintin comics despite not being able to read most of the words. In fact, despite the “kids don’t read anymore” myth being perpetuated, I think many kids read much more than their parents do.

Sure, kids have their video games, and their TV serials. But reading is in no immediate danger of becoming extinct.

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A drabble is a story told in exactly 100 words.

Those precious moments

Yesterday, while getting the kids home from school, the younger one dawdled. “Come on, we’ve got to go home. Mamma has work to do”, I told him, but he refused to listen. 

“Come on, Sweetheart, let’s go home.” I was rapidly losing my temper, but a tiny voice whispered. “Let him be. Do a couple of minutes really matter so much? What if something happens to either of you tomorrow, wouldn’t you regret not spending these moments with him?”

I joined him in looking under a car. A brown cat was feeding her kittens. I’ll always treasure that shared moment.

 “Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma – which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of other’s opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.”

Steve Jobs 
(February 24, 1955- October 5, 2011)
Requiescat in Pace



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A drabble is a story told in exactly 100 words.