little miss

My daughter is four years old. She thinks her mother is the most knowledgeable human being in the universe. And she tests it by asking me unbelievable questions. When my son was a toddler, I longed for him to display the first signs of a thirst for knowledge hoping he would inherit my love of books and reading. Well it turned out that he was very curious but preferred the “let me see if I can take it apart and figure it out” method of learning. The younger one is more artistic as the psychedelic nightmares on my wall testify. She also loves reading (she can’t yet) and is full of questions.

Now I am fully prepared to answer questions like “why is the sky blue?” or “how do airplanes fly?” but I am not equipped to handle “why is that tiger broked Amma - why no one is taking him to doctor?” (this was after watching a documentary on tigers in India on Animal Planet) or “why is that yucky vulture eating deer - he cannot eat him - vulture should eat only rice -no,Amma?”. I no longer put on Animal Planet for them – too many dicey questions.

She also has a bizarre choice in pets. Now she spends two hours in a daycare (well it’s actually just a lovely lady who likes children, running a daycare at home) and the lady who runs it currently takes care of five dogs, two of which are hers and the others’ assorted neighbors’. So, when the little madam came home one day and asked me “Amma, why we don’t have animals in the house?”, I was sure she wanted a dog as a pet. I told her that dad can’t stand dogs or cats or indeed any animal being in the house and he’s allergic as well. And then I asked her what sort of animal she wanted. She promptly piped up “I want an elephant. It’s my fravrite animal!!” I asked her where the elephant would live. She said our back garden would be fine. Then she added “Amma, you can give elephant one drumstick everyday (I used to have a big drumstick tree in my backyard) and also water but I will not let the elephant run because he will fall and get hurt.” Phew!

She wants to know why her brother is the first kid and she’s not. She takes a lot of offense at that because she likes to be second to none. It annoys her that we insist that Appu is our first child. She throws tantrums, cries, sulks and says she hates us but she will not give up her stand. My husband and I have tried various ways to get her to see reason but there is really no such thing as rational thought for a four year old. So we are definitely stuck and have arrived at a compromise situation by telling her that she’s the first girl and her brother’s the first boy. It is currently working but only if we augment it by giving her everything else first. She has to be bathed first, tucked in first, given a hug and kiss first – even her plate for dinner has to be set first. I am going insane at the thought of what that child will be like when she grows up!! I sincerely hope and pray that she gets a daughter at least ten times naughtier so that I can rest in peace ;-)