Help yourself

Uttara was almost ready to go out for a Diwali function.

"Sanjana, don't I look pretty?", She asked a leading question.

Sahil was listening in. Trying his best to be helpful, he volunteered a response...

"Mom, just check in the mirror."

Shortcut

I was helping Sahil with his studies. I was working on the concept of fractions necessary for the given problem. It seemed that Sahil wanted to skip that part.

"Sahil, be patient. Don't you want to learn this?", I said.

He replied

"No, I don't want to learn this. I want to know this."

Smart for his age

"Get your tray-tables. Today I am going to let you have lunch in front of the TV as an exception", I said.

"Sanjana, if you get my table, I will give you a dime.", Sahil made an offer to Sanjana.

"Okay.", Sanjana agreed to this exciting prospect.

Sahil said to himself, but loud enough for everyone to hear.

"Yeah, that's why I like being rich."

A real problem

"Baba, can you look for my teddy bear?", Sanjana asked.

I had recently cleaned up her room. I said "Sanjana, why can't you find it yourself?"

She answered, somewhat angrily...

"I can't, Baba. There is no mess in my room to search."

Bookworm

These days I make the kids read some books. Sometimes I ask them questions about the story to make sure that they really understand what they read.

So once I asked Sanjana, "Did you read the book? Are you sure?"

She wailed a bit...

"How can I be sure, Baba? You never quizzed me."

The hairy tale

Once I was combing Sanjana's hair. I told her that her Granddad never combed his daughters' hair. In fact, he hardly ever combed his own hair.

She had to get to the bottom of this. She asked...

"But, did he have hair?"

Always Helpful

While playing with Sanjana I hit my hand around her somewhere.

"Ouch", she said.

"Sanjana, I don't think I hit you", I said. "Why did you go 'ouch'?"

"I am not hurt", she said. "I thought you were hurt and needed an 'ouch'."

Life after death

Sanjana once told me that I would go to heaven when I die.

"Really?", I said, "What am I going to do in heaven?"

Sanjana provided me with the necessary life-after-death knowledge. She said,

"I think, first you have to find your ghost."

It begins at home

I turned the TV on for Sanjana to watch. The channel was showing a speech from Barack Obama, a presidential candidate at that time. I tried to take this opportunity to tell unenthusiastic Sanjana about him and his campaign slogan, CHANGE.

"Yes", Sanjana said, "he is telling me to CHANGE the channel".

Appreciation

"God must have a very difficult job."

- Sanjana, concluding her monologue after I said "I want to fly".

That's the only way

"Sanjana, why are you watching TV against my permission?", I asked.

"Because", she made her argument, "you didn't give me the permission".

We need a sequel

After watching a hindi movie (Aaja Nachle), Sahil wanted to watch the sequel.

"There is no sequel, this is it", I said.

"But", Sahil protested, "the heroine didn't even get married."

It's a particularly slow day

"I am so bored, I could read"