The Lazy Fox and the Busy Ants

Have you noticed how much we stereotype the animal world?  Foxes are always cunning, ants are busy and hard working, owls are wise and the monkeys and cats are smart?  I think we just like to slot people and animals into categories, it makes it easy for us to deal with things that way, than treat each thing individually.

I've always wondered about saving up for a rainy day, whether it really works, because deep within me i sometimes feel, we kind of will a rainy day into reality when we save up for it.  When we don't save up and live for the moment, the rainy day never comes.

My story this time was kind of a tangent from both these lines of thoughts..

There was once a fox who lived in a cave near an ant-hill.  Every day when he went by to hunt and eat something, he would see the row of ants, patiently walking one after the other.  They would keep carrying bits of food to their home.  It amused him to watch them, always in a straight line, never thinking beyond the person in front of them.  

One day, an ant decided to talk to him.  He asked the fox, why do you keep looking at us and smiling?  Do you not have any other work to do?  The fox told the ant that it wondered why they saved up so much food, instead of eating that day and enjoying the meal at the moment.  The ant looked at the fox strangely, why, we are saving up for a rainy day, of course!!! When it rains, we will not be able to gather food, so we gather it now and store it away so we will not need it later.  The fox thought this was ridiculous.  What rainy day, rainy days are so far away, enjoy the sun now and play while you can, he thought to himself.  But he did not say anything and let the little ant go on his way home.  

Time passed and it soon became the cold season.  The ants huddled up in their ant-hill and ate through their stores.  They were lean and little and they could not take the cold.  The fox continued on his way and ate whatever prey he could find.  When it became colder still, he simply cuddled up in his cave and slept through the cold.  Days and nights he slept and woke up to a warm spring day.

I'm not sure why i finished the story this way, except that i did not want it to go the usual route.  I did not want the smug ants to go to the fox and say, see this is why we have saved up our food.  We all deal with our rainy days in different ways.  Those who live in a lean and spare manner must save up their food for a rainy day, because they can't live without it.  And those like the fox can simply afford to sleep through their rainy days.  Different things work for different people.

As always, excuse any bad science in the story.

The Rainbow and the Grey Parrot

There was once a parrot that was very grey.  She was always sad and depressed because she loved colors but there were none on her small body.  Her feathers and wings were grey as was her beak.  Her friends came in all different colors, her best friend was a vibrant green parrot and he had a bright red beak too!  Her sister was a bright yellow parrot and she had streaks of blue feathers.  Just looking at them would make her feel sad.  She kept wondering what she could do.  She decided to ask her friend, the monkey.

The monkey thought for a while before he replied.  And then he said, I've got it.  I know what you need to do to become more colorful.  Just wait for a rainbow to rise and fly through it.  The rainbow has so many colors - I'm sure you will be more colorful when you come out on the other side.  

The parrot decided that the monkey was right.  She kept waiting for the right day.  She need a bright sunny but rainy day - a very rare kind of day indeed.  And then one day, it happened.  She woke up to a beautiful day but still a day with the promise of rain.  She waited on a branch of the tree at the edge of the river and saw a beautiful rainbow come up across the river.  She flew in one side of the rainbow and came out on the other.  She didn't feel any different, so she peeped into the reflection shown in the river to be sure and there she was - a riot of colors, yellow, purple, orange, green and blue.  A multi-colored parrot indeed.

I realize the story seems to not have any morals, nor any real plot.  But it's only for a 3 year old and told at bedtime, when i need stories to be as short and happy as can be :-) So I'm going to leave this be.

The Yellow Tiger and the Brown Owl

So this is the third story from last night.  As a prelude, I have to add, we are big on colours in our family.  Where before the hubby was wont to refer to all colors in the off-white, beige, brown spectrum as 'chocolate' colour, he now knows the differences between peach, orange, purple, violet even turquoise and aquamarine :-).  Hence the all important colours in my story's title.  You should also note that all children that appear in any of these stories are either 3 or 4 years old.  They cannot be any older than that because that would make them older than Sammu!  All protoganists are also female, unless otherwise specified.  So we have female Ramus and Somus as well as female Pooh bears in our stories.  On we go to the story.

There was once a tiger that lived on the banks of the Ganga river.  The tiger lived in the beautiful floating mangrove forests.  Where there was land, he walked, where there was water, he swam.  He was a beautiful animal, strong and fierce, with yellow and black stripes.  (I thought I was being poetic and lyrical in describing the tiger and the forests, but my daughter said I should stop with the description because all tigers look this way :-) ).  This tiger was friends with a brown owl.  Together they hunted at night and slept during the day.  One day, the owl told the tiger that he needed to go away on a trip with his parents.  He was going north up the river, he said and he would be back in some time. 

On his return, the owl told the tiger a fantastic tale - he claimed that he had seen a White tiger!  The tiger was very disbelieving and sarcastic.  You are trying to fool me, he said.  Oh no, I really saw a white tiger, said the owl.  The tiger decided to call his bluff.  Let's go together, he said.  We will take the same route that you did on your trip and we will see if we can find this white tiger.  So they decided to go that very night.  

They followed the river and went north for many days.  Long days and nights they travelled until they reached cold regions.  The river was an icy blue and it was very cold.  The yellow tiger was desperately thirsty but the water was so cold.  He didn't want to drink it.  Finally, thirst overcame discomfort and he decided to walk down to the river and drink the water.  He lapped the water from the river thirstily and was lost in his thoughts.  Suddenly he heard a loud roar, he looked up and saw to his shock - a tiger on the opposite side!! And it was white!!!!  He could not believe it.  He called to the owl, who was sleeping in the shadows among the trees.  Little Owl, look here, we have found the white tiger you saw!!!  And Owl could not stop smirking and laughing, I told you so, he said.  Yellow Tiger had to accept that the Owl was right.  

Ok, let's go back now, said Little Owl.  I miss Home.  And they decided to go back home again.
On the way back, they saw a White Owl (like Hedwig from HP :-) ) But that is a story for another day.

The Elephant's Tusks

Yesterday was a tough night - I thought I might get away easy when she said the story had to be about a lion, a tiger and an elephant.  I could make one up with all three animals and finish for the day.  But no, things are never that easy.  She decided that she wanted a story each for each animal.

I began with the lion and then moved on to the elephant.  But I don't want to write those stories here - I couldn't think of one good enough to tell her.  I just fumbled through about a lion trying to find it's mate and ended with they lived happily ever after :-). The elephant's story is a little more interesting.

There were once two elephants that lived in a jungle - Ramu and Somu.  Ramu was the taller of the two elephants and he had giant tusks.  Somu was a little smaller but also had fine tusks.  The two were good friends and spent all their time walking through the jungle, talking about a lot of stories, eating good food and generally having fun.

One day, Ramu had left Somu in a clearing and gone to drink water from a stream nearby.  On his return he saw a terrible sight - Somu had got caught by a hunter who gave it some medicine to make it sleep and pulled out it's tusks.  Ramu was very angry to see this.  He decided to follow the hunter and get the tusks back.  He walked behind him for a long distance until the hunter reached his village.  The hunter left the tusks in his home and went away on some work. 

There was a child near the hunter's home - about three or four years old.  Ramu made friends with the child and told him of what the hunter had done.  The child agreed to help Ramu get the tusks from the hunter.  They managed to get the tusks from the hunter's home and the child travelled back with Ramu to the jungle to get the tusks back to Somu.  Once there, they found Somu awake but crying because his tusks were missing.  Ramu produced the tusks and Somu was very happy - only, nobody knew what to do with the tasks.  How would they fix them up again?  At this point, I suggested that maybe they could glue the tusks back up with Fevicol.  Use a big bucket of fevicol and glue them back, I said.  Sammu looked at me with a little contempt - fevicol does not stick tusks, she declared. So we made Ramu and the child try to stick the tusks but fail.  And then, we found that elephants tusks grow back again... :-) Just like lizards' tails do... !!!  

So Ramu and Somu were happy and they played happily with the child and all was well again!!!

A tale of many tales

I've recently started telling my daughter stories at bedtime again - I thought that I would post the stories I tell her every day.  These are not completely original or completely 'inspired'.  They are a mix and match of both - some stories with morals, some that end abruptly, some well known stories that are toned down to suit her because she has an overactive imagination and I don't want to add to that just before she sleeps.

Yesterday I told her the story of the young deer who was very found of his antlers. Here it is:

There was once a deer who loved his antlers.  He loved them so much he was always gazing at them in the forest pond.  He kept admiring them, the way there were so tall and big and strong and how beautiful they made him look.  He caught sight of his legs in the forest pond and thought to himself - 'How ugly my feet are, how thin - they look like sticks.  And so it went on every day.  

Suddenly one day - there was a hunter in the woods.  He had caught sight of the many deer in the forest.  He decided to catch one.  He ran after our young deer.  The deer ran but suddenly could not move.  It looked up to see that it's beautiful antlers were caught in the low hanging branches of the tree above.  It could not move.  And the hunter was coming closer every minute.  The deer tried with all it's strength to break free and just as the hunter appeared in the clearing it was caught in, it broke free.  The hunter chased after it but the deer was too fast for him and it got away.

A little while later, the deer stood at the edge of the forest pond again - now he resented the antlers which he had always thought beautiful, instead he realized his legs were the most beautiful for they carried him fast and far way from danger.

Note:  This tale was told to me by my grandfather as an example of how we should accept all parts of ourselves etc... my daughter felt the antlers could still be more useful than the legs to the deer - she felt the deer should have rammed the hunter with its huge antlers instead of attempting to run away.  Aggression comes early these days ;-)

I also told her about the story of a snake that ran over a garden of greens.  Excuse the mistakes in my farming story - I know next to nothing about farming and am completely city bread.

There was once a girl who grew greens (keerai) in her garden.  She grew all variety of greens, molla keerai, pasala keerai, agathu keerai, vendhaya keerai, sombhu keerai, dill keerai (that's all the variety i know ;-)).
Every week she used to cut bunches of her keerai from her garden and pack them in a wet sack and take them to the market for selling.  

One week, a snake came into her garden and ran all over the greens.  It then went back to its home near the garden.  That week, the girl followed her usual practice and collected the greens from the garden and took them to the market.  A young mother and her daughter came to the market that day and bought the keerai from her.  They had it for lunch that day with some dal. The mother offered the daughter a first bite of the rice and keerai/dal mixture.  The daughter took a mouthful only to spit it out immediately saying that it was bitter.  The mother took a bite herself and found it bitter too... They then kept the keerai away and had a different lunch.  The next week, at the market, they told the keerai-girl angrily that the keerai from last week was very bitter and that it probably had been poisonous.  The keerai-girl burst into tears at their complaints because she had done nothing different - she decided to meet her grandmother and find out what could be wrong.  

Her grandmother knew exactly what the problem had been - she asked the granddaughter to check the garden for evidence of a snake.  The keerai girl went home and checked her garden.  She promptly found the snake's home.  The grandmother suggested that the keerai girl pour some milk inside the snake's hole.  The grand daughter did as instructed and after that day, she never had troubles from the snake again.

Notes:  This story is inspired by the snake gourd we bought from a vegetable vendor one day who claimed to sell 'thotathu kai'.  We cooked the gourd and it was so bitter - we threw it away.  I then heard that some vegetables taste bitter when a poisonous snake runs around them.  I don't know if it's true or not but it seemed very interesting and has stuck in my head since then.  About pouring milk on the snake's home - this is just tamil-movie inspired and I don't know if snakes even drink milk in reality. 

There's always a first time

Before I forget to record the many firsts... :-)
My daughter rolled over when she was almost 4 and a half months old on Feb-16 2010. There was a first-first roll over on Jan-26 2010 but it turned out to be a false alarm. By that i mean that although she turned over by herself on Jan-26, she forgot how to do it and lost interest :-D. It took her almost another month to start doing it again.

She has started trying to sit up by herself. She rolls to her side, rests on that elbow and tries to push herself up into a sitting position, much like the way we are asked to get into a sitting position when pregnant. She's done it twice so far since 25-Apr but always with a little bit of help from me. I'm waiting for when she will do it by herself. The smaller milestones are coming thick and fast now, she picks up objects, throws them down, bangs them on the floor. She has even learnt to pick up two objects at the same time. She also babbles a bit and says ga-goo type of sounds. She also looks admiringly at her own wrists and watches her own hands with endless fascination turning them over this way and then the other. So now, she waves bye-bye inconsistently when you say bye to her. She imitates the action, without knowing what it means.

As for solid food, her first food was Cerelac Wheat. Since then she has had puzhungarizi kanji with pottu kadalai and first bites rice and dal cereal - both of which she dislikes earnestly. She likes her manna ragi kanji much better (sweetened with just a bit of sugar) and also cerelac wheat with apple flavor. She has also had a mashed mix of moong dal and potato with a bit of carrot as well. Also a bit of banana and apple puree. I'm hoping to start her on some juice next, with summer coming in, she needs fluids in all the various forms she can get them!!!!

Ok i've got to go now.. will try to write up more interesting posts later.. but for now, this information seems most interesting to me ;-)

Cling

Cling - I'd never thought too much of this word before. Truthfully, I've thought more about bling and "Singh is King". Ok, i'll stop the bad jokes.

I'm trying to write about how my daughter now clings to her father and me. She would like us to always be in her line of vision and never disappear. Apparently this is another development milestone, one she must go through before she realizes that things that do not exist in front of her eyes still exist in the world. This is a crucial concept called object permanence that she must learn. All the 'kannum idho' games and the 'peekaboo' games that are played with babies are to help them learn this concept.

Last night was another typical night. My daughter slept at about 10 pm but she refused to be put down on the bed to sleep and insisted that i hold her in my lap. I tried putting her down several times, but in vain. I finally did what i always do - gave up and slept in a sitting position, leaning against the wall, with her in my lap. It was about 3 or 4 am.. really who can tell the difference between 3 am and 4 am at that ghastly hour, when i could finally put her down and lie down next to her.

Baby Center says this is one of the things that should make me happy for being a parent, at 3 am in the night i should be thinking that there are moms across the world who are sitting up with their babies. :-) At 3 am, I am barely aware of the baby in my arms, how do i summon up the energy to think about the rest of the world!!!???