The questions he asks!

Sonny boy's little intellect is teeming with questions these days.
Nearly every communication that we have delivers little gems. And while it is with utmost difficulty that I manage to keep a straight face sometimes, I do try to answer most of them as honestly and to-the-point as possible.


Yesterday, we were going through his nightly ablutions. He was doing susu prior to me giving him a body bath, while I was cleansing my face.
Idly came the question, "Amma, you want to do susu...?"
"You do susu fast", cut short the Amma, sensing an imminent barrage of questions.
But the idea had started in his little brain. "Amma, where your susu come from? From your stomach??!!"


Some days back, he asked me if he could do something- I forget what.
And I told him, "OK, but only once."
"Oh! Only ones? No twos, Amma?"
"No, Sonny boy, no twos."


The Acha and I sometimes have radically different ideas of how to deal with Sonny boy in particular and life in general. And we used to talk openly on several things in front of Sonny boy. Once he started understanding what we were speaking, we were amazed at the extent to which Sonny boy absorbed our conversations even when he seemed lost in his toys. Not a good trend, we agreed. So we used to speak on certain things in Hindi.
We thought he didn't notice, till tonight, a very indignant Sonny boy said,
"Hey! What is THAT?"
"What is what, Sonny boy?"

"What is that thing you are talking?"
We'd been talking in Hindi!


Sometimes, its not questions, but statements that leave us dumbfounded and groping for sense. Like,
"Acha, today Nakul is husband."
"Husband, Sonny boy??!" Another husband was most baffled. He looked at me in half bewilderment, half dread. After all, you never know with kids these days.
"Yes, Acha, he have fever."
Turned out that Nakul was just absent that day.


And sometimes, his statements have a perfect kiddy logic to them.
Like the time he told me his bath water was rising up to the ground.
The water had been filling up in the bucket and when it reached the top, it overflowed.
Truly, it rose up to the ground.


Ah, Sonny boy, sometimesI long to keep you this way, innocent and unspoilt yet by external moulding. But life has to go forward, and soon, you'll be teaching me things I don't know.
But till then, my Sonny boy, till then, I will hold your little gems close to my heart.