Kochunni Speak!

Every month, every year passes by and each time I think this is truly the best time to be around this wonderful kid. It was a great ride when Kochunni was still a baby and would gurgle at our antics of peek-a-boo, it was fun zoo at the house when he started to crawl and nothing was off limits, it was beautiful when he christened every member of the family from Muthu to grandpa in his own sweet way and its beautiful today when he talks mile a minute.

One of the best part of the Europe trip was actually spending time with him – when usually all we get are weekend which are cramped with birthdays, house work and a million other things. The trip was total unadulterated time with him and his lively conversation. He talked about the cars, made up stories and best of all gave us directions. Yes! I said directions. It was rather sweet to. He watched us looking constantly at the map trying to determine the way and one day took the map from us and started to peer closely into it and then pointed to the road and explain rather matter of fact way “This way you can see the giraffe, That way you can go and see the elephant.” When we told him that we need to go the way he showed us to see the elephant – he of course wanted to see the giraffe first.

Then there was the time when we bought him a European Volkswagen toy bus – he was super exited and wanted to call home to his Ammamma immediately to let her know that he now has a bigger car than her little brown jeep (a toy that he has given to her when they both play together).

It is super cute (biased opinion, I know) to hear him converse in Malayalam with us and English to his toys. He pretends sometimes to the teacher explaining something to his toys, while at other time he holds up two cars in each hand and pretends that they are having a conversation – usually one is the good car, while the other the bad car that pushes the good car out of the way. The moment we look up at him, he shy’s away sometimes even holding his hand up to his eyes, like the cat who believes no one can see because her own eyes are closed.

So far having family around has helped keep the mother tongue plus other Indian languages alive at home which in turn amazes me. I am not sure how long it will continue but I guess exposure to various cultures, traditions and languages helps his understanding of the uniqueness in each and every human being around us.