Wednesday, February 13, 2008

KB's party talk!

I took KB and KG to a Valentine's day party hosted by one of our neighbors - an elderly couple who now live alone - all their five kids are in college and one of their grand children is now KG's age...it was a party only for women and we had been asked to give a gift of love - a donation to any organization we liked.

It was interesting to see KB in this new setting - full of older white American women who only spoke English, one Iranian woman who spoke no English and could barely understand it.

KB had a small bag of banana chips in his hand and he wandered from the dining/family area (a bunch of women had gathered there to make heart shaped cookies) to the living area. Just then another guest, friend of the couple, a white woman probably in her early 50s walked in. She was very tall and KB looked up at her from way down. She looked at him said" HI! What's your name?"

As usual, he did not answer right away. He looked at her intently craning up his neck and smiled mischievously.
Suddenly he lifted his right hand all the way up and said to her "CHIPS".
And thus he broke the ice.
"Oh you are eating Chips? You like it?"
He smiled again and scampered back into the family room.

Behind the couch in the family room, in the curio cabinet, there were a set of blocks that read "B E A C H". There was another white woman, with a cherubic face and looking very pleasant, probably in her early 60s. She was sitting on the couch. KB went to her and stared at her.
She said "Hello young man, look at those large eyes"!
He immediately looks behind her and starts reading out to her
" B E A C H"...
"Oh, that's right. Do you know what it means? Do you like going to the beach?".
He ignores her comment and says: "B'ku Baa Baa Black Sheep Varum" (For B, the song Baa Baa black sheep comes).
And then goes on to quickly list a whole bunch of other songs from his favorite CD in his Indian accent.
The woman had no idea what he was saying and I told her what he was saying. She laughed and said, Yeah...
And then he suddenly went into the lyrics of one of the songs and said to her:
"No more monkeys jumping on the bed".
"Oh yeah, no more monkeys jumping on the bed, that's right!".

He abruptly shifts gear and says to her "Andha Vaporizer not working" (That Vaporizer is not working! He said that because the previous day I took him along to Target to return the vaporizer I had purchased since it did not work well for us).
Again, she had no clue what he was saying. But somehow he got the sense that she did not understand Tamil and said to her again randomly "I want to go with school" (meaning I went to school - since I had taken him and KG to tour one of the schools).
Before she could respond, he starts singing the whole ABC song to her!

All this with someone he had never met! Somehow he managed to have some conversation with her for some 15 min! It was so cute to watch from behind - the old woman and this little two year old who did not really have a common language having a conversation for that long!

9 comments:

Aryan-Arjun said...

Ahh..KB..I still remember your photo(Sitting in a cycle near to christmas tree) that showed his big eyes ....Cute KB.
I always corelate Aryan with KB..and think that Aryan will become like KB, who is kind of shy, but still active and smart..
Aryan's mom

Maggie said...

LOL! It's so amazing how they find stuff to talk about. Like Moppet goes up to this person who was visiting us, and out of the blue, points to her pants and says 'nice pants'. Then she pats him on the knee and says nice pants again! I was stupefied!

Savani said...

how utterly cute.. he wanted to show her everything he thought was imnportant.. Chip does similar things..other people have no idea what he is talking about because they have no context :)

Preethi said...

cute KB..befriending a stranger.. and you were worried about him being shy!! Nantu did this once.. I was at a therapy place and he went into one of the therapy rooms and talked to an old lady there.. him in tamil, her in english. She came out and asked me if my husband and I were engineers!! :P Btw.. you are tagged!!!

shweta said...

Hi Noon,

Tha is so cute..shyam does that too..he is complete chatterbox and keeps talkign in tamil to everybody he meets :)
WOW great KB knows the ABC song fully..shyam refuses to learn it :(

noon said...

Aryan - wow - amazing you remember that photo! :)
Hope Aryan has recovered fully from his sickness....

MM - So cute - approving of the pants! :) I know they really amaze you sometimes!

Dotmom - Yeah - he does that even when some handy man comes to our place - he gets so excited about it and just breaks into deep conversation with him...in Tamil! :)
He introduced his sister and his father who were sitting far away (at the gate check in counter) "Adhu Daddy! Adhu Kutti baby" to the lady who was giving me the gate pass!

noon said...

Preethi - Actually I don't worry about him being shy socially...just physically when kids are pushing around, he tends to stand back rather than push them around and be a part of that group...not that I want him to push people but you know what I mean...

Shweta :) yeah - when I ask him to talk to someone he shuts up and when I tell him to stop he will go on and on...As far as ABC - if I ask him to tell me all the letters, he absolutely won't...if I ask him to sing the ABC song, he will sing all the letters...

Neera said...

Love/affection knows no boundaries - age, caste, language, no bar. KB and the lady out there proved that so beautifully, isn't it!

Happy Valentine's Day, friend!

noon said...

Happy Valentine's day to you too Neera! Hope you get to have a relaxed evening!
Yes, so true - that's why I really enjoyed the conversation between KB and this lady.