Quantification

Daivik and me were trying to work together, in this case it was supposed to be some learning exercises. He was obviously getting bored and partly to cover it up and partly to divert me he said in a distracted voice,
"Appa, I love you". Having learnt the lesson from him earlier, I responded - correctly I thought - "I love you, too". He giggled, and said "I love you, three", making a pun on the word 'too'. I played along, saying "I love you, four". This went on for a while and  at one point he made a big jump and said, "I love you thousand".

Until not too long ago, his numerical skills ended at ten, matching with the number of fingers he could count. It had recently expanded several folds to hundred, and I thought was currently saturating at thousand. So I asked, "Is there something larger than thousand". He surprised me by saying, "Yes I know, it is called million". Okay, time for some lessons now ! So, I told him there are numbers bigger than million and introduced him to billion and trillion and was trying to tell him the concept of so many zeros after the one. He got bored again but asked me, "Appa, what is bigger than trillion". "Trillion and one", I said, trying to hide my ignorance of numbers higher on the log scale. He seemed okay with that answer and started to look around for his mother. He spotted her, ran to her and said excitedly, "Mom, I love you trillion and one".

There you go, it is "thousand" for dad and "trillion plus one" for mom :)

Hate, and Love

Daivik was glued to the television for some days. In the last four days he watched more TV than in the preceding 40 months, mostly cartoon channels. Presently, he was fussing again over food but wanted to play with me. In one of those irrational moments of parental stubbornness, I told him he can play with me only if he finishes his breakfast (a strategy strictly not recommended!). He tried his tricks, made a face, whimpered a bit. And then he said, "I hate you". I stopped on my tracks. This word was new.  I asked him if he knew what it meant. With an accuracy that was at once alarming and astounding, he said "It is the opposite of I love you". It was not amusing. I asked him where he learnt it, and he said "from TV".

Okay, television OFF.

Later in the day, when I was busy with something else, he ran to me, hugged my neck and said, "I love you". I just nodded. He then taught me : "Appa, when somebody says I love you, you have to reply, I love you too".