A House For Miss Pinkette
They say child is the father of man, I am not sure if there is an equivalent saying about mothers, but that is just another one of lopsided patriarchal society example. I was on baby sitting duty as the Missus has gone for a jaunt to the mall with her girlfriends, while l looked after our girls.
Now spending time with a 5-year-old is fun yet challenging at the same time, specially when her mother is not around. After a heated debate about what to do so that she is not bored and Dad just have to say hmm while he worked on his laptop she agreed to make a house. But my plan of keeping her busy while I punched keys to pen a post for Parentous turned out to be futile as the kiddo was not making any house, it was to be a super duper house that will be visible from aeroplanes passing above it.
These five years have an imagination that can make you wonder where they get all their ideas from.
The first thing planned was a garden and she wanted to know if I would like to keep some of my cacti in her garden. I was OK, as long as I was allowed to type. But she knows how to keep her dad busy.
“OK, so you want cacti in frontside or backside?”
“Front” I said without blinking
“But Papa, if my friends are coming to play with me they will get hurt, so why don’t you keep your cactus on roof top ?”
“OK”, I quickly agreed and punched a few keys
” OK, Papa but make sure they are not near where clothes will be hanged on the roof, or the thorns will tear the clothes”
After banishing my thorny pursuits to rooftop, she focused on rooms.
“So Papa how many rooms do we need in the house?”
“As many as you want, please let me work”
“What are your working on?” She quizzed
“I am writing a blog post”
“Desi Traveler?”
“No, for the Parentous”
“The one which you write about me and Didi?”
“Yes”, I answered remembering my school Viva sessions where we were grilled during practicals
“Then you are not working, because you say you write for fun, not for work. Work is you office work”
“Yes, but I have a deadline” I tried to reason
“Deadline, how can a line be dead? It is not alive in first place, Joking na Papa?”
“Deadline means I need to do it right away otherwise I will be late.”
“Oh otherwise you will die?” she said with a tense look on her face.
“No, nobody is dying, it is a figure of speech, like a saying” I assured http://healthsavy.com her.
“Then please don’t use such words, you only said those who die go to god and we call them late. I don’t want you to die, if you die who will help me with building our house?” Suddenly I was part owner of a house that our 5-year-old was building with plastic blocks.
I am not sure it was her innocence about deadline or my discovering that I am now part owner of a bungalow in making, I decided to actively participate in the house building. But I soon discovered that I am no architect and the 5 year old can do a better job than me. I was soon assigned the duty of only handing over the parts.
“Papa give me a door, no this is not a door, give me that on”
“Arey Papa, red ones are roof you can not use them for walls”
“Give me the flowers, no not the tree, the flowers they have many colors tree will come in end”
“OK”.. was all I could say.
Finally the house was complete, but she could not understand what a thin white pole kind of thing was.
Now it was my chance to show that daddy dear also knows a thing or two.
The part she had no idea was TV antenna that we had in doordarshan day.
A short lecture about how we only had black and white TV and one channel in our childhood she looked at me with pity and said
“Oh you only had one channel when you were a baby” yes and TV came from antenna ?
“Yes we had only one channel that too only in evening!”
“Don’t worry Papa, now that you will live in my house you can have as many channels as you want, but when I am watching my cartoons, you can work on your laptop. OK?”
I agreed as if I had a choice, and smiled as I had my post idea ready.
But the kiddo could read my mind as I clicked a picture of the house with Antenna.
Papa if you are sending this picture and blog to Parent blog, make sure you tell them I made it not Didi and not you or Mama.
“Yes, Miss Pinkette”, I grinned as I pressed the send button.
Sasha and Prasad Np are proud parents of 2 girls whom they fondly call Princess and Pinkette. He wears many hats after taking a break from being corner office critter for a long time. He is now an entrepreneur, blogger, photographer, traveler and a potential investor in start-ups with unique concepts especially if they are in travel related business. He blogs at Desi Traveler, and can be reached at Facebook and Twitter.
