A while before....

It will be a while before my parents.....

1) Look at the moon and not have pangs of separation anxiety from their grand-daughter. The moon is her most important attraction, and all loved ones are part of a nightly ritual of standing in the cold and staring at the "Mooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooonnnnnnnnnnn", who only beams half as brightly as her face.

2) Can distinguish between parrots, cranes, sparrows, mynahs and crows again. In their current dictionary, anything that flies is classified as a "Kaaka" (Tamil word for Crow). There is a bit of an encoding problem here though. The "Th" in every word is substituted with the phonetic equivalent of "K". So, she also calls her Thaatha(Grandfather) "Kaaka", and he is not too pleased about being referred to as a 'Crow'.

3) Stop referring to animals using vocalizations such as Moo and baa, and use the words 'Cows' & 'Goats' instead.

4) Open the refridgerator door for as long as necessary. Today, they take things from the refridgerator in multiple steps:
(a) Quickly scan the location of items, and decide where they need to retrieve the items from
(b) Distract the impish busy-bee who has hastened to the fridge to check things out for herself (sometimes accompanied by SOS calls to the spouse)
(c) Open the door only as much as required to extricate the food items from the fridge, while keeping an eye open for the marauding toddler.

5) Turn without checking to ensure that they don't trip over the tiny little girl.

6) Browse in peace without having the little one "helping" in the task.

7) Have an afternoon nap without reading fifteen 5-page books, multiple times over.

8) Have coffee only thrice a day: down from several times an hour, depending on how often their grand-daughter serves them with her tiny teacups.

9) Walk bravely out the door without sneaking out.

10) Stop browsing the TV channels for Tele-tubbies shows........

Most importantly it will be a long while before my little one gets used to not having her loving grand-parents around.