Habits, Priorities, Revenge and Incredible Events


My 7 year-old daughter is an early riser. Now and then, she’ll even wake up before us. Even on a school day. And then there will be the spells where it’ll be a struggle to get her out of bed. During one such spell of school day morning negotiations of “5 more minutes” v/s “Why can’t you go to bed early?”, she angrily told me on a Friday morning:
“Tomorrow is Saturday. I will wake up as late as I want.”
And then she added:
“The problem is I now have this horrible habit of waking up early.”
So she tried to will herself to change by telling herself:
“Brain, wake up late tomorrow.”
If only deeply ingrained habits could be changed so easily…
~~

At one point in Game of Thrones, the king considers asking the disgraced and exiled knight, Ser Jorah Mormont, to assassinate a rival in return for a royal pardon and return to the snake pit capital. There is of course, the risk of capture:
“Mormont craves a royal pardon,” Lord Renley reminded them.
“Desperately,” Varys said, “yet he craves life even more.”

My daughter made the same choice recently. It happened when I read this amusing titbit from a Nat Geo for Kids issue:
“Human “food technologists” taste cat and dog chow for pet food companies.”
I tried provoking my daughter saying the point was that she, the food taster, was expendable whereas the pet wasn’t. To which she replied:
“Yes, I love cats and dogs. But I love keeping myself alive even more.”
Prioritization: a concept she now seems to know.
~~

Like any kid, my daughter has been the bearer of gifts germs. Inevitably it would be my wife who would contract the same germs soon after. This time around, my wife fell sick first, then I got a sore throat, and lastly my daughter caught a cold. Filled with righteous anger, she turned to me, “This time, you gave me the cold”. I agreed. Not satisfied with the meek cave in, she drove it in:
“You should write that down. Otherwise you will change your story later.”
Revenge can be so sweet, eh, kiddo?
~~

Did you know that the (ex) planet Pluto was named by a 11 year-old girl? When I read that part out to my daughter, her immediate reaction was:
“And everyone listened to her? How can that be?”
I totally get your surprise, munchkin. After all, adults never seem to listen to kids. Though to be fair, kids don’t listen to adults either…

Comments

  1. Ramiah KumarSeptember 25, 2018 at 8:39 AM

    Delightful blog.

    Why I say that is because between being a baby and being an adult, there are stages and stages - and there is wonderment in others to watch the growth, especially the mental one. Certainly so, until adolescence, when the growing person is in a 'trisangu' state - neither here nor there!

    Aditi's crisp and 'insightful' (i.e. not her insight but ours - we glimpse what she feels) remarks are a joy.

    The ending is the appropriate finish - "kids don’t listen to adults either…" I don't have opportunity to read any other blog, so I can't compare really. This blogger's strength is often seen in the finish line.

    ReplyDelete

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