Raining Jokes !

This morning, when DS left for the class, there was a slight drizzle. Since he doesn't like wearing caps, I had told him that if it rains heavily when he reaches school, he may want to run quickly from the bus stop into the class room, so that he does not get wet.

Later in the day, during the evening, I had asked him if he got wet in the rain this morning. He said no, he did not get wet. He got only half percent wet. Then added in a serious tone, but "that day, I got completely wet..., fully 100% wet..." (He is also getting the percentage concept these days!)

I was naturally worried (cold, cough, fever and all that flashed through my mind), and asked, "really, when was that ?"...

He responded with suppressed laugh and twinkle in his eyes, "I was standing under the shower !!!".

Joker !!!

Telling him...

We have been thinking for a while now. When do we talk about two things (1) death... I.e., we will not live forever and he would be living on his own without appa and amma, but perhaps with his wife and children and his cousins (2) the 2nd point being that he is special.

On the first one, we have been kind of talking about it... We talked about my grand-parent's passing away when he grew old. His athai-patti (my favourite aunt, if I may add), who he has seen, had passed away. So, we had talked about death... But didn't think he had internalized it...

The second point was that he is 'different'... We have been kind of talking about it in generalities... That people are different, I am different, I like so and so, DW is different... Etc and you are different. You like Thayir-sadam uncle (tamil actor Vijay) and amma like (yet another tamil actor) Surya etc... 

We got an opportunity, to (again, kinda) bring them together. A slight by-story. We travelled from India + we have been told that DW should not be lifting heavy objects. So, I told him that he is a big boy and he need to help me more. Since then he has been stepping up... Even being flexible, to carry the two galon milk carton (that he does not like)... So we have been using the fact that he is 12 and he needs to help out at home much more... he needs to "listen to himself" (his own term - there is another story there)..

With that introduction... a couple of days ago, he had that laughing thing going for a while. He had done that in the Winner's class (now called Teach Social), but I did not know about it. On return, he also laughed a bit at home. We plunged head-on... We told him that laughter is ok and if he feels like laughing he should. Particularly when he is with us it is not a big deal, since we are all different and he is different too. And then we told him that once he is big enough to be on his own and when we aren't there any more, others around may not understand why he laughs and may find it strange. He said right off - that he doesn't like talking about it (ie death); we did tell him that there is still a long way to go; that we will live upto 75 years old, by which time he'd be my age etc etc...

The crux of the story is yet to come :-). During later part of that evening, while we were walking, he was thoughtful. And he said in a very serious and quiet tone that he laughed during the Winner's class...

We started with something in mind and it has lead some where else. He is reflecting more on his own actions...