Linguistic Worries

Couldn't help wondering how the tables have turned in my Achulde's case after reading the post  'Speech' in UL's 'Diaries'. After he started going to 'Bright Vistas' day care in Bangalore, there was a dip in his ease with Malayalam. The language confusion syndrome had set in. At school, the care takers would be communicating in English, the Aayahs would be talking in Kannada  or Hindi and his caretaker was a tamilian who would speak to him in Malayalam that sounded like Tamil.

 Naturally, I was keen on my kid speaking good Malayalam wherever he was going to be, so we would speak to him in Malayalam only.After a couple of months, he could successfully manage to communicate to us in bits and pieces  using Malayalam words predominantly and some English words and a couple of Kannada words.We encouraged daily doses of Manjadi, and were really proud when he started reciting Malayalam rhymes.

 Now after moving to Trivandrum, I suddenly see that the tables have turned.He has not only picked up Malayalam beautifully, now he has stopped using the other languages altogether.I am in a situation where I need to see to it that he doesn't forget his English !!!.So I find myself speaking to him in English once in a while,though he makes it really obvious that he prefers to communicate in Malayalam.I insist on my children knowing English mainly because, knowing the husband as well as I do, you never know, when we'll decide to move to another city, just like that!!!

 Now in his lingo, pussy cat has become 'poocha poocha' and Bowbow/doggy has become 'patti patti'!!! And in the day care that he goes to in Trivandrum, they have a rabbit.When all the children run after it shouting 'Bunny,Bunny', hes the only one running shouting ' Moyalu, Moyalu'- mind you its not even Muyal, its Moyal for him :)

 Initially when I tried reading bed time stories to him at nite, he would just get up and leave. It took me some time  to realise that he was leaving 'coz he didn't understand what I was reading to him.That was not exactly in conformance with what I had read on the net on how children would love being read to, even if they didn't follow the language.But nowadays , he wont walk away, when I'm reading, but he's more interested in the pictures in the book. If I read to him in English, he'll make a story based on the pics and tell me in Malayalam!!!

Linguistic woes, huh!!! :)

A False Alarm

When we reached home , after work on friday, Mommolde was running high fever.One full circle completed in a month.And already the second cycle has begun!!! Just 3 week back, Mommolde was hosptialised following high fever, then it was Achulde's turn the next week and then mine. And now , it's Mommolde again!!!
The thermometer showed 100.4,I decided to give him calpol before taking him to the doc. It was then that I noticed more than a couple of bright red rashes on his hands and tummy. What more do I need to panic?!!! We reached the doc's residence where he has set up private practice and when the doc asked us to rush to the Emergency unit of the hospital,we got so worried. Our Paed. has this nature of not telling us in detail, on why he wants the tests done, until the test results are out.He never tells us what he suspects also, until its confirmed. The result being, we end up going through this high voltage tension drama, every time the lil ones fall sick.(But thank God, touch wood, every time,they end up being just false alarms, so I don't mind going thru it once in a while, as long as the kids are safe and sound).
This time also, like every other time, I got so anxious and shot all the questions like ' But why are the rashes there? ' What do they mean? what is his ailment?' and he replied calmly ' I cannot confirm anything, until the blood test results are out'.
'Would that mean an admission?' to which came the reply, 'I would like to get him admitted, but I dont think there is any vacant room in the hospital'!!! So we rushed to the emergency unit , where and waited for a long long time and finally the blood sample is taken for the test.In the mean time, the junior docs, came to examine him and fired Q's on whether we'd been out anywhere, whether someone at home is down with any epidemic, whether someone with any ailment visited our home et al.With each interaction, the heart beat just shot. I was in tears by then, not knowing what was troubling the lil one. The husband went one step ahead and using his mobile,searched in Google with the keywords that he caught hold off from the conversation between the Dr.s' and I could see the blood draining from his face!!! The next 3 hrs were one of the longest in recent history. And finally the junior Doc came and told us that , it must be reaction to insect bite,as the blood tests have come out negative!!! We both broke down to tears ,tears of relief, all the pent-up tension flowing out, but nonetheless grateful, that it was just a scare!!! :)