My Nemesis - My Daughter

You know you're a good mom when you unconsciously yawn in the earworm(y) " aa-aa-aa-aa " of Ahtohallan. If you don't know what I'm talking about you're either (a) not a parent, or (b) a liar. (Btw, lucky you if you really don't know what I'm talking about.) When at age 2 Yukta saw Frozen for the first time and was awestruck with the whole concept of magic and princesses, I knew we had only just embarked on our downward journey of the rabbit hole. I knew this day would come, but I didn't know it would come so soon. Over the last 2 years I must have watched Frozen and Frozen 2 at least 50 times (combined, thankfully!), and listened to the songs in both the movies innumerable times.  I have it extra special - Yukta listens to the songs in Mandarin too in addition to English. We've been in Singapore for a little over a year now and she's been learning Mandarin at school. She's actually pretty good at it and her teacher says she is at par w...

Thanks to COVID-19 children had to get onto the Internet sooner than parents of pre-primary children had anticipated. We were no exceptions and Yukta started having virtual classes over video-conferences couple of times a week. Since these were only pre-primary kids the intention of these classes was to maintain the familiarity of school, teachers, and classmates, more than imparting education.  Anyway, that's just the setting of context; I'm not going to bore you with an essay of pros & cons of using Zoom or Hangouts or Skype for classes. The conversation below is what this post is about. Yukta : " Mommy, can you take a picture of me with this flower? " (holding a flower from our tiny terrace garden next to her cheek with an ultra cute smile and pose) Me : " Sure! " (and I obediently take out my mobile and click the picture) Yukta : " Great! Can you now send this to Josiah please? " Me : " WHAT?? " [Josiah is her best friend at schoo...