Tag: milk

Pet Parent for a day!

During my childhood,  I had been a happy -go-lucky one, who was ignorant about the things going around her. I lived in a world of my own and there had been never a boring moment.  (Touchwood!)

One winter night, we, a family of four were having dinner, watching some golden oldie Hindi movie, eating roti for dinner. (For a South Indian family,  we ate roti on a daily basis, more than idli sambar) My palette for food was selective in those days and the top billing was given to my preference of food and our daily food menu was based on my whim and fancy. Being the youngest has it’s perks!

Anyway,  as we finished our dinner and sat down to watch the rest of the movie, during a brief silent moment in the movie,  I heard “meow” and a definite scratch on our door to the verandah.  I ignored it.

As the scratches became more frequent and the meowing became more apparent,  I alerted my parents.  My dad opened the door. I was half expecting a cat fight, turns out it was not! Two tiny kittens rushed inside the hall, through the open door, one was thin while the other looked well fed. (I suspect the fat one never let the thin kitty have his share of food!) Both the kittens were as white as snow.

The winter night air had been too cold for them and that is the reason they became our guests. My parents fed the kitties the left over roti and milk, which they had for their hearts content. For a brief period both of them used our teepoy as their bunk bed, after dinner, to rest. (Teepoy = coffee table!)

Using the teepoy as their bunk bed!

By a mutual agreement,  I and my sister decided to adopt one kitten each, for ourselves, the thin and the more active one being mine! Once the kittens had their dinner, they started to play with us, till it was our time for bed.

By the time we woke up early in the morning,  the kitty cats were already awake and about. One of them had lept onto my bed too. I was as excited about a pet as George from The Famous Five series by Enid Blyton!

Both me and my sister made our beds and got ready for our school. I didn’t want to leave my kitty home and but went to school with a heavy heart. My sister had named her kitty as snowy. (I am unable to recall what I named my kitten as! I don’t even remember their gender!)

I boasted about my new pet to my friends and eagerly waited for the clock to strike 4! (That’s when the last school bell rang, thanks to Thomas uncle who was always on time! We studied at Christian Missionary school, the best in those days.)

Anyway,  as soon as I was home, I couldn’t find any trace of the mischievous kitties and I demanded an explanation from my parents.  Turns out the twin kittens were the pets of our neighbour from another apartment.  He came searching for them as soon I and my sister went to school. The said owner had left his door open and the naughty kittens ran out of the door, climbed the wall and walked all the way to our house!

The owner asked for his pets in the nearby apartments and found them with us and took them away immediately.

We were heart broken and that is how we became, pet parents for a day! (night, actually!)

P.S:

1. After many years, we had another pet, turns out we have very little luck when it comes to pet animals. That will be post for another day.

2. The chubbier kitten of the two looked like Snowy from Stuart Little, but without the grumpy face. This one looked almost dumb!

3. We always wanted bunk beds in our childhood but nope, we had separate beds and that was fun too!

4. I love how Kramer from Seinfeld comes up with the idea of a coffee table book which converts itself into a coffee table, genius!

5. As you must have guessed, I made the pic with what little editing I know. The kitty cat images and teepoy image is sourced from Google. I just edited them together.

Till the next post,  ciao!

The Tale of the White Leaf!

Before I start today’s post, let me tell you that, if you ever read any post titles, which sound at once intriguing, rest assured that it is related to the kids. This is one such incident I would love to elaborate on…

The daily routine of GBee is, to wake up at 7 a.m. Laze around on the bed, planning ahead, about what he is going to do for the particular day! Then after much coaxing and coddling, get out of the bed at 7:40 a.m.

The next step is to run around the bed, either to wake up his baby brother KBee or to bring his school bag, open the pouch and begin sharpening his pencils and chatting all the while.  He has his pouch always filled up with atleast 10 pencils. He writes with a different one each day.  (Never buy kids pencils in various colours, they ask us for one in each colour. Buy them boring pencils in same colour and they never ask for another.  Don’t repeat my mistake! I bought him colourful pencils and now he has one in each colour ready for any emergencies and still asks me for more!)

When we first joined him in school, he would cry incessantly and always plead me not to send him to school. (I spent many nights wondering if he would ever make any friends or go to school at all!)

Because he manages to cry a lot, he would throw up before going to school, each day. So feeding him breakfast early in the morning was a bad idea. In his early school days, he never ate anything before going to school and always brought his tiffin / snack box, as it is, without eating. (For a week, it felt like he was fasting and opposing the school, in his silent way!)

That’s when I decided to just give him milk before going to school. To make him slowly begin eating at school, I would send his box filled with his favourite cookies and pooris in the shapes of hearts, squares and circles. The little GBee, never liked Pediasure to begin with. (Any new food / beverage never interests him. He has zero interest in trying new food) To get GBee interested in Pediasure, I bought the Vanilla flavoured one and would mix it in milk and give it to him before school and slowly he began drinking it. He never knew I mixed anything in milk, because, vanilla flavoured Pediasure was off white in colour.

Just as I was getting used to him having his morning cup of milk, one day ….

A white leaf!

Since I was busy packing his snack box, I really didn’t understand what he meant at first. My mind was occupied.

He was referring to the layer of protein on the milk, a White Leaf!

Milk Skin = White Leaf

I say ‘sad’ layer because, I hate the layer of protein on top of milk. I just hate when the milk skin forms on milk. Or even tea for that matter. I exaggerate and tell everyone who listens to me, that milk skins suffocate the throat, so I can’t have it! (which is a lie)

After he complained about the ‘white leaf’, i filtered the milk for him and then and ‘only’ then did he drink his milk.

That, dear readers, is the Tale of the White Leaf!

P.S:

  1. I was inspired by ‘The Tale of Two cities’ of Charles Dickens while naming the blog post. I may read it in future.
  2. The milk skin infact has a scientific name, Lactoderm! But,  as usual, I love the one coined by GBee, ‘White Leaf’. He also calls grey hair as ‘White Grass’!
  3. Do you know ‘the Order of White Lotus’? If you are an Avatar geek, you may know it. If you are not, it a secret society of intellectual people who share knowledge. It is part of the ‘Avatar’, the anime and not the James Cameron Avatar.

Till the next post!

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