Tiny Conversations – learning GK & Vocab

I was talking to 8 yr old Aly, some years back, and I told her that she was a big contrast to her younger self.

“In which way Dadi?” she asked, knitting her brows.

“Well, you were extremely talkative and a great conversationalist, even at the age of two! But now, you don’t engage in much conversation so often.”

“Yeah,” she said in a drawl. “Was I irritating?” she added with a broad grin.

“On the contrary, my dear, your conversations were highly interesting and you were cute.”

I rifled through an old journal and luckily, I found a conversation I had recorded. It was one of the ones I had with her when she was two going on three. She had been in the mood to conduct a General Knowledge class and threw in a bit of vocabulary as well. Here it is:

I learn something interesting every time I talk to Alyssa. A couple of days back, as we chatted over the net, she asked, “Dadi, do you know where the North Pole is?”

“No. Do you?” I was keen to learn what she knew about it.

“Yes. It’s at the top. At the tip of the planet.” And just so I didn’t get confused about the “top” and the “tip” of the planet, she circled her arms above her head and with her index finger tapped the top-tip (coined that word) of her head. “Santa lives here!” she said brightly.

“Ah! So that’s where it is! Hmm..”

“The South Pole is at the bottom,” she added for my benefit.

Then, to complete my Geography lesson, she informed me about the time difference between Canada and India. It was a good “8 1/2 hrs-9hrs” she said confidently. Then she realized I wasn’t in India.

“What’s the time now in Chile?”

I told her and she wasn’t impressed by the comparatively lesser time difference as compared to the difference between Canada and India! It made me laugh. The things that impress a three year old!

“Mummy bought some ‘biiig’ pears yesterday,” she said changing the subject. It was vocabulary time now.

“We get very big pears here too, you know.”

“No,” she countered. “This one is not just very big, it’s ginormous!” Once again, I was blown away by her vocabulary. I just looked at her with adoration and admiration.

“You heard me?” she asked because I was quiet. 😀

“I heard you sweetheart and I’m so proud of you.”

(I’m a puffed up, proud granny hen. And I’ll be crowing about her. No apologies!)