It was a cold Sunday morning. Sempi doesn’t want to leave the house. I’m trying to convince him to go out for family brunch. Yoshi is still getting ready. Sempi: I don’t want to go. I want to stay home and play legos. Me: If you want to stay home, that’s fine. I’m going out for brunch. Sempi: Ok. Me: I’m taking Vian with me. Sempi: Ok, you can take Vian and I’ll stay with Amma....

It is no secret that both Sempi and Vian prefer their mom over me. Vian perceives me as the guy who lives in the same house and occasionally grabs him from his mom to change his diaper. If I happen to enter a room in which he is playing, he will preemptively declare “I don’t need you, appa”. Which is a wonderfully heartwarming phrase to hear from your child. A couple of days ago, the entire family was in the living room....

Sempi’s new obsession is playing police. Every chance he gets, he recruits me and Vian to play police. Sempi: Appa, let’s play police. You can be the bad guy and I’ll be police Me: Ok! Vian, what are you going to be? A good guy or a bad guy? Vian: I’m batman. Me: I see, so is batman a good guy or a bad guy? Vian: No appa, I’m batman. Me: Alrighty then....

It is freezing outside. We bundle up and go out to explore. When we got back to our lodging it was warm and cozy. Yoshi decided to make everyone hot cocoa. She brings the cups of hot cocoa and the bag of marshmallows. Yoshi: Vian, how old are you? Vian: Two! Yoshi: You can have 2 marshmallows for your hot chocolate. Vian: Yay! (and proceeds to grab a handful of marshmallows and dumps it into his hot chocolate)....

We don’t have any wiretap devices like Google Home or Amazon Echo at our house. So whenever we encounter on in the wild the kids get excited about talking to them. We went on a vacation where the AirBnB had a Google version of the wiretap. So Sempi requested it to tell him a story and was pleased with the results. Vian decided that he will try his luck on this device....