When I drop off Sempi at school, I walk him to the front desk where they have name badges for the kids arranged in random order. I ask Sempi to pick out his badge while I sign the sign-in sheet. This is my way of training him to recognize his name. This morning he told me, “Appa, do you see how the safety pin is attached sideways to my badge? I did that yesterday so I can find my badge easily in the mornings”....

Yoshi was washing her face in the bathroom while Vian was playing with the bathroom scale. Yoshi: Why is it upside down? Vian: Appaaaa Yoshi: Appa did it? Vian: Appaaa Yoshi: oh, appa did it Vian: Appaaa Appaaa Yoshi: no Vian, you did it Vian: (silence) All of this happened while I was at work. Appa means dad in Tamil.

Conversation with Sempi this morning. Me: I’m going to finish making the fried rice and then we can do our usual shenanigans. What do you say? Sempi: Yeah, you finish the fried rice and then we’ll throw it in our mouths. It was a wonderful morning. :)

My younger son (16 months) can’t speak any words yet but he has no problems expressing himself by pointing and grunting. When he’s hungry he whines and points to the pantry. When he wants a specific fruit out of the fridge he will reject all the other ones with a head shake and sometimes a shove until I offer him the right fruit. This morning I witnessed him do a gesture that can only be construed as “Look ma no hands”....

I started listening to classical music in my late 20s. Violin pieces are my favorite. I started with classical because I needed music without words while I programmed. Nowadays I listen to it for the pure joy of listening. I got started with Vivaldi’s Four Seasons. I thought that was the best piece of music ever conceived by humans. I used to argue with my wife (a music major) about how Vivaldi was better than Tchaikovsky....