Nikki's monologues

After school, Monday to Wednesday my daughter goes for Maths tuitions. If I can manage my work to finish early, I pick her and bring her home with me on these days.. She sits behind on my bike and the half an hour drive is a non-stop breathless account of all the exciting things that happened in school. It is more of a monologue where she says, "she's like... We're like... Then we're like.." . and I only need to respond with Oh? Yes? And then? Really? I must say I enjoy her talking. 

Though she has my frizzy curly hair, she takes after my wife in her behavior. She is not shy, will speak her mind if she feels she has been wronged and yet has a very large group of friends, because she rarely stops talking to/playing with her classmates even after they have a fight. Since I grew up in a male dominated house with my mom the only lady, and having no sisters it still is puzzling to me how women think and behave, which is so different from how men think or behave. In that context my son is much more easier to read than my daughter. 

In school she thinks her class is the best & unique because all of them are like one big family. All the kids have been together since 2nd standard which is when all of them transferred in to join this school when it started. Supposedly the other classes(7th divisions) are not like hers. She calls her classmates normal versus 'YO' kids in other divisions. YO kids refer to kids who are fashion and brand conscious, have boy friends/girl friends and generally try to behave like college students than 7th standard school kids. The YO kids already have paired off as boyfriends and girlfriends within their gang. While her pals in class include both boys and girls there are no boy friends or pairing yet. I see my daughter changing into a woman bit by bit each day, and frankly have no clue to advising her on stuff. I leave that to my wife. The only advice I give on rare occasions is to make sure she doesn't make the mistakes I did. 

She was unhappy about her thick curly hair for a long time and wanted to straighten it. We forbid it till she grew up. But the constant ads in the media showing the ideal beautiful people who are tall fair and have straight hair doesn't help. Recently my wife showed her pictures of her classmate who has curly hair and looks beautiful finally seems to have convinced her. The curly haired heroine in a recent malayalam popular movie PREMAM was also an inspiration in this line. One of the boys in her class called it a broom, and she is determined to show him that she can look good with her curly hair. The school gives the kids a dinner party for Diwali every year. This year she's making plans to dress up and show everyone that she can look good too. I know this will come true since I've seen her dressed up. But as her dad I have mixed feelings about this. 

Incidentally she thinks her brother's class including him are ADVANCED - another euphemism for slowly turning YO.