Rumor has it, my daughter teaches her teachers!

My little one is now seventeen months old. She has started going to day care and it has already been two months or so. Initially, she wasn't thrilled about it. But, now when I drop her off, she waves bye-bye and gives me a flying kiss.

When she started there, she had just learned about forty or so words, I would say thirty of them Nepali and rest ten were English words. Of course, her first word was 'Baba', meaning dad. :) She has learned so much now, I don’t even keep a count.

As she started there, her artillery of words had majority of Nepali words. So when her teachers tried to teach her how to say things in English that she already knew in Nepali, she would instead respond by asserting the Nepali version of the word.

For example, when teachers tried to tell her 'light' by showing a light bulb, she would respond by insisting on saying the word 'batti', which means light or a bulb in Nepali. She also told them that 'yogurt' is 'dahi', her friends are either 'dada' meaning brother, or 'didi' meaning sister.

So, the other day Bindu told me that Kavya's teachers told her that they now know a few Nepali words. I am assuming that they do not know much about Nepal (I could be wrong here). But, now they know a few Nepali words. What fun!

Well, diversity has a lot to offer. I guess, this one is one of those perks.

What have I learned from my fifteen month old daughter?

Many of you already know that I have a fifteen month old daughter. Of course, I have a lot of praises for her about how gorgeous she is and blah blah blah..after all, she is my daughter. So, I am not going to talk about how madly I like her.

As a child she is learning new things all the time. Every day, I am amazed how quickly she is learning so many things. However, you will be surprised how many things she has taught me, or I would say reminded me, or reinforced on me.

I tend to think we are all children no matter how old we are. We are always learning things and there are some things that we have never learnt or have learnt inadequately. My little daughter has made me realize some of those things. First and foremost she has taught me to be selfless. Yes, I have become less selfish after her arrival.

She has taught me to be more patient. As I interact with her more, my level of patience as naturally grown.

She has taught me to be more forgiving.

She has taught me to be more kind.

She has taught me to be more responsible. I no longer sleep all morning and stay all night just as an example.

Yes, children do require some work, but benefits far outweigh the cost. I hope I will be able to say the same when she is a teenager. :)