Mothers have this knack of talking to kids, of any possible age. They do not bother if the child is able to understand yet and keep talking to them. And when the child grows up to the age where (s)he can actually start talking, though one’s own language, the conversations continue, in the baby-language. I mean I can’t think of doing the baby-talk that mom would when my bro was li’l. She would talk, walk and sing in his language. Sorta ‘Anything to get things done from you baby’.
Like …when he was of the age in which he could understand things, but only things that mattered to him, I mean things that 2-3 year olds understand, she’d sit with him with his plate in her hand and start of the story telling routine.
“Aaj kaunsi story?”
“mmm… Tiger wali story”
He’s always demanded for this, rather only for this, tiger wali story. So after a point of time when mom ran out of all the possibilities of making up stories which had tiger and tiger and only tiger in it… mention of any other animal and my bro would start
“nahi… tiger wali story bolo”
After a couple of line mom would get stuck at
“Phir kya hua batau?”
And she for a long time managed to get my bro finish his meals with just that single line. Me being able to understand things better by now started getting bored. But would bother her coz I knew she was doing this to get her li’l brat eat up all that was on the plate.
And other times she’d tell him stories about the things that come on TV. There was this series that used to come on DD those days which had the lines “Baingan raja aate hain.” She’s use that to get him do some more eating/drinking/sleeping tasks. When it used to be time for play she’d even play games with him, games that he’d wanna play.
Amazing… what a mother is capable of.