Wednesday, June 30, 2010

Basketball Obsession



The NBA playoffs are over, but you'd never know it here in Arlington, Massachusetts.
This morning, as I listened to Rohan's unstoppable monologue, I noticed that just about every other word he said was "Basket." Idly, I started marking every instance of "Basket". Can you guess how many times he said "Basket" in 15 minutes?

A) 15
B) 25
C) 40
D) 60

The answer is D.
Rohan's obsession with basketball grows daily. To ferret out the cause, we looked through our photo albums, and noticed the recurring theme, starting with the "Chhoto basket," a wonderful toy from my aunt given to a 5-month-old Rohan.

With Rohan's acute basket-radar, he can detect baskets from up to 2 city blocks away, and even when baskets are disguised as satellite dishes or pieces of toast.

In the last week or so, Rohan has begun to string words into sentences. Appropriately, some of his first sentences were:
"I see the basket!"
"I go to the park, basket."

Thanks to numerous library books about basketball, Rohan's basketball-related vocabulary now includes:
Jump / Bounce / Shoot / Court / "Noke" (i.e. loke=person playing)
Net / Pass / Slam...DUNK! / Oh-no-basket/Fall-down-basket
"Nei-nei basket" (i.e. basket without a net) / Unchu (high) basket
Boston (i.e., home of the Celtics) / Paul Pierce (#34 on the Celtics)
Chain basket / Basketball / Hoop / Throw

I was going to write about Rohan's other obsessions in this post, but I realize that Baskets are enough for now. So here are some of Rohan's other declarations to think about:
"I go in the hammock."
"I fly the plane."
"Nei nei basket, jabe."
"Mamma, Dadda, backpack trail -- GO there."
"Bye-bye gaan, bye-bye oboe, bye-bye double bass."
"I don't go to up-park, I go to the airport."
"Go to library!"
"This is the hose! I want the big hose!"

Who can resist orders such as these, even at 5:45 AM, when a little voice pokes you in the ribs and observes, "THAT'S the Dadda."

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