Ways To Amuse a Baby - Part 2

Baby and me are back in action! This time we present to you:

1. Ballroom dancing

Hold baby in position, and play some swaying kind of music. Put one of baby's hands on your shoulder, hold the other hand... And sway... This is heaven.

2. One...Two..Three.......JUMP

This requires a baby who likes to climb (and fall). This type of baby is usually referred to as "Hey Monkey", rather than by his or her real name. Anyway, here is how to make falling fun.

Before you let your baby do this, read these VERY IMPORTANT instructions:

• Don't try this if your sofa doesn't have a nice flat broad backrest. How broad depends on the broadness of your baby's backside.
• Make sure your baby is a monkey. Non-monkeys HATE this game.
• Sofa seat should be soft and one single unit - no separate cushions.
• Sofa MUST stick to a wall.
• And use a BIG sofa, please.

OK. Here's the fun part. Perch baby on top of the backrest. It will be amusing to see the half confused, half frightened, half excited face. (OK, one-third of each) If baby is an aforementioned monkey, it wont be long till he/she jumps onto the seat with glee. After some time, a really really monkeyish baby will learn to climb on to the backrest himself - first maybe with the help of a pillow or a big teddy bear, later all by himself. And the result, most likely, will be this:

101 Ways To Play Cricket

OK, I'll admit I haven't reached 101, but with a little help from my friends I soon hope to. Here are 3 to start with:

1. Galli Cricket - Contributed by every school kid, inspired by Roshan
Usually played in a small residential lane with a dead-end (or galli). There are dozens of interesting rules, most of which pertain to getting out. Such as Pitch-catch out, hit the window, hitting the ball over some Aunty's compound who wouldn't return the ball, not scoring any runs for a long while (you were declared "retired"!!!). And those 1-D, 2-D calls that just "declared" 1 run or 2 - you didn't have to run for them!

2. Book Cricket - Contributed by Callous Crab - Read the original here (Callous Crab, I've re-written it because the rules were a little different the way I played it)
This is usually played by the desparate-to-be-outside-but-stuck-in-class kid. And another kid of the same type.
You need a nice fat book - not a problem to obtain while in class - and decide who want to "bat" and who wants to "bowl". The bowler opens a page at random, and depending on the page number, this is what the batsman does:

Page number ending in:
1,2,4 or 6 - Scores that many runs
8 - No ball/wide
0 - OUT!

3. All by yourself
Essential to have a bare wall and a parent who is sound asleep/doesn't mind noise/absent.
Just toss the ball on to the wall and hit it!