Amma, don’t go

This is fast turning into a mummy blog I see. But never mind. This morning I ran out to an assignment, finished it, went to school to pick up my daughter and brought her back home. Without prompting, this beautiful child of mine said, “It made me very happy that you came to pick me up, Amma.” My heart was glad when she said that even though I had a bit of a tiff with someone close this morning, and it was preying on my mind. But seeing her sweet little face, gummy smile and answering questions like, “What is plants’ food,” cleared the clouds.

We chatted on the way back from work and she showered me with kisses, singing songs she had learnt in playschool and displaying her extensive vocabulary. (I am so glad she says still messes up her grammar once in a while and says “ch” instead of the “s” sounds, or I tend to forget she’s a baby, not quite three yet.) I dropped her home and was about to leave when she grabbed me and wouldn’t let go. Big plump tears jumped out of her honest eyes as she tried to make a deal with me. “Don’t go offich now, Amma. Go tomorrow, when I go to kool,” she said. “I go to school and you go to offich.” It was all I could do to keep from joining her tear fest myself. No promises, explanations or bribes worked. All she wanted was to be with me. I know in a couple of years she won’t care and I know I will miss it. I know I want to be at home when she cares and is expressive of it. I want her to remember that she and her brother are the reason I go to work. Well, at least, the biggest reasons. But how do I tell her that? How do I make her understand that I’d much rather stay here at home with her, colouring with her and scribbling in her drawing book, than going out every day to work, when, the few times she has raised tearful objection, all I have told her in effect is that doing my work, keeping my boss happy and earning money are all more important than her helpless, honest tears.

I want to be home with my kids. I know I’ll go out of my mind but I want to be home. I don’t want to be telling them my time belongs to someone else and not them, when they are such a tremendously important part of my life, of who I am.

I miss those kids, as mad as they drive me.

For Shyama

I took the sun to sleep with me,

With it some flowers, a waterfall and a whole bowl of glass beads.

They swirled into my dreams and grew arms and legs

And sprouted a stubborn chin.

They got together, this tiny eddy of things

And became a little moon whose kisses I woke to.

They became my little girl,

A humbling piece of my heart, the purest part of my soul.