Honey pleeeeze!
We are heading to the clinic for the flu Jab and I have beads of sweat on my forehead. From what? You may wonder. Well, for the last 4 minutes I have been trying to force a baby boot on my boy’s foot.
The exercise has been exasperating because the little bootie will simply not fit. For the boy, he is all over the place, giggly and tossing from side to side in a jolly mood.
I am finding it hard to believe the little bundle of joy has grown enough not to fit in his booties’ I look at his now chubby face and almost toothless grin. Did I mention that he has two little sharp teeth that can easily shame a shark’s intertwined canines? ‘Ouch!’ Baba, don’t do that!’ I scream and jerk from the bed. He waves his hands in the air with glee enough to celebrate a win at a nibble of my forefinger. ‘Boy, have you grown! Your once baggy rompers are now tight, tight, tight,’ I say.
The growing boy is going at it- really fast and I can’t believe that the recent baggy clothes are now squashing the toes: As I keep away the little clothes that once fit loosely, for a moment I wonder why I had my children. And the next, how I ever lived without them. My son is both exhilarating and exhausting-many times at the same time. Take yesterday night for example. I am weaning him from having his sweet big eyes gaze at me like a species from Pluto.
Every time I settle to have a meal,his big brown eyes seem to follow the directions of my hand right from the plate to the mouth and back in a pendulum fashion ..
Occasionally, his fleshy left hand speedily grabs my hand towards his mouth. With only two visible teeth and a host of others peeping in the gums, it’s a wonder that he can neither chew nor bite but insistently moves the hands’ contents to his mouth I Little wonder that I’m wondering just how he got to this stage from that helpless little bundle of life that I brought to the world the other day.
Did I say he can sit pretty too? And oh, the boy has a baritone-he will make a girl really happy one of these days-God willing. Sadly, he can’t speak yet, but when he does (because it is just a matter of time), you will bet it is a teenager, should you hear him from another room. Such a contrast from the dad’s soft-spoken nature. So different, that since this boy showed up, I haven’t been the same. Like Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz’s ‘Toto, I don’t think we’re in Kansas anymore’, it’s as though I entered another dimension with strange sights: toys scrawled allover the place, bedding pushed off the bed, sounds (whines, wails and wiggles), and smells (let’s not even go there). It is a place I will dwell in for what seems like forever even as more experienced mummies reassure that time flies by.
My advice: Surround yourself with other mums. Let the housework be and go spend some mornings in the park with other mothers and kids. Share burdens and blessings. There’s nothing more calming and soothing than hearing another mother say, ‘Wait till you hear my version.’
END: BL 33 / 25