Needles in a haystack.

Dear Piya,

I am writing to the two-year-old (a few months plus) chirpy toddler that you are today.

I have written to you about a lot of events that we have shared since you were born. Through that, I prided myself into believing that I had captured the timeline of your growth.
But I recently realised that seldom has time been captured.

It just goes on to prove how depreciating an asset a human brain is - there is only so much it can remember over a period of time.

I used to believe that if something is genuinely important, then no matter what happens, it remains etched in one's memory.

Putting the same words in a different format again, allow me to say this - You are the most important person in my life; yet I seem to have forgotten some beautiful things that you exhibited when you a tad more little.

My phone brimmed yesterday with yet another blink of 'Memory is full'.
I needed to clear my phone's memory to make space for future memories to be captured (hehe...that sounds cool!).
As would be expected, I browsed the photos section of the phone, as that is the where a major chunk of phone-storage-data is consumed. I swiped through the pictures till I reached the oldest ones.
Almost all of them were your captures :)

As I started selecting multiple pictures & videos to delete, I realised that the baby in them looked quite different from the baby I have with me today.
No, you did not get swapped in those two years, so relax.

The baby in the pictures doesn't leave my lap.
The baby with me today hurts my back by riding me like a horse.

The baby in the videos makes the cutest lip-twirls, drooling with rosy-pink.
The baby with me today doesn't stop chattering , questioning every object's existence around her. (What's this? What's that? What does this do? Where did it come from? Can I eat it? No? Let me still try...)

The baby in my phone is the girl I thought I would remember every yawn of.
The baby with me today remembers to correct me every time I yawn out loud, without covering my mouth.

I thought I was collecting & captivating everything in my memory. I thought I was doing the impossible task of capturing time.

I am so glad to realise that I haven't been able to remember everything; that I will chance upon something from the thousands of your captures, that will make me go into a trip-to-the-amazing-past kind of memory lane; that no matter how much I try to write, I will always be humbled by the miracle that is a infinite shades of a child; that no matter how big our haystack, I will always end up finding memory-like-needles of a life well-lived.

Let me capture a picture of you now, shall I?


Love,
Maa.

Snake-Woman

Dear Piya,

This world has many amazing creatures.

There are animals, who little toddlers like you love to observe.

There are birds, who babies like you love to listen to.

There are fish who little ones like you enjoy watching.

There are human beings, who are the source of little ones like you.

And then there are the super-humans, who are mostly a figment of imagination of kids like you who grew up to realise how boring life is without a dash of creativity.

I thought I belonged to the category of human beings all my life.

That is till the day I had you.

The sheer pain of having pushed out another human being from me made me want to be declared as a super-human.

Your father did not approve of this, obviously, as that would make the parental balance weigh down heavily in my favour.

But then as I developed a distinct super-power as you grew up, my stature as a super-human started to become undeniable.

Here is the super-power I have mastered with time - Slithering!

Yes!

I have become glib at slithering out of our bed after putting you down to sleep.

It took me some time, but I realised this pretty soon that you sense my absence through some magical body-warmth-detector in you. That is the only way I can justify you waking up with a cry the second I get out of bed.

I did not want your sleep to be disturbed like this. You are little. Little people like you should sleep so that big people like me can do things around them.

As expected, you did not grasp any of this logic.

And so, as time went by, I tried newer & newer techniques to avoid waking you up with myself, that is till I became the super-human - Snake Woman!

It’s the only way to not disturb your sleep, till date.

All I have to do is wait till you are deep in sleep, move away one tenth of an inch per second, reach the edge of the bed and then slither down without making any noise.

It’s difficult than it sounds.

You have no idea of the number of times I have fallen down the bed failing to slither away effortlessly.

Apart from getting my bottom hurt, I have then had to deal with the grief of you waking up.

Anyway, what I am saying is that your mother has superpowers, girl!

If you wake up less often and annoy me to a minimum by doing so, I will teach you my secret some day.

So, be good okay?

Sleep tight.

Good night.

Love,

Maa

Lyrics of love

Dear Piya,

You may think that I am a romantic, based on the love-filled letters I have written to you.

You wouldn’t be wrong to think so.

I guess that when it comes to her child, every mother is a romantic at heart.

Everything seems prettier in the background of a laughing child.

Anything seems possible with the faith of a tiny finger wrapped around one’s palm.

All looks better & all feels right, with a child’s hug for a necklace.

It wouldn’t be wrong to wonder if lyricists think of little, adorable, munchkins, when they write beautiful songs of love.

I, for one, can serenade any love song to you. You are my Cuppy Cake, to the core, in that manner.

But that stands true because of the things you do, the way you do them & the manner in which you stand there, cluelessly adorable after having done them.

Lets speak of what happened a few days back - 

You wanted to do an odd activity.

I said, ‘No’.

You said, ‘Pleaseee...’ with eyes the size of  chunky almonds.

I took a deep breath, and repeated, ‘No!’.

You said, ‘Just for 1 minute...’

‘No, Piya...’

‘Acha...only 2 minutes...?’

I pursed my lips a little before erupting into a carefree laugh.

I did not know where ro even begin with my response!

How do I explain logic behind numbers to a toddler unaware of the concept of number?

All I could do was hug you & kiss your cheek ten times.

I know innicence comes to you naturally.

And you have to know thag my love for this innocence inside of you comes just as naturally to.

Do you mot believe me?

Shall I sing a romantic song to prove it?

Love,

Maa

The snoozing sweet spot

Dear Piya,
From as long as I can remember, my sleep cycle has gone for a toss ever since I welcomed you in my heart.
When inside me, you found immense pleasure in kicking every corner of my bulge ping tummy from within, all night long. And if that wasn’t enough, my bladder served as a squeeze-ball for your entertainment every few hours.
After birth, you woke up every 1-2 hours demanding satisfaction for your little appetite, as if an all-night-buffet was tagged on my head.
And then it took a while for you to accept that human beings sleep at a stretch at night, after I stopped breast feeding you; which is to say that your thirst during night was twice as much as during daytime.

But all of this is not the centre-point of this letter.
This letter is about the time you were completely trained with pee-pee & potty control.

Spoiler alert - That is yet to happen.
Centre-point alert - I have no issues with that.

All the while that you were on breastfeed & then again thereafter, the only thing you did not trouble the night with was your pee-pee & potty.
I did act stupidly some time into your birth by avoiding diapers, but I have not had better days ever since I started making you wear them!
Be it use-&-throw or be it reusable ones, diapers are a boon to any mother, and of course to babies too!
They make a baby sleep like an angel through the night.
This in turn means that the mother’s dark circles get saved from getting a deeper hue.

Thankfully, you got trained to do potty on the pot only, since you were 14 months old.
But pee-pee training has taken quite a long time for you.
Now that you are over two years old, I am told that you should be made to sleep without a diaper.

Here is where I should tell you something.
You took a while to adjust with sleeping through the night after we stopped night feed. It is only since some weeks that I have realised what it feels like to have 6-7 hours of uninterrupted sleep; something I had forgotten for 3 years, now!

I really don’t care what ought to be or should be done with your diaper.
There is no one-size-fits-all, believe me.
Some babies get trained by the age of two, while some kids wet the bed after 5 years of age too.

Amidst all of the motherly concern over a silky diaper, I also have to address the sleepless girl inside me, who has been robbed of dreams for years.
I owe it to her to enjoy this snoozing sweet spot, as a little girl sleeps heavenly besides her.

I will let her have this time, before I rob her off a sleep-cycle again, with your night-pee-training.

Till then, sweet dreams, my love.


Love,
Maa.