With or without you...

Dear Piya,
Your old pals celebrated their fifth wedding anniversary this year.
It is quite a milestone for us, given the cat & mouse rapport couples like us share.

For this special day, hence, we wanted to have a nice lunch to ourselves; just the two of us.
We love you to the moon and back, darling, but we sought a little time away from you on this day, as we wanted to be just the two of us for just a couple of hours; and if you were to join us then that would not be possible in any foreseeable way.
You would jump around the nice restaurant that we were to select, making us remain more and more not-seated-on-the-tabke.
You would not stop talking at all, and owing to that, we would have to stop talking to each other so as to pay attention to your chirp (because otherwise your decibel level would keep on increasing with each passing minute, till you were to be addressed).
You would drop more food outside your plate and around the table than in your mouth which would make me request the waiter for more paper napkins than for food on the menu.

So, I hope you understand why we wanted to be alone for one lunch, don’t you?

Now since you have understood, let me share something - I don’t understand.
My heart wants some time away from you every now & then, but I never really understand why.

I love you, my girl.
I love being with you.
But my patience with you starts to wither after sometime, because I can never keep up with your unwavering energy. Not only do you not seem to get tired, you never allow the ones with you to take a break either!
And that is when I wish that you would take a nap or that I would take a break.

What I don’t understand is why my knees feel weak, then, every time I step out of the house without you. I don’t know why my eyes watch everything outside but my mind keeps thinking of you on the inside. I don’t know why every time you fall asleep I cannot take my eyes off your beautiful, innocent, little face, after having spent hours into begging you to go to sleep, I don’t know why a shard of guilt seems to pierce my heart with all the sour reminders of the silly ways that I was unfair to you during the day.
All I know is that separation from you is still a task I cannot master, even if that’s for a little while.

And so, when in this state of tug-of-war in my mind, when the rope remained taut towards not taking you along, you happened to overhear us whispering our way out the door.

We were sitting at the restaurant along with you, 15 minutes later.
Everything went just the way we were afraid it would.
If anything, the frowns on our faces were a bit more exaggerated than I had imagined them in my forecast to be.

“Never again...” we said to each other, multiple times during that one lunch.

This was one particular moment wherein some clarity came to my understanding of wanting some time away from you once in a while.
But it soon evaporated when we happened to discuss this incident with another couple-friend of ours the next day.

They too had decided to not take their kid along with them on their anniversary-celebration-lunch.
Unlike us, they managed to stick to their plan.

And upon hearing our side of the sob-story, they shared theirs.
There was an eerie silence throughout their lunch and there wasn’t a minute when they did not miss the cacophony of their kid being around.

They returned home with a different version of “Never again...” than ours.

So here is the fun fact, love.
You are a handful but you are the love of our life.
And it is because of this that we parents will always be in the perennial sweet spot of wanting to be with you and then without you, every now & then.


Love,
Maa.

Then and now - part 1

Dear Piya,
I am starting this letter as the first of many ‘Then & now’ letter-series that I am sure I will end up writing to you.
The ‘Then’ will always stand for the time period that the ‘Now’ makes seem like an eternity ago.

You are a few months short of being 3 years old and I am already experiencing a huge gap between then and now; so I ought to tell you how much you have grown and how nostalgic this little time-frame makes me feel.

You know about how I have kept writing to you about the small & big things that make up our life.
But what you do not know is that despite wanting to write more, I have not been able to encompass everything I would have wanted to.
Your precious Papa makes it a point to bring many such memories to my notice every now & then. And so, on Valentine’s Day this year, when he & I started talking about the years gone by (it feels customary for married couples to engage in such trivia-talk on special occasions), we just couldn’t dissociate you from love. Funny, how we dabbed upon our love for each other for just a few minutes and then quickly went on to talking about our love for you for a long, long time!

We started talking about all the cute acts that you have entertained us with alongside growing up wonderfully.
And like a quintessential child, you have given us many an adorable lisp-filled memories.
From those, I want to tell you about a particularly fascinating memory, that your father mentioned I skipped having written about.

Till a year, or so, back, your hold around words was just getting solidified.
It is during one of those days that you got attached to a game we played, called ‘Statue!’
When said ‘Statue!’ to, by anyone pointing their fingers in your direction as if they were holding a gun, you are supposed to become a statue; not supposed to move at all, for as long as the same person doesn’t say ‘Over!’

You laughed like you were being tickled rigorously, every time I shouted ‘Statue!’ in your direction.
And soon enough, you started holding your gun-like-fingers towards me and ordering ‘Statue!’
You used to get really riled up if I did not obey the rule to stop moving.
And while quite adorable, this wasn’t my favourite part of the game.
What was, though, was the way you pronounced ‘statue’.

Tachoo.
That’s what you said.

Try saying it right now as you read this. You will know why I am laughing hard already as I write this!

It was such a cute, adorable to the point of wanting to hug you & shower multiple kisses upon your innocent face, till the point you screamed your way out of my tight hug.
But, sadly, every time I brought out the camera to record this loveable moment, you would shut your mouth zip tight.

Your father loved these instances of ‘Tachoo’ from you and kept asking me to record a video of the same, but it never got recorded.

When he brought it up yesterday with reference to how you perfectly pronounce ‘statue’ now, it became a nice walk down the memory lane from ‘then’ to ‘now’.

We miss those days of your ‘Tachoo’ talks, baby.
And while every single day with you seems like a memory in the making, remembering the same always comes along with a soft sigh on our lips; knowing that those days will never come back is a little heart-breaking.

May the days to come be filled with more such sighs, though.
That’s all I desire for.

Happy Valentine’s Day.


Love,
Maa.

Shush!

Dear Piya,

One of the things that is really cute about a baby is the way they pout their lips while trying to mouth words. I have felt many a butterflies-in-my-heart moment when you were learning to talk, but all that came out was baby-babble.

Had I known the wikipedia of questions that was coming my way in the years to come, I would have taught you words at a much slower pace.

Yes, this is about the constant chitter-chatter, jibber-jabber jukebox that you have turned into after having solidified your grasp around speech.
It is like you just won't shush!
And this is one word you have caught onto like glue because I repeat this as often as I call your name.

"Piya, shush!"

This, you repeat, in an exhausting manner when what you say is not being heard by those around you, with the flair of - "Everyone, shush! Listen to me!"
Oh, yes! No exaggerations here.

If people think cats are curious then I believe I want to alter a famous adage to "...and then the kid's curiosity fried their mother's brain!"
That is how many questions a young child can ask a day and that is how escalating the decibel levels of 'Shush!' can be from the mother's mouth.

Be it at home, be it in a restaurant, be it even in a car while driving to some place, you talk to, you ask of and you shush everyone around, with no pause.
Since some time, I have started taking the liberty of asking you to keep quiet just once and then continuing with my work with a little display of "I am not listening to you, anymore".
Guess what? In response to this, you have shown to go onto talking aloud, as if to the surroundings, nevertheless!
I mean, wow!

I understand that you love to talk, darling. It is a fun aspect of a growing child's quirks.
But what I don't understand is how to make you understand that communication is a two-way street and then, more importantly, that speech is silver but silence is truly golden!

Well, you will learn as you grow, I guess.
But if that is not happening any time soon, then we surely have some tedious years filled with constant chatter, unending string of questions and a whole lot of to & fro 'shushing' our way.

If we go through some old picture-albums some few years from now, when you are grown up, and you come across a picture of mine that has my teeth clenched, not sure if I am happy or angry, then look upto this letter for reference, will you?
In the meanwhile, please 'Shush, baby!'



Love,
Maa.

Little Granny

Dear Piya,

You started to talk since an early age, sooner than many babies your age.
And all the joy that I experienced while enjoying your lisp-filled-chubby-talks have faded away a bit ever since you have donned the cap of a 'Little Grandmother' in our home.

I am not exaggerating.

You have started mimicking the sentences your father and I exchange.
This should only go on to tell you how very careful we have to be, weighing every word spoken aloud, with you around.
So, we put on our genius caps and came up with the solution being that of spelling out the words that ought not fall upon your sucker ears.

It goes without saying that 'chocolate', 'ice-cream', 'pani puri' and the likes were the first ones to make the cut. These were the 'troublemaker words' and so they had to be careful of.
In fact, so used to did we become to spelling out words that once, your Papa spelled out a not-so-troublemaker word to a guest who had come, even while you weren't in the room.
It may not seem like something to laugh about now, but we had quite a hahahaha-moment that time.

Now, the little grandmother in you has come to surface owing to the things we say to each other with regards to you.
So, while you father keeps telling me things he thinks I ought to do better, I do the same. One of these was telling him once that your cries seem to become aggravated when you are given a hug forcefully.
After a long day at work, Daddy-dearest wishes for you to come running into his arms to help melt away his fatigue, but you are not always in the mood to shower the same. In times like these, if you are given a tight hug, nevertheless, you seem to show your best cry aloud.

And so, I was telling your father to not insist on the same, you know, for the benefit of our ears.

You seemed to have heard this so well that the next day when you were offered a hug in the same manner, you cried with a "You were told not to do this na? Why are you doing it?"
You said it like a little granny!
You even had your 'talk to the hand' look up!

Your dad shot a surprised look in your direction, followed by an irate one in mine!
You are just 2.5 years of age, and you are already getting me into trouble, you little granny!
The worst part was that I laughed so hard, I had tears rolling down my cheeks. This did not help your father's mood get any better. Not that this slowed my laughter, no sir!

Anyway, the moral of the story is that it is only going to get tougher & tougher conversing with others around you. I just hope you don't end up blurting out something nasty that I said, the next time.
Not that I say anything nasty, alright?
Okay, this letter ought to end right now.

Love,
Maa.

Shenanigans and hugs

Dear Piya,

Days seem to keep running away from me these days.
You would know this by the increasing lengths of intervals between my letters to you.

The truth is that I found myself with all the time in the world after you came into my life. You were are handful (an am sure still are), yes. But apart from feeding you. cleaning you and waiting for you to fall asleep, there was little work, if any, professionally speaking.

That I decided to build this blog in the form of a diary to you is the best I could have done with the first 12 months of our lives.

I say this because I published a book based on our letters. You probably know that as the little, 2.5-year-old you keeps chanting 'Me to Mommee' every now and then around me, much to my heart's delight.

I found a new flair in my own self through this one decision of taking up writing.
My career has taken a huge shift owing to the same and that is what has filled the free time in my life with writing assignments now.
Sadly, that keeps taking my time away from writing to you, love.

But, here I am now, and if you have caught on the phrases I keep speaking aloud around you, the  you would know that this is the perfect opportunity for me to quote "देर आये, दुरुस्त आये".

I have started to feel the guilt upto my neck these days, for any time that I am away from you, baby.
But I also feel the need to take time away from you every now and then.
I guess this is how all mothers feel.

Speaking of this mother's bundle of joy, with time, your naughtiness has only grown in leaps and bounds, so much so that I keep losing my temper these days more often than not. But the minute I lose it on you is followed by an hour of self-loathing towards myself.
And that has a major chunk of reason sunk in those pitiable-cat-eyes you pop out crying aloud.
It hurts but so does your increasing level of mischief.

I find myself torn between letting you be and inculcating discipline in you.
It just seems impossible to have both!
And I know this because I have struggled with trying to be nice, and then not so nice, with no major results showing up.
You seem to just love throwing things around, kick-boxing everything & everyone in sight, acting with utmost stubbornness everywhere, refusing to follow directives and, your perennial favourite, procrastinating sleep.

All of these affect my day, and my mood, in a really adverse manner.
You see, unlike you, I cannot have all of the day get away without having a thousand errands to run.
I wish I did, but that would be the precise definition of wishful thinking!

While play is all you should engage in, your old woman is not at the liberty to enjoy the same.
I hope I am not jealous of you at some level, because of this.

I look at your innocence through the endless stream of pictures on my phone every chance I get, asking myself why I would ever want to instruct anything into somebody so perfect. Why should a child so young be subjected to any rules of do-this-not-that, at all!

I have lost quite some sleep over this, love.
But what comforts me every time is your unfailing forgiveness.

While you catch on to the stupid things we say around you with a mental net, you have recently started repeating one statement in particular.
Every time you hug me apologetically, after having enraged me with your childish shenanigans, you gently whisper "I love you a big deal, Mommee".

This what I have whispered into your ears, every time guilt ate away a part of my heart for having been unfair to you, ever since you were born.
My heart grows a bit every time I hear you say this to me, now,

I love you a big deal too, my darling.
I will try to act better, as I wish you will too.


Love,
Maa.