Mommy!!

Motherhood - 'the' hood of all hoods. This year is my fifth mother’s day, if you count by the single day in the year, which the world proclaims as ‘Mother’s Day’. But, if you go by all the days that I have been a mother, that number would run in the thousands, multiplied by the number of children. Each day in the life of a mother is different; children in the early years rarely do the same thing twice. My little one yesterday liked Dora, but today he likes Blues Clues a.k.a. coo-coos in his language. The everyday challenges are different and it is a long tunnel with no light on the other side. Nevertheless, the delight of holing up in this tunnel with this little being that you brought into the world is motherhood.
Although, all mothers hope for the next stage of their child’s life to be easy, they reminisce the years gone by, right from the days when his tiny feet were kicking hard to get out of her womb. The anxiety then is ‘when will he come out?’ Once out and you find him sleeping for 16 hrs, you think, ‘wish he would start moving around’. With great difficulty this tiny human being, rolls over, moves through the confined space of a room, on his belly, lifts himself up and manages to balance his weight on his hands and knees. Soon, he starts crawling, and wants to get his hands on everything within his reach, bumping into the furniture and all your objects that you adorned your house. Just when he learns to manipulate the gadget buttons, you wish ‘only if he could talk’. The next thing you know, your wish is granted… he starts with the gaa-gaa’s and the goo-goo’s, until one day he surprises you with “MOMMY”.
If you are thinking, now I am done, you are mistaken, everything prior to this was prep-work, and the game is just about to begin. Fasten your seatbelt, now it is a roller coaster on which the button to turn off the ride is broken. Potty training, doctor visits, shots on time, daycare, food habits, sleep habits, school, alphabets, numbers, friends, gum, TV, fighting, ice-cream, candy, chocolates, sibling, cranky… the list is endless. There are a thousand questions you ask yourself each day – did he eat, is he sleeping well, did he eat his vegetables, did he drink milk, who are his friends, is he fighting with someone, is he watching too much TV, which is his favorite cartoon, is he running a temperature, what’s in his book bag….
Apart from all these external paraphernalia, what makes me feel special is his seamless confidence in me and how much I matter to him. The gleam in his eyes, when he sits beside me for a Mommy’s tea party at school. His hugs and announcements of “My mommy,” to make his brother jealous. All his expressions, that reflects upon this special relationship folds up under this hood.
At the end of the day, when you put him to bed, he gives you a kiss and says ‘I love you Mommy’, makes it all worthwhile
Happy Mother’s Day!