Joys of being a mommy

My mornings are filled with tears. Except, of course, those rare days when daddy decides to stay at home and work. Otherwise it’s never ‘bye, bye, mommy’ with a smile. There are kisses and teddy hugs and kisses again, but no bye-byes. My 18-month-old clutches his teddy with one hand and tugs at my sleeve with the other.

“Come mommy, come and sit with me,” Aadit points to the sofa. I eye my watch with guilt. It’s a quarter to nine and I know I have barely five minutes to spare. I try to rehearse everything the websites have taught me.

“Honey, look mommy’s off to work and she’ll be back soon. Now you be a good boy and play with teddy,” I tell him reassuringly. My son knows better. “No no no no, ne ne ne ne!!” he screams and pouts, his tearful eyes tugging at my heartstrings.

I try play acting when everything fails. “Let’s peek-a-boo,” I say encouragingly, initiating the game with his nanny. But children are not to be fooled. He wants to hide with me and me only.

“That’s not how we play the game,” I try and teach him. But he refuses to hide alone, to stay put behind a door only to come out and find that mommy has gone off with her bags and books. He knows my tricks and how well I have rehearsed all of these and he knows that his only weapon to keep me from going away is his tears.

So I slowly slip on my heels, pick up my bag as he stands there, then bend down and help him wear his shoes and hold his hand and walk him through the door.

His nanny follows with his push bike, a favourite toy and a ball to share with the other kids who come down to play the same time every morning.

Pure happiness

For a moment I see that spark in his eyes, a sudden sprightliness in his gait in the hope that mom is going nowhere. He holds on to my hand as tightly as he can, and lets out a shriek in pure joie de vivre as the elevator finally stops at ground level.

Outside there are children playing, some going to school, others being taken around in their bikes and bugaboos. My little one does a jiggety jig, lets go of my hand and runs off to feed the pigeons picking on grains on a nearby patch of land. A part of me is relieved to see him move on, detach himself from me, but the other part wants to wait and see what he does all morning, how he runs and plays and falls and pulls himself up again.

This part of me wants to see how his cheeks turn red in the heat, how he talks to the flowers and goes in search of his favourite cat and all the things I hear his nanny tell me when I get back home every evening.

I try not to picture his face when I finally get a cab, of how angry and cheated he would feel to find that his mommy has actually run away at the slightest slip on his part, of how treacherous adults can be.

I fight those tears away, try to reason with myself that children of working mothers don’t necessarily turn out to be emotionally insecure, reprimand myself for over reacting and try to focus on the day ahead.

A few hours later I have the nanny on the phone. “Did he cry a lot?” I ask, almost teary-eyed myself.

“No, he was fine.”

“Are you sure? Didn’t he cry when he didn’t see me after feeding the pigeons?”

“No not at all. He went off to see his favourite cat. And then there were those kids from the next block who come everyday to play catch with him, and then the lady on the fifth floor gave him a candy ...

The voice on the other end rattled off a millon things that my son had so far. It had everything to do with fun and laughter and naughty chuckles and endless rounds of peek-a-boos and nursery rhymes rattled off from the good old mother goose books. But no tears. No hard feelings. No hating mummy for going away.

I ended the call and smiled to myself. It wasn’t a bad day after all.