A Roller Coaster Ride « makeSplash.com by Sush Jaitly

A Roller Coaster Ride

November 9th, 2009

After bidding goodbye to Manish and having had my breakfast I’m all ready to deal with Aleena. As I look at the house, my heart sinks. Every nook and corner is strewn with toys, wet towels, shoes, slippers, newspapers, books and worn clothes. Lord!! Help me. How does my family manage to mess up the whole house so effortlessly? Doesn’t this chaos bother them as much as it bother me? I guess not or else it wouldn’t have been there in the first place. By now it’s an everyday affair and yet I fail to accept it as normal. I keep hoping that one day my family will realize and understand the words “There’s a specific place for everything and everything should only be in that place”. After all you have to have faith in your Lord. Amen!!

As I clear the mess Aleena tries her best to help me out, which is actually slowing my progress. But she genuinely feels that this will make mommy happy. She keeps chatting with me in her baby babble and I keep doing UMMM, HMMMMMM to it. In between she also breaks into a dance to the music playing in the background. If only she could hold this mood for longer but I know better than that. Even grown ups can’t be happy for hours on end and she’s just an year old. Anyways, I somehow manage to get the house in some order but only till Aleena strikes again.

By now she is rubbing her ears meaning that she wants to sleep. But before that I got to give her her daily vitamin drops, calcium and an oil massage. She loves all three. It’s part of her daily ritual and an indication that now mommy is gonna pamper me. She keeps pointing towards each in a sequence, kind of telling me what follows next. Not bad for an year old to remember these sequences!! I follow her baby directions of “EEE”, “UUUU” which more or less conveys all that she needs to tell me. She lies back and enjoys her massage and as I wrap her in the towel she is already dozing off. I then tuck her in her cot and step back.

Now I’m in a fast forward mode and try to finish everything within the next one hour while she is asleep. I would love to laze around or just sip hot tea and may be listen to music or read something…...but there is so much that needs to be done. Firstly I switch on the washing machine. Let it do it’s job while I attend to others. Then I head to the kitchen and chalk out what all needs to be prepared for lunch and dinner, so that my maid can come and do the chopping and the dough for both the meals. I do my cooking in one go only for I really can’t manage to do it twice. What with Mansie, Manish and Aleena, the Blog and outside chores, there is definitely no time for anything else.

With all the meals chalked out I rush for a quick shower and then a short prayer to God. It’s now time for washed clothes to be spread on the line when I hear Aleena stirring in her cot. Before she starts wailing I pick her up and take her out to our balcony to bask in sun for a while and enjoy her favorite pigeons flying from one building top to another. While she does this I prepare her bath. In no time Aleena is bathed, dressed and ready for her mid day snack and juice, half of which will be given to the pigeons as she is satiated very soon. Now she is all charged up and ready to strike again.

Strike she does and the target of her mischief is my clothes line. She raises her baby hands, grabs anything and everything she can lay her hands on and pulls it down which is then thrown down to the ground floor from our third floor flat. This is my toddler’s favourite game these days. And I can’t begin to tell you how many trips I have to make to retrieve our stuff, that is only if I know that she has thrown something down. Else after a few days if we can’t find something we assume Aleena has discarded it. After a few trips down to fetch the clothes and her toys I settle her in her high chair for lunch. She is hungry after all that activity and eats without much fuss. Towards the end she starts taking out her food and drop it to the floor meaning that she’s through. Now she heads for the balcony and calls out to all the buses, thinking her sister Mansie is in one of them. She sits there waiting till Mansie returns.

Mansie comes home by 2.30 pm and on seeing her she chuckles and run towards her. Both sisters are happy to be together and play for sometime while I get a break, till Aleena pulls out Mansie’s water bottle and spills the water. Time for me shake out of my tiny break and clear the mess. Mansie changes her clothes after being cajoled umpteen times and sits for her lunch but suddenly remembers that she wants to watch cartoon at the same time. NOOOO!! Please finish your lunch so that I can take a nap but she is unrelenting and emotionally blackmails me into putting the cartoon channel for her. Phew!!! Both father and daughter have to watch TV with their meals. Anyways after a very stretched half an hour I put my foot down and switch off the TV. But Mansie doesn’t want to sleep. Its 3 pm and I’m in no mood for an argument, so I let her play in the other room while I take my nap. I really need to rest for an hour or so.

I get up at 4 pm only to find Mansie asleep. Gawd!!! These kids, I tell you!!! They have to do the exact opposite of what you want them to. Now she will take another half an hour to wake up. After shaking, calling out loud and cajoling she finally drags herself out of the bed and sits down to study. But every few minutes she asks me if she can go down to play after she has finished her work. I remind her that at this rate I have my doubts if she will. So she puts her head down to her work. I hear Aleena cry from the other room for attention. I fetch her before she starts wailing. Both the girls meet again like they have not met in eons. After few more reminders Mansie again returns to doing her work and as soon as she finishes her assignments she dashes down to play leaving her milk and cookies untouched. Aleena is only too happy to gobble her share of cookies. After that she begins to tug at my legs to take her down as well.

We get dressed and I put her in her stroller. As we move towards the elevator Aleena is literally jumping with joy for now she can sense that she is also going out. I too feel glad to be out in fresh air and walk for a while. As we circle our colony Aleena waves to Mansie and her friends en route. They all come running to talk to her and she chatters with them happily. Amazingly kids really relate well with each other. As it gets dark Aleena shifts uncomfortably in her stroller and turns her head to indicate to me that now she wants to go home. I keep pushing for few more minutes hoping for Manish to come back soon so that we all can go back together.

As she sees Manish’s vehicle from some distance she calls out to him and raises both her hands for him to pick her up. I call out to Mansie who is running around with her friends close by. But she runs away pretending not to have heard me as she knows this call is the end of her play time. Manish’s firm call manages to get her attention and she runs back towards us. Aleena again cries out in glee and we all head back home. The girls move to their room and Aleena pulls out Mansie’s books lying on the table to which Mansie scolds her and Aleena comes crying to me. By now I’ve had enough!!! I ask Manish to pacify her while I get tea and some munchies for him. He is quite happy to attend to her after a day at office and fails to understand why I’m irritated by her crying. Anyways, I’m too tired to even explain, so we just settle down to have our tea in peace, as long as it prevails.

Tomorrow is going to be another day with another set of events, which will definitely defy my imagination…..believe me my life and every day of it is like a roller coaster ride…..never the same any day…..lets see what lies in store for me tomorrow.