Author: Tulika

First, they cried..
… all the time. They cried when they woke up, cried over their milk, cried over their once-a-week homework. Naisha cried because she didn’t have a cycle. When we got her one, she cried when I refused to let her cycle all the time (at 6.30 in the morning, 2 in the afternoon, 10 at night) and she cried when she had to share it. Hrit cried over his old cycle (“it makes me fall, the tyres have no air, the brakes aren’t working”).
They cried every single day at the end of playtime.

..then they misbehaved
Hrit tossed up his huge stuffed tiger into my cup of tea, then shattered the CFL.
They speedily demolished new toys.
They crushed chalk and mixed it with talcum powder to make ‘coloured powder’, then applied it all over themselves as well as their soft toys… I’m still discovering teddys and tigers caked with pink and purple powder.
They poured water on the bed when they wanted to clean it.

and they fought..
.. with each other and with every available kid. They called each other names, called each other’s friend’s names. They even fought for their friends. (“She pushed my friend”, “He pulled my friend’s hair”). They argued, bashed, pushed and pulled hair like a bunch of total rowdies who’d never been taught to behave.

At my wit’s end..
I tried hard, really hard, to keep them in good humour only to finally yell at them with double vigour. How I refrained myself from whacking them, I don’t know.
I forbade them to talk to each other.. which brought on a fresh deluge of tears (“He is my only brother and you aren’t letting me talk to him”.. no matter that five minutes back she was on the ground wrestling him)
I forbade them from fighting even if the other child was clobbering them.
I forbade them from taking up their friends’ cause. “Walk away when there’s a fight” I told them. Am I turning them into cowards? I don’t know and frankly I couldn’t care… better they turn into cowards than live with an insane mum.

So freaked out am I that I’ve developed an annoyance for anyone less than 20 years old. At the mall I glared at a two-year-old giving her mum a tough time and found myself muttering “ungrateful, uncooperative, ill-behaved devils”. The mother promptly collected her kid and made a quick exit.

My silver lining — The Husband
Was I grateful for his presence! He distracted the kids with impromptu quizzes. Talked them out of their sulks and took over just when I was about to crack.
Two days back after struggling to wake Naisha up for a good half hour (a precious half hour in the rushed morning schedule) I gave up. The Husband stepped in and got her brushed and dressed. The way he reads the newspaper each morning, oblivious to the mayhem, while I’m dashing around from kitchen to bedroom and bathroom, I had no clue he could actually do so well.
Each evening while the kids are playing he quietly walks up to an hour of peaceful television before we come home. But these days he stops to check on them (and on me too, I’d like to think).
He really is the silver lining of this very black cloud.

Then yesterday..
back from school, the bus deposited a yet-again sulking Naisha because Hrit had insisted on squeezing in another friend on their seat and she became ‘so sweaty’. At home, they refused to change out of their school clothes, Naisha wanted to cycle at once, then she demanded Gulcon D Nimbu Pani while I’d made the Orange. And then just as I was about to snap Hrit handed me this…

And I didn’t even know he could spell all those words leave alone string the sentence together.
I’m hoping that’s a sign from the heavens that good times are round the corner.

Thanks you guys for wondering where I was. That felt goooood.
**********

Just a precious little nugget from one of their interminable fights

Naisha’s standing at the kitchen door. Hrit pushes past her.
Naisha: Why did you push me?
Hrit: You’re standing in the way augustly I have to push you.
Naisha (screwing up her eyes scornfully): It’s not ‘augustly’ it’s ‘obviously’.. you don’t even know proper Hindi.