Just when you think you know everything there is to know about kids and the kind of antics they're capable of, they do something to completely throw you off...balance.
I now know why God made children. I now know why we grow up being so cute, making the adults coo over us and melt like butter in a hotpot. I now know why parents are prone to tripping all over themselves to satisfy every whim and fancy of their children, even if they lose an arm and a leg for it.
I am one such parent.
Can you imagine what my reaction was when I was working on a very important article one afternoon and Joshua was jumping off the bed with his arms flapping or flailing around wildly. I was shocked and asked very whimsically, “Josh, what do you think you’re doing?”. He smiled gleefully and answered me very innocently, “Mommy, I am a bird, mommy”.
I just couldn’t hide my smile. All that crazy flapping was because he was pretending to be a bird? Gee, should’ve known better than to ask, isn’t it, Marsha? What next, Josh? Well, nothing beats the next incident, of course.
I was eating my dinner, after feeding the kids. Jared was bouncing around with his cousins in the living room and I was trying to see if I could stuff half a plate into my mouth without tearing my lips apart because Jared was just about to jump off the piano. However, as I got up from the chair, I spotted Joshua under Jared’s high chair. He had an empty plate infront of him and he had his face plastered in the middle. There was some gobbling noises coming from him too.
Silently, I got behind him (without him knowing) and watched him.
He lifted his head for a while, huffed and puffed a little and then placed his face back into the plate. I tapped him lightly on his shoulder and asked him, crouching to his level. “Josh, what are you doing?”.
“I am playing, mommy”
“What are you playing, Josh?”
“I am playing anteater”
“Anteater?” I laughed out loud. “You’re telling me that you’re an anteater?”
He smiled seeing that his antics got me tickled “Yeah, I am an anteater” To illustrate his point, he huffed, puffed and made a sort of breathing noise (he’s assuming anteaters do that cause he’s never heard an anteater before, neither have I) and put his face back into the plate again.
I tapped him on his shoulder again
“What’s the anteater doing, Josh?”
“Ssssshhhhh….mommy, you scary the ants”
Oh. I see.
That’s Josh. In the meantime, my younger son is no less funny. Compared to Josh, Jared is outgoing and knows precisely which buttons to push and when to push it. I am dead serious when I say this because this boy knows how to put out my fire as quickly as how to start one.
Even if he blew up the house, he knew how to get himself out of trouble, no problem at all. There was one time I took him to the toilet to answer nature’s call (big call) and he simply refused to. The moment I brought him back out, he did his big business in the living room.
I was mad as mad can be and shouted for quite a bit. I smacked his cute little behind and said, “No no, Jed naughty. Jed mmnn-mmnn in the toilet don’t want. Erm-erm in the living room. No, naughty”. With huge, bulging, watering eyes, he stared at me without making a noise. I ran out of things to rant about and he spotted his chance to kill the fire.
He gave his two ears a tug and stuck his tongue out like his tongue was connected to his ears or something. I couldn’t control the rumble of laughter that reverberated through my body and he knew he won the war. He knew the anger has dissipated. However, as much as I tried to maintain the angry stance, he knew he won and would just do something as silly and funny as that to make me un-angry.
Josh is a very innocent and straightforward kind of guy, you know, the typical TV channel surfing, burping, farting, hibernating kind of guy. But Jed is different. He is cheeky, smart and extremely mischievous. He has ways of getting what he wants and even if he was wrangling something out of your grasp, he can make you think that you gave the toy willingly to him. Such is my second son.
I looked at Josh’s old pictures and remembered Josh being just as silly too. The time will never come around again. Josh will never be the baby he was again and Jared (thinner now) will never be the sumo-wrestler I adored again. I still love them both doubtlessly, but it’s a different kind of love now.
Doesn’t matter, I have my anteater and ear-puller to keep my hands full, huh?
When was the last time we bought a special gift for our mothers?
When was the last time we bought something creative, unique and totally special for our mothers to show them that we love and remember them? When was the last time we got them a special gift to tell them that their sacrifice for us is appreciated?
Oh, you’re good for nothing
I don’t believe in good for nothing. I was walking down the aisle of a large supermarket when I heard a mother hissing to her crying child, “Good for nothing! Nothing! You better stop this now or I will leave you with the police man”. Not that I am angel when it comes to being a parent to my kids.
Are maternity clothes necessary in order to look good during pregnancy?
And yet, if you walk along any shopping center these days, you’ll notice at least three or four maternity clothes fashion houses catering to the specifically ‘large’ needs of a pregnant mother. And since the web and the Internet is such a magnanimous thing these days, what about online maternity stores?
