My baby, my shadow, my love

My latest project is to think of a strategy for homing devices. No technology for me. Just mapping my son's route. The little one has an uncanny knack of smelling me out. No jokes, I mean smelling me out. One moment he is this bubbly, cheerful, active, playful little doll. All that I have to do to unleash his Mr Hyde is to walk into the room / walk past him / walk towards him / talk to him / leave him playing oh-so cutely and quietly. He homes in on me.
Then the wailing starts making me feel as if I have been torturing the poor dear. After approximately 35 seconds of resistance, I have to and will pick him up.
My routine activities are a hide-and seek. I tiptoe from room to room trying to walk past him, behind him, so he does not realize what is happening. Very often he still catches on. And proceeds to crawl after me with of course, the wail in place.
And so my movements around the house are tempered with this little lovable being trailing me, waiting for a chance to be picked up, looking up with "big sad soulful eyes". Sometimes, he even sits himself on the floor by my feet as I eat, whining away. Sometimes absentmindedly I even feed him little tit-bits and then shake myself in remembrance that it is my son seated not a puppy.
All this talk about spoiling children by picking them up or relenting when they wail, or giving in to their every whim... ah well. The sheer joy of seeing him crooning or burying his face in my neck or his baby babble are enough to keep all these reservations at bay. I know that I will keep picking him up every time and enjoy the little one and his love. After all, that is what parenting is all about.

Work @ Homethought

Ten months into baby no. 2, I am still getting used to the question "So how is it combining work and home?" Wish I could say, it's great, my children are little works of art who watch the day go by quietly till I reach home; we spend a quiet and loving evening, after which I cuddle into bed with them reading a story and ourselves to sleep. Of course, meanwhile, it is great at work, as I pull myself through with dedication to my job and come out with flying colors. The perfect professional, the perfect parent.
Wish. Wish. Go on with you. The fiction stops there with a polite smile and an awkward change of subject.
So here I am telling an audience of parents most of who fear they have inadvertently birthed juvenile delinquents... Will the true parent stand up? The one who says they can get by through a few hours of work without imagining the most unspeakable terrors taking place at home to their little dearest devils? I notice a seated audience. The only guy who got up, had a call that his 5-year old had climbed onto the cupboard and wouldn't get down. He left the room, while the rest of us nodded knowingly.
So here I am charting my workdays' schedule. If you're looking for deadlines, financial year closings, important days etc., forget it. My workday vs productivity chart is as follows.

1. Excellent day at work = no one tried to break anything at home
2. Good day at work = we tried to break something but did not succeed
3. Fair day at work = we only broke the 2nd best "exquisite" vase; and we broke the pair
4. Below average day at work = we tried to break the neighbour's kid's tooth
5. Bad day at work = we nearly succeeded while pretending to be power rangers (we lost)
6. Worst day at work = we succeeded (we won) and the neighbour knows and has turned up at home and wants to know what kind of parenting we receive and wants to talk to you right away and wants you to come home right now and will not be placated by the fact that you have told us on the phone that you will kick us into obilivion though we don't know what that means so please come home

The only good thing is, there are good days and bad days. Work gets by. In the meantime, those who would like to know how I combine work and home. I don't. I just work in constant terror.

Furiouser and Furiouser

Being a parent can change you so completely that it brings out a new you. I have read this some years ago. Images of a caring parent, tender, warm, affectionate, creative, friendly, fun all leapt to my mind. Of course I was every one of commercials that show motherhood and fatherhood and whatever-other-hood to a point of complete sickly sweetness. But the "new you" that I found is well, something else.

It is like a time bomb ticking in me. A book thrown here, a scribble on the wall, a broken piece of furniture, a smart-ass reply to an instruction - the fuse is extremely short and ready to ignite. And voila! The new me! "f you do this," I say, "I will throw you out of the window." (We live on the fourth floor of our apartment complex). "I will take money from your piggy bank to pay for the wall cleaning" (guilty; yes please, but how many scribbles can you stand by and admire as work of art?) And - this is a more effective threat - "You will have to go to school in your night suit if you don't get ready on time". So the list grows..
I have become a maniacal, loud, threatening, bullying, overpowering, jarring parent. Sometimes I can't believe it is the same person. Sometimes I feel like a complete jerk. Look at the poor innocent, how sweetly he smiles and this is what you do to him. "Come to me baby" Then the poor innocent proceeds to take my favourite perfume and run around the house using it as a room freshener. The devil unleashes inside me again.
Now I am resigned to my fate. I am a two-faced parent and I want to stay that way.