loving angels instead...

‘God they grow up so quick! I still remember pushing them on the pram like it was yesterday, and she just got a new car!’ These words, spoken by a reminiscing nana today got me thinking (by now you know I think at the slightest provocation, lol, not a very attractive prospect when you’re husband hunting so lets hope for my sake I rid myself of this shocking habit when I do wanna shop for a hubby, lol). As you are all well aware by now, I am a mum to the most amazing little girl in my world. She is gorgeous( well am her mum, I have to say that! Lol), and funny, (she reckons people in love are like chips and sausage, remember how we thought those were inseparable? at least if you grew up in the vicinity of Kenya you did), and she is a smart cookie, she is outspoken like you wouldn’t believe, a sweet spirit, the list is endless. She is my angel from heaven, there is no doubt about it there, and being apart from her in these formative years simply does my head in, but that’s not the point of this ere note, so lets get to it, aye?
I remember the day she was born like it just happened, those tiny feet, a complete cut and paste of her father’s feet, her tiny little hands exactly like mine, her father’s hairline, details that just made me weep at the miracle of it all, she looked a lot like my little sister(hehehehe, pay no mind to the fact that she is 23 now, my ‘little’ sister that is, not my daughter, I’m really not that fertile to have given birth at the age of two years and a bit, lol) and because in my opinion my little sister is really one of the hottest chics on earth, I was amazed that I cld have birthed so incredible a being. Fast forward to a few years later, when I called her the other day and she goes, ‘mum, could you call a bit later, just wait until I call you then you can call me.’ Offended, I asked her if I was boring her, ready to talk about the mating patterns of the local marabou storks, if that was what could hold her attention, so desperate was I to keep the conversation going. In a bored, half yawning voice, as if to say ‘mum, stop being so blooming clingy!!!!’, she said to me, ‘ I am tired and sleepy, I just want to take a nap, then I’ll call you tonight once I get up’, and tears started flowing (isn’t it just amazing how kids turn on the waterworks in even the most battle hardened women, with just the swelling of pride, and a million other emotions?) Well, the camel that broke the camel’s back actually came in the form of a post card that my aunt brought me from home, with the picture of two masai children at the back, and the following words written out in the neatest handwriting I ever saw on a four and a half year old, ‘ Dear mummy,
I love you,
I miss you,
Angel Gathoni’
Now that is the reason I understood that nana today, kids grow up so quickly, every day, taller, smarter, becoming their own little person, touching their share of human lives, carving out their own niche in this cruel place called the world, and as their parents, the best we can do is to learn how to be a help rather than a hindrance to these little angels as the travel this journey. I think the most powerful words I ever heard spoken to a mother were spoken to a mother that was hacking away at her daughter’s self esteem by trying to make her lose weight at the very tender age of 3 so she could enter her in beauty pageants. The words went something like this, ‘your daughter is out there facing a very cruel and unforgiving world every single day you send her out to kindy, you absolutely cannot afford in any way to not be her biggest cheerleader and her safest haven that she can be herself at.’ Now I know most of u aren’t there yet, this path called parenting but you are your parents’ children, and you know better than anyone just how much their parenting styles have affected the person that you are today, the path that your life has taken, and the way you think about things. Even that aversion to marriage and the whole shebang that your parents’ not so good marriage gave you, or the way you push yourself beyond because that’s what your parents did, who knows? Whatever your situation, I do hope that you will see the children u meet and make ( remember children in the back seat cause accidents, and accidents in the back seat cause children, lol), you’ll see that little differently as a result of reading this.
J