Turning Two

While the world was busy spinning on its old axis and everything flew madly about us – resisting gravity and sense, Armaan turned two on October 1st.

My most precious little baby decided that we were no longer worthy of the courtesy of utter babyness and metamorphosised into a full blown little boy. A little boy with curls, but still…

When I was pregnant with Armaan, I was not the happiest person. I balanced a teaching job with my regular job, worked incredibly long hours, travelled on all my regular assignments and  was so driven to be supermom. Hitting the ground running and all that. I was also a single mother (without help) for long periods of time with the Viking being gone oil platform-hopping.

When I look back on that time, I remember my stress levels, I remember desperately trying to make all the pieces fit and I remember my rage. My impotent, spluttering rage when everything wasn’t just so.

Like there are Bridezillas out there, I was Hormonella. And a nasty case of one too. It was such a 360 degree contrast to my sunny, worry-free first pregnancy where I was blissed out from the get go. Where the Viking almost looked at me as if I might have had a lobotomy – so carefree, so even-tempered was I.

When I look back on the Armaan pregnancy, he seems unbelievable.

I needed to learn a lesson and there it was in the form of this ever-smiling, delicious baby, who just needed the tiniest excuse to burst into peal after peal of laughter.

Little Boy, everytime you curled your finger around mine, everytime I breathed in your curls and soaked in the intense wattage of your smile, everytime I walked with your warm little palm in mine, I felt just that wee bit more released. I felt I could let go of all that I had held on to so fiercely, because you and your brother – this little unified assault of love – made it easier to do so.

I always thought that the second child sort of slipped in almost unnoticed, without really shifting the balance much. Maybe that happens with some. But you are the baby that changed everything. You shifted the core and completely altered the focus, the ambition, my sense of what I am striving for.

I did not know two years ago that I would happily decide to work part-time, working five hour days, so that I could hang out scrambling eggs and making banana pancakes on unhurried, delicious mornings with you and your brother.

I did not foresee how I would rush to your daycare every day, wanting to cover you in crazy kisses and needing to hear your incessant babble.

I could not have known that I would be so happy on my kitchen floor playing mechanic and HAVING NOTHING TO DO BUT HANG THE HELL OUT WITH YOU on a late afternoon.

I did not realise then that this time spent on the kitchen floor would result in a total re-evaluation of my life, my dreams and goals.

Through your eyes, it has become a clearer and simpler world. As the Indigo Girls song goes, “The hardest to learn was the least complicated.”

And now you’re two. And you talk like a waterfall tripping on acid – mixing languages effortlessly one minute, mixing up like crazy the next. Everything you say should be in FRIKKIN´ CAPITAL LETTERS WITH !!!!! EXCLAMATION MARKS because thats how excited you are about uttering your words and your sentences.

Like A Dog is not just A Dog. Its A DOGDOGDOGGIEEE – OMIGODOMIGODOMIGOD DIDYOUSEETHATGODDAMNDOG?

And the Dog is a technicolour dreamcoat of a bloody dog, no less.

You get the drift.

Its indomitable, inexhaustible cheer, curiousity and enthusiasm for life. Its entirely exhausting and occasionally it makes me grumpy and I curse you, but of course you are having none of that. You will chuckle, hug me hard and kiss me on the lips soundly and cock your head to one side and say, “MA-MMMMAAAAA”. You will wrap your arms and legs about me like a koala with a crush on a eucalyptus tree. And BOOM! The GrumpyMummy is a-deaded.

It had to be you, baby.

Cupping my almost-sleeping face in your gentle baby palms when you wake up in the dead of the night. Chuckling with delight and kissing me with abandon when you realise that I am not quite asleep. Stroking my cheeks and murmuring, “Armaan and Mamma chaachi (sleep) now, mmm?” and floating into sleep with your sweet, hot palm still on my cheek.

It had to be you, damn awesomest baby of them all.

Now, go storm the bastille of Two-dom.

The Boy In The Silver Shoes With the Moto-bite. He's all that.

Happy Birthday To You. Coolest song EVER hethinks.

Entertain me, serfs. Dolled up at daycare.

All about the bikes and rock n roll! Good thing I plan to practice abstinence till I'm 30! By that I mean, 40.

Ready to Partay. But not without Lala. Aka. Psychotic Being Known To Trigger Homicidal Tendencies

With Tante Christina

With Cousin Anna. She who taught him to sing, "Bad Boy Bad Boy Whachyu gonna do?"!!:-)

Edited to add: Sorry to have AWOL-ed for as long as I did, but mostly, very sorry if I worried anyone. Nothing more dramatic than the drama I can create in my own head plus an insane breakneck speed in the past month. Will blog about it (I think) and will at any rate blog more frequently. Thanks so much for your kind wishes and enquiries – and BINDU! – an award! Aww.

More than anything, I missed the connection with you all. It was tough to stay away!