As you turn 10 today...
Wish you a very happy birthday my darling… it is not just another birthday, it is a milestone birthday for you, your 10th… it is a celebration of a decade of raising and nurturing you, a decade of blooming of my motherhood and a decade of your growing into this very sensitive and warm girl… with a daughter of 10 years, I should feel a tad older I guess but with you around, and being part of your naïve and effervescent life, I feel younger by the day… your stories and their innocence, your jokes and pranks followed by our hearty laugh, your friends and their daily make and break stories, your inquisitiveness and my grappling to find answers, your continuous galloping ahead and my hawk eyes following, your vivid narration of your dreams and my attempts to fulfill them… have all kept me closer to you…
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| Birthday celebrations |
You have picked up all my hobbies and interests with overflowing enthusiasm and so you love travelling, planning travels, adventures during travels, photography of all places we travel, writing about travel… I have promised myself to foster this travel-love along with you, go to as many places with you and with that resolve, we did some really interesting travels this year… the unblemished, pristine forests of Dudhwa in Uttar Pradesh, the night camping and trekking in Bhandardara for seeing fireflies were truly exceptional experiences… you have written and spoken about them many times over… I am looking forward to reading your version of this adventurous London-Scotland-Iceland trip we have ventured out on…
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| The travel-ready us... |
Writing is
something you have picked up over the last one year… creative writing, letter
writing, story narrations, travelogues, you try them all, in your way, and they
are a treat to read… your letter to me and papa that you posted from your
school is one of the beautiful writings of yours so far and will preserve it all
my life…
You generally find it difficult to hide things from me, but this letter you wrote and posted was meant to be a surprise… you pulled out money from your piggy bank to buy envelope and postal tickets, Niky saw you doing it, and like that typical prying younger sister, she told me about it… while the money was meager, I still tried questioning you and all you said is “Mamma, I will not waste money, please believe me”… I did then and I will do always… you created something priceless out of it… otherwise too, money, earnings, spend are things you are quite conscious about… you count your savings often, you see price tags before asking me to buy anything for you, you plan your spends from your pocket money… not sure if it is too early in life to ‘think money’ but it will help you in long term I am sure… and it is definitely helping me in short term here, now… everytime you accompany me for shopping, you cut down my purchases by half with your annotations - “mamma, you have that colour, mamma I think you should consider more options, mamma this is not what you had in your mind”…
When I think of long term, another thing that matters is your schooling and co-curriculars… well, I’m happy that so far your grades have been something to be extremely elated about… in our times, class ranking was of prime importance for our parents and howmuchever I try, I have not been able to get over that concept… I have to confess that in every PTM I ask your teacher on how you fare in the overall class and you stare back at me disbelievingly…
We come out of the class
and you warn me against talking to your teacher about ranks and comparisons and
allege me how disobedient a parent I am… I still return happy as your teachers
have been very appreciative of your overall performance and interest across
many areas in school… you won a couple of medals in swimming and you continue
your tennis coaching with a lot of gusto… a special mention happens on the creative
projects – be it art & craft, role plays, writing etc… every Sunday, we
spend about 2-3 hours in an art studio, where you learn different forms of fine
art… while you have produced quite a few pieces of art, here is the one I most
liked… As part of your holiday project, you had bound some loose sheets and wrote a book with short stories. The book started with ‘Content’, ‘About the Author’ followed by your stories… The concept of this book was that you are given a few words to begin with and you build a story from there… one such interesting story is here…
As much you love writing, you love reading too… you are an avid reader, both fiction and non-fiction… while you have your favorites in Enid Blyton, Roald Dahl, Ruskin Bond, you also experiment with other authors… recently you have loved reading many books of RL Stevenson (wanted you to read him before we visit Scotland) and Chris Colfer - Land of Stories. Well I tried Sherlock Homes and JK Rowling too (given that their reference would pop up in this UK trip), but you said you can think of better ‘plots’ than them… I couldn’t fathom how, but I lost my own plot there…
Another area where I have started losing my grip is on what I wear and how I look… you now understand the concepts of looks, dressing, co-ordinating and have started becoming conscious of these things… you are keen on wearing my clothes and accessories (they don’t fit you yet, but still !) and then tell me that you prefer Ankoo Bua’s clothes because they are better (you mean trendier!) than mine… I agree and I now realize the need to identify with the trends, the ones that are shaping you and defining you…
I had read once that a mother should pamper her child for first five years, discipline the next five and be the child’s friend thereafter… I quite like the idea and concede to this and so the good news for you on this birthday is… my focus will now shift from telling you to listening to you, from holding you firmly to supporting you quietly, from saying more ‘NOs’ to you to saying more ‘YESs’, from being your instruction manual to being your guide book…
Here are some guiding lines for you to remember on your birthday today, and always – Show care, coz if you stop caring, you stop loving… Have faith, coz if you lose faith, you lose hope… dream a lot and dream big, coz if you stop dreaming, you stop living…
Wish you a happy 10th birthday :-)
Love
Mumma...
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