The things we do!

It was a funny sunny day! The sun obviously made it sunny and the situation that I got myself into turned it into a funny day as well.

As parents we often do things that may seem impossible, incomprehensible despicable or even laughable to others. But we do them; nevertheless, maybe because there was no choice or maybe the alternate was unpleasant.

Like this sunny day, one of the rare ones in this month of the year for us, I must add.

On a normal rainy day, we are mostly indoors or at a grocery store. That is my way of shrugging the gloom away. People here often complain how there are so many things they cannot do because of the rain. I say, if the outdoors is not a possibility, make the most of what the indoors has to offer!

But this wasn't a normal day so we ended up spending the whole afternoon outside. My toddler has relinquished her afternoon nap since she turned two (too early for my convenience, because now I have lost even that little bit of quiet time in the afternoons). Once in a while though (like today), her morning takes an early start with mine and if coupled by a whirlwind day out in the sun, those pretty lashes start getting heavy, sleep comes riding on the breeze and drifts her in.

As I turn left and arrive on our street, the neighborhood is noisy and alive, very much unlike its daily somber self. Pets and kids and moms are seen chasing each other (in that order). There is still half an hour to go before its time to pick up the older one from school. As I bring the car to a halt in front of the house, my mind is already racing on what needs to be done before leaving the house again.

A soft snoring sound is heard when the engine turns quiet. I am all set to come out of the driver’s seat and go around the car to the other side to pull her out of the car seat, but one look at her and it is obvious she is blissfully in deep sleep. The kind that comes to a child when she is content and tired, at the same time. For a minute I contemplate on going ahead and carrying her inside, like has been done on countless occasions.

Somehow, I change my mind and slide back in my seat. There is no sight more beautiful in this world, than that of a sleeping child – till now I simply read those words, but at that moment, I actually felt the truth of it inside my heart. So much that it stopped me from carrying her out of the car seat and taking her inside the house.

With 30 minutes to kill and a sleeping baby inside the car, there was pretty much nothing else to do but admire the view! And that is exactly what I did. Parked right outside my own house, I sat patiently and soundlessly, observing people as they walked past in bright spirits (it is on this day that I observed, when the sun shines, it also changes the way people walk on the road) and glanced at my own house too from time to time, trying to see how it might appear to an outsider, but most of all I kept looking in the backseat, almost wanting to touch her and protect her even as she slept.

When we talk about kids, don’t we always wonder how time flies. Well, that day, time passed very slowly and it seemed to take hours before I had to wake up my sleeping beauty and walk her to her sister’s school. But it was still precious. With nothing else on my mind (the errands and unfinished jobs  all forgotten the minute I decided to stay put in the car), I looked at her as she slept, attempting to gauge the change in her features from the day she was born and silently shed a tear or two on how big she had grown. Soon she will be off to school as well and the occasional solitude that I desperately seek now may very well come to haunt me. But right now, she is all mine, I tell myself, holding on to her little hand as we walked side by side.