Ruffled Feathers

There comes a day in a month, or for some old women, every week or so, when everything seems to rub them the wrong way. Nothing is ever right or proper. The clothes are kept so, the toys are scattered thus, no one's eating the food hot. All they need is a reason, and the pressure cooker gives way to a mind-numbing whistle.

Today is such a day in the Kekre household. Mum-in-law woke up on the wrong side of the bed. All morning, it has been a one-sided verbal onslaught from her. At such times, I advocate doing what I used to do back in my mom's house. Keep 'mum' (pun intended!) Best not to disturb already ruffled feathers lest the angry old lady open her third eye and burn us all down (kind of like the Lord Shiva, the Kekre God, she venerates.)

Saee was kind enough to gift her infant sister a toy of her own. Unmindful of the fact that she is right now too little to enjoy toys. It is amazing, really, how we find it difficult to connect to the very tiny infants, but children seem to take to them so easily. Inspite of being a mother, I sometimes refer to Sayalee as 'the baby', but never  Saee. She always refers to her as Sayalee. She seems to look at her as the little person that she is going to be in a couple of months, something I find very hard to do. Kids really teach you a lot, in many different ways.

A funny instance happened this morning. Saee has a thing about smells. She is very 'nosey'. There are fragrances she definitely loves, and she just can't stand bad odor. First she asked to smell my hair. "Umm, mummy your hair smells really good!" she said. Then she brought her own hair to her nose, and was pleased with that smell too. Later when I was changing Sayalee's nappy, Saee touched her little bums and said, "Mummy, they are so softy softy, can I smell them?" The devil raised his eyebrows in my mind, and I let her. One sniff and she was out of the room in a wink! Guffawing, I narrated the incident to my husband. An embarrassed Saee yelled at me from the bedroom, "Don't make fun of me!" :-D

I hope someday Saee reads this and is able  to laugh at the little things like these.

Posting three pictures of Sayalee. The first one, I'll call little feet. This picture, I clicked last night in a moment of inspiration. Srikant has held her feet in his hands. This way when she grows up, and her feet are bigger than mine, she can see this picture and know that once upon a time her feet were so little.

This is a picture of Shrikant's hand holding Saee's hand holding Sayalee's hand. The three musketeers of my life :-)

This is the toy that Saee has given to Sayalee.












I hope each day brings sweet surprises like these. :-)