Giving That Attention

I was sitting doing my work today when my little daughter came up to me with her colouring book and crayons. She held them out to me, waiting to see if mommy would make something for her. Usually she likes to sit and colour on her own and I was a little surprised to see her asking for my assistance. As I was busy, I asked her to start colouring, "mamma will just finish this work and draw with you" I added with a smile.
My work was precisely what had triggered her reaction, I realised a while later. You see, I had been busy for quite some time then and had consistently been telling her to do her own thing, mommy would be back in a while. That while took a long time and finally my daughter had to come over and ask for my attention. I saved my files and shut down my laptop, focusing all my attention on her.

There are many moments when our little ones need us around, maybe just to know that their parents are watching them, that we are interested in what they are doing. And sometimes, we are just so caught up in our own things that we forget to give them that special look or smile that says 'mommy is seeing, mommy is proud of you.'

A little chat with your little one can go a long way in establishing that bond between baby and parent. Let them know you are interested and even before you realise it, they will be coming to you with all their little tales. Enjoy it before they grow up and start drifting into their own world and circle of friends. If your little one is in the habit of sharing everything about her/his day with you, you may still expect them to continue some of it when they get into those pre-teen and then teen years. Of course if you have always been too busy in your own world while they were playing on their own as toddlers, it is only natural they would look elsewhere to share their feelings than with you.

As much as you should be all ears with your little one and to all their little sweet important events, make it a routine to talk to your little one about your day. Of course they may not understand all of it when they are just toddlers, but talking to them about your day would mark the beginning of a routine that will grow stronger over the growing up years. Your sharing your day's events with your little one will show them that they mean a lot to you, that their views and their attention is something you really cherish. Make it a habit and keep it on......

If you see a difference in your child's mood or a change in attitude, talk to them about their friends and things that may bring out more information. Maybe it was a rough day at school.....talk to them about it, but remember to listen as a friend first....Your being judgemental can do more harm than you may realise.....

Be there, make them feel as special as they really mean to you and let your child know that no matter what, their parents will always remain their truest friends....

I Wish.....

As the days go by and as you run about, busy in your world, busy in your work, you know your little one is right there in front of your eyes, your little angel, still the baby that you love to cuddle so much, still a daddy's girl or mamma's darling.

But then, one day you decide to take it a little slow, sit down for a breath and reach out to your little girl. And then suddenly, you realise, the little girl you have been planning all along to spend some time with is little no longer. With a sudden wave of realisation that hits you, you realise that your little girl is now an independent little being, maybe not so big in age but still, big enough in her ways to ask her own space, to ask for things to be done her own way.

Then you realise that all those busy days when you told yourself your baby would be waiting right there for you should have been played out another way. You suddenly wish you could get those days back, so that you could spend them with your little sweetheart and see her grow up into this independent little girl right before your eyes.

My cuddly bear is my pig-tailed little sweetheart. But though she has barely turned three last month, she already thinks of herself as a grown up. Why, only yesterday, she took her toy phone and spent the whole afternoon speaking to someone, of course she did not reveal to me who she was speaking to, and when I told her it was bedtime and that the phone needed to be kept down, she looked at me once and gave me that smile, and simply turned on her side and began talking again. She thought mamma wouldn't realise what she is doing - you have to give her that, she is only three, so really she thought that I was not aware of what she was doing and that she had succeeded in getting her way. I was amused, thinking in my mind that this kind of a scene would indeed be played out sometime in the near future soon, that a time would come when the toy phone would turn real, when the imaginary voice on the other end would take the voice of a real friend.

Its amazing how fast our kids grow up. My parents used to say this all the time - 'It seems like you were born yesterday, how fast you have grown up.' And I would never understand what they were feeling, rather, I would wonder, get annoyed even, at what this was supposed to mean. Now that I am a mother myself, I know exactly word-to-word what they meant.

I close my eyes and I see the doctor in green scrubs holding a tiny creature, with just the pink nose showing and a twinkling eye turning this way and that - my daughter had one eye open when she was born. I open my eyes and I see this little girl, so sure of herself and what she wants, confident that she can take care of herself and her mamma and papa, sure that everything she does to fool us and have her way is actually fooling us.

I am in love with her, this little universe of mine, and I know that soon things will change, her world will, or rather already has, begun to expand its horizons, and the most I can do is let out a long sigh, and wish I could somehow make the clock go slow, that somehow I could hold her in that baby stage for some more longer.