Shiku turns 4!

My prince, my angel, my son, turns 4 today and I am simply overjoyed... Today he got up smiling, courtesy my repeated reminders yesterday....otherwise, he usually cries when he is woken up in the morning. Not his fault though, he has to get up at 4:30 a.m!

Though I have thought about the moment of his birth very often in last four years, yet today I revisit it with a different emotion...with my heart bursting with all kinds of motherly emotions! I remember that night very clearly when Shiku came into my life and made it even better (I say better because Chunchu had already made it good enough with her presence). The first glance I got of him was when immediately after he was born, my husband held him out holding him on his palm, for me to take a look at our son. That moment has really been engraved into my memory and will always remain fresh, and for two reasons. First, the very obvious reason that I was looking at my son for the first time and second, his dad had this glint of emotions in his eyes that cannot be expressed in words. He had not seen Chunchu being brought into this world, but he watched as Shiku entered into our lives. I had experienced it with Chunchu yet the second time was as emotional, as beautiful and as overwhelming as the first time.
And I am sure that though as parents we become less finicky and less skeptical with our second born, yet the joys of parenthood multiply manifolds.

Since Shiku is the youngest, I feel he is still too young, I treat him as a baby. I think that's how it is for parents; the elder one is always old enough and the younger one remains too young. There might be certain activities Chunchu would have been allowed to do or forbidden to do when she was 4, but for Shiku, I would feel "he is too young for that!"
Yesterday, Shiku was watching me cook. I put some lentils in a pressure cooker and was washing it and he feared that while I drained water from the cooker, the lentil will also fall. He keenly observed me till I was done washing the lentil and then very innocently, he remarked, "Mom, you cook so well; you knew how to not let the lentil fall out of the cooker even though you tilted it to drain the water! You cook so well, mamma." And I wondered how it was such a big thing for him and realized that he IS too young :-)

Every parent loves their children and every parent thinks that theirs are the best. I am no exception to the rule. So I always tell my children, "you are the best son/daughter in the whole world." Chunchu some how understands and replies, "Mamma, every parent feel the same way their children and you love me that's why you are saying this." But Shiku simply smiles coyly and accepts that he is the best son! That's another adorable thing about him - he accepts some things very simply and hence, finds it easier to adjust. Like he accepted that we have to move to Qatar and that he has to go to a different school than Chunchu. He never complains about such things. Though the first day of the school, he asked me for how many years he has to keep going to school :-) And since I didn't want to scare him with a number I said. "Till you start going to college." And he's like, "I have to go to college too!" And then, he asked me till when he has to go to college and I replied till he gets a job. So then, he says, "Mamma, when I get a job and I am grown up, I will help you with all your household work - cooking, cleaning, washing, everything. You will not have to do it alone!" Of course, I had tears in my eyes and I told him, "But you'll be tired when you come back from work." And he says, "Mamma, you are never tired of doing all this for me, so I also won't get tired." Wow! And that was another moment of speechlessness and happy tears.

Shiku is such a baby in so many things but sometimes, he suddenly seems to have grown up to be this caring and loving son that every mother longs for and I am glad I have one. When I was in college, I always thought that it would be so good to have a daughter and now, I know it is. But I also know that having a son is equally gratifying. That's what makes me thank God every single day for His blessings, I have abundance of.

Once again, a very happy birthday to my darling Shiku...may he be blessed with all the good things in life and may his life be a blissful one. Amen.