Friday, December 11, 2009

Mummy I dont love you

Yesterday I had, what could be called, my first fight with Anjali. So people reading this blog, if you are Anjali fans, then better stop reading right now, otherwise some ill feelings may arise. having given fair warning, i will begin the story

Here's how it happened. We had been to Annalakshmi for dinner. It was, after all, my birthday, and we had decided on Annalakshmi because husband usually likes the buffet there. It turned out that there was no buffet at Annalakshmi on weekdays, the restaurant was crowded, they were understaffed to be equipped with A la carte orders and the kids were getting frustrated sitting in a table for hours at a stretch while we waited for our orders to come.

To give us credit, however, we had experience with kids in restaurants, and knew that the best thing to do between orders was to take them out. China town point was, after all, a mall, with scope for exploration and husband, I and Vishnu took turns to move with the kids, explore and such so that they wont get bored by sitting in the chairs.

Sophia, after all, sat for five point five seconds on my lap, three seconds on the table, when she tried to pull every piece of cutlery towards her, five seconds when she tried to eat the jasmine that Dhana's mum had gotten, and two seconds on the high chair. After which it was a no go.

Thus it was that, by the time we left to get home, it was 9.30. How to go home, was the next question. And patti and thattha wanted to take the train. Husband said that it is better to take a taxi, given that it was late.

Anjali, of course, wanted the train, if it could be acheived. Then thattha began his Narada role.

"do you want to go with mummy to acasa in a taxi or go with me in the train to patti's house?"

I glared. i have a policy, and thattha knows this very well, about overnight stays in patti's house during the weekend.

Anjali, ofcourse, jumped on the train opportunity. And we all know that she is, if nothing else, tenacious.

When denied, she began to cry. Patti got on the taxi. She was sullen and silent all through the taxi trip. The sullenness was augmented as Sophia drifted to sleep in my arms, and Anjali tried to crawl over, once, into my arms. I couldnt pass the sleeping baby and take her. She went back to being sullen and silent.

When we got off the taxi, she refused to get off patti's arms. Patti had to come up. Husband asked me to go up and put Sophia in bed. I went up, put my bags and heard the screams. Anjali was screaming throughout. She screamed nearly non stop for the whole evening. She got distracted by Maisy, by flowers, but the distraction was no more than for a spell. She threw a tantrum because I had pinned her flowers too high on her head. Then she threw another tantrum because the flowers that were now pinned low fell off because the pin didnt stay.

The bottom line however, was when she said

"I dont want mummy, I dont want daddy. I dont love my mummy. I only love my patti"

Husband says that she said that because she was tired and upset and angry. It, however, makes me wonder where I have gone wrong in the mothering process.

No comments:

Post a Comment

For your little notes and ideas