An extremely special birthday

Funny how time changes things so much.

Thirteen years ago on this day, I became a mother. It was my first born and I was as nervous as a long tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs. I did not know how to hold my new born son and I had to call my mum or my aunt to even lift him. I was so afraid of not supporting his neck right (new born babies cannot hold up their neck and need to be supported and carried in a particular way) and he seemed so tiny (even though he weighed a healthy 3.25 kgs) and I was so scared of hurting him.

Funny, how within a week I was able to even manage giving him a bath and how I learnt to even manage the cord stump. 


And then his first year. Oh how delightful it was! He was such a sweet, gorgeous baby. He started sleeping through the night at three months.I began reading books to him when he was three months old. He was such a joy and truly no trouble at all, that I even travelled without my husband, to Darjeeling and Gangtok  when he was just five months old. (New parents know what a nightmare it can be to travel with babies). We had an amazingly wonderful trip.

I refused to leave my precious baby in a creche (I just couldn't bear the thought of someone else looking after him) and so I took up a job (teaching in  a pre school) which was completely different from my field, just so that I could take him with me to work. He started accompanying me to school, from when he was one and a half years old.

When he was about two, he fell down and  he had to get six stitches at the back of his head, I was so distraught I could barely speak. I never knew till then, what helpless pain truly is. But he was a tough little fellow. He was finer than I was.


Then  I taught him to read using the Glen Doman method.  At the age of  three years and eight months he was reading Ladybird books like Princess and the Pea. He was even featured in a local TV program for early reading for children.

His love of books  grew along with him.(and today he reads Paul Jennings and Cornelia Funke)

At four and a half I taught him to ride a bicycle without trainer wheels. When he had his first fall, it was on a row of cactus plants. I had to rush him to my cousin who is a surgeon and he had to extract thousands of cacti thorns from his legs with a tweezer. I think I flinched each time a thorn was pulled out, more than he did.

The years have flown by since then.Today he is almost as tall as me and he can lift me with ease! I squeal and tell him to put me down when he carries me and lifts me off the floor.

Now he can talk to me at my level and we discuss a lot of things. We have such wonderful conversations. I tease him about girls and he teases me right back about my 'boyfriends'. We talk about Call of Duty-Black Ops and we talk about the cultural differences between UK and India. We discuss colleges and  various courses offered. He asks me about what interests me and what I like and I ask him the same. He introduces me to 'cool music' like Pendulum and I tell him about GNR, Bryan Adams and Billy Joel.

He  tells me I am cool (the ultimate compliment for a mother!) and is very proud of me and shows off my book and my portraits to a  few select friends.

He has a wonderful sense of humour and he can really make me laugh.He also clicks great photos and even has a photo blog.

I cannot help turning nostalgic and sentimental on the eve of his thirteenth birthday.

Happy  13th birthday to my darling sonny boy.
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Even if you are 26, you will still be my sonny boy :-)
Funny how some things remain the same no matter how much they change :-)