Letter to Shreya on your 9th Birthday

 

Dearest Shreya,

Happy Birthday, my PDA queen.

The more I hated it all my life, the more it bursts from you. You kiss me and pull my cheeks just about anywhere. Your intensity increases as I flush with embarrassment. However, I am told to enjoy it while it lasts, and that is precisely what I intend to do.

You are a sharp, intelligent, and witty little missy who still likes to control your twin. You are a quick learner and a delight for anyone teaching you. The annoying brother in your life is constantly doing everything he can to pester you. Why do I have to endure the most of your nonstop howling and pursuance to reprimand your brother? And when I do, you become his biggest supporter and side with him, transforming me into the monster mom. It's a typical brother-sister thing.

Every time you embrace me, run your tiny fingers on my face, and give me a peck, it is a moment of your expression of love, but for me, it is about loving myself for being so lovable to you. I cannot imagine I ever existed without you and Shivansh when you came into being just nine years ago. I draw my identity from you and everything that stands for love.   

You are the quieter one but one with the most heartwarming laughter. You are rushing to your teens with small external changes you embrace confidently. I wish you confidently shape your demeanor and build a strong character like the women in our family. My love, enjoy the last year of being single-digit and the innocence that surrounds it, for soon it will be hijacked by anxiety (like we saw in the movie Inside Out -2). Till then, we will hug like there's no tomorrow.

From a mom who will stay with you till eternity :)

 

 

 

 

 

Letter to Shivansh on your 9th Birthday

Dearest Shivansh,

Happy Birthday, my gulla.

My elder one – even if you are older by a minute, you definitely are hastening towards every milestone, even your teens. You fired me as a parent and thankfully rehired me this year, and you only respond to the 999^th time of calling you. And that, too, you react with a lazy ‘What?’ from your room as though I’ve disrupted your creative nirvana.

You draw all the time—in class, amid the teacher teaching you, and whenever you can. While I am still trying to get my head around all the monsters, demons, and skeletons, you are creating gory stories that are worrisome. Perhaps it is the generation gap divide staring back at me and asking me to gear up. I’d love to shape up your passion and turn it into something you will truly cherish.

You are an entertainer, and you love to make us laugh. You are a charmer with the funniest retorts and just the response that cracks up people around you. You have even learned to talk with your eyes and manipulate your expressions to get ‘devices.’ You mastered the art of pestering, playing pranks, and expressing love exclusively for your dad.    

 Your laugh is an antidote to our stress and worries, and I am proud that I get to be the funny mom who adds some laughter and hopefully makes your childhood happy. My heart melts a thousand times when you start narrating a story in an animated and spirited way. As much as I love seeing this child turning into an attractive little man, I hate that our shoe and hand sizes are the same, and perhaps by next year, you’ll outgrow me.

I know you hate it, but you will always be my red-cheeked gulla, whom I will squish and cuddle forever.

Determined to love and cuddle you forever, your mom