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