My Precocious and Precious Son
When psychologists came up with the term "Terrible Twos" for toddlers, they sure knew what they were saying. My two-year-old sure is a living embodiment of such label, though I sometimes hate to admit it to myself.
I don't get to be with my son everyday (for I am away in the city during weekdays because of my job's location), but whenever I am around to do my responsibility as a mum to him, I just get physically and mentally drained sometimes.
This is not to say, though, that he is such a Dennis-the-menace type of a kid. In fact, he behaves remarkably in places outsideour house.
I often hear hushed inspirational remarks from strangers whenever they see my son conducting himself very well in the church, or in the supermarket, or just anywhere else. That's laudable, I know, for not all kids have that pleasing manner.
I've seen other kids romp around other people's houses, break things, and go off wildly all over the place. But my son is definitely never like that. However, when at home, he can pester the people around him. He acts like a wild bull on the loose, and almost everything is out of their usual places after he leaves them. Yeah, it's pretty much like a tornado just hit them. Then after seeing such horrendous scene, I would scream like s to me. But then the twist of fate made me one, and I accepted it whole-heartedly.
Immediately after giving birth to my son, it was definitely love at first sight that dawned in me. I never stopped loving him since.
I remember when he was just weeks old, I would lie down beside him as he slept, and I would stare at him for hours, despite the fact that I barely had enough sleep to keep my self awake to gaze at him. I sacrificed everything for him, including me precious freedom as a single woman, my whims, and the luxury of sleeping until noon. His arrival caused a major rearrangement in my life.
It was difficult, at first, but once I got the feel of things, I realized that his presence in my life is simply a gift.
He might not know it now, but he has taught me so many things - to be patient (a trait I never practiced much), to be selfless, to be forgiving, and most importantly, to love unconditionally. It is so amazing how a helpless baby changed a multitude of aspects in myself, something left untouched by years in school and experience at work.
Paradoxically, life brought death in me - his coming into my life caused the death of my old habits and lifestyle, which were apparently less meaningful than the one I have now as a mum.
Despite the headaches and fury that I get during feeding time (and all other times when he turns the house upside-down), I still find myself staring at him for hours as he sleeps. And then I would realize how my love for him never diminished, even if he now belongs to the "Terrible Twos" phase in his life.
He is my son, and that's all that matters.
Written in 2007 by Suzanne Parcero - Florin