The night is still young

Sahan is eating a cucumber and crème cheese sandwich for dinner (well in this case, a hot dog as I’m good at improvising). It is only 6.30pm and I’m already looking forward to bedtime. Sahan’s eating lasted only as long two minutes until he got to the cucumbers. Now, he proceeds to throw half of his dinner in indignation followed by the other half even though I offer to eat the cucumber parts. This is the second dinner option he was offered, the first being egg noodles, which went down only as much as two or three spoons. He ate it as long as I started to feel like I nailed the dinner option and stopped. So, now we are on to the third dinner option – half a plain hot dog bun! I know, I know, the books say not to make multiple meal options for fussy eaters but I’m way beyond the books now and after the recent bout of illness he suffered, only now he is starting to flesh out a bit. And I love my toddler a cherub, rather than a skinny little worm.  

This time around I don’t seem to fight life so much. The TV is plentifully on. How on earth would I get anything done otherwise? At this very moment, he is throwing every item that’s on the coffee table on to the floor, the half-eaten bun precariously close to the dog. He is climbing over my lap and I’m literally writing this on my notebook on my hand like some people take important notes on the job. I’m really being true to Natalie Goldberg here. I imagine she would be proud of how I’m keeping my hand moving even though Ollie, our little dog is following Sahan around eyeing the plain hot dog bun. I suppose its very close Ollie’s dinner time too. I suppose I must extricate myself from this as finally, Ollie has gotten the hot dog bun. Devan is waiting for me to give him his dinner and has taken over the TV.

The house is a mess – a constant work in progress and the dishes need to be done. Things need to be put away. The bathrooms need to be cleaned. The washing needs to be started. The piles of clothes that need to be folded and put away attended to. For these things, I try to remind myself of Kathy Roberts – the tidy tutor lady’s instructions. She is a life saver just like Natalie Goldberg when it comes to overwhelm and the sense of drowning you get from time to time.

At this very moment, I was just about to leave my scribbling and lift my head to see Sahan dancing to his brother’s loud music, his curls bouncing and feet stamping – oblivious to life’s miseries that we adults are so pre-occupied with. It makes me smile and somehow, I’m injected with a little boost of fuel to keep going into the night that stretches out before me, filled with things I don’t want to do but must, to keep this ship from sinking.