Cherish your children

26 Feb Cherish your children

By Kiran Akthar

“ Mama you don’t spend time with me anymore ! “ The one sentence I had dreaded so much ever since I became a mother, had become a regular occurrence over the past few weeks.

It had all started after the birth of my third child. My oldest daughter had been an only child for 6 years and therefore had been the centre of our “undivided attention “. My husband and I fussed over everything related to her; everything from her homework to her school projects, from her after school activities to reading bed time stories, from watching her favourite cartoons with her to taking her to the play areas and parks on the weekends…everything was about her.

She really wanted to have a sibling so when her sister was born, she was overjoyed…atleast for the time being 🙂. But she soon realised she would have to share her parent’s attention with her sister and she was kind of ok with it. Raising two kids was a little harder than raising one but it was not something we couldn’t handle. My husband and I still managed to spend some “ one on one time “ with both our girls. However things got harder with the addition of baby number 3.

Now we had a 10 year old, a 4 year old and a new born on our hands. Of course now we had a more diverse list of “ things to do “, throughout the week. Moreover, there were more fights over which cartoon channel to watch, which play area to go to, where to hangout on the weekends. Yes, things were crazy at times but we were still able to manage most of the stuff. The only problem was, there was no more of that precious “ one on one time” with each one of the kids. The younger two didn’t seem to mind but it was my oldest who still remembered what it was like when she had that, before her siblings decided to grace us with their presence.

Any mom can well imagine how hard it is to find that “ one hour a day “ for each one of your children, specially when your toddler is always on the move , your kindergartener always wants to be included in everything ( even your trip to the bathroom ) and your 10 year old is simply too old for all the kiddy stuff her little siblings find so interesting to do.

So after much deliberation and a lot of careful planning; we were able to come to a solution. Every Thursday, Friday and Saturday night; when my younger two kids have gone to bed, my “ firstborn “ and I paint together (not very well I might add 😊), we also try our hand at different arts and crafts or if we are too lazy for that, we simply sit together and watch animated movies. This is the time when we have most of our “ heart to heart “ discussions.  We talk about everything; from her day at school to discussing the books she is reading,  from why there is never any snowfall in Riyadh 🙂, to if she can have a puppy or a pony for her next birthday ( the answer to which is always “ we shall see “ 😊).

So if you meet me on a Sunday, you will see dark circles under my eyes and a mug of very strong tea in my hand but this lack of sleep is only a small price to pay for not having to hear those dreaded words “ you don’t spend time with me anymore “ .