When my child is eating, all by herself, without any fuss what so ever is the time I feel like putting her on my lap and feeding her.

For all the talk about how I want them to be independent, I equally agonize that they have to go and come back by school bus. And if I am late by even a minute to pick them up when they are dropped off from the school bus I imagine that they are lonely and vulnerable and get stressed.

For all the encouragement I give Chula about reading and take pride in the fact that she reads with passion, I also tell her that she need not read every single print she sets her eyes on, especially my emails and blog posts!

After agonizing over the bed time, battling them and after putting in so much effort in making the children sleep, I feel the most love for them when they are finally asleep and can’t wait for them to get up.

When they need me most to engage them is the time I am hard pressed to finish something and expect them to play by themselves.

Ideally I want the children to dream, dream big, imagine and fantasize. But when Chula is elbow deep in her dream, completely lost in a world of her own, which unfortunately coincides with strict time lines like school bus leaving in another five minutes is when I have to shake her out of her dream and point out the usefulness of being practical.

After harping a lot about being kind and every one doing their bit to help other people, one is forced to give their children a big lecture about how giving money to every single person begging on the road is not possible, does not help them, does not eradicate poverty.

I made a resolution to not stress on the birth order, mainly because the older one is only 18 months older. But am now forced to tell the younger one not to compare herself with her sister and agonize over the things she cannot do as well as her sister because….well her sister is 18 months older than her.

I am forced to tell Chula that she does not have to sign a bond of friendship in blood with every child she ever sets her eyes on and expect the same level of commitment from the other child. Right after this I have to tell Meija that she needs to be more open, let people close to her otherwise she cannot make friends.

I have to stress time and again that they have to give their 100% in every single thing they do, that is all that matters and be in the position to eat my words and tell them to finish certain things ASAP as it is not worth this much of their time, patience and energy.

I have told them to be wary of strangers and also be courteous to strangers, sometimes these sentences are back to back.

I tell them that they can help me in household work and when I find that at times I have to help them to help me, I take it back.