It ain't funny!

Though many people tell me that I have immense patience, personally I feel that I have the patience of an active volcano. I am the telling-what’s-on-my-mind-and-getting-on-with-it-types. My husband is the bury-it-all-in-the-crevices-of-the-mind-and-screw-up-your-own-health kinds. The Capricorn that I am and the Taurus that my daughter is, we have this highly explosive relationship. One minute we are practically tearing each other up and the next we are cuddling and having a whale of a time. My husband is thoroughly confused. In the beginning he would step in and try and call the shots. But then one glare from the both of us and he would have no choice but to back off. The whole sight is so funny.

I am the planning and strategy kind of person and my daughter is the strategy killer. I mean she will take all my hours of planning and shove it down the drain, without as much as a thought. And then I am left at the drawing board once again. The other day, she got this question paper that she was to solve at home. It was the regular stuff that has been covered in school so many times. So when she asked me a question, I told her that by now she must be so used to this and that she should figure it out. Then as I went on with my work, there was silence. I thought that she was busy tackling the paper. Now I must at this stage tell you that my daughter likes to think that she is agile and smart. (She actually is!) But I am her sharp mamma with super sharp sense of sight, hearing etc. I heard the sound of the chair moving ever so lightly and then Neha whizzing from the table to the place where her bag was kept. It took me another nano-second to figure out what was going on. She was quickly taking a sneak-peak at her book and dashing to the table to write the answers!!! Cheeky little monster!! Look at that kid! She is always looking at ways to outsmart me. And I am soooo freaked out. Now I can see nothing as ordinary. Remember Mr. Wilson in Dennis the Menace? :D

Yesterday, my neighbour and I was discussing about how to get rid of this rat that we sighted near our plants. Neha immediately told us that we should not kill rats. We had the Why look. “We should not kill rats. Rats are also hooman beings like us!” I explained to her later what we found so funny but not before we were practically on the floor laughing.

Whenever I want to drive home a point, like say talking to strangers etc., it does not register in Neha’s mind. She had this don’t-give-me-that-bull shit look. So I started this trend of telling stories about some character ( 100% non-existent) from my childhood who suffered because of not following the rules. I thought that it drove home the point better. One day I was telling her one such made-up story when she asked me, “Mamma, are any of your friends alive?? Everybody from your childhood seems to have died of something or the other.” And in fact the other day, it was my husband’s story telling time and I heard Neha tell him, “ Pappa, do you know that when mamma was a little girl, weird things happened to all her friends! Do you know any such stories?”

My younger brother, who Neha has minimal contact with, seems to be the sufferer in most stories related to handling sharp objects like scissors, kitchen knives etc. So just when she picked up a hammer the other day, I said, “Neha, put that down right away. You can get hurt real bad.” Her response left me wonder-eyed whether I should bother with such tactics any more. “What mamma? Did your brother get hurt with this too?”

Don’t laugh, you guys!! Life is cruel!