We almost didn’t cry

There is a place Heidi escapes to when she needs soothing or when she is sleepy. She finds that place as soon as she puts her index finger in her mouth and sucks on it as she runs her other hand on any nearby fabric.

I haven’t told you about Heidi’s first day at school have I? Alrighty then, there’ll be no further ado...

Date: Monday 6th January, 2014. Place: Nairobi, Kenya.  

I wake up at 5am as usual and I sensed, even before dawn broke, that it would be a long day.

The day started at a slow pace with me taking a slow shower “So much time in my hands,” I foolishly thought. I went to the kitchen to prepare tea then heated the kid’s bathing water before ransacking their wardrobe for their uniforms.

All set, I woke up Heidi - better to start with the youngest, right? Wrong! Let’s just say that this is where the rush officially began! Heidi did not wonder why I woke her up early because she knew from the previous day that today was D-day. Waking her up was not a problem. The problem was that she was too excited, therefore playful and fidgety. Bathing an excited child! The rocket science of bathing and dressing an excited child! Has any of you ever tried it? It is messy and exhausting. It involves spillage...lots of it. It requires patience (loads and loads of patience!) and excellent persuasion skills.

I bathed Heidi for what seemed like hours and had trouble applying Vaseline on her. She giggled at every touch “You’re tickling me!” she shrieked. I swear I wasn’t! Tickling her was the furthest thing from my mind. She wouldn’t stop laughing though. She was slow in putting up her arms as I passed the dress over her head. I pleaded, cajoled and begged her to cooperate. I couldn’t blame her - it was after all her first day of school!

I was exhausted even before I started on Hailey. Lucky for me, Hailey was more cooperative and I finished with her in record time. Breakfast out of the way, we made for the door. Rushing like mad!

No sooner had we gone outside the gate, than Heidi’s shoe snapped and the strap came off. Murphy’s law was at work! We had to rush back to the house to get a different pair.

By this time, we were at the epitome of the rush. The eye of the storm - so to speak. The rush was on us like white on rice. We practically ran to the school and funny thing is that the girls enjoyed the run. I think they enjoyed watching me run more than anything else.

You know about school opening days and queues right? They sorta go together like githeri and avocado :-)  (I am writing this post over lunch hour so bear with me) We reach Hailey’s primary school section and there is a queue from here to theeeeereee! The genius in me reasons that we should start with Heidi’s baby class section. I asked Hailey to wait for me at their registration hall as I rushed to take Heidi to her class.

Heidi’s section was also packed. What’s worse is that here, the children are yelling for their mommies and so progress is at a snail’s pace! I decide to stick it out all the same. We got to queuing and our patience eventually paid off. Soon, Heidi and I were strutting from the administration office to her allocated class to meet her new teacher. I crossed my fingers, hoping she wouldn’t cry. She didn’t. There was no sign of a tear. I cautiously bid her farewell and seeing how well she was taking it all, I sprinted to the primary section to find Hailey.

I found Hailey. A different Hailey than I remembered. She was seated with her new friends, chatting away quietly. Happily. No worry or anxiety in her face. I looked at her and it hit me! Like a thunderbolt it hit me: My girl is all grown up! I had never seen her act so mature and independent! Some sort of epiphany was happening; I don’t know whether the sharp contrast between the primary and baby class sections exaggerated things a bit but it was enough to stop me on my tracks. Hailey smiled and waved at me when she saw me approaching.

I really don’t know what I expected. I expected to find her anxious, for her to run to meet me and ask me why I took too long to get back. I expected some kind of childlike reaction, you know? Not the calm, waving, smiling, chatting-quietly young girl I found seated, surrounded by a bunch of pupils. I had to take a moment to take it all in.

Sometimes you think you are watching them as they grow only to realize that they’ve been growing, but you haven’t been watching!

After Hailey’s registration, I decided to pass by Heidi’s class to check on her one last time. You know, see if she is getting along fine with the other kids. I am utterly ashamed to announce at this point that this takes the biscuit for being the biggest mistake of the day, on my part.

Heidi was doing fine alright. Until she saw me. “MUMMY! She was so excited to see me back. “Twende?” she asked. The clever girl thought that 20 minutes of class was enough and it was time to leave!

She came to where I stood talking to her teacher and held onto the hem of my dress. Her index finger swiftly found its way to her mouth. When I tried to convince her to take a seat next to the other kids, she shook her head vigorously. This was promptly followed by frowning. Then the creasing of her face. And then...SWASH! She turned on the waterworks! Seeing my helplessness, her teacher carried her and tried to distract her. At that point I was dying to sweep her in my arms and carry her with me.

When my child cries, I cry with her. She screams and gets tears smeared all over her face coupled with a running nose to boot. Her crying is evident, for all to see that she is unhappy. When this happens, I cry too. Inwardly. Discretely. I cry with my heart. Until her tears stop, only then can my tears dry up as well.

Heidi and I both needed to grow out of this interdependence. So I walked away with tears in my heart. I too was yelling and screaming. I was just as afraid as Heidi was. While she wondered how she’d get through the day without mummy, I thought “Will my precious cope with the new environment, the new faces?”

So yeah. We cried. We yelled. And screamed. But we braved day number one like champs! And now we are doing much better. We almost didn’t cry. Almost. You should be proud of us.

My 'Rocking Chair' Test

You reach a certain age and suddenly, as if a blinding veil has finally been lifted off, you start seeing things more clearly.

Say I am 80 years old, right? Work with me here...I am 80, I have no teeth. A wrinkled face is definitely inevitable - forget what Nivea have been trying to sell to you - the wrinkles are all there! We are talking hearing aids, toothless grin, hunched back and all the tribulations that come with living to an advanced age.  I am frail. Throw in a cough for good measure. A persistent dry cough. Hair is all grey. Am I in dreadlocks still? Probably not. That would be weird. I probably shaved them off in my mid 40s? No, make that 50s. Or thereabouts.

I am sitting on a rocking chair, outside on the porch. I am surrounded by green vegetation. Remember my True North post? In the bush? Yeah. That kind of setting is what I’m looking at.  I now  reside in the cold green farms in the Valley. I rock my chair back...forth….back...forth….

Chances are, I am reading a book - oh, wait my eyesight must be giving me grief. I can only read with glasses now? My eyes tear up when I expose them to books? Sema book allergy! One never forgets how to read though, do they? Maybe reading at that age is too farfetched? I don’t know...I have never really thought about this. Fine, scratch the reading; I am listening to music then? The oldies maybe? I wonder whose music will qualify as oldies at the time; Rihanna’s? Chris Brown’s? Beyonce’s? Bieber's? Or we could pick a song and artist more believable like... ‘Incredible’ by Celine Dion? Now there’s a song to listen to in your old age!

As I nod my head to this beautiful song (grandma nodding her head, really Renee?) my mind wanders. It goes back to my heydays. Back to when I was young and vibrant. When I had the world, my life and a myriad of choices ahead of me. I think of the choices I made. The path I chose that led me right here, where I am now, co-existing with the evergreen tea plantations. The sacrifices I made, the mistakes I made. My successes and my challenges. This reverie takes me back to the beginning while Celine and Ne-Yo inspire me to ask myself “Was I incredible?” Was I?  

Being who I am, I want to believe that I strayed off the beaten path. Oh yes, I definitely did!  It’s the only way I could have remained true to myself.

One memory that will sure make me proud is if somewhere along the line, as I navigated through this life of mine I managed to pursue my passion. I will be glad to remember a day when I woke up and searching my soul, I asked myself; Woman, what maketh thou happy? and went ahead to do exactly that instead of giving myself a pep talk every morning that went very much like “This job pays the bills. Writing won’t put food on the table...blablablabla” I sure hope that somewhere along the way, I grabbed the bull by the horns on this one. I must have taken that leap of faith at some point. I surely must have!

I know for sure that the best memories will be those of spending time with my family especially during annual celebrations like birthdays, Christmas, Easter and the likes. Precious moments will include the moment when I came home after a hard day’s work. The affectionate hugs and kisses I got from Hailey and Heidi, the sheer excitement, shrieks of joy and laughter that my arrival elicited from them which always left me at the verge of tears. The love. My goodness, the sheer, complete, unconditional and heartwarming LOVE! There is nothing quite like it I tell ya. Nothing!

I won’t forget the simple pleasures that we indulged in like baking, where Hailey helped with adding the milk into a bowl of flour, while Heidi put in the sugar. We stirred the ingredients in a bowl and together we watched the cake rise in the oven and marvelled at the work of our hands as it turned golden in colour. I will remember the day we stuffed our faces with Cinnamon cake and after a generous serving for the girls, we watched as Heidi’s body started to swell; face, legs, hands. I won’t forget how I panicked and rushed her to hospital and how we, on that fateful day, stumbled on the discovery that Heidi is in fact allergic to Cinnamon! Though ok after medication, the swelling took some time to go down and Hailey took every opportunity to poke fun at her sister’s ‘fatness’ - “Mum, Heidi ni mfat!” she would exclaim from time to time before going into a feat of laughter. This memory will make me nostalgic to no end.

The biggest contentment while rocking that chair will come from being a mother to my children in every sense of the word. Should I succeed in making my voice permanently instilled in their heads, having it ingrained so deep that the world will have a tough time leading them astray, I will bear a huge toothless smile on that chair.

Part of that smile will be from the joy of publishing my books, one (or a few - a girl can dream!) of which will earn me an award. MUST earn me an award. My heart will swell with pride at the thought of having influenced society on various issues affecting women.

I might carry some regrets on that chair. I might regret not saying ‘No’ enough times. I might very well regret not getting another child. Tic….toc, I hear that biological clock ticking away.

Who knows what the future holds? I choose to bless my path with my words anyway. I hope that when I eventually sit on that chair years, many years, from now, memories of my life will leave me with a toothless grin stretching from ear to ear.

I will henceforth wake up every morning with the intention of remedying the foreseeable regrets and making the dreams come true. Whatever the outcome, I want the 80 year-old me, to describe her life using one word:  INCREDIBLE!

The year 2013, the ‘damage’ it leaves behind.

2013 came. She approached us shyly, batting her eyelids and drawing circles in the sand with her toes and all. We encouraged her. We yelled “Happy New year!” in unison, with enthusiasm. Slowly she grew confident and took charge. She demanded for a place in our lives and we happily embraced her with unbridled expectation.

Things got real. Along the way somewhere, she shook us up a bit. She gave us laughter with hints of sadness here and there. She gave us new life in newborn babies and yet it did not relent on the deaths and funerals now and then. She gave us hope with a tinge of disappointment from time to time. Now she is done with us. Her time is up! She begs to leave, but she can’t leave us the way she found us, can she? She cannot just up and go without leaving a mark, right?

As 2014 knocks to be let in, I carry with me silt carried from 2013.  Like a flowing river 2013 had to leave some residue in me - its way of engraving the words ‘2013 was here’. The 'damage' is so much so that I feel like a different person. I even feel the need to get re-acquainted with myself.

She twisted my dress sense a whole lot. See, I was a jeans and pants kinda girl. I swore by trousers and never cared for the girly outfits. Then 2013 happened. She waltzed her way into my wardrobe and introduced me to dresses and skirts. How did this happen? Who even let her into the privacy of my closet! She went a step further and replaced me, the leggings hater with a leggings crusader! Miracles indeed do happen! I never could stand leggings before. Especially leggings worn as pants. Look at me now. All I do is gush “Aren't these the most comfortable garments or what!” as I pull a pair of leggings on.

She tested my patience all right. I never realized how much I lack in the ‘patience’ department until 2013 came and shoved into my face the slowest house help in the world EVER! A very nice girl, don’t get me wrong. Very kind. So soft spoken. But too. Damn. Slow. I had to grit my teeth, bury my head in the pillow and scream into it because I could not scream in her face. Did I tell you that she was the nicest girl? I had to be patient with her. It was torture, but I survived. I became acquainted to patience for the first time and ever since we met, I think it is the most underrated virtue. I henceforth swore to take my responsibility as a mother more seriously because I would hate to subject another human being the torture of teaching my grown children the basic life lessons that I should have taught them when they were little.

2013 you! Do you know what else she did? She made me a believer. She took me, an all time skeptic and turned me into a believer of love. A risk taker - come on, who doesn’t think that getting married is the biggest leap of faith one can ever take, huh? I can’t believe this year did this to me. I’m exuding a bunch of emotions that I never could allow to get the better of me. I ask, who is this person?!

I never did admit it before but 2013 made me face the reality. I finally embraced this very unusual side of me. I, Renee finally came to terms with the fact that I infact...do not like cake. Yep! I don’t. I think I had pretended for far too long and the year boldly decided “That’s it! Enough is enough. You have to admit it this minute. You don’t like cake. Now say it!” I had no choice but to repeat “I don’t like cake” with my head facing down. Pretender!

While we’re on food stuff; ironically, she made me a baker, this unpredictable year. Yes she did. She made me a cook. A good cook! (Toot! Toot!) She had me flexing my culinary muscles and whipping up recipes left right and centre. Hailey and Heidi have so much to thank 2013 for because they had their appetites whetted like never before. We sure cooked up a storm!

As we cooked up a storm and stuffed our faces, she made sure that I watched my weight. 2013 introduced me to the wonders of the hoola hoop. It is fun, first and foremost, and secondly, it works wonders on your waistline. I think I almost got rid of the evidence left after carrying two pregnancies, don’t you agree? Anyway...I recommend.

2013 leaves in me an early riser - something I hope to carry well into the new year. It gifted me with twin nephews, what joy! She however robbed me of my cousin. Bummer! She dished me lessons on motherhood by making me feel the pinch of being away from my babies for a while. Then she brought MD back home for good, YAY! (I warned you about this mushy woman!) 2013 taught me to appreciate people more. She restored my trust in both the human male and female species, except politicians - let’s not get carried away now. 

I have learned that for every minute that I breathe (and hence fill these pages), every second that I am healthy and strong, every moment that I get to share with loved ones, that I should be thankful. It is a huge privilege. One that I am not assured will always be there.

What’s more, 2013 drew me closer to God. A very good place to be.

Reading all these, don’t you feel like we just met? I know. I feel like I just met me too! What about you, how much ‘damage’ did 2013 do to you?

Happy new year my friends. See you on the other side, God willing.