Happy birthday

My second born, my younger daughter turned five yesterday. Five years just flew by, I remember the very difficult pregnancy, the daily doses of insulin injections,  the day she was born she was almost bluish and how she was kept away from me for three days in the nursery, but still she seemed to be content and on her own. I was a very tired and depressed mother, the biting cold of Delhi winter was not helping much, but I remember distinctly that she did not bother me much, most of the times she was happy with the crowd of people around her, grandmothers, sister, cousins etc.

As time passed I observed that she was most happy in the company of her big sis, she looked around when she could not find her sister , when she started crawling, I could see her following big sis everywhere. I never realized when she had started eating on her own, doing her own things, started doing her homework and even talking so much to her sister, father and me. The fact is I never put any effort into all  this, I remember having a hard time in potty training my elder one, also I was constantly on her side in the evenings to teach her and make her study her alphabets correctly, here I did not even realize when the little one was potty trained, and how without me putting an effort she has started writing her alphabets and  words too…

Yesterday on her birthday, which we brought in without much fan fare I could see the amount of love she had for all of us, especially her sister, you give her two toffees and she will save one for her didi, when they sit down for dinner she will always bring two glasses of water, when I scold her didi, she would ask me not to scold her, she loves her didi’s company, they are happy singing songs together, choreographing their own dances, becoming teacher to each other in their teacher student play.

I am a first born myself and I always thought that my parents loved my sister more, but now that I am a parent, I can see that each child is different, infact the second born children are mostly on their own, by the time they arrive the parents are not so hyper any more, they have also learned their lessons in bringing up the first one, so they usually have a relaxed approach to the second one and the child also gets a cue out of it and becomes relaxed individuals themselves.

Suddenly I feel my children have grown up too fast , I would like to savour the moment, enjoy each day with them, hug them and inhale their baby softness some more, it may be just a matter of couple of years more that they might  start minding the hugs and kisses as expression of our love to them.

Happy birthday dearest daughter, love you and your didi to bits, God bless both of you !!