Facetime

If there's any lesson that I learnt this weekend, it is that I've learnt to really looked at my children's face. And perhaps put a name to their faces too, over here. I've been referring to them as the son and the kid, and truth be told, I get confused sometimes. Not just you, as a reader. 

So to set the record straight. My elder son is called Benjamin and the second son is called Jeb. There. 

As I was saying about a lesson I learnt this weekend was through looking at their faces right. I think next to a face of sadness, a disappointed face ranks the second. Especially of a child's. 

We were running late from an appointment and all the while I was rushing around preparing the stuff to head out, I keep yelling out to Benjamin to switch off the DVD he was watching. (He was watching a Thomas Sing-Along DVD and by now, he has know most of the songs by heart and the sequence to it). 

I told him to shut it down and he would reply "One last song Mama. The next song is Never Never Give up!"

Okay. Song came and during the song, he excitedly told me the next song was Down by the Dockside, which by now I'm already all strapped up, with Jeb, and ready to go. So I cut him off and said no. 

With that, he just gave a downcast look and said okay. 

And that, was the moment if I had missed, I would have robbed him of his excitement. Simply by not looking at him and brushing him off.

And thus, I said, "Okay, but it is really the last song". 

And with that, I gave him back his excitement. 

And we left the house on a happy note. 

Sometimes throughout the day when I might be busy with the cooking, cleaning or my phone (ahem), I would either give a cursory nod, mumbled some stuff or a quick wave to acknowledge him. Or when sometimes he'll be so excited to show me a new discovery he found, I would give a non committal grunt and he'll be so insistent and go, "Look, look Mama! Look!"

And it forces me to stop whatever I was doing and really look. It might be a flower, a dried leaf, a butterfly, a snail, some toys he found, some bug crawling or something and that to me might be insignificant but to a three year old kid, it is a life, alive. 

Lesson learnt. 

I put a mask over his bolster and it has become his new best friend.

New best friend is tired and sleeping. 

No. I am not the one who cut his hair.
His hair just grew wild after we shaved it off few months back.

And sometimes when I feel so squeezed out of air, I just have to look at them and it helps me to breath again.