C for Cheerfulness – It's a lovely sunny morning!

Sunny mornings can never be lovely in Chennai, Ha!

Yet, when I open the window curtains every morning, this line rings in my head,

“It’s a LOVELY sunny morning.”

Do you wonder why?

It means you don’t have a Peppa Pig fan at home 😆

Little children are spontaneous; they don’t think before they act, speak or laugh. Their innate ability to let the flow of happenings happen guards the cheerfulness in them. And being around them is sometimes so influential that motherhood cannot escape without getting infected 🙂 Sometimes when my son sings his school rhymes non-stop for hours together while playing, I subconsciously pick it up and keep humming nursery rhymes till I sign off from kitchen. Recently, in a mommy gathering, we casually began playing antakshari. When it was my turn, I had to begin with the syllable ‘ra’. I became fixed unable to think of a song beginning with ‘ra’. As the pressure around grew louder, I was prompted to open up whatever ‘ra’ thing came to my mind. Guess what I finally ended up with? “Row row row your boat gently down the stream” and the rest of the rhymes became a chorus as others joined in, some performing the dance movements too. After all, we all were mommies! Dance reminds me of the funny little dance steps he tried to teach me which he had learnt for his school annual day celebration. And declared that mom is a good dancer!

Having been habituated to watching cartoon videos along with my son, the rest of the television content doesn’t seem to be of my interest any longer. There are no villains, no sadness, no violence and anything for that matter that can disturb me unlike the television content. In fact, the animated characters have become a part of our family that the other day when I spilled dosa batter on the floor, my son exclaimed, “Amma, wait! Let’s call Ryder. Whenever you are in trouble, just yelp for help!” And then I proclaimed, “Rubble on the double” as I turned my back and pretended my hand as Rubble’s digger to sweep the batter off from the floor. After it was done, we ended with dora and Boots’ dance, “We did it, we did it”.

Yeah, sometimes such tedious chores can turn to fun times with timely cheers from the little ones. Especially the silly laughs we have together while cuddling up during bedtime, the spectrum of expressions I bring into the voices of his book characters, the temptation to grab his ice cream after I’ve finished mine, the negotiations and deals we make for each other, the ‘Wows’ and ‘Good jobs’ for every little achievement he brings to me, the ticklings, the giggles, the hide-and-seeks – motherhood is also about reviving and completing the bygone childhood. Despite the fact that at other times, C can be for Crabby, I wish I remain in the ‘C for Cheerfulness’ avatar for longer times. Having a cheerful mom is more precious to a child than having a disciplining mom, after all!

Did I forget the playtimes? His doll house mommy sleeps all the time while the doll house daddy cooks in the kitchen and takes breakfast upstairs to mommy’s bedroom 😯 Imagine the joy I would feel watching him play this, provided the fact that he has never witnessed such scenes in reality. He would then take mommy for a ride in the doll house car to a bakery where he would pretend play a baker and serve french fries and burger to mommy. Did I miss the baking part of french fries and burger in his self-made wooden fridge? 😆 Yes, everything is possible! It’s such unimaginable imaginations that make motherhood cheerful.