A Time for Reflection !

The last few weeks have been hectic for me both at my work place and home. It’s a pleasant feeling to take a small break and spend some time with my friend. (Computer).

I am happy today I could sit for a longer time, so that I could at least make one post. Writing whenever I can makes me relax and helps me reflect and learn. 

Reviewing my past week, which was quite stressful, with my daughter down with chicken pox, it has been tough for me to manage. I missed my mom and tried hard to remember what she did when I had chicken pox as a child.

I tried to recall everything that she did (even though it’s been a long time, and things have been different.  I also strongly believe that we cannot offer yesterday’s solution to today’s problem, sometimes it may work, at other times it may not.)

Despite all what my mind said, I still tried to  follow a few tips, as to what my mother did i.e., putting some tender neem leaves around the bed, maintaining cleanliness and giving only vegetarian diet for my daughter.

In this process, I tried making some new and healthy breakfast. 

I took special effort to give a nutritious and healthy diet, idli, soft rice,  boiled dal, phalakdal, rasam, kitchidi with carrots, tomatoes, onions, with very little oil  without seasoning, plenty of water, fruits, whichever she felt like eating, and snacks was some brown bread and made some veg sandwiches, picked up a few ready-made bread spread. 

I am happy for my sister, who visited Dorothy in my absence to play some games, which kept her occupied and helped her to manage itching.   I was also helped by Cynthia my friend who sent me downloaded information from http://chickenpoxdiet.blogspot.in/ which was very useful and informative and reinforced some of the things which I already did, and also brought back memories of my past.

Being the last semester exam for Dorothy, I tried to help her with borrowing notes from her friends, visiting her school picking up her assignments and ensured that she updates her lessons.  While I continued my routine, and prepared my daughter for school, she made a comment “I wish I had chicken pox throughout the year, I am so happy …..”  I looked at her to understand what she was trying to say and then she smiled and said “mamma I am so happy to be at home, to get so much love and attention from you, daddy and everybody around me. 

I did not know what to say, I thought I am perfect mother, taking good care of her, providing with whatever she required, helping her with homework, taking her for outings.  Parenting is definitely a challenge, the more I try and make life easier for my daughter, the greater the expectations.

I tried to understand her feelings, her school is quite far from where we stay, she leaves by 7.30 in the morning by school bus and reaches only after 5 p.m. Then there are home assignments to complete and very little time to play and both of us as parents too reach at the same timing, and we too are tired after a long day at work. 

So we too try to relax a bit and help Dorothy with whatever she requires.  In the last two weeks, I and my husband took breaks to be with her at home which was good in a way, because that also made us slow down and focus more on reaching out to Dorothy.

I am glad that Dorothy has recovered, and has started going to school.  

Now I am back to my routine, and feels quite good, and appreciate myself for not only managing my daughter and my home – but simultaneously worked all the days, took a few counseling sessions.

Attended a 3 days training programme on supportive supervision and also took care of myself – ensured that I exercised every day, meditated, spent time in prayer, practiced positive affirmations, and at the end of the day I chose to be grateful for everything that happened the whole day!

Be healthy and happy!

G Angela