Friday, October 25, 2013

Shifting Gears

I have driven stick shift for the first 6 years of my driving life. And now after so long, I have been given the opportunity to shift gears once again, thanks to a dear friend. Fact is, I did not know its a manual geared car until I put my hands and feet on it, and it was such a surprise.

The real challenge was in proving myself that I can still survive stick shift, instead of being one of those who completely swear off stone age technologies. Gladly enough, driving a stick shift seems to come as natural as breathing. Instead the real culture shock comes when I shift to auto geared car and suddenly I press the brake with my left feet and sense something wrong before changing to single feet driving.

Coincidentally, little did I know that life was about to change gears in more ways than one. I am talking about BIG change. After almost 2 years of being a Stay-At-Home-Mother, almost 3 years of not attending office (I worked from home for the last chapter of my work in 2011) deciding to continue being SAHM, I suddenly got an offer that made me reconsider.

It was going to be a huge change, as Jeev was fully under my care, and had never left me longer than 2 hours. At one point it did seem like it was me who would find it hard to let go, instead of him.

As we geared for this new change, we started Jeev to attend half-day kindy together with Sanju. First two days was a jiffy, and we could not believe ourselves. Too good to be true, oh yes!

The next week he started crying and would refuse to let me go at the gate. By the third day of crying he caught the flu bug, just after two weeks of recovering the nasty bug earlier!

It felt like things were falling apart for me to even give a try at the offer at hand. Once he recovered we continued sending him despite wailing and crying. It did occur to me to just give up, and let me continue staying home with him. But then I was reminded of how Sanju behaved for the first 2 months of school. He was crying and resenting walking to school daily. But we still sent him for his benefit and see how he turned out. Taking a leap of faith, we continued preparing Jeev with school talks. Also he has Sanju with him in school, things are pretty familiar to him as well since we spend our evenings at kindy playground sometimes.

Something told me that going through these obstacles might just make us stronger and the whole change worthwhile. Anything that comes easy is easily forgotten, and taken for granted. This thought made me hold on with tonnes of patience, every night hoping for tomorrow to turn out better than today.

Fast forward to third week of attending kindy, Jeev happily hops out of the car into the arms of his teachers. With the company of his Ironman, who by the way attends school free of charge. Somehow his presence makes a positive difference. Now Sanju and Jeev both tell me, 'ma go work, baby go school'. They both refer to each other as 'baby'. Ironically, both the boys are not such babies anymore. In ways more than one.

Morning happy mode for school. Their smile makes my day at work.


In the meantime Sanju has acquired the liking to play 'masak-masak'. Despite going to the toy store and picking out the transforming Ultraman, he was more excited to open up the cookery toys and start cooking goodies for me. And I also get milk and tea made by him occasionally.




Till the next change, I will be shifting gears on and off to work. While the kids have fun at their half-day kindy with their friends and Ironman in tow.

2 comments:

Shantini said...

Hey babe, didn't know you're back to work now, how has it been for you? I just started being a SAHM and it's been all of 4 days now, haha. Anyway so glad the boys have gotten into their routine and happy to go to school while mommy goes to work. They have grown up so much! And Sanju is into masakmasak coz mommy is a good cook/baker!

QarezmaV said...

Yea me back to work and thankfully kids are coping fine, and its somewhat working fine for now cos its flexi hours for me. Its a rare opportunity to see Sanju playing something that doesnt involve punching and kicking in the air

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