The rain and the mist

It's been raining for past two weeks with a few breaks in between.

The last week had started with the downpours outside the house and the thunders inside.. With a hollering mom, and two very vociferous girls, it was a yelling, slamming, smashing and stomping second week of the school year! The mornings were spent in trying to hurry up the kids to reach the school on time.. Despite which two out of five mornings, we were late.. There's always some or the other reason for us reaching late.. At the nick of the moment, chini will remember that she has to finish her painting for Mrs. R (her teacher) or sugar will give me a tough time for putting the shoes on.. Or one of them would fuss about my choice of dress/socks/shoes for them.. If i let them choose, it would be a tough, loooooong decision and so on and so forth... The list of our daily morning struggles are endless..

And though I plan well ahead and put in all the efforts, something or the other keeps the clock ticking and with each ticking of the hand pointing closer to my planned departure time, I start losing my temper. I try the reverse counting, I gulp down pitcher of water, I remove myself from the scene and every other methodologies that your pediatrician and/ or the parenting magazines claim to work for the other parents(including them)... Am clueless, as to why, they never seem to work for me!! In fact, I have reached to the conclusion that I might be the best example for a bad parenting case..

Each morning, I promise myself that I would try n imbibe those tone-modulation low-voice advices... And by each evening I break this promise at least three times! With my tone at the highest pitch and my voice at the loudest volume, the only people, on this earth, who take this grunting are my two little daughters. OK the dad too gets a part of it.. But he is not at home 90% of the times.. In effect, my sweet little girls get the most of the. There are times, when I realize that I am unnecessarily raising my voice at these poor kids and I can say the same thing in a much lower voice, but am not able to tune myself down... Leaving me with a wretched guilt! So many times, I remind myself that they are but just 4-yr and 2-yr olds, and they are bound to be not listening and playing but in the spur of the moment, I just lose it..

Meditation, deep breathing, counting.. All of it lasts until it does.. After you open your eyes, the scenario doesn't change.. We still need to be reach where we have to.. We still are running on nick of time..

One such morning, in the rush, we put our shoes on, fetch the bags, locked the house, got in the car, buckled and hit the road! Halfway through, I cooled down and said "sorry chini. I yelled at you."

She smiled and said, "that's okay momma. I still love you."

And with misty eyes, I continued driving...

And gave her a huge long hug when we reached the school...

For being the light of my life....