Who are we being strong for?

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One of the most excruciating things to watch, is your child, sick. I realise daily, that with rearing toddlers, there is no balance.

The house is chaotic half the time, and you are running about settling fights and tidying up. A freshly scrubbed sitting room can be turned to a big lie, by an efficient collaboration between two toddlers and one infant.

So, I said there was no balance.

This is because,the only thing worse than the chaos, is the peace and quiet. I said it.

When everywhere is tidy, and no one is using their poster colors to paint the walls, chairs, or their siblings’ face

When no one wants a bowl of cereal right after a heavy meal of fufu

When no one asks you questions like this

TheBoss: Mommy, you said you will throw me out of the window because I was being naughty

Me: Yes

TheBoss: (long laughter) But you always tell people ‘this is my son’, who will you be showing as your son?

One small logic from a four year old, called my bluff.

When no one scatters your shoe rack, playing dress up

When no one wakes up by 4.00am and demands to be taken to see Grandma

The absence of these things, are worse than their presence

They went quiet in turns, but it is 100watts who has landed me as a co-patient within the four walls that I despise.

I am not complaining, that air that greets you when you step into a hospital is not here. It is a miracle, one that has waved my other sorrows away.

Who are we being strong for?

Another thing you must learn, is to be strong. So when the needle goes in, finding a vein in the slim wrist, do not look away, do you hear me?

None of that cringing too, it honestly wont change a thing, or abate the pain, and then your face looks pretty funny.

This is because your child is watching; this thing Mommy is afraid of, won’t it finish me?

‘Drip’ ‘Drip’

I am tired of watching the liquid, it is singularly the slowest thing I have had to bear this year. I didn’t know anything was worse than waiting for my DSTV decoder to boot.

I am hungry too.

I called home, the others hadn’t untidied anywhere, they didnt want cereal after dinner. 

The only noise, were the frequent whispers as fedback

“Isn’t my mommy coming home?”

“And isn’t my sister coming home?”

Otherwise, everywhere was quiet, very quiet and I admit quite surprisingly, I hate the quiet.

Achalugo.

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