I have made a resolution that I will see the glass half full from now on. No more of the Eeyore attitude for me. I haven’t complained about the winter this year, not once. The fact that this was the mildest winter ever, is beside the point. So when I threaten Ryan that he won’t be taken to his basketball game till he writes one page of his journal and threaten Sahana to confiscate the Complete Works of Jane Austen if she doesn’t go outside the house for an hour, I tell myself I get to experience the best of both the worlds. The fact that Ryan writes three lines and fills the page with illustration and that Sahana goes outside and blows dandelion seeds all over the yard instead of running and getting some exercise is also beside the point.
Sahana is a natural athlete who doesn’t care for activities that take her away from her books. Her punishment for bad behavior is taking away her reading privilege for an evening. She got in trouble for reading in class while the teacher was teaching. She got in trouble with her parents on numerous ocassions for not responding when called or for ignoring her chores because she was lost in a book. Her friends tell me Sahana walks the halls of school with her nose in a book. Her media
teacher, upon hearing I was Sahana’s mother said, ‘Oh, Sahana!!! She doesn’t just read, she devours books!’
Ryan eats, sleeps and dreams sports. He is worried what his decision is going to be when BOTH pro football and pro baseball teams come to recruit him. He took pity on his anti football mother and said he will ultimately choose baseball, that is after winning gold medals in swimming in the Olympics. He rushes through his homework so he gets ten minutes to throw the ball around before he goes for swim practice. He gets one of his sporting activities taken away if he doesn’t read a book or doesn’t write a few sentences. I sigh when I think I had once complained about Sahana’s reading habits. But, since I am done being an Eeyore, I tell myself these two show me the world from both sides of the spectrum. I am actually lucky!
I often hear from people that both my kids are really good, polite, respectful. While I thank them profusely for their kind words, I wonder in my mind why do I not see what the outside world sees, what am I missing? I know, in my heart, they are good kids but they bring out the worst in each other. I worry how their relationship will be when they grow up. Being an only child, I don’t feel I fully understand the sibling relationship. But again, since I am done being Eeyore I focus on the moments when Ryan uses up all his good behavior stamps in school to ‘buy’ two gifts for his sister and one gift for himself, and Sahana saves the last slice of pizza so Ryan can have the leftover the next day. I recently read a book called ‘Get out of my life but could you drive Cheryl and me to the mall first?’ by Anthony Wolfe where he says chances are your child is going to grow up to be the kind of adult that the world percieves him/her now. If that is true, my children will be all right. I am taking that argument and running with it. As I said, I am an Eeyore no more.
Ryan recently wrote his first blog about sports and ended it with a sentence “After all, what is life without risk?” One of my dear friends, after reading his blog wanted to know what risks he had taken in his life thus far. Like a good publicist, I forwarded the question to the almost seven year old author, and smiled at him patronizingly expecting him to shrug and say ‘I don’t know!’ I thought he had written that line because it sounded good as a conclusion to his blog. He was quiet for a while and then came up with this “When Mrs._ asks us the spelling of a word I don’t know, I hear the sounds and try to guess the spelling. I raise my hand to give it a try, I take a risk then! My teacher always praises us for taking risks. When I balance on a log to go across a stream, I get scared I may fall, but I still try. And when I can do it, I feel very good about myself. That is taking risk. I didn’t know if I could swim a mile in the swim team practice, but I volunteered to do it anyway. I took a risk. Are these good examples?” I was amazed. These are not just good examples, they are great examples.
Taking risks begin when they let go of our fingers for the first time and enter the gates of preschool. What a huge risk that is, to leave the comfort of mom, home and everything familiar for the first time to go to a structured environment of work and play. Taking risks doesn’t
stop there, every new thing they try in their young lives is taking a chance, be it answering a question they are not sure about, in front of a room full of peers, diving off the block in the deep end of the pool, walking the halls of dreaded middle school at age eleven or navigating through the rocky roads of adolescence. But they do it, fearfully at first, and then with confidence, taking chances and growing a little bigger with each success.
I was happy he didn’t turn around and ask me “What risk are you taking in your life, Mom?” I wouldn’t have an answer for him. What chances am I taking these days? My partner in crime is trying to make a difference in the world, I tell myself I am keeping his world together so he can do his job well. That is my contribution to the world, vicariously, but that doesn’t seem convincing enough in my own mind any more.
I am considering bungee jumping on my next birthday. And just so you know, I am afraid of heights.
In our family, a major war begins with a simple nudge, an innocent poke or a certain look. The parents planned a family walk through the woods on a nice winter morning. It started off pleasantly, with good cheer but didn’t last. I documented the fight instead of mediating.
Starting the walk, with grumpy faces.Getting along.Sibling love. Parents heaving a sigh of relief. The walk was a good idea, after all.Oh, the smiles.All in fun...still.Do I detect a frown?Ryan is not too sure...Target Daddy but cracks forming in the wall of solidarity.Getting serious.Prior to being pushed into a pricker bush - unintentional.Being pushed into the above said pricker bush.Grumpy face 1.Grumpy face 2 who wouldn't let me take a closer shot.
Most people who know me will agree that I am an easy person to get along with. Well, I hope they will agree and not call me delusional. I am polite, I hold the door for people, I always make eye contact and smile at people I know, and sometimes Ithink I know! I obey traffic rules, make a complete stop at stop signs, blink my lights at the other car to let it go first. You get the picture.
I just have trouble with two kinds of people, though. Sneaky drivers who try to steal my parking spot and power outlet hogs. I take my kids swimming at our local Y, and since people are very gung-ho about their new year’s resolution these days, they arrive in droves to the gym at our YMCA. Good for them, I say. Go people, I want you all to be healthy and happy. But don’t take up all the parking in the facility! Carpool, for crying out loud. When poor, harried, often late mothers like me are rushing to get their children to swim practice, there is no parking to be had!!! So I become a stalker. I zero in on an unsuspecting soul and follow him/her around the parking lot. As soon as people come out of the gym, they flip out their smart phones while walking to their cars and start telling their facebook friends which machines they did that day and how many calories they burnt. Hey, I am not judging anybody, I probably would have done the same….. if I had a smart phone. What I am saying is, I actually have had people lift up their heads from this important task of maintaining virtual connection with friends via phones to give my minivan dirty looks. You have to admit, that’s something. Some sweet souls, however, sometimes signal me where they are parked and I bless them from the bottom of my heart. Since I always have that “Oh I am so late” expression on my face, I think other moms feel my pain. I have got that sad, frustrated look down pat! On one particular day, I got lucky. A woman, going to her car, signaled to me that she was leaving and I could have her spot. I, with a gleeful wave to her, followed immediately and put my blinkers on, waiting for her to pull out. Putting the blinkers on in these cases, is very important. It gives out the important message to other parking spot predators that you have made your kill, nobody should even think about invading your territory. As the nice woman pulled out, I saw another harried mom like me trying to sneak in to MY parking spot. Oh no, you don’t! I thought angrily! I had been circling the parking lot for at least six and a half minutes, my kids were bickering in the car with each other and taking turns to whine that they were late for practice, can I please hurry up and park!! Moreover, Ryan has this terrible habit of shrieking “There is one!” startling me and giving me false hope. I had already yelled at them twice. I was angry, frazzled and LATE!!! So before she could make her move I pressed my accelerator to give it an extra oomph, charged in to claim what I considered mine. I had my blinkers on, for Pete’s sake! Once I got my spot, I immediately felt bad for her. She probably had some bickering, whiny kids in her car giving her a hard time for not finding a parking where there was none to be found! I thought I should find her and give her my advice to stalk innocent gym rats, but didn’t. She wasn’t probably too happy with me right then.
The other kind of people who bug me are power outlet hogs in airports, hospitals or other public places. There is definitely a dearth of outlets in these places to begin with. If I find one, I almost shout ‘Eureka’ out loud. Some folks miraculously find them and go on to claim two of the elusive outlets, one for their phones and one for their laptops or tablets. While I go around from one end of the facility to another desperately looking for one so my precious kids can play Angry Birds or read e-books. In cases like these, I often feel like standing in front of one of these unthinking folks and tapping my feet in annoyance. But I don’t. I remember the ‘Choose Civility’ car sticker I picked up from our local library and proudly displayed on my car! Instead, I run around some more!
First snow of the season in 2012! The boy and the dog couldn’t wait to get outside. The boy bundled up and called the dog to follow. I captured two happy souls and some happy moments in my camera!
Playing attackAdvantage RyanWho's taller?You give up, Ryan?Tag, you are 'it'!Gotcha!I need those gloves!Friends.
Ryan believes Sage will outlive him. He will designate somebody to take care of Sage when his time finally comes. We tried to tell him, dogs don’t live that long. The thought brought tears, so we let it rest. I hope when he is a grown man, looking back upon his childhood, he will remember these happy times he spent with a big, yellow dog by his side.
I spend a considerable part of my day planning meals for my family (read my spouse). Yes, I admit that, even at the cost of being labeled domesticated. I can even use that as an excuse for not working outside the house. If my husband was slightly easier to cook for, I would be out there pursuing my career, minting money. Alright, maybe not, but that is a nice thought. What I am trying to say is, Sean has become increasingly difficult to cook for. He calls himself a vegetarian, which is fine, I can live with that ONLY IF HE ATE VEGETABLES!!!!! The list of vegetables that he doesn’t ‘love’ is quite long. It is easier to cite what he eats than what he doesn’t. But I am not going to go into that. I think of nutrition, protein intake etc for the family, consider my options, which are very limited and then plan a dinner. It is no easy task, believe me when I say that. Also, please don’t forget I am inherently lazy, so I don’t cook meat or fish for the children or myself. We get our protein mainly from different kinds of beans and lentils.
When we are invited to a dinner, I groan inwardly. Don’t get me wrong, I love to socialize and I am not the one to pass up a free meal. I cringe because I have to do the embarrassing and unpleasant task of informing the host that Sean is a vegetarian and they will have to think of vegetarian menu for him. To be fair to him, he doesn’t want any fuss made over it. He says he can just eat salad but I don’t like to see him nibbling on rabbit food all night. So it is really me who is the trouble maker here. Before I go out to the dinner, I tell my kids to mind their manners and then turn to my husband and say, “Please eat whatever is offered!” Why I say that to him? This is why…
In my first year in the United States, I volunteered as an English teacher in Hispanic Apostolate. I made some wonderful friends. One lovely Peruvian woman invited Sean and I to her house for dinner. Her family was so gracious, the house was beautiful, we had a great conversation. They had planned some exotic cocktails for us but we are non drinkers, so we declined the hard drinks and stuck with water. I believe they were slightly disappointed. After a fantastic conversation about Sean’s trip to Peru, his years in Nicaragua, Costa Rica, my experience in US, their experience as immigrants in this country, we were invited to sit at the table. That is when things started to go wrong, embarrassingly wrong. Sean is allergic to mangoes and he doesn’t eat shellfish because they are bottom feeders. The first course served was a delicious salad piled high with mangoes. Mangoes are such a delicacy, of course, only if you are not allergic to them. Sean did his best to continue inane conversation so the hosts wouldn’t notice he was skipping the first course. Didn’t work. They were very attentive, asked him why his plate was empty and poor Sean had to admit he was allergic to mangoes. Oh, the mortification! But more followed. The main course was a delectable dish made of…….scallops, shrimp, mussels, bottom feeders, delicious, super yummy bottom feeders. My husband doesn’t touch those. I felt my face turning red. Sean tried even harder to continue conversation, speak Spanish, whatever to keep them from noticing his plate. He piled on the rice on his plate and kept eating plain rice, but the family noticed. Let it be noted he doesn’t touch white rice because they are empty calories. Again, he had to admit he didn’t eat shellfish. I kept my eyes on the food, simmering in misdirected anger against Sean for putting me through this. My friend jumped up, got a steak out from the fridge and put the steak on the grill. A steak, for my vegetarian husband!!! HELP!!! Sean did eat a little meat those days, very little. I kicked him hard under the table mainly to vent my anger and also to make sure he didn’t blurt out that he didn’t eat steak. We waited a while for the steak to cook and be brought to him. He ate it, rather faked it. The entrée was cleared, it was time for dessert. Dessert was a mousse cake – mango mousse cake. I don’t know who was more embarrassed that day, the gracious, wonderful hosts or us. I ate so much to compensate that I felt bloated the entire car ride back home. That may have been ONE of the reasons I didn’t say a single word to my newly wed husband during that car ride, who kept glancing at my stern profile nervously.
If you ask Sean about his eating habit he will say “Oh I am so easy to feed, just give some dal (lentils) and alu (potatoes) and I am happy!” Seriously! Just don’t ask my vegetarian foodie what vegetable he eats, that question might make him a little uncomfortable!
Sahana was born to a brown mom and a white dad in New Delhi with light skin, brown eyes and brown hair. In parks and play grounds, well-meaning people cooed over the baby, turned to me, the brown mom and asked if I was the ayah (nanny). I was indignant the first couple of times, ‘No, I am her MOTHER!’ Once the novelty of being the first time mom wore off, I found it humorous and replied, ‘I am her ayah and mother rolled into one!” I am not sure children notice the color of skin much, but I distinctly remember the day Sahana looked at me with wonder and said “Mom, you are brown!!!” She was close to three and I honestly think that was the first time she noticed my color being different from her. Before we had children, Sean and I sometimes wondered how our children will feel about being of mixed race because children desperately needed to belong. Sahana had no problem, whatsoever. We told her she was special since she belonged to two countries and she truly believed us. Fluent in Hindi, Bengali and English, she mingled with her Indian friends and her American family and friends with equal ease. In fact, she loves to be different, loves to be noticed. In a Ravens (football team) pep rally, she was the single brave soul who dared to wear the jersey of the nemesis, Patriots (a rival football team) and sit right in front to be noticed. To this day, she revels in her uniqueness at having two ethnicities, Irish American and Indian. As a little girl, she boasted to anybody who would listen, “I am half American and half Indian”! Later, when she learnt percentage, that changed to “I am 30 percent American and 70 percent Indian because I was born there!”
Young Ryan was very different. He was born in the United States. He didn’t feel he needed to belong to two countries. He wanted to be like most of his preschool friends, white and American. He loved his Indian mom but denied his Indian heritage. In fact, he got angry if we pointed out that he was darker than his Caucasian friends. He noticed the difference in our colors early on. He always identified as mommy and Sahana being from India, while daddy and he were from America. Unlike his sister, he didn’t want to stand out, didn’t want to be different, he just wanted to blend in. I felt sorry for him and it would be a lie if I said I didn’t feel bad about his attitude towards part of his heritage. I noticed a gradual change in his outlook towards his ethnicity when he went to kindergarten. Slowly he started to acknowledge his difference from his other white friends and felt good about it. Two things helped, school and our dog! We are fortunate to live in a very diverse community. Once he went to school, he befriended children from India, Pakistan, Korea, China. School talked about our differences, read cool books on how wonderful it was to be different, how special. That helped. He started telling people he had not one, but two countries. Our lab mix, Sage helped as well. Ryan considers Sage his dog brother and shares a wonderful connection with him. Ryan, a die hard Ravens fan sometimes roots for the arch rival Steelers, when they are not playing the Ravens. Reason? Sage was born in Pennsylvania, (Steelers are a football team from Pittsburg, Pennsylvania). A Ravens fan rooting for Steelers, that, my friends, is true love! If Sage is a mix then it is OK for Ryan to be a mix too. Now he is proud to call himself a mutt like Sage. I do tell him he doesn’t have to go that far but….
Sometimes, when I go to have lunch with Ryan in his school, his little friends pipe up with the refreshing innocence of a six-year-old, “Are you Ryan’s mother? But his color is different than yours!” So now he introduces me to his friends this way, “Oh this is my mom, she is brown because she is from India. And I am part Indian too, but I am not brown because my dad is from Boston!” The other 6-year-old he talks to, generally gives us a blank stare and says “Do you want to play ball?”
The cutest thing both my kids say to me is “Mom, your color is brown and you smell of chocolate all the time. In fact, you smell like chocolate chip cookies!” I like the sound of that….. a lot. Maybe, just maybe I can bottle this chocolate chip fragrance and sell it to make some dough? Hmmmm….let me think about that one!
I started dating my “white” husband in mid nineties in a very parochial (I think) place called Kolkata, India. A white man with a brown woman was a rare sight in those days in my city so we got our fair share of snide comments and stares, bumping-into-telephone-pole kind of stares. We roamed the streets of Kolkata, the gardens of the National Library, the campus of my university, exchanging ideas and learning about our vastly different cultures in the musty yet magical Kolkata evenings. We even sat on the grounds of the infamous Victoria Memorial (supposedly anti-social activity is rampant there in the evenings), till the ‘peace keepers’ felt we were disturbing the sensitive morality of the city by sitting next to each other and drove us away, along with other amorous couples. I believe, it was there that I was called a “lady of the night” keeping company of a white man. I have to defend my earlier statement of Kolkata being extremely parochial here, where ever we went, we met a relative, a friend or an acquaintance of mine. And since I was sneaking out to meet my boyfriend, that was a ‘slight’ inconvenience. I don’t even want to talk about what happened when one of my aunts saw me walking down the street with Sean, holding hands.
Our romance survived all the surreptitious rendezvous, or in other words, sneaking around and we decided to take the plunge. My wedding was the first Catholic mass I ever attended. Growing up, I had dreamed of getting married in a white wedding dress, they looked so ethereal and beautiful in movies. Yet when the time and opportunity came to get married in one, I opted to wear a sari. I got married in Catholic ceremony, wearing a golden and black sari, Sean looked dashing in a tux. After the homily, the priest started giving the communion. I followed Sean’s lead through out the entire mass, like a two step dance routine. I kneeled when he did, stood up when he did, sat when he sat. So when he extended his hand to recieve the communion, I did the same. I am pretty sure Sean pinched me then, to deter my enthusiasm, although he denies it now. Instead of giving me Communion, the embarrassed priest put his hand on my head and blessed me. I was slightly miffed as I went through the rest of the ceremony.
Catholic wedding.
It was important to Sean to incorporate some Hindu traditions along with the Catholic. For him our marriage was not just a union of two people but also a union of two cultures and two religions. He wanted to know “what can we do that is a Hindu wedding ritual”? How would I know? My focus in a Hindu wedding was always on fun, frolic and food. Did I ever pay attention to the rituals? So we did the very basic sindur ceremony where the bridegroom puts vermillion powder on the bride’s forehead, after we exchanged rings. I was just ecstatically happy to sign the marriage certificate and be done with it, but the rituals, both Catholic and Hindu, were important and meaningful to my husband, I respected that. Even the euphoria of marrying the sweetest guy didn’t take away the feeling of being slighted by the priest. I asked Sean why the heck was I denied the bread that everyone got, that too on my own wedding! That was NOT a nice way to treat a bride! He explained I had to be a Catholic to receive the body of Christ. I felt discriminated against, but let it slide. Later, when we went to enter the Temple of Jagannath in Puri, in India, Sean was denied entry for being a non-Hindu, I was appalled again. How can one be kept out from the house of God?
We decided to go to Cyprus and Israel for our honeymoon. Cyprus, because Sean had a meeting there, and Israel, because we felt it would be symbolic to go to a place where a new religion began, like our new relationship. Getting into Cyprus was easy, those island people were pretty laid back about the difference in the skin color between my husband and I. But Israel? Oh, we confused them. Those young immigration officers weren’t sure we were telling the truth when we said we were husband and wife. I have no idea why our relationship would matter to Israeli immigration, anyway! First, here was a brown woman and a white man, who claimed they were married, second, my passport said my maiden name and third, we didn’t carry our marriage certificate. They detained us for more than three hours along with some unfortunate Palestinian travelers, and asked us the same questions again and again, “Who is he to you?” and “Who is she to you?” “Why did you choose to layover in so and so place?” etc etc. It went on and on, till Sean smiled and said, “No matter how many times you ask, the answer is not going to change, she is my wife, I am her husband, we are here for our honeymoon. And why we chose to fly the way we did? Because we got a better deal with the airlines. Do you have any other ideas?” Finally, they let us go with the warning that we should stay in Israel and not stray into the West Bank. We, of course, promptly forgot the advice of not straying into West Bank, Sean’s organization has an office in Ramallah which we visited along with several other places.
Painted white at our Indian wedding.
A year after our Catholic wedding, we went back to India to have an Indian wedding. My country, I am sad to say, has a white skin fetish. Abiding by ‘the whiter the better’ rule, women spend a fortune on fairness creams and lotions to lighten their skin tone. Being dark is akin to being ugly, in most cases. When the beauty parlors do bridal make up, they lather foundation on the face of the bride. The face and neck turn very white while the other exposed body parts remain the original skin color, brown mainly. The same was done to me. Sean saw me at the reception hall and exclaimed, ‘What have they done to you? If I wanted to marry a white woman, I would have found one in the US!’ Between smiling and greeting over three hundred people I reproached my husband for reverse discrimination. What does skin color matter, white or brown, he is head over heels in love with me for my inner beauty and he better remember that!
We had our share of misunderstandings mainly due to our cultural differences. My poor husband, trying to be romantic (????) referred to me as “chick” one day and I let him have it! I thought the word was insulting and demeaning, to him it was complimentary. He didn’t know what hit him. Finally, when he figured out what caused this outburst he burst out laughing. Chick was supposedly a cute endearing term that was meant to convey the woman is young, attractive….whatever! There were others, I didn’t get the humor of Saturday Night Live, or Jerry Seinfeld for that matter. And when he said, “Are you bringing your pocketbook?” I gave him a blank stare. What in the world is a pocket book? He didn’t understand my Indian English and phrases sometimes, especially when I used phrases like “Come on, don’t give me that cock and bull story!” “Cock and what?????”
Most of the times we laughed about it and learned about each other’s culture. Sometimes we got into fights and argued about who is right. At the expense of sounding like a Fisher Price advertisement, we literally laughed, learned and grew together. And then came our golden skinned children….How they dealt with their ethnicity is another story. Sort of a sequel to this one.
Do you remember in one of my earlier posts I described Sean as funny, loving yet lacking in culinary expertise? If my husband ever wrote a blog about me, he would probably write ‘she is funny, loving, a delightful woman but lacking in an eye for detail, when it comes to cleaning.’ At least I hope he will say those nice words before the critisicm, just like I did for him.
Sean is a man of many words and a man of even more actions. He doesn’t like to sit still. If he does sit still at a party, or a social gathering, he has this very embarrasing habit of falling asleep. On these occasions, I make it a point to sit next to him, just to give him a vicious nudge from time to time, to keep him awake and focussed on the conversation. Anyway, my workaholic husband doesn’t take it easy on our three day weekends. My house shines and sparkles after he has had a go at it. This weekend was particularly good since the husband and the kids cooked breakfast, lunch and dinner for me. The good man did loads and loads of laundry, cleaned the floors, took off the stove exhaust and cleaned the dirt and grime! Goodness, just discovered he organized my freezer! Help!! Can’t find the green beans. I am lost without my controlled chaos. Anyway, what did I do this weekend? I reigned over everybody like a queen, read books, wrote blogs, checked mail and Facebook, photographed the kids and the dog. In a nutshell, didn’t lift a finger to help my family. When I tried, out of guilt, I was shooed out of the kitchen. Ok then, twist my arm, folks.
My husband travels quite a bit. When I say to my mommy friends, ‘Yeah, Sean is gone for 10 days’, they say, ‘How fun. Now you won’t have dirty clothes and dirty towels on the floor, no food on your couch. You have complete control over your house for 10 days!’ Most of the times I faithfully admit, he is the picker upper in the family. Chances are he will come back and find dirty towels and clothes on the floor (I am just saying, I am really not that bad), they give me a look which conveys ‘Girl, you don’t know how lucky you are!’ Very rarely, when I am feeling particularly grumpy and tired for doing the ‘single parent’ thing for a while, I stay quiet and let them get false impressions, just out of spite.
Don’t get me wrong, I do keep my house clean. As long as you don’t look closely at the corners and under the beds when you come to visit. Over three-day weekends, Sean takes those dreaded closer looks and gets busy. It is my way of letting him feel indispensable, really. Also to keep him awake during the day with a lot of action. So after this 3 day weekend, I am sitting happily in a very clean, shiny house. Right after I publish this I am going to check how much can I let it slide before another three-day weekend comes around. Oh, darn! Where did he put the calendar now?
The breeders had a “The Lady and the Tramp” moment. Their beautiful, purebred, shiny black labrador retriever did the unthinkable. She got out and fell in love with the neighbor’s sheep dog of insignificant repute. And the accident happened. Thank goodness, since one of those accidents came to our house and moved straight into our heart. We named the “accident” Sage.
Sage at 8 weeks.Curious.I was told I shouldn't snoop around but you never know, I may find treats.All that play is hard work.The human pups were totally faking it.He uses me as a pillow sometimes. I love it.Homework helper.All grown up at age 2
We foolishly committed to getting Sahana a dog when she was 10. Oh, we heard all the “I will take care of it, feed it, walk it. You don’t have to do a thing!” We didn’t believe her for a minute. But we are gullible, indulgent parents, we gave in. Sahana, predictably, doesn’t feed him, doesn’t walk him or doesn’t take care of him, but she loves him with all her heart. Mom and dad, the suckers, are fine with that. Sage does many jobs in our house. Oh no, not ‘fetch the paper’, ‘open the door’ kind of jobs. He doesn’t do any of that. He does make himself available to Sahana when she suffers from her momentary preteen angst. She swears, stroking Sage gently, helps her calm down. He sits by Ryan’s feet when he reads, he listens yet doesn’t offer any criticism. He makes Sean feel like the most special man on earth when he returns from work (I know that’s my job, but a little word ‘delegation’)! For me? He is my sounding board. I talk to him all day, ask his opinion on things. He agrees with me, ON EVERYTHING! Never talks back, which is so refreshing! Oh goodness, did I just confess I talk to my dog all day? I am sharing much more than what’s good for me. Let’s say I think aloud, Sage just happens to be in the vicinity. Bottom line, all four of us agree, thank goodness for the “accident.”
whatmamathinks 