It's so embarrassing...

 

This came too soon. With DD, it took a bit, or atleast that’s what I’d like to believe.

This past week, we went to Indonesia on vacation. It was a much anticipated, high-expectations vacation.
The kids had gone 2 months with no holidays apart from the weekends, so they were really looking forward to chilling by the beach, and making the parents participate in all the adventure activities.

DS for one was counting down the days. With a 2 week vacation, the first week was spent with friends – a trip to Universal Studios and a water theme park. This ofcourse was not sufficient. It only took away 2 of the 5 ‘working’ days.

All his friends were traveling, so clearly DS knew his parents were not really interested in his enjoyment, not withstanding that we had to wait for his sister to return from her outdoor expedition through school.

“Fine, son” I said.  I do call him son… it doesn’t really roll of the tongue, but I call him son, so he knows that “beta” means son in Hindi. So he either hears “Fine, son” or “Theek hai, beta.” There isn’t really an equivalent in Tamil that sounds good. “Seri, Kanna” is what I go with. Kanna is sweetheart, or darling. Thankfully he knows all these phrases.

“Fine, son. We’ll make a trip after Dika comes back.” That seemed to calm him.

“I don’t want to go to any trip after coming back. I need to rest.” DD declared. So that led to some back and forth, and we agreed not to book anything for DD, but that we’ll wait for her to come back.

“If Dika doesn’t come, will we not go?” DS started as soon as Dika was out of the house.

“Do you want to go without Dika?” I asked.

“No, but I want to go on a vacation. Why won’t she come?”

“Maybe she will. Or maybe you can convince her.”

“She doesn’t listen to me…” and that went on for a bit.

But contrary to popular belief, DD did want to go on the vacation, and that made the little kid really, really happy.

So off we went.

We took the ferry to Bintan and on the way, I felt all very motherly, and really wanted to hug my baby.

My son seemed all very excited too, jumping between his seat and ours.

I pulled him closer and hugged him on my lap.

“Mamma, please stop. It is embarrassing” He said, and broke my heart into a thousand pieces.

“What?” I asked in disbelief.

“Mamma, I am not a baby. I am a big boy. You can’t make me sit on your lap. It’s embarrassing.”

“What?”

“Maaaa…” he freed himself.

Ady who was witnessing all this added, “Looks like the umbilical chord is finally cut.”

I was pretty devastated. I knew DS was right, he was a big boy now, but I just needed some more time with my baby.

“Embarrassing?” I kept looking at Ady in disbelief, as DS went back to his seat with Dika. “He’s seven.”

“It’s ok” Ady tried to cheer me up. “He’s growing up.”

I was about to react, when DS hurt his elbow jumping from his seat to ours.

“Ow!” he whimpered, looking at me. I didn’t react.

He came back to me, sat on my lap, “Mamma, I hurt myself.”

It was his way of making sure I was ok, ‘cause with everything else that came after it …the rock climbing, the archery, wakeboarding, and with all the falls, he was a ‘brave boy who can take care of himself’.

My little. My heart.