Kuenza's Diary

I just got to my office and I am still feeling a bit restless, a kind of a feeling you get when you have forgotten something important or when you have done something wrong. My three-year-old daughter has been unwell. For two nights she couldn’t sleep well because her body temperature was very high. We monitored it in all possible ways we knew. She got better after two days but she is still not in her best health – a bit of loose motion and lack of appetite. She is fussier than her usual self and that is getting on our nerves, her father and me. We try our best. We love her, no doubt. Yet, there are times when we do not know how best to calm her down. For example, this morning, she didn’t want to brush her teeth. She didn’t want to take bath either. So, we said, that is okay. We will let her be. She didn’t want to eat anything except Chocos. We said okay to that too, because it is better for her to eat something than nothing at all. I tell you, she doesn’t eat much. May be she eat...

This is a very spontaneous post. I don’t bother much about the different international days, but Passu shared a post on Bhutan not being included on google’s doodle – which then led me to watch doodle on International Mother’s Day. Watching it made me emotional, engulfed more by the gratitude for my mother – taking me back to the days when I was a little girl to now. Just like the video, a panoramic view took place in my brain, each moment taking hold of my emotions more strongly. There was never a moment I was ungrateful to my mother but because we are together now, there are frictions sometimes; we do not misunderstand each other, except that she is a bit too stubborn. She is a woman of steel. I understand that she lived her life doing all the planning and organizing of works: when summer neared, it was she who planned when the seeds should be sowed, when the field will be ploughed and how many and who will be the labourers. She did that not only for her own household, but for her...

The thought that a mother has to be creative ran through my mind one morning as I was requesting my daughter to get ready for school. No ordinary words and expressions can get her attention. She is extraordinarily fussy about her dressing. I heard from my sister-in-law that boys are not very particular about what their mothers choose for them to wear. I like the exercise of matching colours – which leggings and dress would go together and so on. But sometimes, it gets so tiring, especially when you know that there isn’t much time. For example, this morning, she ran into fury just because I made her wear a full-sleeved shirt. While we are cold and wrap ourselves into winter jackets and socks, she does not even want to wear a full-sleeved cotton shirt. However, this morning, I was determined to hold my authority and despite her tantrum and tears, I made her put it on. Another thing is her choice with shoes. She will go for any high-heeled sandals that make the ‘tok tok’ sound on the...