Last nite, my seven year old Husna donned the mantle of Freud when she drew a picture of me.
She started with the usual round head figure with spiky, short, stumpy hair: hands and legs twiglike and with branches ant the end of it denoting fingers and toes. A torso, with two boobs and a belly button.
But this time, she added a new dimension to the drawing by penning in a downward arched mouth and a pair of angry looking, beady eyes on the orang lidi.
I asked her to explain.
"You are cranky because I left my water bottle in school again," she said.
Yes, for the past few months Husna has been losing her water bottles quite regularly. Sometimes she leaves them in school and forgot to bring them back. Sometimes she breaks them, rendering them unuseable any longer. Last count, I've already purchased 5 water bottles this year for this little imp of mine.
I was taken aback because it had actually affected her that way, my reaction to her losing her water bottles. I teared a bit in my eyes, laughed it away and hugged her close to me and insisted that I wasn't cranky. I merely wished that she wouldn't lose them so often.
"Mak is always cranky ye? Always mad and frowning yek?" I asked her amidst a big hug.
She shrugged against my hug. Then she pushed me away. I could see that she wanted to keep drawing and not yakkety-yakking with me. A form of punishment for me?
And then it dawned on me that my moods are affecting my daughter. That I need to be more communicative with her.
Its true, I get angry with her over small issues, like her losing her water bottles. I have to yell many many times to get her to go take a bath, coz she gets distracted with
JoJo and Jenny, or with Little Miss Bossy's books. I always have to hurry her in the morning coz she takes such a long time to put on her shoes when I am already waiting in the car. Its no wonder that she drew me that way.
I sometimes come back from office, tired, and shouts at her for not finishing her homework yet. For spilling Milo on my work table. For putting on my make up like a little Chinese opera actor, all tepung gomak like and a cross between KISS and Dita Von Teese.
I think the Bitch in me has made its debut when I decided to give birth to my two kids. My theory is, if you avoid motherhood, you avoid activating the Bitch erk?
I know that I have my minor little outbursts, I get cranky and irritable. But now I vow, I'll explain and tell her why. The time and cost that is involved in getting a new water bottle every forthnight will be explained in full instead of pented up and stewed inwardly in me to be reflected on my demenour.
I will tell her that not ally my crankiness are originated from her. Sometimes its a bad day at work, sometimes it just friends. And yes, sometimes its her. When she's being careless or indifferent. When on days that I am tired of picking up after her, I'll tell her that too, to her face.
I know it will not kill her to hear it from me. I know that sometimes I piss her off to, but that I hope, is the worst of it. I know for sure that she doesn't feel sorry for me or find me sad. And I thinks she's okay being exposed to my honest feelings as long as I make it clear to her that a bad day does not make a bad or sad life.
I've learned that with motherhood comes a lot of those bad days but never a bad life. And who taught me that? Why my own mother, of course!
