Mothering boys

Just a few days ago, I thought to myself, 'now I know why the guy's mother gets over-possessive, and jealous when he finally gets old enough to bring a girl home'.

My boys are my joy, my pride, everything I ever wanted from God and more. The joy of seeing them smile, the pain of seeing them cry when they are hurt.
I remember the very first time I spanked my older son and how I cried as he cried. Looking at him when I first gave birth to him I never thought a day will come when I would raise a finger at him.
He looked so adorable, still does. It pained me that I hurt him and made him cry. The look on his face as he cried was that of unbelief that this same person who could love him so could also cause him pain.

I've since consoled myself with the axiom, 'spare the rod and spoil the child'.

I remember with nostalgia the first time he cupped my face in his hands and planted a kiss on my lips. Oh, how sweet! I felt so on top of the world. Although, those kisses come more often now when he wants something or when he needs me to overlook something he's done.

He still makes me happy whenever they come and often hits home with it. 

I see them in the future and I assure myself I won't manipulate them for their time and attention when its finally time for them to leave so they can cleave to their own spouses. I will let them be and enjoy only the love and attention of their father, my first love before they ever came along and shared me with him.

I will be content in knowing that they are visitors who came to be a part of our lives but now have their own lives to live. I will be content with whatever little time they can spare for me in their very busy schedules and time away from their spouses.

I must be dreaming because as I look at my sleeping younger son, I wonder if I will ever be prepared to let go.

Hmph! I'm loving this feeling of being plastered with mushy, wet kisses by my sons' saliva. Will I ever be okay to let them shower all these love on some other woman who knows nothing about what I went through to have them or the bond that has grown between us through the years?

Will I ever want to give up my place of being the first lady in their lives and let someone else be who they consult first before doing anything, relegating me to the background?

How will it feel to know they have to wake up beside another woman who isn't me, everyday of their lives till old age.

Guess this is how a lot of mothers of boys feel, the degrees may vary though but its the same feeling nonetheless.

And I'd like to help us with coming to terms with the fact that we are mere caretakers. Sure we carried them in our wombs for nine months and were there through their growing and formative years. But the law of life says there's a time called maturity these ones get to and must move on, otherwise they'd remain babies in our eyes forever.
And may find it difficult to reach their full potentials.

Any moms out there who is finding it difficult to let go? Is there any who has succeeded in letting go, releasing your son to find and mind his home without interference from you?

Please share with me, I'd like to know how to deal with it when the time comes.

Shalom!

TRUST ISSUES

I seem to be the only one who has trust issues. I mean I can't just bring myself to trust people. Not with my time, resources, family etc.
You see it started a long time ago, and then I tried to let go but each time I opened up I was disappointed. So I've given up trying.
I find it easier to give people the benefit of doubt than to throw all caution to the winds and expect a miracle.
I love surprises but only when they are pleasant of course.
In recent times social media has been agog with stories of house-helps gone wrong, I seem to be the worst hit. I shudder in reminiscence of what I went through as a child in the face of what these "house-helps from hell" unleash on the children placed in their care.
One day, soon, I shall be ready to tell my story to the world.
So I decided I was never going to bring a help into my home. The world we live in has become a thriving ground for evil and nefarious activities. I chose to rather take my kid to a creche/daycare center.
As usual, I would read out my riot act, lol at that, to the care givers before handing the child over. 
Do not induce my child to sleep by the use of any form of drug or chemical substance. Do not use somebody else's material, especially things that go into the mouth. Do not give him someone else's food even if he rejects what I have packed for him and has had to stay hungry for hours,etc.
My list is not usually a very long one and they are encouraged to 'flash' me while I call back in the case they needed further clarifications or help.
So you can imagine my chagrin when on this fateful day I was to drop the lad quite late because of the things I needed to tidy up at home and on getting to the creche about fourteen children all under one year were sleeping at the same time, their care givers too had 'arranged' themselves nicely for a good nap.
And then I remembered the day one of them said to me, "we're christians, we don't do such".
Transfixed there, I kept trying to understand the scene before me. 
I had to withdraw the child that day and that closed the chapter of creches for me.

I don't have any regrets but I wish we could have trust worthy people to handle our kids while we go about trying to assist the family income without fear for the children's safety.

 To think that someone will open her door for a total stranger one night and leave same stranger all alone with her kids the next morning is rather careless in my opinion and before I get a backlash for this I do understand the woman's plight at the said time and understand too that sometimes one cannot be too careful but the welfare of the children should have come first vis a vis ensuring that the children were in 'safe' hands not 'strange' hands.

A lot of our mothers have graduated from this stage and a lot of us are currently  in it. Reading others' experience can go a long way in assisting us.

So what's your story?     

Why does it hurt so bad?

When Whitney Houston did this song, she was heartbroken by a guy. Oh! the pain of a heartbreak caused by disappointments coming from people you hold dear. Backstabbers, cheaters, betrayers, it really hurts to have someone who knows a great deal about you turn around and use those information against you.
I can tell, the extent of the pain and anguish it brings, because I've been there.
But it hurts so much more when such people turn around again and want to be your friends pretending that nothing ever went wrong.
That's the case with a general, who is yearning, did I just use yearning? Gathering momentum to come back and rule Nigeria, brandishing his gap toothed smile and the same charm with which he stole our hearts way back.
I think a backstabber once he's been discovered should just keep his distance, because even if he has turned a new leaf, one still sees him as what he was before while the scales shielded the truth from one's eyes. Any show of friendship is quickly transmitted to one's senses as the piper playing the tune that would lead the chicken into the boiling pot of stew.
What we don't need now are people who set us back by years and time when they had the opportunity to move us forward, we don't need people who have trained their children at the expense of the education of so many others, people who built their empires at the expense of our living in detestable conditions, who flew all over the world, saw the goodies there are out there and still chose to leave us in the dark, who acquired so much power with which they trample us under feet.
No! I say we don't need people who have become insensitive to our plights, we need people who are people minded, who feel what we feel and who understand it when we say that we need light, not those who have other sources of electricity and therefore don't understand what NEPA or PHCN stand for because they don't use them anyway, the knowledge they have of these agencies is that they are other forms of income to them, and of course they won't hesitate to siphon what else remains of the resources meant to restore them.
Oh God don't let the evil one have his way in this country, not again or else we would be drowned in the abyss beyond redemption.
Today, young Nigerians have once again hit the streets on an "enough is enough" rally in a bid to call to question all these injustices and more and see that we don't go down this road a second time.
We've been through this path once and from the little I know of cliches its only a good turn that deserves another.
Should one bad turn be given another?

Tears of love?

Why is it that most foreign guys must go down on one knee and have tears in their eyes as they propose to their babes. I've been wondering, and the thing that pains me the most is that most of our guys here dont even ask why, they just copy.
And we are so used to copying everything that the babes too have resorted to copying those, "Oh my God", false tears of the Hollywood babes.
Don't mind me and my pako moves its okay to do all that, but I think at the back of the young man's mind is, God I'm begging you don't let this one say no too. Oh you thought he was kneeling to you? then you got another think coming. He's praying to God that he wont be rejected, because thick skinned as anyone can claim to be, deep down in our hearts is always the fear of rejection, because it deals a terrible blow to our self esteem.
The tears in his eyes say, "Oh, I'm finally losing my freedom, my boys and all the other babes it could have been". "Oh, well..." he consoles himself and goes, "...please be my wife".
And poor unsuspecting you go, "yes, yes, yes"
Well it may not be the case with every other guy, but if you critically check some of our guys, you will know they are the ones we are talking about here.
God help us ladies! Really!

Release your past!!!

You've been through a lot, in the name of love. You've given all and got little or nothing but heartbreaks in return. You've packed up your heart, never willing to let anyone within the farthest distance of its new home. You are not willing now or in the nearest future to give anyone ever a chance to prove this theory wrong because you've tried over and again and ended up with the same result.
Maybe you've even gone for a deliverance, lol, trying to find what is wrong with you, and found nothing, ofcourse you would find nothing because whatever it is that's happening to you  because you've simply refused to drop the baggage of the past.
The re-occurrences come because you've strapped yourself with the burden of yesterday and have refused to let go.
Just let go, I personally like the statement that yesterday really did end last night, so whatever you've gone through in the hands of the opposite sex, just let go, there is still so much beauty inside of you waiting to be unleashed.
So much capacity to love and be loved, dont just end your life simply because a few of the people you met earlier dont know the first thing about appreciating the best God has placed in you. And stop, please stop, giving them the impression that what you are right now is all that you can ever be.
You are more...so you can begin life afresh, just release the past!

To be at peace in the midst of pieces?

Meanwhile, the state governor, Jonah Jang, has appealed for calm and restraint in the wake of the latest attack. In a statement yesterday in Jos, the director of press to the governor, James Mannok, said Mr. Jang appealed to the people to go about their lawful businesses peacefully.

 

I just read this on an online page and couldn't help but scream, 'what the heck?'. Okay, I actually didn't scream out because I am in the office but I'd give anything to be able to scream that right now.

You mean your people are being slaughtered by their brothers and all you can offer is that they be calm, and go about their businesses, peacefully? What business? In what piece, abi peace? both apply and I don't swear, but this is one time I nearly would have done so.

A scenario occurs the first time right under your nose and you don't put security measures in place to avoid a re-occurrence. It happens again and you expect us to fold our hands and say with you its an error.

An error that has claimed the lives of hundreds of people, placed under your care, in very gruesome manners, that will make one lose his appetite for days. And make the very thought of eating food seem like eating saw-dust.

Please Jonah Jang, the name even makes me think of a book or was it a movie, something, something and the gang, gather your wits about you and seek for help for your people. If its beyond you let those who can handle it take over, you never know the next time it could be your family the axe will fall on, I'm not threatening anyone o. I'm no fulani.

What am I even doing pleading? Since our acting President has started 'acting', I think he should act again in the interest of the Plateau State indigenes. Yes, that's what I think, maybe, just maybe, he might be able to put a stop to the senseless killings repeatedly going on there.

COMFORT

This word is one word that I know is quite strange to a family I know right now, who just lost their breadwinner, did I just say lost?

Well, we Christians are taught that when you lose someone here on earth, God gains the person abi? But why is it still so painful to think that the person is leaving us and going to God?

I guess its the blood that binds us, that is if he/she's family or the good times we shared or even the fights we miss. But somehow its just too sudden when our loved one transcends on to the great beyond and we just cant come to terms with all the voices we keep hearing say take heart, because we've been numbed by shock and greater shock that we didn't prepare for it, can we  even really prepare for death?

But through it all, you just find strength somehow to pull through it and forge ahead with life. So to you who have lost someone, I guess the number one comfort is in knowing that God has gained that one, and that like in our childish minds those days when we use to think he/she has gone abroad where life is so much more easy, he/she has actually gone to a better place in heaven.

Away with the pain and in comes peace, only they just didn't bargain how we'd feel here right? Take heart, take solace, take comfort in knowing that away from the flesh means present with the Lord.