Today, was my first time walking through a mall since March of this year. My older child and I ventured into one particular shop only to pick up some school-uniform shirts for him. I was apprehensive and super alert all the while (more on that in another post). What was good is that everyone was wearing masks and maintaining a safe distance.

Anyways…coming back to what I actually want to share.

So, child 1, (as I call him) and I were moving to a part of the store where they had the school stuff, to get there we had to walk through the little kids’ section. As I walked through, I noticed all the cute, super tiny, colourful clothes with super cute prints and patterns…I felt a pang in my heart and I looked at the now 15 YO child of mine walking ahead of me. I immediately called out to him and said…”wait for me..I’m going to give you a tiny wack!”. He turned around with the ‘my mom’s gone crazy’ expression mixed with a question mark..and said..”why now? what did I do?” I said “You’ve grown up!! Why did you have to grow up so quickly?”

He knows this thing about me, that I do get nostalgic at times and reminisce about the baby days, and miss seeing them as tiny babies. He waited up for me and said “It’s not my fault, it’s a natural process”.

Then to counter him, I came up with a wonderful idea and said excitedly..”you know what…parents should have a machine with a knob..like a growth knob, and it should have a stop, slow, medium and fast growth setting on it….if I had such a thing I would have kept your growth between stop and slow”.

I was very happy with my impromptu invention!!

The wise young man replies…”would you want your parents to have such a machine with such a knob?”

Obviously my answer was a big NO! But I didn’t tell him that.

What a selfish thing I imagined in terms of my invention, and my son, he put all my excitement to rest with a simple one liner…yes no child wishes to remain a child…it is a birthright of every living being to grow, to thrive….to live a life trying to reach their full potential.