instruction manual

that little package that the stork brought should have come with an instruction manual. there is always a little pamphlet detailing its contents, use and care for all things. why not for this little boy?

mine should have been stamped with 'likely to develop nasal rhinitis (that's fancy medical speak for nose allergy) and lactose-intolerance' right across his forehead. i will even settle for a subtle birthmark bearing the same warning across his derriere.

instead, i had to go about diagnosing it like a treasure hunt game, looking for clues and picking up little signs along the way. when the puzzle is all pieced together, it makes me feel like a complete and total failure for not catching on earlier.

sigh!

for that matter, motherhood should have come with an instruction manual.

the little one

i find myself increasingly unable to understand him, that smaller version of the male species. he is as different from me as the moon and the sun, purely because we are of the opposite sex. with the little girl, i could empathise. i could understand, put myself in her shoes and feel what she needs. with the little boy though, his reasonings go beyond me.

the female species are never meant to understand their male counterparts; how they justify their inactions or callousness, how they can suppress their innermost feelings but not the stirrings of their loins, how they say they love you but their actions shout otherwise. the species that we can't live with, yet can't live without. why do we subject ourselves to such torture, i will never even begin to understand. why are we attracted to them like the moth to the fire and then try with all the power of the world to change them in one way or another? in the end, the wise ones learn to live with it.

i'm digressing, as usual. with the little boy, i have to try harder to understand. i need to have more patience. if he is as alien to me now as a young adorable little person, i cannot imagine how i will cope when he is in his teens and independent, rebellious and wants his own way. i had hoped that my love will be all-encompassing and that it will be his lighthouse to guide him on the path to righteousness.

i'm not too sure.