Missing...

Am not looking forward to this weekend.

Sonny boy and Trinity have been carted off to chez grandmother in Kerala.
To enjoy 2 weeks of the summer vacations. They may be enjoying, but the parents are finding the home to be unnaturally quiet.

The days pass by boringly in office, but the evenings are looooooooooong.

The Acha watches his News and English movie channels in peace, without a little hand snatching the remote away and putting on his precious cartoons. There is no fight between the big boy and the small boy over who gets to watch what, while the Amma watches from a distance and bangs her head against the wall and wishes she could just get her hands around the neck of the guy who invented tv in the first place.

There is no doggy foot pawing compellingly at our legs/hands the minute we stop our random rubbing of her doggy belly with our toes/fingers.

There no Sonny boy to holler at and threaten and blackmail into having his dinner in under 45 minutes. (I am NOT exaggerating- he takes a minimum of half an hour to get anywhere near finishing his meal- be it breakfast, lunch or dinner.)

There is no mad dog behaving, at the ripe old age of 6 (equivalent to 42!) like a puppy and running off with chappals, bathroom mats, and the like. And no Sonny boy quick to react to the mad dog's capers- jumping up and howling, "Amma, Trinity's EATING my shoes/chappals/sandals!" and running after her, which is exactly what she wanted in the first place.
And then the Amma would run after the pair of them and separate them, whacking the dog, and yelling at the son to stop acting like a fool, and then the Acha would berate Sonny boy the hundredth time for not being able to see thru a mere DOG's ploy for attention.
And all the time, Sonny boy and Trinity would listen with apparently submissive faces, but each planning to do EXACTLY the same the next time opportunity presented itself.



At night, there is no small figure in pyjamas trailing around.... and then waiting up in bed for me to come and read him his story. As I settle in bed with my book, it is when I miss Sonny boy the most. No little head snuggling onto my shoulder, pushing his book in front of mine, saying "my story first, Amma, this one!" And then, once the story is done, his leg comes flinging itself across my stomach and his fingers creep around to my ear... sigh..

Whe the Acha puts his hand around me too, the hand is firmly put aside, along with a firm order- "Acha, you don't hug Amma. I will hug Amma. YOU hug ME!" Even when the lights are off, any attempts by the Acha are inevitably foiled by an alert son.
The Acha says that as if contending with his son noticing and not approving of his attentions to me was not enough, now he has to put up with the dog's disapproval too!

Trinity is very watchful indeed, of not just the Acha, but also Sonny boy's attentions to me, quickly running up in case she senses any hanky panky. Its almost like - why almost- it IS - like having a second child.

In the car while driving down, I was in the back seat, with Sonny boy on one side, and Trinity on the other, cos like any two siblings, they would be all affection to start with, but soon, the one would start to play up with the other, resulting in a pow-wow in no time. So it was deemed better to keep them on separate sides- him looking out of this window, her looking out of that.
But inevitably, both of them would land up on my knee. And then a paw would find its way onto Sonny boy's hand, and then a yell would go up that she scratched him, and then I'd again push them apart, and the Acha'd ask them to SHUT UP...

Mornings, we no longer need an alarm clock. Promptly at day break a canine form stirs. And a head lifts impatiently at every single sound from outside... and then when she can stand it no longer, she's up and at us- poking her WET nose into our faces, wagging her tail nineteen to the dozen against the wardrobe making a louder racket than any alarm clock... "Wakey wakey", she grins good naturedly at us from beside the bed. And the Acha who hates that wet nose in his neck, jumps up promptly to take her for her walk.
Sonny boy loves to have that nose poking at his face tho' and every morning, she tickles him into getting up with giggles...

Its been a week of having a home without Sonny boy and Trinity. And tomorrow's Friday- a day we normally look forward to. But not this time. Something tells me its going to be a loooooong weekend.